Veilstrider's Wake had stood for centuries as the Imperium's unbreakable bastion, a fortress system designed to repel invasions from xenos horrors and Chaos incursions alike. It was a nightmare of gunmetal and fire, where towering void stations bristled with macro-cannons and lance batteries, every world covered in fortress networks, kill-zones, and hive-spanning manufactorums that churned out war machines day and night. Battlefleet Perseid patrolled the system, its Retribution-class battleships and Overlord battlecruisers forming an unyielding blockade against all who would dare challenge the Imperium's might. The Ark Mechanicus Omnissiah's Wrath loomed at the system's heart, its gravity-warping tractor beams and volkite batteries primed to tear apart anything foolish enough to challenge its dominance.
On the ground, the defenders were equally formidable. The Cadian 501st, veterans of the Dark Imperium's unending wars, had entrenched themselves across Bastion Halcyon, the system's primary war-world. Their battle lines were reinforced by the Krieg 143rd Siege Regiment, whose artillery bombardments had already turned entire continents into wastelands before a single enemy had even set foot on them. The Death Korps' bunkers ran deep, laced with kill-chutes and automated turrets rigged to fire for months, even if all human life had been extinguished. Armored columns of House Krast and House Vyronii's Imperial Knights patrolled the wastelands, their massive war engines armed with thermal cannons and reaper chainswords, their pilots eager to carve apart whatever monstrosities dared challenge them. The Adepta Sororitas of the Order of Our Martyred Lady manned the bastion-shrines, their Exorcist missile launchers already thundering into the void as they prepared for a purging firestorm. The Astartes had deployed in full force—the Ultramarines' 3rd Company stood as the Emperor's shield, their bolters spitting righteous fury, while the Black Templars' Crusader Squads revved their chainswords in eager anticipation of the slaughter to come. The Raven Guard lurked in the shattered remains of a fallen hive, ready to launch surgical ambushes, while an elite strike force of the Deathwatch, clad in black ceramite, had already marked key xenos warlords for elimination. From the shadows, the Officio Assassinorum lay in wait, their operatives slipping through the chaos unseen, blades poised for the perfect kill.
Above them all, aboard the mighty fortress-moon of Bastion Halcyon, the Adeptus Custodes prepared to make their stand. A full shield-company of the Emperor's chosen warriors stood ready, their golden armor gleaming in the dim war-light, their guardian spears primed for the inevitable storm. There would be no retreat. No surrender. Only death in the Emperor's name.
And then the Burna Citadel arrived.
Reality screamed as the Warp tore open, vomiting the Burna Citadel into realspace—a living, city-sized engine of destruction, its Nightmare Shard Cannons gouging wounds in the void as it bled sheer carnage into the system. The Waaagh! Eternal poured forth like a tide of madness—Kill Kroozers howling through the darkness, Gargant Rokz slamming into fortress cities, Dakka Hives unleashing storms of firepower that drowned entire fleets in green-lit annihilation. Warbosses led their Mobs into the fray, each Meganob at the head of a warband built for nothing but ceaseless slaughter. The sky burned with the aftershocks of teleport strikes as Killkrumpa's Space Mobz materialized within the corridors of Imperial battleships, turning their halls into rivers of gore. Below, the first wave of Mobz and Psykoz smashed into the war-world's trenches, laughing as they shrugged off tank rounds and artillery fire, their advance a tidal wave of absurd, unchecked violence.
Killkrumpa Weirdblitz himself did not land immediately.
He stalked.
He watched.
Seated upon his throne of fused Necrodermis and jagged metal, high above the carnage, he let the battle simmer. Let his Boyz revel in the slaughter. Let the Imperium try, try, to resist. He flexed his four massive fists, each crackling with raw Waaagh energy, and grinned as the reports flooded in—fortresses crumbling, Knights dragged down by mobs of screaming Boyz, Primaris squads wiped out before they could even mount a counterattack. This was the good part. The build-up. The slow, creeping inevitability of destruction.
And then the other Waaagh arrived.
From the far side of the system, the void split again, and out came another green tide—darker, grittier, and no less terrifying. The void churned with asteroid-sized warships, Roks the size of hive cities, and brutal, functional battle fortresses cobbled together with Orky precision. Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka had come. His fleet stretched into the darkness, blotting out the stars, his warbands descending upon the opposite side of the system with terrifying efficiency.
They did not join forces.
They did not turn on each other.
Not yet.
