He did see mortal battlements. From them flew the banners of the traitor Legions. He saw signs of what he thought might be Horus’ dark empire. But the hints were few. The signs were scant. It was as if the possibility was not truly considered, or the fact not important enough to register more strongly in the mosaic of insanity.

Reality was dead. Its corpse lay open to the devouring jaws of the warp. The blood of the materium flowed in the form of a million shrieking worlds.

This is the choice, said the voice, if you refuse my aid.

I will not choose this, Sanguinius thought. I will not allow it. He turned his eyes from the great ruin. He turned into the great dark, and he struck into it with the Blade Encarmine. He stabbed it as he had stabbed Horus in that one future where there was light.

He tore the dark and the light rushed out, enveloping him, restoring him. He welcomed the blindness that came with it. It pulled back to the sound of a great fanfare.

He saw the triumph of the Imperium.

The loyalist forces turned back the tide of the traitors. Terra was triumphant. In orbit, its master dead, the Vengeful Spirit was a gutted shell. On the Avenue of Reason’s Victory, Sanguinius stood over Lorgar’s body. He had impaled the primarch of the Word Bearers through the chest with the Spear of Telesto. Behind Lorgar, the wreckage of Land Raiders and Rhinos of the XVII Legion formed hills of twisted, smoking metal. The corpses of Word Bearers were uncountable.

Perturabo kneeled before Sanguinius. His armour was shattered. Within and without, the iron had been smashed.

In the distance, Sanguinius saw Guilliman and the Lion leading more of their fallen brothers in chains, bringing them to the site of their surrender.

Loyalist forces freed world after world. The fleets were even larger than during the Great Crusade, so massive was the Imperium’s response to the traitors, so decisive its retaliation. Ships of crimson and of gold, of blue and of white, of black and of grey, of all the colours of fealty, all of them shining with the light of justice, stormed through the void. In their collective might, they were a sword. They were his sword, striking across the entire galaxy. His blow rescued his father’s dream and burned away the desolation of Horus. The ascendancy of the dream was assured now. Eternity was subject to the rule of the Imperium.

This is the choice. Follow me to triumph.