The images on the screen shifted from the grand orbital bombardment to the gray, scorched surface of the planet.
Choral City of Istvaan III, once a city filled with song and prosperity, had now become a massive, smoking tomb.
Hundreds of millions of corpses turned to ash in the raging fires, the air thick with the smell of charred flesh and the pungent scent of ozone.
But this deathly silence did not last long.
Amidst the ruins, a group of blue and white figures stood up.
Those were the World Eaters.
But at this moment, they looked more like demons crawling out of hell.
Their Power Armor was blackened by smoke and covered in ash.
Many had lost their helmets in the previous chaos, revealing faces filled with blood and fury.
Leading them was Captain Ehrlen.
This warrior, known for his brutality, now had blood-red eyes—not from the stimulation of the Butcher's Nails, but from pure, betrayed rage.
He looked at his brothers around him who had died tragic Deaths because they hadn't made it to the bunkers in time, seeing their half-melted Power Armor and hearing the wails that seemed to linger in the wind.
"They betrayed us."
Ehrlen's voice was low, like the whisper of a wounded Beast.
The chainaxe in his hand began to idle, emitting a hungry roar.
"Angron... our father... he threw us away like trash."
The surviving World Eaters gathered around him. In this moment of despair, they were no longer that chaotic Legion; they had rediscovered something far older.
"Look here!"
Ehrlen raised his battle-axe, pointing to the "Star-Eater" emblem on his pauldron that symbolized the World Eaters, and then ripped it off!
Accompanied by the sound of tearing Ceramite, he forcibly tore the emblem off, threw it onto the ash-covered ground, and crushed it under his heel.
"We are no longer World Eaters!"
Ehrlen roared at the more than one thousand surviving brothers, his voice piercing through the silent ruins and echoing deep within everyone's soul.
"That name belongs to traitors! It belongs to the coward watching us die from orbit!"
"We are War Hounds! We will fight like the Emperor's hounds! We will fight as we once did, for brotherhood, not for that madman's lust for slaughter!"
"For the Emperor! For the War Hounds!"
"For the War Hounds!!!"
The roar shook the heavens. In this World shrouded by Death, this abandoned lone army found their long-lost glory in the midst of desperation.
Just then, a loud boom echoed from the sky.
It wasn't a bombardment.
It was a red meteor.
It was a massive Drop Pod, like a furious iron fist, slamming hard into the center of Choral City's plaza.
The Impact overturned countless ruins, and from the rolling dust, a massive figure stepped out.
Red armor, a massive cloak, and two chainaxes capable of splitting mountains and shattering stones.
And that suffocating, almost tangible killing intent.
Angron.
The Primarch had descended.
He wore no helmet, and his face, studded with nails, was a mask of pure violence.
He had defied Horus's orders, rejecting the "cowardly act" of mere bombardment.
He wanted to come down personally to deliver the final Death to these "treacherous sons."
Behind him, countless traitor World Eater Drop Pods fell like rain.
"That's him..."
Ehrlen looked at the father he had once held in such awe and whose recognition he had so desperately craved.
Fear?
Perhaps.
But more than that, there was a thrill of vengeance.
"Brothers!"
Ehrlen pulled the starter of his chainaxe, pushing its power to the brink of overload.
"Captain Tarvitz needs time! Captain Loken needs time! We must buy them every second!"
"The traitor is right there! He wants to kill us? Then make him pay!"
"Let him know how sharp the War Hounds' teeth are!"
"Charge!!!!"
No tactics, no cover.
A thousand loyal War Hounds launched a suicidal counter-charge against rebels numbering several times their own and against that god-like Primarch.
Two tides of blue and white instantly collided.
But this was no longer their usual gladiatorial training.
This was true slaughter.
The screen faithfully recorded this brutal and tragic battle.
Loyalists and traitors grappled in the ruins, chainaxes carving through Ceramite, Bolters shattering skulls at point-blank range. Blood instantly stained the gray-white ground red.
And at the center of the battlefield, Angron was a moving hurricane.
He swung his twin axes, Gorefather and Gorechild, each swing accompanied by the dismemberment of several loyalist warriors. He harvested his own progeny like wheat.
"Die, weaklings!" Angron roared, kicking through a War Hound's breastplate.
But the War Hounds did not flinch.
They threw themselves forward wave after wave, using their corpses to block the Primarch's path and their broken weapons to leave scratches on his armor.
Just then, a massive dark shadow surged from the flank, lunging straight for Angron.
It was a Dreadnought.
