The Weaver Option

by Antony444

It is the 45th Millennium and the galaxy is dying. On the verge of victory over the Imperium, the Chaos forces have proven unable to stem the tide against the Great Devourer and its trillions of Tyranids. Only one option: cross the dimensions, find a hero able to triumph where billions have utterly failed and change the course of the past...

55. Extinction 11-3 The Battle of Pharsalus

Extinction 11-3

The Battle of Pharsalus

I was there, you know.

I was there the day the first Battle of Pharsalus was fought, more than thirty-five thousand years ago.

Oh no, I was not one of the commanders.

No, after some problems I encountered during a previous Macedonian life, I had decided, for the time being, that ruling Mankind was neither in humanity's best interests nor mine.

No, I was one of the Legionnaires serving in Caesar's army.

Why was I part of his army?

Why not?

I won't deny Gaius Julius Caesar was an ambitious and power-hungry man. Every man and woman who met him could attest to his skill at eliminating rivals and climbing the ladder step by step until there was no one left to stop him from claiming dictatorial power.

But then the same was true of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. You do not call yourself 'the Great' because you are humble and modest.

No, I was motivated to serve one and not the other because I quite clearly saw what would happen in the future. Caesar would destroy the Republic and force the emergence of a new Empire, one which would be for the people, at the cost of not being governed by them.

'Pompeius the Great', as he wanted to be known, would try to preserve the name of the Republic, just to save his vaunted ego and ambition. In a way, the old man hadn't changed much from the years where his opponents had given him the nickname of 'teenage butcher'. Petulant, politically naive, and far too inclined to change his principles if it allowed him to be famous and victorious, the victor of the Sertorian War would undoubtedly have been tempted by Excess if its influence had been felt in that era.

Not that Chaos was completely powerless, unfortunately.

I didn't recognise the signs until it was too late, but this civil war was the idea of the parasites hiding waiting in the Immaterium.

The evidence, once you know what to look for, was not that hard to find.

And so brother fought against brother, Legion against Legion.

I served in the Thirteenth Legion on Caesar's side. The Seventeenth was part of Pompeius' army.

No, I didn't enjoy the irony of it thirty-one thousand years later.

Maybe I should have seen it coming.

I always knew Roboute had far too many points in common with the man who won at Alesia, Pharsalus, and many other bloody battles. On the other hand, I failed to recognise that Lorgar had the flaws of Pompeius along with many others.

And so I am waiting today for the battle to be fought, in many aspects as powerless as when I pretended to be a veteran Legionnaire.

It is former brothers fighting each other, with the ferocity and viciousness only the bitterest betrayals can create.

It is Legion against Legion, while the roar of the Tyranids overshadows everything.

It is Titan against Titan.

It is a grand display of carnage to decide if the vision of the champions of the people can prevail against the tyrants who wish to preserve the damnation of our species on a galactic scale.

And I must hope the defenders of Mankind will win, for all other paths lead to our extinction.

---

To understand a battle, it is always necessary to plunge yourself into past history.

This battle is no exception.

First and most obvious question, who was Pharsalus and why was his name given to so many locations in the Realm of Ultramar?

The answer leads to some of the greatest victories and the most terrible tragedy to ever strike the Ultramarines.

Julian Pharsalus was a Praetor of the Thirteenth Legion during the Great Crusade.

Born on the world of Calth, the young Julian was a scion of one of the wealthiest families of the Veridian System, and when he was of age, travelled to Macragge and was declared compatible for receiving the Astartes implants and becoming a Space Marine.

His marks achieved at the Macragge Academia were so high that his teachers predicted a brilliant future for the young Aspirant.

Julian Pharsalus didn't disappoint. In seventy years, the Calth-born Ultramarine rose from inexperienced Battle-Brother to the rank of Praetor. While the series of promotions wasn't unprecedented given the sheer losses often inflicted upon Astartes Legions, the number of victories – over sixty – was, and most of them were won as part of expeditionary detachments away from the main force of the Thirteenth Legion, not under the Primarch Roboute Guilliman's eye.

After the Ullanor Triumph, when the Ultramarines were ordered to muster at Calth, many officers and veteran legionnaires thought Julian Pharsalus was to be groomed as a potential Tetrarch replacement, or be included in the War Council for the coming campaign in another capacity.

Unfortunately, the Word Bearers chose that system to reveal their malefic treachery and all their odious perfidy in.

Though tens of thousands of Ultramarines survived the Battle of Calth, Julian Pharsalus was not among them.

In the first hours of the battle, the valiant Praetor led decisive counterattacks to stop the Traitors from slaughtering the civilians, and he and his survivors held for long enough that hundreds of thousands of Calth Auxilia and innocents were able to take refuge in the underground arcologies of the planet, no doubt contributing to the eventual loyalist victory years later.

But this was a victory paid at the price of Praetor Julian Pharsalus' life, and the near-entirety of the Company-sized force he commanded by then.

A large statue and a memorial remain in the caverns below the ground where the brilliant officer is thought to have made his last stand.

There also is a counter of the Mark of Calth there, for every man and woman of Calth to remember that the Battle of Calth is not yet over.

It will continue to run as long as a single son of the Traitor Seventeenth Legion remains alive.

From Heirs of Revenge: the Battle of Pharsalus, by Julius Ignatius, Ultramar Rose Edition, 322M41.

---

"Should Titans fight each other, the appropriate term for such a cataclysmic battle would be Titanomachy. We can only hope something so dreadful will never happen in Imperial history." Words attributed to the Primarch Rogal Dorn, 994M30.

---

Ultima Segmentum

Realm of Ultramar

Macragge System

Macragge

Pharsalus Military District

Fields of Pharsalus

55 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Thought for the day: Vengeance is your sword. Hatred is your shield. Loyalty is your Armour.

Lady Magos Dogma Richter

The battle was not going to be easy.

Dragon had known it from the start when looking at the incomplete order of battle.

The data the Tinker had been able to obtain on the Fields of Pharsalus before driving Falkor into the atmosphere had only confirmed this initial assessment.

Macragge was a Mountain World. There were at least a dozen peaks which could equal Mount Everest of Earth, and there were six peaks which were taller than the ancient Himalayan summit had been. This made the regions where the ground was mostly even absolutely priceless.

It also made the flat plain revealed to her auspex absolutely impractical for defensive warfare.

The width of the Fields of Pharsalus was close to twenty kilometres, and at the risk of repeating herself, it was absolutely flat ground, with only a small river flowing from south to north providing some elevation change...for all the good it did.

The river was easily crossable by Khan tanks and Chimera infantry transports. For Titans, it was not an obstacle, it was a distance marker.

It was evident, judging by the situation and the sheer size of the dark horde surrounding the corrupted Titans marching towards the Imperial armies pouring out of the Spaceport, that this was going to be a bloodbath.

"Legio Crucius, the Banelord-class Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus is yours," Princeps Maximus Cyrus began to give orders in a confident voice. "Legio Atarus, concentrate your fire on the Chaos Reaver Carnotaurus Sastrei."

"Half of my Dragon Armours have been given orders to protect you from aerial attacks and other airborne threats," the draconic Magos informed the Princeps once he had finished assigning the first targets, "and so will the interceptors of the 793rd Bakka Air Force. I am taking the other assets to establish aerial superiority over the battlefield."

"Understood." The commanding officer of the Loyalist Titans mustered for this monumental Titanomachy answered curtly. "Do you have any idea how many Heldrakes and other abominations the Traitors have kept for-"

A monstrous roar drowned the world of Macragge, and on the horizon, the sky turned dark.

It was not because there were storm clouds, unfortunately.

No, it was a tide of flying Daemon Engines and abominable creations of the Dark Mechanicum.

"We predicted approximately four thousand," Dragon answered three seconds later, "but it seems closer to six thousand two hundred. Good luck, Princeps Maximus."

"Legio Ignatum forges itself a path to victory without luck," despite having no vid, the smile was easy to imagine, "but I appreciate it, it seems we're going all we can get to kill those bastards..."

---

Traitor Imperator-class Titan Tyrannosaurus Rex

Alpha-Princeps Malus

The dogs of the False Emperor were still too far away, and at this range, only the Apocalypse Missiles had the range and blasting power to break through the protections of a Titan.

Malus growled happily as the golden fields disappeared in an inferno of red flames and black smoke. No doubt thousands of his oh-so-weak 'allies' had just been extinguished.

It was good.

The weak needed to be reminded of their insignificance from time to time.

The Word Bearers were weak. For all their ridiculous prayers, they were just like the rest of their slaves. Humans. Tiny. Insignificant.

Weak.

"I count one hundred and twenty-seven Titans, Alpha," the voice of the Princeps of Dilophosaurus Terribilis reached his senses, "and a very familiar foe is leading them..."

"Yes..." Malus didn't know if he had a tongue left to lick his lips with, not after an eternity of leaving his frail body in a green vat of nutrients while his relentless mind tried to keep the voracious spirit of Tyrannosaurus Rex in check, "they brought Exemplis."

The Princeps of Legio Vulturum had long wondered if the miserable weaklings which had survived the Siege of Terra had the determination and power to deploy their last Imperator Titans on the battlefield. Sota-Nul had assured them none of the Majoris Titan Assembly Lines had remained intact when the True Mechanicum had been forced to abandon Mars and flee.

But then Sota-Nul had revealed herself weak and easy to vanquish. Worse, she had made his Pack-Legio wait, without any appetizer to devour while important battles were waged without them.

The weak were punished.

This was a galaxy of danger, and only the strong survived and thrived.

And the Titans of Legio Vulturum were the apex predators.

They were strong.

"Missiles first," Malus ordered as entire tank regiments of weaklings disappeared in columns of fire. "We must cull the weaker prey before moving on the real dinner."

As he uttered the last words, the influence of Tyrannosaurus Rex grew ever more powerful, and the tenuous limit between the Titan and himself became far weaker than it had been in millennia.

"Hunt the Warlords. Eviscerate their Reavers. Annihilate their Warhounds. Tear apart the Warbringers. But remember...Exemplis is MY PREY!"

"Yes, my Alpha!"

"By your will, Alpha-Rex!"

"LEGIO VULTURUM! WE HUNT! WE DEVOUR!"

Tyrannosaurus Rex roared, the sonic weapon ending tens of thousands of lives, paving an avenue of corpses and skulls. Where he...where the supreme predator walked, they all fled.

Above his head, the pathetic flies that called themselves 'aircraft' buzzed and tried to be relevant. It was in vain. They couldn't pierce one Void Shield, and he had twelve before they could hit his new unbreakable armour.

The weak were dying in untold thousands.

This was a good day for the strong.

---

Somewhere in the vicinity of Ardium

Vaul-class Cruiser Star Strider

56 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

The Queen of Blades

Aenaria had been almost hopeful when the Alaitoc Asuryani had told her this was a Vaul-class Cruiser.

Having a ship or a class of warship named in honour of the Smith God had always been a sure way to attract her attention in the old days.

By old days she meant thousands of millennia ago, back when the Phoenix Throne had ruled the galaxy halfway competently before falling into hedonistic decadence and murderous madness.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the Vaul-class was a perfect representation of what the survivors of the Aeldari Empire had become.

It was shiny. It had a few impressive toys.

And it was utterly, completely obsolete compared to the warships the Empire had been able to field aeons before a lot of idiots had the bright idea that Morathi was an acceptable bride for the Lord of the Phoenix Throne.

No, Aenaria wasn't impressed by the Star Strider of the Alaitoc Mariners.

The ships she had managed to save and hide after the First Fall were incomparably superior.

The problem, alas, was that by the fault of Cegorach – this was the Clown God's fault, not hers – those ships were nowhere near the system the humans called Macragge.

If they had been, the scenario of this war would have been very, very different, the arena-mistress sometimes known as Lelith Hesperax was ready to swear a blood oath to Khaine on it.

"How long?" the Queen of Blades asked impatiently, in a tone which, had she been visiting one of her Webway arenas, would have been sufficient to make her followers prostrate themselves or run to remedy to the problem.

"It is only a question of micro-cycles," the shipmaster replied with an unbelievable haughtiness. Aenaria had to remind herself not to draw her sword; as satisfying as killing this pompous and arrogant Mariner would be, it would likely be a chore to learn to pilot this warship by herself. "We will soon be exactly at the range you've asked for."

"And the beast itself?"

"It can't detect us!" the certainty in the voice of the younger Mariner who had just spoken instantly triggered plenty of alarms born of millions of years of battle in the Queen of Blades' mind. "It is too busy destroying the feeble human defences!"

"And what, precisely, is fuelling this confidence?"

"The hyper-furtive system aboard the Star Strider is without equal among the squadrons of Alaitoc!" the young fool boasted loudly. "Hundreds of cycles ago we recovered an important lore-cache with the help of an Ulthwé force, which led us to develop a new illusion-cloak system, one the lesser races have been completely unable to see through. We have retrieved technology of your time, Gladiatrix, and we improved it!"

It was not often that Aenaria felt like the maw of the Primordial Annihilator was opening beneath her feet.

The ancient holder of the First Sword of Vaul had always prided herself in correctly analysing a strategic situation and then slaughtering her enemies.

Yet today was one of those times.

The creature, the Tyranid, had eaten Aeldari in the past. Anyone who had been able to observe its hyper psychic blast would recognise that. The young Alaitoc fools were using a cloaking system which might have been used during the War in Heaven.

Some warriors or arena-fighters, no doubt, would have said she was seeing problems where there were none...but in a fraction of a micro-cycle, Aenaria made her decision.

"Change course immediately!" The Queen of Blades barked.

"What?"

"Change course immediately! The big Tyranid can see us, its actions are a trap to convince us to-"

The sensors of the Star Strider shrieked in a discordant cacophony as an enormous psychic attack came into existence.

The Queen of Blades snarled and drew her favourite weapon.

---

High Orbit above Ardium

56 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Tyranid Hive Ship 'Behemoth'

If it had been a human Admiral or another senior commander of a race known for its deep emotions, the Hive Mind would likely have grunted in satisfaction as a monumental explosion announced the demise of the Aeldari Cruiser.

Of course, the Great Devourer was not human; it couldn't even have been compared to the super gestalts the Aeldari had experimented with at the height of their Empire.

Hive Fleet Behemoth, fully in control of the three bio-ships, reacted to the destruction of the Star Strider like it did for the destruction of any prey trying to stop it from feeding: by moving on to the next target which prevented it from devouring everything.

This was a list which was decreasing fast, for all around the being which outmassed all the Gloriana hulls in service of the Imperium, the orbital defences of Ardium had ceased to exist.

Behemoth did not care about the sheer devastation it had caused, the billions of Macraggian Denarii of investment it had wiped out, or the sheer terror grasping the hearts of the surviving defenders.

Its creators had not given the void leviathan the mental capacity to commiserate on the fate of innocent lives, and the Hive Mind controlling it from the intergalactic void was not going to change that state of affairs.

Whether as an individual life form or as a Hive Fleet, the Tyranids had more unity of purpose than any living race, even the Krork.

Their sole purpose was to devour.

The hunger must be quenched, even if it was only for a short amount of time, before new predation grounds were located and eaten clean.

The planet it was currently in orbit of would serve this purpose.

Furthermore, the ruthless Great Devourer calculated that, if the consumption of the planetary biomass was completed quickly enough, it would multiply the strength of the nascent vanguard force sufficiently to have high odds of victory against the prey fleet accelerating to intercept it.

There was no hesitation to be had, not that the Tyranid Hive Mind understood the concept of hesitating in the first place.

The units humans would soon call 'Gargoyles' and 'Spores' were ready. The feeding of the isolated agri-ship had enormously bolstered the bio-reserves of the Hive Ship and its two escorts.

It was time for the assault to begin.

---

Ardium

Asculum Military District

Hive Asculum's Walls

56 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Corporal Herminius Cincinnatus

One hour ago, Herminius had been busy losing his entire monthly pay at the infernal card game that was pyramid-poker.

And yeah, he knew Sergeant Quintus cheated – except like everyone in the Auxilia regiment, he had never been able to prove it.

Naturally, as a good and devout soldier having pledged his life to the Lord of Macragge, Herminius had prayed for the legendary guidance of Roboute Guilliman to come save them.

In hindsight, maybe that had been a bit of mistake.

After all, what was the point of card games when you weren't sure to live another day?

"By the Omega!" he swore as he saw another monstrous winged creature smash against the Void Shield of the Hive.

"Shit, the Ultramar's Uplifting Primer never told us we were going to have to fight that!"

"Stop spouting nonsense and help us prepare the flak guns!"

Herminius obeyed the order...and shivered when he saw the massive defences of Hive Asculum open fire.

Those were not the small salvoes a few prestigious commanders were rewarded with between the acclamations of the crowd, oh no.

No, this time, High Command was beginning to fire with everything. Massive silos which were dispersed across the southern plain expelled enormous amounts of smoke, and suddenly missiles taller than the Hive walls were climbing towards the heavens at fantastic speeds.

One by one, the big turrets on their right and left reminded Auxilia soldiers like him why they were no mere ornamental decoration.

In a couple of seconds, laser fire illuminated everything.

The big guns were soon joined by shells, plasma, and some things Herminius didn't even have a name for.

"What are they fighting? I'm not seeing...anything..." the Corporal didn't know who had spoken the last words, but he thought the timing could have been better.

Because before he could utter a word in reply, he saw the monsters' bombardment and new winged monsters come.

It was, to be honest, impossible to miss it unless you were blind.

The winged monsters...there were so many of them...

The cannons were killing hundreds of them per second.

Yet somehow, the number of xenos enemies descending from the skies to smash upon the Void Shields and the outer fortifications was growing, not decreasing.

And unfortunately, each time one of the monsters crashed into the shield, Herminius saw something straight out of a nightmare: red-black bodies with dozens of spikes, enormous fangs, and heretical weaponry merged to their limbs, while their wings were chitinous bat-things which should never been able to carry them through the skies for so long.

"God-Emperor," the exclamation escaped him, "the monsters are darkening Ardium's skies..."

---

Asculum's Primary Command Centre

Captain Falco Tullius

Falco didn't need someone to voice a theoretical to know that the loss of the Mass Conveyor to the Tyranids had allowed the beast to replenish its hordes.

This factor had been calculated before the orbital defences fell against a tide of horrors...except the most pessimistic estimates seemed to have not been pessimistic enough.

"For now, the xenos are unleashing their entire strength upon Hive Asculum and Hive Quartus, Captain." The senior Techmarine of the 9th Company grimaced as the hololith images flickered and the quality of the communication decreased drastically. "As far as I can tell, anyway. Vox frequencies and all major methods of communication are partially jammed by the enemy's psychic shadow effect."

"But the Void Shields will hold?"

"They hold...for now."

The last two words, given the sheer number of black dots encircling the aerial approaches of Asculum, were anything but reassuring.

"For now?"

"I am receiving an alarming number of reports that wherever there are exhaust ports, secondary generators, and important machinery outside of the Shields, the xenos' winged units seem to prioritise their destruction, sometimes using kamikaze units to do so. Obviously, most of the critical infrastructure is inside the Void Shields, otherwise it would be very poor protection in case of a siege..."

"But this is just the prelude. They will soon bring their equivalent of a ground army via their orbital-to-ground transports. And eighty percent of our anti-air batteries are already firing."

"Practical: they will have to continue to fire." When the alternative was to let this horde live a minute longer than necessary, one had to ignore the fire-rate restrictions of the Codex.

"Yes, Captain, but...all those weapon batteries are relatively recent and maintained, but...no Imperial weapon is designed to fire for an entire day without slowing down. At some point, the guns will overheat and suffer grave malfunctions, despite all the help the Tech-Priests can provide."

"We will have to risk it nonetheless," the Ultramarine officer replied grimly. "I don't like the energy readings of the Void Shields. If we stop firing, there won't be any hope for the fighter squadrons which are on their way right now."

"Practical: do you really want to send non-veteran pilots into that hellish battle-zone, brother?" The Chaplain of the 9th asked.

"Counter-practical: can we afford not to?"

All the squadrons of the Ultramar Air Force the Chapter Master had left stationed on Ardium were going to endure crippling losses, but what was the alternative? For now, the enemy was trying to destroy Asculum and Quartus, but once their fate was sealed, the enemy was sure to go after the other Hives.

"Anyway. Since the...Gargoyles of the enemy are doing their best to present themselves as targets for our guns, I can only presume the xenos drop pods are bringing ground assault forces to breach the walls. How are the ammunition stocks for the infantry and the armour spearheads I planned for?

"Sub-optimal, brother."

Falco Tullius snorted.

"Typical."

"To be fair to-"

"I am, since the beginning of this whole disaster, incredibly disinterested in being fair, and yes, I include myself in the number of people who have massively underestimated the enemy."

"Yes, Captain." The Techmarine consulted a data-slate tied to his belt, before resuming his report. "But to be fair, the rates at which the ammunition levels are expended are so high...I doubt the Legion used so many tons of ammunition per hour during the Great Crusade. Even the accursed Traitors and the Orks know better than to attempt the sort of suicide attacks those xenos are doing."

"Theoretical: it is only suicidal if the individual monsters of this horde care about living another day. And based on practical observations, it is clear they don't."

"But surely they're going to run out of attack 'Gargoyles' to throw at us, right?"

Falco wished the Ultramarine battle-brother who had spoken had kept his damn mouth shut, for more alarms shrieked, and the auspexes announced the arrival of a new dark tide of xenos. And yes, it more than compensated for the insane losses the enemy had taken in the last ten minutes...

---

Laphis

Ravenna – west of the Polenta River

56 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Captain Aeonid Thiel

Aeonid had seen many army headquarters in his life. Some had been the ruling realm of his Primarch. Many others had not, and in about a third of the behind-the-lines campaigns he had fought between Calth and Terra, he had often been the only Astartes to attend Solar Auxilia war councils.

It was, however, a novel experience to discover the location where the 10th Korps had built its temporary headquarters.

That it was underground was not a surprise, given that many Daemon Engines and heretical batteries had yet to be neutralised.

But the hundreds of spiders of all sizes working hand-in-hand with the guardsmen officers was something even his transhuman mind struggled with, for all his prior knowledge of Weaver's insect-controlling powers.

At least it answered the question of why the Ambulls he had seen had been commanded to build something so big.

When you had a spider bigger than a battle-tank coordinating the effort from her red hovering seat near the hololith, dozens of young women from the Templar Sororitas guarding her, and a significant number of massive ants, crabs, and bees mounting guard or used as messengers, you needed a lot of space.

The addition of all the guardsmen, from Generals to simple soldiers and vox-operators, had resulted in the 'temporary headquarters' being a very big cavern in its own right.

Aeonid was willing to concede no one else, not even his Primarch, would have been able to build something so big in so few hours, no matter how much specialist equipment was brought in.

"They can't break through our lines anymore, General," the bigger spider was reporting when he finally passed through the last security cordon. The closer he approached, the more Aeonid realised the voluminous red support the spider was using was not to tower over the heads of the Catachans as she delivered the news, but because two of her clearly metallic 'legs' had literally melted and were covered in a sort of golden crystalline substance which had to be Aethergold. "And without the Vile One to give them cohesion, the heretics are dividing themselves into several pockets. A good last kick will result in their prompt extermination!"

The arachnid servant of Weaver wasn't completely wrong, but she neglected several important factors...proof that for all their intelligence, they weren't their insect-mistress.

"But our forces do not have the strength to deliver this 'last kick'," the Heresy veteran saluted the Catachan jungle experts with a nod. "The Krieg regiments are completely exhausted by the efforts of the last several hours, and the surviving heretics have had time to fortify the positions they hold. Moreover, half of the Space Marines that deployed, your reinforcements included, are dead or severely wounded."

"I can't say that I disagree," General Jack Schwarz, who he had already spoken with by vox, voiced his opinion. "But if we give them too much rest, the heretics are going to have the opportunity to think about what went wrong and use their cursed sorcery to inflict new horrors upon Ravenna."

"I find that...unlikely," the guardsmen and the spiders weren't convinced, Aeonid didn't need to be a psyker to know that, "oh, they will try to retake some measure of initiative, but my battle-brothers have ascertained via careful scouting that the three pockets are respectively commanded by a Night Lord, an Iron Warrior, and a Word Bearer. Correct?"

"Correct," the big spider conceded, before praising him. "Your ability to collect priceless information is as good as your reputation suggests, Captain."

"I'm glad you think so," Aeonid smiled before finding the accurate location he wanted on the hololithic imagery. "But the point I wanted to make is that we do not need to destroy the pockets at the same time. The Word Bearer-led force must remain our priority; the others can wait. Without the bastard sons of Lorgar, the heretical sorcery will no longer be a factor."

"That could work...as long as the followers of the Vile One can't employ the same tricks which allowed them to bypass the river!"

Aeonid grimaced, because for all the bluntness of the arachnid, it definitely had a point.

"And we need to bring more artillery in position, of course."

