In vanilla Minecraft, if you couldn’t find a normal Villager, you had to catch a Zombie Villager and cure it.
The process was incredibly simple: first, hit the Zombie Villager with a Splash Potion of Weakness (or use other means to apply the Weakness status effect).
Then, feed it a Golden Apple.
A few minutes later, it would revert to a completely normal Villager.
After Vane installed a series of new mods, this exact mechanic expanded to include mutating creatures from apocalyptic worlds.
It would forcibly cleanse their abnormal status effects and revert them to their original, uncorrupted states.
Roar!
As Vane approached, the Death Company Marine let out a rabid snarl.
His eyes burned a frantic, bloodshot red, and a pair of terrifyingly sharp fangs peeked out from his lips as he radiated an aura of pure, unadulterated madness and hyper-violence.
Vane casually tossed a Splash Potion of Weakness straight at the roaring Marine.
Crash!
The glass bottle shattered, splashing the glowing, murky liquid all over the towering Astartes.
Instantly, the roaring Death Company Marine visibly deflated.
His furious bellows died down to weak, confused grunts.
His entire posture slumped, and he stopped wildly swinging his chainsword at imaginary traitors.
Seeing the Marine fully inflicted with the Weakness debuff, Vane pulled out an Enchanted Golden Apple and held it up to the Astartes’ mouth to feed it to him.
The Enchanted Golden Apple—commonly known as the Notch Apple—was the absolute king of Golden Apples.
It provided massive buffs like Regeneration, Resistance, and Absorption, but more importantly, its overpowered healing properties could aggressively reverse high-tier abnormal status effects and rapidly restore the target’s baseline sanity.
Driven by an inexplicable compulsion, the Death Company Marine took the Enchanted Golden Apple and bit down.
The sweet, impossible flavor exploded across his taste buds.
Almost instantly, the suffocating Black Rage and the agonizing Red Thirst—the dual curses that had consumed his mind entirely—began to rapidly melt away.
By the time he finished chewing the Notch Apple, his entire aura underwent a miraculous transformation.
The crazed, bloodshot red entirely faded from his eyes.
His face, previously contorted into a mask of bestial fury, relaxed, returning to the handsome, noble visage of a true son of Sanguinius.
“Perfect.
Looks like you’re all cleared up.” Vane whipped out his pickaxe and smashed the wooden boat, setting the Marine free.
“What just happened?!” First Captain Karlaen sprinted over.
“Rafen, how do you feel?!” “It’s over…
that agonizing black fury…
it’s completely gone from my mind, Karlaen.” “I can feel it…
it can’t control me anymore.” Rafen stared at his own trembling hands, tears of absolute joy welling in his eyes.
For the longest time, he had been endlessly tortured and dominated by ancient memories that did not belong to him.
In those visions, he saw Terra subjected to a relentless orbital bombardment.
He saw the fall of the Imperial Palace.
He saw the Great Angel, fighting a desperate, bloody battle before the Eternity Gate.
And he saw the Vengeful Spirit, shrouded in the suffocating darkness of Chaos, and witnessed the final, heart-shattering duel that broke the lineage of the Blood Angels forever.
Those memories had burned in his brain like black fire, a constant, excruciating agony that could only be temporarily silenced by slaughter, by tearing those despicable traitors apart with his bare hands.
But now?
Those genetic memories were still there, but the blinding, maddening rage attached to them had entirely vanished.
He could finally look back on those memories in peace, feeling only a profound reverence for the selfless, majestic sacrifice of the Great Angel.
“How did you do that?!” Karlaen whipped around to face Vane, his eyes burning with an intense, desperate fanaticism.
“Tell me!
Tell me right now!
What method did you use to free Rafen from his terrible fate?!” The Death Company was the physical manifestation of the Blood Angels’ doom.
Marines lost to the Black Rage were endlessly tormented by hallucinations and ancient genetic memories, unable to distinguish the present from the distant past.
They fundamentally believed they were fighting in the Siege of Terra, locked in desperate combat against the traitor legions of Horus.
