Chapter 483: Behold the True Opponent
Life is a tapestry of the bizarre.
Just when one assumes the limits of the absurd have been reached, reality manifests a fresh lesson in the virtue of humility.
But Abaddon the Despoiler had never recognized humility.
He viewed the shifting whims of Fate with a clinical, tactical detachment—most of his successes were attributed to sheer, foul luck, yet every time he evaded the Emperor's retribution or turned a disaster into a "growth opportunity," a seed of arrogance took root in his soul.
Most of his contemporaries were ash.
The heroes, the curs, the sorcerers—they mostly drifted in the stagnant currents of the Empyrean now, either as former allies or bitter rivals.
Only he and a few of the "Old Guard" remained, along with a rabble of Chaos sycophants who lingered in the domains of the Four like spare machine-parts awaiting replacement, or like mediocre exhibits in a museum of the damned.
The circle was shrinking.
He remembered 'Little' Horus Aximand, his bickering mirror; they had shared a jest at Fulgrim's expense at the Saturnine Gate. He remembered Garviel Loken, his eternal rival; he remembered Tarik Torgaddon, the steadfast...
The best years were dead.
Abaddon did not mourn the survivors.
Eidolon of the Emperor's Children was a useful tool in his youth, but the rest of that flamboyant Legion was a void of substance. He had found the "barbarian" lifestyle of the White Scars during the Legion era intriguing, but those savages were impossible to truly know. Horus had foolishly assumed the Great Khan would turn against the Throne; instead, the Khan had delivered a lethal strike at the climax of the Siege.
Abaddon had slain them all—the veterans, the captains, the legends.
They faded, and he grew, building his infamy upon the ruins of the Great Crusade.
And he would do it again.
BOOM!
The "Maelstrom Wardens" struck first, lunging at the Bringers of Despair before the traitors could stabilize their formation. Their Tartaros-pattern Terminator plate was capable of short-range micro-warps, allowing for surgical strikes in the middle of a melee.
During the Great Crusade, the III Legion—the Emperor's Children—had mastered this art, utilizing their low numbers to decapitate command centers while their mortal auxiliaries held the line.
Huron maintained a constant link with the Ultramarines. Thanks to the "Old Guards" like Aeonid Thiel and the Chief Librarian Tigurius, the defenders had access to the tactical archives of Macragge—unabridged records of how to dismantle every Traitor Legion, cross-referenced and updated by the survivors of those wars.
Because the galaxy had spent ten thousand years in a state of stagnant rot, the 31st-millennium tactical protocols remained disturbingly relevant.
This gave the Maelstrom Wardens a lethal advantage. They weren't bleeding for lessons; they were executing proven scripts.
The first rule was absolute: No unauthorized teleportation.
Unless a Librarian presided.
Te Kahurangi, the Pale Nomad of the Carcharodons, allowed the Warp-glimmer to dance in his eyes. The blessing of the Raven Guard's lineage—the shadow-walk—enveloped his soul, masking his casting.
In a flash of displacement-blue, a third of the Maelstrom Wardens materialized within the Black Legion ranks. Silver-and-azure plate slammed into twisted daemonic carapace. Power-halberds met hell-forged blades.
The Wardens did not duel; they executed. Rift-weaponry flared. In a single heartbeat, four of the Bringers of Despair were disintegrated into atomic dust.
In previous ages, the use of such weapons would have torn the veil of reality, inviting more Warp-spawned horrors. But now, with the Dawnstar Lords asserting dominance in the Empyrean, the rift-weapons were being mass-produced for the elite.
For when a rift opened now, it was not always a daemon that stepped through.
"ROAR!"
Chaos was never a fair player.
The "Headcount Protocol" dictated that only 130 of Abaddon's men could survive the transit.
Very well, the Gods reasoned. If we cannot send men, we shall send the Neverborn.
CLANG!
Without reaching the threshold of a total Warp-breach, a series of localized fissures snapped open.
Mist, howling with the fury of a thousand storms, flooded the multi-leveled command sanctum, filling the thoroughfares with the stench of the Pit.
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
With a soul-shaking bellow, the first true monster emerged from the smoke. Treading over the wreckage of cogitators and shattered steel, a Bloodletter of Khorne—clad in brass-and-horn plate—stepped into reality. His presence was a visceral declaration of a single truth: the staggering disparity between mortal flesh and the raw power of the Empyrean.
He saw the heads before him—rare, precious trophies hanging from fragile necks.
The Bloodletter's war cry drowned out the mechanical shriek of its chain-axe.
A maw filled with obsidian fangs yawned wide.
It charged.
Behind it came an endless tide of the damned.
Yes, Abaddon thought, feeling his confidence return as he watched the daemons flood the deck. You cannot abandon me. You must provide the strength for my crusade, for I am the only actor you have left.
"I believe this is our first meeting," Abaddon said, his voice cutting through the din.
