Chapter 486: Ramesses: Everything Follows the Protocol
The predestined trajectory of fate seemed to tilt, skewed by the Dawnbreakers' absolute disregard for cost.
The moment the Sovereigns descended, the mundane world flickered into insignificance. Every eye on the battlefield locked onto the most radiant figures in the arena.
The ancient Four, those primordial chess players, found themselves hesitant before these new rules. They harbored a virulent resentment toward the Dawnbreakers for treating them as mortal enemies to be slain, yet they could not resist leaning forward, necks craned through the Warp-rifts, staring with a mixture of greed and fury at the unfolding drama.
The air itself was hammered into physical shapes by the pressure. Shockwaves of sound and kinetic force exploded outward, lashing across Abaddon's face like whips of judgment.
The surrounding bulkheads buckled under the colossal gravity. The domains of the Gods were already attempting to reformat the sector—the plasteel and ceramite of the Star-Ring's frame, the adamantium skeleton beneath, all were being swallowed by the shifting veils of the Empyrean, turning the cramped corridors into a localized infinity.
Adamantium plating groaned as it warped. The remains of the dead and discarded wargear were ground into atomic dust. Wall decorations and deck-etchings stretched unnaturally, yet the space immediately surrounding the Lord of Knights remained immovable—a solitary peak of absolute reality amidst a sea of thinning rifts.
Decks deformed. Along the perimeter of Arthur's will, ceramite walls detonated in sequence, as if rigged with pre-set demolition charges.
Matter itself was surrendering.
Ensnared in a duel with flames that flickered between iridescent blue and agonizing pink, the Lion struggled to break the stalemate and reach Abaddon. Tzeentch was forced to pour power into reality, weaving spell after spell to entangle the Primarch's path.
The edge of the Lion Sword chipped, spraying shards of ancient steel with every strike. The ever-shifting form at the heart of the Tzeentchian fire manifested cracks. Ghostly blue flames shaved metal from the Lion's deep-green plate, which began to dent under the sheer pressure of the collision.
Energy surged.
Arthur's pure essence tore at the blood-light wreathed around the Sword of Khorne. The power of a C'tan, fused with a far more enigmatic strength, annihilated the supreme Warp-energies upon contact. It was matter meeting anti-matter—a series of catastrophic explosions that drowned out the rhythmic thunder of clashing blades.
Sound waves moved erratically through the tremors.
Light from a thousand sourceless origins shifted and flared.
The story of the mundane had ended. As Abaddon was yanked down like a marionette, dodging a lethal strike with ungraceful desperation, he realized he was no longer the protagonist of this tale. He had been evicted from his own war, rolling across the deck like a discarded marble.
The layers of matter and Warp began to peel away. From the outside, the scene was a chaotic masterpiece—a spilled bucket of divine pigments mixed with glittering shards and black oil. Through it all moved blades of silver and gold, untouched by the shifting colors or the destructive force, swirling together in a metaphysical vortex.
At the center of the storm, the Warmaster was a puppet. The Prince of Pleasure, having found a free hand, held most of the strings. Like a master performer, Slaanesh manipulated this cherished toy, making him weave and dodge, spending divine essence to deflect terminal wounds and buy time for an extraction.
The Dark Prince was not entirely pleased.
She would have preferred to take the Blood God's place, to savor a sensation even She had never truly experienced.
However, in a rare moment of unity, Tzeentch—ever the seeker of change—vetoed the idea. For Slaanesh, the vistas of the soul and the crossroads of a single life held more flavor than a simple Black Legion victory.
Above, the elegant and seductive projection of Slaanesh loomed. From Her fingertips, threads of fate descended. Manipulated by these cords, Abaddon, encased in his massive Terminator plate, moved with the fluid grace of a ballet dancer—a sight so bizarre and grotesque it bordered on the comical.
An invisible eye watched it all, recording every micro-second.
CLANG!
Once more, Arthur's blade met the Sword of Khorne. A spectral arm, emerging from the void without origin, barred the path between Arthur and Abaddon.
Upon contact with the Holy Blade, the arm—scaled in crimson—began to peel in a sickening display of necrosis. The skin ignited, dissolving into ash and cinders.