"Noble Ilmarina," one of the Sororitas intervened with a frown, "we already have two thousand guns bombarding the heretics!"

"There's no such thing as overkill when it comes to killing the enemies of the Webmistress!" the metallic spider protested loudly. "Much like there is no such a thing as a too large detachment to make sure Inquisitor Contessa is in a hospital bed and doesn't leave it!"

---

Macragge

Magna Macragge Military District

Entrance of the Laponis Valley

Cynoscephalae Line

56 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Dark Apostle Vorrjuk Kraal

If the sons of Perturabo were here, they would likely be busy laughing themselves to death.

The entrance of the Laponis Valley was not fortified, no matter if you used Astartes or a mortal standards.

It may be different in a few days; thanks to the pacts he had made, the member of the Dark Council could see the slaves of the False Emperor dig trenches as fast as their frail bodies allowed.

It was too late, of course. The battle was going to begin within the hour; the Seventeenth Legion was not going to give them more than a few minutes to complete their pathetic preparations.

No, the entrance of the Valley of Laponis was completely open to them.

Four kilometres wide where it counted, this was a perfect stage for their Land Raiders, Rhinos, and other armoured vehicles they would unleash.

If Vorrjuk had ignored everything else, he might have almost believed this was going to be a one-sided victory which would lead them to the gates of Guilliman's capital in a matter of hours.

Almost.

"I see four hundred heavy mortars on the left rocky ridge," the senior Dark Apostle announced after clearing his throat, "they have fifty or sixty self-propelled artillery guns, and two hundred Hydras to protect them. More are arriving every minute."

Vorrjuk tried not to show the strain that keeping the Flesh Change Curse at bay was putting on him. He didn't know if he was particularly successful at fooling the Black Cardinal.

"And of course there are just as many batteries and long-range weapons taking position on the right ridge."

It was a funny thing to know the Ultramarines' world had a scarcity of valleys, simply because too many of their domains consisted of impassable mountains.

It was far less amusing to acknowledge that despite a few millennia spent praising the corpse of their gene-sire and venerating the book he wrote, they had found the time to build good roads. And many of them allowed the slaves of the False Emperor to deploy quickly to easily defensible positions.

"I don't even need to open that fucking Codex Astartes to know what they have in mind," Vorrjuk continued. "They will place their artillery on the ridges from here to Macragge City, while the forces in the valley will play the role of bait and bleed us at every opportunity."

"They will fail." There was no trace of doubt in Kor Phaeron's voice.

"Oh? Then please explain to me how we are going to counter this stratagem before Jarulek's last spell of defiance falters and the fleet in orbit annihilates us, Black Cardinal."

"They will fail because they are blind. They will fail because they do not have the Faith!"

By every putrescent plague of the Lord of Decay, why had he thought the plan was going to be based on a sound concept?

"Of course. But if you will forgive me, Kor Phaeron...without the full support of the Gods, faith alone is going to be a poor shield against the False Emperor's artillery."

"We have Raptors. We have other Astartes equipped with jump packs. Don't tell me you can't take a slightly elevated position from mortals?"

"We probably could," Vorrjuk replied ironically, "if mortals were all we had to fight. But unless I am completely hallucinating? The foolish sons of Sigismund are present on the ridges."

The Black Templars did their best to be relatively discreet, and to be honest, they were absolutely horrible at it.

Unfortunately, the very fact they tried that sort of tactic and would have managed to fool Kor Phaeron if Vorrjuk wasn't there to provide some intelligence update...it wasn't a pleasant realisation.

"Yes...but it is only the left ridge. There are no sons of Dorn on our right."

"That is because the Ultramarines are a bit more competent at hiding their presence. It's too bad for them that the incredibly well-ordered and Codex-standard formations betray their presence as surely as bolter fire would."

For one brief moment, Vorrjuk dared hope something like sanity would manifest in the head of the Black Cardinal.

The Dark Apostle genuinely prayed that the horrible agony suffered by Jarulek had given him enough motivation to avoid a new bloodbath. Needless to say, the losses the Legion had suffered in the Macragge System so far were crippling beyond any hope of recovery, and one more battle was certainly going to be their end.

"Deal with their artillery. You have yet to use some minor artefacts of the Necrons, no? They should give you the edge you want to destroy the Ultramarines and the Black Templars." The expression the Black Cardinal gave him was malicious evil made flesh. "I am herding Lorgar and all other Chaos Spawns into the Valley, followed by our armoured spearhead. Do not make me wait for you, Kraal."

Apparently, his prayers had been in vain.

"I will do as you say..."

"Yes, you will do as I desire. I am the servant of the Gods, and I am going to kill Guilliman! Death to the False Emperor!"

Naturally, the battle-cry was neither intended for him, nor was it for his followers.

It was for the Anointed, Kor Phaeron's personal guard, and the fanatics of the 1st Great Host.

"DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!" The scream was guttural, utterly merciless, and free of doubt. "DEATH TO GUILLIMAN! LET THE GALAXY BURN!"

---

Macragge

Pharsalus Military District

Fields of Pharsalus

57 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

General Nikolai Rokossovsky

More than two years ago, Nikolai remembered having asked the Nyxian Minister of Industry what would increase the life-expectancy of the super-heavy Cataphract tanks should they find themselves facing a Titan-level force.

The answer had been both promising and disappointing.

Promising, for the Lady Magos Dragon Richter had plenty of good ideas, ranging from targeting system-jammers to new Plasma Guns, and sometimes spoke of near-miraculous devices of ages past the Mechanicus was busy seeking the schematics for in abandoned Martian Forges.

Disappointing, for each and every one of those measures would make not only the Cataphract infinitely more costly than it was currently – a not insignificant factor when the noble machine was produced because it was cheaper than a Baneblade – it required more time, time the General Staff of Operation Stalingrad didn't have.

Then his mind returned to reality, and the reality was that his Command Cataphract's frontal armour had been literally disintegrated, with only the emergency foam saving him and his staff from dying there and then.

"GENERAL! WE HAVE TO-"

"EVACUATE! EVACUATE THE CATAPHRACT BEFORE WHOEVER SHOT US TRIES TO FINISH THE JOB!"

The God-Emperor be praised, the exit hatch functioned as it should, and Nikolai and all his men – all save his poor deceased pilot, alas – left the ruin of the Cataphract and began to run in the direction of the twin of the Loyal Vostroya.

Ten seconds later, a heretical weapon firing what looked like a ray of pure darkness slammed into the doomed Cataphract.

The monumental explosion shook him to his core, and would have done more if they had not taken cover behind a destroyed Traitor vehicle.

"I think it was a new type of Heldrake, General!"

"Wonderful!" The Vostroyan officer replied with dark humour. "Would you please inform the Dragon squadrons to shoot it down before it attacks my other command vehicles? You know, just to make sure we don't have to make a second evacuation in ten minutes..."

"Yes, General!"

Nikolai Rokossovsky wondered for a second if the heretics' leadership had deliberately targeted him with this sneak attack, before reluctantly concluding it was unlikely. The seconds passed, and though the Hydras never stopped firing, indicating the flying Daemon Engine was still out there somewhere, there was no other super-heavy tank which exploded or suffered massive damage.

"General, the Vindication of Stalingrad is ready to serve as your new command post!"

"Thank you, Lieutenant!"

This was the moment the columns of smoke began to blow away in a different direction, and the Vostroyan General suddenly felt very, very tiny.

The fire of the Titans exploded in every direction, and their metallic roars of fury exploded in another thunderous litany of hatred and war.

The Fields of Pharsalus were burning. Thousands of vehicles were already nothing more than incinerated wrecks, tens of thousands of men, maybe hundreds of thousands, had already died, but the majority of the Titans didn't look damaged at all, save one or two Warhounds here and there, and the same was true for their heretical challengers.

Seeing them like this, ignoring enormous impacts which could have destroyed entire cities if not for the Void Shields protecting them...it was a really, really humbling experience.

"WHY ARE YOU STARING?" He roared at his staff, as they had the same frozen reaction as he did. "STOP GAPING AND RUN TO THE VINDICATION, OR, WITH THE GOD-EMPEROR AS MY WITNESS, I WILL GIVE YOU TOILET DUTIES FOR THE NEXT DECADE!"

"YES, GENERAL!"

---

Land Raider Blessed Crusade

Dark Apostle Paristur

Any hope Paristur had that Malus would be able to impose some discipline upon his fellow Princeps died when one of the False Emperor's Titans impaled one of the Subjugator Scout Titans upon its Arioch Power Claw.

The architect of the kill was painted in the colours of the Legio Metalica. The senior Dark Apostle was well-aware of the bombastic and fearless reputation of the Titans of that particular Legio.

Therefore there was no way the Titan blaring his sirens of war and running into the smoke provided by countless explosions was an act of cowardice.

No, the Titan had spilled first blood, and was now provoking the other Titans of Legio Vulturum into hunting him.

Five thousand years ago, it would not have worked. The Gore Crows had survived the Rangdan Xenocides for a reason.

Today? Tyrannosaurus Rex and its bestial partners didn't hesitate ten seconds before charging in pursuit of the 'fleeing target'.

The answer from the enemy Titans was quick and devastating.

At least six Plasma Destructors and four Volcano Cannons fired on the Warlord guarding the right flank of the Vulturum Imperator Titan.

They could have only come so close because of incompetence on Malus' part and some auspex-befouling technology, but reality cared nothing for such details.

Every shot found its target, and the Void Shields of Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus resisted for only a fraction of second before collapsing.

RRRROOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRR!

For a couple of seconds, the scream of utter fury of Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus was heard by everyone.

For a couple seconds longer, everything on the battlefield seemed to pause.

The right arm of the Legio Vulturum Titan, severed from the main body, fell and crashed onto Macragge's soil like the death knell of a sacred bell.

This was catastrophic, for the Titan Claw – though it had long been modified and evolved into something animalistic – had been its greatest close-combat weapon.

But Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus was still alive, for all the terrible pyres burning everywhere on its body, the torn-up 'scales', and the incredible damage that would have destroyed a lesser Titan.

"Malus, withdraw your wingman, this is-"

Two small reptilian units flew at supersonic speeds and launched missiles before he could finish the command.

Had the Banelord had a single Void Shield functional at half-power, it would have withstood the attack effortlessly.

But it didn't.

And the missiles struck true.

"To every Legionnaire! Brace for impact!" Paristur ordered.

Fortunately, they were quite far from the front where the Titans had adopted this stupid 'hunting tactic'.

BOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!

It was not a mere explosion.

Saying that would be a gross insult.

No, when Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus' Fusion Reactor went critical, it was if a new volcano had burst into existence on Macragge.

And suddenly, the reason why there were so few of the False Emperor's slaves mounting a defence on the central frontline of Pharsalus...well, it became incredibly obvious.

"Eliphas," the veteran of the Seventeenth Legion growled, knowing the daemonic device near him would truthfully relay all of his words to the other member of the Dark Council. "I think we need to press the enemy's armoured formations harder. Legio Vulturum isn't going to fight as we desire."

Paristur had tried to coordinate with 'Alpha-Princeps Malus', of course, but past the first accusations of 'weakness', he had swiftly abandoned the effort.

"They have managed to kill two Warhounds and one Reaver." The senior Dark Apostle disagreed.

"Yes, while they tried to fight like a Titan Legio," bestial roars thundered across the entire battlefield, "and I doubt this is going to be the case any longer."

It was likely giving them credit where there was none. They had been undisciplined at the beginning of the battle, and now...now the way they were advancing, it was like the machines were commanded and crewed by feral and bloodthirsty beasts.

The fact that this was exactly what they had tried to achieve to force so many Legios to turn against the False Emperor in the early days of rebellion was not lost on him.

"If we try to press on the flanks while the Titans aren't there to support us in any manner whatsoever, it is going to cost us," Eliphas stopped before uttering the last word, "dearly."

"We don't have the luxury of choice anymore!" The Lord Apostle of Terror snarled. "Send everything into the fray! We can't allow the enemy to consolidate its positions!"

---

Battle Groups of Operation Stalingrad approaching Ardium

Battleship Enterprise

58 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Lady General Taylor Hebert

Wolfgang Bach and Archmagos Sagami had agreed on one point: that the Tyranids had left a sizeable number of reconnaissance satellites intact in high orbit was extremely good news, for it allowed the forces of Operation Stalingrad to have a good picture of what the situation looked like on Ardium and how to prepare the Guard for the conflict ahead.

The sentiment had been voiced one hour ago, before the first vid was deciphered and projected onto the hololiths.

It was before Taylor began to realize that humans were dying in great numbers to defend the Hive World of the Macragge System from the Tyranid threat.

It was before watching the surreal spectacle of an enormous area on the surface of Ardium being engulfed in a black maelstrom, which reminded her of some nasty hurricanes she had seen recordings of.

Except this was not a storm.

This was a gigantic aerial swarm of monsters, and the humans were playing the role of prey. The Tyranids were the locusts, but instead of wheat, they had decided the humans were their diet.

"How long," the Lady General asked, despite knowing very well what the answer was going to be, "until we can reach Ardium and gain orbital superiority to help the Ultramarines and the rest of the forces stationed on the planet?"

"Assuming Behemoth and its two escorts do not mount a stronger resistance than the Traitor fleet did, we will be in position in fifteen hours, my Lady."

"Fifteen hours and three minutes, Chosen of the Omnissiah."

Taylor closed her eyes, and unconsciously gripped the armchairs of her command seat on the Enterprise's bridge tighter.

Fifteen hours.

It might as well be an eternity.

"The Ultramarines aren't going to last." And she wasn't naive enough to make it a question.

"Almost certainly not," Diamantis stepped forwards and spoke for the Dawnbreaker Guard as a whole. "It is certainly a question of minutes before they overload the Shields of the two Hives they are concentrating on. Since the Tyranids also appear to land considerable ground assets via their biological drop pods, we have to assume the assault on the walls will begin within a minute of the energy protection and the other defences disappearing."

"Our cousins are going to sell their lives dearly." T'klis Rubix of the Magma Spiders half-protested.

"It won't be enough." The Imperial Fist shook his head. "They don't have enough Space Marines, they don't have enough guns, and they were caught utterly unprepared for a threat of this magnitude. Within fifteen hours, those two Hives will be devoured."

"Then I will have to intervene."

The words had not been shouted, but without trying, she had stopped all conversations on her bridge.

"My Lady," Gamaliel began cautiously, "while I can't deny it is within your means to intervene, now that you have been granted those extraordinary powers thanks to the Emperor's benevolence...it doesn't mean you should."

"Gamaliel is right," Gavreel added his voice. "I'm all for saving as many Imperial citizens as we can, but this isn't the Battle of Tau. It isn't just a big abomination for you to fight, while we can keep the rest of the monsters at bay. This time, the enemy is uncountable, and the moment they see you arrive, they will commit a tide of horrors to kill you."

"I have a swarm of my own to unleash, unless you've forgotten."

"And can said swarm come with us, my Lady?"

"No," Taylor admitted, "at least, not beyond the Adjutant-Spiders and the Catachan ants I have."

Lisa was also included in this limited list, but someone had to power the shields of the Aegis-class Battlecruisers, and if it wasn't going to be her, it needed to be her diva.

"In that case-"

"I wasn't finished speaking, Diamantis. It is true I can't take all my swarm with me, but we have a considerable number of special torpedoes which can arrive in time to make a difference."

"Theoretically, Chosen of the Omnissiah," Archmagos Sagami said after consulting some data on his console. "I presume you are speaking about Contingency Terminator via the Nemesis-Hunter Cannon? And that the deployment would be in the low atmosphere?"

"Yes," it was really good to have competent subordinates. Taylor gave him a thin smile. "That is exactly what I had in mind."

"Surely the insects stored in those torpedoes will die, my Lady," the Huscarl of the Imperial Fists continued to object. "No Space Marine's body would be able to handle the stress of a fraction of that violent acceleration."

"They would, if we were speaking about living insects," Taylor smirked. "I have taken control of millions of Necron Scarabs, and the Magi were kind enough to store them in different transports. While I will give some to Neferten, it would be a pity to not use them where they can make a difference."

The insect-mistress left her command seat behind and went on to face the hololithic image of Lord Admiral Neidhart Müller.

"I think you are taking a huge risk for uncertain gains." The senior officer of Battlefleet Nyx told her bluntly.

"Duly noted," the golden-winged Angel of Sacrifice nodded, "though we are talking about billions of lives, for the record, and I wouldn't be able to look at myself in a mirror if I didn't even try to save them. I'm going to leave two Adjutant-Spiders with Lisa, so you can relay her instructions and see them obeyed at the proper time. You are in command of the fleet, Admiral."

"Yes, your Celestial Highness." The grey-haired Navy officer saluted. "Your orders?"

"The Tyranids must not escape, no matter the cost in warships and lives. The destruction they are inflicting upon Ardium is disastrous, but it pales when compared to the rampage Behemoth and any space-capable organisms could do if left unopposed on the Eastern Fringe for long. Kill it before it can attack another planet, Admiral. The survival of trillions rests on your shoulders."

This was only the first call she had to make, of course. Second was to give General Paul Dundee temporary command of the Guard regiments until they landed on Ardium. New orders had to be given, Astartes had to be informed of her change of plan and what would be required of them in fifteen hours.

It felt long to her, but it was in fact just a few minutes.

The torpedoes are beginning to be fired, Webmistress!

Thank you, Artemis.

"Dawnbreaker Guard," the female parahuman announced softly. "Will you follow me one more time?"

---

Ardium

Asculum Military District

Hive Asculum

58 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Corporal Herminius Cincinnatus

As always, the military rations delivered to them were awful.

"I would almost prefer to be back on the wall..."

"No, you wouldn't."

Herminius grimaced. Marcus was right. He really didn't want to return to the walls.

The mere idea of walking up to the lift and charging back to reload the Hydras was turning his stomach.

It was far better to stay in this underground room, no matter how awful the food.

"Yeah, you're right. Primarch's spirit, what the hell do they make them from? They're still good for two years, but it's like they're trying to poison us!"

"The Quartermaster-Councillor or one of his cousins must have taken half for his private accounts and told the cogboys to make something edible for the toaster-lovers?" Lepidus tried before snorting. "You know, we should throw a few of them at the monsters. See if they're poisoned by our awful rations. If they are, it would mean our superiors are definitely trying to kill us..."

"And if you do that, the Vigil Opertii will force you to jump after them to recover the rations."

This time, over twenty men grimaced inside the small grey-painted space which served as their unofficial mess hall.

The secret police was no laughing matter, and though you saw the agents rarely, the few times you did see them were sufficient to make you long for the times they were nowhere in sight.

"REJOICE! REJOICE, FOR THE GOD-EMPEROR IS CALLING YOU TO SERVE AND DIE IN HIS NAME!"

"Oh, great, the Preachers are at it again. Remind me, whose brilliant idea was it to invite them into military facilities?"

"The Hive Prefect's, I believe. His wife is very religious, and he thought he was doing us a favour by inflicting them upon us..."

"Great."

Herminius suddenly realised his plate was vibrating, and the same was true for the metallic table and chairs.

"Guys, I believe-"

CRASH!

Something huge barrelled into the mess hall. Something red and black, with giant scything claws, and an enormous maw.

"RUN!"

Herminius threw his plate with the half-eaten ration in the direction of monster and followed his own advice.

He didn't turn back, not even as loud screams echoed behind him.

The Auxilia Corporal ran faster.

Several times he almost fell, for the tunnel inside the walls was shaking violently, despite how impossible it was supposed to be.

But at last, Herminius left the barely lit passage and arrived in the avenues behind the wall...and froze, for the war had already overtaken him.

Where pristine pavement had been there for anyone to walk upon this morning, now there were enormous holes disfiguring the landscape, and torrents of small red-black monsters were emerging from them faster than you could say it. Only several lines of lasguns prevented the monsters from decimating his comrades.

"Colonel!" In his despair, he found something familiar. "Colonel! The enemy is digging through the walls, we have to-"

An enormous shrieking sound echoed, which was followed by ten thousand maws hungering for human flesh.

In a second, a rain of blood began to fall down on their heads, and purple substances which were not good for anyone's health accompanied it, leaving behind an acidic mess on the ground.

Herminius was just a Corporal, but he understood instantly what had happened. The Void Shields were gone.

"We are so going to die..."

The xenos attacked.

Herminius jumped to grab a lasgun that one of the dead Auxilia members had in his hands, reloaded a las-cell in it, and began to fire.

Someone was screaming, and after a few seconds, he realised it was him.

The Ardium-born Corporal didn't stop screaming.

Everything was a nightmare. The monsters came from the air, from under their feet, and though the first volleys killed dozens, there were hundreds more following behind them.

"DIE! WHY DON'T YOU LET US LIVE AND DIE!"

An enormous scything claw missed him by a finger's width. Bodies flew. Herminius took a bath of blood, his perfect blue uniform sprayed in fluids like it had never been before.

Turning, he realised the damned monster which had killed his platoon had followed him.

It crawled out of the tunnel.

Guilliman's Shrine, this was a nightmare! Please, let him wake up!

The thing rose like an enormous snake, except no snake was that big and could make one of the Angels of Death's statue look small...

"DIE!"

But his lasgun didn't do anything to the red chitin of the xenos, and he hadn't missed.

Electric sparks danced on the four massive blades, and Herminius knew he was going to die there.

The creature lunged-

And a powerful flash blinded him.

When his vision somehow recovered, Herminius was greeted with the unbelievable sight of the monster lying lifeless, its scythes broken, and its head cleaved off its shoulders.

A golden foot stood upon the xenos' head.

And the golden foot was connected to a golden armour.

Herminius Cincinnatus instantly dropped to his knees. Guilliman and the God-Emperor, they weren't an invention of the Ecclesiarchy, they were real! They were real!

"Rise Corporal, and fight the Tyranids with us."

Herminius could only stare in disbelief as a cascade of golden fire rained upon Hive Asculum's walls, and Angels of Death in a multitude of colours began to deliver His vengeance to the winged and non-winged monsters.

---

Captain Falco Tullius

The moment Falco had been informed the Tyranids were able to burrow their way through metres of ferrocrete and the foundations of the wall, he had known the outer defences of Hive Asculum were lost.

As such, when he arrived in Sector 15 and the jamming of the vox was interrupted by roars of triumph, the Ultramarines Captain didn't understand what was happening.

Then he looked up to the skies.

The Void Shields had been forced to decrease the vital areas they were protecting, courtesy of so many heating vents and power sources destroyed, but the winged Tyranids weren't raining death down on the Auxilia.

This wasn't because the xenos had suddenly turned merciful, but because they were under attack.

"By the ashes of Calth! What is that?"

Despite the smoke, it was quite clear there were two gigantic clouds of enemies fighting over Hive Asculum, and only one was Tyranid.

The other was, judging by the colour and the spectrum analysis of his armour's sensors, metallic.

And it was quite capable of holding against the largest gargoyles, sending a rain of decapitated or wingless monsters into the last plunge of their lives.

"It seems we have been given a reprieve," Falco Tullius acknowledged, "destroy me all those infiltration Tyranids which have showed burrowing capability! And cancel the retreat orders for Sectors 14, 15, and 16! We will hold the walls!"

"Theoretical: if we pursue that strategy, we are soon going to be without the protection of our Void Shields, brother."

"Practical: I prefer to fight on the outskirts of the Hive where we have evacuated the civilians than fighting when the xenos devour them around us." The commanding officer of the 9th Company replied without missing a beat. "And since Weaver has saved our outer defences from being overwhelmed, we'd better take advantage of it."

As if to support his words, four more Gargoyles fell on a nearby fortified position. Fortunately the Auxilia all got away from them, and the armoured roof resisted the weight of the dead enemies.

"We don't know if it is Weaver-"

Falco Tullius rolled his eyes.

"I suppose there's a near infinity of Generals who have the ability to throw millions of insects at an enemy and ensure the cloud-swarms can execute audacious tactics based on some famous Tactica Imperialis' manoeuvres then?"

The more one looked at the cataclysmic fight, the more it looked like a dance...a dance where the Tyranids were not the side gaining the upper hand.

To be sure the black-red xenos had not lost their aggressiveness or their sheer disregard for their own lives, but they were definitely being forced away from the walls.

"We have been, as I said, granted a reprieve," Falco repeated as his brothers and himself drew their Bolters and began to fire at an enormous serpentine creature which had just crawled out of a big hole two metres away from the wall. It was good that they had taken it under fire before it could charge; the scythes which were the main armament of the beast looked quite nasty. "We will use it, brothers! COURAGE AND HONOUR!"

"COURAGE AND HONOUR! WE MARCH FOR ARDIUM!"

---

Macragge

Magna Macragge Military District

Entrance of the Laponis Valley

Cynoscephalae Line

58 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Marshal Helman Malberg

The surviving Word Bearers were not an army anymore, they were a horde.

