Chapter 487: Drag the Blackstone Fortress, Strike Badab!
The roar echoed through the void.
In the material realm, the jagged blades wreathed in the Blood God's fury shattered, dissolving into grey ash.
Stung by the metaphysical wound, driven to a frenzy by the loss of his essence, Khorne let out a bestial roar. The Chaos energy that had sustained this entire theater of war withdrew from realspace without warning, like a tide retreating before a cataclysm.
It was as if a slug, which had expanded to engulf a sphere and digest its contents, had been pierced by a hidden needle from within. The greedy, infinite hunger recoiled in sudden, sharp pain.
As the torrent of falsehood receded from the surface of Badab and the ruins of the Star-Ring, the shackles of Chaos slackened. The power and "gifts" of the Eightfold Path abandoned their slaves, leaving behind a host of solitary, shivering wretches exposed beneath the cold gaze of a thousand defenders.
The disappearance was so total and so abrupt that the traitor forces still engaged on the surface fell into a state of paralyzed bewilderment.
The boiling blood in their veins cooled. As the searing lances of plasma—hot as planetary magma—swept through their ranks, vaporizing entire squads into superheated gas that ignited the very air, a chill of absolute mortality descended upon them.
Some dropped their weapons. Others stood dazed, frozen in place like statues of meat, staring into the void before being erased by bolter fire.
They broke and fled, only to be hunted down like vermin in the ruins.
It was as if these fanatical cultists had been lobotomized in an instant, their courage drained away alongside the red mist in the sky. A massive hole appeared in the atmosphere where the Warp had previously bled through—a jagged breach through which the stars shone with a terrifying, clinical purity.
The presence that had defined them, the power that had granted them the illusion of godhood, was gone.
Countless souls, emboldened by this decisive strike, tore themselves free from the claws of the Empyrean. Supernatural power vanished from this world so quickly and so utterly that those still drowning in the aftermath could only hope the threat would not return.
Only the passage of time—stumbling yet forward-moving—would reveal the truth.
It was not enough.
Arthur stood tall, his blade sheathed. The grey sand of the Nightbringer's essence was slowly being recalled into his wargear. The aura of death, cold as the void between galaxies, dissipated, making the two towering giants look less like monsters and more like men in the eyes of the survivors.
Arthur calculated the attrition. He thought of the minute scar the Nightbringer's remains had left upon the Blood God's essence, and he glanced at the star map where Khorne's legions still ravaged a hundred other worlds. He let out a low sigh.
The Gods are afraid, yes. But a pinprick is just that. As long as they avoid our direct presence, they will remain unrestrained.
It was not enough.
Arthur's gaze settled on the Astartes around him—warriors who, until a moment ago, had been like fish struggling in a storm, powerless against the divine.
Two individuals, even if they were Kings, were not enough.
"What troubles you?" the Lion asked, sheathing his own blade.
He, too, was conducting a tactical review.
From the seamless transit within the Webway facilitated by the xenos, to the direct confrontation with the powers of the Empyrean.
Beyond Arthur's mastery of the star-god's power, they had won because they possessed physical forms that were whole in the material world.
The Lion wondered how the Emperor had truly forged them—part of their essence was anchored so firmly in realspace that it allowed them to act with near-total impunity once they realized their nature.
If the whole of the Heresy had been fought on these terms, the Lion mused, the war would have burned the galaxy to a husk.
"I wish for the power we hold to be shared with more than just the few," Arthur replied. He tapped the hilt of his sword.
"Not just titles. Not just rank. But this."
A distribution of power was currently a logistical impossibility. While the Dawnbreakers were masters of statecraft, the core of centralized authority had to remain with them. The galaxy held too many traps. Only a handful of individuals could withstand the Warp's "off-board" attacks. To hand over the keys to the kingdom to anyone else would be to raise a dozen new warlords for Chaos to corrupt.
The Dawnstar Lords viewed themselves as the experimental variable—the ones who would find a way to ensure Humanity could survive in this universe without them one day.
But the central conflict remained unresolved.
