And here comes another chapter. Took me a bit of time to get it written, but I am quite satisfied with how it came out.

There may have been some confusion with the other chapters today : I edited them and re-edited them, because I couldn't make sure of the name of the Hand of Ruin's shipmaster. In case it wasn't clear to anyone and so that I have somewhere to look if I am confused again in the future, he is called Koldak.

As always, I would like to thank those who have taken the time to review my story since the last time :

lightning king : thank you. I have a lot more planned, but there are a lot of things that need to be worked on more before I can put them in the fic.

Teefplucka : glad to see someone else recognised it. Also, there is something funny I have noticed : in all the AU I have found where traitors and loyalists are reversed, the Ultramarines are never submitted to Chaos. They are just independent of the Imperium. How are fans supposed to be credible when they criticize GW's preference for the sons of Guilliman when we are doing the same ?!

anyd : apparently, Jikaerus is the character that my readers like the most (according to the reviews, anyway). I think it's because there is so little known about the Alpha Legion, or perhaps I did a better work with him than I thought. As for the Ultramarine Heresy, more on that in my AN at the end of the chapter.

So, with this done, here comes the chapter !

I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe or any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.

The bridge of the Maleficence's Reward was filled with the sounds of battle. Reports and orders were shout, weapons were brought to bear toward their singular target by remotely controlled servitors, and a thousand more tasks were taking place simultaneously as the crew of the loyalist ship did what they did best. It was a symphony of organised chaos, a perfection born of gruesome practice in the most unforgiving conditions. Yet one sound was unusual, though not entirely unknown.

More and more screams came from the vox-channels opened with the troops sent to deal with the boarders. Hundred of men, trained by the institutions established by Roboute Guilliman's Legion when they had liberated the system, that had been ready to join the Great Crusade when it had fallen apart. They had fought in the Heresy, risking their lives to put down the cults that had risen from the madness of the civil war – though Parecxis had been largely untouched by the conflict, even this system had felt the waves of such destruction. They were brave men, loyal to the Throne of Terra even as the galaxy they had been trained to fight in had collapsed around them.

And now, they were dying in troves, slaughtered like animals by the monsters that walked his ship, and there was nothing Oswald could do to save them. The only thing the admiral could do was made their sacrifice worth it by bringing down the vessel that had carrried the invaders, and it didn't seem he was going to accomplish even that.

His hands tightened around his command chair, Oswald Von Libestat watched as the traitor ship dodged yet another volley. Whoever the enemy's commander was, the bastard was a damned genius at space war. And still, Oswald couldn't make sense of the moves his enemy made. The Astartes vessel was taking absurd risks. According to the conclusions of the cogitators, the only logical explanation was that it needed to stay within a certain range of all the Imperial ships at the same time. It didn't make sense, but then again, neither did the sudden teleportation of teams of boarders across the entirety of Oswald's ships. The Oblivion's Keeper was already lost, its self-destruction foiled, and had started to run away from the fighting proper. Doubtlessly, those now in command of the ship didn't want to risk their prize being destroyed while they couldn't even operate it properly.

Still, all wasn't lost. They could still win this – and even if they couldn't, they could make sure the rest of the sector was safe. If they could take down that one ship, then the traitors would be stranded in the Parecxis system. Billions would still be at the mercy of the traitors who would manage to escape the ship's destruction and those who had taken one of the loyalist ships, but there would be no Navigator to allow them to bring their evil to the rest of the galaxy.

But do they even need a Navigator at all ? Wondered Oswald. He had seen too many things that didn't make sense in the civil war to believe that anything, no matter how unlikely his knowledge told him, was impossible. And bringing a ship here in the first place was supposed to be impossible. Even now, the Admiral could see the tempest that had isolated the entirety of the Trebedius sector from the rest of the galaxy : where the space between stars had once been black and empty, it now surged with colors that didn't exist and the movements of beings that shouldn't exist. How in the name of Terra had the traitors even crossed the infernal storm ? What had Mathus said, that the storm …

The Admiral's blood ran cold. Mathus. Oh, sweet merciful Emperor. In the confusion, he had completely forgotten about the astropath. When he had even ordered all troops to converge on the boarders, he hadn't had the time to wait for all of them to report.

For one terrible moment, Oswald hesitated. What to do ? Ask for a report ? Were the guards of the astropath's room even still alive ? Were they engaged in battle against the invaders after having dealt with Mathus' situation, and his call was about to distract them and sentence them to death ?