Watching them charge towards the entrance of the Laponis Valley, Marshal Helman Malberg acknowledged this.

But then how could it be otherwise when their Traitor Primarch had been transformed into a Knight-sized Chaos Spawn?

"Maybe this is why there were so many of those heretical beasts in high orbit, Marshal."

"Maybe, Gottfried," Helman didn't have a better explanation, at any rate. The Traitors were damned and always at great risk of transforming into abominable masses of flesh if they displeased the Ruinous Powers, but hundreds of them turning at once? In all the history of the Eternal Crusade, it was unprecedented.

The Marshal of the Black Templars turned towards Tillman after giving a last glance at the ten thousand-plus oath-breakers.

"Did we receive another suggestion from Captain Pompeius?"

"No, brother. Nothing beyond what was already said. There was however confirmation from the ridge positions that the artillery bombardment of the Traitors is extremely weak. Their key effort to dislodge our brothers from our positions there will entirely consist of Raptors, Daemonhosts, and flight-capable horrors."

"This sounds...like an extremely stupid course of action from our enemies."

Helman was going to admit he had been brash in his youth, but charging into a valley when you could see artillery take position on an elevated terrain to flank you was a real nightmare.

"You have something to say, Squire Eugen?"

"Yes, Marshal. Is it possible the accursed Seventeenth has seen its fiendish sorcery turn against their vile minds and bodies? I am young and still ignorant, but is it possible the Traitors are under some sort of deadline after which, if they have not completed some vile task, they will all turn into those Chaos Spawns?"

Helman gave an approving look to the Neophyte. He could see why Gottfried had asked to be temporarily relieved of his daily duties to accept this new recruit from Smilodon as his squire.

"You may be entirely correct, Squire Eugen." Helman spoke calmly, trying to come up with another logical explanation, and finding none. Of course, given the madness reigning in a heretic's mind, this didn't mean another didn't exist. "It is also possible there's another explanation, of course. The ways of the Archenemy are often incomprehensible to us. We follow the path of the God-Emperor and Her Celestial Highness, while the determination and wisdom of Lord Dorn and High Marshal Sigismund power our hearts. They do not."

"And they are going to suffer for it." Franz announced his presence.

"May I assume from your presence that the Predators and the rest of the Tanks are ready, brother?"

"They are, my Marshal," the Sword Brethren confirmed. "And the guardsmen I left behind have made sure there are no civilians for the heretics to bait us with between here and the walls of Macragge City."

"Excellent," Helman would have waged the decisive battle here if he had to, but since the heretics were so willing to throw themselves into a position they couldn't retreat from, it would be rude to refuse the opportunity to exterminate them to the last black soul. "Let's return to our Predators, my brothers. I want to see what the Will of the Saint and all the gifts of Her Celestial Highness can do against this Traitor horde."

---

Yvraine Kaydinn

At first, Yvraine had thought the humans had lost their minds.

Standing in the open like they did, with such feeble defences, was an extremely easy way to get killed given the sheer number of Primordial Annihilator servants rushing to kill them.

This impression broke when she touched the hilt of Kha-vir. The moment her fingers grasped the hilt of the terrible sword, the sorrow of the blade struck her...and she saw the multiple units hidden by some sort of mechanical artifice.

The humans were not that strong in the valley, and most of their strength was divided into the tall giants of black and white whose aura screamed blind devotion and murder, and some formations of trap-experts.

And the faster the corrupt beings enslaved to Chaos advanced, the quicker the humans finished their work and retreated.

The young Asuryani wondered at first why this trick had worked so well. The black-white giants had no psionic-gifted beings among their ranks, unlike some of the other Space Marines she had seen fighting so far.

"They're going to be routed. Once again, it will be the skill and the might of the Asuryani which will utterly defeat the Primordial Annihilator."

This voice reminded Yvraine she wasn't alone, and the newly accepted Malan'tai warrior wondered what sort of joke the Harlequins were playing on her and the rest of their expeditionary force.

Given the circumstances, this mission had clearly required Asuryani able to tolerate the presence of humans, and if necessary, to fight by their side.

The male Aspect Warrior holding the Spear of Twilight next to her, in her informed opinion, couldn't be relied on not to shoot the first human who tried to approach him.

"No, they won't."

The loud guns of the souls obeying Maelsha'eil Dannan chose this moment to unleash their wrath upon their undisciplined foes.

The flat ground ceased to be of even elevation, as soon an uncountable number of craters were created, and the sorrowful song of her sword increased. It was both a remorseful melody and a joyful tune.

Taking a life should never be easy, yet the actions of the Primordial Annihilator's slaves could never be forgiven, for they had wilfully increased the strength of different Aspects of Chaos.

The monsters died by the thousands.

Some tried to reach the heights guarding the valley, but it was a doomed and futile endeavour. The defenders had anticipated this, and soon the things which tried to fly made superb targets. Very few of the Possessed and mutated attackers survived to come close enough to shed blood.

The horde continued to run southwards nonetheless.

Yvraine could almost taste their despair thanks to Kha-vir.

The least valuable of the servants were in the vanguard, and it was those the long-ranged firepower of the humans were killing first. Soon enough, the tanks and other powerful vehicles in the valley, a lot of them painted with the black cross on white of the Space Marines, added their guns to the pyres of destruction before slowly driving back south.

"You were saying?" Yvraine knew it was poor form, but the idiot had not been the best of 'companions' since they had landed on this world.

"I remain convinced the Mon-keigh are incompetent."

"Don't use that word, Yriel." By Asuryan and Isha, how was it possible a Cronesword had considered this arrogant soul to be a worthy wielder?

"I will call the Mon-keigh by any name I want!" The Iyanden Asuryani spat vehemently. "And it is Prince Yriel to you!"

Yvraine stopped touching the hilt of her sword and laughed, right as another monstrous tank was perfectly targeted and disappeared in a gigantic explosion of black flames, followed by lesser but no less impressive secondary detonations.

"One, you are a bastard, Yriel. I don't really care about the marriage customs of your Craftworld, but Asuryani culture, our culture, very much requires a father to acknowledge his son, and the mother to spend one cycle on the Path of Motherhood, otherwise you aren't legitimate. Two, you are from the Uldanesh line. The Queen of Blades told us much about what we have to thank your ancestors for and I must say-"

"The Queen of Blades lied!"

Yvraine froze, and so did the Harlequin who had been doing ridiculous acrobatic jumps next to them.

One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths.

Yriel didn't die.

"Fool!" The clown immediately grabbed a stick lying on the ground, and used it as a blunt instrument to deliver a few vicious blows upon the 'princeling'. "Fool!"

"Do you actually have a death wish, Yriel of Iyanden? If the Queen of Blades had been in range, she would have challenged you to a duel."

The duel in question would have been short, humiliating, and would have resulted in his death, of that Yvraine was sure.

Merciful Isha, Yvraine had heard strange rumours that Yriel was the bastard son of Sliscus the Serpent, and disregarded them immediately. But now that she had witnessed his complete lack of self-preservation, the wielder of Kha-vir wondered if she had not been too hasty in her dismissal.

"May Morai-Heg give me her serenity..." The young Asuryani exhaled and touched the Sword of Sorrows again. As always, it was both an addictive and terribly dangerous act. "The key moment of this battle is not going to happen here. I feel the pull...to the south."

"Follow it," the Harlequin advised seriously, before chuckling, a sound which filled with craziness the longer it lasted. "I will stay here with the Bastard Prince."

"Don't call me that!" The youngest scion to claim descent from the Hero Uldanesh protested loudly. "I am Prince Yriel! Without my assistance, your pet Mon-keigh and the mission will fail!"

"I'm leaving you to teach him intelligence," the Biel-Tan-born Asuryani rolled her eyes before sprinting southwards. A scream of pain ringing out mere heartbeats later proved the follower of Cegorach took this duty very seriously.

---

Fortress of Hera

Chapter Master Cato Valens

The Fortress of Hera felt different.

Cato admonished himself for the thought within the privacy of his mind.

It was different, there was no point denying it.

The home of the Ultramarines Chapter was untouched by war for now, but the hundreds of thousands of soldiers manning its defences were a welcome but unusual sight outside the days of military remembrance.

Their entire world had changed, and it was partly his fault.

"Chapter Master," Gaius saluted formally, as he entered the Ultima Strategium. "We are glad to see you back alive."

"The thought is appreciated, though practically, I am forced to admit my own performance didn't count for a lot in getting back alive."

Without Weaver and her Bacta, Cato would likely have stayed in an Apothecary chamber healing for a significant number of days, and it would have taken months, possibly a couple of years in the best of cases, before he could have donned a power armour again.

"The situation on the frontlines?" He asked once the minimum of courtesies were completed.

"So far, the Word Bearers continue to fight like the enraged fanatics they are," the Captain of the 1st Company reported. "They have entered the Laponis Valley in overwhelming strength. They were so ready to push through our false defensive line that they triggered the near-totality of our minefield the hard way."

"And I see our artillery is decimating them, courtesy of them having the high ground."

"Yes. So far, it's a slaughter. The preliminary estimates of the first thirty minutes of engagement are of two hundred and fifty thousand cultist fatalities, three Chaos Knights, two hundred Traitor Marines...and more than four hundred Chaos Spawn."

And judging by the list of their own losses being broadcast on a secondary hololith, the combined strength of the Ultramar Realm and their reinforcements had lost less than half of that to achieve it.

This was...madness.

"I know the bastard sons of Lorgar are crazy, but even for them, this doesn't make any sense. Their damned Primarch alone should force them to adopt a more sensible strategy."

"Their Primarch has been located, Chapter Master. He has been transformed into a Chaos Spawn, and is among the shock troops they're throwing into the Valley in pursuit of the Black Templars."

Cato Valens had some resistance to unbelievable news, but this one broke his composure.

"What? It has been confirmed?"

"Three times, I checked."

"By the Golden Throne...I had heard rumours there were an abnormal number of Chaos Spawns, that the battle we fought and lost was no anomaly, but still..."

"Theoretical:" Gaius smiled thinly, "a lot of our own battle-brothers and cousins are theorising the brand new body of that Arch-Heretic is the reason why the Traitors of the Seventeenth are mutating into Chaos Spawns at such an ever-increasing pace."

The smile disappeared.

"Practical: it hasn't made the Traitor Primarch easier to kill. We have launched several of our most powerful missiles against the Primarch-Spawn, and while it bled, it regenerated from its wounds in mere seconds."

"Fortunately, judging by your kill-claims of Chaos Spawns, the same can't be said about the rest of the Traitors."

"Indeed." Gaius crossed his arms. "You wish to change anything about the battle-plan, Chapter Master?"

Cato didn't take offense at the formality of the veteran Captain. Before this campaign of nightmares, he would have said that while he wasn't one of his dearest friends, he had the trust and full respect of Gaius Pompeius. The recent disasters had weakened those certainties, there was no point denying it.

"No." His reply came after a short period of further strategic analysis, but it was decisive. "I have been unable to command for too many hours, and you have greater clarity of the battle than I do. And besides, so far I see the plan is working. The Traitors are baited into coming closer to Magna Macragge Civitas while under constant bombardment by our artillery."

When people spoke of the Cynoscephalae Line, people thought this meant the Ultramarines had in past centuries fortified the Laponis Valley.

This was an absolutely wrong theoretical.

Given how high the percentage of lands covered in mountains was, the Ultramarines had never been able to afford to fortify the fertile valleys. It was the ridges, the small mountains guarding its flanks, which had been transformed into vigilant strongholds.

And the Word Bearers were going to learn this before meeting their violent and shameful demises.

"Yes. Practical: we have one million men manning each side of the Cynoscephalae Line, and more than ten million guardsmen are now in position ten kilometres north of the capital."

"That is going to place our greatest city in range of the heretics' artillery."

"It will, but our own artillery is working hard to minimize this threat. And honestly, Chapter Master, we can rebuild in time. The civilians have been completely evacuated to the south and south-west, some of them by ship. With our allies engaging the second Traitor horde at Pharsalus, we won't have to fight on two fronts here."

"That is certainly a major advantage in our favour," Cato admitted, as he began to walk around the hololith. Not because he really wanted to, but because this new Mark VII felt really unfamiliar. This might have been in part because the blue paint had been added only a couple of hours ago, and for all that the Tech-Priests had done their best, it was still a rush-job. "A dangerous situation, but one under control, then."

"Yes, Chapter Master."

"Good. Anything else requiring my attention before we listen to our allies' requests?"

"In fact there's something important."

"Oh?"

"About forty-five minutes ago, one delegation of Tech-Priests didn't deploy from the Spaceport to the fortified positions where we want to stop the bastard sons of Lorgar dead. Their leader went all the way through the Fortress of Hera's main 'pilgrim courtyard' before Captain Decius stopped him."

The Regent of Macragge grimaced at the security failure this represented. Granted, the Mechanicus forces were allies, but any 'delegation' should have been stopped at Magna Macragge Civitas or at the Spaceport, not past the first wall of the Fortress of Hera!

"How many death sentences for sheer incompetence will I have to sign?" Cato asked with a resigned voice.

"None," Gaius replied grimly. "He had an authorisation and overriding codes from the Lord of Macragge."

The Chapter Master of the Ultramarines blinked in incomprehension.

"I have given information and some credentials to representatives of the Adeptus Mechanicus exactly three times while holding this title, and all were about lesser facilities in colonies far distant from Macragge. And though my predecessors had better relationships with Mars, none of them, as far as I am aware, gave them any important Vermilion-level codes."

"But the first Lord of Macragge apparently did."

This was...this was ridiculous. It had been more than five thousand years...no, it made sense. There were still certain things none of the Regents had the authority to remove from their systems, both because it would be a sacrilege, and second because it would be astonishingly expensive.

"The Tech-Priest has been asking for an audience, of course."

"Naturally," he snorted, "and what is the name of this troublemaker, by the way?"

"Cawl, Chapter Master, Belisarius Cawl."

---

Pharsalus Military District

Fields of Pharsalus

58 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Leman Russ Third Great War

Lieutenant Martyn Shevchenko

Whoever had told them before enlisting that tank battles were fought at distances of over one kilometre had smoked too many Lho-sticks.

"The Khans are leaving us in the dust!"

"I will send the General the message!" Martyn snarled. "Now by the love of Him on Terra, fire everything you've got on that Traitor Predator!"

The Battle Cannon of the Third Great War fired...and missed.

"Damn it, Nikita! An Ogryn could have taken that shot!" Martyn gritted his teeth. "Accelerate, Pyotr! No! On the left! You're going to-"

"Lieutenant, I know what I am doing!"

"You're charging in the direction of a damn Titan!"

"But it's on our side!" His idiotic pilot roared.

Martyn didn't have the time to curse. The Hammer of Heretics disappeared in a fantastic explosion, and just like that the 135th Armoured had lost its Colonel.

"NO! IT'S NOT!"

"I ACCELERATE!"

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!"

"I AM GOING TO GO BETWEEN HIS LEGS AND NIKITA WILL SHOOT THE ENEMY FROM THERE!"

"STOP THIS STUPIDITY AT ONCE, OR I SWEAR I AM GOING TO SHOOT YOU AND DRIVE THE RUSS MYSELF!"

Something in his scream must have told the crazy pilot of the Third Great War that he wasn't joking, for at last, their tank suddenly stopped its suicidal charge and began using the countless destroyed vehicles as cover.

Martyn exhaled.

"Good." To his relief, the Traitor Titan disappeared somewhere eastwards, likely to hunt more interesting things than half-crippled companies. "Now, let's see...prepare another krak round. I have a feeling the Traitor Predator is still here."

"My pay for a brand-new Khan." Nikita grumbled. "Those things have an auto-loader and a marvellous target-finder, I'm told..."

"Your pay isn't enough, and no one is going to promise you a new tank in the middle of a battlefield."

Damn it, Martyn knew there were always fires and smoke on a battlefield, but with thousands of vehicles burning and the Titans firing for hours, the ability of auspexes and other optical devices to improve the performance of his poor eyes was seriously degraded to an extreme point.

"I don't see a Predator...I don't see the rest of the regiment, for that matter..." Pyotr at least had the decency to sound sheepish...maybe. A poor Lieutenant of the Vostroyan Firstborn could dream. "There!"

"Fire! Fire at will!"

The thing directly in front of them was no loyal vehicle for sure. Not with the quantity of heretical marks and the skulls impaled on spikes; evil bastards!

But a second before the Battle Cannon unleashed its wrath, the red-painted weapon of the Archenemy was transformed into a funeral pyre where the heretics burned joyously. Their own shot only aggravated the fatal damage by starting a new fire at the top of the turret...which promptly rose to the skies a second later.

"Hey, if it isn't poor Martyn of the 135th! Lost yourself somewhere! Remember me? Maxim of the 136th! You told me the Khans would always remain inferior to your 'relics'!"

First his gunner succumbed to this idiocy, and now he had another idiot to deal with...

"I had the situation well in hand, kill-stealer!" The Vostroyan Lieutenant retorted.

"Continue dreaming! Now follow us! The 136th will lead again...try to not swallow too much smoke and dust!"

"Pyotr." He was going to regret this in a few minutes, but damn it, this kind of insult to the pride of the 135th couldn't be tolerated. "Forwards. Show them what the Third Great War can do when roused to war. And Nikita, if you miss a shot again..."

"I won't miss, Lieutenant!" His gunner swore. "May the golden spiders of the Saint whip me if I do!"

Martyn frowned, before deciding this oath was ultimately a good one.

"Forwards! For the Emperor and his Saint!"

---

Imperator-class Titan Exemplis

Princeps Maximus Cyrus

"By the abandoned Forges of the Rust Belt! What will it take to bring Rex's shields down?"

Cyrus wasn't the kind to lose his patience easily, but this was getting ridiculous. He had just hit the Traitor Imperator of Legio Vulturum with his Plasma Annihilator, and the Hell's Daughter of the Legio Crucius had flanked it and delivered two perfects shots with the Plasma Destructor and the Macro-Gatling Blaster it wielded.

It had brought down one layer of Void Shield. One!

"The hereteks have multiplied the energy's output of the Tyrannosaurus Rex so much it violates at least four laws of physics!" His Moderati Secundus informed him.

"Do I look like I care?" The Princeps Maximus of the Legio Ignatum couldn't help but emit a small exclamation of pain as the retribution of Legio Vulturum downed two layers of his own Void Shields. "We have to continue to batter it at mid-range."

"Princeps," his Moderati Primus interrupted in a tone Cyrus knew very well, "this is an extremely bad idea. The damage we are taking is far less important at extreme range. That way at least we can nearly ignore the damage of the beastly roars and more or less force a stalemate."

"But as long as we force the Tyrannosaurus Rex to concentrate on us, the rest of our Princeps can kill Legio Vulturum."

As if to underscore his words, one more Traitor Titan disappeared before it could charge to destroy Hell's Daughter, meaning the Warlord of Ryza could retreat and resume its position in the line of battle.

"Engine kill. Plaguelord Titan destruction confirmed. Identification...ahem...oh, it looks like Legio Vulturum took it from Legio Morbidus during its stay in the Eye of Terror."

"A kill is a kill." Cyrus declared sternly. "How goes the aerial battle? As far as I can tell everything is on fire."

"That seems to be a good summary of everything happening so far, Princeps. Lady Dragon reports furious fighting and inflicting massive losses on the enemy, but aerial dominance is far from won."

Tyrannosaurus Rex roared as Exemplis walked to increase the distance between them. While his current strategy was to stay at mid-range to batter the incredibly durable Void Shields and corrupted systems of the enemy, staying where he currently stood was a death sentence.

"How great is our advantage?"

That there was one was guaranteed by the fact the Titans under his command were fighting like a proper Legio, if a bit uncoordinated – but with so many Forge Worlds' cultures involved it was unavoidable – and the enemy was fighting like they were in a kill-claim contest.

"We have lost fourteen Titans. They have lost twenty-one, including eleven Warlords."

Cyrus smiled before another glancing blow forced a snarl out of him.

"Good," he managed to articulate, "tell Legio Venator it is their time to engage. Legio Defensor will give them the scouting they need."

"Princeps, I must really insist we request some support. If we fall, it won't matter how many Titans we will have slain; I don't think any weapon on this battlefield can slow down Tyrannosaurus Rex."

The Princeps Maximus almost by reflex told his subordinate that one Titan, no matter how powerful, couldn't stop an army by itself.

The greatest weapon of Legio Vulturum chose this moment to demonstrate some of its heretekal weapons on a massive clash of Loyalist and Traitor Tanks fighting in the newly created craters of the Fields of Pharsalus.

In five seconds, the holes became pools of eldritch flames, and even quite distant, there was no doubt about the sheer corruption which had just been used to kill thousands of souls indiscriminately.

"You're right. Tell Metalica to commit two more Warlords here. They must support Hell's Daughter. Exemplis will do its best to force it away from the main attack axis of the Imperial Guard."

The announcement that his Hellstorm Cannon was reloaded reached his ears. Cyrus and Exemplis fired again.

"Die, treacherous beast," the Martian Princeps whispered as more explosions devastated the Macraggian plain and tens of thousands of lives were lost. "You avoided His judgement at Terra millennia ago, but you won't today..."

---

Battle Groups of Operation Stalingrad approaching Ardium

Battleship Enterprise

59 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Rogue Trader Wolfgang Bach

"The Chosen of the Omnissiah has reached Hive Asculum and repelled the Tyranid assault!"

As one could expect, this announcement was enough for nine-tenths of the bridge to cheer, and the only reason it wasn't more was because some of the Tech-Priests' buzzing couldn't be placed in that category.

"Unfortunately," Wolfgang was alas forced to strangle the good mood as it soon as it appeared while looking at the garbled transmissions the Living Saint had sent their way via her Astartes and the Ultramarines' stations, "it seems the xenos have broken through the walls of Hive Quartus. Military resistance is completely collapsing there."

Archmagos Sagami didn't answer, which was particularly telling. A younger Magos with the draconic crest of Nyx, however, did.

"Surely the Chosen of the Omnissiah will rush to rescue Hive Quartus in the next hours!"

"I'm not sure she can," the blonde-haired Rogue Trader placed his hand on the secondary command control of the hololith and called up the central map of the main continent of Ardium where the concerned Hives were located. "Assuming the vids and partial images we have are compared to the ones from the Ultramarines' databases, it is clear the Tyranids have launched two separate forces at those Hives, each having an aerial and a ground assault force component."

"That way if the xenos didn't manage to bring down the Hives' Void Shields for some reason or the aerial assault was repelled, they still have the option to storm it the old-fashioned way." Julia pointed out with a frown. "That's really clever for a beast."

"In the interest of not underestimating our enemy," Wolfgang felt the need to crush the idea brought up by his lover, "I think it's better to call them Tyranids and forget the 'beasts'. No matter how the intelligence is spread across this all-too-intelligent swarm, it is evident it doesn't react like a feral creature. When it realised we were going to win effortlessly at Macragge, it avoided us and rushed to Ardium. Now it is proving able to engage the Ultramarines' defences at will and crush a Hive at a speed which is can only be described as 'insanely quick'."

As it was, Wolfgang was almost certain that, Ultramarines or no Ultramarines, if the Lady Basileia had not used her divine powers –maybe boosted by teleportarium? – to go to Hive Asculum, the defenders of that place would currently be sharing the fate of Hive Quartus.

"True. My apologies." The female von Lohengramm scion curtly nodded before revealing a thoughtful expression. "And Behemoth is still launching countless 'drop-spores' into the military district of those two Hives. The two escorts have finally stopped, but the biggest...err...super-battleship-sized Tyranid has enormous reserves."

"It is to be expected," Archmagos Sagami stated. "This opponent is bigger than a Gloriana. In addition to this factor, our simulations confirm the units bred and secured inside this biological enemy do not require the same living standards or basic resources as Guard soldiers or Skitarii. Logically, Behemoth has the capacity to field a swarm which will challenge the Chosen of the Omnissiah, despite having lost the element of surprise."

"Even after all the Necron metal-insects we are sending Her Celestial Highness?" Adrianna von Lohengramm asked.

"We are beginning to run out both of Canopteks to send and of torpedoes to fire them with," Archmagos Sagami reluctantly revealed. "We took approximately fifteen million of the assets before withdrawing from the Ymga Monolith, and fourteen million have already been sent to the Chosen of the Omnissiah now."

"And we can't send living insects and other assets via this...particular method of deployment." Wolfgang winced. "They wouldn't survive either way."

"Indeed, Rogue Trader Bach." The Archmagos replied. "Not that it will be important for much longer, for we are running out of suitable drop-torpedoes as well. We're about to launch the last two hundred within the next fifteen minutes. Once those are fired, the Chosen of the Omnissiah will be deprived of additional reinforcements for the next fourteen hours."

"Couldn't we use some of the new models of torpedoes to disrupt Behemoth's attention for a few hours?" Julia proposed, an unhappy expression on her face. "I realise that at this kind of distance, our accuracy will be abysmal, but if it helps Her Celestial Highness..."