They had reached a strategic stalemate. Led by the Primarchs, Mankind could now strike back. They could even storm the domains of the Gods. But the road ahead was dark and uncharted.
The random manifestations of daemons across the galaxy were a plague. Eventually, they would have to seize the initiative on reality-switching—creating zones of absolute security where the Warp could not touch the material.
As for the Gods... Nurgle was a prisoner of his own denial, terrified of change. The other three had no such weakness. They treated the galaxy as a sandbox.
The previous attack was, at best, a toddler tripping a giant. The giant had stubbed his toe on the table.
They were still a long way from the LEGO bricks on the table jumping up to bite the Gods' throats.
"That is a long and arduous road, brother," the Lion noted. He was skeptical, but he did not dismiss the dream.
He believed in miracles now.
The Lion looked around, his mind spanning the ten millennia of his exile.
The trust of these new brothers. The shedding of his burdens. The honors he had craved. The reverence he had earned.
He had spent half his existence as an abstract enigma. Now, he was alive and enjoying the fruits of victory. Was that not a miracle in itself?
"One step at a time," Arthur said with quiet optimism.
"Once it was just us. Now we have you, and Guilliman, and Corax. We must not be impatient. Master the present. Seize every opening."
But then, the logic stalled.
The Primarchs were unique. The Custodes and Astartes were a tier below, and the mortals further still. To expect a common man to fight a God was a theoretical nightmare.
How do we grant the many the power of the few?
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
A thread of thought began to coil.
Arthur's understanding of the power of the mind was deep—he was the literal manifestation of it. He didn't operate on the Warp's system; he defined the reality of his own perception.
The human soul was anchored to the Warp. Reality and the Empyrean were two sides of the same coin. To free Humanity, they had to seize the power of definition within the Warp. They had to force the Immaterium to recognize human traits as absolute, just as Khorne defined the meaning of blood and steel.
During the Siege of Terra, it was recorded that Khorne's followers could earn blessings simply by decapitating a tank's turret as if it were a head. The definition was the power.
Arthur thought of the "Large Sun" within the Warp—the Emperor.
If Humanity can truly kill a God, will the Warp recognize the act?
Arthur looked at the Lion, then thought of the brothers still lost to the dark.
He shook his head slowly.
Not yet. The foundation is too fragile.
The material universe was too unstable. Their FTL networks were still in the cradle. They couldn't support an operation of that magnitude.
"What are you plotting now?" the Lion asked.
He felt a sudden chill, a sensation that made him feel as if he were personally ordering the bombardment of the Imperial Palace walls again.
"A theory. It requires coordination. It is unready for the light," Arthur replied, casting the thought aside.
"Come. We must consolidate the Badab defenders. This defense grid needs your touch."
Having purged the Warp-influence, Arthur allowed his trademark smile to return.
"Besides—"
"You fought well, Elder Brother."
At least the Lion never dropped the ball in a meat-grinder. He was evolving toward the "Complete Form" that Corax had achieved.
Arthur signaled Ramesses to send a "blessing-burst" to the 19th.
Private discourse had no room for ritual. Back on Earth, a simple "thank you" followed a delivery; why should it be any different for the warriors who bled for them?
The Lion's beard twitched. Hearing the chorus of praise over the vox—interspersed with a very reluctant, grumbling compliment from Guilliman—he spoke:
"I know," the Lion emphasized.
"You need not keep repeating it."
It was over.
The field of vision widened as the friction of the descent increased.
Walls, decks, ceilings—everything shuddered. Through the jagged cracks in the hull, they saw salvos of lance fire raining from the void. The batteries were targeting the falling fragments of the Star-Ring that had reached a dangerous altitude, vaporizing the asteroid-sized wreckage into harmless dust.
Huron and his battered warriors stumbled across the tilting deck, moving to meet the two Primarchs walking toward them.
Helbrecht was largely unscathed, though he looked spiritually exhausted from the endless onslaught.
