Old Friend, Be My Dog

As the summoning ritual progressed, Lion El’Jonson appeared within the Blackstone Fortress at some point, accompanied by his sons as guards.

He seemed to emerge from the darkness without warning at Lox’s side, startling him.

"Why do you walk without making a sound?" Lox complained.

"In the jungles of Caliban, revealing your position meant death. They were merely simple techniques," the Lion said leisurely.

He looked at the Blackstone altar emitting beams of Warp filth. It connected to a rift in the Warp, but with the Lion King’s strength of will, he could easily ignore those Warp murmurs and whispers.

"What, you don’t trust us?" Lox asked in return. He suspected the Lion had arrived long ago; they simply had not noticed him.

Even Barabas Dantioch, who had remained by his side as a guard and bodyguard, had failed to detect the Lion’s methods of concealment.

"Merely necessary safeguards, in case you ruin everything. You have taken precautions and placed this dangerous facility on a moon, but that is still not enough."

Lox rolled his eyes. Lion himself probably had not realized that he possessed abysmally low emotional intelligence. He never considered other people’s feelings when he spoke. Like this time, he had immediately begun criticizing the plan proposed by Lox and Guilliman.

So he simply could not be bothered to deal with that temperamental Calibanite big cat and turned back to continue speaking with the hermit.

The hermit treated Lion with great respect, much like the respect he showed Guilliman, all stemming from the fact that they were sons of the Emperor.

In his eyes, Lion was also a son of God, a being of incomparable status.

"Enough. Stop trying to flatter this cold-hearted fellow. I’m curious—which Warp daemon did you summon? Tell me."

The hermit had been reluctant to say much, but under Lox’s persistent coaxing, he finally relented.

"Samus. Its name is Samus, also known as the Daemon of the Ruinstorm. It is not a servant of the Four Gods, but a Greater Daemon of Chaos Undivided."

Samus?

Lox immediately remembered the Greater Daemon he had witnessed on Calth. The Warp entity had killed several Ultramarines the moment it appeared, then destroyed a Shadowsword in close combat.

If Ventanus had not seized the opportunity to kill it with the ritual dagger left behind by the Word Bearers, their outpost would likely have been destroyed by that Greater Daemon.

Lox also remembered that the Greater Daemon had declared that some Warp god had always been watching him. Now that the opportunity had come, he could make it explain itself clearly.

If Lox on Calth had been deeply wary of its existence, then now—come on, times had changed.

The Blackstone Fortress and Blackstone altar were a carefully constructed trap. At first, the entire setup would amplify Warp power, making it easier to summon Warp daemons.

But once the fish took the bait and entered the material universe, the entire Blackstone Fortress would suppress the Warp daemon’s power without directly banishing it back.

Like a cofferdam built in the sea: once the tide rose and the fish entered, the water would be drained away, leaving only the lucky chosen catch behind.

Even a Greater Daemon could wield only limited power within such an utterly suppressive domain.

Moreover, waiting here were Primarch Lion El’Jonson, Aeldari Farseer Eldrad Ulthran, Chief Librarian Titus Praetor and his Librarian contingent, the Untouchable Dulles leading an anti-psyker squad, and five hundred fully armed Victorious Army soldiers.

With such a luxurious lineup, how could they possibly lose?

Once it entered his territory, dragons had to coil and tigers had to crouch. Besides, according to Ulthran, Samus was not an especially powerful Greater Daemon.

It was simply more active than most, causing trouble everywhere, which was why so many people knew of it.

In Lox’s eyes, Samus was exactly the sort of soft target that was not very strong, knew a great deal, and had already taken the bait.

What excited him even more was that Samus was, in a sense, his "old friend." Meeting it again now could not help but stir certain thoughts.

The opened Warp rift became a passage linking the two realms. More and more previously unseen Warp creatures began voluntarily leaving the Sea of Souls and entering the material realm.

Apart from the numerous black cuboid tentacled monsters, some Bloodletter daemons that had once appeared on Nuceria crawled out of the rift.

The blood-red Warp daemons, their bodies bent and reeking of blood and rot, screamed and unleashed terrifying battle cries as they brandished crimson blades forged from Warp energy. The servants of the Blood God’s existence cheered as they entered the material universe.

"On Nuceria, tens of thousands of Bloodletters, driven by an endless thirst for blood, formed complex and efficient battle formations that put the Ultramarines under tremendous pressure."

Lox offered his assessment, but unfortunately, too few Bloodletters had emerged. The Victorious Army hacked them directly into scraps with a chaotic storm of blades.

At least daemons of this level posed no threat whatsoever to experienced Ultramarines. After the Bloodletters died, their bodies rapidly turned to ash, while their essence was banished back into the Warp.

"Do not be impatient. Samus is on its way. I can smell the stench of its greed and indulgence," the hermit reassured them. Daemon-summoning rituals were not guaranteed to succeed; much depended on the ritual’s completeness and a little luck.

Like experienced anglers, they patiently waited at the opened rift’s exit, chumming the waters.

The Bloodletters, black cuboid daemons, and many strange creatures shaped like humans with exposed skin and heads jerking rapidly and erratically were merely the small fry drawn in by the bait.

The true big fish had yet to bite, and no one dared relax their vigilance for even a moment.

Taking this opportunity, they gained a genuine glimpse of the Warp’s natural landscape. The countless Warp creatures and daemons naturally produced by the mysterious Sea of Souls—those twisted, ever-changing monsters—were enough to surpass the limits of most people’s comprehension.

In any other setting, a mortal staring directly at daemons would suffer irreversible Warp contamination. These unimaginable conglomerations of terror fundamentally originated from the material universe. The Sea of Souls was like a mirror of that universe, where the souls and imaginings of countless living beings gathered and evolved.

No one knew whether these congregations of terror came solely from their universe. The Sea of Souls held far too many secrets, and they understood virtually nothing about it.

After waiting several hours, the sound Lox had wanted to hear finally emerged from the opened rift.

That familiar Warp whisper was as piercing as the shrieks of the dead within a storm. An unfamiliar voice rang in everyone’s ears, repeating a chant that filled them with profound unease:

"Samus. This is the only name you will hear—Samus."

"It means the end and death… Samus… I am Samus. Samus is beside you. Samus is the one beside you. Samus will feast upon your bones."

"Beware! Samus is here!"

Rather than fear the approaching Greater Daemon of Chaos, Lox and the others wore excited smiles of relief.

They had waited so long. At last, it had arrived.

The Victorious Army activated the power fields of their weapons. The psyker Librarians had their psychic arts prepared, ready to cast at any moment. Lion El’Jonson drew his Lion Sword, radiating an extremely warlike aura.

Psychic power invaded the communications channel, and those defiant, arrogant words echoed without end. At last, a rough-hewn daemon with a canine head, a hunched body, and long claws tore open the Warp rift and descended into the material universe with a roar.

Just as it had said, Samus had come!