"The problem is that I'm not sure it will help," in fact the more he thought about it, the more Wolfgang was sure it wouldn't, "the torpedoes won't do any damage if they don't hit by the hundreds, and Behemoth is too intelligent to mistake a true attack for a bluff. Best case scenario: the deployment of the Tyranids will stop for a few minutes while we have expended a lot of expensive ammunition. Worst case: it will assess the threat we pose and do something else to cause us more problems."

If only the Queen of Blades had been able to slay Behemoth before it reached Ardium.

But the remains of the Eldar hulk were drifting, completely inert, hundreds of thousands of kilometres away from Ardium. Wolfgang didn't believe for a second it had been enough to kill the Third Endbringer, but it had certainly taken her out of the fight for dozens of hours...and time was a priceless commodity they couldn't barter away in the first place.

"No, I think-"

A new powerful alarm shrieked, and the hololith map of Ardium disappeared.

"Oh, for the...what now?"

"Oh, nothing of importance," the Archmagos replied in what had to be a sarcastic tone, "Fenris has just gone missing. Cawl fulfilled his promise and sent it...somewhere."

Seconds passed, and all the bridge men, women, and Tech-Priests held their breaths...but the homeworld of the Space Wolves didn't reappear.

"Sands of Mars, the Radical is going to be insufferable! But since he made sure a monumental astral disaster was averted..."

"Err...yes." Wolfgang cleared his throat. "Wait a minute...astral-communication section, why are we hearing wolves howling?"

---

Ardium

Asculum Military District

Hive Asculum

59 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Champion Kratos

Every time the Tyranids were digging a massive tunnel under the walls, it was getting a bit lively.

At least they weren't going to be bored anytime soon.

"For Cretacia and the Blood!" He roared as his chainsword intercepted the blades of the larger Tyranid life-form that had been labelled 'Warrior'.

Before he could finish it off, however, Morael of the Angel Guard opened fire.

Unlike many of those who had been offered, the green-armoured Astartes had chosen to retain his Terminator Armour, so he could wield an improved Assault Cannon the Nyx Forge-Temple had provided.

The Tyranid Warrior was utterly shredded, and then came the turn of the 'Gaunts', be it the close-quarters 'Hormagaunt' or the middle-ranged 'Termagaunt'.

The industrial area where they were fighting had a lot of possible places to hide, but with ten seconds of fire coming from six barrels, the Assault Cannon put an end to whatever the Tyranids wanted to do.

When Morael lowered his weapon, a few Tyranids were still twitching in their dying throes. The others were utterly splattered.

"Kill-stealer," the Flesh Tearer Champion snorted.

"It is you who proposed this contest, Kratos, not me," the Angel Guard Marine replied with a virtuous voice, as the Catachan Ants surged forwards and began to launch Plasma Grenades into the tunnels' openings before trying to close them as quickly as possible. "Oh, and we have another aerial attack!"

Kratos grunted and kept one eye on the sky...but as always, the spear of Gargoyles which descended upon Hive Asculum was busy being devoured by the metallic swarm their Lady was fighting with in the air.

"It looks like it is handled." And like the three other waves, he noted the wings had likely been severed first, so that whatever happened, the Gargoyles plunged to their deaths in record time. "Let us return to our brothers and see how much I need to catch up in kills."

They had to run quite a bit before returning to the 'headquarters'. It was a big word for the place where their Lady, a few Adjutant-spiders, and some Catachan Ant Queens commanded the outer defences and led the effort to destroy the unending Tyranid assaults.

They had to give their report to Artemis and then stay silent though, for in the middle of the mid-sized bunker repurposed into a command centre Lady Weaver was speaking with the Ultramarine Captain while doing quantities of other things with her swarm.

"We are successfully repelling their assaults to bypass the walls, yes." Having removed her golden helmet for the time being, Kratos was not happy to see the expression of the Shield of Angels remained extremely grim. "I am less than confident we are foiling the plans of Behemoth now."

"I doubt the Tyranid...Behemoth-mind? Yes, I doubt the Tyranid mind expected you to crush its efforts to conquer Hive Asculum so decisively." The son of Guilliman really tried to see the situation optimistically.

"Perhaps not at first," the Chosen of the Emperor conceded, "but it is learning. First, it is throwing quantities of forces against Hive Quartus. They have broken through all fixed and improvised defences there, I am sensing millions of souls dying. Once they have finished there, I guarantee the Tyranids will receive massive reinforcements...and that's if their soon-to-come ground assaults don't succeed."

"They are already attacking the walls in great numbers," an Ultramarine Chaplain pointed out.

"Those are just Hormagaunts and Termagaunts," the Basileia waved him off dismissively, "dangerous due to the sheer raw numbers Behemoth is throwing at us, but fortunately devoid of any tactical sense. They're sending more Warriors and other controlling units into the tunnels than they're using for coordinating the assaults. The real thrust is yet to come."

By the way the faces of the Ultramar Auxilia's officers fell, some of them had believed the contrary.

"I trust your judgement in this matter," the blue-clad Captain nodded. "The civilians have been evacuated two kilometres behind the walls, efforts are made to do the same to the Underhive upwards, and my Sergeants are trying to organise the Auxilia to build the best defensive positions they can in the time we have. Of course, the modifications we require aren't approved by the Mechanicus-"

"Artemis. Send your sisters speak to the Tech-Priests and impress on them the level of commitment I expect of everyone under my command."

"At once, Webmistress!"

By Sanguinius and the wings of Baal, Kratos loved the enthusiasm of those arachnids. He really hoped the one he had trained was still alive, it would be a pity for all those sparring lessons to have been for nothing.

"This isn't going to be pretty, but I think we will have to dismantle or sabotage Sector 4." The Shield of Angels continued the conversation as if a giant golden spider hadn't just stormed out of the headquarters. "I will of course rebuild it after our victory."

"That is...very generous." The Ultramarine coughed. "I know you had...disagreements-"

"You aren't the enemy here, Captain Tullius." A very ironic smile came to the lips of the woman the Dawnbreaker Guard was sworn to protect. "The true enemy advances in an ocean of red and black fangs and claws, and threatens Mankind. Doctrinal and political issues will wait until every Tyranid organism is killed and the battle is won."

"I thank you nonetheless," the son of Guilliman returned his attention to the hololithic map he had arrived with. "What worries me is the ammunition expenditure. At first I thought the limited reserves of the Hive were going to be a problem, but so far it looks like the principal logistical headache is bringing enough shells and stockpiles to the walls. The current fire rate is using approximately one year of production every hour. We have already fired all our most modern ballistic missiles, and some major Manticore batteries will soon run out of ammunition too."

"Do we have enough to last between fifteen and twenty hours?"

"If we are able to keep the status quo for the next ten hours and make sure our supply effort continues unimpeded? We may be able to sustain the effort on the walls for twelve hours. But I am not optimistic about the situation in the skies over the rest of the military district. The situation from that direction will continue to worsen, and if Behemoth continues to launch Gargoyles by the hundreds of thousands, the aerial squadrons will soon cease to exist. And the longer we fight after ten hours, the worse the ammunition shortages become. We have repurposed quantities of manufactorums to help the war effort, but it won't be enough. We can't fire shells and other ammunition which doesn't exist."

"This is...extremely inconvenient," the winged angel acknowledged before grimacing. "But it will have to wait. Let's go to the walls. It seems the enemy is committing some new units that we have not fought before."

---

Sergeant Gavreel Forcas

Behemoth, Gavreel had discovered, was aggressive and unrelenting. It did not care about the millions of fatalities the troops it commanded suffered. It was absolutely callous with its attack waves; it continued to mount offensives against the walls long before it made any tactical sense, save of course the monumental expense of ammunition and the pressure on the Void Shields.

It could be flexible, the underground assaults and their companies of nightmares, including the bipedal Lictors, the sub-commanding Warriors, and the variants of the Gaunts with weapons adapted for ambushes proved that.

But most of the time, it chose not to.

The assault upon Hive Asculum continued.

The small wastes surrounding the Hive – before Behemoth's arrival, the landscape had indeed been natural and relatively unpolluted by Hive World standards – was now covered in dead Tyranids...not that it stopped hundreds of thousands of Hormagaunts from taking their place and charging again for so much as a single second.

To make things worse, the Gargoyles had stopped killing themselves by battering the half-restored Void Shields, and were now trying to provide aerial cover, flying a metre or two above the lip of the walls, and either releasing quantities of acid or ramming the positions of the Ultramar Auxilia.

They were holding the walls, but Gavreel would be lying if he claimed the casualties weren't...bad. The basic flak armour too many soldiers of the Ultramar realm wore was completely useless against the terrible scythe-talons of the Tyranids, and when they pounced, the xenos attackers were exceptionally fast, and Astartes-level reflexes were quite needed to avoid losing a limb or two.

They were not the true threat Behemoth intended to crush the outer defences of Hive Asculum with.

"Four point five metres-tall and I think at least eight tonnes," the former Dark Angel Legionnaire gave his preliminary estimate to his Lady, "I see a group of fifty to sixty using the Gargoyles as cover to advance as fast as possible without being targeted by the heavy weapons."

The Termagaunts and the Hormagaunts were truly repulsive, and the same could be said about every species of Tyranids so far. But aside from the burrowing units digging their tunnels and the Warriors following them, nothing was really able to stand one-on-one against a veteran Astartes.

Those huge Tyranids were different.

One glance was enough for Gavreel to know you didn't want to go fighting one at close-quarters, though undoubtedly Kratos and Sigenandus would boast having an opposing opinion.

"Tell Captain Tullius the artillery is to take out the biggest Tyranid creatures in priority," the Lady General ordered, her aura of light burning bright and attracting a considerable number of Tyranids.

Of course, those who managed to break through the tide of Canoptek Scarabs were massacred by Bolter shots or the crystals of the Nebula's Shard.

"As sharp as those scythes are," Gavreel voiced his unease, "is it really possible they can cause serious damage to the walls?"

"I don't know," his Lady replied as her Catachan Ants pushed an astounding quantity of dead Gargoyles off the ramparts, a rain of bodies which killed its fair share of Hormagaunts and Termagaunts. But more charged unflinchingly to replace them. "I would have said no two hours ago, but the digging units have some sort of bio-electric internal ability which allows them to dig tunnels like Asculum's foundations are made of cheese."

"Once located, we have found relatively efficient methods to kill them," Gamaliel interjected.

"Yes," the Basileia of Nyx snorted. "Once we have located them. Each time Behemoth sends us one, it kills a lot of Auxilia officers we can't afford to lose."

A new wave came to slam into the defences of Ultramar. This one lost about seven out of ten Hormagaunts in less than five seconds.

"It's not good," the insect-mistress chosen by the Emperor continued, and though her features were hidden by the angelic helmet, Gavreel could hear her displeasure. "I was confident that as long as I had Ambulls in my swarm, underground warfare supremacy would be mine. Just by introducing the burrowing units, the Tyranids have ruined that."

"I am not saying you have no right to be displeased," the Blood Angel assured while decapitating another acid-spitting Gargoyle before it could inflict more casualties, "but at least with the Ambulls and the Canoptek Scarabs plus a few other insects, you have counters to this, assuming the fleet arrives in time. I'm afraid most of the worlds of the Imperium have none."

The Ultramarine artillery chose this moment to vent its excess of anger, and the largest Tyranids were targeted by at least two full batteries.

The amount of smoke created was respectable, the crater which was revealed impressive enough, and-

"By the ashes of...how can there be so many of them still alive?"

"They're charging!" Vesuvius barked. "Prepare all heavy weapons! Thirty-plus Alpha-threat Tyranids! Distance: three kilometres! Speed...sixty kilometres per hour?"

Gavreel didn't gape, his training taking over, but he dearly wished the Devastator of the Scions of Sanguinius was joking.

But no, the four metres-tall Tyranids were that fast...and as if it was not enough, new types of threats were appearing everywhere on the battlefield.

"There are some sort of huge artillery-type Tyranids attacking Sector 19," the Lady of the Dawnbreaker Guard informed them laconically, "judging by the first actions, they have cannons bigger than what we equip our super-heavy tanks with, and they are using some of sort of incendiary ammunition to sunder armour and damage the walls. Hendrik, Dos Santos, Forman. New threat revealed approaching the walls of Sector 7. As far as I can see, the units have psychic potential and-"

"My Lady, those Tyranids...they wouldn't look like huge luminescent skulls levitating over the battlefield with only a long tail to add to their chitinous body, wouldn't they?"

"They would, Ramon." Gavreel heard her sigh. "I suppose it would be too much to ask for them not to be trailing behind the tall and fast armoured monsters?"

"It is indeed too much to ask," the Howling Griffon answered casually. "We're going to need to find good names for all of them."

"First we kill them, then we name them," The black-haired Angel announced seriously. "And no, Kratos, you won't name one of them after yourself!"

---

Macragge

Magna Macragge Military District

Laponis Valley

Approaches of the Ultima Cynoscephalae Line

60 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Coryphaus Kol Badar

Kol Badar muttered a thousand curses as, yet again, the Black Templars withdrew southwards.

Of all the times the blind fools worshipping Sigismund and the False Emperor had to stop their frontal suicide attacks, why did it have to be now?

"We are gaining ground, Coryphaus!" One of the lackeys he had 'inherited' after Marduk's betrayal congratulated him. "And the Black Templars are in full retreat! A great victory!"

"Tell me, Captain," Kol growled and the feckless idiot understood praises were not going to compensate for his tactical incompetence, "how many Land Raiders and Predators did you lose before my arrival?"

"Six and four...Coryphaus."

"And how many did the Black Templars lose, apart from this Land Raider that my beloved Noctis Aeterna killed according to my will?"

"Two...two Predators, Coryphaus."

"Then how it is supposed to be a victory, imbecile?" the Word Bearer commanding most of the 2nd Great Host's survivors glared at the subordinate who had done so little to justify the confidence he had placed in him. "You are demoted."

"What? Lord Coryphaus!"

"You are once more a simple Legionnaire. Sol Jerdek will take your place. You are the personification of failure! Get out of my sight!"

Mere hundreds of metres ahead, an artillery shell landed, creating a significant dust cloud.

"And of course their damned artillery is already in position here too." Because the more they pressed on without slaughtering the False Emperor's slaves on their flanks, the more arrived to bombard them.

"But this is almost over, Coryphaus," his second arrived and spoke after a brief hail-salute. "There can't be more than twenty kilometres left between us and the capital city of Macragge. No matter how many Black Templars and Ultramarines are left, they will soon be forced to fight us, or their capital will burn as we offer it to...as we burn it."

Kol Badar was sure the Legionnaire had been about to say 'to the True Gods', but he let it go. It wasn't like a lifetime of religious habits was easy to get rid of in a single day.

"Yes, they will soon be forced to fight us...but the attrition rate is high. And our advance path is utterly predictable."

"Your Sicaran and many other prized vehicles of the Legion can open a path into any Ultramarine defence, Coryphaus. But I admit regrouping our hosts while under artillery fire before beginning the final assault is going to be...complicated."

Kol Badar laughed. It was an angry and bitter sound even in his own ears.

"Complicated...yes, I suppose it will be." The Word Bearer commanding officer gritted his teeth. "We have too few Sicaran tanks to destroy the inferior machines of Sigismund's whelps beyond their effective range."

And of course they couldn't replace their losses by taking the tanks of the False Emperor, for the pathetic simpering 'Chapters' didn't have a single Sicaran among the forces they had opposed them with!

Kol stared at his Sicaran, then at the mountains south of his current 'victory'.

There was a hateful nobility to them, these mountains, as many had been sculpted to be fortresses in their own right. Many more were completely intact, devoid of human habitation.

But barely visible in the distance, as the clouds of war and the weather hid it, there was another citadel, higher and larger than all other human constructions.

It was disgustingly untouched by war, and Kol knew instinctively it was the Fortress of Hera.

"We continue," the Coryphaus of the Seventeenth Legion said, "we continue and we kill all the dogs of Guilliman and Dorn which stand in our way!"

A heartbeat later, shells landed behind him, and Kol roared in fury as two more Predator tanks were incinerated by the enemy artillery.

---

Pharsalus Military District

Fields of Pharsalus

60 Hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Sky Lord Vuxad 'the Vulture Baron' Torai

Life, Vuxad had known after being inducted into the Night Lords Legion, was a series of questions.

The first you were asked not long after birth was if you could fly.

Assuming you answered yes, the second came before you could claim adulthood: how did you get there without falling to your death the next instant?

Vuxad had answered this question, and he had survived long enough to become a predator of the skies.

He had become the Vulture Baron of the Eighth Legion.

In his Xiphon Interceptor, the Nostramo-born Legionnaire had reigned over the other pilots of the Second Claw.

But the questions never ceased.

And their crazy Primarch had been eager to ask them, including to those he had at first pretended to view as his 'sons', and he wasn't shy to pursue the interrogations in torture chambers.

The next question had come to him, and Vuxad had reluctantly concluded that, in his best interest, the vows sworn to his failure of a gene-sire weren't more important than his own life.

The Word Bearers had then proposed to him to fly forever. Answering this by a no would have been a tasteless error.

Vuxad had told them 'yes'.

And so he had become the Vulture Baron.

His Xiphon Interceptor and himself were one now. They had been one for an eternity or for millennia, he wasn't exactly sure of how many centuries had passed since the Siege of Terra.

In the rare times he had been resting since leaving the Eye of Terror, Vuxad had discovered it was becoming more and more difficult to remember his past.

He was the Vulture Baron, and the Warp had changed his body beyond imagination. His wings were longer, sharper, and filled with inhuman vitality. He had begun to thirst for metal, fire, lubricants, and of course the supreme delicacy, souls.

Did he regret it? No.

Life was a series of questions.

Once again, battle raged in the skies of a world.

This one was Macragge, according to the chatter arriving at his ears. Maybe it was. Vuxad Torai, deserter of the Legion of Konrad Curze, had failed to find many Omega Banners on the wings of his enemies and the great banners of the Titans slaughtering each other.

Could he survive once more and prove he was the ultimate predator of the sky?

"We need to return to rearm!"

"There are too many Dragon Armours! What do you think you're doing-"

His peerless vision was suddenly nearly overwhelmed by hundreds of missiles. The Vulture Baron cackled and charged into the burning clouds.

Less than a minute later, the last of his evasive manoeuvres succeeded, and he had two more kills under his belt.

"That is how a true Lord of the Sky fights," the union of Night Lord and Daemon Aircraft voiced as one before chuckling. "All those who will challenge us will perish."

There was no answer coming from the Word Bearers' pilots who had begged to join his predation squadron.

And as he used every sense, every eye – all fifty-three of them – he had, Vuxad saw he was all alone.

Wherever he looked, there were no more Legionnaire pilots.

There were no more Heldrakes.

Only...

There came the enemy.

The False Heldrakes had much diminished in numbers.

He had hurt them.

As expected.

Some of them were lesser predators, but-

BLAM!

The Vulture Baron had only a fraction of a second to see the enormous red reptile which had attacked him from behind before his superior engines flickered and died.

The entire world went a hazy shade of grey.

But he could see them. Thousands more enemy aircraft, arriving from the south.

"Reinforcements..." Vuxad Torai realised. "You were the first wave, not the last."

More missiles shrieked, and the Vulture Baron couldn't avoid them anymore.

The wings were torn apart. The turbo-reactors, improved by the artifices of the Word Bearers, reactivated only to explode.

The beak, the spikes, everything disintegrated as he began his long fall.

There was no control anymore.

There was no reign.

And the Veil parted before his eyes.

At long last, the Traitor Night Lord could see what really awaited his soul now that his death was certain.

"NOOOOOOOO!"

For the first time in millennia, the foremost Sky Lord to serve in the Word Bearers Legion screamed in fear.

He was completely right to do so.

The pain he felt when the Vulture Baron collided with the ground and turned into a fireball was extremely unpleasant.

It was nothing compared to what his soul began to endure once it was at the mercy of what was awaiting him in the Warp.

---

Lady Magos Dogma Dragon Richter

Dragon watched the abominable Daemon Engine which may have been a Xiphon Interceptor at one point disappear with a non-negligible amount of satisfaction.

This particular Chaos heretic – assuming it wasn't a daemon in command of the thing, the massive corruption which had taken over made it impossible to rule out for certain – had cost her plenty of good pilots, and it had taken her both good tactics and an overwhelming barrage to destroy his elite flying unit.

But with it out of the way, the majority of the enemy aerial force had been annihilated. Assuming the Word Bearers hadn't hidden a couple thousand superiority fighters somewhere, the extermination of their surviving aerial force would be a matter of minutes.

"Rear-Admiral Daniels?" The Tinker reopened the communication channel linking her to the Aeronautic High Command. It would have been better if she was in charge of every plane in the theatre, but alas Adeptus politics and other shenanigans made that impossible.

"Yes, Lady Magos?"

"The skies are clear. My preliminary estimate is that we have shot down ninety-five percent of the heretic aerial cover, including all its Astartes aces and the biggest Heldrakes."

And she had taken great pleasure in slaying those, just looking at them filled her with anger.

"Excellent! The Marauders are launching in the next minute. Which particular foe do you want us to strike at?"

"The Traitor Titans," Dragon grimaced, as one more Warlord of Ignatum faltered before collapsing and dying before her eyes. "The Princeps Maximus needs all the help you can give him, and though the Vostroyans are making progress, the advances are made at great cost, both in lives and machines. As long as the Titans of the enemy slaughter our forces while they don't deal with the Legios of the Collegia Titanica, the butchery will be long and mutual."

"Understood. We are going to do our best to teach them the fear of the Marauder Bombers. The markers?"

"My Dragon Armours are preparing them as we speak. Good flight, Rear-Admiral."

It couldn't come soon enough, Dragon winced as the fighting, far from abating with the deaths of some heretic pilots, was escalating.

The heretic army had unravelled into a mass of monsters which tried to push south at all costs, and on the few defensible positions – a term very relative when everything was flat – the tanks and artillery of the Vostroyan regiments did their best to send them to the foul abominations they worshipped.

It was an exercise of mutual slaughter. It was one the Imperium was winning, if only because they had superior numbers, and the Astartes superiority didn't mean much when General Rokossovsky could trade ten tanks for an Astartes and still call it a bargain.

But looking at the sea of flames, the terrifying explosions, the poisons, and the daemonic weapons unleashed against the Imperium arsenal, there was only one conclusion the female Tinker could reach.

"We aren't winning fast enough..."

---

High Orbit over Ardium

Newly created 'Mountain Star Fortress' The Fang

60 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Primarch Magnus the Red

It was likely obvious, but Magnus wished to say it clearly before they were in the middle of a dangerous mess...again.

No, using the gravitic anomalies which resulted from the massive translation of a planet to throw a mountain-turned-Starfort in the direction of the enemy was NOT a good idea.

It was a stupid idea.

It was a crazy idea.

If there was the slightest miscalculation...a significant number of souls, his included, were about to experience what happened when your insides were violently expelled outside your body before being reduced to a gelatinous paste.

Fenris disappeared...somewhere. Russ had refused to say where he was sending his ruined homeworld for some reason, and Corax for once had not been willing to share the secret.

The translation shook everything.

There was an enormous flash of white light.

And when they reappeared, the auspexes of the Fang were close enough to see the astonished reaction of the sixty kilometres-long Tyranid.

For they were no longer millions of kilometres away, but in high orbit above Ardium.

And despite a few loud noises, half of the command bridge vomiting or suffering acute problems due to the violence of the not-teleportation, the mountain seemed to have maintained full integrity.

"ENGAGE!" The Primarch of the Sixth Legion immediately roared. "ALL BATTERIES, KILL BEHEMOTH!"

And the Wolves obeyed eagerly.

The first volley largely missed for the most part, which wasn't surprising at all, given the disorientation of the devices and how...not so stable the mountain-citadel proved to be, but the artillerists were veteran Astartes or Astartes-trained.

The second volley of torpedoes and other lethal ammunition was perfectly dead-on target.

Only for one of the Heavy Frigate-sized 'Escorts' of the Tyranid prime-beast to sacrifice itself.

It deliberately rushed towards the hurricane of death in order to save the bigger living ship.

It was nothing but a missile sponge.

When the succession of explosions finished their destructive work, there was nothing left of the 'small' Tyranid ship.

But the bigger one was very much undamaged.

The spore bombardment abruptly ceased.

And Behemoth turned towards the Fang.

"Brothers, I have a bad feeling about this..."

---

Tyranid Hive Ship 'Behemoth'

Hive Fleet Behemoth had made its calculations and concluded the prey which had indisposed it above the planet where it had hibernated for so long was out of range and unable to inflict any kind of damage to the surviving assets deployed in-system.

The Hive Mind didn't enjoy being proven wrong in the slightest.

Originally the plan had been to deploy a considerable amount of ground and aerial assets to devour the world.