Were they already dead, and a daemon roaming the ship at this moment ? What he could make of the soldiers' confused shouts and screams seemed to indicate that the boarders already had one with them. Could this situation get any worse ?

'Admiral,' shouted one of the deck officers. 'We have just lost contact with the Liberation's Price.'

For a fraction of second, Oswald Von Libestat thought he could hear something laughing at him in the distance. Then he swore violently, and began to adjust his strategy to the loss of another ship.

I am covered in blood, but it doesn't last. My armor-skin dries in a matter of seconds, the coppery fluid drained by the unholy life that beats within the ceramite's confines. This is how the thirst is slaked, how the parchment of my throat can be fought and defeated for a time. I drink blood from my armor-skin, and it sates whatever it is that has replaced my mortal appetites.

The mortals before me are weak. Determined, that much I can give them, but weak. It reminds me of when the daemon and I first became one. Their flesh burst under even the slightest of my blows, the chainaxe I still carry bites through their fragile skin and feeds off their lives. I can feel the weapon's own sentience, awakened by too much bloodletting. It is a vicious and cruel thing, every bit as bloodthirsty as the daemon in me.

The weapon isn't as we are. The crude spirit that the deceived fools of the Red World placed within it is merely being influenced by my presence in you, brother.

The daemon's voice is a mix of emotions it shouldn't be allowed to feel. While Herek'Arn is reveling in the bloodshed, I also hear a tingle of annoyance in its tone, hidden behind the growls and echoes of screams that make up its voice in my head. It doesn't enjoy me comparing my weapon's own hunger to the one we share.

My former brothers are fighting all around me, their souls consumed by the Blood God's touch. I can see it so clearly now, how they have changed. The Butcher's Nails are so much more that simple copies of Angron's own archeotech implants. They are His tools, His instruments. Despite the Blood God's despise of treachery and subterfuge, it appears He isn't above some manipulation of His own if the result is an entire Legion dedicated to Him, willingly or not.

You and your kindred should be grateful to the great and mighty Khorne. He has given you purpose, clarity, and more than all, He has given you strength.

Strength ? These things mark their skulls as belonging to this abomination of hatred and rage that you call master ! We are slaves ! All of us ! It is all we have ever been, and now, it is all we shall ever be !

My voice and the daemon's become one once more as the rage I feel aligns itself with Heker'Arn's natural state, and I jump at the terrified mortals that still stand before me. They are aligned, blocking one of the ship's corridors, their weapons primed and aimed directly at me. Though me and my brethren have killed hundred of them, there are still many of them left – and the thirty or so that now block my path may still hurt me, if they aim carefully or get a lucky shot. I am not, despite Heker'Arn's boasts, invincible. In battle, I feel pain. I bleed, my own blood drunk by my armor-skin just as easily as the soldiers'. And as Angron told us all : anything that bleeds can be killed. Perhaps I will die here, too.

I doubt it, though. Mere humans can hardly hope to ever truly harm me, let alone kill me. Heker'Arn's power heals my wounds too quickly, makes me too strong for them to defeat me. And as long as the blood flows, as long as I stand victorious, even if I take a thousand wounds, I shall not die. I know this.

Yes, for it is the truth. The Blood God will not let you die, brother. Not until you fail Him. Then, and only then, will your skull be added to His throne.

… Yes. In the meantime, let us kill, for the Awakened One, for the Forsaken Sons, for the life that was taken from me …

All of these causes are but illusions, my brother. You and I know why it is we fight. We fight for the one true purpose in this realm of matter : to spill blood in Khorne's glorious name !

Sergeant Dillon was terrified, yet none of the men under his command appeared to be able to see it. They were cowering in one of the less used corridors of the Maleficence's Reward, their guns pointed toward where it was most probable the danger would come from, but they didn't contest his orders, and appeared to be doing well themselves on the front of keeping their own fear under control.

That level of discipline was inspiring, even to a veteran like Dillon. That he himself was holding the pieces of his sanity together didn't surprise him, because not showing that you were afraid was the base of command, and even in such a desperate situation, his training didn't let him down, keeping his face a mask of resolution and confidence thanks to instincts that had been hammered in his subconscious by hundred of battles.

Emperor. Hundreds. Had he really served that long ? He knew he was an old man – sixty standard years if the chronos aboard ships were to be trusted. Not too aged to serve by the Imperium's standards, even though his rank didn't allow him access to rejuvenation treatments – not that they had them now – but he still felt that he was too old to deal with something like this. Then again, there probably wasn't anyone in the entire galaxy that could deal with something like this.

