Editing Abaddon (section)

===V2.2 Cicatrix Maledictum and Vigilus===
Now the [[Great Rift]] does not outright destroy the Imperium like the loss of Terra and Mars would, but the difference is akin to that of drowning in shit and merely being neck-deep in it. The "Northern" parts of the Imperium aka [[Age of the Dark Imperium|"Imperium Nihilus"]] are cut off from Terra and the [[Astronomican]], left at the mercy of Chaos with but two constantly contested corridors of stable space that loyalists can pass through; millions of worlds are lost in the depths of the Cicatrix as it spilled out; and random armies of daemons are invading realspace all over its borders. That being said it's not all (dark) sunshine and (chaos-infested) lollipops for Abby, either - the majority of his forces went all "Fuck yeah we won!" and left his crusade to pillage random undefended Imperial worlds, so Chaos forces are tugged in all directions, and with the collapse of his command structure, he cannot fully capitalize on the Imperium's weakened state.

Additionally, [[Roboute Guilliman]] came back swinging and more-or-less stabilized the Imperium Nihilus. So while Abaddon did give the Imperium a nasty wound, they still managed to hold on long enough to avoid bleeding to death. Plus now he has to contend with an actual honest-to-Emperor living loyalist [[Primarch]] directing the Imperium, so Abby's conquests are likely to devolve more and more into stalemates at this point. The [[War of Beasts]] is no exception despite things nearly looking like a victory for him until he's thwarted at the last minute. There are some highlights, he handily defeats [[Marneus Calgar]] in single combat in spite of the latter's Primaris enhancements, after getting knocked off his feet by an uppercut from the one of the others gauntlets (after getting his jaw cracked by Calgar's bare fist) and cleaving through Marneus's chest with Drach'Nyen, cleaving one of his hearts in the process and damaging the other enough to nearly kill him outright. Abaddon is prevented from finishing Calgar off as the ''Vengeful Spirit'' was on the brink of being destroyed by a scheme involving an Eldar stealth ship filled with Vortex Missiles. In his haste to retreat he [[derp|accidentally wipes out a full third of his own fleet, costing him the victory he almost had]], which allows the Imperials to slowly retake the planet. It seems like Abaddon has already begun work on his backup plan so even if Vigilus would not be captured he might still be able to take the Nachmund Gauntlet as reports speak of the dreaded Planet Killer reappearing.

In the latest development in Abaddon’s story to seize the gauntlet he apparently teamed up with an unaligned and unusually straightforward Chaos Daemon named [[Vashtorr]] who gave Abaddon enormous super ships called the [[Ark of Omen|Arks of Omen]] in exchange for Abaddon’s help. See Vashtorr was the guy in charge of the Forge of Souls aka the place where a daemon can become a [[Soul Grinder]], but apparently he was no longer was happy in being just an arms dealer for the Chaos Gods and wanted to become one himself. To do this he needed a certain piece of tech left by the [[Old Ones]] called the “dissonance engine” to serve as a key to reach and open a vault in the [[Webway]] full of powerful artifacts and knowledge behind from the [[War in Heaven]]. Unable to acquire these things on his own Vashtorr decided to forge a deal where he would give the Arks to Abaddon to keep and use to seize the Nachmund Gauntlet in exchange for Abaddon helping Vashtorr gather up the artifacts, a deal which Abaddon accepted. So over the course of a 5 book campaign the pair set to work and in the end actually managed to rebuild the engine…which as it turns out was actually just another name for the destroyed [[Dark Angel]] home world of [[Caliban (Warhammer 40,000)|Caliban]]…needless to say the Dark Angels were pissed upon finding and tried to stop this plan from happening only to fail miserably even with the aid of a returned [[Lion El'Jonson]]. In the end Abaddon and Vashtorr succeeded in rebuilding Caliban into a [[Daemon World]] called Wyrmwood and then used it to open a massive portal which allowed all the chaos aligned folks to escape, and leaving everyone else to pray that SOMEONE will be able to track down and stop Abaddon and Vashtorr before the latter can find and open that damn vault.