After the damnable source of light and its metallic-flesh swarm appeared and delayed the consumption efforts, the plan had been to neutralise as many of the prey defences as feasible, and then to depart for another planet.

In time, the fleet pursuing it would be forced to spread out its considerable numbers, and a proper Hive Fleet would be assembled.

All Behemoth had to do was to survive, and it had plenty of time to evade the weapons of its pursuers given the situation.

This plan was impossible now that this mountain filled with prey had somehow appeared before it.

Calculations were made.

At the moment, the other prey manning the greater fleet on its way were unable to properly support this foul and loud inconvenient factor.

On the new pantry, the devouring was still very far from complete success. Given no additional support, it was likely the devouring would utterly fail.

The planetary assets were going to require armoured commanders to lead the assault on the fortifications the prey was hiding behind.

And it was of no use withdrawing to another source of biomass, for there was no guarantee the impossible mountain would not follow the Hive Mind wherever it directed its efforts.

No, the prey had to be eliminated and devoured before it, by its very existence, resulted in new anomalistic behaviour from the other prey.

Behemoth launched a last wave of reinforcements for the ground assets and turned.

Then it attacked.

---

Newly created 'Mountain Star Fortress' The Fang

Primarch Magnus the Red

The Tyranid's attack was far more powerful than the last time.

If they survived this battle, Magnus swore to himself he would find a proper name for it.

'Psychic hyper-beam' described the phenomenon accurately, but sounded a bit too bureaucratic for his tastes.

What was clearly unexpected and unpleasant to see was the small sway it inflicted upon the Fang for four point five seconds.

"By the bowels of the ice toads!" the 'Great Wolf' swore angrily. "Putrid vermin! The wards should have blocked that without flinching!"

The Primarch of the Thousand Sons frowned, because for all his flaws, Leman was certainly right...his void mountain should have resisted the blow with ease.

It had certainly not been experiencing any problem the first time around, and the increased firepower of the Tyranid was not big enough to make a significant difference...

Ah. Of course.

"Out of pure curiosity, brother," Magnus began in a disinterested tone, "when you warded the Fang against potential enemies, you used a mix of Father's lore and Fenrisian runes, right?"

"I did," the eyes of his distrustful brother narrowed after the admission went through his lips. "Why? You think Prosperan sorcerous glyphs would have been more adequate?"

"Oh no, goodness no," Magnus caressed the little white feline. "Given how many of your totally-not-psykers believed in the idea of 'Mother Fenris', it would have ended up a downright ungodly disaster at the first enemy attack. No, I was just guessing that since the Fang was always the last redoubt of your Legion, the idea of home and protection must be central to it. Don't you agree?"

"I do," Corax replied before Russ could. "But what does that have to do with our current predicament?"

Magnus rolled his lone eye.

"You should know better, brother, than to disregard how much importance belief and faith have these days. In the last five millennia, the Sixth Legion and all its forces have literally soaked the walls and halls of this mountain with the idea it is their home forever, and that they will defend it to the death. This is all very good as long as you use the Fang in a very defensive manner."

Magnus sighed loudly.

"The moment you started using it offensively, a lot of extra psychic protection was lost. And the removal of Fenris from the board likely didn't help either."

"Does this mean what I think it does?" the Ravenlord asked after wincing when the second psychic blast of Behemoth hit, and the Fang shook in a manner that was not reassuring in the slightest.

"If you think we are completely screwed, yes, it is exactly what you think brother," because Leman had neglected a key factor in a domain where he thought he was a charlatan, they were all going to die by the psychic power of a creature which couldn't care the slightest about the differences of Fenrisian and Prosperan cultures. "I suggest we prepare a limited evacuation for Ardium, that way-"

"Lord! We have a gravitic anomaly right behind Behemoth! Alpha-class gravitic anomaly! This is..."

"By the putrid guts of the Krakens!" One of the Space Wolves cursed, receiving a dark look from some of the Rogue Traders they entertained on their bridge. "That is...a starship!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Another Space Marine of a Chapter Magnus didn't manage to remember the name of replied forcefully. "It is easily bigger than...by the Golden Throne of Terra..."

Even Corax whistled.

"That's...that's a super-battleship larger than our Glorianas...is it a friend or an enemy?"

---

By the time the Armada Imperialis of the Imperium of Mankind became the largest void-capable fleet in the known galaxy, the fame of the Astartes Legion flagships had spread from the Halo Stars to the Eastern Fringe.

And with this fame, the new citizens of the Imperium had come to believe that, barring a few exceptions like Phalanx and the Emperor's flagship Bucephelus, the modernised shipyards of Sol could indeed build greater starships than the relics of the Old Night.

This was, needless to say, an entirely incorrect assumption.

Though the Terran Federation had collapsed at the beginning of the Age of Strife and was not keen on centuries-long genocidal campaigns against xenos, it was hardly a pacifist society. Many of the Imperial classes of the 31st millennium, while having adopted considerable reforms due to the changing environment, came from the Battleship and Cruiser schematics of the defunct Federation.

And to safeguard its frontiers before the maelstrom of decadence and madness also known as the Birth of Slaanesh made reliable Warp travel impossible, the line of battle of the Federation Navy was not the Battleship, but the Dreadnaught.

It was, in one short sentence, the height of Terran technology in one hull.

A Dreadnaught was forty kilometres-long, and its armament included such devastating weapons as nanomachine swarms, antimatter fusion bottles, chrono-distortion fields, and other batteries capable of reducing a fleet which did not have those weapons to a state of ruin in less than an hour if roused to wrath.

Unfortunately for the Federation, the Dreadnaughts also incorporated an Olympus-Prime Artificial Intelligence, so as to ensure all the fastidious navigation and logistical calculations were completed in a reasonable amount of time.

As such, when the Cybernetic Revolt began, over two-thirds of them were lost to the Men of Iron and Omnius' genocidal armada within a year.

Those ships which weren't destroyed with all hands or captured and servicing the designs of the mad machines had to be decoupled from their AIs with extreme urgency and the first prototype cogitators of Mars and Alpha Centauri replaced them.

The replacement was obviously far less efficient than the Artificial Intelligence, but it was far better than wondering every minute when the guardian intelligence of your own ship was going to open all compartments to the void in a deranged effort to wipe out all flesh-based life.

Yet for all the desperate industrial efforts of the Federation, time was not on their side. The Men of Iron invaded the inner core of the human colonies, what the Imperium would eventually come to call Segmentum Solar, and the last Star Marshals of the Federation were forced to make their stand at Alpha Centauri.

All modernised Dreadnaughts the Federation had been able to overhaul went to this battle.

None survived the genocide.

The Cataclysm of Alpha Centauri, as it would become known among the rare few survivors during the millennia-long Age of Strife, utterly destroyed the last organised naval force of the Federation. Dreadnaughts disappeared from history, and if the name was remembered in the late years of the thirtieth millennium, it was because the Emperor himself integrated systems and devices from one aboard his successive flagships, the Bucephelus and the Imperator Somnium.

All Dreadnaughts which managed to reach the heart of the Federation for the final showdown with the Men of Iron and the Abominable Intelligences died.

But there were a few polities, which, as the Federation died around them, managed to close their borders and keep some relics from its glorious and dead age. To do this required the removal of the Artificial Intelligences too, as well as the replacement of the most advanced weapons that couldn't possibly be controlled by cogitator or an equivalent.

But even with those major hindrances, a forty kilometres-long Dreadnought remained a Dreadnought.

And in the words of the Squat Slayers 'nothing like a strong fist in an adamantium gauntlet to solve your problems!'

The saying would remain unknown to the galaxy at large until an improbable expedition to the Core, of course...

---

TFNS Midgard – Federation Dreadnought Odin-class

Commodore Yang Wen-li

"Why, oh why..." Yang threw his Commodore's beret across the bridge, "did I think it was a good idea to let Leet modify the Midgard's drive into some sort of super slingshot device?"

Oh, right. Very loud Slayers waving axes telling him to do it. That was why.

And now they were facing something even bigger than a damned forty kilometres-long Federation Dreadnaught!

Naturally, his was the only sane reaction to be expressed.

"By my ancestors!" Borek exclaimed. "Look at the size of Bessy, Slayers! Just imagine the kind of trophy its head will make on a proper Volcano Hearth!"

Did...did the Slayer just call this monster Bessy?

"We are going to harpoon it!" Another Slayer barked. "I can't wait to see what its heart will taste like!"

"This abomination in the eyes of the Omnissiah must be slain!" the red-robed cybernetic creature calling himself a Tech-Priest declared.

"Mountain in sight," Admiral, his faithful partner, chose this moment to pour more insanity into the conversation. That the tactical display chose to support her words absolutely didn't help. "I think that if we act swiftly, we can catch the enemy between our batteries."

"Then do so. And eliminate the smaller monster to begin with."

"Consider it done, Yang."

The former Federation officer sighed in relief. Thank whatever sanity there was left that the Spirit of Eternity had been conceived to enter the voluminous holds of ships like the Midgard, and that the miners of the Duardin Core Admiralty had not removed the connectors which allowed an AI to control a Dreadnought, even if the original digital control had been removed an eternity ago. Without that, the Midgard would have no chance whatsoever in the middle of whatever insanity they had jumped into.

"Just for my peace of mind...we are in the Macragge System, right?"

"Yes, we are."

"Oh good." Yang Wen-li sighed as the Slayers ran out of the bridge to arm themselves for 'AN EPIC DOOM'; their words, not his. "This is where the fun begins, isn't it?"

---

Ardium

Asculum Military District

Hive Asculum

61 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Sergeant Herminius Cincinnatus

Herminius had the sinking feeling he was going to remember the moment the outer gate was breached for the rest of his life.

In all likelihood, that wasn't going to be very long.

"TAKE POSITION!" The Ultramarine giving them orders shouted through the vox. "DON'T SHOOT UNTIL I GIVE THE ORDER! REMEMBER: PLASMA WEAPONS FOR THE CARNIFEXES! LASGUNS FOR THE REST OF THE TYRANIDS!"

The worst part was that it made sense. The Carnifex Tyranids were big bastards...four metres-tall big bastards with enormous blades which could resist things like tank-buster ammunition. Only Plasma and the other heavy weapons had a chance at killing them.

SCRREEEEEEEEEEECCHHHH!

The shriek was beyond atrocious. Even with his ears protected by earmuffs and another layer of cloth he had placed in his ears...it still wasn't enough to mute the abominable sound.

For a few seconds, the adamantium-reinforced gate decorated with the omega sigil seemed to endure the blows...and then suddenly it didn't.

Blades longer than he was tall pierced the metal, before tearing large rends into it.

And then something, or a lot of somethings, hit the magnificent protection of Hive Asculum, and the gate's wings were forced open by the xenos.

Herminius froze, and for a second nobody seemed to breathe.

God-Emperor save them, how many were there of those monsters...that had to be at least one hundred Carnifexes...

SCRREEEEEEEEEEECCHHHH!

The monstrous red-black xenos charged.

"FIRE!"

Hell was unleashed. The Ultramar Auxilia had recovered from the initial surprise and prepared a killing ground under the orders of the sons of Guilliman, and for half a minute, thousands of lasguns, krak missiles, mortars, Melta and Plasma guns, and vehicle-mounted weapons spoke as one, delivering enough firepower to kill a regiment.

The gate of Sector 15, once a proud avenue of celebrations, was reeking of foul fluids and dead xenos corpses.

In fact, as they reloaded and the smoke dispersed, Herminius chuckled as the monsters were meeting increasing difficulties in manoeuvring, for at least five of the 'Screamers' had fallen right in the middle of the gate, and now the chitinous xenos were seriously hindered, as the Carnifexes could only enter one by one.

And with a Predator lining perfect head shots, Tyranids or not, they died...and blocked their only path even more.

Some Gaunts tried to launch a Tyranid wave, counting on their smaller size, but the Scarabs of the Saint chose this moment to appear and strike down whatever was still alive in the middle of this mess.

"VOLLEY FIRE! SECOND AND THIRD RANK! HOLD! FIRST RANK! AT MY COMMAND!"

Unnatural thunder shrieked, and strange floating Tyranids appeared, surrounded in auras of utter...what the hell?

Herminius turned his eyes away, and fortunately it was enough, as some miracle of crystal shot them down.

Was...okay, that was completely terrifying. The xenos had psykers too?

This was completely unfair!

"FIRE!"

The weapons were emptied of every last scrap of power again, until some couldn't be fired because the next shot would overheat them and kill their owner.

Thousand of shells were expended each second.

"FIRE!"

The dead Carnifexes were dragged away and more took their place.

And then when they died, yet others took their place.

Herminius replaced another las-cell in his lasgun, and suddenly realised it was his last one. A large pile at his feet informed him where all the other magazines he had put in his pouch not forty minutes ago had gone.

"WITHDRAW!" The Ultramarine commander roared. "WITHDRAW! THIRD SECTION, YOU ARE THE REARGUARD! FIGHTING RETREAT TO THE OUTER INDUSTRIAL WALL!"

What? They couldn't...they were inflicting so many losses upon-

SCRREEEEEEEEEEECCHHHH!

Roughly five hundred metres to the right of the killing grounds where they had covered the pavement in red-black corpses, the outer wall of Hive Asculum exploded, and the smoke hadn't even cleared when hundreds of dark shapes were already trying to break through this large breach.

"RETREAT!" Herminius was more than happy to obey. "RETREAT TO THE NEXT LINE OF DEFENCE!"

---

Lady General Taylor Hebert

"There are too many breaches in Sectors 6, 11, and 15. Fighting retreat has been ordered. With your permission, I am going to give the same order to the rest of the regiments."

Taylor gave a last disgusted glance at the Carnifex she had just killed with Skyfall, before answering the concern of the Ultramarine Captain.

"Yes, please do so." A good thing the Ultramarine Captain couldn't see the grimace she made beneath her helmet. "We don't have enough veterans to spare to afford losing them in easily predictable encirclements."

And that was exactly what would be happening to the troops manning the walls if they were not ordered to retreat now. If they did nothing, either they would be slaughtered on the walls, or they would eventually be exterminated on open ground when they retreated without orders.

"How defensible is the Industrial Wall?" Taylor asked.

"I thought your Adjutant was giving you all the information," Captain Falco Tullius commented in a semi-surprised tone.

"Artemis, her sisters, and the ants she command are excellent at estimating logistical flows, the number of defenders, and all the supplies and weapons brought to defend this wall. But wherever they go, they aren't exactly discreet, and your men are trying to look brave and motivated wherever they are. As such, my Adjutant can't really assess how skilled or unskilled your Auxilia are. Not when it hasn't even been a day since we arrived at Ardium."

"I understand," the son of Guilliman nodded. "In that case, all I can say, is...I would very much prefer not to withdraw so quickly. The Industrial Wall is a real practical, and it gives us a smaller area to defend, but there's a lot of our ammunition production located behind this wall, and if the enemy breaks through this defence, the manufactorums and heavy industry zones will fall under the Tyranid claws. If that happens, it will be only a question of hours before we run out of ammunition."

"And yet we have to withdraw, my Lady," Gamaliel interrupted. "The combination of Carnifexes and the psychic Zoanthropes is sufficiently devastating that wherever you aren't present, the defence immediately falters."

"Not to mention the damned blasts and life-siphoning of the 'Zoans' cost me a lot of Canoptek Scarabs each time they die."

Most of the Tyranids did not have the ability to destroy the Canopteks in significant numbers.

Oh sure, a particularly lucky Termagaunt could shoot one or two down with an acid shot, but in most cases, she was able to kill thousands of them without a single loss.

But the psychic units that her Librarians had designated 'Zoanthropes' were a different problem altogether.

The moment they were close to death, or they felt they were about to die, Behemoth had made sure those nasty xenos psykers became...well, psychic bombs was an accurate description, she supposed.

On average, each Zoanthrope cost her around forty to fifty Canopteks to neutralise permanently.

And at the risk of stating the obvious...Behemoth had bred them by the thousands.

"I agree that the Tyranids have turned out to be annoyingly clever by sending this duo of units." The parahuman empowered by Sacrifice acknowledged. "And I won't deny this is frightening. In mere hours, the cold intelligence directing this army has seen me fight with my swarm and formulated an efficient counterstrategy where I'm forced to fight an attritional battle where all Imperial forces are on the defensive."

If only the rest of her swarm was here, so that she could unleash every insect committed to Operation Stalingrad.

But they were hours away, and wishing for it would not teleport them to the battlefield.

"At least the drop-bombardment has stopped, meaning even Hive Behemoth is running out of reserves to throw into the battle." The Lady General noted conversationally. "Though I dread to think of how many thousands of Gaunts and other units are busy running around every military district, this means the Aeronautica Imperialis will have a chance when they will arrive in high orbit. I have dealt with tens of thousands of Gargoyles, and the rest can-"

Webmistress! Webmistress! The red communication device you ordered my sister to keep safe is activated! The explosion-maker Tinker is here!

Taylor groaned...very loudly.

"Forgefather N'Varr...please remind me who had bet for a return of Leet during the 'last critical battle of Operation Stalingrad'?"

"Err..."

"It was Lady Missy Byron," Gavreel replied before the Salamander could. "Should I repeat the general explanation she gave you?"

"No," Taylor replied peevishly. "I remember exactly what she said."

If she was very lucky, Taylor wouldn't have to run somewhere to save the life of the Squat Slayer and his 'accomplice'...but she wasn't going to count on it.

"I really hope the battle is turning out better at Macragge..."

---

Macragge

Magna Macragge Military District

Laponis Valley

Ultima Cynoscephalae Line

61 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Captain Su Dao

"Ah hell...I think half of their company is dead!"

"That's what happens when you think that trenches must be codified!" Su snarled at his Sergeant. "Seriously, are all Auxilia commanders idiots?"

"That is unfair...we were not that good before the Saint came to kick us between the legs either...Sir."

Su Dao grunted. Much as he didn't want to remember a time when he had been Private Su Dao and Wuhanese regiments routinely disgraced themselves on the battlefield, there was no denying his subordinate was right.

"Plasma Guns on my mark. The heretics must have taken the trench ahead of us, let's teach them how big a mistake that was. And the artillery must continue shooting!" He barked forcefully into his com-bead to whoever was now in command of the Wuhanese 5th Line Infantry. "We are facing spearheads of Traitor Astartes here, preceded by their cannon-fodder? Do you think it's time to be stingy with your shells?"

Three seconds later, the Sphinx cannons positioned well behind the network of trenches pulverised the trench the Chaos Marines and their monsters had taken.

The best part of it was after twenty seconds when an enormous explosion shook the earth and everyone took cover in the trench, for the shockwave had been...well, you couldn't miss it. Unless you were dead.

The bad news was that it smelled extremely bad, even by battlefield-standards.

"Smells like dead heretic..." a Lieutenant joked, his original blue-grey carapace armour now a dark brown after all the heretic trenches.

"I don't know what it smells like, but it smells worse than a dead slaver of Commorragh!" All the exchange was taking place through vox, of course, as his men took shot after shot at the enemy, the artillery bombardment continued, and not having your helmet on and sealed was a guarantee to die in a very ugly manner. "Is the trench behind us ready?"

"The men want three more minutes, Captain."

"And I want a swarm of Her Celestial Highness coming right now to slaughter the daemon-kissing bastards!" The Wuhanese survivor of Commorragh replied while rolling his eyes. "Unfortunately, we don't always get what we want."

"We still find it particularly funny you are angry at the Macraggian commanders...given how many times you quote Her speeches before the company...Sir."

"Not really," Su Dao grunted, as the explosions came closer, courtesy of plenty of traitor guardsmen and deranged cultists believing – wrongly – the Imperial artillery was short of ammunition. "Her Celestial Highness told us there was no such thing as too many trenches. Commorragh confirmed you can fill large trenches with corpses if the enemy is stupid and arrogant. This? This is just my experience speaking. Now this new trench, it is ready or not?"

"It is ready...though if there are Astartes somewhere near it, they may not at all appreciate our regiment's...err...tactical withdrawal? We're still losing a lot of ground here, Captain."

"But we're bleeding the bastards," the one-timed rejuvenated guardsman countered with obvious relish. "And their offensive is slowing down. They took more than twenty minutes to reach that last trench, and if this imbecilic Mister 'I know everything about the Codex' had listened to me, we would not have had any fatalities. We may even be trying a counterattack right now."

"Counterattacking...Sir? In the middle of that?"

Su glanced at the location he had defended half an hour ago and grimaced. Whatever had detonated inside that trench, it was not for the faint of hearts; he wasn't a specialist, but flames weren't supposed to be blue and violet.

"Yes, perhaps I am being too optimistic." The Captain acknowledged, before deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, rather than let any heretic live to produce another attack of their eternally-damned sorcery. "Prepare the mortars! We must give them a proper salute worthy of the Imperial Guard!"

---

Laphis

Ravenna – west of the Polenta River

Encircled positions of the surviving Traitor forces

61 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Captain Cel 'Jackal' Kolerion

It was a very bad situation, Captain Cel Kolerion, formerly of the Night Lords Legion admitted inside his mind.

As if the so-called Gods of the Word Bearers had heard his thought, a building on the other side of the ruined street was pulverised in a quick succession of artillery salvoes.

The building in question had been through a lot, but the heavy-grade artillery shells were definitely too much.

About a third of the structure completely collapsed, likely burying a considerable number of Volscani under the rubble. Cel had seen them going in a few minutes ago, and unless there had been another exit he hadn't seen, they were inside when the Imperials launched their last 'gifts'.

Not that he really cared, of course.

It was just that there wasn't a lot to do when the enemy relentlessly bombarded you and you couldn't do anything about it.

A Terrormaster had been the first to recognise the danger, and tried to break the encirclement and escape westwards some hours ago, after the Vile One's final gambit proved to be both yet another betrayal and a complete disaster in a single package.

The Knights of the False Emperor and the multitude of tanks waiting outside the razed hab-blocks had transformed this retreat into a meat-grinder.

Then a Dark Apostle had thought they could pierce in the direction of the north-east, reach the river, and break out...somehow. The idiots who had followed him had never reached the river.

In the meantime, Cel was grounded. Dark hearts of Nostramo, he knew he shouldn't have taken so much pleasure challenging the aces of the enemy. But it had been so tempting! For the first time in centuries, the pilot nicknamed the Jackal by temporary allies and foes alike had enjoyed the thrill of flying through skies on fire and everything which came with it.

For those moments of sheer bliss, he had been rewarded with his beloved aircraft-partner running out of fuel when the counter-offensive slammed into their flanks and the improvised aerial mustering grounds were overrun.

Cel Kolerion had fought all his life as a pilot, be he a Legionnaire, a Reaver, or a mercenary...and he was going to die as a lowly infantry grunt.

"Fuck Erebus," the Nostramo-born Space Marine cursed, raising an imaginary cup to carry a no less imaginary toast in the name of the Arch-Betrayer. "I should have never accepted the praises and promised rewards...all the slaves and loot in the world...they are useless if you die before enjoying them."

The Dark Apostle had been worse than Konrad Curze when it came to leading them to victory, and given how damningly incompetent the Night Haunter had been at the end, that was saying something.

"And the bombardment continues..." He muttered as another building...perhaps a theatre? It looked like one of those operas the Emperor's Children loved parading around in an eternity ago, no? Anyway, the building was utterly demolished.

"It is almost the end, you know," there was no one to hear his words, of course. The dinner table he had decided to sit near was cold and dusty, and whoever the owners were, they had fled this place.

There was no one to hear his words save a painting of Roboute Guilliman.

It was not a great work of art, obviously. In fact, it was more or less the kind of propaganda piece which was copied by the fools in charge of brainwashing the masses. It was the kind which was distributed by the billions over a million worlds.

And the smoke and the consequences of hours of fighting had degraded its already mediocre quality.

Despite this, or because of this, Guilliman's image looked almost real.

"This is the end of the Legions. Lorgar, may his soul rot eternally in the Warp, fell into a trap. And so, just like that, one more Legion is annihilated. The Ultramarines will have their revenge long after you were slain."

Cel tried to laugh. But the disappointment burning in his throat was too strong to tolerate anything else.

"We are completely encircled. The last sons of Lorgar have pressed upon their slaves to erect a few defences in the ruins of Ravenna, but it won't delay the enemy for too long. And those guardsmen continue to pick us apart...we are killing one hundred of them for each of us, but it is a ratio they can afford."

The Jackal sighed.

"We thought ourselves really clever to not believe in the nonsense they preached, but the Word Bearers have nonetheless killed us. And since I won't side with people who think siding with giant rats is a good idea, I guess this is it."

And since, unlike some, he hadn't lived in the Eye of Terror for too long, he could still think and live as an 'Angel of Death', for all the good it did him.

"Will I die today?"