To his fury, Huron's face remained a mask of calm contempt. The Maelstrom Guardian stood at the rear of his formation, weapons ready, seemingly unbothered by the fact that his comrades were being swamped by hellspawn.
Huron knew something Abaddon did not. Ramesses had only promised to spare 130 humans.
BOOM!
Huron looked up.
Massive blast doors at the periphery of the sanctum were torn open by hydraulic force, startling even the daemons.
The sound of massive locking-bolts retracting echoed like a death knell. Heavy blast-shields slid upward, groaning in their tracks.
The rhythmic tolling of a bell was replaced by the high-pitched whine of hyper-reactors. A searing wind erupted from the openings, scattering the Warp-smoke.
Humanity's answer strode into the light.
The "Prime Motive" automata.
The Castellax-class battle-automata—massive, indestructible engines of the Dark Age—marched forward. These were not the stagnant relics of the Mechanicus; they were universal platforms optimized by the Lords of the Dawnstar,특화 (specialized) for the specific needs of the new era.
Each automaton was linked to a Magos who had merged their soul with the machine, directing their cohorts with the cold logic of the Noosphere.
They crushed the mulched remains of the carpet beneath their treads, lobbing gravitational-collapse grenades into the daemonic ranks. They advanced with a terrifying, mechanical arrogance.
Behind them marched the "Iron Circle" domitar-pattern units. No longer bound by Perturabo's spite, these machines had been repatriated to the Imperium after the Battle of Cadia. Their heavy footfalls hammered the brass-clad corpses of Khorne's spawn into the steel floor.
Imperial steel and Chaos filth collided in an arena of a dozen interlocking galleries.
It was a stalemate of the damned.
"Suppressing fire!" Huron commanded.
The remaining defenders deployed Hydra flak-batteries, normally reserved for air defense.
The quad-autocannons roared, spit-firing shells capable of punching through the side-armor of a Baneblade. They swept the area in front of Abaddon in a wide arc, the shells carefully timed to miss the Wardens engaged in the traitor's rear.
Squelch!
Flesh and metal were pulped.
Amidst Abaddon's furious roars, another rank of his dwindling warriors was mowed down.
Huron cared nothing for "Astartes Honor." He would posture during diplomacy, but in a kill-zone, he would use whatever "blasphemous" tools were at hand.
The influence of Ramesses had thoroughly scrubbed the romanticism from the loyalists. They did not view the traitors as brothers. They viewed them as pathogens.
A "restoration of history" had a side-effect: it stripped away the glamor. These traitors had forfeited their honor the moment they bowed to the Four. Duelist's etiquette was for brothers-in-arms, to ensure they could fight together another day. For these curs, there was only the purge.
The modern Astartes didn't need to prove their loyalty to a traitor; they had the validation of their Primarchs and the gratitude of the common man.
As the battlefield turned white-hot with the intervention of the Gods, the final reserve of the Maelstrom Wardens slammed into the front line!
The Chapter Masters and Champions guarding Huron locked onto their counterparts in Abaddon's retinue. High Marshal Helbrecht, acting as the Emperor's Champion, sought out the most powerful blips on his HUD.
Tyberos the Red Wake engaged Falkus Kibre. The "Lord of the Reaping"—a man whose physical bulk rivaled a Primarch—shredded two Wolf Brothers who were still reeling from the teleportation sickness, carving a red path through the hold.
Stibor Lazaerek of the Fire Hawks sought out Elak Vheren, the Lord of Raptors. The two veterans, once bitter rivals, had found common ground in the defense of the Maelstrom.
The Black Templars' Champion stood at Huron's side, the burning candles at his waist plating his black armor in a flickering, holy light.
Insolence! Abaddon thought. How do they dare?
These nameless nonentities, who had never known the fires of the Great Crusade or the gifts of the Warp... how did they dare challenge a legend whose name was carved into the stars?
Abaddon raised his blade.
He slew two Wardens with effortless ease as he advanced.
He had never been known as the greatest duelist of the Crusade—the title of "Swordmaster" belonged to Sigismund or Alajos—but with the "Nine-Dragon Strength" of the Four Gods flowing through his veins, he was a god among Astartes.
He moved through the melee like a ghost, each stride bringing him closer to Huron, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake.
He locked eyes with the Maelstrom Guardian.
"I believe this is our first meeting, Huron. 'Guardian' of the Maelstrom."
He spat the name with a weight that sought to crush Huron's identity.
"Heh," Huron crossed his arms, his posture one of pure mockery.
The Dawnbreakers' critiques and the presence of the legendary warriors around him had taught him one thing: reality.
Huron's job was to draw the aggro. The rest was for the specialists.
Abaddon took a sharp, furious breath.
"Your wit is sharp," the Despoiler noted, his voice a low growl. "Even Aximand lacked such a tongue. It is a pity."
