Apollyon could sense that the Imperials and eldar were fighting as a coalition against the enslavers. He could sense the hivemind screech and wither like a dry plant while its flesh was burned from reality. The collection grew ever smaller and the ancient minds of the enslavers grew more and more compressed. Everywhere, he could sense death. The beautiful, perfect contructs the enslavers had perfected were being smashed by the humans. Though it was far off yet, Apollyon knew the hive mind's final demise was imminent. Best he drag as many eldar into their graves as he could.

Skittering and screeching, another flock of hormagaunts scampered past him, leaping over dead eldar warriors that lined the chewed-up corridore of this large eldar ship, docked passively over the surface of the chaos world. The bridge yet stood, at the end of the hallway beyond the heavy door like an unclaimed trophy. It took Apollyon a minute to cross the length of the hallway, such was its length. His chitin feet crossed by waiting enslaver creatures that stood silently by and waited. As the hunter broods cleared out the last eldar defenders, Apollyon channeled his psyker talent.

The door wheeled open, coaxed apart by his mind.

He was immediately met with a storm of hot plasma. His body exploded painlessly. Forcing himself into a tall enslaver warrior, Apollyon took form once again and stood to the side as the beasts swarmed the bridge, slashing out upon the sparse eldar defenders that stood inside the rounded chamber. Their screams were child-like to Apollyon's ears. He entered soon after, in time to see the final armed defender fall to a bony scythe. It was the unarmed defenders that stopped him.

In the middle of the bridge was a raised platform, surrounded by a solid wall of blue energy. The remains of the twenty eldar warriors lay around it, outside the energy. Atop the platform were three eldar. One he knew as Fuegan, who had laid down his arms to fiddle with an incomprehensible alien tool. The others were robed, meek looking eldar who tended to a white arch, a doorway, big enough for three men to walk beneath side by side. As Apollyon watched, a nimbus of hazy purple matter burst into being underneath the doorway's arch. Fear in their eyes, the meek ones fled. Apollyon felt the hive mind direct a termagaunt into the field. The enslavers judged the field unbreakable when the termagaunt did not pass through based on how it felt.

"A webway gate," muttered Apollyon.

"Apollyon!" Fuegan shouted. His hot voice was muffled almost to silence by his shield. Apollyon had to stride to the front of the swarm and press his unnatural face against the shield. "Terra is under attack!"

"Why should I be concerned?" asked Apollyon, "enslavers or chaos, it doesn't matter which the Emperor must fight. If humanity cannot keep her gates standing, she does not deserve to live."

"You know nothing of chaos Apollyon, you don't know what you're aiding. Turn away from the Imperials and attack the worlds my race has brought you to," Fuegan pleaded.

"I witnessed Horus' heresy from a distance," Apollyon replied. "I know chaos and you do not. I know how it feeds off the emotions of mortals, I know how the enslavers feed, I know how chaos recoils as we descend. If, alien, you had let my plague drift across the stars and purge the galaxy of almost all life, chaos would have died. Chaos would have died and the strongest of mankind would have been spared. Mankind would have rebuilt from there, stronger than ever. Instead…" Apollyon spat ichtor against the shield. "Instead you mauled us with the necron legions and mutilated the hivemind. You think we would have destroyed chaos' enemy? No, chaos IS the Imperium. Your race's meddling has helped chaos like nothing else." For a satisfying moment, the alien kept his arrogant lips closed.

"Apollyon…" Fuegan began, "Apollyon, if you are no friend of chaos then why don't you help us defeat Abaddon? He wants to conquer the Imperial palace and use Terra's light to project the power of chaos across the galaxy…"

"I will not hear your lying," Apollyon interrupted. "But as for your question: I despise chaos. But I loath the weak even more. Destroy the weak, destroy chaos." With a surge of his power, Apollyon touched the shield. It flickered.

