"..."
Guilliman glanced at the Dark Angels, who were inexplicably spasming again, and then at the Grey Knight, whose eyes were filled with confusion.
He knew this Chapter was a gift the Emperor had left for humanity before Horus reached the Sol System. The most mysterious of Chapters, created specifically to fight daemons. To protect them, they had been exiled to the Warp to train for ages, and their return had shocked everyone. To see me is to court death; to know of me is to doom your entire bloodline. For such a secretive Chapter, their Primarch must be the most mysterious of all.
With this thought, Guilliman came to a sort of understanding. What he didn't understand was what this brother of his had been doing for the last ten thousand years. With such a powerful Legion, with members so diverse they bewildered even him, representing the Imperium's greatest strength against Chaos—such a being could have easily hit the brakes on the Imperium's decline at any point in the last ten millennia.
"The Emperor gave him a most sacred mission. He represents the salvation of the Imperium and of Mankind. He entered a realm untouched even by the Gods of the Warp. He has brought back that salvation and has only recently returned to the Imperium."
Belisarius Cawl spoke slowly. He knew what Zhou Ye had brought back. It was the Imperium's redemption, the very thing the Emperor had dreamed of. To obtain it would surely require a terrifying price. To have found it within ten thousand years was a blessing from the Emperor himself.
"Hm?"
As he listened, Guilliman continued to compare the troop dispositions of Macragge and Trailblaze, issuing commands with unerring precision. The daemons on the field suddenly felt the tide of battle shift; the entire Imperial army seemed to move as a single, cohesive entity. Even Zhou Ye would have to admit that in this aspect, he could not compare to Guilliman. As long as this man stayed off the front lines, he was at his most powerful.
However, as he directed the battle and observed the incoming reports, Guilliman was shocked to discover that Zhou Ye's forces reacted with incredible speed, their command and feedback loops several times faster than his own. Their equipment was exquisite, and their combat effectiveness was absurdly high.
Soon...
Guilliman couldn't even be bothered to command the local Macragge forces anymore. Seeing this, Calgar's face turned green. It was humiliating enough that they hadn't kept up with Guilliman's charge, but now their own forces were being told to just hold their ground.
Of course, this was to be expected. Zhou Ye had brought a proper army of forty thousand Astartes and over a million exceptionally well-equipped auxiliaries. As for Macragge's own strength... well, it was a bit pathetic. Although it was the Ultramarines' homeworld, they didn't actually have that many of their own Chapter present. They hadn't anticipated this situation, and Calgar had not recalled their successor chapters. More than half of the Ultramarines' own companies weren't even here. Including new recruits, they numbered only a few thousand, a force that couldn't possibly compare to what Zhou Ye had brought.
Zhou Ye's forces were now executing a fluid war of movement, and in the midst of it all...
"The Word Bearers are quite effective. Do you know why they are in a mixed company with Ultramarines?"
Guilliman asked, a hint of curiosity in his voice. His primary anger was with the mixed company itself; he felt more neutral about the Word Bearers because... after the Battle of Calth, he himself had collected a large stock of Word Bearers and World Eaters gene-seed. The original idea was that if a true catastrophe occurred, their gene-seed could be used as a last resort. But faced with the complex composition of Zhou Ye's forces, for a moment he wondered if this brother of his wasn't actually Horus in disguise. I mean... look at his Legion's makeup: Dark Angels, Emperor's Children, Iron Warriors... By the Throne, how does this Legion even stay together?
So, amidst his commanding, Guilliman voiced his curiosity.
"Those three Word Bearers came from your Macragge. So the Father put them in a mixed company with the Ultramarines."
"..."
An awkward silence fell. Many of the Ultramarines felt their faces turn green. What do you mean, Macragge cultivates Word Bearers? Are you kidding me?
"Wait, was it those three?" Calgar suddenly exclaimed. The other Ultramarines froze.
Calgar's face flushed with embarrassment as he recounted the story of the three unlucky souls to everyone.
And then...
Everyone, including Guilliman, fell into a deep silence. After all, those three were the only Word Bearers they had on public record. Who could they even blame for this?
The universe is always filled with a grim comedy that leaves one speechless.
---o---
On the battlefield, in an area far from the main daemonic host.
"Daddy, I'm scared."
A little girl shivered in the shadows, cold and hungry. Her parents had gone out and hadn't returned. Terrifying voices whispered endlessly in her mind. A few minutes ago, she had watched a Khornate Bloodletter go on a rampage through her housing block. She had hidden under her bed, trembling. By sheer luck, she had gone undiscovered.
But was it truly luck?
"Don't be afraid, child. I'm here. Come out quickly."
A familiar voice spoke beside her. The child trembled, and a look of joyous surprise spread across her face. She knew that voice so well. It was her father, a proud citizen of Macragge.
"Child, come to Mommy, quickly."
Another voice, a woman's, followed. It was her mother.
"Mommy! Daddy!!!"
The little girl let out a sigh of relief, her guard completely down. She pushed open a small partition and ran out.
And then...
"AHHHH!!!"
A piercing scream ripped from her throat. Before her stood her parents.
But not entirely. Their lower bodies were gone. Their torsos had been hollowed out, the empty chest cavities displayed openly. They were impaled on a sorcerous staff, and through its foul magic, their lifeless mouths continued to speak in the voices they'd had in life.
"Sweetheart, come to Mommy."
"Quickly now, see what Daddy brought for you."
"..."
