Belisarius Cawl’s sensor array was the first to sound the alarm—0.3 seconds faster than his own conscious processing, and 1.2 seconds faster than the reaction of any organic life present.
“Warp disturbance!
Coordinates: Upper dome of the Correction Temple!
Rift level: Grade 3 and expanding!” Before the mechanical synthesized voice could finish, the stone dome thirty meters above the temple shattered like a broken eggshell.
It wasn’t an explosion; it was a festering of the very fabric of reality.
Marble, adamantium support structures, and fragments of sacred relics embedded within—all these substances transformed into twisted, indescribable forms the moment they touched the edge of the rift, then dripped away like melting wax.
What poured from the rift was not light, but the opposite of color, a void that devoured the entire spectrum, and within that void— Black armor descended.
The first to land cracked the marble floor into a web of fissures.
His armor was a blasphemous pitch black, adorned with brass spikes and skull decorations, with an eight-pointed star and an inverted Aquila etched onto the pauldrons.
Dried flesh remained on the teeth of his chainaxe, and his power pack spewed murky exhaust.
“For the Black Legion!” His roar was transformed into a trio-like harmony by his armor’s vox-grille.
“For the Warmaster!
For the True—” Calgar’s Bolter ended his war cry.
The Ultramarines Chapter Master’s reaction was an instinct carved into his genes: raise arms, aim, pull the trigger.
The roar of the Storm Bolter was deafening in the enclosed space; the first shell precisely tore off the intruder’s helmet, while the second and third ripped the headless torso in two.
But as one fell, ten more leapt from the rift.
“Enemy attack!
The Correction Temple has been infiltrated!” Calgar’s roar spread through the tactical network to the entire Macragge orbital defense system.
“All Honour Guard!
Defend the Primarch’s Shrine to the death!
No retreat!” Tactical data stream: Confirmed enemy unit: Black Legion 7th’Soul Reaver’ Company Quantity: Continuously increasing, currently 27…
34…
41…
Special unit detection: Chaos Space Marine energy signatures x3 Rift stability: 73% and rising Predicted completion of enemy main force teleportation: 54 seconds The blue armor of the Honour Guard became moving fortresses in the dim temple.
Bolter tracers traced lethal trajectories, and the clash of Power Swords and Chainswords sent blinding sparks flying.
But the Black Legion had come prepared—they sought not occupation, but destruction.
“Target: The Gene-Primarch’s remains!” A champion with a helmet carved into a demonic visage pointed his sword at the stasis field.
“Destroy it!
Never allow the Emperor’s lapdogs to regain—” Tigurius’s psychic lightning silenced him.
A blue-white beam of energy pierced the champion’s chest, carbonizing his internal organs, but more enemies surged from the rift.
Seven meters in front of the stasis field, an eerie calm was maintained amidst the chaos.
Yvraine’s gaze never left the platform for a second.
She gripped the sword of the old one with both hands, the sword’s eerie green light flickering like a breath, forming a strange resonance with the faint pulse in Guilliman’s chest within the field.
“Speed up, Tech-priest,” her Aeldari tongue was as sharp as a blade.
“The rift is interfering with the God of Death’s purification.
I can feel it…
the filth of the Warp is seeping into his wounds.” Belisarius Cawl’s three mechanical arms operated at 340% of their design limit.
The information stream scrolling across the data screen was so fast that even his multi-core processor required full concentration: Stasis field decay rate: 0.7% per second (exceeding expectations) Gene-Primarch’s vital sign fluctuations: Intensifying Warp contamination backlash risk: 41% and rising Probability of recommended immediate program abort: 68.3% “Not feasible,” Cawl’s organic left eye was bloodshot.
“Aborting will lead to the collapse of the Primarch’s life systems.
We have passed the critical point.” “Then let him wake!” Yvraine’s voice wavered for the first time.
“Now!
Or we will all be buried here—” Her words were interrupted by the harsh sound of metal grinding.
A Power Spear burning with green flames pierced a Servo-skull and, without losing momentum, shot toward her back.
Yvraine didn’t even turn around—her body dissipated like mist and reformed five meters away.
The spear sank deep into the marble floor, corroding the stone within three meters into boiling foam.
The spear-thrower was a monster.
His armor had fused with his flesh, a mouth full of sharp teeth had split open on his chest, and his arms had extended into bony blades.