Tyberos had been restored by his Apothecaries; he had survived nineteen separate impalements. Beside him, the Librarian Te Kahurangi held the "Laer Blade" that had inflicted those wounds.
The Sons of the Raven had become experts at handling Chaos artifacts over the last thirty years. With Corax's presence in the Warp acting as an anchor, they could handle daemon-steel without succumbing to its rot.
The Apothecaries had secured the remains of Abaddon: a left arm, a severed leg, and the black topknot still attached to a piece of his skull.
The rest was gone—reduced to ash in a containment jar. It had been a melta-burst, after all.
On a makeshift litter composed of welded steel plates, lay the warrior who had thrown the charge.
Captain Androcles of the Star Phantoms.
The Star Phantoms, along with the Executioners, Red Scorpions, and Fire Hawks, were the "Thirteen Wardens of the Maelstrom" designated by the Dawnbreakers. During the reinforcement of Ultramar, the 9th Company Captain had volunteered to lead the vanguard to Badab.
The Lion crossed his arms.
Unifying the collective mind is not my department, he thought.
"You fought with distinction," Arthur said, raising a hand before Huron could offer his apology for the Despoiler's escape.
"Because we have warriors as courageous as you, the Gods were forced to pay a price. The Four were paralyzed by Abaddon's fragility, while we were empowered by your defiance."
"Do not blame yourselves, warriors of Mankind."
Arthur repeated the sentiment with absolute gravity.
"You fought well."
Huron bit his lip, bowing low. "Your praise is excessive, My Lord."
The Lion stepped forward, assuming direct command of the survivors from Huron.
Arthur moved to a surviving console, pushing aside the slumped form of a dead rating. He expertly re-routed the vox-lines. The machinery, shattered by Chaos and combat, began to knit back together. Even the hull plating, ravaged by the Warp, seemed to stabilize under the influence of the World-Shaper's power.
He switched the channel to a ship-wide broadcast and gripped the speaker.
"Crews of the 'Steel Ring' platform!" he thundered.
Every soul in the sector heard his voice—including those who had merged their spirits with the machinery.
"You can see it for yourselves. You can hear it. There is no need for words: our defense of this position has reached its conclusion."
Through the viewports, the surface of Badab was rushing up to meet them. The descent looked slow, almost graceful, but Arthur knew it was a relativistic illusion.
This sector had fulfilled its purpose. As had the men who bled within it.
"Honor dictates that I should permit you to stand your ground and offer your lives to the Emperor. It is a noble end."
Arthur continued:
"But in this instance, I advise against it."
"Below us, on the soil of Badab, a counter-offensive led by your brothers has begun. We all know the magnitude of the victory we have achieved this day. I believe that in the future we shall build together, we will take many more traitors with us. That future is one I am not yet satisfied with."
The shaking intensified.
The external view was entirely obscured by a wall of fire.
The metal emitted a chorus of shrieks. The Lion's troops began their extraction; the emerald mists of the forest swallowed them.
"We need not go down with the ship. We are not the sailors of the Old Age. Because we have won this war, our names will be remembered. Your names, the names of your units, the names of the bastions you held—they are etched into history."
The outer shell of the ring-fragment began to disintegrate. A massive rift tore through the western sector. The screaming of the metal reached a crescendo as the atmosphere roared into the breaches. The outer hull finally shattered into tumbling shards, sweeping up from the lower decks.
"When the victory is announced, stand tall! Be as proud as any champion of the Emperor!"
He gestured.
A swarm of escape pods punched out into the fire.
"We have been given a chance."
Atmospheric craft spiraled out of the hangars. They did not flee; they hovered at the breaches, utilizing restored vox-links to pull survivors from the wreckage.
"We seized that chance."
Arthur allowed a genuine smile to touch his lips.
The fire receded from his vision. He cast one last glance at the crumbling world around him. This fragment no longer held any trace of life. Its mass was being eroded by the friction of the air, reduced to cinders.
It mattered not.
The sectors cleared by the ground forces were immediately occupied by the Aeronautica. Under absolute air-supremacy, the ground forces had all the time they needed to secure the landing zones and welcome their comrades.
