Brutal—too brutal!
Everything that had just happened in Khorne's domain spread through the Warp like a cyclonic shock wave, the impact rippling across countless regions.
The ripped-to-shreds statue. The sky-boring mega-drill.
Every prying daemon saw with their own eyes the brass giant topple—and they were stunned.
Perhaps since the Accursed, this was the first being to leave the Blood God so humiliated. Had the Hope-Primarch, the Daemon-Eater—Eden—grown this formidable without anyone noticing?
Those daemons who were about to strike while the chaos raged hesitated.
Grandfather Nurgle jolted awake from a nightmare. The Changer of Ways shifted forms and fell silent. Slaanesh's palace was already slick with dew; Fulgrim wept beneath the high couch.
The denizens of Chaos felt a new dread—the Daemon-Eater and that noise-belching abomination of a machine.
The most shaken of all were those in Khorne's domain. A mournful air spread across the Bloodlands.
The Khorne daemons who had been howling and waving their axes felt their voices jam in their throats. The sight of the Blood God collapsing like a felled titan, volcanoes erupting, and the sky dimming under ash only deepened the gloom.
Only the savage howl of the Daemon-Eater's spinning mega-drill remained, pressing down on them until it was almost hard to breathe.
Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-THUNK!
That over-the-top, muscle-bound bust of Eden and the whirling drill kept plowing forward, smashing yet another fortress and carving a gouge through the Bloodlands.
Khorne's daemons stared at the Daemon-Eater's statue with growing awe.
Their inner monologue went something like this:
The Daemon-Eater has raided the Bloodlands. Brothers, grab your kit and kill him!
Bad news—we can't stop him! The war-machine keeps launching us sky-high. We can't hold!
Good news! The great Blood God is rising from the Brass Throne. The Daemon-Eater is dead for sure—BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!
The Blood God has struck—no, no… he's down! He's actually down! The Daemon-Eater's drill drove him to the ground!
The Greater Daemons who had come roaring from the Brass Citadel to intercept him skidded to a halt the moment they saw Khorne hurled away. It all happened too fast. None of these belligerent bruisers realized the Blood God had bounced off the laws of the veil itself. They thought the drill knocked Him flat.
They crowded together and stared up at the Daemon-Eater's ridiculous statue, dumbstruck—shaken to the core.
The statue was sculpted in the image of a green-skin "Bro-Eden," its muscles exaggerated into explosive lines; with that sky-drill whirling, it was violence made art. It looked vicious, brutal—exactly the physique Khorne's faithful idealized.
That only magnified the Daemon-Eater's image in the Blood God's realm. And the fact that he had "tipped" the Blood God? That sealed the terror.
Previously, Khorne's Greater Daemons might have compared the Daemon-Eater to a Daemon Prince—at most to the Exalted Bloodthirster, Ka'Bandha.
Now they were unconsciously measuring him against the Blood God Himself.
That's the Father of War—the highest of gods!
Granted, they knew their god had not truly been defeated, but to them the Daemon-Eater had still bowled the Blood God over. In their memory, Khorne was nigh-invincible. Even when the most fearsome Bloodthirster, Skarbrand, struck with all his might, he hadn't made the Blood God sway; he'd only left a hairline crack in a pauldron. Even facing the Accursed—the Corpse-Emperor—He had not fallen so hard. At worst He withdrew, never toppled like this.
A single question rose in every daemon's mind:
If even the Blood God fell, who can stop the Daemon-Eater's sky-drill now?
Silence smothered the Bloodlands.
The shock was too great. They could only watch the Daemon-Eater rampage through their god's own domain.
No champion dared step forward. None even had the courage to strike from the side, let alone meet him head-on.
Those Greater Daemons who saw the drill surge toward them simply panicked—bolting left or right or beating their wings for altitude.
None dared touch it.
"No!"
A middling-famed Bloodthirster screamed.
His dodge had come too late. With no room to veer away, he sprinted for his life—while the sparking drill howled inches from his backside.
The daemon smashed through several structures, howling, sprinting in utter despair.
A heartbeat later, the drill caught him, flipped him, and rolled over him. His shriek echoed across the Bloodlands.
Then the drill plowed on like there were no obstacles at all—straight at the core of the realm, the Brass Citadel.
That citadel was the symbol of Khorne's domain—the Blood God's equivalent of Holy Terra's Imperial Palace.
Yet with their faith staggered, there was no champion to stand for the Brass Citadel, symbol of endless war and slaughter.
Such is the weakness of Khorne's faithful.
Fueled by slaughter, they can explode with power—growing fiercer the longer they fight.
But strike their confidence and momentum, and their strength ebbs.
"Blood God above—someone get me down!"
A wail rang out from the citadel walls.
There, after losing to Syll'esh the Doom of Secrets, hung the former First of the Bloodthirsters—An'ggrath the Unbound—suspended head-down, roasted by sacred flames.
He was the most hopeless of all. He nearly wet himself.
The Daemon-Eater's drill was screaming toward him and, bound by a forest of chains, An'ggrath had no room to dodge.
He could only watch it grow larger, bracing for the worst.
The pressure and heat gusting from the drill hit him head-on. An'ggrath strained with all his might; the chains didn't budge.
He shut his eyes in pain and waited for the end.
If the drill, which even the Blood God could not resist, hit him dead-on, surely he would return to the Skull Throne—and perhaps never rise again.