The eternal Black Rage burned through their minds and souls, driving them into a frenzy of endless slaughter until they inevitably died in battle.
As the millennia passed, more and more Blood Angels were being swallowed by the Flaw.
If a cure wasn’t found, the Chapter and all its successors would eventually be entirely consumed by this genetic defect, vanishing completely into the annals of history.
And now?
A Marine fully lost to the Death Company had just been completely cured.
Vane took a slow step backward as the Ring of the Guardian on his finger automatically projected a forcefield, physically blocking Karlaen from getting any closer.
“Woah, take a step back and cool the fanaticism.
I have zero interest in giant, sweaty dudes in armor.
I only like soft, sweet-smelling succubi.” Karlaen: “…” Did…
did he just mistake me for some kind of pervert?!
“My sincerest apologies.
I lost control of my emotions.” “It is simply impossible to comprehend…
You actually freed Rafen from the Black Rage.” “Do you have any idea what you just did?
The implications for the Blood Angels are astronomical.” “Are all you young folks this easily rattled?” Vane shook his head, pointing casually at the Tyranid swarm swarming the perimeter.
“Don’t forget, we are still standing in the middle of a warzone.” A flash of deep shame crossed Karlaen’s face.
“You are completely correct to reprimand me.
I apologize.
I was so utterly overwhelmed that I neglected my sacred duty.” “Once the battle is won, we will officially seek an audience to petition for your aid.
Please, I beg of you, grant us that opportunity.” Forcing himself to refocus on the battlefield, Karlaen barked orders to his battle-brothers, directing them to reinforce the critical choke points threatening to buckle under the Tyranid swarm.
“For Sanguinius and the Emperor!
The Sons of the Blood shall never fail humanity!” Roaring their war cries, the Blood Angels charged headlong into the Tyranid tide with terrifying fury.
Unleashing storms of bolter fire and revving their chainswords, they brutally carved through the xenos swarm.
Wherever they passed, they left a wake of pulverized Tyranid bio-forms rotting in the dust.
“Open fire!
Support the Emperor’s Angels!” Dhrost commanded the spaceport defenders to unleash absolute hell.
A dense grid of artillery fire tore through the sky, hammering the ground in a chain of catastrophic explosions that lit up the darkened heavens.
The heavy ordinance Vane had generously supplied proved its worth in spades.
The suffocating saturation fire completely shattered the Tyranid advance, breaking the swarm’s momentum and forcing the bio-forms to retreat into the ruined cityscape.
The second the Tyranids broke, Karlaen didn’t even bother managing the post-battle clean-up.
Flanked by his second-in-command, Alpheus, he tracked down Dhrost and ordered the General to take him directly to Vane.
“The Forefather was born in the distant Second Millennium.
By all accounts, he is forty thousand years old.
He carries the direct blessing of the God-Emperor and can summon the Legion of the Damned at will.” As they walked, Dhrost gave Karlaen a rapid-fire briefing on Vane’s background, desperately trying to ensure the First Captain didn’t accidentally commit a colossal faux pas.
Karlaen and his second-in-command listened in stunned silence.
Their Chapter Master, Dante, was over a thousand years old and considered a legend of longevity.
But this seemingly normal human had lived for forty thousand years?
He predated the founding of the Imperium itself!
“Lord Karlaen, please, I beg you, watch your words.
Do not anger the Forefather,” Dhrost practically pleaded as they neared Vane’s location.
“Whether or not we defeat Hive Fleet Leviathan rests entirely in his hands.” At first, Karlaen genuinely couldn’t comprehend what Dhrost meant.
How could defeating an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet rest entirely in the hands of a single human?
That was, until they turned a corner and saw a massive circle of red-robed tech-priests feverishly swinging incense censers around Vane.
They were loudly chanting binary hymns and screaming, “Behold the Miracle of the Machine God!” Their mechanical optics were practically glowing with an unprecedented, fanatical ecstasy.
And the reason for their religious hysteria was incredibly simple.
That seemingly “normal” human was currently casually hand-crafting Leman Russ Battle Tanks, Chimera Transports, Kasrkin Carapace Armor, and heavy plasma guns out of absolutely thin air.