Arthur raised his hand, reaching into the air as if seizing a physical anchor.
The veil of the Empyrean was rudely torn aside. The eternal breath of rage and the spray of molten brass were dispersed, reduced to a harmless, scalding hiss.
Arthur pivoted, his blade following the motion, and struck down.
The hiss became a roar of fury, which in turn became a void, unable to reach the opponent before it.
The Blood God was incandescent with rage, but it was a rage without an outlet.
Khorne loathed these duels. No blood spilled. No feedback. No meaning.
For the Astartes—Huron, Helbrecht, Tyberos—there was no defense against the initial collision. Though they were dozens of meters from the epicenter of Arthur and Khorne's clash, the supernatural forces were blocked before they could reach them.
They were thrown back by the physical shockwave like bystanders at a high-yield detonation.
Their bodies were flung in different directions. Before they could strike the deck, the sinking of the Star-Ring fragment tossed them upward again. They spun and tumbled, hammered by successive waves of pressure, until they were literally embedded into the walls.
"Huron! Status! Are you alive?!"
The moment gravity reclaimed him and he struck the floor, Huron heard Helbrecht's urgent voice over both the vox and the thinning atmosphere.
"I stand!"
A squad of Wardens yanked him to his feet. They quickly scanned each other for structural failure.
The Apothecaries at Huron's side were already standing by.
Fortunately, their armor provided peerless protection. The reinforced adamantium skeletons built into the Terminator suits had prevented them from being impaled by the jagged wreckage. For warriors this heavily armored, mere kinetic impact was not enough to break them.
"Phew..."
Huron gasped for air, looking back with lingering dread at a snapped steel girder. If he hadn't been a cautious man—if he hadn't insisted on wearing the Cataphractii plate—that impact would have ended him.
Huron checked his seals and looked forward.
He saw nothing but a blur.
The exchange between the Gods was too intense, too fast for mortal senses. It was a vibrating pulse of existence, a sequence of infinite explosions tearing at everything that could not withstand the dissolution of reality.
Such power was beyond the comprehension of a mundane soul.
The battle had ascended to a level where transhuman strength, courage, and skill were reduced to insignificance. They were simply not enough.
"No. There is still work for us," Huron said, his gaze locking onto the grotesquely dancing form of Abaddon. He wanted to laugh, but he forced his face into a mask of grim resolve.
He judged the effective radius of Arthur's protection and spoke into the command link:
"Reserve units, secure my perimeter. Lord Helbrecht, Lord Tyberos—each of you lead a strike-squad capable of operating in standard conditions. I will provide the tactical navigation."
"Let us try once more, while the aegis still holds."
No one hesitated. They nodded in grim consensus.
Abaddon, surviving only through Slaanesh's whim, felt a chill that penetrated even his Warp-touched bones.
"Acknowledged."
The Four remained steadfast.
This time, they would not yield.
The overlapping fields of influence ground against one another, the rhythm of the battle shifting into a grueling stalemate.
They are certainly determined.
Inside the strategium of the Honor of Macragge, Ramesses watched as Arthur and the Lion were held at bay. He checked the status of the 19th, who was currently gatekeeping Great Daemons in the Warp. He pondered.
"At this rate, we won't reach the objective," Romulus noted, his eyes on the tactical display.
Compared to Guilliman, who looked like a man watching his first supernova, Romulus was the picture of calm.
The Four were resolute. Neither the Lion nor Arthur could get a clean strike on Abaddon.
Clearly, this was no longer just about the Warmaster.
Guilliman looked at Ramesses. "Will they fail?"
"Unlikely. I have a mountain of contingencies. If everything went according to plan on the first try, I'd suspect the Gods were setting a bigger trap. Plan B is ready—Lion and Master Art both carry the Nightbringer shards."
Ramesses spoke with a confidence that bordered on the sinister.
"As long as you have the metrics," Romulus said, pulling up a fresh spreadsheet for the secondary phase.
Guilliman watched the screens, transfixed. He was analyzing the Lion, deconstructing the power the Emperor had bestowed upon each Primarch, seeking the weaknesses and the counters.