The day had started as normally as any other had since the Warmaster had gone mad and brought civil war to the Imperium, burning the dream of Mankind in the flames of his insane ambition. Dillon had woken up, forced the youngsters under his command to get up as well, and, once ready, they had gone to replace another squad as guards of the astropath's chamber. Not the best job there was aboard the Maleficence's Reward, but one that needed to be done, and could only be entrusted to those of the two thousand soldiers on the ship whose training had covered the possibility of a warp-messenger losing himself to the Warp. That meant none of the Guardsmen they had brought up from the worlds in the system were qualified. And now, Dillon felt that he wasn't qualified either.

They had received the Admiral's order just before every alarm on the ship had went on at the same time – forming what the crew had nicknamed the 'Frak it, they are here' signal. The alarms had stopped a moment later, and, at that sign that the rest of the crew were doing all that was possible to take care of whatever had happened, Dillon and his squad – twenty men armed with standard lasguns, unlike he who carried a bolter as symbol of his rank – back to the astropath's chamber.

Kurt had been the first to die. Brave, stupid Kurt. Always ready to take point, even if there was no telling what kind of danger awaited them. The lad had once told Dillon, after one too many drinks, that he did it because he was too scared of letting another die if he could have been in his place.

If it hadn't been as horrible, perhaps he would have been satisfied with the way he finally met his end. But regardless of his sacrifice's value, being cut in two by the tentacle of some abomination spawned by the Warp wasn't a good way to die.

Despite the fact that the creature had killed nine of his men in as many seconds, the sergeant hadn't seen much before he had called for a retreat – or perhaps he had seen it, but his mind was unable to accept what he had seen and refused to remember it. When the Warp was involved, it was hard to tell.

He did remember, however, that the thing had been big, and its shape inconsistent. He remembered flesh rippling like water, muscles and limbs rearranging themselves as if clay under the hands of some invisible, insane sculptor. The only thing that had indicated that the thing had once been poor Mathus had been the icon of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, once tattooed upon the astropath's flesh and that had somehow remained untouched upon the skin of the beast.

Dillon had seen astropaths lost to the Warp before. Before the civil war, they had generally been shot before they had become dangerous. After that, when the Warp had gone even madder than it had always been, there had been several instances where he had been tasked with taking down the gibbering lunatics that could make normal men see, hear and feel things that weren't here. When the Admiral had told him to act, he had thought he knew what to expect.

And now nine of his men were dead, and the thing responsible was drawing near. He could feel it, not with any of his five senses, but he still could. He wasn't a psyker, but there was no need of that to be able to detect the sheer wrongness of the abomination.

'Steady, lads,' he said, his voice carried over by the comms in the ears of the men. 'Don't look ahead, focus on your weapon. When that beast is here, open fire on my signal. You won't be able to miss it in this corridor. If we can all get a shot at that thing, we should be able to take it down.'

Wishful thinking, doubtlessly, but it was all they had left at that point. And convincing them that he had a plan was a big help for them; it would ensure they didn't break and run the moment the thing appeared.

There was a hissing sound, and the smell of ozone filled the recycled air of the corridor. A moment later, the creature that had emerged from astropath Mathus appeared.

To their credit, none of the Navy soldiers ran. They held their ground, firing wildly at the warp-born abomination with their weapons at full power. Sergeant Dillon used his bolt-gun on the automatic setting, unloading an entire magazine of the precious ammunition into the corrupted flesh before his weapon clicked empty. Even then, when the monster lurched over him, having already slain his comrades, he held his ground, using the gun as a lump of metal to hit the creature, over and over. Even after a newly formed tentacle that ended with a blade of bone pierced through his chest, lifting him in the air, he continued hitting in vain. Tears running on his cheeks, blood coming from his wound and his mouth, the old man kept fighting. He knew he was going to die. He accepted that fact, as he had accepted it from the moment he had learned that the galaxy burned with the flames of betrayal. There could be no peace in such a galaxy, and a soldier could only ever find a violent death in it.

But, by the Emperor's name, he would go down fighting.

A mouth formed on the mass of flesh, filled with teeth that reminded Dillon's delirious psyche of that of the great predators that roamed his homeworld's oceans. The last thing to cross his mind before the horrific orifice closed on him was sadness at the thought he would never see the waters of Medisors again. Then, there was a flash of pain, and all became dark.