---

Laphis Theatre

61 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Surviving Word Bearers: 28

Other Surviving Traitor Astartes: 47

Surviving order of battle of the Lost and the Damned: approximately 50,000

Surviving Chaos Knights: 2

Surviving Chaos Spawns: 4

Surviving Ultramarines and Loyalist Space Marines: 199

Surviving Ultramar Auxilia: approximately 15,000

Surviving Imperial guardsmen: approximately 13,060,000

Surviving Loyalist Knights: 143

---

Macragge

Pharsalus Military District

Fields of Pharsalus

61 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Chapter Master Ta'Phor Hezonn

The Battle of Pharsalus, Ta'Phor Hezonn knew, was not going to be forgotten by any Space Marine who participated in it anytime soon.

It was undoubtedly one of the greatest tank battles of the millennium.

It was one of the greatest Astartes-versus-Astartes engagements since the Heresy itself.

And the greatest weapons of the Mechanicus killed each other, doing as much damage when they died as when they fought.

All of this had been expected.

The sheer massacre of Bombers which was happening before his eyes, however, was not.

"By the maw of the Salamanders...Legio Vulturum has repurposed one of its Titans into an anti-air platform! Abort all aerial attacks! Contact the Rear-Admiral and Lady Dragon! All Bomber attacks must stop immediately!"

There were unfortunately pilots who didn't heed the warning, or didn't get it in time. Close to two dozen Marauder Bombers arrived over the ocean of fire that was the battlefield.

They didn't stay over it for long. The Traitor Titan opened fire with some sort of anti-air missiles and a heretekal energy-based weapon of a dark colour.

In less than twenty seconds, a ruthless massacre removed the aircraft from the Imperial order of battle.

"Now we know why out of the entire Traitor Titan Legion, this one was staying in the rear, Chapter Master."

"Yes," the Regent of Nocturne said coldly, "now we know."

A few seconds of evaluation led him to the most logical conclusion.

"I don't think it was tested on the battlefield before. If it had been, they would not have charged with their Heldrakes and their flying Daemon Engines first."

The tank elite of the sons of the Nocturne sent two more Traitor Predators and a Land Raider straight to hell as he spoke the words.

"It's entirely possible it has only limited ammunition, Chapter Master. In addition to this, the heretekal laser looks like a very energy-consuming weapon. And unlike us, the logistics of the enemy have utterly failed. Our cousins and the Vostroyan artillery have found and targeted their ammunition resupply vehicles."

"Yes." One Predator of the Imperial Fists took a terrible blow, but new countermeasures made sure the proud sons of Dorn were able to evacuate, and they were soon protected by a column of Crimson Fists leading another charge. "But we have not found the Titan resupply vehicles."

"Maybe we should ask a spider if they've been captured in high orbit. I remember hearing Lady Weaver's Admirals saying the Blood Angels had boarded the Traitor Titan transports."

"It's only a hypothesis."

"Yes, Chapter Master...but the Titan resupply vehicles are not exactly small. After all, I've seen the ones Legio Ignatum use, and they're the height of two Baneblades stacked on top of each other...for the small versions. I seriously doubt we could have missed them."

"Target identified," the Techmarine aboard his command Land Raider interjected. "Unless the Arch-Heretek changed a lot of plates and banners to deceive us, this new 'anti-air Titan' is the Archaeopteryx Mortalis."

"Not a brand-new Titan, then." Ta'Phor was not happy about the ability of this Traitor machine, but at least it was not a completely new design, just an old Reaver the commander of the Dark Mechanicum had repurposed into an anti-Bomber abomination.

"No," his tech-specialist agreed, "in fact, it wasn't part of Legio Vulturum at all. It was a Legio Mortis Titan."

Now that was interesting. Legio Mortis had always been the favourites of the Arch-Heretic Horus, and all relatively reliable information Nocturne had on them agreed that they had stayed loyal to his favourite son, Abaddon the Despoiler.

"They may have grabbed it during the Siege of Terra. The fires of our caldera know there were enough destroyed Titans there to form an entire Legion, provided you had the resources to repair them."

"Yes, Chapter Master."

"We need to get rid of Archaeopteryx Mortalis immediately." Ta'Phor returned to the grim business of war. The good news was that his forces had slaughtered the Word Bearers of the entire left flank of the battlefield, helped occasionally but determinedly by the fires of two Warlords. It was difficult to estimate the Word Bearers' losses, but they were at least in the high thousands.

"I agree, Chapter Master, but most of Cyrus' Titans are a bit too busy to help us right now. They badly need their numerical superiority to distract Tyrannosaurus Rex."

"May the curse of ten thousand years of lava and acid clouds fall upon that abomination," the Regent of Nocturne muttered before clearing his throat.

Seriously, they had an Imperator and four Warlords 'distracting' the Traitor Titan. Imperators were the greatest weapons of the Collegia Titanica, but dark heresies or not, even their capabilities had limits.

"In this case, we will have to deal with Archaeopteryx Mortalis ourselves."

"This is going to cost us, Chapter Master. The Obsidian Chariot has nobly defeated the Kratos and Sicaran elite of the enemy, but-"

An armoured company of the Vostroyan Firstborn, which had advanced too fast for the rest of the army to support it, disappeared in a powerful explosion. Twenty Khan and Russ tanks lost in a few seconds...maybe more.

"We need those Bombers raining down death from the skies." Ta'Phor spoke in his voice of command. "And we are going to make that happen, even if I have to place the detonation charges in the core of this Traitor Titan myself!"

---

Battle-brother Oswald Iago

"You know the mission, brothers."

"Archaeopteryx Mortalis must die." Oswald repeated alongside his battle-brothers.

"Will we succeed?" The Rhino shook from a nearby explosion, but accelerated nonetheless.

"Yes, for we are the Fists of Roma."

"Who did we pledge our oaths to?"

"The Primarch, the Saint, and the Emperor!"

"WITH THEIR SHIELDS AND THOSE PROTECTORS, WE WILL SMITE THE ENEMIES OF MANKIND!"

The hatch of the Nyx-pattern Rhino Honour and Lost Souls opened, and Oswald Iago was the second to go through it.

For several heartbeats, he was very glad for the endless exercises, for in the smoke and the flames, it was nearly impossible to see anything.

It didn't last long. Right in front of them, the beastly Titan that was their target fired at something in the sky, and the heretical weapons which did the deed illuminated the battlefield like a dark sun.

"FOR DORN! FOR WEAVER! FOR THE EMPEROR!"

The Chapter Master ordered the charge, and though there were thousands of heretics and more than one hundred Word Bearers between them and the objective, the Lost and the Damned had not expected a true Astartes assault converging upon a single target.

And it was a true assault. Though the losses had been high, the Portsmouth-born Fist of Roma had to his right at least two Companies of Crimson Fists, and one of the Emperor's Warbringers. Elements of the Excoriators and the Executioners were visible too.

Oswald's hearts beat faster, and his mind humbly thanked the Emperor for being part of this assembly of heroes.

With these weapons and this martial dedication, they were going to smite the heretics!

"BOW TO THE TRUE GODS, SLAVES OF THE-"

A Thunderhammer right in the face forever silenced a Chaos Spawn which had somehow kept its ability to speak.

"Where are the hereteks of the Dark Mechanicum, by the way?" Oswald asked the Sergeant as he emptied his Bolter into something which might have been human once...maybe. It had a vaguely humanoid appearance, but it also had three arms and three legs, after all. "They have no standard doctrine, but aren't they fielding their version of the Skitarii?"

"Evidently not," was the reply. "Based on the evidence our Tech-Priests recovered and their absence on the battlefield, it appears the Arch-Heretek and the Traitors had a major disagreement. We will make them rue this mistake!"

"FOR THE EMPEROR!"

The Traitor Titan Archaeopteryx Mortalis saw the danger.

It could have hardly been otherwise; everyone knew that Space Marines, except the Heracles Wardens, weren't really trained for discreet operations.

But that was why there were multiple aircraft dancing at the edge of its vision. Thanks to the Salamanders' excellent scouting, they had a good idea of the capabilities of the anti-air weapons, and though no direct assault was possible, lone aces could feint and simulate a whole range of false attacks.

The Titan finally understood it was doomed if it stayed, and tried to withdraw, as the Word Bearers fell by Bolters, Power Blades, and battle-cannon Lascannons, their retaliation unable to pierce the ion shields of the Mark IXs assembled here.

But it was too late.

Already the Emperor's Warbringers battle-brothers had reached the feet of Archaeopteryx Mortalis, and in less time than it took to say it, a Rhino-pattern vehicle opened in full to reveal it was in reality not a transport at all, but a carrier for a weapon Oswald had never seen before.

"That looks like a modified Lascannon, Sergeant." He pointed out while decapitating half a dozen heretics.

"It is a brand-new Nyx-pattern Neutron-cutter," the answer came along with a new flurry of orders to take position ahead of the Excoriators. "Straight out of the Forges of Nyx, given by Lady Weaver herself under stringent conditions to the sons of Dorn. A perfect weapon to board Titans. It is our honour to use it as the Artisans of the Saint intended."

The next seconds proved the words true beyond doubt. The highly advanced weapon was indeed a controlled blue ray which made short work of the Titan's sealed protections designed to prevent any enemy from invading its insides, and for all the speed with which the Titan tried to flee, over two hundred battle-brothers managed to break in before the Archaeopteryx Mortalis managed to disengage.

"They will succeed in their mission. They are true sons of Dorn."

"They will." The reply was as confident as his was. "And in the meantime, the unexpected retreat of their greatest weapon seems to have rattled the mass of heretics somewhat."

"Permission to rattle them further, Sergeant?"

A red-painted heretic Rhino was transformed into a pyre of death and incinerated heretic flesh. Two more followed in quick succession, and the familiar sounds and effects one associated with Volkite and Flamer Weaponry were prominently present.

"Granted! We can't let the Salamanders have all the glory and the fun!"

"FISTS OF ROMA! DORN DOES NOT TOLERATE THE EXISTENCE OF THE HERETICS!"

"THEN LET NONE SURVIVE!" Oswald screamed with William and all their brothers, as the fleeing Archaeopteryx Mortalis' legs began to expel a colossal amount of smoke. "FOR THE EMPEROR!"

---

62 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Dark Apostle Eliphas

Eliphas knew the battle was lost the moment Archaeopteryx Mortalis began to burn.

Worse, in the next one hundred and twenty seconds, the Dark Apostle watched as over a hundred and fifty Astartes emerged from various exits – natural or created – out of the doomed Titan.

Somehow, Eliphas doubted it was because they had found something which had put the fear of the Gods into their hearts.

A thought which was verified in the next minute. Internal explosions began to cripple Archaeopteryx Mortalis, beginning with an arm which for some reason had been decorated with some blue-green scales and a tail.

Anti-air batteries and systems went offline.

The fires spread everywhere, from the talon-shaped feet to the fierce predatory beak of metal hiding the command deck of the Titan.

The second arm was severed from the rest of the body.

And exactly eight seconds later, the head and a lot of the upper structure were blasted upwards, as if part of Archaeopteryx Mortalis had decided to transform into a rocket and leave this planet for better skies.

It didn't, of course.

The tons of metal were soon going to return to Macragge, courtesy of gravity...and with their luck in these last few hours, it was likely going to land on something important.

"Well..." Eliphas coughed as the mangled carcass flattened everything around it, before plunging another part of the battlefield into a terrible inferno. And obviously, the Imperial Fists and all their Successors were returning to their positions, seizing the initiative and continuing to inflict colossal losses upon the crippled and ravaged Word Bearers' hosts. "It seems our greatest anti-air weapon has just ceased to be."

"And the Salamanders have destroyed most of our Whirlwinds," the new Coryphaus he had chosen after the last one lost his life while his Spartan perished against five Predators added glumly. "The Stalker and Hunter losses are significant too."

"I see." Eliphas grimaced. "All our hopes of victory lie in the claws of Tyrannosaurus Rex, eh?"

"Lord Apostle? Malus has only twenty Titans left and he's facing forty-plus Titans of the False Emperor. And so far, he's failed to kill Exemplis."

"Let's not forget that unlike us, the enemy has rotated its damaged Titans out of the melee," whereas all Legio Vulturum Titans which fell in thunderous imitations of mountains crashing on Macragge, the other Titan commander had decided a coordinated and united Legion was better than throwing a few Maniples here and there wherever you thought it might do some good. "Let's appreciate the irony, shall we? We deployed a complete Legio on the Fields of Pharsalus, yet they're fighting like they're complete strangers. The enemy Titans, on the other hand, are fighting like a proper Legio...despite their banners making clear they all hail from very different Forge Worlds."

Apparently, some Apostles would choose this moment to curse Weaver profusely.

Eliphas didn't.

Oh, there was no doubt the favourite daughter of the False Emperor was at least in part responsible for the current state of affairs, but the Titans of Ignatum, Metalica, Crucius, and Atarus among many...they obeyed the battle-plan of their commander because they could swallow their pride and tolerate that their fellow Princeps shared the glory of a victory.

Malus and the rest of the 'Alphas' of Legio Vulturum couldn't.

And as much as the member of the Dark Council wanted to blame Anarchy this time around, sadly, playing the 'blame the Fourth Ruinous Power' game meant closing his eyes to the true problem. Since Kor Phaeron had ordered them to seize the Titan-Barges, the Seventeenth legion hadn't been able to enforce their will.

Sota-Nul may have been able to, but Sota-Nul wasn't here anymore.

In the meantime, the enemy continued to pour more reinforcements onto the Fields of Pharsalus.

"Has the ritual begun?" He asked a Master of Possession who had so far stood alone and ignored for the last several minutes.

"It has. Glory to Tzeentch!"

His Coryphaus and several of the Captains looked at him in alarm.

"Lord Eliphas? I don't think-"

"Yes," the Dark Apostle smiled, "most of our Legionnaires don't think. That's exactly how so many of the problems plaguing our Legion began."

Where the ritual circle had been located, power began to spread.

"But...the Shadow in the Warp...rituals are still too risky!"

"Oh, that wasn't a great ritual!"the Inheritor 'reassured' his lieutenants. "I just threw some of the Necron artefacts Vorrjuk stole and that I...borrowed from him into a conduit. Tzeentch demanded a sacrifice, and in addition to that, I offer him Tyrannosaurus Rex."

All it had taken was a tiny fragment of Noctilith, hidden behind the Throne of that arrogant bastard of 'Alpha-Princeps' or whatever ridiculous title the commander of Legio Vulturum wanted to be called by, and the modified Imperator was theirs.

"We need to stop wallowing in our pathetic and self-imposed mediocrity. We need to embrace Change! We need to stop believing backstabbing each other is the height of our ambitions! We need to-"

The green blade emerged from his throat, and his entire world became pain.

Assassin...no...

The blade was withdrawn, and his blood began to pour out.

All around him the shadows engulfed his followers, and screams of agony rose to accompany the litany of death reigning upon the battlefield.

"You...arrive...too late."

Eliphas heard the laughter of the God he had pledged himself to.

He saw his soul leaving his body and the daemons waiting to feast upon him.

He turned back to see the human and the animal shrouded in shadows.

"The Great Architect will triumph!"

"No."

---

Battle Groups of Operation Stalingrad approaching Ardium

Emperor-class Battleship Dominus Astra

62 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Lord Admiral Neidhart Müller

Neidhart had been overjoyed when it had been announced the Eternal Crusader and the Flamewrought were officially assigned to Battle Group Volga before Operation Stalingrad was months away from being launched.

At the time, his treacherous memory reminded him, he had been so overjoyed he had said some very unwise things. Like how it was unlikely they would meet a worthy enemy ship capable of opposing them.

And no, the Ymga Monolith hadn't counted. It was a battlestation, and a quite unwieldy one at that. For all its horrifying capabilities, the Necron planet-sized pyramid had been used by an incompetent xenos.

The heretic Trisagion, in the end, had proven another massive disappointment too. Maybe it had been terrifying in the old days, but the damage it had received at Fenris had resulted in the Battle Groups giving the killing blow to a super-sized wreck. And this didn't even count how slow and badly built the hull had been in the first place. Truly the Word Bearers had gone for a 'big gun' design and ignored all the experience of skilled shipbuilders.

But now, no less than three...three entities were fighting in orbit of Ardium, and though the Tyranid didn't count as a ship, and whatever the Space Wolves had done to their monastery-fortress didn't make it a proper void-capable hull either, the same couldn't be said about the forty kilometres-long super-battleship which had appeared out of nowhere.

"If you forgive me, Admiral, it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke," his chief of staff remarked calmly.

"I forgive you." Neidhart smiled. "Let's look at the bright side: the fact a mountain and an unknown super-battleship are fighting the enemy in tandem with what are definitely proscribed weapons can't be our fault."

"True, Admiral. We have an excellent alibi: we are out of range."

"Yes." For all the acceleration that all Battle Groups considered tolerable for a long pursuit, they couldn't hold it for as long as they desired; otherwise they would have only a few minutes to fire all their weapons before bypassing Ardium by several hundred thousand kilometres. "And thank the Emperor for that, for the firepower the Tyranid and its two opponents have is quite superior to what even a Gloriana can dish out."

Neidhart was reasonably sure none of the weapons which were fired at the moment had ever been part of the conventional armament of any class of Imperial ship. Hell, he had seen quite unusual ships in his career, some including Astartes relic-ships of the thirtieth millennium, and none of them had ever shown anything like this!

It was if each salvo was creating miniature suns or black holes...and in at least two out of three cases, this was done by psychic means!

One second the living xenos ship was sending two rays of red energy at its two opponents, and one evaded while the Fang endured the punishment stoically.

But the Tyranid was instantly forced on the defensive, and as the data arrived on his bridge, Neidhart could assess that while the newly arrived ship and the Space Wolves weren't doing fatal damage, they were still hurting it.

In addition to this, Behemoth may be sixty kilometres-long, but it was an isolated flagship, now that its two escorts were utterly dead, and as such it had to divide its firepower between two targets.

It couldn't leave the human adversaries – the super-battleship was clearly of human design, if not of the Imperium – to fire at it with impunity.

"The Mechanicus request permission to intervene with their new long-range torpedoes."

"Denied." Neidhart automatically answered. "And you can give them the same reply I gave them hours ago: we don't have enough ammunition to waste it at distances such as the one we're dealing with here. Moreover, Behemoth will see them coming. I won't be the one to inform Her Celestial Highness that we threw good money after bad out the airlock. I leave that to reckless...beings, such as the soon to be ex-Archmagos Cawl."

"Admiral...you think Her Celestial Highness will demote the moon-teleporter for this stunt?"

"Last time I checked, I don't think teleporting the Fang into the middle of another battle was at the order of the day...nor was it part of his mission to refuse all communications."

Many Mechanicus ships were still close to the zone, and some had agreed to talk...unfortunately, it seemed those were the ones who weren't in the know.

As for the Archmagos Cawl, no one seemed to know his whereabouts, and the Lord Admiral of Battlefleet Nyx had serious doubts he was busy ignoring an endless list of high-priority queries in his Ark Mechanicus' quarantined labs.

"This fight could last quite a while, Admiral. Neither the Fang nor this unknown super-battleship seem to have the firepower to slay the beast. Maybe it will give us time to arrive at effective range?"

"I don't think so," the veteran officer passed a hand through his hair, wishing the number of galaxy-shattering surprises the universe sprang upon him on a daily basis could decrease a bit, thank you very much. "Extreme torpedo range would already be quite a feat."

"How so?"

"I think that the closer we get to Ardium, the higher the chances of Behemoth trying to flee. At this point it isn't able to give its forces on the planet any reinforcements, and though the two opponents it had are unable to kill it, this Tyranid is clever enough to know we can."

"Yes, that makes sense, Admiral. How long do you think-"

"Psychic anomaly detected! New psychic anomaly detected! Location...approximate location is the wreck of the Eldar Cruiser which was destroyed earlier?"

Neidhart Müller grimaced.

"The proverb 'if you couldn't take the joke, you shouldn't have joined' is really revealed in all its glory today..."

---

Near Ardium

Eldar Cruiser Guardian of Ulthwé

62 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Herald Aurelia Malys

Aurelia didn't know a lot about the Queen of Blades, a fact she fervently thanked Atharti for.

But knowledge about the legendary sword-mistress wasn't necessary to understand that when Lelith Hesperax arrived on the bridge, she looked apocalyptically angry.

The words addressed to the subdued Alaitoc Mariners very much confirmed it.

"And if you don't know about the limits of the old Phoenix psy-systems, you test them ahead of battle! How can you know what works and what doesn't if you aren't even capable of judging what sort of psychic beings can detect it?"

"No one could have foreseen the Great Devourer!"

"No one could have foreseen Commorragh either!" The Queen of Blades replied mockingly. "Oh, wait. Vect and his friends raided the humans until they became the problem every human wanted to take a piece of flesh from! The Webway Gates were left scandalously open, by choice and by sheer negligence! And at the end, everyone was humbled...everyone but me, that is."

Aurelia had long wondered after the Second Fall how the pre-Slaanesh Aeldari would react to them if they returned from death today.

With the Bearer of the First Sword, she had a clue, and it was hardly a positive evaluation.

The only mild reassurance was that the crimson-haired Aeldari had as big an ego as the Dynasts of Commorragh were rumoured to have had before Maelsha'eil Dannan killed them all.

What was not so reassuring was that Lelith Hesperax had the power to match her ego, and if she decided to kill them, there was nothing Eldrad or Aurelia would be able to do about it.

"We would have survived-"

"No you wouldn't have," the arena-mistress interrupted the sole Harlequin. "That psychic blast disabled your emergency phase-tunnels and some other toys Cegorach gave you. If I had not parried the attack and used a veil-bubble to make it look like we had perished, the Tyranid would have exterminated everyone aboard your obsolete ship."

Aurelia licked her lips, and then she clapped in her hands...immediately receiving the attention of the ancient Aeldari.

"While I would leave you lambasting this group under normal circumstances, there is a big problem we need to deal with. The Great Devourer is still active, and the humans don't seem to be able to kill it."

True, they had stalemated the enormous ship-monster, something a fleet of Asuryani ships would likely be unable to do, but doing better in this case was still not sufficient.

The Great Devourer's baleful influence over this region of space had to be destroyed quickly, and not just because it gave them colossal headaches to be even this close to it.

"And how do you think you can deal with it?" The Queen of Blades raised a curious eyebrow. "Being the Herald of a nascent Goddess-in-being doesn't grant you the ability to surpass me. And even if it did, you don't have the ability to get into range without the Devourer-Prime detecting you and focusing all its psychic firepower on your destruction."

No one came forward to protest the Defender of Ulthwé could endure that. Everyone had seen the debris of the Star Strider all too clearly.

"Actually, I thought you could do it," the former slave sworn to Atharti replied.

"Well, you thought wrong," the Queen of Blades declared bluntly. "While I wouldn't mind adding such an impressive trophy to my collection, my strike abilities aren't that far-ranged. My Sword of Vaul wasn't built to slay things of this nature either. And I sincerely doubt I will be able to kill it in a single blow, it's far too big, meaning this ship would have to survive at least one or two counterattacks...and it can't."

Aurelia grimaced...before nodding.

"And what if you had the proper weapon to do this?"

The secret compartment near her feet was opened, revealing Vilith-zhar, Sword of Souls, the most powerful of the Croneswords.

For the first time, surprise appeared on the face of the aeons-old Aeldari.

"You went to recover it from the temple of Morai-Heg on Belial IV? I don't know if I should congratulate you for your audacity or criticise you for your recklessness..."

"You knew where it was, and you didn't think to share the information with our alliance?" Eldrad questioned, aghast.

The stare her lover received was similar to the one a God would give to a worm.

"Mind your tone, little Farseer. I am only here because wherever Weaver goes, the situation becomes incredibly amusing. I am not your ally, and I have no intention to join your...how do you call it? An alliance?"

"Cegorach's will-"

"Silence," the word was purred, but the Harlequin who had tried to speak obeyed the command.

For a long period of time which seemed an eternity, the Queen of Blades examined the blade without touching it.

Ultimately, the examination concluded without a word being uttered.

"You, and by 'you', I mean 'Ulthwé and all Craftworlds' are playing games which are going to explode in your face," Lelith Hesperax purred again. "But if you want to play with forces beyond your comprehension, I will let you do it. I am even going to sit around and watch. I want to see what Weaver will do to you."

The right hand of the arena-mistress caressed the hilt of Vilith-zhar, and instantly the Sword of Souls decreased in size so that an Aeldari could wield it.

One blink of an eye later, and the Cronesword was unsheathed.

A second, and Aurelia felt reality being severed.

The Defender of Ulthwé was, somehow, intact.

The flash of silver light which was recorded by the sensors of the ship proved that the same couldn't be said of the Great Devourer.

---

Hive Ship 'Behemoth'

Many average living beings of this galaxy had only one heart.

The Tyranids were not the average living beings of this galaxy.