He was beginning to accept the reality of this era. If he could hold his own against the likes of the Lion or Russ in a duel, it would be enough. He wouldn't ask for the impossible.
While they waited, Ramesses monitored the rapidly depleting energy reserves.
They actually intend to tank it?
He allowed a malicious smile to spread across his face.
"Boss," he voxed. "Initiate the Shift."
In the ancient myths of the Aeldari, there is a tale.
It centers on Khaine, the God of War.
During the War in Heaven, at the moment the War God led the Eldar heroes to victory over the Nightbringer, he was contaminated by the shards of his broken foe. A seed of True Death was planted within him.
From that moment on, the fear of oblivion haunted the God of War. It made him erratic, paranoid, and increasingly brutal.
Ultimately, driven by Lileath's prophecy that he would fall to the Eldar, Khaine chose to turn upon his own children.
This triggered the schism between him and Isha, the Mother Goddess, and Kurnous, the Hunter. It led to Asuryan closing the gates of the Pantheon. Isha and Kurnous were punished for aiding the mortals, then imprisoned by Khaine. Vaul attempted to save them by forging a hundred blades, but one was a fake—leading to Khaine's failure against Slaanesh and the total destruction of the Eldar Pantheon.
The myths were a mess of contradictions. Some stated Khaine had the blades before fighting the Nightbringer; others did not. The timeline was a nightmare.
Ramesses didn't care for the inconsistencies. He cared for the Nightbringer's ability: the power to infect a Warp-entity with the concept of Death.
Theoretically, the Four Gods were beyond such things. But it was an experiment worth running.
One cannot let the Gods withdraw with all their pieces intact every time they exert themselves.
Ramesses looked at his future contingencies. He had a dozen experiments waiting for a live subject. He would not waste this opening.
The Gods were indeed a problem.
The Lion tore through another Tzeentchian illusion and received the signal from Ramesses.
having synchronized their plan before deployment, the Lion knew the time for attrition had ended.
"Arthur!" he bellowed.
The voice pierced through a wall that even the Gods could not breach. Arthur's blade didn't stop.
"Understood."
A calm response came back. Breaking through Khorne's guard, Arthur's blade—which had been a pillar of holy light—was suddenly engulfed in a pitch-black fog.
The very atmosphere around him shifted.
A surging, entropic death-intent erupted from the wargear of the two Kings, exploding around them.
Before the fury of Khorne could react, Tzeentch let out a shriek of genuine horror.
The Lord of Change recoiled instantly, pulling the Blood God—the avatar of infinite war—in front of him like a shield.
Grey, dead sand began to swirl.
It was the curse carried by every sapient race. Even after losing their freedom, the shadow of the Reaper followed them, manifesting in ancient legends and myths, carved into the genetic memory of every species in the galaxy.
And now, guided by its masters, that myth was revealing its teeth.
No one knew how the Dawnbreakers had mastered a power more arrogant and malicious than Chaos itself, but there was no denying the result. They were wielding the essence of the Nightbringer.
The two Kings turned their gaze upon their opponents.
The Lion raised his hand; the fog manifested.
The Red Dragon swung his sword; flesh became ash.
Shards of grey-white steel flew from Arthur's flaming frame, piercing the claws the Gods had extended into realspace.
The divine avatars were licked by disintegrating particles. The fine sand—the essence of a C'tan—burrowed into the Warp-flesh, beginning a systematic dismantling of the frame.
Dust to dust. Ash to ash.
What is taken must one day be returned by force.
"DAMNATION!!!"
"IT IS THE NIGHTBRINGER!"
"HOW?! THE ENTITY'S WILL WAS SCRUBBED!"
"TZEENTCH! EXPLAIN THIS!"
The Four roared in shock.
Try your games, Gods. Use reality as your canvas. Achieve your ends.
But be prepared.
Prepared to leave something behind.
Amidst the cacophony of divine panic, the barrier holding the Kings at bay collapsed. The Holy Blade and the Lion Sword crossed the gap, meeting at the center.
Something had to be left behind.
Not the power drawn from the masses—no, those are easily replaced.
But a wound.
If it couldn't be Abaddon's throat, then it would be carved into the very essence of the Gods.