But it wasn't the end. His pain continued, growing ever stronger. The very soul of the mortal was ripped apart as the warp-borns that had possessed the astropath consumed it, feeding upon Dillon's emotions and memories. Unspeakable torment ran through each portion of his essence, more and more parts of himself falling either to gibbering madness or burning out in agony.

It took Sergeant Patricius Dillon two hundred thirty-seven seconds before the last part of his soul vanished from existence entirely. Each of these seconds was worth the pain of an entire century in the care of the Dark Eldars' best haemonculi.

The last of the men dies as one of my pack-members beheads him in a single strike. The scent of blood surrounds us, bathing the armors of my brethren. Mine is clean – and already I feel the thirst returning. I thought it may be sated by the dozens of men I had killed this day, but it was a forlorn hope. Nothing can sate this thirst, for it is that of the Khorne. Each battle is merely a temporary respite from it, a false peace bought by the lives of all those I kill.

I should have known that. I have been sent to other battles by the Awakened One since me and Heker'Arn became one, crushing pockets of resistance in the Mulor system and slaughtering those of the humans aboard the Hand of Ruin who dared to try to revolt. Every time, the thirst merely recoiled for a moment as my armor drank the ichor spilled upon it. But I had thought that this – a true battle, against an enemy that actually resists me – would be different. It isn't. Like drinking salty water, it only makes me thirst for more in the end.

They were too weak to be a true battle, brother. Only in pure battle may the thirst be truly sated for a while.

But what kind of enemy is there in this galaxy that may be able to challenge us ? Alexandre died by our hands, yet his blood didn't satisfy the Skullfather ! What more can we offer to the Blood God ?

Everything.

I try not to think about the daemon's words, to force my mind not to notice the eagerness in its tone, hidden beneath the screaming. To take my focus elsewhere, I look outside instead of inside, and watch my brethren. Ten are still standing – we have lost two since we arrived on this ship. They are not dead – simply gone, wandering away from our group in pursuit of prey. The rest are being kept near me by the power I wield – the remnants of instinct, hypno-indoctrination and habit born of a thousand battlefields making them follow whoever is the strongest warrior. Even now, covered in gore, they still hunger for more, the Butcher's Nails punishing them for stopping the killing, even though there is no more enemies to slay.

They are different now, their armor finally repaired and adapted to their grunted desires by the servants of Merchurion. The tech-priests have refashioned broken helms and breastplates to better reflect the true nature of those who wear them. Images of skull and blades are engraved upon the ceramite in bronze, and while the emblem of the Legion, a jaw enclosing a world, is gone from almost all of them, a new emblem has been branded on most of their breastplates, in imitation of the one that has formed on mine.

The skull-rune, the emblem of Khorne. They wear it as a mark of honor, of devotion, of power.

I see it for what it is : the brand of slavery. And if I don't act soon, they will start killing each other in the name of our dark master. They have began to understand, in their warped and tormented minds, what it is that has made us what we now are. They know, on some instinctive level, the power of the Warp that has enforced our transformation. But all that knowledge is useless when the Nails start to sing.

I start walking, and they follow, abandoning the corpses of their victims to join the leader of their pack. Our target is the command bridge. The Sorcerers didn't teleport us directly in it – in truth, it is a miracle we ended up into the ship at all. The shields are still raised, making standard teleportation impossible. But little we use these days can be called standard anymore.

Fortunately, this ship is built on a classic pattern, one that even the sons of Angron are capable of navigating through with ease. Finding our way is easy, even with the Butcher's Nails biting in the brains of my brethren. World Eaters have always been expert at boarding actions, after all – we never enjoyed watching our opponents burn in space, we need to see them die with the weapon that killed them in our hand. That has always been our way, even when we were still called the War Hounds, so long ago.

I can see the soul of our target, the one commanding the ship and the rest of the fleet. Heker'Arn's senses and mine are one, and through the Immaterium, the soul of Admiral Van Libestat burns like a sun, hurting if I look at it for too long. It shines with duty, honor, loyalty …

… Faith ? The Awakened One mentioned that the human commander was one of these fools who believe in the False Emperor's divinity, but can it be that his misguided belief is what grant his soul such radiance ?

He can believe in the Anathema all he wants. Every prayer, every offerring, every sacrifice, it only makes the Empyrean stronger. They can feed Him their faith and belief, and turn Him into a God if that is what they want ! He will be a Carrion Lord, endlessly trapped in agony, unable to die and unable to live. An eternity of torture, a fitting punishment for the one who dared to challenge the glory of Chaos !