Fuegan disappeared into the portal once the blue of the shield had gone. Apollyon raced after him, pursued by the enslaver host. Only moments after Apollyon vanished did the Hand of Asuryan arrive to deliver Fuegan's ship. The space going organisms attached to it like parasites were shot away from its sweeping hull by eldar torpedos. The living spore sacs growing amongst its mull-mounted batteries were burnt apart by plasma. The Hand of Asuryan drifted over its rescued sister while scanners swept across its innards. Nothing living remained. They had all followed Fuegan to wherever he went.

It was only then when the Hand of Asuryan received news from the seer council on Ulthwe. Abaddon had reached Holy Terra.

…

Cadia: hotly contested. Imperial armies tore through its shanty towns and wilderness, battling a highly professional mutant horde.

Catachan: Mired in death, consuming regiment after regiment of Imperial Guard. It was a living nightmare for the soldiers sent to fight there. The limitless numbers of Imperial Guard pounded the world with their bodies but it kept devouring them.

Necromunda: The endless siege. Like Catachan, it was a quagmire of death. The Imperials were always at a disadvantage fighting up a mountain against a well entrenched foe. Human blood flowed into oceans and thousands died every hour.

Dis: A blistering campaign of rolling armor across blazing dunes. Dozens of dead-ended stalemates raged on in blood-soaked cities of black cathedrals. It was a prolonged sacrifice of men to the daemons who lived there.

Ashmoraria: Depopulated but swarming with tyranids, threatening to bring the hive perilously close to Terra. It would be up to the Imperial Navy to keep the hive penned up upon the world.

Cherondesorar: No news had come out from the world in quite some time. All indicators pointed blatantly to a cataclysmic disaster for the invaders.

Krieg: A grinding duel of attrition with the dead. It was terrible indeed to fight men whose warcry matched yours. Upon Krieg, winning the war fell to outnumbering the enemy and there was no shortage of heretics to fall against the invasion.

And none of it mattered. Absolutely none of it mattered. All the millions had died for nothing, looking for someone who had left the planets months ago. This historical failure was so large that Odeen cringed to even think that, for all these bloody months, he'd been fighting uselessly against worthless traitors while Abaddon had driven like a spear towards the Emperor's heart. He could not pray for forgiveness or sacrifice enough lambs to atone for this miserable error.

The message had been sent around the invasion fleets. Anyone who would believe it would make for Terra as fast as they could. Odeen was proud that the whole Space Wolves chapter had obeyed, even if the order had stemmed from a Dark Angel. Odeen proudly reminded himself of how few Dark Angels had listened to Usoran: only those the captain commanded.

And so the Space Wolves entered the Warp alongside a single Dark Angel ship. Emperor willing, others would follow.

…

A lifetime would be spent summing up all the wars of the galaxy inside a thousand year span of its thirteen-thousand years. A lifetime listening to the droning voice of some tireless scholar tell of the rise and fall of warlords and rebellions, aliens and empires. All the while, the Imperium was present. For the first nine lifetimes, one would hear of wars endless and incoherent, unrelated to one another. Then, at the tenth, they would hear of battles with the tyranids and the necrons and the tau. For the next three lifetimes, they would listen to progressive wars that dragged the galaxy closer to oblivion inside the belly of the warp. They would hear of chaos' mounting victories that pale even the destruction the hive fleets could give. As the person lay on their deathbed at the end of the thirteenth lifetime of listening to wars, they would hear of the extinction of the orks and the tau and the necrons, but the unstoppable rise of chaos. As they died, a fel voice would whisper into their ears news of the final war and how Abaddon struck Holy Terra at last. Death would be greeted with his name fresh in the rotting mind.

The Final Battle began

Upon Holy Terra, alarms went off. Ancient devices, not used in thousands of years to warn the populace of invasion, left their centuries of sloth and blared a terrible warning to the billions of people upon Terra. The sound was the wail of a dying crow mixed with the shrill shrek of a woman in pain and it reached all corners of Terra. The resulting panic amongst the population accounted for more deaths than a small war. Thousands were killed in stampedes and thousands more commited ritual suicide while still others were shocked to death by the abrupt and terrifying arrival of the alarm's blare. Before the first half hour of the alarm's warning was up, an armada of Imperial Navy ships was dispatched to greet the invaders, who were now cresting over the blackened remains of Mars and heading on their warpath towards Holy Terra.