So far, Tyberos the Red Wake was the greatest threat.
The cold Shadow Lord used his massive claws to dismantle Abaddon's plate.
Abaddon had run him through twice, yet Tyberos possessed a frame that defied standard Astartes biology.
The Warmaster had already slain eight champions.
These "juniors," who cared nothing for dueling etiquette, charged him in packs. Bolter fire and stabs rained down. A Red Scorpion had finally breached his scarred left arm-guard.
Fortunately, the Empyrean watched over him. Lethal strikes were deflected or slowed, reduced to shallow cuts that Abaddon's constitution could ignore.
RIP!
A Star Phantom Warden was thrown to the deck, trailing blood.
The warrior, severed at the thigh, watched his own blood spray meters into the air.
CLANG!
A black blade intercepted Abaddon's follow-up.
High Marshal Helbrecht, the man who had ruled the Black Templars for a millennium, was the mirror of his ancestor. His swings were broad and powerful. Abaddon realized he had to kill this man quickly to focus on the rest.
Abaddon turned without a word, enduring the awkward pulling sensation of Slaanesh's strings as he stepped over the fallen Warden, lunging with a posture that—in his mind—held no honor, seeking to impale Tyberos.
As Tyberos was kicked back, Helbrecht let out a wordless war cry.
The Shadow Lord and the Black Knight fought back-to-back. They covered each other, maintaining a relentless pressure on Abaddon, constantly seeking a gap in his "turtle-shell" plate.
They parried, thrust, and hacked, weapons snapping against each other.
Then, they were all forced to endure a shriek that tore at the very foundations of the world.
The confrontation of the higher powers had ended.
Who won and who lost was unclear.
But in that instant, the Star Phantom captain—the man whose legs Abaddon had just severed—tossed a melta-charge. He hurled it directly into the rift torn open by the clash of heroes.
BOOM!
A torrent of solar-core heat erupted from the breach.
Severed limbs, shattered plate, and a black topknot wrapped in twisted Chaos runes fell to the deck.
"AAAAARRGH!"
Amidst a roar of unmitigated fury and loss, a blue electrical discharge flared. Abaddon—blasted into a broken, half-bodied ruin—finally vanished, saved by the Gods, leaving behind only devastation.
"WIN!"
Ramesses let out a cheer, beginning to calculate the damage dealt by Arthur and the Lion.
"And where exactly is the 'win' here?" Romulus asked. He was pained by the expenditure of resources, but he didn't want to dampen the mood. He offered a light-hearted poke.
"The objective of this operation was always fluid," Ramesses said, ticking items off his fingers for Romulus.
"One: If the Gods hadn't cared, we would have killed Abaddon. That's a win!"
"Two: Since they did care, Master Art and the Boss got to cut a pound of flesh out of them. That's a win!"
"Three: Even if Abaddon escaped, I've leaked all his little secrets. Plus the video we just took? I'm broadcasting that on the Warp-frequency right now. I want to see if he can keep his job as Warmaster when he gets back. His authority and legitimacy are in the dirt. Even if he stays in charge, he's a laughingstock. That's a win!"
"And since Abaddon is a ruin and the Boss and Master Art wounded the Gods? That's a Double Win!"
"So it's always a win, regardless of reality? You've been spending too much time with Tzeentch," Romulus remarked, compiling the data into a report.
It reminded him of ancient Terran generals who would cut a table to prove their resolve—no matter the outcome, they would frame it as beneficial to the cause. Resistance was the only path.
"I call it the Ramesses Doctrine of Total Victory!" Ramesses snorted, unbothered.
Making the Gods bleed was worth every soul spent. He was satisfied.
But it wasn't the end.
Ramesses leaned forward, contacting the Harlequins and the Ultramarines he had dispatched through the Webway.
He had broken the Black Legion's spirit. Now he would take their property.
Ramesses locked onto the strategic goal: the engines that had allowed the Chaos host to tear at Badab's veil.
He wanted the Blackstone Fortresses.
I hope the Warmaster hasn't fallen asleep yet.
Ramesses smiled a truly delightful smile.
His nightmare is only beginning.
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