I do not understand the meaning of Heker'Arn's rambling, and I do not care. Whenever it starts talking about the False Emperor, its words stop making any sense that I can perceive. Perhaps the former members of the Seventeenth Legion could, but I have no desire to associate with such fanatics, as hypocritical as that may be.

The Archpriest of the Primordial Truth and his sons have been blessed with the understanding of the Gods' true purpose, their eyes opened to the secrets hidden beyond reality. They understand this : only by sacrifice to the Ruinous Powers can Mankind endure, and the only sacrifice that matter is blood ! We will …

Heker'Arn suddenly stops, and I know at once why. Something is coming. Something that isn't mortal, something dangerous. Something that is … familiar ?

I hear the wailing of tormented souls, and it takes me a few seconds to realise that it isn't Heker'Arn usual sounding. This is real, this is in the plane of flesh. Then the source of the noise appears, emerging from a turn in the corridors of the ship, and for a second I wonder if I have gone even more insane that I should be.

I have seen a lot of things in my existence. I have walked the soil of Terra as the skies of the Throneworld burned with war, and waged war against a thousand different foes during the Great Crusade. I share my body with a being of the Empyrean, and my soul belongs to a god that cares only for the spilling of blood.

Yet this … I cannot move. For a fraction of second, I am frozen still where I stand. Not because I am afraid – fear was thrice removed from me, first when I became an Astartes, then when the Nails were put into my skull, and finally when Heker'Arn and I became one. But because I just cannot accept the reality of the thing before me.

Servant of the Great Mutator ! Spawn of the Prince of Lies ! Agent of the Changer of Ways ! In the name of great Khorne, kill it ! Kill it now !

As Heker'Arn shouts its hatred in my head and through the Warp, I feel its knowledge of the beast before me penetrating my own mind. It is a creature of Tzeentch, one of the Dark Gods. I remember the Thousand Sons shouting that name at Terra while casting their sorceries at the walls of the Imperial Palace. It is a power rival to the one that owns me and my former Legion, one that thrives in deceits and sorceries, one that knows nothing of honor and battle.

Nine hundred ninety-nine daemons are placed within that beast, bound together by the design of some greater entity of the Courts of Change. The result is a writhing mass of flesh, constantly mutating. With the senses granted to me by the daemon, I can see the hundred of beings from the beyond that have found their way within it, each of them trying to reshape it to its desire. It is like watching armies fighting for a city, rebuilding it only for it to be torn down once another claims it. Faces appear and vanish on its skin, tumors form and dissolve in the blink of an eye, mouths open in screams before being shut forever as the flesh closes on them like a fast healing scar.

A tentacle covered in chitinous armor spurts towards me, and the trance is broken. I catch the appendage with my left hand, and swing my chainaxe with my right. The screeching blade tears apart the pale, bloated flesh, spilling black ichor. The taste of it on my armor-skin is foul and rotten, and Heker'Arn screams in anger and outrage. I feel the sparks of warp-energies within the tainted blood being consumed by my armor-skin, the tiny daemons wiped out of existence as their power is used to fuel my strength. I pull with my left arm, dragging the thing closer so that I can finish it. But it is stronger than I expected, and resist my pull.

Another limb strikes me in the side, and I am …

Am I actually sent flying ?! Just how strong is that abomination ?!

I crash through one of the walls, dragging my opponent with me. Physics say that such a thing shouldn't be possible – but both me and the warp-spawn aren't their subject. We roll on each other, exchanging blows that are either deflected by my armor or absorbed by the sheer mass of the thing.

Our battle goes on, and we move through the ship, smashing through walls as if they were wood, our surhuman frames breaking ceilings and floors.

My rage and Heker'Arn's rise together, until the point when I can no longer distinct between the daemon's own impulses and my own. We are both consumed by an anger that has nothing to do with pain-engines, and for the first time since I and the daemon were bound to each other by the blood of Mulor Prime's people, I lose myself to the Red Veil …

Blood for the Blood God ! Skulls for the Skull Throne !

Three ships had been lost to the enemy. Two more were already destroyed, their Warp engines overwhelmed by ritual self-destruct commands when the boarders had proved they were too strong to be repelled. Whatever the final issue of the battle this day, Oswald knew that the Imperium would not emerge victorious.

He still had three ships under his command – the Maleficence's Reward, the Pride of Sol and the Herald of Vindication – but he doubted now that they could take down the enemy vessel. The Hand of Ruin was simply too fast, too well-armed and shielded. It had taken damage in the course of the confrontation, of course – several batteries had been crippled, a few clean hits had passed through their shields in the seconds it took them to reload – but Oswald couldn't help but think that every blow they had inflicted had been allowed to land after careful calculation of the pros and cons of such a course of action.

