Chapter 1004 - 1003: Magnus: How Did You Do It

The passages beneath Tizca's Occulum Square was very bizarre. The riddled rock layers were filled with countless passages and stone cavities.

Some passages sloped slowly; others plunged steeply like cliffs.

Menes Kalliston, Captain of the 4th Fellowship of the Thousand Sons, wore a robe found within the pyramid, embroidered with a black raven's head on the chest.

Using the Athanaean arts, he probed his surroundings, but the scorching-hot tunnels were distorted by radioactive embers. He could only perceive within fifty meters of himself.

"Let us split up and search for the Reflecting Caves," Hasik said. His voice echoed through the silent passages.

"Torgun, you go with Kalliston."

"Alright."

From the short sound transmitted through Torgun's communication grille, Menes caught a hint of hidden anticipation.

Before he could ponder it, Torgun had already walked forward. He could only follow.

The two walked forward one after the other for over a hundred meters. The space ahead suddenly widened.

The massive stalactites' surfaces were wrapped in violent substances deposited by accumulated water. The rock walls were bare.

"The Chief Librarian sent all the psychic crystals here to the battleships before Tizca's destruction," Menes said, suppressing the surging grief in his voice.

"He was more like a Corvidae than Ahriman."

Torgun did not speak. The "Conspirer," following his spiritual intuition, gazed ahead.

A brass lens six meters in diameter, its shattered remains scattered across the ground.

Corpses buried by ash and metal. Their naked bodies were reduced to withered skin and bare white bones.

Among the hundreds of corpses, a single eye revealed deep, heavy gray exhaustion.

Whoosh!

Torgun gazed at the massive figure that suddenly rose. He was taller than the Father. His shriveled, hollow body flickered with cold eerie flame.

His heart pounded. He instinctively reached for the curved power sword at his waist.

"You cannot harm me, and I do not intend to harm you," Magnus said, his weary voice carrying an eerie resonance.

"I have just spoken with your father. He now understands the situation and has chosen his path."

His single eye glowed with a warm orange light as he looked at the Thousand Son.

"Menes... is that you?"

"Father." Menes wept as he gazed at the ethereal, flickering form draped in tattered armor.

"I never thought I would see you again..." His cadence, rich with a hundred accents, was just as it had been in life.

He paused for several seconds before recollection came.

"I remember. I sent you away from Prospero."

"Yes," Menes said, looking at his dejected, bitter father.

"I committed a great error, and the Emperor's wrath fell upon this place," Magnus said with a deep breath.

"Father, speak plainly," Menes pressed.

"What crime did we commit to deserve this?"

"We were deceived. The Great Ocean is by no means a benevolent place. When we set foot in it, we had already fallen into Its net," Magnus said, speaking like a lecturer on stage.

"Horus was devoured by the warp. I tried to warn Terra, and that very act was my crime."

"All of this stems from pride, and it was pride that consumed Horus as well."

"If you commit an error, you should atone for it," Menes said.

Magnus thought of his purged Primarch brother. "My father is not a forgiving man. There is no turning back for me."

"Moreover, he and the scheming Malcador are hardly innocent, they have been secretly rebuilding ancient xenos technology."

"We were meant to strive for a grand and glorious future, but now Horus and he are merely dancing along the same path of ruin, each in their own way."

He sighed softly. "There is no future left. Perhaps neither side is worth following."

"Lord Magnus, you are wrong," Torgun suddenly interjected.

"Lord Nareth is the hope of the future."

"Son of Jaghatai, you do not understand," Magnus laughed aloud.

"I have seen the face of the Weaver of Fate; he is terrifying beyond measure. Even Primarchs are mere puppets on strings."

"The future is ever-changing, but the outcome will not change."

"No one can escape fate's end, not I, not Nareth."

Magnus's laughter carried a cold, bitter self-mockery and desolation.

A rune suddenly flared on Torgun's visor, and Hasik's voice came through his ear.

"I am in position. Begin."

Torgun drew his curved blade. "I am ordered to bring you back. Since you will not cooperate, I must take offense."

He did not activate the disintegrating field, but instead swiftly traced a triangle on the ground.

As dust drifted, Menes stared at the asymmetrical triangle, its angles eleven, thirty-three, and one hundred and thirty-six degrees.

He sensed something supernatural within the figure, though it was almost imperceptible.

Had he not devoted his life to exploring the mysteries of geometry, he would never have noticed the anomaly hidden within the pattern.

"Interesting," Magnus said, crossing his arms, blue light flickering in his eyes.

"A kind of sigil."

Upon hearing this, Menes's tangled thoughts suddenly cleared.

