For ten thousand standard years, Roboute Guilliman had remained exactly where the Imperium had left him, preserved in a state between life and death beneath the vast halls of the Temple of Correction on Macragge, his body frozen in time by ancient technology while the Imperium he had once helped build slowly transformed into something almost unrecognisable from the civilisation envisioned by the Emperor of Mankind. The primarch who had once believed in reason, order, progress and the eventual unification of Humanity had become a relic of a distant age, a silent figure worshipped by generations who knew him not as a living son of the Emperor but as a legendary demigod whose return belonged more to prophecy than reality. Yet the galaxy eventually reached a point where even ten thousand years of history could no longer keep Guilliman buried, because the 13th Black Crusade, the destruction of Cadia and the birth of the Great Rift created a catastrophe so enormous that the Imperium desperately needed something it had not possessed since the days of the Horus Heresy: a primarch.
The Imperium on the Edge of Collapse
The Imperium of the 41st Millennium was already fighting for survival long before Roboute Guilliman awakened, surrounded on every side by enemies that appeared capable of tearing apart the civilisation humanity had spent thousands of years defending. Orks continued to launch devastating Waaaghs!, the T'au Empire expanded across the Eastern Fringe, Tyranid Hive Fleets descended upon human space in enormous biological swarms, Necron dynasties began awakening from their ancient tomb worlds, and countless worlds were threatened by rebellion, mutation, alien invasion and the servants of Chaos.
Yet among all these enemies, Chaos represented perhaps the most direct existential danger, because the forces of the Ruinous Powers did not merely seek territory or resources but desired the destruction and corruption of the Imperium itself. For ten thousand years, the Eye of Terror had remained one of the greatest wounds in the galaxy, and Abaddon the Despoiler had repeatedly launched Black Crusades from its depths, each assault testing the defences surrounding the Cadian Gate and gradually weakening the structures that contained the Warp.
The 13th Black Crusade would become different from all the others.
Abaddon assembled an enormous Chaos warhost and directed its fury toward Cadia, the fortress world that had stood for millennia as the principal guardian of the Cadian Gate. If Cadia fell, the consequences would extend far beyond the destruction of a single Imperial world, because the ancient Necron pylons scattered throughout the Cadian System played a crucial role in suppressing the influence of the Warp. The destruction of those pylons would allow the Eye of Terror to expand dramatically into realspace.
The Imperium therefore committed enormous forces to Cadia, including Astra Militarum regiments, Space Marines, Black Templars, Imperial Fists and other defenders who understood that they were not merely defending another fortress world but attempting to prevent the galaxy itself from being torn apart.
Among the greatest heroes to arrive was Saint Celestine, the Living Saint whose appearance inspired Imperial defenders during some of the darkest moments of the battle. The Black Templars under Marshal Marius Amalrich fought alongside the defenders, while the Imperial Fists brought the immense star fort Phalanx into the conflict, adding one of the Imperium's greatest mobile fortresses to the defence of Cadia.
Yet the battle ultimately became impossible to win.
The Fall of Cadia and the Birth of the Great Rift
Belisarius Cawl, the ancient Archmagos Dominus of Mars, had arrived with knowledge concerning the mysterious black pylons constructed by the Necrons, and he believed that their technology might potentially be used to reverse the damage caused by Abaddon's Black Crusades. His plans represented one of the last opportunities to prevent catastrophe, but the battle moved beyond the point where even Cawl's extraordinary knowledge could save Cadia.
The pylons were destroyed, Cadia suffered catastrophic damage, and the fortress world was ultimately doomed.
As Imperial survivors escaped the collapsing world, reality itself seemed to tear apart behind them. The Eye of Terror began expanding, eventually becoming the immense Warp rift later known as the Great Rift, a wound that divided the galaxy and transformed the strategic situation of the Imperium almost overnight.
Cadia was destroyed, but the consequences were far greater than the loss of a fortress world.