In the end, the one advantage that the traitors had – the Astartes – had proved too much for him to overcome. Oswald had lost the battle, and if the traitor ship had chosen to destroy them, it could do so at any moment now. Its superior firepower was enough to take on the three remaining ships on its own.

The Admiral was considering telling the Pride and the Herald to retreat as he launched the Maleficence's Reward into a ramming attack on the renegades. The boarders were getting closer and closer to the bridge, though their advance had slowed since the unholy monstrosity that had been leading them so far had mysteriously vanished. The ship's sensors couldn't track its presence – in fact, they couldn't track anything since the moment the boarders had first appeared. There had been a flash that had told them the entry point of the enemy, then the augurs had died. The only way to detect them had been to wait for the reports of destruction that came from the machines in the sectors they crossed, and it wasn't nearly as effective than what they were used to.

Perhaps they could still crash against the Astartes ship before the boarders reached them. It was a long shot, but at that point, it was all they could hope to accomplish. The Herald's crew had managed to repel the boarders that had assaulted them – reports from the ship said that once they had managed to kill half of them by dropping pieces of the engines waiting for repairs on them, the rest had just vanished back into the Warp. The Pride was still in the same situation as the Reward itself, but perhaps they would manage to do the same. In any case, if a ship was to sacrifice itself to take down the invader, then it would be Oswald's.

Then, as he was going to give the order, his communication unit lit up with an incoming transmission. Looking at the identification rune of the sender, Oswald Van Libestat felt his blood run cold. He clicked on the rune, and listened to the one-way transmission :

'This is Sergeant Dillon … I am currently engaging the leader of the assailants on the sixty-sixth deck … You must expel the compartment into space, sir ! We won't be able to hold it for long !'

Dillon ?! How … No. It didn't matter, or rather, he didn't have the time to investigate. The Admiral brought up the data about the sixty-sixth deck, and yes, there was a succession of damage reports from the machine-spirits of the engines located in this section.

A quick analysis showed him that if he did void the compartment into space, the shields of the ship around that section would drop momentarily. It would only last two to three minutes, a mere blink in a void war, but it would be enough of an opening for the Hand of Ruin to seize it and inflict considerable damage if its commander so wished. While the traitor ship had so far minimized the damage to the other ships, it had proved that it had no such reserves concerning the Maleficence's Reward. Doubtlessly the enemy commander, that traitor he had talked with before the battle had started, wanted him dead. The Hand of Ruin would take the shot, even if it meant sacrificing the Astartes they had sent on board. But ...

Looking one last time at the data of the battle, Oswald Van Libestat took his decision. Only six seconds had passed since the desperate transmission from sergeant Dillon.

I roar as I rip my enemy in half with my clawed hands. I have lost my chainaxe in the battle, I do not remember when or how. But this should be enough – my foe must be dead. The essence of the life that was used as both beacon and gateway for the warp-borns that animate the spawn is destroyed, and without it, the construct of matter and soul should crumble apart. That knowledge comes from Heker'Arn, but I do not care at that moment. For, right now, the thirst has stopped.

The foul blood of the beast covers me, its taste horrible enough to make one such as I feel nauseous, and yet I haven't felt as free as I have since the Nails were first hammered in my skull by the Legion's Apothecaries. Heker'Arn is screaming in triumph, reveling our victory over an agent of another of the Octed.

And then, cold, and pain.

My balance is still unsteady from the many wounds I have taken that haven't healed yet, and a gust of air takes me up. Icicles form on my armor-skin as the temperature drops alarmingly. The few systems of my armor that still work shout out warnings in my helmet – low temperature, loss of atmosphere, depressurization …

Did those in command of the ship just void the entire compartment into space ?!

I try to climb to something, but it is too late. It has already been a few seconds, yet the ship is already too far away, moving at what is slow speed for spacecraft, but is still several hundred kilometers per minute.

I see the remnants of my foe floating in the void near me, and suddenly, I understand :

I have been tricked. I thought I had won, but the spawn led me to the outside parts of the ship, and somehow managed to make the crew empty it into the void !

Deceit ! Treachery ! Cowardice ! We shall hunt down the ones responsible, and offer their skulls to the Blood God !