A Possessed Marine—an abominable creation deeply corrupted by the Warp—locked onto the Aeldari with fell-fire burning in his eye sockets.
“Xenos witch—” his triple-toned voice sounded like sandpaper rubbing together.
Yvraine’s response was to raise her sword.
The eerie light of the sword of the old one suddenly flared.
There were no flashy sword techniques, no dodging; she simply took a step forward, and the blade’slid’ through the Possessed Marine’s body at an angle that defied the laws of physics.
Then the monster froze.
It wasn’t death, but dissolution on an existential level.
Starting from where the blade had passed, his armor, flesh, bone, and even the demonic essence imprisoned within collapsed and dissipated like a sandcastle, turning into the most basic disordered energy.
Three seconds later, only a small pile of ash remained, leaving not even a Warp echo.
But Yvraine’s face turned a shade paler.
Her fingers trembled slightly on the hilt of her sword.
“You cannot swing your sword like that forever, Chosen of the God of Death.” Cawl’s mechanical arm adjusted an energy conduit.
“According to calculations, you can perform at most seven more such attacks before exhaustion.” “Then pray that seven times is enough.” Yvraine turned back to the stasis field.
“Now, awaken him.
Immediately.” Within the field, Guilliman began to twitch.
It wasn’t a slight tremor, but a full-body convulsion.
His fingers curled and extended, and the joints of his power armor groaned under the strain.
The wound on his chest—the piercing injury left by Fulgrim ten thousand years ago—began to seep light.
It wasn’t blood; it was light.
A pure, blazing white radiance seeped from every crack in the wound, as if a long-imprisoned dawn had finally found an exit.
“Vital signs changing drastically!” Cawl’s alarm shrieked.
“Energy readings exceeding measurement range!
Stasis field about to overload!
Three, two—” The field shattered.
It didn’t just shut down; it exploded.
Billions of fragments of frozen time scattered like crystal, each reflecting Guilliman’s face as he had slept for ten thousand years.
The levitating Primarch crashed heavily onto the platform, the marble slab cracking under the impact.
Then, a heartbeat.
Thump.
The sounds of slaughter throughout the temple froze at that moment.
Whether it was the Ultramarines or the Black Legion, whether the roar of Bolters or the scream of Chainswords, all paled in comparison to this heartbeat.
It wasn’t a biological heartbeat; it was the pulse of some older, more fundamental existence.
Thump.
A second sound.
With it came the expansion of light.
From Guilliman’s body—from every inch of his skin, every piece of his armor, every strand of his hair—white light surged out like a tide.
It was gentle, yet irresistible.
Swift, yet silent.
The first Black Legion warrior touched by the white light was stunned.
He looked down at his sword-hand—his pitch-black armor dissolved from the fingertips up, like a pencil drawing being erased.
There was no pain, no burning, just pure, irreversible disappearance.
He tried to scream, but his vocal cords ceased to exist the moment the white light touched his throat.
The second, the third, the tenth…
The white light passed equally through every inch of the temple’s space.
It had no effect on the blue armor of the Ultramarines, merely brushing past them like a spring breeze.
But for the Black Legion—for those beings linked to the Warp—it was the end.
Chaos Space Marine melted like candles in the white light.
Profane runes, mutated limbs, and the essence of the indwelling demons were stripped away and dissipated layer by layer.
They tried to resist, tried to pray, tried to curse, but the white light was beyond argument.
The Warp rift itself began to groan.
The fabric of reality pulled inward like a healing wound, and the churning chaotic colors at the rift’s edge were devoured and purified by the white light.
Non-human shrieks came from behind the rift, but they quickly receded, as if some terrifying existence was fleeing.
The light did not stop.
It flooded out of the temple, out of the mountains, and out of the atmosphere.
Macragge Geostationary Orbit, Black Legion Strike Cruiser ‘Maw of Agony’ On the bridge, Warleader Karion was preparing to order an orbital bombardment.
Then his vision was filled with white.
“What—Shields to full!
Emergency Warp jump—” Too late.
The white light washed over the hull like water.
Void shields flickered for a moment before bursting like soap bubbles.
Armor, structure, conduits, crew, engines, ammunition bays—everything lost its boundaries in the pure white, turning into basic particles, and then even the particles returned to nothingness.
Orbit of the third planet in the Macragge system, Nurgle Plague Fleet The Great Unclean One Grothes was enjoying a newly cultivated plague, planning the nine-thousandth scheme to turn Macragge into a garden.
