Chapter 485: The Dark Gods, Brother... This is Not How You Play the Game
"You are the brothers of the Warmaster," Abaddon had told his warriors on the eve of the assault. "The powers of the Empyrean—those energies the Corpse-Emperor paints as lies—shall serve you as masters once victory is ours."
Yet, they had to survive long enough to claim that prize.
The Chaos offensive began to falter. Even the most fanatical cultist could see that the Warmaster, having lost his head in a fit of rage, was now facing a cold, hard reality.
Abaddon is preparing to flee.
Seeing that he could not break the encirclement of the Legion of the Damned, Abaddon's tactical intellect finally overrode his fury.
"Black Legion, withdraw!"
Far away on the Vengeful Spirit, Iskandar Khayon watched Abaddon's silhouette through his sorcerous sight. The outline of the Despoiler's body was flickering, a strange phenomenon as if an entity were constantly recalibrating his physical coordinates. It looked as though a thousand spectral wings were fluttering against the air, dragging him away from the reach of the Librarians' lightning and the vengeful shades of the Warp.
To Khayon, the massed ranks of the Black Legion now looked less like an army and more like a wall of meat meant to buy Abaddon a few more seconds of life.
The sorcerer sighed.
"Huron, keep the aggro on him," Ramesses commanded, checking the progress of the orbital drop.
"Abaddon! Traitor! Coward!" Huron's voice thundered, momentarily drowning out the roar of the autocannons. "Will you abandon honor and duty once more? Will you flee again, like the cur you are?"
Falkus Kibre was pinned, struggling against a coalition of Chapter Masters and elite units. The sound of power-weapons biting into corrupted plate echoed through the chamber.
Beside Huron, High Marshal Helbrecht was a whirlwind of steel. The legendary warrior swung his black blade with clinical rhythm—parry, riposte, cleave, crush.
Around him, the "Wolf Brothers" pressed in with feral hunger.
Black steel met daemonic claws. The claws snapped in a shower of sparks.
Daemons shrieked as they were forcibly exorcised from their vessels. The bodies of the Sons of Horus deflated like punctured bladders.
A fallen Legionary was little more than a hollow shell; his strength and unnatural bulk were entirely fueled by the Warp. These wretches were no longer the men they had once been. They weren't even Astartes.
When the "harmonious" symbiosis was torn away by the pressure of the fight, the truth was revealed: they were it, not he. They were piles of mindless gristle and bone, animated by Neverborn who were still unaccustomed to the limitations of a physical frame.
Whatever consciousness remained in those husks had grown too sluggish to wield their power. Their techniques, honed over millennia, had rotted. The spirits within were so exhausted they could do nothing but swing their weapons in a repetitive, mechanical reflex.
Abaddon ignored them all.
The remnants of the Black Legion began to cluster around him.
"Is that the best trash talk you've got?" Ramesses grumbled over the private link. "A jester like him won't even blink at such a weak insult."
He felt his previous demonstration had been wasted on Huron.
"Attack his pride! Be ironic! Hit the sore spots! Drop the formalities, Lugft. I gave you access to the open-source insult database for a reason."
"If you can't manage it, watch the Black Templars. Those Chaplains can turn a formal sermon into a lethal insult without breaking a sweat."
Huron felt a moment of embarrassment. Without guidance, the Loyalists defaulted to "Honor" this and "Duty" that. It held no weight. If Abaddon cared about honor, he wouldn't be the Despoiler.
Huron glanced at Helbrecht, who had cleared a wide circle and was beginning to breach the enemy line. He adjusted his position to keep Helbrecht and Abaddon in his line of sight.
"Perhaps My Lord should take the vox," Huron said, sounding slightly aggrieved.
After decades of running the Maelstrom, Huron was a tycoon of war. Astartes, Guard, Navy, Rogue Traders—everyone bowed to his logistical might. The Primarchs showered him with rewards. He was too happy to be good at being bitter.
"Tsk. Fine. Move aside," Ramesses said.
He felt the modern Astartes had become too... polite. Even their most abstract cultures had a certain rigidness to their speech.