He recalled that at every Council of the Primarch, his father would lay down the Sothmes sigil to seal off the Great Ocean.

'Had Lord Jaghatai created a similar sigil?'

'That was impossible...'

'There had been no indication that he possessed aetheric power.'

The ordered mysteries of geometry did not seem like a path the unrestrained Khan would pursue.

As he pondered, he heard his father say mockingly.

"You think that because I said Primarchs are subject to fate, you can do something to me?"

"But I never told you, only a Primarch can destroy a Primarch. Even the gods must use us to overthrow the Imperium."

Magnus's single eye swiveled, for the first time since the day of destruction, a gleam of life returned to it.

He did not attack. He slowly sidestepped around the bronze lens fragments, watching the two with keen interest, committing their movements to memory.

Toggon and Hasik did not attack either. They circled Magnus, tracing one "Euclidean Runes" after another.

In an instant, each had completed half the circle, exchanging positions.

Whoosh!

Between them, an invisible wind rose out of nothing.

Menes suddenly felt that his connection to the Great Ocean was completely severed.

Menes suddenly felt his connection to the Great Ocean completely severed.

He had lost his psychic power.

Magnus's soul-shard's single eye blazed with brilliant violet; he could barely sense the Great Ocean's presence.

"Where did you obtain this sigil?"

Hasik and Torgun did not speak. They acted simultaneously.

The "Conspirer" Torgun's left fist clenched empty air. Crimson flame repeatedly compressed, rapidly condensing into a blazing white fireball.

He raised his hand. The fireball howled toward Magnus.

"You can still use psychic powers?" Magnus said in astonishment.

He raised his arm, telekinetic force forming an invisible shield before him.

Boom!

The telekinetic shield shattered violently, scattering fragments of flame.

Magnus stared at the White Scar. Even after his psychic suppression, he was still comparable to Khalophis, Magister Templi of the Pyrae Cult.

Yet his own psychic power was suppressed by the strange sigil. Incomplete as he was, he had not even gained the upper hand in the exchange just now.

But he was still an incomparable warrior.

Magnus's ghostly form suddenly surged upward, lunging at Torgun.

The air cracked, Magnus leaped to the right.

But the blazing white spear behind him remained locked on, no matter how he changed direction, it tracked him.

With a thought, Magnus covered himself in an invisible telekinetic shield.

Boom!

The psychic shield shattered with a bang, and a burst of green spectral blood erupted from the flames.

A crimson gleam flashed in Magnus's single eye. He turned and charged at the stronger Hasik.

Images flashed rapidly through his mind. He suddenly stepped forward-left.

The howling blazing white spear grazed past his body and smashed into the ground.

Magnus, relying on the Corvidae arts, rapidly closed on Hasik.

He raised his massive fist and slammed it into Hasik with a boom.

Hasik's chest caved in. He was sent flying backward.

Magnus was about to pursue when he suddenly halted.

"Menes..."

He was about to continue speaking when he suddenly felt a terrifying, icy cold aura rush up his spine from behind.

Magnus turned and looked at Torgun. He had put on a bronze mask.

The illusory gate creaked open. Vine after vine of green black spread out from within.

"Magnus, your greatest weakness is your greedy pursuit of knowledge," Torgun's voice was tinged with icy cold.

"You fell for my conspiracy."

"When we laid the runes, you had the chance to stop me, but I knew you would not."

"You wanted to know the mystery within. You would let us complete the runes."

He took a bottle of blood-like potion from the hand of Hasik, who had walked to his side.

"Your psychic power has been weakened."

Magnus erupted with telekinetic force, one after another, the black-green vines lashed against his shield with piercing cracks.

"Your incomplete, diminished self, after taking a heavy blow from Hasik, would sense danger and turn to attack him."

Tick...

A piercing shriek suddenly sounded. One ghostly Psychneuein after another flew out from the gate, changing the expressions of both Magnus and Menes.

Psychneueins fed on psychics. No one could command them.

Even less could anyone command ghostly creatures after death.

Magnus's single eye flashed. A ball of flame suddenly rose, burning four Psychneueins to ash.

At the same time, his shield, losing psychic replenishment, rapidly contracted. The green black vines wrapped around his body.

"How did you do it?"

Torgun did not answer his question. Instead, continuing to follow Lord Nareth's orders, he finished stating his complete Conspirerial plan.

"This moment is my opportunity. I captured you, the mighty Crimson King..."

"Conspirer," in the regretful green gray light flickering in Magnus's single eye, tilted his head back and drank the potion.

Flames bloomed like fireworks. Ash drifted down across the sky.

Magnus roared in fury as he was dragged bit by bit toward the gate by the green black vines.

Bang!

....

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