To the tech-priests, this wasn’t just a miracle—it was the absolute, undeniable manifestation of the Omnissiah’s supreme power.
Karlaen suddenly realized that this man wasn’t just a forty-thousand-year-old Perpetual.
He apparently also wielded the divine authority of the Machine God.
“Dhrost, perfect timing.
Distribute this gear to your men.” Vane pointed to the neatly parked rows of tanks and the literal mountain of elite wargear.
“At once, honored Forefather!
Also, it is quite hot out today.
Shall I have logistics prepare a chilled beverage for you?” Dhrost asked, practically oozing sycophancy.
“Sure, why not.
It is getting a bit toasty,” Vane nodded approvingly.
“Understood!
I will have it expedited immediately.” Dhrost immediately tapped his vox-bead, aggressively barking at his quartermasters to procure ice-cold drinks ASAP.
“Honored Forefather.” Karlaen took a moment to mentally brace himself before stepping forward and offering a deeply respectful salute.
“Ah, one of the Ninth Legion’s little angels.” Vane gave Karlaen a quick once-over before casually waving his hand.
Immediately, two tech-priests practically fell over themselves rushing forward to present a lavish, anti-grav mechanical throne for him to rest on.
Vane slumped comfortably into the floating throne, lounging lazily.
“Alright, let’s hear it.
What do you need?” His absolute lack of formality caught Karlaen entirely off guard.
The Adeptus Astartes were the Emperor’s Angels of Death.
They held a terrifyingly exalted status across the Imperium.
Even high-ranking planetary nobles treated them with profound awe and fear.
Yet this… man treated him like a passing acquaintance.
“It concerns the Black Rage,” Karlaen said carefully.
“You cured Rafen.
I need to know how you accomplished such a feat.” “That’s my own personal cheat code.
Telling you won’t do any good,” Vane shrugged.
“You guys can’t replicate it anyway.” “However, I can build a machine for you.
All you have to do is toss your lost brothers inside, and it’ll cure them.” Hearing this, Karlaen nodded frantically.
“Then I must immediately relay this to the Chapter Master!
We need to arrange for the Death Company to be transported here for treatment at once!” Refusing to waste a single second, Karlaen demanded access to the spaceport’s primary vox-array and established a direct holographic link with the Blade of Vengeance.
The second the connection stabilized, Karlaen practically shouted in uncontained excitement.
“Chapter Master!
Incredible news!
Absolute, miraculous news!” Dante stared at the hololith projection of his First Captain, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Karlaen, you are the First Captain.
Should I fall in battle, you are the most likely candidate to succeed me as Chapter Master.” “I expect you to maintain absolute composure and ironclad stoicism, regardless of the circumstances.” “Remember: no matter how miraculous the news, an Angel of the Blood must remain calm.” “Forgive me, Chapter Master.
Your reprimand is just.” Karlaen took several deep breaths, forcibly suppressing his overwhelming excitement before speaking again.
“We have made contact with a Forefather of Humanity here at the spaceport.
He completely cured Rafen of the Black Rage.
That is why I lost my composure.” “So a battle-brother was cured of the Black Rage?
That hardly justifies such a lack of com—” Dante froze mid-sentence, his eyes suddenly going wide as saucers.
“Wait.
What?!
WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!
RAFEN WAS CURED OF THE BLACK RAGE?!” “Yes, my Lord!
The Forefather has lived for over forty thousand years!
He cured Rafen completely!
There is a genuine cure for the Black Rage and the Red Thirst!” “Mephiston!
Corbulo!
Scramble every single gunship right now!
Prep the Drop Pods!
We are making planetfall immediately!” Dante violently leaped out of his command throne, sprinting for the bridge exit while screaming into his vox-caster.
“Chapter Master!
Chapter Master!” Karlaen shouted from the holographic projection, but Dante didn’t even look back, already sprinting down the corridor toward the launch bays like a madman.
Huh.
I thought he just said an Angel of the Blood must remain calm?