Look at the "Three Great Legends" of the Crusade. They were masters of the blade and the tongue. Except for Sigismund, every one of them spat lethal insults mid-fight. Raldoron of the Blood Angels, the "Noble One," had once verbally dismantled a traitor until the man was too enraged to fight properly.
Even Sigismund had inherited Dorn's bluntness; he just used Fafnir Rann as his mouthpiece because Rann had the social grace of a chainaxe.
"It seems," 'Huron' spoke, his voice now booming with Ramesses' exaggerated authority, "that not only is your naval command inferior to mine, but your lackeys are unworthy to stand before my brothers."
"Do you intend to crawl back to your Warp-hole now? Will you slink to Horus's grave and weep? Will you mourn the fact that after ten thousand years, you have failed to achieve what Horus accomplished in mere decades?"
"ARROGANCE!" Abaddon's topknot whipped in the air as his temper flared.
He had retreated behind a wall of Wolf Brothers. The unnatural bulk of the possessed warriors made the Warmaster look small in comparison.
"And do not hide behind the spawn of Sigismund!" Abaddon roared, looking at Helbrecht.
In the past, Abaddon had never been shy about his contempt for the "Emperor's Champions." He had killed the first of them. He had seen the legends these successors could only dream of.
But the truth was that Sigismund had died of old age. The duel on the Eternal Crusader had been a desecration—an immortal fueled by the Warp against a man in the winter of his life. And Abaddon hadn't even managed to seize the ship.
Age had been the only thing that could drag the Black Knight down to Abaddon's level.
Recalling the past, dodging the flares of fire from falling Legion of the Damned specters, Abaddon looked warily at Helbrecht. The High Marshal was becoming a literal god of war with every swing of his blade.
Instinct told Abaddon not to lose his head.
The modern Imperium was "glitched." The Emperor's claws were reaching into reality. Abaddon was genuinely afraid that if he killed the High Marshal, something even worse would crawl out of the corpse.
A Sigismund in his prime.
Abaddon shook his head. He did not fear a challenge—he had tasted the blood of a Primarch (or at least Fabius Bile's clone of one). Но only those who had faced the Black Knight knew the truth: there was a gap between Astartes that a mere clone-kill could not bridge.
A swordmaster without the burden of age would not hesitate as the clone had.
What is the most important trait of a Warmaster?
Endurance.
"Huron! Step forward! Face me like a true Astartes!" Abaddon challenged, his Talon clicking in frustration.
"You dream too much. I am not like you, Warmaster. I do not need to seek validation through personal combat. I suppose that is where I am your inferior—perhaps it is your habit of leading from the front that makes you so certain every failure is a 'victory' in the making."
'Huron'—Ramesses—continued his assault.
"Why don't you try taking Badab first? Give me a reason to actually congratulate you."
RIP!
Under the combined assault of the Chapter Masters and the Legion of the Damned, Falkus Kibre, leader of the Bringers of Despair and legend of the XVI, fell in a spray of gore.
As the massive Tyberos the Red Wake dropped the decapitated head—a mask of conflicting agonies—the loyalists turned as one toward Abaddon.
But strangely, amidst the howling gale of the Warp-breach, the distance between them seemed to stretch. Their voices carried, but the physical gap became an unbridgeable chasm, as if the Gods had placed a rift between them.
"AAAARRGH!"
Abaddon's rage peaked once more.
That was all that was required.
The Gods had two modes of corruption.
The Slow Burn: Suggestion, temptation, and the gradual erosion of cognition over centuries until the soul rots of its own accord.
The Forced Injection: Utilizing a moment of extreme emotion or a link to a Warp-artifact to forcibly "level up" a vessel, overriding its will to achieve a specific result.
The former was cost-effective. The latter was expensive.
The latter had been the standard during the Great Crusade—tens of thousands of loyalists erased during transit, the forced fall of Horus, the hard-coding of the Custodes on the Vengeful Spirit, and the imprisonment of Dorn in the Blood Wastes.
By "coincidence," the Dawnbreakers never cared about the cost.
The Empyrean — A Void Unknown to the Gods
A multi-species team was gathered in a place beyond scrying.