The galaxy entered a new age.
The surviving Imperial forces fled through the Webway with the assistance of an unlikely alliance of Imperial and Aeldari forces, forming what became known as the Celestinian Crusade in honour of Saint Celestine. Among them were Cawl, Marius Amalrich and Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax, while Yvraine and the Ynnari provided the means by which the survivors could escape the forces of Chaos.
Cawl carried something far more important than another weapon.
He carried the means to awaken Roboute Guilliman.
Yvraine and the Rise of the Ynnari
The resurrection of Guilliman could never have occurred through Imperial science alone, because the events surrounding his return involved an alliance that would have been almost unimaginable during the Great Crusade. The Aeldari prophet Yvraine had become one of the central figures in the awakening of Ynnead, the Aeldari god of the dead, and the rise of the Ynnari created a new force within Aeldari society that believed death and rebirth could ultimately provide a path toward survival.
Yvraine herself had experienced death and resurrection through the power of Ynnead, becoming his chosen prophet after a life that had taken her through numerous Aeldari Paths and eventually into the brutal arenas of Commorragh. Her resurrection triggered enormous consequences within the Dark City and helped begin a chain of events that led to the formation of the Ynnari.
At Biel-Tan, the conflict surrounding Yvraine's movement eventually resulted in the manifestation of the Yncarne, the Avatar of Ynnead, further demonstrating that the ancient Aeldari god was beginning to exert influence upon reality.
Yvraine eventually pursued the Croneswords, ancient artefacts connected to her desperate attempt to confront the growing power of Chaos, and this mission brought her forces into the aftermath of the 13th Black Crusade.
When the Celestinian Crusade attempted to escape Cadia, Yvraine and the Ynnari intervened, defeating their Chaos pursuers and helping the Imperial survivors reach the Webway. The two groups remained deeply suspicious of one another, but their interests temporarily aligned around a single objective.
They had to reach Macragge.
The Ultramar Campaign
While the Celestinian Crusade travelled toward the Realm of Ultramar, another disaster was unfolding within the ancient realm created by Guilliman himself during the Great Crusade.
Ultramar had already suffered enormous wars, including the invasion led by the Daemon Prince M'kar the Reborn, while Tyranids and Orks represented continuing threats to its borders. The Ultramarines had survived these conflicts, but the arrival of the Great Rift created a situation in which the Realm of Ultramar suddenly became one of the most important surviving regions of Imperial space.
Abaddon understood this as well.
After learning that Cawl had escaped Cadia with a mysterious device capable of changing the balance of the Long War, Abaddon dispatched Chaos forces toward Ultramar. Black Legionaries, Iron Warriors, Night Lords and other Traitor forces attacked the realm, while additional warbands struck outer systems in an attempt to prevent Imperial forces from concentrating their strength.
The main Chaos assault pushed toward the Macragge System itself.
The Ultramarines therefore found themselves fighting for the very heart of the realm that Guilliman had created more than ten thousand years earlier.
The Celestinian Crusade eventually emerged from the Webway onto the Shrine World of Laphis, where they unexpectedly discovered that they had arrived in the middle of an active war zone. After defeating Chaos forces and Heldrakes attacking an Ultramarines fortress, they were allowed passage toward Macragge.
Their arrival could not have been more significant.
The Last Hope of the Ultramarines
Macragge was under attack.
The Chaos fleet and Imperial fleet fought in orbit while the Fortress of Hera came under assault from the ground, creating a desperate situation in which the survival of the Ultramarines themselves appeared uncertain.
The Celestinian Crusade eventually reached Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines and Lord of Macragge, and Cawl revealed the secret he had carried for ten thousand years.
He had known Roboute Guilliman.
More importantly, he had been entrusted with Guilliman's resurrection.
Before Guilliman's mortal wounding at Thessala, the primarch had tasked Cawl with developing a method capable of restoring him to life. Cawl had spent ten thousand years working toward that objective, eventually creating the technology necessary to sustain the primarch's body and prepare it for resurrection.
