Chapter 84 Dark Throne

Chapter 84: Chapter 83: Dark Throne

“Forefather, there is something you must see immediately.”

Just as Vane finished dealing with Aun’Shi, Sanguinius landed next to him, his expression gravely serious as he reported a massive discovery. “The Dark Aeldari were constructing a Dark Throne here in Commorragh.”

“A Dark Throne?” Vane was genuinely surprised. He immediately followed Sanguinius to the site.

The Dark Throne was located in a small, incredibly well-hidden satellite realm on the extreme outskirts of Commorragh. The only navigable Webway artery leading to it had been fiercely guarded by the Kabal of the Black Heart. The Imperium had only discovered the location after completely annihilating the tyrant Vect and dismantling his Kabal.

When Vane arrived, numerous Imperial commanders and representatives were already gathered at the site.

A massive, incomplete Dark Throne stood completely alone in the center of a sprawling construction yard, surrounded by scattered, hyper-advanced heavy machinery.

Following a comprehensive, deep-penetrating scan by Archmagos Cawl, it was confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt: the foundational architecture and arcane circuitry of this xenos construct were perfectly identical to the Golden Throne located within the Imperial Palace on Terra.

“Why in the Emperor’s name were the Dark Aeldari building this?!” Marneus Calgar demanded, completely bewildered.

“We forcibly extracted the truth from the mind of a captured Haemonculus,” Inquisitor Greyfax said, her face twisted in a mixture of horror and absolute fury. “Those bureaucratic fools on Terra literally sold the greatest gift the Emperor ever gave humanity to xenos scum.”

“What do you mean?” Dante looked at Greyfax, desperately seeking clarification.

Greyfax took a moment to compose her thoughts and carefully organize the terrifying intelligence she had gathered. After a few seconds, she began to lay out the entire horrifying conspiracy.

“The Golden Throne is the ultimate weapon against the Warp, and humanity’s most impenetrable shield. Even the Chaos Gods cannot breach its aegis.”

“Long before the Imperium launched this crusade, Commorragh suffered a catastrophic daemonic incursion triggered by Yvraine’s awakening. The Drukhari, led by the Kabal of the Black Heart, paid an unimaginably heavy price in blood just to temporarily repel the daemons.”

“They reinforced the dimensional seals, but the foundational damage was done. The cracks in reality were already spreading, and the reinforced seals were inevitably going to fail again.”

“To survive the impending, unstoppable Warp invasion, they desperately needed to engineer a permanent countermeasure.”

“And the absolute best countermeasure in the galaxy… is the Golden Throne, powered by His Divine Majesty.”

“Due to ten thousand years of continuous, desperate operation and jury-rigged maintenance, the Golden Throne on Terra has become critically bloated and violently unstable, its efficacy dropping by the day. Driven to absolute desperation, the Fabricator-General of the Mechanicus and the Master of the Astronomican secretly sought out the Dark Aeldari, hoping to utilize their hyper-advanced xenos technology to repair the failing Throne.”

“But the Dark Aeldari deceived them. Under the guise of a false promise to repair the Golden Throne, they manipulated the High Lords into handing over the Throne’s most heavily classified, foundational architectural schematics and operational data.”

“They used that stolen data to secretly construct this Dark Throne. But… that isn’t even the most terrifying part of their plan.”

As Greyfax spoke, her voice actually trembled, betraying a deep, visceral terror.

“What is the most terrifying part?” Dante pressed urgently.

“The Dark Aeldari possess the technological relics of the ancient Aeldari Empire, but their souls have atrophied. They cannot safely wield psychic power. Therefore, they are fundamentally incapable of powering the Throne themselves.”

“In truth, even at the absolute zenith of the ancient Aeldari Empire, their most powerful psykers—perhaps even the members of the Aeldari Pantheon themselves—would have struggled to operate the Golden Throne.”

“There is simply no biological entity in existence capable of enduring the incomprehensible, soul-shredding agony of continuously channeling the Throne’s apocalyptic energies for ten thousand years… except the God-Emperor.”