Instead, they moved inward—Killkrumpa's Waaagh! Eternal from one side, Ghazghkull's Green Krusade from the other, carving a path through the Imperium like butcher blades through meat, each of them deliberately savoring every moment, every kill, every explosion, every scream of defiance before it was inevitably silenced.
The Imperium caught between them, fought like hell.
Lord General Vassarian Thorne led his last stand from the shattered remnants of Bastion Halcyon's war room, his Cadians forming an unbreakable firing line, their lasguns and plasma rifles glowing in the dusk as they poured everything they had into the Orks. The Death Korps of Krieg fought with the suicidal tenacity only they could muster, collapsing tunnels and detonating entire fortresses around themselves just to take a few more greenskins with them. The Black Templars launched a counteroffensive, their Chaplains leading the charge as they crashed into the oncoming tide, chainswords revving, bolt pistols barking, voices raised in prayers that no one was listening to anymore.
And in the midst of it all, the two biggest, baddest, meanest Orks in existence were having the time of their lives.
Killkrumpa descended from the sky like a green-lit meteor, the sheer force of his landing sending a shockwave rippling across the battlefield. The very air around him crackled with raw Waaagh energy, the ground beneath his titanic feet warping and fracturing as reality itself struggled to contain his presence. A formation of Imperial Knights, their massive war engines towering like gods of steel and fire, turned their weapons toward him, their pilots' augmetics locking onto his impossible form.
The first Knight, a mighty Knight Errant adorned in the war colors of House Vyronii, fired its thermal cannon, a beam of superheated death roaring straight toward Killkrumpa's chest. The Ork didn't even blink. He reached out with one massive claw, caught the blast mid-air, and crushed it in his fist like it was a mere candle flame. The Knight's pilot barely had time to process the absolute fuckery of what had just happened before Killkrumpa closed the distance in a single, unnatural burst of speed.
His clawed hand smashed through the Knight's torso, punching straight through its adamantium core and yanking out a tangled mess of cabling, hydraulics, and most of what had once been the pilot. A wet, slopping SCHLORP echoed through the vox as he pulled the poor bastard out of his machine, still screaming, only to pop his head off between two fingers like a particularly squishy grape. With a manic grin, Killkrumpa stuffed the decapitated body into the cockpit, then slammed the hatch shut, burying the fresh corpse inside the wreckage before backhanding the entire fucking Knight so hard that it flipped three times before exploding in a rain of fire, gore, and metal.
The second Knight, a massive Knight Gallant, charged at him, its Reaper Chainsword revving like a chainaxe big enough to butcher a Titan. The pilot was no coward—he came straight at the hulking Ork warlord, screaming "FOR THE EMPEROR!" as he swung down with all the force of a collapsing hive city.
Killkrumpa laughed.
He met the blade with his forehead.
The chainsword ground against his Necrodermis-reinforced skull, the massive adamantium teeth sparking and screeching as they failed to bite into the impossibly dense Ork hide. The pilot, panicking, wrenched his machine back, only for Killkrumpa to grab the blade in his teeth.
And bite it in half.
The entire chainsword snapped with the sound of tortured metal, sending shards of red-hot adamantium spiraling in all directions. The Knight staggered, its balance thrown off as the pilot inside frantically attempted to compensate. Too late. Killkrumpa drove his colossal fist into its chestplate with a punch so powerful it caved in the armor like tin foil.
Inside, the pilot screamed as the cockpit compressed around him, the force of the impact turning his body into a bag of red mist and ruptured organs before the Knight collapsed to its knees and exploded, the flames painting the battlefield in a sickly green glow.
The third Knight, a Knight Crusader, fired every single gun it had, its Avenger Gatling Cannon unleashing a storm of high-caliber rounds while its thermal cannon discharged another burning-hot death ray. The sheer amount of dakka would have reduced an entire battle line of Chaos Space Marines to chunky salsa in a matter of seconds.
Killkrumpa ignored it completely.
He reached forward, tore the Knight's arm off at the elbow, and beat the fucker to death with it.
The pilot's horrified screams were barely audible as Killkrumpa slammed the severed mechanical limb into the Knight's head over and over, caving in its armored visor like a sledgehammer against a cheap canteen tin. The cockpit was now a red-tinged paste factory, the remains of the pilot sloshing around inside like a smoothie with way too much pulp.
When the Knight finally collapsed, its entire upper chassis caved in and leaking, Killkrumpa ripped its ruined frame clean off its legs, hoisted it over his head, and turned toward the oncoming Baneblade that had been advancing up the ridge.
"HEH."
With a mighty toss, he threw the mangled Knight straight at the Baneblade like a goddamn cruise missile.
