CLANG!
As the Lion Sword was parried by a gargantuan maul, Lion El'Jonson, who had been carving a path of destruction through the heretic ranks, finally locked eyes with his opponent.
The towering daemon was encased in baroque, heavy plate. A crimson, whip-like tail lashed behind him, and a pair of recurved horns protruded from a semi-enclosed helm. It was the massive iron hammer held in the entity's grasp that had dared to arrest the Primarch's blade.
Mechanical mechadendrites sprouted from the daemon's thick armor, clutching heavy lascannons and plasma weaponry. A distorted, mocking laugh erupted from Vashtorr the Arkifane.
"Ha! You are too late, Lion! The fires are lit, the siege is joined. Do you truly believe you can snatch the fruits of victory so easily? Lion El'Jonson... I grant that you were once a titan among men, but the galaxy has changed. Did you think you could return to the glories of old?"
Vashtorr's voice became a rasping sneer. "Now, you are nothing but a gray, withered relic of a forgotten age!"
The Lion recognized the warp-entity before him. His sword-strokes grew heavier, fueled by a cold, righteous fury.
"My loyalty is as a fortress, unyielding through ten thousand years of slumber. And you, Vashtorr, you are but a scavenger of Chaos, a blight upon the stars. I shall see you purged from existence!"
Blade and maul collided, sending rhythmic, booming shockwaves through the ruins. The two duelists blurred into a lethal dance of steel and sorcery.
Nearby, the Risen swung their weapons in a desperate perimeter, keeping the swarming heretics at bay. Yet even with their transhuman skill and veteran grit, the sheer weight of the Chaos horde began to tell.
BRRRRUM—
A sudden, thunderous roar tore through the atmosphere above the monastery.
CRASH!
Massive clouds of dust and pulverized stone erupted as something slammed into the earth. Heretics beneath the impact site were reduced to gory smears instantly.
ZAP!
Thick lances of coherent light pierced the dust, reducing nearby Daemon Engines to molten scrap in a single discharge.
Gigantic silhouettes surged through the haze. The heraldry and the distinct cobalt blue of the Ultramarines declared their origin to all. Five Imperial Knights had been combat-dropped directly onto the surface of the Rock. High above in the void, a colossal shadow loomed over the monastery.
The Dawn of Fire!
Though the Lion did not recognize the vessel, the defenders of the Rock knew that glorious silhouette well. Following the Knights came a torrential rain of "falling stars"—hundreds of Drop Pods, Thunderhawk Gunships, and swarms of Valkyries descended upon the fortress.
The strike craft shrieked across the sky, unleashing a devastating carpet-bombing run against the World Eaters and the various Traitor Legions.
But the most staggering sight was the massive flying "brick" in the upper atmosphere.
Guilliman's flagship now eclipsed the sky above the monastery. Axion, adhering strictly to the Collaborator Protocols, had ordered Eight-Legs to breach a section of the hull. There, they manhandled an Executor Heavy Tank onto the ship's exterior casing.
Using precise ballistic calculations, Axion had reduced the acceleration distance and used the ship's own macro-launcher, the one typically reserved for Cyclonic Torpedoes, to catapult the behemoth into the gravity well. Since the Rock was a fragment of a world with low gravity, Axion deemed the maneuver viable.
The nearly twenty-meter-long Executor Heavy Tank hurtled through space like a vengeful mountain of iron, plummeting toward the heretic lines.
The descending Ultramarines watched in awe as the massive object screeched through the air and slammed directly into the Iron Warriors' Basilisk battery. The impact sent metal shards flying for miles, the resulting shockwave flattening the entire artillery array.
As the Executor roared out of the impact crater, the battlefield fell into a momentary, stunned silence.
None noticed the faint silvery shimmer dancing across the tank's hull. Nano-swarms were already working at fever pitch, repairing the impact-damaged drive systems. The wreckage of the Basilisks, specifically their high-grade barrels, served as perfect raw material for the hungry machines.
Then, the twin main cannons, shaming the caliber of any Earthshaker, bellowed.
The overpressure alone tore nearby mortal heretics apart. Monstrous High-Explosive Anti-Tank rounds punched through Daemon Engines and Leman Russ tanks as if they were made of parchment, detonating them into clouds of jagged debris.
The tank's secondary laser arrays began to sweep the field. Its massive tracks ground everything beneath them into the dirt, while its vertical launch systems (VLS) saturated the sky with missiles.
It was a predator among prey. In its first salvo, it obliterated over fifteen Daemon Engines and nine Iron Warriors tanks, to say nothing of the artillery it had crushed upon landing.
The sudden reversal left Vashtorr reeling. He glanced toward his fleet in the void, only to see a new armada joining the Dark Angels in a pincer maneuver. Several Chaos warships were already blooming into fireballs.
The Lion looked upon the familiar "U" of the Ultramarines, and a rare, grim smile touched his lips.
"Vashtorr, your plans are as fragile as your ego. You thought you could challenge the Emperor's authority? The Imperium itself? Your arrogance has invited your ruin."
The Lion swung his blade in a massive arc aimed at Vashtorr's head.
The Arkifane parried with a mechadendrite in a desperate reflex. Then, as a realization struck him, he let out a frustrated roar.
"ABADDON!!"
A Thunderhawk hovered directly over the Lion and Vashtorr. As the assault ramp dropped, a figure as massive as the Lion appeared.
Clutching a flaming blade, the figure leaped from the gunship, descending like a vengeful comet toward Vashtorr's skull.
El'Jonson did not waste the opening. He lunged forward, swinging his blade toward the daemon's chest.
For the first time, the Soul Forge Master felt the cold touch of true death. He raised his hammer to intercept the flaming sword falling from the heavens, a blade that radiated a power that made even daemons tremble.
Vashtorr knew with absolute certainty: if the Emperor's Sword slew him, there would be no rebirth in the Warp.
As the flames flickered, the Lion saw the newcomer clearly. The iconic blue power armor, the noble features, the short blonde hair, and the Laurel Wreath.
It was Roboute Guilliman, exactly as the Lion remembered him, his countenance unchanged by the passage of ten thousand years.
The Emperor's Sword descended in an arc of fire, shattering Vashtorr's great hammer. Though the daemon demigod jerked his head aside at the last second, one of his horns and an entire pauldron were sheared away.
In his frantic retreat, Vashtorr narrowly avoided the Lion's killing thrust. The Lion Sword bit deep, carving a meter-long gash through his torso armor, ten centimeters into the daemon-flesh.
Howling in agony, Vashtorr cast an embittered glance at the monastery. His mechadendrites unleashed a frantic hail of fire at the two Primarchs to cover his escape.
As the brothers moved to evade the fire, the Arkifane channeled his warp-energy. A rift in reality began to tear open nearby. He had to leave. Now!
WHISTLE!
The scream of displaced air approached at terrifying speed. Two massive shells from the Executor crossed paths as they flew toward the fleeing daemon.
BOOM!
A titanic explosion engulfed the battlefield. Amidst the flying shrapnel and smoke, a broken, gore-streaked silhouette was sent spiraling through the air, blasted bodily into the closing Warp rift.
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