Editing Dante (section)

==End Times==
{{Topquote|Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.|Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors.}}
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In the novelisation, there is a prophecy made by Sanguinius about the End Times, where a great, golden warrior will stand between the [[Emperor]] and the darkness. Dante believes that this golden warrior is him despite most Blood Angels assuming it refers to the Sanguinor. Dante used to castigate himself for what he saw as his vainglory, but he is now increasingly convinced that this warrior is indeed him, holding onto it as his reason to keep fighting through increasingly terrible odds. 
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"I fear what I have seen. My visions plague me with darkness. So little of comfort can be gleaned from them. The consequences of our victory are dire indeed, as I have described in these writings, and yet there are some things I cannot bring myself to record, visions so dark that they fill my heart with despair.

The dreams of my father are dead, that is certain. Long aeons await of war and suffering that would break the heart of the Emperor to perceive. He never showed any sign that He saw the dark future advancing towards us. Does He know? I cannot credit that He does not. My gift of foresight – if gift it can truly be named – descends from His, and His is more potent than I can conceive. Time and again I have asked myself, did He always know, and did He foresee all that has come to pass? Or was He, like me, taken unawares? The brighter future I once saw has been burned to ashes and a second, rotten potentiality raised in its place. I curse you, Horus, I curse you to the end of days. I have written too often on these matters. I still cannot divine the answer. I shall instead write down my dream of last night. This brought some comfort to me when no comfort ought to be expected, and is thus worthy of record.
Dante unrolled the scroll, exposing the next page.

There shall come to pass days of great darkness, when mankind is diminished and all the lights of the world shall be extinguished, and the final scraps of hope torn away. I dreamed I was upon a plain of black sand studded with diamond stars. In the dream there was [[Tyranids|a great hunger]] that pervaded all time and space, a more terrible and consuming appetite than the thirst that dogs my sons. It rose from the east of the night, and swallowed the moons of Baal that coursed across the unfamiliar sky. Before Baal Secundus was consumed, a bright light flashed upon it and sped away, outpacing the shadows.The hunger spread rapidly, bloated by its meal of my home. Fortified by the blood of Baal, the formless hunger took shape, becoming a ravenous dragon that consumed the stars in great mouthfuls, until the only light was the memory of their glory, trapped in the diamonds on the sand. As the last star was eaten, the hellish Octed of the traitors burned through the western sky, writ in fire on the starless void. Then this too went out, and I was alone in the dark.

Shadows swirled and parted. The vision lost its disguise of metaphor, and I looked upon a scene that may be a true echo of the future. I saw my father. Ruined. Broken. I knew it was Him, though His body was little more than a corpse, for I could feel His mind. His power was much reduced in potency, and I could feel no sense of consciousness there, merely raging, ungoverned power that threatened to obliterate my sleeping mind. This living corpse of my father was trapped in machinery that fed His soul the essence of others. I do not know if I should commit this to paper, even in my private writings. He cannot ever know of this fate, if He does not already. Or is He aware, and makes this choice between that life in death and the utter destruction of mankind? If so, my respect for my father grows.
As the guns of the Warmaster pound at the walls of the Palace, perhaps this miserable reality is the best that can be hoped for. Perhaps this is what I must die to ensure.

The hunger came for my father. The puppets of the Dark Gods clashed with the hunger for the pleasure of killing Him. There was a warrior in gold before the throne, surrounded by my father’s Custodians and other heroes who, mighty though they were, paled next to the lords of our days. There they fought, and there they died. The vision ended as the devourer of flesh and the devourers of souls closed in on my lord and creator. There was despair only, despair and more despair. But before I woke something more. I sensed stirring in the warp, and the touch of my father, His mind made anew, and the knowledge that all might be well.

As I am fated to, so too did this golden warrior lay down his life to protect my father. The precious seconds he bought with his blood could change everything, or they could change nothing. Maybe the vision is false. I pray the future is mutable, and so it has proved in the past. All but the moment that draws near, the reckoning when I must face my brother. That I cannot avoid.
I do not know who this golden warrior was. He appeared similar to my Herald, and I saw my own face depicted upon his mask, but he was not me, and he wore a form of armour I do not know. It is certain that he was one of my sons, and whether his sacrifice will prove to be in vain or not, I know this: that he was a noble warrior, true and purer than any of his age, and I love him for that, for it means that my works for the Emperor, at least, have not been undertaken in vain, and that my unavoidable death might also prove fruitful."</div></div>

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Another prophecy concerning Dante comes from the WotDM infobook. In-universe, this prophecy was made by Sargon Eregesh, the Storm Oracle of the [[Black Legion]].
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{{Topquote|In the Time of Ending, we will see the final flight of the Dead Angel’s Host. They rise above us on howling wings. They fall upon us in a celestial storm. At their vanguard flies the Last Archangel. To the Neverborn, he will be the Death-that-Soars. To you and I, he will be a mortal man bearing the immortal face of his fallen father. To the Imperium of Man, he will be hope. A warrior of infinite courage. A soldier of infinite sorrows. Beware the golden mask that forever stares and never smiles, weeping tears of frozen gold.|The Mourner’s Prophecies.}}

This prophecy is independent of the one made by Sanguinius, but it is clear that the fluff has Dante fated for some epic climax. He is tired after sixteen hundred years of service, and clings onto the prospect of a final battle as personal motivation in these dark times.</div></div>

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Finally, this account of Dante's situation from the ''Shield of Baal: Exterminatus''.
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For over a thousand years, Commander Dante has been Chapter Master of the Blood Angels. Amongst the greatest of Adeptus Astartes lords, he has overseen centuries of war across the length and breadth of the Imperium. Always clad in ancient gold artificer armour, he wears the Death Mask of Sanguinius, which bears the likeness of his Primarch. To the Emperor’s armies Dante is a golden god and the doom of the enemies of Mankind, while to the Blood Angels he is revered and respected like no other since the days of Sanguinius. Dante’s deeds are legend across the Imperium, from slaying the Bloodthirster Skarbrand before the gates of Pandemonium to vanquishing the Eldar pirates of Ruden III; from freeing the Tau bond-world of Vetrim from its deceitful overlords, to winning victory during the Second War for Armageddon against the Ork hordes of Warboss Ghazghkull. And yet for all his triumphs a shadow hangs over Dante. The Chapter Master feels the weight of years of war heavy upon him. He has been forced to witness the slow degeneration of his battle-brothers as they succumb to their genetic curse. Like Sanguinary High Priest Corbulo, Dante hopes for a cure to the blood madness that afflicts his kin. Yet with every passing year that hope dwindles a little more. Only one thing keeps Dante from giving in completely to these doubts, a prophecy recorded in the oldest of the Chapter’s records. Penned by the Primarch himself, it speaks of a golden warrior standing in defence of the Emperor’s throne during the final battle for Mankind. Dante believes that he is the one the scroll speaks of, and so he fights on, awaiting the day when he will be needed to hold back the darkness one last time.</div></div>

The ''Devastation of Baal'' gives strong traction to the possibility Dante is the Golden Warrior of Sanguinius' prophecies.