The creator lived. The master lived.
BOOM!
The ship shattered, its groan lost in the thunder of a thousand orbital strikes.
As the Star-Ring vanished in a flash of light, Arthur disappeared from the chamber, like an image being deleted from a data-slate.
The Dawnbreakers did not demand you die with your ship. They demanded you return with your experience. Share. Evolve. Reflect. Then board a fresh ship and break the claws of anyone who dared touch your kin.
We shall seize the next opportunity.
As the flare of the teleportation faded, Abaddon's broken frame remained rigid for a micro-second before collapsing as his supports failed.
"MY LORD!"
Dark Mechanicum acolytes rushed forward, hoisting the unconscious Warmaster onto a grav-sled. "WARMASTER!"
Abaddon did not answer.
A massive portion of his cranium was missing. Aside from his right arm, his limbs had been reduced to jagged stumps of meat and scorched plate.
Slaakshia watched the ruined Despoiler. Her complex, insectile visual arrays flickered toward Khayon.
The Warmaster's most devoted follower was staring into space, seemingly paralyzed by a fresh trauma. Even with Abaddon at death's door, Slaakshia dared not show too much hostility.
"..."
She slowly lowered her mechanical staff.
She released her override on the acolytes—a trivial task for a Magos—allowing them to rush Abaddon toward a pre-prepared surgical altar.
They hauled him onto a sterilized slab, instruments whirring. Through the stench of cooked transhuman meat, they attempted to strip away the blood-clotted armor without taking more of his flesh with it.
BEEP—BEEP—BEEP—
The medical monitors emitted a sharp, continuous warning.
"THE WARMASTER'S VITALS ARE FLATLINING!"
An acolyte shrieked, his hands frozen in terror. He looked to the two remaining authorities for a decision.
Slaakshia looked at Khayon.
The sorcerer was still staring at Abaddon's body in a state of absolute shock.
"Shall we initiate the Ritual?" she asked tentatively.
Though a major stakeholder in the Black Legion, she was a master of Chaos ritual. It was a tool of her trade.
Abaddon's slogans were loud, but in a crisis, he always leaned on the "unnatural." From the Wolf Brothers to the mass-produced possessed, the Legion ran on Warp-juice.
With his brain exposed and eighty percent of his flesh carbonized, even a Panacea would fail.
"..."
Khayon remained in his trance.
Slaakshia increased her vocal volume, repeating the query with a grating metallic snap.
"What?"
Khayon blinked, emerging from the fog of his thoughts. His fingers twitched as he ran a mental calculation on her words.
Ah. Healing.
"Acceptable," he said instinctively. Then, his psychic senses fed him the methodology of the cure.
"No—ABSOLUTELY NOT!" he shouted, realizing what he was authorizing.
Even though the Thousand Son's features were hidden behind layers of mutation and mask, you didn't need to see a man's face to know he was losing his mind.
Is it acceptable or isn't it?
Slaakshia's centauroid chassis hissed, her metallic chest-plates expanding and contracting. She was dangerously close to laughing.
You've finally caught the Abaddon bug, haven't you?
"Go. Seize a daemon. I trust the will of the Great Warmaster is more than enough to dominate a simple spirit," she ordered her Magi Biologis, her voice booming through the lab.
The fearful Biologis looked to Khayon.
The sorcerer, usually so cautious with the Neverborn, remained silent.
Slaakshia offered a meaningful glance. The Magi Biologis began to operate.
Possession was a trivial matter for them. Whenever they encountered a problem that required actual intellect, their standard procedure was to shove a daemon into the data-stack, call the resulting chaos a "Solution," and claim it was the power of the Omnissiah.
It was how the Dark Mechanicum had functioned for ten thousand years.
The Magi Biologis personally executed several acolytes, using their deaths to anchor a ritual circle around the operating slab.
The ritual was flawless. As he inscribed the ninth blessing, the nine human sacrifices detonated. Power from the four Sovereigns of the Warp erupted from the void, carrying the slurry of broken flesh and molten metal back into Abaddon's frame.