The number of hearts was proportional to the importance of the individual asset within the Hive Fleet. A Hormagaunt would only have one. A Carnifex would have two. A Zoanthrope would have only one, for their small size and the psychic potential expended them too quickly to be worth additional internal organs. But the Hive Tyrants, primary conduit of the Hive Mind, could have as many as five or six hearts.

Behemoth, antediluvian creature, survivor of the late stages of the War in Heaven, had nine primary hearts, and two 'modules' which could be grown in time to become major substitutes in case the injuries required a replacement of the primary organs.

Once the Hive Mind had connected itself to the sixty kilometres-long asset, it had been extremely impressed by this compartmentalisation...which was to their consternation not replicable without direct union-merging; part of this genetic success was due to the sheer psychic modifications which had altered the ancient Tyranid organism millions of years ago.

This realisation, and the deteriorating military situation, led the Hive Mind to the conclusion retreat was necessary. Additional command units would be sent to the planet below so that the fighting revealed more weaknesses about the prey they had begun devouring. Full consumption was likely beyond their reach with the prey's reinforcements coming ever closer, but the assets deployed were considerable, and a long war of attrition would give them certain advantages.

But their greatest weapon had to be withdrawn, and evade pursuit of the prey. Recovering it when the closest Hive Fleet would devour this region of space was-

A silver lance of pain and suffering shredded the super-battleship-sized Tyranid flagship.

One heart instantly died.

For about ten seconds, connection between the Hive Mind and its forces in theatre was utterly nonexistent, which had...unfortunate consequences.

Had the Hive Mind been human, it would have been extremely furious. As it was, even emotionless hungering gestalts of trillions of Norn Queens were beginning to experience something looking very much like anger.

For the silvery wound which had just severed the kilometre-wide chitin and every bio-system supposed to prevent exactly that was utterly toxic.

Fast-reaction units and recovery spores which tried to heal the wound collapsed in a matter of seconds, their bodies incapable of resisting the unknown 'disease' radiating from this wound.

One heart was gone, and at the current rate of contamination, a second wouldn't last long.

This was extremely concerning.

Worse, the ship from which the blow had been made was out of range, as the two other prey-ships barred the way and rendered a move in its direction impossible.

And given what the prey had shown-

The second attack was just as powerful, but far more accurate. Two hearts and one potential replacement were utterly lost.

Their greatest synapse construction was near out of control, as its feral instincts resurfaced and commanded it to tear apart the prey which had dared to hurt it.

The Hive Mind forced itself to calmly evaluate the situation.

The current assets couldn't evade fast enough to flee this new threat, and fighting in such conditions would have only one outcome.

It nonetheless needed to save something from this inconvenience. Strains of the armoured units and the powerful psychic units would be combined into a single body before receiving command strains.

The orders were processed and executed.

Spores were launched.

New commands were given to the devouring units on the planet.

And then the third attack hit.

---

Newly created 'Mountain Star Fortress' The Fang

Primarch Magnus the Red

It took a lot to render three Primarchs speechless.

The bisected Tyranid the hololith was showing achieved it instantly.

And no, 'bisected' was not the wrong word.

A few seconds ago, there had been a sixty kilometres-long Tyranid doing its best to launch thousands of spores onto the surface of Ardium, and the Fang and the other super-battleship fighting it were firing everything they had to prevent as many of them as possible from entering the atmosphere.

Now?

There were two Tyranid parts, each of them thirty kilometres in length, and each of them vented quantities of disgusting fluids into space.

The Tyranid codenamed Behemoth was not yet dead.

The movement of the head suggested it had still some life in it, which was...properly insane.

Magnus could see many terrible marks of silver psychic fire, and though he was too far away to have a one hundred percent certainty, his guess was that the strikes had been unleashed with the very concept of Severance.

If he was right, then each wound inflicted on alien flesh, no matter how minor, was poisoned with something that had no existing cure.

"I think," Corax was the first to break free of his stupor, "that after much reflexion, I completely support your idea of not going to duel the Queen of Blades, Magnus."

The Primarch of the Thousand Sons coughed before replying.

"I'm glad you agree, brother."

"This doesn't prove anything! It could be-"

Suddenly the void was illuminated by a storm of unimaginable power.

It was a storm of psychic fire, of that there was no doubt.

And this silver fire proceeded to methodically cut what had been the 'rear' of the Tyranid Behemoth into precise cubes of chitin and meat.

It took less than a minute, and at the end...well, there weren't a lot of things left save the bone structure.

Half of a xenos – thirty kilometres of length, filled with some of the most vicious and dangerous weapons which could be developed entirely from a race using only biological resources...all gone.

"What...what sort of monster is this Eldar?"

From the mouth of the Primarch who had made his specialty to hunt the monsters of the Dark, the question was indeed a good one.

"If I had to guess," and he wasn't, he was cheating, "I would say one which fought and became what she was fighting in a war making all human-fought conflicts in history pale into insignificance."

The one-eyed Primarch exhaled.

"I think it is best not to provoke her, and just hope she will go away without trying to kill one of us...or all the ships nearby. Besides, it looks like we have a more urgent problem. Half of the Tyranid is gone, but it looks like the dying part of the rest is falling into Ardium's atmosphere...and there is the matter of all those bio-spores which weren't intercepted."

"That won't be a problem for long!" Leman's fighting spirit made its return. "Vlka Fenryka! We march to war!"

With his hands manacled, it was impossible to place them over his ears.

And yes, the howling was horribly loud and an insult to any war cry in existence...

---

Ardium

Asculum Military District

Hive Asculum

62 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Lady General Taylor Hebert

At least half of the planet if not more watched the fall of Behemoth.

There was no possible way to miss it, even with all the fires they had lit to burn the Tyranid corpses.

"Gavreel, spread the words, the soldiers must stop their gawking," the insect-mistress commanded in an amused tone, as if she wasn't looking at the final descent of the enormous Tyranid.

Of course, unlike them, Taylor could wield the Nebula's Shard and her swarm without the use of her eyes.

"Yes, my Lady. Other orders?"

"We are pressing back the Tyranid horde to the outer walls." The female parahuman smiled. "Since Behemoth has been bisected by the Queen of Blades, most of the Carnifexes and the rest of the horde have gone feral. It's time to take back the terrain we lost. For the Emperor."

"FOR THE EMPEROR!"

The battle was extremely one-sided. It was no surprise, seeing as all tactics and iron discipline which had led to the Tyranids be such a formidable opponent had vanished.

Where before a few Canopteks wouldn't have been enough to down a Zoanthrope, now she did it with contemptuous ease.

Tens of thousands of Hormagaunts and Termagaunts were adopting nonsensical and uncoordinated approaches against the Auxilia and her ants, accelerating the torrent of casualties.

Inch by inch, Taylor felt the mental pressure disappear.

It had been a disturbing and ugly shadow against her mind for hours, and it was a true pleasure not to have it gnawing against her shields anymore.

"We don't know if it's the Queen of Blades, my Lady."

Gamaliel, who was right by her side, laughed at Diamantis' half-stunned outburst, just as they reached the ruin of the outer walls of Hive Asculum.

"My dear Huscarl, unless one of the Primarchs in orbit has suddenly grown the ability to cut Super-Battleship-sized constructs in half with the power of his mind, the only logical explanations are either the new ship Leet found has a weapon which severs everything with incredible precision, or the Eldar Endbringer is responsible."

"And if they had a weapon like that," Taylor concluded, "they certainly wouldn't have let the fighting rage for over an hour just for the sake of amusement."

Unless you were completely crazy, a fight with Behemoth was something that needed to be ended quickly and brutally.

And speaking of brutal...

The Lady General turned towards the seemingly-petrified Ultramarine Captain watching the doomed Tyranid burn, much like a horrific comet nothing could stop the impact of.

"I hope there is nothing of critical importance north of our positions, Captain."

Falco Tullius grimaced.

"The closest Hive is Hive Quartus, and we have lost all contact with them. Practical: there are plenty of minor settlements and a sizeable lake. Any impact is going to cause massive damage. Theoretical: if Tyranid units survive the death of the main organism, we are going to have to face the danger of the forces eating Hive Quartus' citizens and those new reinforcements uniting and arriving to reinforce us."

"It's indeed problematic," the commander of the Battle Groups assigned to Operation Stalingrad acknowledged. "Let's hope that the collapse of the Tyranid army here has happened everywhere on the planet, not just here."

"One can indeed hope, Lady Weaver, and-"

There was a loud shrieking sound, and suddenly an Eldar aircraft became visible roughly one kilometre above their heads – if she hadn't had Canoptek Scarabs close as anti-Gargoyle patrols, it was likely she wouldn't have felt the air pressure it created by its very presence.

"Don't fire. And spread the word: we must organise the burning of the Tyranid corpses as quickly as possible."

Not only it would make sure the nasty 'critters' left alive wouldn't harvest the lifeless bodies of the other Tyranids to reproduce, given the stink, if the Imperium didn't take care of them, they would have a humanitarian disaster on their hands soon.

By the time she had given the instructions, the Queen of Blades had jumped from the airship...without a grav-chute.

Of course, Aenaria Eldanesh, one of the last if not the last Aeldari in existence, didn't really need one.

In a series of aerial acrobatics which were almost certainly beyond ninety-nine percent of the living galactic races, the ancient veteran of the War in Heaven managed to slow her descent enough in order to touch the ground with feline grace.

Then she made a small gesture of the head northwards, where half of Behemoth was about to crash into Ardium's soil.

Taylor hesitated as to the answer she should give...a 'thanks' after all, would likely be treated as a sign of weakness.

What was the proverb...in time, return to the classics?

"That still only counts as one!"

---

Behemoth is dead.

The Endbringer has been stopped by another Endbringer.

How ironic.

Yes, the Hive Ship is dead, but the Hive Mind will survive. It is still waiting, beyond the gaping abyss separating the galaxies, waiting for its inexhaustible hunger to be satisfied, if only temporarily, once more.

No, the Shadow in the Warp is not gone. As long as there is a synapse creature linking the swarm ravaging the Hive World of the Ultramarines to the cold hunger which directs it, this power will continue to plague the Macragge System. However, it has been significantly lessened. Where the baleful vigilance of the Devourer was enough to shroud everything in a radius of light-years, now it will be limited to the immediate vicinity of the synapse creatures.

From human and nonhuman perspective, the Tyranids' presence won't be felt as long as one is not near Ardium.

Do you understand the consequences, foolish descendants of the Aeldari?

The cursed delights of Chaos are no longer beyond reach of those enslaved to it.

The strike has come too soon. A few more hours, and the Word Bearers would have been annihilated. A few more hours, and the sons of Lorgar would have bled out from a thousand wounds, and died with a whimper on their lips.

That leaves the most important question at stake, of course.

Was it a genuine mistake from an inexperienced Herald?

Or was it another twisted plan from an Aeldari God who can't help but play a farce which will infuriate potential allies?

Weaver wouldn't have fallen guarding the ramparts of Hive Asculum. The Tyranids committed had neither the intelligence nor the numbers to achieve that. And time was going to run out no matter how many Hives they devoured.

The Battles on Macragge would have seen Imperial victories, in the end. The rapport of force was far too unequal for any other outcome to be possible.

But the rules of the game have changed.

The certainties of yesterday are no longer valid.

What awaits beyond death, oh Lord of the Clowns?

You might soon discover it.

Will you survive her wrath, I wonder?

---

Macragge

Pharsalus Military District

Fields of Pharsalus

Imperator-class Titan Exemplis

Princeps Maximus Cyrus

Cyrus had felt a lot of frustration since this battle had begun.

For the first time, his eyes widened in fear as a colossal pyre of sorcery engulfed Tyrannosaurus Rex without warning.

"All Battle-Maniples, operational alert!" The Princeps Maximus barked. "The Tyranid Shadow is inactive! All commands, Extremis alert! The Archenemy can use its sorcery again!"

Damn the heretics! One or two more hours, and the Traitors would have been annihilated!

"What is happening to the enemy, Princeps? It is as...if they are becoming the beasts of ancient Terran legends..."

The words of his Moderati summarized the situation incredibly accurately.

From every auspex and augur of Exemplis, Cyrus watched as the Traitor Imperator Titan and the last surviving Titans of Legio Vulturum, all sixteen of them, were mutating and changing as they were bathed in a hurricane of Warp energy.

"Whoever ordered it, it is creating a hybrid of metal and beast..."

The veteran Princeps of Legio Ignatum had assumed it was a 'who'. Yet as the unholy transformation continued and the combined fire of the Loyal Titans failed to pierce this unnatural protection, Cyrus doubted more and more this was the case. The 'scales' summoned from Hell were painted a flamboyant blue and gold.

Though he couldn't pretend being very knowledgeable about various Traitor Legios, Cyrus knew those were the colours of the Traitor Fifteenth Legion and the Ruinous Power which had enslaved the damned Legionnaires.

"Relay the following warning, Moderati. All forces in theatre are to expect macro-scale sorcery attacks." Cyrus grimaced, before deciding there was no other choice. "On my own order, Vermilion-override authority, all psykers at our disposal are to be released from stasis and engaged on the battlefield."

It wasn't truly disobeying an order of his supreme commander, for the very reason the battle-psykers and Astropaths among many other lives had been placed in caskets and other restraining devices was to keep them from going mad from the Tyranid influence...and with it destroyed, the order had no purpose anymore.

"All Titans...kill me those heretics before they can do even more damage!"

Just as he finished uttering the order, Tyrannosaurus Rex roared anew...and jumped to take a quadrupedal position.

Cyrus' memories flashed, and suddenly it was as if he was back on a battlefield where he had faced the primitive Eldar riding their gigantic Megasaurs.

It was ridiculous.

Yet the monster Exemplis stood against had nothing at all in common with the glorious form of a Titan. It had four legs. It had a long blue tail covered in spikes of gold which shone with a malicious light. It had a maw, and from it, a cloud of poison came into existence. Most of the Traitor Astartes and the other heretics which had been too close died in seconds.

There was a horrible shriek, and weapons of metal and heresy fired, downing five or six Marauder bombers.

"And we thought the Astartes had done such a good job killing Archaeopteryx Mortalis..." His Moderati Secundus commented with a snarl.

Tyrannosaurus Rex, or the beast emerging straight out of what had been the Traitor Imperator Titan, struck erratically in the next ten seconds.

Alas, for all its monumental imprecision and lack of discipline, the close-quarter and long-range attacks were slaughtering everything on the frontline that wasn't a Titan.

It was the apocalypse, but the Titans of the Omnissiah were standing, awaiting his orders.

"Princeps..." Cyrus coughed, and for the first time he was in communion, he felt very, very weak. "My fellow Princeps. I won't insult your intelligence by claiming the situation hasn't just undone most of our previous gains. We need to destroy the Beast-Titans. And it seems our long-range cannons can't achieve this from where we stand."

How many God-Machines were going to perish? A lot. But the alternative was unspeakably worse.

"Close in. There are three of us for every one of them. Remember the words sworn to the Omnissiah-Emperor! We will either find a way, or we will make one! CHARGE!"

The war sirens of the Titans thundered on the Fields of Pharsalus, and the surviving Titans advanced to meet the terminally-corrupted Legio Vulturum.

---

General Nikolai Rokossovsky

"General, Exemplis and the other Titans are-"

"I can see them myself, thank you!"

The moment the tide of sorcery had engulfed the battlefield, Nikolai had understood there were only two courses of action.

The first was to reform the lines, and wait for the enemy to exhaust its strength, as more and more Imperial artillery regiments arrived on the battlefield.

But that would mean abandoning at least two-thirds of the Fields conquered with so many heroic deeds.

Worse, there was no guarantee it would be successful, for the 'Beast-Titans', as they had been dubbed, were not something that followed normal tactics and logistics.

And in the end, Cyrus had chosen the other course, and this settled the matter.

"All regiments," the Vostroyan General shouted to his subordinates on all command frequencies. "This is the time to prove our boasts, men! All-out attack! Support the Titans and the Adeptus Astartes as best as you can! Kill all heretics! FOR THE EMPEROR!"

"FOR THE EMPEROR!"

Tens of thousands of tanks and armoured vehicles growled in fury, and millions of voices screamed their defiance.

And the Battle of the Fields of Pharsalus resumed, a nightmare of burning machines and explosions, now made worse by the sorcery the Traitor Titans were spitting, or using their newly created claws and talons to assault the Loyalists.

One monstrous Beast-Titan bit deep into a Warlord right in front of them, but this temporary success cost it dearly: two more Titans took advantage of this moment of vulnerability to stab the heretical creature with their titanic-sized Chainswords, and for all its unnatural strength, the Beast-Titan was harpooned and slaughtered by a multitude of strikes.

"General, Exemplis!"

All smiles that could have appeared with this small victory vanished as the greatest and most corrupted Beast-Titan of the Archenemy clashed with the legend of the Legio Ignatum.

And Exemplis was many things, but it was not built for a close-range butchery such as this one.

It was wounded, while its opponent had been revitalised by the abominable Warp intervention.

The ground shook and the very fabric of Macragge seemed to explode as the two Titans engaged each other.

Exemplis' Void Shields were the first to fail.

The tail of Tyrannosaurus Rex struck it, forcing it to take two steps back or risk falling...and then the maw opened.

Cyrus was a gifted Titan commander, and in a last burst of power, managed to avoid the fatal blow which was coming for Exemplis' head.

But the arm and the Hellstorm Cannon, half of its primary armaments, were torn apart by the heretical teeth.

Nikolai Rokossovsky heard the Princeps Maximus scream, and he knew the duel was over. And as Exemplis tried to survive, the cursed weapon of Legio Vulturum fell upon a Warlord of Legio Metalica, striking it down like it was a toy.

"All artillery regiments, priority target is Tyrannosaurus Rex! Fire at will!"

---

Alpha-Princeps Malus

Malus laughed from the command-brain he had merged into.

Weak. They were all weak!

Why had he been so cautious?

Power was his.

Power was his birthright and his privilege!

He was born to conquer and to devour all Titans!

Tyrannosaurus Rex was now invincible, and answering to him, not as an extension of his body, but as extension of his very thoughts!

A fierce strike of his claws, and the pathetically weak Warlord of Metalica who had dared to interpose itself fell.

The explosion was loud, but failed to do anything to his shielded scales.

This was power. And now he was going to savour the kill.

Oh yes, one of the last, if not the last Imperator Titan of the Legio Ignatum.

"Where is your Emperor now?" Malus mocked the enemy he had just devoured the arm of, which had provided an enormous feeling of ecstasy as it was eaten. "You rely upon those parasites to defend yourself!"

From a distance, the insects indeed tried to help their crippled master.

They would fail, of course. Nothing could stand against him anymore.

"Once I will have dealt with you, I will-"

Another explosion shook the battlefield, and Malus looked to his right with annoyance. It better not be another tiny threat coming to interpose itself between him and his prey!

But as he looked around, the mind of Tyrannosaurus Rex realised it was far, far worse. Everywhere his gaze fell upon, the Legio Vulturum were impaled by Chainswords, decapitated by unprecedented volumes of fire, or had their legs severed before being overwhelmed by ground parasites!

"You will pay for that! ALL OF YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!"

The world exploded in flames and explosions, and suddenly he was forced back into a bipedal position to hold his ground.

Then something bit deep into his tail.

"RAAARRRRRGGHHHH!"

For several seconds, Malus and Tyrannosaurus Rex's only goal was to free themselves from this enemy.

He finally succeeded...but it was because his tail's end was missing, and one of his posterior paws was terribly damaged.

But it didn't matter. He finally had his eyes upon the enemy which had dared challenge the greatest predator to ever live.

It was one of those red-painted 'Dragon Armours' Sota-Nul had annoyed him so much about.

It was a bit bigger than the rest of the mosquitoes, but-

The draconic machine breathed flames again, and flew away before circling around him too quickly for him to lock his new weapons upon it.

"Stay where you are, fly!" Malus hissed, his hatred overwhelming everything, "stay where you are, I am going to-"

As Malus moved Tyrannosaurus Rex to have the best targeting solution, he turned and-

The Plasma Annihilator of Exemplis was pointed straight at his head.

And his Shields were down. His Void Shields were down!

"This isn't true strength! You needed the assistance of those weaklings! You needed-"

Everything dissolved in an ocean of atrocious suffering.

And as his thoughts broke apart, the last Alpha-Princeps of Legio Vulturum heard the words he had dreaded for millennia.

"ENGINE KILL!"

---

Princeps Maximus Cyrus

"ENGINE KILL!"

Cyrus managed to find the strength to smile...then he spat blood.

Spitting? No, it was more than a few drops of blood which were running out of his mouth.

He felt the mighty machine-spirit of Exemplis worry about him.

The Princeps Maximus tried to reassure his bonded partner for so many...how long it had been? Eight decades? Nine?

It was too long...but he had no regret.

"I did my duty...praise you, Lady Weaver."

Months before Operation Stalingrad, the Magi Biologis of Nyx had told him his health problems would soon require him to be interred in an amniotic fluid-filled pod.

The fate had been utterly repulsive, for like a lot of old Legions, Ignatum considered an existence where you were woken up-

The pain interrupted his thoughts, and Cyrus realised he had lost consciousness for...about thirty seconds.

"My Princeps!"

"I wasn't dreaming, was I? Tyrannosaurus Rex is really dead?"

"Yes, my Princeps, you gave the killing blow. Most of Legio Vulturum has been routed. The three survivors are being hunted down by Legio Atarus and Legio Astorum as we speak."

"Good," Cyrus smiled, right as what remained of his strength abandoned him, "if Darius Sobek of Astorum is still alive, command is...his. If not...give it...to Metalica...then Tigrus."

"It was an honour, my Princeps."

"The honour...was mine. The march...is victorious. Our oaths...are unbroken."

Princeps Maximus Cyrus smiled and held his last breath.

---

Dark Apostle Paristur

The moment Exemplis disintegrated the head of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Paristur understood it was all over.

No.

He had to be honest; this battle was lost long before this day and hour.

All that had been achieved after tapping into the Warp's once again accessible power was the sheer increase in fatalities for both sides.

Before the intervention, it had been an increasingly one-sided affair for the Imperium. After it, the transformation of Legio Vulturum and plenty of Astartes into primal beasts had drowned the battlefield in corpses.

But it had not been a victory.

Their casualties, bloody even by the standards of the Siege of Terra, had skyrocketed.

And the Word Bearer doctrine to fight tank regiments which outnumbered them massively had been revealed to be as abysmal as he had feared. Some of his aces in their Sicaran, Kratos, and Land Raider vehicles had racked up impressive kill-claims, but they couldn't compensate for the obvious and extensive mediocrity of the majority of his Legionnaires.

And in the end, overwhelmed by wave after wave of Russ, Khan, Cataphract, and Predator Tanks, even millennia-old aces perished weapons in hand.

"Lord Apostle, we must leave immediately!"

"It is, I'm afraid, far too late for that," Paristur replied serenely as Tyrannosaurus Rex raised its bestial head one more time...before the upper body finished its fall, killing a few more sons of Lorgar in what had to be a final act of spite. "But if you wish to depart, leave. I release you from your oaths."

Paristur abandoned his current observation post and went on to sit at the top of his favourite Land Raider's roof...or should he say the third favourite? The first two had been destroyed hours ago.

The member of the Dark Council felt really tired, and to be honest, he was, you couldn't fight a battle like this for hours and hours without being exhausted...but the main source of tiredness was mental.

The Word Bearers had rolled the dice one last time, and they had failed.

Paristur heard the screams and the explosions. He watched as the Salamander tanks rolled over the Seventeenth Legion's corpses and trampled them.

As he sighed, the immense carcass of Tyrannosaurus Rex began to burn in the flames of the Warp...blue and gold...and then the totality of the Traitor Titan was swallowed by the inferno and disappeared.

"Tzeentch is saving tools for the future battles, I see."

Paristur had wondered what Eliphas had possibly promised for this impressive last offensive, but in hindsight, it couldn't be the Dark Apostle's fault entirely.

It was Tzeentch's will, from the very beginning.

True, the Megasaur-looking Titan had been very badly damaged by the battle with Exemplis, but it was likely repairable, provided you had the tools...and the favourite this 'gift' was destined to almost certainly had the means of doing exactly that.

"Truly the old saying was right; it isn't about what conquests you accomplish for the Gods today, it is what atrocities you will commit in the future to please them..."

All around him, the rout accelerated. Slaves and Volscani Cataphracts, not there was that big of a difference between the two, perished in the tens of thousands as the Imperial Guard was finally free to focus its uncountable batteries on their decimated lines.

Paristur was alone; given the choice, none of his last Legionnaires had chosen to stand with him until the end.

He had not expected them to. But it hurt a bit.

They had wanted to bow down to the Gods so badly that no one had bothered to point out they weren't a brotherhood or a Legion anymore.

And then one female angelic figure revealed herself.

"I was waiting for you." Paristur allowed himself one last mockery. "Is Weaver too busy to do the honours herself?"