Composed primarily of Eldar Farseers and human psykers—with a smattering of xenos whose lineages traced back to the Old Ones—they were working in perfect, clinical harmony.
These scholars were deconstructing the Warp, sharing data to formulate contingencies against the current state of anarchy in the Sea of Souls.
Orders were being dispatched through dedicated vox-operators to every departmental sub-office. The teams responsible for grand-scale casting utilized their specialized training to craft solutions for the galaxy's emerging threats.
In this sanctuary for the soul, they moved through an architectural collage of a dozen cultures, whispering and collaborating. It was more peaceful than any hive-city on Terra.
An invisible force moved among them, unnoticed.
He slipped through a doorway adorned with massive propaganda banners, swiped a tray of food from the cafeteria, and pulled a specific file from the archives.
"Romulus! Check this!"
Ramesses contacted the Regent, who had begun "fine-tuning" the Dawnstar Sector now that his administrative load had lightened.
A contingency plan was presented to the ruler.
Romulus skimmed it, his mind processing the variables. He signaled his approval with a mental keystroke.
Since the defeat of Mortarion, the mental energy the Dawnbreakers had gathered through their public triumphs had dipped significantly. They were spending their "capital."
Ramesses' gaze hardened. He wove the gathered psychic energy into a spell and vented it into the Warp, surging toward the Abaddon-node protected by the Four.
He would seize control of the Despoiler. He would drag him out of the comfort zone the Gods had built for him.
The rest was not his concern.
"Hmph. Threatening me in the Warp just because there's four of them... those stinking Neverborn actually think they can beg for scraps in realspace now?"
Ramesses sneered, chewing on a local delicacy from some forgotten world. I'll have to tell Romulus to put this on the canteen menu, he thought.
"I'll show them how to call for back-up."
"I will make you pay!"
Abaddon roared, his legs moving of their own accord.
The Warmaster didn't even notice he was moving. Amidst the Gods' fury at having another move countered, he stepped out of the protective circle of the Wolf Brothers.
"I will turn that rotting planet behind you into ash—"
Before he could finish his threat, a sudden implosion of pressure swallowed his words.
Both the Imperial and Chaos forces were suddenly bathed in a brilliant, blinding light.
The Lord of Knights manifested from the very air, surrounding them. Between the two strike teams, in a zone where the Warp had made distance a suggestion, he tore open a corridor of absolute reality. He stepped through the chasm the Gods had forged, anchoring everything in place with his silent, arrogant will.
Nothing could shake his conviction. He ignored the chaos around him, his eyes seeing only his objective. He stood like a King who viewed the entire universe as his rightful property.
The Lord of Knights. The King of Avalon. The Red Dragon who scorched the domains of the Dark Gods. The Master of the First. The Anchor of Worlds. The most terrifying entity the Warp had ever encountered.
Arthur Pendragon.
He came with his sword drawn.
BOOM!
With a roar that seemed to emanate from the Blood Wastes, the holy blade collided with a jagged, flaming greatsword that appeared from nowhere. Lava and sparks erupted, igniting the soot-choked air. Like a lash of crimson lightning, the impact threw the Warmaster of Chaos to the ground.
Abaddon staggered, gasping for air.
He felt as though his very essence had been struck. A searing heat roared in his chest, squeezing his primary heart.
The knight in black-and-red plate held his glowing blade inches from Abaddon's gorget. The strike was blocked by a dark blade held by a massive, spectral arm. Gold hair whipped in the wind behind the knight; his armor and blade swallowed the bloody light of the room, reflecting only a warm, solar gold.
Facing this, Abaddon felt an unbidden surge of awe.
The fury released by the Blood God was like an infinite volcano, erupting to tear the earth beneath their feet, yet this power was held steady beneath the Lord of Knights' boot.
The bestial rage was gone, replaced by a pure, clinical contest of strength.
Blade against blade. In a whirlwind of debris, they wrestled. The escaping energy dispersed the nearby daemons, vaporizing everything the edges touched.
At point-blank range, Abaddon could sense the Blood God's frustration—the feeling of having infinite strength but no leverage to apply it. And in his ears, the Lord of Change was shrieking.
