Chapter 26: Through the Gate
A few days mean nothing in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium. In a galaxy where centuries pass between orders and replies, where bureaucracies span solar systems and time itself is warped by the tides of the Immaterium, a mere handful of days passes like a blink.
There's an old tale about an Inquisitor who once dared complain that the Inquisition's internal bureaucracy was inefficient. The reply to his original request for assistance arrived only decades later—after the planet in question had already been consumed by a Tyranid hive fleet.
And yet, in those fleeting days, the Lizardmen wasted no time. Their wargear had been repaired. The weapons, bloodstained and battered, were honed once more. Spirits were high, and the taste of victory had not yet faded.
Now, Isis stood before the largest Webway Gate on the planet. The structure towered over the assembled army—an arched doorway without a door, its threshold ancient and ominous. A gate large enough for a Warlord Titan to stride through with room to spare.
Behind her, rows upon rows of Lizardmen stood ready for the next stage of the "Great Plan." At their rear, like a mountain made flesh, Godzilla loomed silently, his presence as immutable as a planet's orbit.
Isis turned her head slightly, her voice cold. "Open the gate."
One of the two surviving Dark Eldar women flinched. "You don't understand," she stammered. "The Webway cannot be controlled at will. Even we—trueborn of Commorragh—cannot dictate where it leads."
"I will not say it again."
The threat was not metaphorical. The second Dark Eldar lay dead, her soul already devoured. The surviving one was pale, gaunt—her psychic essence weak from days without the consumption of pain or souls.
Trembling, she approached the archway and placed her hands on runic glyphs embedded in its stone. The dormant gate shimmered with a flicker of impossible geometry, and in the next moment, a gossamer-thin light curtain unfurled across the arch. On the other side, the Webway waited—an ancient corridor of impossible architecture threading through realspace and the Immaterium alike.
A gateway to another war.
Isis inhaled sharply and shouted, "For the Great Plan!"
"For the Great Plan!" the Lizardmen roared in return, their cold blood burning hot with zeal.
They advanced, disappearing into the light one by one. The expedition had begun.
At the rear, Godzilla stepped forward, peering into the open gate.
'You think the Emperor would be jealous I've got working Webway access?' he mused. The thought amused him.
The Webway—once the secret highway of the Eldar race, stable and untouched by the tides of Chaos. If only the Imperium still had access to it. But that dream had died with Magnus' folly. When the Crimson King's attempt to warn the Emperor backfired, the Webway Gate on Terra was shattered, unleashing the horrors of the Warp beneath the Golden Throne.
And now, Godzilla had a functioning one. Irony never went out of fashion.
But thoughts of irony soon gave way to the grim present.
The galaxy was burning.
Abaddon the Despoiler, former First Captain of the Luna Wolves—now the Black Legion—was preparing his final gambit. The Thirteenth Black Crusade had begun. For ten millennia, Abaddon had launched a dozen "failed" crusades against the Imperium. Or so the Imperium claimed. Abaddon insisted each one was a strategic move in a larger game.
And in truth? They were.
Each defeat was a feint. Every retreat, a recalibration. Now, the trap was set. The Eye of Terror boiled with daemonic fury. The Blackstone Fortresses were on the move. Cadia stood in the crosshairs.
But that was not today's battlefield.
No, today's war raged in Ultramar.
On a planet deep within the Five Hundred Worlds, loyalists and traitors clashed in brutal street-to-street warfare. Chaos Space Marines, warped by centuries in the Warp, led vast cultist hordes against beleaguered Imperial defenders.
An Ultramarine sergeant ducked behind a ruined statue of Guilliman, his armor scorched, his men bloodied.
"Captain," he said over vox. "The enemy advance is unrelenting. Our flanks are collapsing. Civilian sectors have fallen."
"We have no reinforcements, Marcus," came the captain's reply. "All the hive cities are under attack. The traitors came prepared."
Chainswords screamed. A bellow of "Blood for the Blood God!" rose from the traitors as a Chaos Marine charged, red armor glinting with fresh gore. The Ultramarines met him head-on. Blades clashed, sparks flew, and the Space Marines held.
Barely.
But even as they resisted, the tide of chaos was rising.
At a ritual site outside the city, cultists dragged captives to bloodstained altars. The air stank of copper and rot. Heads were severed with crude knives, and the earth itself was soaked in sacrifice. Chants in blasphemous tongues filled the air. A Warp rift tore open above the altar, bleeding crimson light.
From within, a greater daemon emerged.
A Bloodletter of Khorne, its flesh aflame with hate, its hellblade eager to carve skulls from bodies. Behind it, more followed.
These were the foot soldiers of the Blood God—relentless, savage, utterly without mercy. Their arrival was the death knell for a world already on its knees.
But then—
Another light bloomed.
A Webway Gate—long dormant—came alive not far from the ritual site. The Chaos cultists froze. They had never seen this gate active before. Some mistook it for another Warp breach. One of the Bloodletters—taller than the rest, a vampire-like horror—stepped forward to investigate.
It sniffed the air with its forked tongue, pausing mid-step.
It smelled something.
Blood. War. Battle.
Its eyes widened.
Then came the sound of something large. Very large.
The Bloodletter turned—
And its world turned to darkness.
A massive spiked tail, faster than thought, slammed into the daemon with such force that its body was torn in half, its screaming essence banished back to the Warp before it had time to cry out.
From the Webway, Godzilla emerged.
Behind him came the Lizardmen—rank upon rank of scaled warriors ready to wage holy war.
The battlefield had a new contender.
And Chaos had no idea what was about to hit them.
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