Within his armoured auto-reliquary, Cawl carried the Armour of Fate, an extraordinary suit of artificer armour designed to sustain Guilliman's life functions, along with the Emperor's Sword, a weapon containing a fragment of the Emperor's own psychic essence.
For Calgar and the Ultramarines, the revelation was almost impossible to accept.
Guilliman had been dead for ten thousand years.
Yet he was still there.
The Temple of Correction had preserved his body in stasis, and now Cawl claimed that the legendary primarch could be awakened.
Chief Librarian Tigurius supported the possibility because he had experienced prophetic visions suggesting that the arrival of the Celestinian Crusade was not an accident and that its members might represent the only realistic hope for Ultramar.
Calgar eventually permitted Cawl, Yvraine and their allies to enter the Temple of Correction.
The greatest gamble in the history of the Ultramarines had begun.
The Resurrection of Roboute Guilliman
The Temple of Correction became the centre of the battle.
Chaos forces realised what the Imperials were attempting and launched a massive assault to stop Cawl before he could complete the resurrection. Black Legionaries stormed the temple while additional Chaos forces descended through Dreadclaw assault boats, overwhelming the defenders through sheer numbers.
Ultramarines fought alongside the Celestinians, while Grey Knights from the 3rd Brotherhood led by Grand Master Aldrik Voldus joined the defence.
Every second mattered.
If Cawl failed, Guilliman would remain trapped within his ten-thousand-year slumber.
If he succeeded, the Imperium would regain something it had not possessed since the Horus Heresy.
A primarch.
As the defenders were gradually overwhelmed, Yvraine finally invoked the power of Ynnead.
The power of the Aeldari god of the dead combined with Cawl's technology, allowing the ancient wounds that had kept Guilliman suspended between life and death to be healed.
For ten thousand years, the body of Roboute Guilliman had remained motionless.
Then the primarch opened his eyes.
The Avenging Son Awakens
Guilliman's resurrection immediately transformed the battle.
The Chaos forces attacking the Temple of Correction had been prepared to fight mortal soldiers and Space Marines, but they were not prepared to confront one of the Emperor's genetically engineered sons returning after ten thousand years of deathlike stasis.
The newly awakened Guilliman entered the battle with overwhelming force, shattering the Chaos attackers and turning the desperate defence into an Imperial counterattack.
The effect upon Imperial morale was enormous.
For generations, Guilliman had existed as a statue, a relic and an object of worship.
Now he was alive.
He was no longer merely the primarch of the Ultramarines preserved in a temple.
He was Roboute Guilliman, the Avenging Son, and the political and military consequences of his return were enormous.
Marneus Calgar willingly surrendered overall leadership of the Ultramarines to his gene-father, while Guilliman once again became Lord of Macragge and ruler of Ultramar.
He also restored the Five Hundred Worlds, reasserting the political unity of the realm that had gradually fractured during the ten thousand years since the Horus Heresy.
Within approximately seven solar months, Guilliman's strategic genius had helped drive Chaos forces from Macragge and much of Ultramar.
The primarch had returned.
But what he found waiting for him was almost as shocking as the enemies he had just defeated.
Guilliman Sees the Imperium of the 41st Millennium
Guilliman had been raised during an era when the Emperor promised Humanity a future built upon reason, science, unity and progress.
He remembered the Great Crusade.
He remembered an Imperium that had sought to destroy superstition and replace it with knowledge.
He remembered an Emperor who had presented the Imperial Truth as a path toward a rational human civilisation.
The Imperium he discovered after ten thousand years was almost the exact opposite.
Religion had replaced the secular vision of the Great Crusade.
Ignorance had become institutionalised.
Fear and suspicion dominated Imperial society.
The Emperor was worshipped as a god despite having once rejected the very concept of divinity, while the Imperium had become a vast, brutal and bureaucratic regime held together by endless sacrifice.