?
Slaakshia's ocular sensors contracted. She activated every sensory array she possessed, watching the biological nightmare unfold.
Squelch~
As the daemons were shrieked into Abaddon's body, his ruins began to knit together.
Nurgle claimed the lower half. Khorne seized the left arm. Slaanesh occupied the torso and gut. And the Four—including Tzeentch—rushed toward the breach in his skull.
Abaddon's broken body was being "repaired" in a manner that defied all reason.
The conflicting powers of the Gods, having seized their respective territories, began an internal war. At every point of contact, bizarre limbs sprouted and were immediately consumed. Wounds cycled through a loop of tearing and healing. The floor was flooded with multi-colored blood and glowing ichor.
Beep... Beep-beep... Beep...
The monitors signaled stability.
Well.
Looking at Abaddon, whose entire body was now a boxing match between four deities, Slaakshia couldn't call his vitals "stable" in any human sense.
But the power of the Gods...
She carefully scraped a sample of tissue from Abaddon's now-featureless, hairless scalp, whispering a note on his "staggering talent" for spiritual receptivity.
"..."
Abaddon's lips twitched.
"..."
Slaakshia leaned in.
"..."
Abaddon was whispering.
"What is he saying?"
Adjusting her audio-sensors from behind a triple-layered hazard shield, Slaakshia asked again.
Khayon was still in a trance.
"What?"
After a long pause, he looked at her.
Sigh. Another poor soul whose dreams have been turned to ash.
The multi-armed mechanical goddess shrugged. She decided to ignore the sorcerer.
"The Blackstone... Fortress..."
Abaddon's lips moved again.
"My Lord?" Slaakshia leaned closer.
"THE BLACKSTONE FORTRESS!"
Abaddon's eyes snapped open, like a man waking from a drowning nightmare.
The acolytes scrambled back in terror. They watched as the bloated, swollen Warmaster sat up, his supports groaning.
"DRAG THE FORTRESSES!"
He opened his eyes—one a solid gold, the other a swirling kaleidoscope of the four colors. He turned and roared at his council.
Infinite, incandescent fury blazed in his gaze.
He looked at Khayon. His acolyte, the man who had sacrificed everything for the Warmaster's dream, looked utterly lost. Abaddon saw the flickering embers of doubt in his eyes.
He looked at Slaakshia. His mechanical advisor was watching him with a look of clinical interest, as if observing a rare and precious specimen in a jar.
CRASH!
The steel doors to the lab were thrown open.
"MY LORD! I—I—"
Haarken World-claimer burst in.
He saw the state of the Warmaster and froze, his face a mask of pure horror.
Abaddon paused.
He looked down, catching his reflection in the polished—if somewhat bloody—floor of the Vengeful Spirit.
No!
Who did this?
He saw his bald, swollen head, bulging and collapsing as the Four fought within his skull. He saw his twisted, asymmetric frame. His gaze turned savage. He looked at the room, demanding an answer.
WHO DID THIS?!
The crew averted their eyes. Haarken dropped to one knee, trembling. Slaakshia remained indifferent.
No one answered.
Not even Khayon, his most loyal sorcerer.
Abaddon stared at the silent Khayon, bellowing his name. His Primarch-tier perception told him his brother was in a state of total cognitive collapse. The sequence of defeats had shattered his reality.
Silence. Bewilderment. Fear.
This scene was a microcosm of his authority. The power of his name was fading. The ideal was dead. A sense of terminal disaster spread through his consciousness.
Recalling everything—the manipulation of the Gods, the contempt of the Dawnbreakers, the mockery of the "juniors"—it felt like a knife being driven into his hearts.
No. Now is not the time for self-pity.
"HEAR MY COMMAND! THE COMMAND OF THE WARMASTER OF CHAOS!"
He summoned every shred of his remaining majesty.
He roared at the assembly.
"DRAG THE BLACKSTONE FORTRESSES! CRASH THEM INTO BADAB!"
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