For the first time since accepting the Truth of Chaos and dedicating himself to the worship of Chaos Undivided, Lorgar is completely speechless. For one, he can still feel his connection to his gods, but his ability to enter their realm is gone. Rethian X is like an impossible prison that lets all the power of chaos in but allows none to escape, which leads to another impossibility. Every death here is true death. Everyone, human, posthuman, daemon, daemon engine, or daemon prince, only has one body and one life to give on this world-turned battleground. This is the power of the one who calls himself Genesis. Who claims to be his father's father. His grandfather. A statement that Lorgar would not have believed for a moment mere minutes before, but then he unleashed a display of power that boggled the mind. One second, Lorgar was hunting his Warp-tainted brother, Corax, with a group of his chosen. The next, he is cut off from the Warp, surrounded by his entire legion and those loyal to them, and facing not only a restored Corax but also a restored Guilliman and both the Ultramarines and Raven Guard restored to a strength neither has had since the end of Hersey. He stares up at Genesis, giving his proclamation while surrounded by golden armored warriors that, while unbelievable, can only be his father's bodyguards, the Custodians. He is shocked from his disbelief as the warhorn of a massive titan like none he has ever seen blares, and his brothers and their sons charge forward, opening fire on the ranks of his far superior force without a moment's hesitation.
"Lorgar," comes the voice of his adoptive father and first captain, Kor Phaeron, "Damn it, son, answer me. What are your orders?"
Lorgar looks down on the ancient man who raised him and is the man whom he considers his true father. He is wearing the ancient custom-made Cataphractii Pattern Terminator Armour that Lorgar had made to allow him to travel to the stars with him when the Emperor had come to return him to the fold during the Great Crusade. Kor Phaeron had been too old to become a full-fledged Space Marine, then, but the armor, along with gene-craft and anti-agathics, had made it possible for him to fight alongside them. That was over ten thousand years ago. Now, he and the armor habe been fueled with the gifts of their gods, and he is capable of matching any full Legionnaire in combat. Lorgar had never seen this man; this pillar in his life show as much utter terror as he sees in his sunken eyes now.
He looks back at the field as the Ultramarines, Raven Guard, and their Titan allies open fire. The weapons they are now look familiar, but the damage they do is devastating. The front ranks of His massive force just buckle as they are blown apart. It doesn't matter if they are wrapped in flesh, Chaos bless power armor, or daemon hide. The ammunition they use cuts through it like paper before letting off detonations that have to be at least twice the force of normal bolt rounds. They loose plasma beams that stretch out over five times the distance of anything he has seen the Imperium use before that turns anything they touch to ash. Microrockets are fired from back-mounted pods on the backs of warriors in a version of Terminator plate he has never seen before that explodes in the midst of the Chaos army, releasing a half-mile radius wave of promethium flames that send thousands screaming into the Death's grasp.
The shock wears off, and his force begins to return fire with a will without the need for Lorgar's or any of his Dark Apostles' commands. Then the Titan speak, not theirs but those of Chaos. The Chaos Imperator-class Titan, Damnation of Light, roars before it opens fire with its Warp-fueled Plasma Annihilator. The beam should decimate the loyalist forces. It should burn them to cinders, but that doesn't happen. What happens is the largest of the silver Titans leaps into The path of the beam that hits its shield, which completely absorbs the force. Then the silver Titan, moving with more speed and fluidity than Lorgar had ever seen from a Titan, let out a roar as it charged Damnation of Light, crushing a bloody path through the Choas force before it leaped into the air and landed on the Chaos Titan bringing it down with an earthshaking crash on top of two Chaos Feral-class Titans and several thousand-foot soldiers. Then, the tide of loyalist Space Marines hit, and the true war began.
Lorgar looks to his other side, where his First Chaplin, Erebus, stands. If the terror of Kor Phaeron's face shook him, the look of utter confusion on Erabus's face nearly made him question his own eyes. Erebus, known as the Hand of Destiny and acting as an agent of the Choas Gods even before his ascension to the ranks of the Space Marines, is responsible for Lorgar's and, by proxy, the entirety of the Word Bearer's Legion's conversion to Chaos. Though Lorgar did not know it at the time, Erebus was the true power behind the entire Heresy. He has learned and accepted this over the last ten millennia, most of which has been spent in meditation Templum Inficio on the Daemon World of Sicarus, which has served as his legion's homeworld within the Eye of Terror. His Dark Apostles have ruled the world and the legion with little input from him. More to the point, it has been ruled by Erebus and Kor, who have spent that time fighting each other for control of the legion and him. Erebus is never one to openly show anything but confidence in the gods and himself. He looks up at Lorgar with eyes that glow like hot coals, and the daemon primarch sees the steel return to his face.
"My Primarch," he says as he draws his master-crafted power maul and plasma pistol, "It is time to join this fight."
"If I were you, brother," says a voice from above, and Lorgar looks up to see Guilliman, Corax, and five other Space Marines from each of their legions flanking them as they float in the air above; Corax continues, "I would listen to your dog."
"Still not one to follow instructions, eh," says Guilliman with a smirk, "Grandfather already told you to put your hands up. Or are you praying for permission from your gods?"
Lorgar sneers as he draws his ornate scepter-maul Illuminarum and his Warp-infused Archaeotech Pistol, "Damn you, both. And damn your rotting Imperium!"
"Oh, haven't you heard," asks the Space Marine in Ultramarine blue, the name Marneus Calgar on the chest plate of his strange Terminator Armour, "We got a reboot? So, you are the damned one, you fucking traitor."
Lorgar and his Dark Apostles open fire at the same time as the Guilliman and Corax and their sons do. Filling the air with death. Unfortunately, for the Word Bearers, these are not the kin they faced during the Hersey. Equipt with technology unlike anything ever wielded by the Imperium of Man before, the warriors of the New Imperium outnumbered shrug off hits that should have killed them ten times over. The Word Bearers do not fair as well. The rounds punch through armor, flesh, and bone, killing off half the Dark Apostles and their retinue almost immediately. Those who survive are those with Warp gifts that shield or teleport them out of harm's way. Lorgar teleports himself, Kor, Erebus, and as many as he can away. They reappear away from the main battle but still within sight of it. He is about to turn to take stalk and relay orders when there is a roar of Bolter fire the head of one of his men explodes. He looks around to see Guilliman and his five Ultramarines coming at them on foot while Corax and his Raven Guard fly at them through the air.
"Run all you like, Lorgar," roars Guilliman, coming at him with his crackling blade in hand, "None of us are leaving until the others are dead. Keep running, and you are just going to die tired."
"Oh, there won't be any more running, brother," says Lorgar, gripping the shaft of Illuminarum tighter, "I just wanted more room to enjoy slaughtering you." he glares up at Corax, "Both of you."
"I knew there was a spine in there somewhere, Lorgar," says Corax, "Let's do it right then, brother. No guns, just close quarters. Our men against yours. Guilliman on the ground and me in the air. Pick your poison."
"How generous of you," says Lorgar, looking around at the nearly five hundred Space Marines he pulled with him, a quarter of them daemon-possessed, then back at the handful of Ultramarines and Raven Guard, "Have it your way."
He spreads his arms, and his men spread out. Some spread their wings and take flight across from the Raven Guard. The scene is comical at first, that is, until a hundred more Ultramarines and Raven Guard appear out of thin air.
"I would say that is about even," says Guilliman, "Sorry, brother. We ain't getting paid by the head here, not the hour."
Lorgar lets out a slow breath as he summons all of his Chaos-gifted might, "Kill them all!"