Guilliman had returned expecting to save the civilisation his father had created.
Instead, he discovered that the civilisation itself had changed beyond recognition.
The realisation caused the primarch profound spiritual distress.
Yet Guilliman eventually reached the conclusion that despair was not an acceptable response.
If Humanity had fallen this far, then someone had to attempt to restore it.
That someone would be him.
His next destination was Terra.
The Terran Crusade
Guilliman assembled an Imperial fleet from forces capable of reaching Macragge and prepared to cross the increasingly unstable Warp toward Terra.
Marneus Calgar was left in command of the Ultramarines while Guilliman departed with the force that would become known as the Terran Crusade.
The journey was immediately attacked by the enemies of the Imperium.
Near the Maelstrom, the fleet was intercepted by Magnus the Red and the Thousand Sons, and the Daemon Primarch used sorcery to cast Guilliman's fleet into the Warp rift.
The Terran Crusade became trapped within the Maelstrom.
World after world within the Warp subjected the fleet to daemonic assault, gradually reducing its strength and placing increasing psychological pressure upon Guilliman.
For a primarch who had already been forced to confront the destruction of his father's dream, the experience became another test of his resolve.
Then a message arrived.
The Aeldari Farseer Eldrad Ulthran communicated with Guilliman and provided a series of landmarks that could guide the Imperial fleet toward an escape route.
The journey remained catastrophic, however, because when Guilliman's survivors reached a vast graveyard of starships marking their route back toward realspace, they encountered another Chaos force.
This time they faced the Red Corsairs and Kairos Fateweaver.
Guilliman in Chains of Guilt
The battle with Kairos Fateweaver became one of the most unusual confrontations of Guilliman's return.
The Greater Daemon used psychic power to attack the primarch psychologically, binding Guilliman with chains created from his own guilt.
It was an attack aimed not merely at Guilliman's physical strength but at his mind.
The primarch was forced to confront the failures, deaths and decisions that had accumulated across his existence, and Kairos used those feelings to immobilise him and force the Imperial fleet into submission.
The Terran Crusade was captured and brought to a Blackstone Fortress hidden within the Maelstrom.
It appeared that Guilliman and the surviving Imperial forces had reached the end of their journey.
Yet another unexpected alliance intervened.
The Harlequins led by Sylandri Veilwalker entered the conflict alongside Cypher, the mysterious Fallen Angel whose loyalties remained impossible to understand completely.
Cypher eventually freed Guilliman and the surviving Imperial forces after receiving a promise that he would be brought before the Golden Throne.
The Harlequins then revealed that another route to Terra existed.
The path ran through the Webway.
Guilliman Against Skarbrand
The Imperial survivors fought their way through the Blackstone Fortress, encountering daemons aligned with Khorne and Tzeentch.
Their final obstacle was Skarbrand the Exiled One, one of the most terrifying Greater Daemons of Khorne.
The Bloodthirster attacked Guilliman directly after killing Marius Amalrich.
The Black Templars Marshal had nevertheless inflicted a critical wound upon the daemon with his Black Sword before dying, leaving Guilliman an opening.
The primarch seized it.
Guilliman fought Skarbrand in close combat and ultimately defeated the Greater Daemon, allowing the surviving members of the Terran Crusade to continue toward the Webway.
But their problems were not finished.
Magnus Waits for Guilliman
The Webway route eventually brought Guilliman toward a secret exit on Luna.
The danger was immediately obvious.
Magnus the Red had been waiting.
If Guilliman opened the Webway portal into the Sol System without defeating the Thousand Sons, Magnus could use the same route to launch a Chaos invasion directly into the heart of the Imperium.
Guilliman therefore faced another battle against his brother.
With the aid of Harlequins, Sisters of Silence and Imperial Fists, the Terran Crusade fought the Thousand Sons and drove Magnus back through the Webway portal.
The portal was then sealed permanently.