I roar my anger at being deprived of my victory, and when I realize that I have failed in my mission, I only screams louder. My screams are carried over the Empyrean, echoing into the souls of those mortals that dared to do such a thing to me. Do they think I will die ? Even a normal Astartes can survive void exposure for a short while !

And I am no normal Astartes. I will survive this, and I will have my revenge !

We will destroy them all, and track and punish those of the Changer that dared to help the Anathema's slaves !

I trash around in the void, unable to control my anger. Then, suddenly, I feel the Empyrean stirring. Something is happening. Through the veil of my rage, it takes me a few seconds to recognize it : it is the same spell that was used on me and my brethren to send us aboard the loyalist ship. I am being drawn back …

There is a flash of pain as I cross the Immaterium, and I am in front of the Awakened One. Despite the utter calmness of his expression, I can sense the anger dwelling beneath. It makes my own fury rise in response, despite the fact that I now stand before my lord, having failed in the task he has assigned me.

'Hector Heker'Arn', he says in his cold, dead voice, the true name of the daemon withing me causing it to shiver. The Sorcerers near him flinch at the name being spoken so casually. To master a daemon takes more than simply knowing some assemblage of syllables – one must understand that daemon's very nature, and Heker'Arn is a powerful daemon of the Blood God. Merely listening to its name causes pain to these wielders of sorcery. I feel my anger rising again at the sight of them, until Arken speaks again. His words are colder than ice, and they make the daemon whimper with the barely contained threat they are holding. How in the name of Angron is he doing that ? Ah, of course. True naming. Remembering a warp-born that you literally hold its essence in your hands is a good way to intimidate even a creature made of pure rage, hatred and bloodlust, apparently.

'You will be quiet now. You have failed me, but that failure was still within the possibilities I had anticipated. This battle will still end in our victory, but for it to be complet I need to be able to deal with the situation now, which means I don't have the time to take care of you right away. You will stay here. You will not move. Then I will come back, and we will talk.'

He turns his back on me, and leaves the room. The members of the Coven follow him, and the rest of the Astartes go after them. Besides my brethren, I recognise those who have been sent on another ship. Like me, their armor is hissing with vapor in the aftermath of teleportation. They have just been brought back, and since I can no longer feel the tension of sorcery in the air, they were the last.

I try to move, but I cannot. My flesh is as unmoving as stone. I feel panic rising, then I hear Heker'Arn's voice. It is filled with grudging respect and carefully hidden dread – but we are one, and it cannot hide anything from me.

We are bound, until he delivers us. Your lord has grown even stronger, brother.

On the deck of the Hand of Ruin, one of Koldak's aides shouted at him with a note of incredulity in his voice :

'The shields of the Maleficence's Reward just went down, sir ! They have voided one of their compartments !'

'What ?! Why in the name of Horus would they … of course.'

The crew of the loyalist flagship had to have taken this desperate measure in a last ditch attempt to kill the former World Eaters that had been sent to board them. The captain of the Astartes ship opened a vox-channel to the Awakened One. The lord of the Forsaken Sons answered at once :

'I know why you are calling, Koldak. The Coven have already dragged these fools back here. Take the shot, now ! Reduce these fools' ship into dust !'

Koldak gave the order, and a volley was sent toward the vulnerable spot in the enemy ship's defences. Spears of light pierced the void, the energy of several suns focused on the tiny point thousands of kilometers away. In the shipmaster's estimation, it would not be enough to destroy the ship – the point was simply too far away from any sensible parts. But it would cripple them, and they would be able to finish them easily. The Awakened One had demanded the death of this particular ship, and while its crew would be spared death at the hands of the Blood Champion and his followers, they would still die, their souls at the mercy of the denizens of the Warp.

The impact was tremendous, shaking the entire ship. Alarms rose on the command deck, quickly shut down. The tech-priests would have to work on their own, to ensure that the last gambit of the Maleficence's Reward's captain succeeded. The engines of the ship burned, propelling it toward the Astartes traitor vessel with full speed. To the outside eye, it may have looked like a ramming run, but it was clear that the loyalist ship would miss its target, as the Hand of Ruin was far maniable enough to dodge such a last ditch attempt – if the Maleficence's Reward could even reach it before being destroyed by enemy fire.

A transmission arrived from the Pride of Sol. Oswald opened the channel while the rest of his crew prepared to execute the last maneuver he had ordered.

'Admiral Oswald, your ship is too damaged for a ramming run. They will destroy you before you can reach them. The Pride of Sol will execute your plan. You and the Herald need to retreat !'

