The Final Battle of the Plague Wars: A Tale of Gods and Men
In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there was war. A war that would culminate in a climactic battle on IX between the loyal Primarch Guilliman and his traitorous brother Mortarion, now a puppet of the plague god Nurgle. The stage was set, the stakes were high, and the fate of an entire realm hung in the balance.
The Plague Wars were coming to a head. Nurgle’s forces, led by Mortarion and Kugath, were on the cusp of transforming Ultramar – Guilliman’s own realm – into a twisted Garden of Nurgle. Yet, amidst this looming catastrophe, a curious directive from the Grandfather of Plagues himself arrived – a call to withdraw and defend a distant outpost.
Undeterred by the directive, Mortarion and Kugath clung to their grand design. They had a new weapon, a terrifying disease known as the Godlight, and they were resolved to use it. Guilliman, despite knowing he was walking into a trap, felt a compulsion to save his realm, and thus, the battle for IX began.
The loyalist fleet first struck against the demonic forces of Nurgle, bombarding the Death Guard contingent. When Guilliman and Mortarion finally clashed, the battlefield was steeped in a miasma of death and decay. Yet even as they fought, the forces under Kugath’s command were feeding the Chaos forces in the sector by utilising the Cauldron of Nurgle, paying a dreadful price in countless lives.
The tide of battle turned when the Aartis, a force allied with Guilliman, managed to banish the Great Unclean One and destroy the Cauldron. This left Mortarion bereft of his unholy power source. Yet, even so, the traitorous primarch gained the upper hand, pinning Guilliman to the ground and unleashing the dreaded Godlight upon him.
Caught between life and death, Guilliman experienced a surreal vision of his meeting with the Emperor. Suddenly, he found himself imbued with holy energies, resurrected and able to channel the Emperor’s power directly, striking a blow to the Garden of Nurgle itself.
In this moment, Guilliman stood not only before Mortarion but also before the very manifestation of Nurgle. In a voice that was not entirely his own, he delivered a thunderous warning from the Master of Mankind, a message that caused a ripple in the warp so profound it caused thousands of sorcerers to weep blood.
Mortarion was banished, yanked back to the Black House of the Plague God by an unseen force. The traitor primarch was left alone with a displeased Nurgle, trapped within his Black House, as Guilliman used the Emperor’s power to lay waste to the Garden of Nurgle.
The loyal son of the Emperor declared his intention to the Plague God. “I am Roboute Guilliman, last loyal son of the Emperor of Terra. God of Plague, know that I am coming for you, and you will burn.” He gripped the sword of the Emperor two-handed and unleashed a wave of fire that devastated the Garden of Nurgle.
In the aftermath, Guilliman returned to the material world, victorious. The Death Guard found themselves without a Primarch in real space, though Typhus, the Traveler, continued to spread his nightmares. The Plague Wars ended with Guilliman’s victory, yet the corruption spread by the Death Guard continued to decompose the very fabric of reality.
This tale serves as a stark reminder of the eternal struggle between the loyal and the traitorous, the divine and the damned, and the unwavering resolve of a son of the Emperor. The Plague Wars may have ended, but the threat of the Death Guard, the infection of the Sons of Mortarion, and the insidious reach of Nurgle still cast a long, dark shadow over the 41st millennium.
Leave a Reply