Only after this battle could Guilliman finally proceed to Terra.
After ten thousand years, the primarch who had been wounded at Thessala and placed in stasis on Macragge had returned to the world where the fate of Humanity had been decided during the Horus Heresy.
He was finally going to meet his father again.
Guilliman Meets the Emperor
Guilliman entered the Imperial Palace and eventually stood before the Golden Throne.
There he encountered something that affected him more profoundly than almost any battlefield victory or defeat.
He encountered the Emperor.
Ten thousand years had passed since Guilliman had last seen his father.
The being sitting upon the Golden Throne was no longer the powerful and charismatic ruler Guilliman remembered from the Great Crusade.
The Emperor's body had become a withered husk, and His consciousness had been transformed by ten thousand years of suffering, psychic strain and existence upon the Throne.
Guilliman communicated with the Emperor through psychic means, but the experience disturbed him deeply.
He did not encounter the warm father he remembered.
Instead, he sensed an overwhelming coldness.
The Emperor appeared less like a father welcoming a lost son and more like a creator examining an old instrument that had finally returned to his possession.
Guilliman could not know exactly what passed between them.
He could only interpret the experience.
And what he saw convinced him that the Imperium could no longer wait for another saviour.
He would have to become its leader.
The Return of the Lord Commander
After meeting the Emperor, Guilliman once again accepted the titles of Lord Commander of the Imperium and Imperial Regent.
The decision marked one of the most important turning points in Imperial history since the Horus Heresy.
Ten thousand years earlier, Guilliman had attempted to preserve the Imperium after the Emperor's defeat, creating the Codex Astartes and restructuring the Space Marine Legions so that no single Warmaster could ever again wield the concentrated military power that Horus had possessed.
Now he returned to a civilisation that had spent ten thousand years slowly deteriorating.
His task was no longer simply to defend Ultramar.
It was to defend Humanity itself.
The primarch therefore began preparing for an enormous military undertaking that would become known as the Indomitus Crusade.
His objective was not simply revenge against Chaos.
Guilliman intended to stabilise the shattered Imperium, reconnect isolated worlds, restore Imperial authority and push back against the enemies exploiting the birth of the Great Rift.
The Era Indomitus had begun.
The Beginning of a New Age
Roboute Guilliman's resurrection represented far more than the return of one Space Marine commander.
It was the return of a philosophy that had almost completely disappeared from the Imperium.
Guilliman remembered a civilisation that believed it could build something better.
He remembered the Emperor's dream of a united Humanity.
He remembered the Great Crusade and the ideals that had existed before the Horus Heresy transformed the Imperium into a fortress surrounded by enemies.
But Guilliman also understood that the Imperium could never simply return to the past.
Ten thousand years had changed Humanity.
The Great Rift had changed the galaxy.
Chaos had grown stronger, countless enemies were advancing, and the Emperor himself had become almost impossible for Guilliman to recognise.
The primarch therefore stood in an impossible position.
He was simultaneously a survivor of the distant past and the leader of the future.
He was a son returning to a father who no longer seemed human.
He was a rational statesman ruling an empire increasingly dominated by religious fanaticism.
He was a warrior created for the Great Crusade now forced to command a civilisation fighting for survival on an almost unimaginable scale.
And he was once again responsible for an Imperium that was far larger, weaker and more fragmented than the one he had known.
The resurrection of Roboute Guilliman did not restore the old Imperium.
It created the possibility of something new.
The primarch who had once built Ultramar from the worlds of the Eastern Fringe, who had survived the Horus Heresy, who had written the Codex Astartes and who had spent ten thousand years entombed beneath the Fortress of Hera was now alive in the darkest period Humanity had ever experienced.
The Emperor's dream had survived.
The Imperium had survived.
And now its most methodical, ambitious and relentless architect had returned to determine whether either could be saved.
The age of the primarchs had begun again.
The Era Indomitus was only the beginning.
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