The little girl was completely frozen in terror, unable to even move. The Bloodletter that had been on a rampage now lay headless on the ground. In its place stood two towering Space Marines. Her parents were trophies on one of their staves.
Seeing the petrified girl, they let out peals of gleeful laughter.
"Hahahaha!!!"
They looked upon her as if she were an outstanding work of art. If any other Space Marine were here, they would have recognized them in an instant—the Night Lords. They loved to spread fear, to make their prey experience ultimate despair.
They had been part of the Black Legion, but when they saw the forces of Slaanesh and Khorne making planetfall, they had ignored Abaddon's orders and jumped down as well. They didn't care about the outcome of the battle. They only wanted to spread terror on Macragge, the glorious world where their father had once fought.
They had ignored the chaotic main battle and headed for the periphery. Both Zhou Ye and Guilliman had to focus all their strength on eliminating the main daemonic incursion and had no time to spare for these scattered elements. This was now their playground, a paradise for spreading fear.
But at that moment...
"?"
The three Night Lords saw a black shadow flash before their eyes. The little girl vanished. At the same time, two wickedly precise attacks, eerily familiar, struck at their vital points.
CLANG!!!
With a sharp ring of metal, the Night Lords were surprised to find several Astartes before them. They were clad in pitch-black armor, their helmets sporting strange, cat-ear-like protrusions, and a bat symbol emblazoned on their pauldrons. The little girl was being carefully shielded behind one of them.
"Lackeys of the False Emperor!!!" the Night Lords snarled, a flicker of recognition in their eyes. At that same moment...
FWOOSH!
A flash of flame erupted, and the mutilated corpses on their trophy staff were instantly incinerated.
"Withdraw!!!"
The trio did not hesitate, turning to flee. They sensed more and more of these strange Astartes appearing. And they had discovered a great secret. Heh, loyalist Night Lords, are you? Their warband was short on gene-seed. It was time for a resupply. They had to report this good news to their lord.
"You few, gather the survivors and get them to the relocation point! You blasphemous, filthy bastards!!!" one of the Knights of the Night snarled, smashing a nearby doorframe with his fist. Another gently comforted the girl, who was now as still as a doll. Their eyes burned with an infinite rage. They would tear these profane monsters to shreds.
"Pursue them, immediately!"
After assigning a small squad to escort the survivors, the leader of this contingent, Colinnight of Trailblaze, rallied his brothers. Seeing the atrocities these traitors had committed, they would hunt down and kill every last one of these inhuman monsters.
---o---
But at that moment, in a bloody flaying pit nearby.
"Several hundred loyalist Night Lords? Good. Very good. The warband is in dire need of gene-seed. All units, move out!!!"
The warband leader looked at the wailing mortals around him. He no longer had time to torture them. Letting them scream would give away their position. Though he felt it was a pity, he silenced them permanently with a single stroke for each.
A cruel, bloodthirsty smile spread across the faces of a thousand Night Lords. Many of them were veterans from ten thousand years ago. Though the unstable time-flow of the Warp meant their actual age was less, as old soldiers who had fought alongside their great gene-father Konrad Curze at Istvaan V, dealing with a group of obvious rookies would be child's play.
The battle began. Countless black shadows stalked and devoured each other throughout the district. In the blink of an eye, they had clashed innumerable times.
"Hahaha, and what do I see here?" the warband leader mocked.
He saw a group of very young, yet well-disciplined, successors. Their fighting style was all about the single killing blow, completely lacking the traditional terror tactics of the Night Lords. But what made him laugh the most was that they would actually stop mid-combat to rescue mortals. Some were even nearly wounded because they were encumbered by civilians.
The warband leader found them utterly theatrical. And that was good.
"You like protecting mortals so much? You've even forgotten the traditions of our Legion? Then this is perfect. Prepare a trap for them!!!"
A savage grin twisted the leader's face. He would make these strange Night Lords wish for death. They had insulted the Legion's traditions, and more importantly, he would harvest their precious gene-seed.
"Their fighting style is quite similar to ours," Colinnight muttered, but didn't dwell on it. After all, the most common loyalist Astartes were Ultramarines, and the most common Chaos Space Marines were also of Ultramarine stock. No one would dare say the Ultramarines weren't loyal. He figured they had simply run into some Chaos traitors, which wasn't a big deal. Their own academy had plenty of loyalists from other traitor legions, and traitors from loyalist legions.
But just as they entered a new sector...
VMMMM!!!
"It's a trap!!!"
A wave of darkness engulfed them. Chaos sorcery descended, and a great, evil power slammed them all to the ground, pinning them so they couldn't move a finger.
Then...
"Hahaha, what do I see here!!!"
One by one, the traitor Night Lords materialized, accompanied by a Chaos Sorcerer. They stared at the trapped hundred-plus Knights of the Night with cruel, bloodthirsty eyes, their faces contorted in狰狞smiles. They were already imagining how they would torture them, how they would make their deaths as hopeless as possible.
The warband leader stepped forward. He would begin the performance by demonstrating how to swiftly flay the skin from the one who was clearly the leader of this pathetic group.
But just as he took his first step...
SQUELCH!
The Chaos Sorcerer was torn to pieces. The dark ward he had created was instantly ripped apart. A deathly pale figure stepped out from behind the pinned Knights of the Night.
"..."
The air fell dead silent. The warband leader's legs gave out, and he collapsed to his knees.
"Dad... you're not dead yet?"
---o---