It was Jujek Nur, the Legion Ancient known as "Stormwalker."
He was an ancient Mortis-pattern Contemptor Dreadnought, once the first Master of the Armory of the War Hounds. He had witnessed the Legion's birth and its glory.
Now, this veteran sleeping within the Sarcophagus, seeing this hellish scene before him, let out a sorrowful and indignant electronic roar.
"Traitor!!!"
Nur's arms, mounted with twin Kheres-pattern Assault Cannons, emitted an air-shredding shriek.
A dense storm of metal poured onto Angron without restraint.
"Clang, clang, clang, clang—"
Sparks bloomed wildly across the Primarch's armor.
Even a Primarch had to take half a step back when faced with such direct heavy fire.
But Angron merely roared and charged through the hail of bullets.
"You heap of scrap metal!"
Angron leaped into the air, his battle-axe slamming into the Dreadnought's energy shield, which instantly shattered under the overload.
Nur did not retreat.
As a Master of the Armory, he knew ranged weapons had limited effect against a Primarch.
So, this iron Beast performed an astonishing feat—like a true gladiator, he swung his massive mechanical arms and charged into the Primarch!
"For the Emperor!!"
"Boom!"
The two collided. The earth trembled.
Nur's Hydraulic Claw firmly locked onto one of Angron's battle-axes, while his other mechanical arm tried to smash the Primarch's skull.
This was a duel destined for failure. A mortal creation could not stand against a demigod.
Angron exerted his strength.
His brute force, defying the laws of physics, erupted, forcibly tearing open the Dreadnought's armor plating.
"Creeeeak—"
Accompanied by the ear-grating sound of twisting metal, one of Nur's mechanical arms was torn off.
Immediately after, Angron's other axe embedded itself deep into the Dreadnought's Sarcophagus, severing the life-support system.
"Die!" Angron kicked the mangled Dreadnought to the ground.
Jujek Nur, the old War Hound, fell in the ruins.
His chassis sparked, but he still used the last of his energy to voice a final curse through the vox-caster:
"You... will always... be... a slave..."
The Dreadnought's red eye went dark.
But this was only the beginning.
Countless loyal War Hounds saw the Ancient fall, and their fury burned to the absolute limit.
"Kill him!!"
They lunged at Angron. Not to survive, but to leave a single wound upon him.
By the end of the battle, the War Hounds who had charged the Primarch were nearly wiped out, with only Korlag left alive, his body half-severed.
Angron lowered his head and looked at his feet.
Angron did not kill him immediately.
The berserk Primarch knelt down, as if observing a miracle.
His bloodshot, crazed eyes stared into Korlag's eyes, which were beginning to glaze over yet still burned with an unyielding fire.
"It's you?"
Angron's voice was low, carrying a hint of a never-before-seen... calmness.
Korlag took a trembling breath, the last breath of his life. Blood welled from the corners of his mouth, yet the warrior actually smiled.
He looked at the high-and-mighty, arrogant father before him.
"That wound on your throat..."
Korlag spat out blood bubbles, every word seemingly using up the strength of his soul.
"I'm the one who cut it."
What a provocation.
What pride.
In this moment, the mortal surpassed the demigod. The son surpassed the father.
Angron reached out and touched his neck.
His fingers came away wet.
It was his own blood.
He looked at the blood on his fingertips, then at the "treacherous son" about to die.
The roar of the Butcher's Nails seemed to fade in this moment. The expression on Angron's face, usually perpetually twisted, slowly smoothed out.
He smiled.
Not in mockery, not in madness.
It was the first sincere, warrior's smile he had shown in weeks—perhaps since he had left Nuceria.
"You fought well."
"You... all fought well."
The Primarch's low voice was as coarse as rock, yet it carried a shocking sense of recognition.
"But not good enough."
Korlag finished the sentence with a tremble.
His chest rose no more.
He was dead.
But he had won.
With his life, he proved to this Universe and to the father who had abandoned them: the bones of a War Hound are harder than the axes of a World Eater.
Angron stood up, looking at the corpses strewn across the ground.
They were all his sons.
The only ones who dared to throw a punch at him, dared to look him in the eye, and dared to die like true gladiators.
Compared to the cowards hiding in orbit pressing buttons, compared to the sycophants who followed him into depravity... these dead men were Angron's true progeny.
"Rest in peace."
The Lord of the Red Sands whispered.
Then, he raised his head, looking toward the distant ruins where resistance continued, the red light in his eyes flaring up once more.
"But the war... is not over yet."