“The Dark Aeldari intended to build their own Dark Throne, and their own Emperor, to permanently shield Commorragh.”

“To ensure absolute control, the Dark Aeldari likely had no intention of granting their cloned Emperor any true sentience. They merely intended to use Him as a disposable, agonizingly tortured biological battery.”

Greyfax’s revelation plunged the entire gathering into a suffocating, horrifying silence.

Just visualizing that scenario—the Master of Mankind reduced to a mindless, suffering battery for sadistic xenos—was enough to trigger absolute, blinding rage and a profound sense of utter desecration.

“Those damned, psychotic freaks!” Guilliman clenched his fists, his eyes burning with raw, unadulterated fury.

Sanguinius mirrored his brother’s expression.

We would never, ever allow our father to be desecrated in such a vile manner.

Tragically, the tyrant Vect was already dead, and the vast majority of the Archons involved in the project had already been executed during the invasion. Even though the Primarchs were practically boiling with rage, they had no targets left to vent it on.

Greyfax paused for a moment before continuing her grim report.

“Based on the intelligence I extracted, the clandestine delegation Vect dispatched to establish contact with the Imperium is likely still unaware that Commorragh has fallen. They are currently loitering somewhere within the Webway arteries leading to the Sol System, desperately waiting for an opportunity to acquire the Emperor’s genetic material.”

“Then we must depart for Terra immediately! We must crush this conspiracy and annihilate these surviving Dark Aeldari remnants!” Guilliman stepped directly in front of Vane.

“Forefather, I strongly recommend we deploy to Terra at once.”

Vane rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then nodded.

“Alright. We’ll do exactly that. We move out immediately.”

Vane, accompanied by Sanguinius, Guilliman, Living Saint Celestine, Inquisitor Greyfax, Archmagos Cawl, various Imperial heroes, and a select contingent of the Ynnari, embarked on their holy pilgrimage to Terra.

To ensure the fastest and safest route to the Throneworld, the pilgrimage fleet did not translate into the Warp. Instead, using Commorragh as their staging ground, they charted a direct course through the Webway, aiming straight for the Sol System.

Following the catastrophic collapse of the ancient Aeldari Empire due to the birth of Slaanesh, the Webway had suffered severe, irreparable structural damage. Massive breaches had torn open across the network. Daemons constantly poured through these fractured sectors, lurking in the shadows and hunting any unfortunate souls who wandered too close to the ruined pathways.

Furthermore, Ahzek Ahriman, the Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons Legion, permanently wandered the labyrinthine depths of the Webway. He relentlessly scoured the dimension, desperately searching for the mythical Black Library in hopes of finding a cure for the Rubric spell that had damned his brothers.

Consequently, traveling the Webway was fraught with immense peril; it was far from an absolute safe haven.

Under the expert guidance of Farseer Eldrad and Yvraine, the pilgrimage fleet navigated the maddeningly complex, shifting arteries of the Webway. They occasionally blundered into ambushes, sparking brutal, desperate void-battles against daemonic incursions.

But with the overwhelming, god-like combat power of two Primarchs and the absolute fanaticism of the loyalist forces, the pilgrimage fleet ruthlessly smashed through every obstacle, charging triumphantly toward Terra.

In the ruins of an abandoned, shattered Webway city, the pilgrimage fleet led by Vane finally stumbled upon the clandestine meeting: a delegation of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Adeptus Custodes actively engaged in negotiations with the remnants of the Dark Aeldari.

But that transaction was forcibly terminated due to the intervention of Inquisitor Erasmus Crowl.

It turned out that at the final moment, Spinoza discovered the secret of the Dark Throne and halted the deal. She had the Custodes destroy all the samples, ruining the Dark Aeldari’s conspiracy to obtain the Emperor’s genetic material.

Enraged by the ruined transaction, the Dark Aeldari launched a ruthless hunt against all Imperial personnel.

In response to this situation, Vane decisively ordered reinforcements and was the first to charge into the battlefield.