The air in the Emperor's Solitude was thick with a silence that had endured for a century, broken only by the barely perceptible hum of the Golden Throne prototype. But today, that silence was strained—stretched thin by a gathering pressure that rippled through ancient stone and psychic warding fields. Within the psychic heart of Terra, a mind of impossible power, anchored by forbidden technologies and the sacrifice of uncounted psykers, prepared to pierce the veil.
This was no casual glimpse into the Immaterium. This was a dive. A plunge into the roiling, impossible depths of the Warp—a descent so profound that even the Master of Mankind hesitated before daring it. It was an act of cosmic defiance, a challenge hurled at the raw unreality beyond, undertaken only when the stakes eclipsed all other concerns.
Energy surged, not as light, but as distilled will. The Throne groaned beneath the pressure. Psychic force flared from its core—contained, focused, and unleashed by centuries of calculation and the sheer resolve of a dying god.
The Emperor's consciousness, sharpened beyond mortal comprehension, tore loose from the illusion of flesh and time. He bypassed barriers painstakingly constructed over aeons, slicing through the veil of reality like a blade through silk. The Warp screamed. A kaleidoscope of howling thoughts, impossible geometries, and predatory wills converged upon His essence.
He held his focus—a singularity of will, unshaken by the tempest.
He searched the tides of fate, not for possibilities, but for convergences. The kind of cataclysm that folds timelines into singular ruin.
And then... He saw.
Not the familiar threats. Not Orks or Eldar or even the usual daemonic incursions. This was something deeper—something old and new, a cancer growing at the core of causality itself.
A throne revealed itself, formed not of gold or stone, but of congealed shadow and screaming, melted souls. It hovered within the heart of the Eye of Terror, a focal point of unspeakable corruption. But it was empty. Or worse—waiting.
The vision twisted. The sound of the Warp changed—no longer a cacophony, but a focused mockery. A laughter, joyful and broken, echoing from timelines yet unborn and realities long dead. It danced across collapsing stars and unraveling constellations. The laughter of the Joker, the Champion of Tzeentch and Slaanesh—madness incarnate.
It was the laugh of inevitability.
Then came the dirge.
He saw a dying sun, bloated and red, bleeding across a desolate plain. A lone figure, massive and broken, knelt before another. The kneeling figure—unmistakably a Primarch—radiated an aura of defeat so profound it bent the space around him.
The figure standing above him was wreathed in ash and despair. A being of dust and music, not a song of joy, but a dirge woven from the extinction of hope. The Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of Finality, Chaos Champion of Slaanesh and Nurgle, master of the final, crushing defeat.
And that was only one path.
Simultaneously, others bled into vision. A great beast slithered through the void, each of its heads mutating and multiplying with every diverted glance—the Hydra, the impossible mind of many selves. Hisoka, the shapeshifting champion, spreading warp-seeds in secret.
The shadow of the Great Devourer surged next—a Tyranid swarm, not yet known to the Imperium, consuming not just worlds, but entire sectors, bending gravity with its mass, swarming even the Warp in its hunger.
And beneath forgotten worlds, ancient circuits pulsed.
The Necrons stirred.
Metal tombs cracked open. Silent kings and starlit legions, untouched by time, began to move again—no longer in isolation, but with purpose.
These were not separate nightmares. They were intersections—points where nightmare converged not just across space, but across realities. The Joker's laughter threaded them all like a needle through a tapestry of horror.
And in the centre, always unseen but always felt, stood the empty throne.
The Emperor recoiled. His psychic connection to the Warp snapped. The immaterium surged, backlash rippling through the Throne. Golden circuitry flared, alarms howled in the distant chambers of the Imperial Dungeon, and Custodians stiffened as a wave of disorientation passed over them.
He returned to His body with a shuddering jolt. Though still godlike in power, He slumped within the Throne for a moment, shaken.
He had faced the Ruinous Powers directly.
He had outwitted the gods themselves.
But this...
This was a doom layered upon doom. A cosmic joke, a contradiction of reality, a convergence of apocalypse masquerading as divine comedy. It was madness, not as a symptom, but as the weapon.
The dirge still echoed in His ears.
The laughter still bounced in the dead corners of His mind.
And the throne of souls still waited to be claimed.