"There are many other battlefields and threats which require her attention. She sent me in her stead."

Paristur nodded, trying to guess what the Aspect of this one was. Weaver was Sacrifice, and the Light. This one was all shadows, though.

After a few seconds, he abandoned the idea. It appeared it was a mystery he wouldn't learn the answer of.

"Then do it. I will not try to oppose you. I am old and tired, assassin." A vicious smile formed on his lips. "I have a last request, however."

"That," the woman who looked like a Callidus, but was of course far more than that, "depends entirely upon the nature of the request."

Paristur chuckled.

"I would be very happy if Kor Phaeron's and Erebus' heads were placed together in a large jar before being used as ornamental decoration inside the Imperial Palace."

The assassin made a click of her tongue.

"I think something like that can be arranged."

"Good."

The green blade was out of its sheath, and Paristur closed his eyes.

---

Pharsalus Theatre

Mark of Oblivion: 62 hours after Mark Zero

Surviving Word Bearers: approximately 1,100

Chaos Spawns: 120

Surviving numbers of the Lost and the Damned: approximately 99,000

Surviving Legio Vulturum Titans: 3

Surviving Loyalist Legios Titans: 37

Surviving Loyalist Space Marines Present: 793

Surviving Ultramarine Auxilia: approximately 80,000

Imperial Guard reinforcements first wave survivors: approximately 12,000,000

Surviving Dragon Armours: 101

---

Macragge

Magna Macragge Military District

Laponis Valley

Ultima Cynoscephalae Line

62 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Captain Brutus Cestus

"ALL PSYKERS IMMEDIATELY TO THE FRONTLINES! ALL THE PSYKERS ARE SUMMONED TO THE FRONTLINES!

"DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!"

"LET MACRAGGE BURN!"

The Traitors came again.

The Ultima Cynoscephalae Line had been transformed into a no man's land filled with heretic corpses. So many corpses that despite the enormous quantities of promethium the Tech-Priests were bringing, it was barely sufficient to keep up with the fatality rate.

It was over a kilometre in depth, a land where razorwire, landmines, and shells of all kinds had been expended by the hundreds of thousands.

It was a nightmare defended by millions of guardsmen, both those waiting in the trenches and those garrisoning the walls of Macragge right behind them. Standard vehicles like Russ tanks and Chimeras had been near-entirely buried so as to provide more defensive firepower.

It had broken Word Bearer assaults nine times in the last couple of hours.

The theoretical would have been for the Defilers of Calth to try something more subtle the next time.

They didn't.

But this time, their cursed sorcery was back, and only the few Librarians the sons of Guilliman had were there to parry some of the blows. The Black Templars had none.

"COURAGE AND HONOUR!" Brutus shouted as a new wave of Bolter-fodder rushed towards their positions.

The Macraggian artillery opened fire with all it had again.

The battlefield became a cataclysm of explosions and smoke.

For a few seconds, it looked like nothing could survive...and as far as the cultists and other lesser heretics were concerned, this was certainly the truth.

Mangled corpses were hurled everywhere by the thousands.

The insane attack was located, and with fewer and fewer artillery pieces on the other side, the Imperium delivered a one-sided massacre.

Then the Word Bearers came, and everything went to hell.

"DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!" The first Chaos Marine which arrived in range after the Captain had finished emptying his Bolter magazine was halfway through the Plague Marine transformation.

Brutus decapitated it and urged his battle-brothers to fulfil their duty to Lord Guilliman and Macragge.

He winced as several of his Devastators fell, a new and terrible Chaos Spawn having plunged into their trench.

Two grenades into its maw, and the thing began to die. It took several more Chainsword strikes to finish it off for good though.

"COURAGE AND HONOUR! WE MARCH FOR MACRAGGE!"

The Guard launched its counterattack to support their line, and in seconds, the butchery furiously spiralled out of control. Daemons emerged from the pools of blood, but the Nyxian regiments and the others fighting at their side didn't stop.

Brutus decapitated one more Traitor looking like a cross between a Chaos Terminator and a pincer-armed crustacean.

Then another.

The Ultramarine Captain did not have the time to strike down a third, as a Warp sorcery attack struck his plate and slammed him against the trench wall.

Even as his armour began to melt and his mind screamed for him to move, the commanding officer of the 7th Company glared in hatred at the Dark Apostle who had just materialised from behind its dead servants.

"You, son of Guilliman," the heretic hissed, "will cease to annoy us. When we will send your gene-sire to the realm of the Gods, tell him it was Vorrjuk Kraal who-"

Thousands of lasers fired, and the fell Word Bearer priest had to conjure a shield so as to intercept the lasguns' fire of an entire regiment.

"ENOUGH!" The Traitor Astartes raised his Crozius, and a shockwave of eldritch power erupted from it. Countless men fell screaming, but not all. And those who didn't continue firing their lasguns and other personal weapons...while others brought heavier weapons onto the frontline.

Brutus tried to stand, but his limbs weren't responding anymore.

He was powerless. He could only watch, as the Dark Apostle ground down the guardsmen Weaver had sent to Macragge to pulverised bloody fragments. It was taking far longer, but-

A white-haired Eldar appeared behind the Dark Apostle, and slashed with her sword.

It was so fast Brutus had nearly no time to process it, but when she vanished again, the head of the Word Bearer slammed onto the trench's corpse-covered ground first, and the headless body was not far behind.

"MEDIC! We need a Blue Bacta Medic here!" The son of Guilliman heard the guardsmen shout, but for some reason, they sounded far, far away. "Lord! Hold on!"

Brutus wanted to say something, but the words somehow failed and seemed unimportant.

Brutus Cestus of the 7th Company felt the darkness close around him...and then there was another tunnel of light opening.

---

'Black Cardinal' Kor Phaeron

The attack should have succeeded.

One trench.

One small trench.

A tiny, ridiculously unimpressive, trench.

It should have been easy, especially now that the Shadow preventing them from enjoying the power of the Gods had lifted and their favour was available once more, considering that the dogs of the False Emperor had been as surprised as them by this outcome.

It wasn't. The attack, which had initially started according to plan, had rapidly slowed down, before grinding to a halt completely. And then they had been repelled, thrown back to their previous positions.

Kor Phaeron wanted to say it was due the lacking faith of the Seventeenth Legion, but it wasn't. There had been too many artillery guns destroying his position, and too many mortals.

They had been overwhelmed by the enemy counteroffensive. The Ultramarines had lost an entire Company, and the Praetors had not fared any better, but there were enough Black Templars alive to ruin the transhuman shock effect, and once that was gone, the sons of Lorgar had been forced to choose between a fighting retreat and a warrior's death.

Many had chosen the latter, which was why there were barely five thousand Legionnaires left alive.

And with Kraal gone, he was the last member of the Dark Council.

"Gods! Mighty Khorne, Clever Tzeentch, Generous Nurgle!" The Black Cardinal roared. "I humbly request your blessings to breach the walls of Macragge and put the last Ultramarines to the sword!"

For several seconds, only silence answered.

And Kor Phaeron doubted.

"I am your servant, we have brought your influence into the middle of Guilliman's realm! Surely-"

"They hear-listen to you, yes-yes! But they won't act, no-no!" A voice that he had never heard before but that caused a shiver through his spine echoed.

All his Anointed raised their weapons, and fired.

The enormous bipedal rat in assassin garbs was completely unaffected by this retaliation. Bolter shells and other special ammunition went through it like it was a ghost.

"Cease fire," the last member of the Dark Council gritted his teeth after giving his order. As much as he loathed the heresy of Anarchy, there was no use wasting holy weapons when they were bombarded every minute by the blasphemers' artillery.

"What do you mean, messenger of the Beast?"

"The failure-defeat against the Light was the last-last straw, brute-thing!"The daemonic rat looked at him with non-hidden satisfaction while playing with a duo of identical daggers. And those weapons were no mere metallic trinkets, but powerful artefacts imbued with shrieking souls and the poison of Anarchy. "The heretical Three have far-far better things to do-do than lending a claw, yes-yes!"

The old man silently prayed for the Three to send him a sign the vile creature was arrogant and mistaken.

Infernal laughter echoed on the battlefield.

The battlefield didn't change...but the Gods were laughing. And the daemon-rat remained intact and free to speak.

"See-see?"

"All I wanted," Kor Phaeron screamed, "was to be your servant!"

"Lie-lie so quickly?" the messenger of Anarchy mocked him. "All you wanted-desired was power, Brute-thing! You hid-hid it, but Glorious Malal knows-sees the truth!"

The name of the Fourth, once uttered, provoked plenty of disaster by itself. Two of his Anointed immediately transformed into Chaos Spawn. A Land Raider went on to mutate into a slug-like thing. Slaves tore out their own eyes and strangled themselves, dying with blissful faces.

"NO! All I wanted was the truth!"

"Yes-yes! He doesn't want-need my help! Best scurry away, then, yes-yes!"

The Black Cardinal felt his rage burn hotter than it had ever before.

No matter how badly he wanted to deny it, the Seventeenth Legion – or whatever was left of it, at any rate – was locked in a death struggle where there could be no victory. All the other Dark Apostles of the Pharsalus landing zone had perished, meaning that there were no other offensives close to Macragge City forcing the Ultramarines to divert armies away from this battlefield.

And it was a battlefield which was becoming increasingly unwinnable. Vorrjuk Kraal was dead, countless officers had perished, and though they had some Spawns, Neverborn, and their last slaves to make a final effort, they were near-encircled and running out of offensive power.

"What do you propose?" He hated asking the very words, but there was no other choice.

Instantly, he felt the attention of Tzeentch, Khorne, and Nurgle concentrate on him again, but he didn't care.

They had abandoned him, and they weren't helping him! They could wait for their turn and grit their teeth like he did!

"A bargain, priest-thing!" The rat-daemon squeaked, its unnatural long tongue. "Removing the big blue thing from play is the will of Anarchy! He's too orderly, and we don't need that, no-no! Swear-swear, and our great-mighty Lord will reward-empower you! No more curse! No more Spawn-things!"

Kor Phaeron...hesitated.

Yes, it was one of the worst sins a Priest of the Three could do...it was so galling, so against his own principles...

But the Flesh Change Curse, he dreaded it above all. And failing here, letting the Ultramarines win...

"Understood," the last member of the Dark Council grunted, "I will-"

The Three shrieked.

Power seeped into reality.

The explosion brought him to his knees.

The rat-daemon vanished.

And from the dust walked a figure Kor Phaeron had seen countless times before his ascension.

"My Lord," the Keeper of Faith of the Seventeenth Legion babbled in stupefaction and amazement, for the fate of a Chaos Spawn had been thought to be irreversible, "I am overjoyed to see your-"

The right fist of a Primarch seized his throat like he was nothing...and then red lightning was summoned.

Kor Phaeron screamed in agony, but the words uttered with the torture were worse.

"You were about to do what I always refused, fool! YOU WERE ABOUT TO BOW TO A FALSE GOD!"

Despite the suffering, despite the pressure around his throat, Kor Phaeron tried to defend his cause.

"It wasn't like that, Lorgar! All I wanted-"

"YOU AND I ARE THE SERVANTS OF THE GODS!" The returned Primarch of the Seventeenth Legion screamed. "IT IS YOUR ROLE TO INTERPRET THEIR WILL, NOT TO WORSHIP PRETENDERS WHEN THEIR ACTIONS INCONVENIENCE YOU!"

There was a small part of his mind which marvelled at the sheer hypocrisy of the proclamation.

But he did not dare-

"With your return, surely-"

"Yes, with my return." Lorgar smiled coldly. "Congratulations, Kor. You have angered the Three so much that they were willing to stave off the Curse for a limited amount of time. They only gave me two conditions. The first, obviously, is that I kill Guilliman myself."

The possible return of the Lord of Macragge must be increasingly important for all Powers, heretical or not, to-

"The second," a dark smile illuminated the human-like traits no one had seen in millennia, "is that I send you directly to them for a special punishment."

"Lorgar..." oh no, no, anything but that! "Please..."

"Goodbye, Kor Phaeron."

The Black Cardinal tried to fight against the Primarch. If anything, it made everything worse.

---

Primarch Lorgar Aurelian

Ultramar.

That was where fate and the Gods had led him.

Lorgar released the shrivelled husk that had once been Kor Phaeron.

The Seventeenth Primarch should be wrathful, but, if anything, he felt relieved. He had expected it to be more difficult than it was.

"MY SONS," he ordered. "RISE. TIME IS SHORT, AND DISASTER IS NOT AVERTED."

They obeyed, all of them. Many had gazes of sheer devotion, which was understandable, for like him, they were Spawns no more.

On the other hand, they had no Neverborn in their flesh either.

They were utterly and completely mortal.

Just like he was.

It was...a troubling and unfamiliar sensation.

But there was no time to explore it further.

"The Gods have ordered us to kill Guilliman, and that is what we will do. Together. If it is to be our last battle under The Three's eyes, so be it. And if we win, the triumph and the blessings will be all the greater given the obstacles we face!"

"HAIL AURELIAN! HAIL AURELIAN!"

The last survivors of the Seventeenth Legion saluted like a single man.

"TO THE GATES OF MACRAGGE AN EMPIRE WILL BE WON OR LOST! LET THE GALAXY BURN!"

And the Word Bearers, finally reunited and freed from the Flesh Change Curse, went to war.

---

Magna Macragge Theatre

62 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Surviving Word Bearers: 6,868

Living Primarch: 1

Chaos Spawns: 0

Surviving numbers of the Lost and the Damned: approximately 1,100,000

Chaos Knights: 24

Surviving Ultramarines and Successors Present: 514

Other Loyalist Space Marines: 860

Surviving Ultramar Auxilia: 1,300,000

Imperial Guard reinforcements: approximately 25,000,000 (first wave and second wave)

Loyalist Imperial Knights: 103

---

Ardium

Asculum Military District

Hive Asculum

Lady General Taylor Hebert

It was a time of apocalypse...again.

The hungry shadow of Behemoth had been cast off, but there were at least a billion Tyranids on the planet.

And now that there was nothing to prevent it, the Ruinous Powers were intervening again.

For all the warmth provided by Macragge's sun, Taylor could feel a cold rasping storm building, and it had nothing to do with the weather.

In the case one was uncertain about it, the self-proclaimed Chaos Gods were sore losers.

Everything wasn't completely lost. Countless Astartes drop-pods were in their final landing approach. Based on their colours, Taylor had to assume Space Wolves and Dark Angels were going to be among the 'reinforcements'.

Leet and Borek would join them too. The insect-mistress had a feeling it was going to be an interesting gathering. And that was likely a massive understatement, yes.

Unfortunately, this didn't change the fact that against the combined might of Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Malal, humanity was truly lacking in firepower to defend itself.

"There is a path which gives you victory," Aurelia Malys interjected. The Herald was part of the far too numerous Eldar delegation which had arrived on the heels of the Queen of Blades, among many other familiar and unfamiliar faces.

"I don't need your help, worshipper of Carnality, to fight the Tyranids," though there was going to be delaying actions until the Battle Groups were in orbit to reinforce her with millions of living insects. "Artemis! Send one of your sisters to Leet's ship, and once she arrives, request the Lord Admiral to send you a block of Aethergold. I don't like how old and unconventional the Landers they are using seem to be."

"Yes, Webmistress! At once!"

"If you persist, won or lost, the battle will see your forces crippled by great losses..."

Taylor stared at the long-eared xenos as if she had grown a second head while she wasn't looking.

"Aurelia Malys," the Lady General began conversationally, "I don't know if you are aware, but the Tyranids have already eaten most of Hive Quartus, and killed a third of the defenders of Hive Asculum. Everything that was not evacuated fast enough, they devoured. And that's not even mentioning the millions of lives which have been lost at Mandragora, Laphis, and Macragge. You speak of great losses? We have already suffered them. Unlike a race I won't mention, we don't flee into the Webway at the first sign of trouble. The Imperial Guard stands in front of the civilians we are sworn to protect. This is our Sacrifice. Am I clear?"

"Very clear," the Eldar replied, swallowing heavily, while the Queen of Blades chuckled unhelpfully in the background. "But my offer is sincere. I can help you ascend."

The ancient Aeldari immediately stopped laughing.

"Foolish girl," chided the crimson-haired arena-killer, "it doesn't work like that."

The survivor of Commorragh ignored her Dawnbreaker Guard and walked through them as if they were there for decoration.

"Atharti is still too weak to be of any help," the Queen of Blades announced in a voice which was as magnificent as it was deadly, "and ascension isn't a song you begin when you feel it is convenient."

"But-"

"Nor is it meant to be shared," was added as an afterthought after glaring at the small group of Harlequins, "it is a choice which will lead one to have the power to rewrite reality according to their whims, but there are strong barriers. And the parasites born of the Greatest Folly will impose impossible trials to block the path of a potential aspirant. The shortcuts are not worth the-"

Aurelia Malys opened a pouch the very colour of a starry night sky, and drew a sword from it.

It definitely looked dangerous, Taylor didn't need to be told that to know it intimately.

Though the sheath seemed to be made of autumn leaves and the hilt looked as if it had been sculpted from the ivory horn of some enormous animal, there was more power there in that blade than in the Nebula's Shard Taylor held in her hands at this very moment.

The black-haired parahuman had never seen it before, but the Queen of Blades had, if the way she purred was any indication.

"Oh...so the Questers have found all the Croneswords. Consider me impressed. For the sake of satiating my personal curiosity, where was it hidden?"

"That isn't important," to say the Herald would be blushing might stretch things a bit, but she was definitely uncomfortable.

Lelith Hesperax frowned, evidently not used to being denied what she wanted...and undoubtedly trying to figure if a 'light spar' against Malys was suitable retribution.

"And for those who are not familiar with your people's ancient mythology and sword lore?" Taylor asked politely as the Space Wolves began to kill their first Tyranids and make their way to the half-destroyed walls of Hive Asculum.

"It will allow you to walk in a sort of tunnel very similar to the Webway," the Queen of Blades revealed. "And it will lead you to where you need to beware. The trials on that path will be extremely unpleasant."

The godly-powerful Endbringer who had slaughtered Behemoth looked at her with feigned boredom.

"It will lead you to where the last shard of your ascension awaits. Assuming you know where it is-"

"I do."

Taylor had not known where and when the Sanguinor would appear, nor what the fallen Blood Angel truly was, but she had always known where part of the power of Sacrifice waited for her.

It was hard not to when the first vision she had when fighting the Angel's Bane was about that nightmarish place.

"So you see-" Aurelia began in a triumphant tone.

"No."

"What?" Aurelia Malys was aghast, and the Queen of Blades chuckled again.

Taylor looked at the Eldar delegation with a very unimpressed expression.

"In case you have missed it, we are in the middle of a battle, and I am the commanding officer of millions of men and insects. Victory is far from won, despite the decisive intervention of a famous blade-mistress." Taylor huffed and shook her head again. "I have better things to do than waste my time with frivolities, ascension will wait for-"

Aurelia Malys sprinted forwards without warning. Two of her Dawnbreaker Guard moved to interpose, but they were thrown aside like dolls and-

"What the hell are you-"

There was a flash, mild pain, and they were...elsewhere.

---

Ardium Theatre

62 hours after the Mark of Oblivion

Surviving Ultramarines: 65

Surviving Ultramar Auxilia: approximately 690,800,000

Surviving civilian population: approximately 79,137,000,000

Surviving void-capable Tyranid life-forms: 0

Surviving ground-capable Tyranid life-forms: approximately 1,500,000,000

---

Somewhere in the Eye of Terror

Lady General Taylor Hebert

The first thing Taylor did when the world stopped spinning was slap Aurelia Malys.

"Now I understand why the Emperor wanted to capture you..." the Lady General angrily muttered.

The second thing was to turn around and analyse her surroundings, because of course save a few Canopteks and insects she kept on her body as a safeguard after previous incidents, her swarm was missing.

The third thing the Sacrifice-empowered parahuman did was grimace.

For they had travelled, by the Eldar's stupidity, exactly where she did not want to go.

The room was a vast strategium, which was clearly built in an Imperial style.

And yes, the word 'vast' was accurate.

This chamber was larger than any strategium Taylor had ordered the construction of, including the ones on Nyx and the rooms on the Enterprise where the Battle Group commanders of Operation Stalingrad had often met recently.

There was absolutely no one breathing in there, which was...honestly ridiculous.

Space was always the greatest limiting factor aboard a warship, and leaving all of what she saw unused seemed a monumental waste.

Yet the strategium was hardly abandoned.

It was empty, yes, but the fact no one was present did not mean no one was ever using it...alas.

Why the 'alas'?

Because nearly at the other end of the chamber, there was a massive throne of black stone. It was bloody enormous. It couldn't have been forged for a human leader...but it looked the right size for a Primarch.

And above this sinister throne, was the accursed symbol of the Eye of Horus.

In simple words, this meant they were aboard the Vengeful Spirit, former flagship of the Sixteenth Legion, and current flagship of the far deadlier Black Legion.

"We have to return to Ardium immediately," Weaver hissed to the stupid long-ear. "Bring us back! Now!"

"Impossible! As long as the path isn't completed, we won't be able to return!"

"This is a joke, right? Right?"

The flushed skin of the Eldar answered that question on its own.

"You must...complete the ascension. It's the only way we can return to your armies and allies."

"Fantastic," Taylor had the urge to strangle Aurelia Malys. "Let's see..."

Breathing out, and concentrating, it was easy to feel the missing shard.

Now she was not so busy focusing her enmity at the stupid xenos, the song of Sacrifice was impossible to miss.

Naturally, it required walking towards the dark throne, the Herald of Atharti following her silently.

They had to circle around the massive round table which was dominating the centre of the room, of course, and it seemed...weird for it to be here.

But once it was bypassed, it was summoned into a rain of crystals and golden flames.

It was Sanguinius.

Or rather, it was a statue of Sanguinius...right at the moment the Primarch of the Blood Angels died.

But the details were so sublime, the agonising gaze was so powerful, that for a moment Taylor thought this was truly the gene-sire of the Ninth Legion.

The moment passed.

This was the last shard of Sacrifice, nothing more, nothing less...but it still hurt to see the Primarch in this state, knowing he had truly perished and laid in this lifeless manner as the Emperor duelled his traitorous son.

Taylor touched the beautiful visage of the statue.

Instantly, she was struck by a roaring inferno of pain. And as painful as it was, the torrent of emotions which followed in the next heartbeat was worse.

When she removed her hand, the head was missing, but hers was tolling like she had slammed it on a table. No, it was worse, infinitely more painful...and glorious. She was seeing the Legionnaires of the Ninth go to war. She was seeing their victories, their defeats...and above all, she felt their bloodlust.

"Too much..." The insect-mistress wasn't complaining often, but here it was truly horrible. "It's...too much..."

"You have to do it!" Aurelia Malys urged her. "We don't have much time and-"

Someone clapped his hands.

The sound destroyed the veil of silence which had reigned since their arrival.

Then the footsteps were heard.

A thought which came to her was that they had been allowed to perceive it, unlike before.

It was a thought which was more than verified in the next heartbeats.

A Space Marine emerged from the shadows.

This was the truth, but it did not describe just how bad the situation was.

The newcomer was a giant even for an Astartes.

In fact, looking at him, Taylor thought that none of the members of her Dawnbreaker Guard could challenge him in height.

It was like looking at a miniature Primarch.

This was an impression which was not broken by the monstrous talon which had been added to the black power armour.

Just looking at it, Taylor felt the urge to attack, and damn the odds. She wanted to unleash her powers, and to rend apart this enemy.

But she controlled herself. As much as she wanted to kill this heretic, the infamous Talon of Horus was not his only weapon.

His left hand carried a shard of utter Madness.

Taylor looked away. It was not safe to look at...that. That was not a sword, that had never been a sword, it didn't belong in the realm of the living...the parahuman shook her head and tried to clear her thoughts.

Right behind the giant, a line of monstrously powerful Chaos Lords in their own right was waiting in deathly silence.

"I thought the day was going to be lively," the black-armoured colossus began conversationally, as if Malys and she were just old friends who had visited at tea time after a long period of absence, "with the Firetide of the Astronomican changing course and forcing us to disperse the fleet. But it seems my greatest expectations have been surpassed...Weaver."

The warning of the Queen of Blades rang again in her mind.

The trials on that path will be extremely unpleasant.

Somehow, this was underselling the magnitude of the problem.

"I am honoured my reputation has reached the leadership of the Black Legion...Warmaster Abaddon."

---

Author's note: I was there, the day the Emperor slew Horus.

The Extinction Arc will continue in Extinction 11-4 Die another Day.

The other links for the Weaver Option if you want to support or comment on my writing:

Alternate History page: www . /forum /threads /weaver-option-thread-3-the-5th-black-crusade-story-only.506948/

TV Tropes: tvtropes pmwiki/ / FanFic/ TheWeaverOption