The admiral of the fleet sent to greet the attackers was met with two sights that nearly stopped his old heart. The first was the sight of Planetkiller. It sat in the center of the enemy fleet. The admiral shook his head in disbelief and looked again. There it was, straight out of his nightmares and historical studies, the one ship he assumed he would never see. Even when scanners confirmed the sighting he was still in denial. Nothing so terrible could be allowed to happen.

The second sight was the warp rift blossoming behind the enemy fleet, making the handful of ships all the more terrible. The void bled red fire out into space. Reality was wounded, the admiral had no better analogy for the growing warp rift he saw. He looked across his armada of sixty ships and straightened his back in some confidence. They had the enemy outnumbered and they were the fleet of Terra. Surely…

The rift expanded explosively, turning from a bleeding wound to a crimson nova, engulfing the chaos ships. The admiral didn't have time to contemplate the possibility that the enemy had been destroyed: even the lowest rating in the armada could tell the nova would also consume them. Frantic orders to evade were given but not carried out in time. Like china in a hurricane, the mightiest ships of Holy Terra were dashed apart by the explosion. In a heartbeat, the fleet was gone, consumed by the powers of chaos. Only ash remained of them.

The massacre of their fleet in this destructive nova was not a phyrric victory for the Imperium. The nova disippated as cleanly as a ball of leaping fire to show the military observers the most damning sight they could have imagined. The chaos fleet remained intact, completely unscathed by the warp's might. No doubt they carried the foul blessings of the Dark Gods. But not even that was what the observers witnessed. Mars had gone, sucked up by the warp. Vomited out in her place was a world of unbroken darkness. If not for the stars, it would be invisible against the void. The defenders of Terra prayed desperately when they realized that where Mars had once been there was now the eighth planet of Abaddon's invasion: the world of the Black Legion. Scanners couldn't even identify what planet it might have once been if indeed it had ever been mortal.

…

"Well done, despoiler," Perturabo said Abaddon. The Despoiler turned his head to the primarch, a daemonic grin of rage painted onto his inhuman face. Alone on the bridge of the Planetkiller with the primarchs, Abaddon was free to flaunt their success.

"Am I not greater than the warmaster?" Abaddon asked, "not even he could do what I have done."

"It is because the powers of chaos are greater now than they were when we first did this!" shouted Angron from Abaddon's right. "I do not agree with your cowardly plan! Blood for the blood god! We must attack!"

"Intrigue is a virtue. It is better to be a coward and win than to feed Khorne and lose," replied Perturabo. "My warsmiths are already reporting back. The powers of chaos and their warp-smithery have neutered Luna and many of Holy Terra's anti-orbital batteries."

"Your insufferable trickery is costing the blood god his prize! There is no honour in this!" bellowed Angron.

"Patience brother, Terra's defenses are too formidable for our small fleet. If we are to reach Camlan, they must be removed."

"Our faithful are prepared no matter what. The millions are awaiting your orders," Lorgar added to Abaddon, "when shall the lesser faithful land?" Abaddon looked back to Terra, pleased at the power he held over the primarchs.

"We send in the millions first. They will keep the locals busy," Abaddon said. If the crazed legions upon his daemon world did not suffice to choke the defenders into a quagmire, the daemons they unleashed surely would. "Perturabo, your siege guns?"

"Ready to serve chaos, to the last gear," the iron-voiced daemon prince replied. All eyes turned to Abaddon, burning in anger, eager.

"Then…" Abaddon pointed to Terra with the Talon of Horus, "ATTACK!" The daemon primarchs shrieked in approval. As they teleported back to their respective ships, the window grew full of ships of the heretical fleets from Abaddon's world. Frigates and transports, choked with the best of Abaddon's faithful. These petty humans would sell their lives against the Emperor's world to ensure chaos ultimate victory. Abaddon could feel the air around him shift in anticipation. Chaos was with him today. Death to the False Emperor.