'Don't give me orders, Captain ! I am still commander of this fleet !'

'You must survive, Admiral. The people of Parecxis will need you in the war to come ! They will need space support when they fight the battles on the ground !'

'Indeed they will. But the Maleficence's Reward will not escape this battle, captain. We are too wounded for flight. You will give them the help they need. And what I have in mind is not a ramming run. Now, go ! We will cover your retreat.'

'But …'

'This is my final order. Pride of Sol and Herald of Vindication, retreat to the system's edge and prepare to support the war for the Parecxisian worlds ! The Emperor protects !'

The Admiral shut the vox-channel, and looked around him. All the crewmembers were watching him, and he felt pride swell in his chest when he saw that though they were scared, none of them were going to contest his decision. They were going to die, of that there was no question. But in death they would harm the enemies of the Emperor, and that, Oswald realized, was all that a faithful could ever ask for.

'Admiral,' said one of them. Its insignia marked him as a low-ranked weaponry officer, but Marcus had been gunmaster of the Maleficence's Reward for two years now, though they hadn't had the means to replace his uniform. 'We will be in range of the enemy ship in fifteen seconds.'

'Very well. Overload the Warp Core.'

'It has been an honor to sail with you, Admiral.'

'No, lad. The honor is mine.'

'By the Octed,' whispered Koldak in shock as he finally realized what the loyalists were planning. 'They are insane !'

Detonating the Warp Core that allowed the ship to sail the Empyrean was not something that was even supposed to be possible. It had been done before, of course – as a last recourse to take down as many opponents with you as you could, or, he had heard, as a way to signal one's position when you were stranded in space without a Navigator. But there were reasons that such a thing was considered too insanely dangerous for even the Warmaster, who, blessed be his name, had still been a ruthless if genial individual.

A Warp Core was … dangerous. Even when the ship wasn't in transit, it had to be shielded by Geller Fields to prevent breaches from the Sea of Souls. Detonating it could collapse the border between the Warp and reality, and that could cause such damage that the giant explosion it also caused was generally not even taken in consideration.

But of course, that was under normal circumstances, and Koldak cursed himself that he hadn't thought of it sooner. It appeared that the one in command of the loyalist fleet wasn't as much of a conventional tactician as he had thought.

They weren't in real-space right now. They were in a Warp Storm. He had absolutely no idea of what would happen when the Warp Core detonated, but he knew one thing for certain : it had a very high chance of killing them all.

'All batteries, open fire ! Destroy that ship before it gets too close ! Engines at full power, get us as far away from it as you can ! Raise the Geller Field, and tell the Navigators to prepare to take command of the ship in case whatever happens plunge us fully into the Warp ! And someone shut off this proximity alarm !'

'The other two ships are escaping,' signaled one of the officers.

'Let them go !' snapped the shipmaster before adding, as an afterthought : 'and tell the ships we captured to get as far away as they can, too !'

'We are being hailed by the enemy ship, sir !'

' … What ? … Open the channel.'

The only thing passing through the channel before it was closed was an audio transmission :

'Traitors, this is the end. You will die, and those of your kind that have taken refuge aboard the ships they have stolen will be unable to do further harm to the Imperium. In the name of the Emperor, die !'

'All hands, brace for impact !'

And with this, another chapter ends. Yes, I know, this is a cliffhanger. But come on, it's not as if what happens next isn't obvious.

As always, I thank you all for reading this. If you like it, please review ! If you see things that can be improved, tell me ! I always need more feedback.

About this chapter ... I have not much to say. It is part of the arc 'The Parecxis system campaign', a part of the fic that will last a lot of chapters, I think. I had originally planned for Dillon to go down heroically by influencing the Chaos Spawn from within before realizing that such a thing wasn't in accordance with the Grimdark of the WH40K universe. So, instead, I made the whole 'voiding part of the ship' part of a Tzeentchian plot. The consequences of that will be felt in the future, but I cannot talk about it now.

Concerning the Roboutian Heresy project, it is steadily growing. My notes about it now cover most of the Legions that will go traitor - only the basic traits and ideas, of course. Once I know what I want for each of the eighteen Legions, I will write the story of the actual Heresy, which will be the first chapter of the fic in question if I post it. The other chapters would then be description of the Legions, one by chapter, in order of number (first the Dark Angels, last the Alpha Legion). If you have ideas for this project, especially concerning the allegiances and backstory of the new Traitor Legions, contact me now, before I post the first chapter, because changing things will be pretty much impossible later.