Then the pustules on his body began to wither, scab, and fall off.
“No…
this cleanliness…
this purity…
Disgusting!
So disgusting—” The white light swept past.
AI Model: gemini-3.1-flash-lite The plague fleet, along with the demons, Nurglings, and blessed Plague Walkers aboard, all dissolved into pure light.
There was no residue of corruption, no echoes of disease, only a clean void.
Eastern Ultima Segmentum, edge of the Eye of Terror.
A Tzeentch daemon legion was holding a ritual, attempting to tear more fragments of reality from the Great Rift.
Then their ritual circle collapsed on its own.
Runes reversed, magic backfired, and the demons turned into pure, meaningless energy amidst their screams, woven back into the Warp and weft of reality by the white light.
According to post-event data from surviving Adeptus Mechanicus recorders (Archive Number: M41.999 – Event – “Radiance of Purity”): Phenomenon Range: A spherical space with a radius of 3 light-years, centered on Macragge.
Affected Targets: All units where Warp contamination was detected (Chaos Space Marines, daemon entities, corrupted machinery, heretics, etc.).
Unaffected Targets: Uncontaminated organisms, mindless machinery, natural celestial bodies.
Purification Mechanism: Unknown (non-psychic, non-physical, non-known energy form).
Duration: 6.8 seconds.
Total Energy Release: Approximately equal to the total radiation of a G-type star over 5 seconds (estimated value, as all measuring instruments were destroyed during the event).
Note: The Astronomican on Terra has tentatively named this phenomenon “Breath of the Emperor”, Classification: Top Secret.
The light receded like a tide.
It did not dissipate, but flowed back—following the path of its eruption, pouring back into the source.
Inside the Correction Temple, the white light finally shrank back into the platform, back into the recumbent figure.
Silence.
A deathly silence.
Inside the temple, apart from the seventeen Ultramarines and three standing non-humans, there were no Black Legion members left.
No corpses, no wreckage, even the profane aura they brought had been completely purged.
Only the damaged dome, the cracked ground, and the fallen Ultramarines proved that a battle had taken place.
On the platform, the figure moved.
First, a slight twitch of the fingers, then the arm lifted, slowly, stiffly, as if a machine unused for ten thousand years was restarting.
Her hand pressed against her chest, touching the spot that had once been a fatal wound—now it was smooth as before, not even a scar remained.
She propped herself up and sat up.
The movement was somewhat clumsy, as if she were unfamiliar with the balance of this body.
When she sat up completely, everyone saw her appearance clearly.
Under Calgar’s tactical helmet, his mouth opened slightly.
It was indeed Guilliman’s power armor—Mark X Ultima, blue and gold paint, Aquila relief.
But the armor…
had adapted to her new form.
The originally imposing and majestic silhouette had become slender and fluid; the curves of the breastplate, waist armor, and leg armor were clearly of a female physique, and the size had significantly shrunk.
The originally heavy shoulder pads now appeared delicate, the power pack on her back had also shrunk proportionally, and unprecedented golden patterns appeared on it.
Her face lifted from within the helmet—the helmet automatically unlocked, retracted backward, revealing her face.
All of Cawl’s mechadendrites stiffened simultaneously, and his processor temperature alarms shrieked.
Golden hair cascaded down from her shoulders like a waterfall, the tips shimmering with an emerald glow.
Her face was so exquisite it didn’t look mortal, her skin as fair as the highest purity marble, her facial features perfectly proportioned to the point of being almost surreal.
And those eyes—azure as the clear sky of Macragge, as clear as melted snow on a mountain peak, were blinking blankly at this moment, with tiny specks of light still hanging on her long, curled eyelashes.
But the most striking thing was above her head.
A faint, translucent golden halo floated there, rotating slowly, scattering tiny particles of light.
When she turned her head, the halo followed like a shadow.
“Mmm…” She made a sound.
The sword of the old one in Yvraine’s hand fell to the ground with a “clang”.
That voice.
Soft, sweet, with a drowsy nasal tone as if just woken up, the pitch a bit higher than a normal person’s, crisp like wind chimes.
Each syllable was rounded and cute, devoid of the deep majesty a Primarch should have.
She rubbed her eyes—with those small hands.
Her hands had also become smaller; although she was still wearing the gauntlets of her power armor, they were clearly the proportions of a young girl’s hands.
Then she looked around, her large azure eyes full of confusion.