The multi-ton wreck collided with the super-heavy tank at full speed, the impact crushing the entire front section, pancaking the tank's entire command compartment, and detonating the Baneblade's internal ammunition stores.
The resulting explosion ripped the tank apart from the inside, sending flaming chunks of ceramite and scorched meat raining across the battlefield. What was left of the Baneblade cartwheeled through the air like a broken toy before crashing into the mud in a smoking, cratered ruin.
Killkrumpa stood among the destruction, blood, and shrapnel raining around him as the battlefield fell completely silent for a single moment.
Then he grinned.
"DAT'S MORE LIKE IT."
Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka was a force of nature, a walking apocalypse, a living battering ram of pure Orky brutality, and he was fucking loving it. The battlefield around him was a maelstrom of violence, the Imperium's finest war machines and warriors thrown into his path like some desperate attempt to halt the inevitable.
It wasn't working.
The Warhound Titan loomed over him, its plasma blastgun charging, its Vulcan megabolter roaring, a walking god of war striding into the fray. The Princeps inside had a split second to register the sheer, horrifying size of the Ork charging toward him before Ghazghkull shoulder-checked the Titan so hard it flipped the fuck over.
The entire hundred-ton war engine was ripped clean off its feet, its stabilizers howling in failure, its weight crunching through wreckage and corpses alike before slamming onto its back with a deafening crash. The ground trembled from the impact, sending shockwaves that flattened nearby Ultramarines and Astra Militarum alike. Inside the Titan, the Princeps and his crew were screaming, desperately trying to reboot their fallen god-machine before they realized—there was no fucking time.
Because Ghazghkull was already climbing on top of it.
With a thunderous roar, he ripped the Titan's head off like he was opening a particularly stubborn jar of jam, wires, and hydraulic cables snapping and whipping around like severed veins, the crew's terrified screams turning into garbled vox-static as he yanked them out of their control seats one by one.
He held up the squirming Princeps, their neural implants still sparking as they desperately tried to control a Titan that no longer existed, their limbs twitching helplessly in his iron grip.
Ghazghkull laughed, tilted his head, then bit the Princeps in half.
The legs fell to the ground in a spurt of red mist, twitching like a dying insect, while he chewed the upper half. His massive tusks crunched through bone and metal alike, and he spilt the remains at a group of horrified Ultramarines.
"DAT'S SOME TASTY HUMIE," he bellowed, wiping the gore from his tusks, his beady red eyes locking onto the next target.
A Primaris Lieutenant stands in the middle of the carnage, pointing his power sword toward the warboss, his armor gleaming in the firelight. He is a warrior of legend, a son of Guilliman, the finest the Imperium has to offer.
Ghazghkull grinned.
This poor bastard had no idea how fucked he was.
The Lieutenant barked orders into his vox, rallying his troops, trying to establish a formation. It was commendable, really, the way he tried to stand his ground, even as his battle-brothers were reduced to mulch around him.
Ghazghkull gave him exactly two seconds to make his move.
The Primaris warrior charged, his massive power sword crackling with raw energy, a blur of blue and gold, moving faster than any normal man could react. His blade swung toward Ghazghkull's chest, aiming for the kill.
Ghazghkull didn't even try to block.
He let the sword hit him—let it sink into his armor—let the Primaris believe, just for a moment, that he had actually hurt him.
The sword barely made it half an inch in before it stopped dead.
Ghazghkull looked down at the weapon, then back at the Lieutenant.
The Lieutenant blinked.
Ghazghkull grinned.
Then he grabbed the Primaris by the helmet—one massive iron-clawed fist completely enveloping his head—and squeezed.
CRACK.
The helmet buckled.
CRUNCH.
The vox-unit sparked.
SPLAT.
The entire fucking skull burst like an overripe fruit.
Ghazghkull ground his iron boot into the mess, mashing the pulp into the mud, the Lieutenant's body still twitching, twitching, then finally stopping.
The surviving Ultramarines stared in silent horror.
Ghazghkull snorted, wiping brain matter off his boot.
"HEH. THOUGHT HE WUZ TOUGH."
Then he turned to the rest of them, flexing his massive power klaw.
"WHO'S NEXT?!"
They both knew the fight was coming.
And neither of them was in a hurry.
This wasn't just a war.
It was foreplay.
The two greatest Orks in history weren't just killing—they were warming up. Taking their time. Making sure they were at their best for when they finally stood face to face.
Red, watching from above, chuckled through the vox. "Oh, boss, this is gonna be so good."
The Imperium was being ground into nothing between them.
And the real fight hadn't even started.