…

The crews on Luna witnessed the heretical ships approach ahead of the new daemon world. Lance batteries readied and missiles were aimed. Enough firepower to destroy a planet.

The order was given to fire and the order should have been all that was needed to rid the heavens of these invaders. Unforunately, it was not to be. The crews discovered to their horror that the controls were unresponsive. Moments later, evil runes of chaos were woven across their controls as if by an invisible hand. Commanders recoiled in fear as symbols of Tzeench warped their way across their screens. Moments later, the weapons all overloaded. Across Luna, missiles exploded in their silos. Laser powerplants overheated and vanished in spectacular fireballs. Luna was covered in fire as everyone on it turned to dust. Then, it was gone, sterile. Luna's defenses were completely wiped out. Again, the sorceries of chaos had swept Terra's defenses away. Across Terra, the same fate awaited the anti-orbital batteries there. Fireballs leapt up and entire hives collapsed under the shockwaves, crushing billions of unsuspecting citizens, betrayed by their own protectors. It was not even an hour into the siege of Terra and chaos had billions of deaths in its greedy belly. In the darkest corners of Terra, Iron Warrior infiltrators cackled in victory.

As destructive as those calamities had been, the loss of a few billion was still a small wound to Terra. Though she burned in many places, she was unscathed in most others. The PDF of Holy Terra made themselves ready as the enemy approached.

The first landing craft broke through the Terran clouds and the first flak batteries opened fire. Within seconds, a burning artifical comet fell from the sky. Chaos had suffered its first casualties.

…

The thud of falling shells was distant. Thraknos had the shields under his stead to thank for that. The tech priest furiously whispered prayers of thanks to the shield generators as he walked through the machine temple, blessing every generator individually. Given the length of the chamber, it would take him a few minutes to walk beneath the vaulted ceilings to bless all these ancient generators. This monumental temple was one of a kind. Thraknos was lucky to work there, even in these days, even with chaos descending on Terra. These generators were what maintained the void shields over the district where the Emperor's palace lay. To work here even as one of Thraknos' ten guards was an honor greater than that of planetary governor, even if they were skitari. With the heart of hive city around him, there was no way into these blessed halls. Except…

Without warning, a warp rift exploded into being in the far left corner of the chamber. It was small and constantly shrinking and expanding. The Emperor's will was closing it even as it was born. But there was no time to pray, for it was still a rift. When it at last collapsed, Thraknos and his guards did not celebrate, for it had remained to squeeze three gray armored heretics into this sacred place. Their helmets were like skulls, their guns were striped yellow and black. Two carried bolters and the helmetless third carried a tall maul. His naked head was covered in metal studs that crossed his light brown skin like a grid. Even from this distance, Thraknos recognized a warsmith of the Iron Warriors!

"Kill him!" Thraknos shouted to his Skitari bodyguards. He dove behind a pillar in time to dodge a storm of bolterfire. Thraknos buried his face into the ground and waited, eyes closed. When the shooting stopped, he raised his head and checked the enemy. The warsmith was stroking one of the generators with his gloved hands. The powers of chaos were not strong so close to the Emperor, thus the Iron Warrior could not do what his kinsmen had no doubt done to Terra's defenses. The two other Iron Warriors also still lived, scanning the chamber for more victims. Thraknos knew without seeing that the skitari were dead. He could only helplessly watch as the warsmith raised his hammer to smash a generator.

"NO!" cried Thraknos in despair. Both of the helmeted Iron Warriors snapped their heads in his direction. They both raised their bolters and fired. The first fired at Thraknos. Explosive bolts blew chunks out of the column he hid behind. The second fired into the first.

Thraknos blinked in astonishment as one heretic killed the other. Under a spray of bolterfire, the traitor died, landing in a heap on the floor. The warsmith turned his head around to face his other comrade, surprise bending his evil face into a look that Thraknos could only call fear. Smoothly the traitor's traitor swung his bolter around to his companion and he sent the remainder of his magazine into the warsmith. In a spray of blood and armor, the warsmith died, those precisely laid studs across his head shooting through the air, his skull coming apart. The survivor retreated, disappearing into the shadows.