She saw the damaged temple, the fallen soldiers, saw Calgar, Cawl, Yvraine, and the Ultramarines still standing in the distance.
Everyone froze like statues.
She tilted her head, and her golden hair slid down from her shoulder.
This movement was full of childishness.
“Is this…
Macragge?” She spoke, her soft, sweet voice exceptionally clear in the silent temple, “The Correction Temple?
Am I…
awake?” She looked down at her hands, clenched her fist, relaxed it, then clenched it again.
Her brows furrowed slightly, her expression like she was trying to understand some complex math problem.
Then she seemed to think of something, suddenly raising her hands to touch her face.
Her fingers traced her cheeks, nose, lips, and finally stopped at the top of her head, attempting to touch that halo—her fingers passed right through; it was a pure energy projection.
Her movements froze.
Her azure eyes slowly widened, her pupils contracting slightly.
Her lips parted, as if wanting to say something, but no sound came out.
She touched her throat again, feeling the vibration of her vocal cords.
Then, she did something that made everyone’s hearts stop—she used those small hands, clumsily but firmly, to press against the protruding curves of her breastplate.
She pressed.
She squeezed.
Then she slowly looked down, looking at the contour of her breastplate that clearly shouldn’t belong to a male Primarch, then at her slender waist, at her legs that had obviously shortened, and finally her gaze fell on a reflective metal fragment on the ground.
The fragment reflected a face.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, an exquisite girl’s face, with a faint halo above her head.
Ten seconds.
For ten whole seconds, she just stared at that fragment, motionless.
Finally, she raised her head and looked at the nearest person—Calgar.
She looked at the three-meter-tall, heavily armored Ultramarines Chapter Master with those large, round blue eyes, now filled with confusion.
Her lips moved.
Using that soft, sweet, completely non-threatening, and even somewhat cute voice, she asked: “Am I…
have I…
turned into a girl?” Pause.
“And…
and quite short?” Time in the temple seemed to freeze.
Calgar: “…” His brain stopped all tactical thinking at this moment.
The gene-seed hadn’t taught him this.
Over a hundred years of combat experience hadn’t covered this.
He opened his mouth, and from the tactical helmet’s loudspeaker came a short, completely incoherent gasp: “Huh?????” Belisarius Cawl: “…
(System Crash)” All mechadendrites hung down limply.
Processor temperature soared to the critical point, and cooling systems emitted overload alarms.
Visual sensors repeatedly focused, biological scanners re-checked over and over, and the logic core returned countless “ERROR: Impossible Event”.
His human left eye rolled back, his mechanical right eye flashed red frantically, and finally, the entire system—including life-support components—fell into a complete, total, manual-reboot-required crash state.
Yvraine: “…
(Shocked)” This Chosen of the Death God, who had seen the Fall of the Aeldari, witnessed the awakening of the God of the Dead, and faced down a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, wore an expression as if she had seen the laws of the universe tap-dancing in front of her.
Her mouth opened slightly, her characteristic slender Aeldari eyes widened into circles, the sword of the old one in her hand extinguished completely, even its ghostly green glow vanishing in shock.
She looked at the blonde girl on the platform, looked at the sword in her own hand, then looked back at the girl, repeating this three times, and finally could only let out a silent gasp.
Other Ultramarines: “Huh?????” Seventeen battle-hardened super-soldiers, seventeen warriors who hadn’t flinched even when facing the Tyranid swarm, seventeen Angels of the Emperor with fearlessness and determination inscribed in their genes, now uttered a uniform, bewildered, confused sound of questioning, their worldviews shattered.
“Huh?????” The sound echoed in the damaged temple.
And in the center of the platform, the newly awakened, 1.65-meter-tall, blonde, blue-eyed, halo-crowned, former Imperial Regent and now unknown girl-form Guilliman, looked at the group of stunned hulks, the crashed Adeptus Mechanicus Magos, and the petrified Aeldari before her, and slowly, slowly, hugged her own head.
“Wait.” She murmured in that soft, sweet voice, “Let me sort this out.
I slept for…
a long time.
I should be Roboute Guilliman.
I woke up to save the Empire.
But now I…” She looked down at her body, which was clearly female.
“…something doesn’t seem right?” The temple fell into dead silence again.
Only the sound of the wind blowing through the hole in the dome, and the sharp, mournful wail of Cawl’s cooling system overload, echoed, echoed, and echoed in the quiet…