RUN! HURRY! GO! BACK INTO THE WARP!
Arthur looked up.
His emerald eyes swept over Abaddon's form.
In that moment, a pressure that felt entirely non-human descended upon Abaddon's soul. His mind went blank. The voices guiding him vanished.
Simply by entering Arthur's perception, Abaddon felt himself becoming weak. His senses blurred; his organs began a low, thrumming groan of failure.
The surrounding Black Legionnaires suffered the same fate. The daemons began to loathe the physical bodies they inhabited. The Nurgle spawn simply dissolved into piles of gristle and bile amidst a chorus of wails.
Driven by a primal instinct for survival, Abaddon broke free from the malaise. He turned away, letting the Sword of Khorne hold the knight at bay. Stripped of his Warp-blessings, he found even his Terminator plate felt sluggish and heavy.
He flung his tattered cloak over his shoulder and ran. He had only taken a few steps when he froze.
Behind him stood another wall—a barrier of infinite crisis. Surrounded by his remaining Wolf Brothers, he saw only a void.
But he smelled a change. In the Warp, his nostrils flared as he shook off the discomfort of the previous exchange. There, at the point of his intended egress, something was waiting. Something buried deep within a miasmic forest.
Curse it all! How can there be a forest on a Star-Ring?!
Abaddon took another step, forced to ignore the duel behind him that he couldn't stop watching. His eyes fixed on the mist.
The shadows shifted. The gap between worlds began to slide and overlap. Light, distorted by the Tyndall effect as it pierced the fog, began to pulse. It seeped from the Warp like a physical blade, piercing the membrane of the material universe.
Shadow and light danced around each other, coalescing into a towering giant atop a structural pillar—a being of fierce, golden radiance.
Abaddon did not see the Lion manifest.
One moment, the scene was a blur of clouds and condensation on the shattered hull; the next, the Lion was there. Solid. Real. Standing upon the pillar with the Lion Sword unsheathed. Spectral leaves drifted through the compartment with his arrival, before slowly vanishing.
As Arthur held back Khorne, the Lion lunged. No mercy. No hesitation.
The voices in Abaddon's head returned, letting out a scream of pure resentment.
Iridescent feathers erupted into the air. Constantly shifting limbs and eyes intercepted the Lion's path, entangling with him. The resulting explosion of energy kicked Abaddon away like a ball.
He rolled clumsily across the deck, struggling to his feet. He looked around.
Ahead: Arthur, locked in a stalemate with Khorne.
Behind: The Lion, entangled with Tzeentch.
In the pocket between them, amidst the pulverized remains of his Wolf Brothers, the Great Warmaster of Chaos stood wide-eyed and shaking. He gripped the floor, utterly lost, like a child who had wandered into a playground meant for giants.
This was a conflict of a higher order.
And Abaddon could do nothing. He was merely the trophy being contested in this exchange.
Nothing more.
The Red Dragon and the Lion were relentless.
Khorne and Tzeentch would not yield.
Are you kidding me? the Gods thought. Going to this length for a bunch of humans?
Faced with the Dawnbreakers' reckless investment—forcing a confrontation that should have been avoided—even the Gods were momentarily dazed.
You're literally burning souls like firewood for this!
Look, you can't just storm into our manse and grab our mass-produced pawns. The Great Game isn't as low-stakes as reality; we can afford a loss. But why are you working so hard to keep a Jester on the board?
This "spending everything on Humanity" thing is bad for business. Very bad.
Listen to me, brother. I won't steer you wrong. Try this instead—
Move into the Warp. Set up a stable little vault. Grab a point on the Eight-Pointed Star. Grow some devoted followers. Draft some contracts to suck them dry and secure your interests. Put in a little bit of effort for a distant future, then come to us for a small loan. Let us buy in. We can all shear the sheep of realspace together. Life will be good!
Instead, the Dawnbreakers were not only opposing them but disrupting the entire market.
The Gods raged, pouring their power into the struggle with bitter reluctance.
So many "white-hot" souls being spent on mortals—
What a waste!
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