"I shall take your head and mount it behind my throne. I shall keep your soul in my palm, and I shall squeeze it until you can no longer whisper the jests that please me."
His voice boomed, intended for every soul on the ship.
"You'll have to reach me first," Huron retorted dismissively. "Stop dreaming and look at the reality."
CLANG!
Abaddon's sword snapped up in a reflexive parry.
The attack had come from behind—from the trail of blood he had just carved.
Impossible.
Abaddon turned. He looked at a "Warden" who had just stood back up.
A massive hole had been torn through the man's cranium. At his waist, a lantern of warm, golden light pulsed.
The power was weak, mundane—it didn't even scratch Abaddon's plate.
But the Despoiler was frozen in shock.
He looked at the lethal wounds on the Astartes. He knew the biology of a Primaris Marine. He had struck to kill. No transhuman could survive that.
"What... are you?" Abaddon hissed.
He swung again, severing the man's head entirely.
"Stay down! I will have your master's head within seconds!"
He turned back to Huron, only to be met by a barrage of incoming fire.
The dead did not stay down.
The headless body continued to swing its blade. It moved with a mechanical, obsessive purpose, as if it would not stop until it had dismantled Abaddon piece by piece.
Other fallen bodies were rising. They were puppets controlled by a collective will, lunging at Abaddon and the Black Legionnaires who had just "killed" them.
One. Two. Three...
Familiar warriors fell and rose again. Fury erupted in Abaddon's chest.
Skull. Heart. Spine.
He delivered one lethal strike after another, but the bodies simply stood back up.
They roared the war cries of their Chapters, charged, fell, and rose again.
How many must I kill? How many times must I prove my dominance?
He was Abaddon!
Let them come! All of them!
His sword bisected a warrior he had already slain twelve times.
"ENDLESS! IT IS ENDLESS!" Abaddon bellowed. He smashed the lantern at the warrior's belt.
And then—
SHING!
A searing radiance erupted from the fallen form. The sound was like blood being boiled into steam.
Motes of fire. Sparks.
A flame ignited in the warrior's chest and spread like wildfire across his frame.
It crawled up his gauntlets, igniting the hilt and the shattered blade, forging a new edge from the white-hot heat that purged every flaw and crack.
The fire filled the holes in the warrior's armor. The ceramite was tempered by the heat, melting and reforming to seal the gaps.
The warrior burned until there was nothing left to consume but the fire itself.
Crimson patterns coiled around his body, pulsating like a heartbeat—shifting from bright red to a blinding, pure white.
Then, he charged Abaddon once more.
While the "Wolf Brothers"—resurrected by daemonic possession—healed through the growth of grotesque appendages, their opponents, the "Wardens," rose wreathed in the Emperor's holy fire. The two sides were locked in a loop of eternal slaughter.
On the surface of Badab, the Titan Legions of the "God of Fire" had breached the inner bastions. They were engaged in a point-blank exchange within the void-shield envelopes.
In the sky, the Aeronautica wings of the Maelstrom Aegis—operating craft reconstructed from ancient STC patterns—were air-striking the Chaos portals, painting targets for the orbital batteries. One by one, the Black Legion outposts were being erased.
But the Gods were not finished.
As the Black Legion launched its desperate assault, the hosts of the Four manifested from the carpet of corpses across the wasteland.
In response, the burning ranks of the Legion of the Damned arrived.
The Badab of today was a landscape of the impossible. The mortal and transhuman soldiers realized this was not Cadia. This was something entirely new.
The daemons prowled the ruins, but they had no time to hunt souls. They were being systematically butchered by the burning ghosts who had manifested alongside them.
The war in the Warp and the war in the stars were feeding each other, the intensity escalating toward a breaking point.
CRACK!
Abaddon swung his blade with numb, mechanical precision.
As he crushed a burning skeleton into ash with his boot, the sparks illuminated the golden glint in the Warmaster's eyes.
Huron was still there, waiting.
And Abaddon was still stuck in the middle of the room.
Whoosh!
More burning corpses lunged at him.
Abaddon had never missed Drach'nyen so much in his life.
"Is this the modern doctrine of war?"
Guilliman, the eternal student, gestured to the private data-link Ramesses had established for him.
He could see everything—from the void to the surface, from the macro-movements of the fleets to the micro-data of individual psykers.
"Mm-hmm," Ramesses pondered. He realized this scene might be a bit much for the Regent's first day.
"Mostly it's because the fighting at Badab is so intense and the Great Rift is so close. We can't just rely on the old ways while taking a beating, can we? This isn't the 'normal' protocol."
Normally, for the sake of civilian safety, they wouldn't thin the veil of reality. But when the enemy starts summoning Legions of daemons, you have to pull something out of your hat.
The Four Gods started it!
"..."
So this is a 'non-standard' engagement?
Guilliman watched the war for Badab in silence.
Is it... is it really?
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