KRA-KOOM—
Stone groaned. The drill rammed into the citadel wall.
"I'm still alive! Hah! I, An'ggrath, still live!"
The expected impact never came. He cracked one eye, then both—then whooped in wild relief.
Then he realized the awful truth as he looked aside:
A gaping hole had been chewed through the wall, and a clear, daemon-free corridor of space yawned beyond—an anti-warp tunnel. The drill had slewed slightly off at the very last instant.
But the revelation cut cold:
The Brass Citadel's curtain wall had collapsed.
That had never happened. Not even the greatest daemon-wars between the Dark Powers had ever breached this deep.
Yet the Daemon-Eater had done it—not only reaching the heart of the realm, but punching through the outer defenses of the Brass Citadel itself.
The last time the Brass Citadel had been raided was a century ago—also by the Daemon-Eater, who had lobbed in a holy flash-grenade saturated with the Accursed's energy and sowed chaos at the perimeter.
This time was worse. He'd torn down sections of the citadel wall and pushed deeper—peeling half the golden-brass dome from the Hall of War.
Even the Brass Throne was exposed.
It was the Warp-equivalent of daemons storming Holy Terra, tearing the dome off the throne hall, and baring the Golden Throne and the Corpse-Emperor to the sky.
In a sense, it was worse than seeing the Blood God hurled away.
The Khorne daemons looked on that shame and felt only helplessness.
Many collapsed weeping, their power draining as their faith reeled. Some, less resolute, couldn't even stand to gaze upon the Daemon-Eater's statue. Terror swallowed them whole.
Blood God—does any champion still dare to stand?
How they longed for a hero to rise, to bar the Daemon-Eater's path—even to die trying would be better than this.
"Ka'Bandha! Ka'Bandha hasn't fled!"
"The Exalted Bloodthirster will bar him! Our First will fight!"
A ripple passed through the horde as they saw Ka'Bandha upon the citadel wall—and hope flared.
Yes. Perhaps only this fearless being would dare confront the Daemon-Eater even after the Blood God had fallen.
On the parapet, Ka'Bandha still bled and bore wounds, one horn snapped—but he stood tall, the chain-cloak of skulls at his back snapping in the hot wind.
Commanding. Fearsome.
Would he meet the drill head-on? Of course—he was the Daemon-Eater's lifelong rival.
What courage.
"KA'BANDHA! KA'BANDHA! KA'BANDHA!"
Voices rose—first a few, then many.
Those who had sunk to their knees found a sliver of hope. They trembled to their feet and raised their axes.
War-drums thundered. Horns blared. Every Khorne warrior roared to hearten their Exalted.
Blood-light streamed from the host like sparks, streaking into Ka'Bandha. Faith given form.
The realm's belief gathered around him, and—almost without notice—stoked the authority of War upon him.
Their only hope.
In that instant, the Bloodlands… ignited.
"Tch—ignite your what, exactly?"
On the Warp TBM's command bridge, Eden listened to the Khorne horde's uproar and could only roll his eyes.
Bouncing the Blood God by exploiting the veil's laws had been cathartic—but the price was steep.
Khorne's daemons were terrified, sure—but Eden was more afraid still. Not of death. Of damage—to the machine.
Even a scratch hurt his soul.
The entire TBM was shuddering, electrical arcs cracking across machinery. Orks—Big Meks and their gophers—ran everywhere, the clang of spanners ringing in every corridor.
That last blow from Khorne had nearly cracked the veil between Warp and realspace. The rebound had rattled the TBM from skin to core—scoring the outer armor, and damaging subsystems within.
The greenskins were in emergency repair mode.
Right now this TBM was like a deep-sea sub. Nothing could be allowed to fail. If the veil tore or anything vital went down, a tidal wave of Chaos would pour in. The Dark Gods would not let him go.
He couldn't afford another direct hit. If something truly broke, he'd go down in history as the Imperium's greatest sinner.
"Majesty," the Archmagos reported, "our data shows we cannot survive a second strike of that magnitude. The frame would destabilize and disintegrate."
"So if the Blood God steadies Himself and hits us again—we're finished?!"
Eden swallowed. Panic pricked the back of his neck.
If he had a hundred such machines, he could form a whole convoy of highway kings and run Khorne down until the Blood God questioned reality.
The Bloodlands would be one long speed bump.
A familiar roar rolled in from outside—his half-brother in soul if not in blood, the Exalted Bloodthirster himself.
Eden stared at Ka'Bandha hurtling forward in his Brass Chariot—and went numb.
Too reckless. You'll get yourself killed doing that!
He snapped to the Archmagos with a death order. "Tell the greenskins to dodge. I don't care what it takes—avoid the collision. Or face Eden's wrath."
No matter the result—Ka'Bandha smashed aside or the chariot denting the TBM—Eden would lose. The only winning play was evasion—then run, before the Blood God recovered.
He stepped to the heart of the observation dome and locked onto Ka'Bandha's approach.
The distance shrank. His heart climbed into his throat.
WHAM!
At the instant of contact, the TBM yanked into a hard turn.
At the same moment, Ka'Bandha's aura peaked—blood-flames roared.
"EDEN!"
He vaulted high, poured all his strength into the stroke, and hewed down with his axe at the Daemon-Eater's machine.
Forward. Without. Fear.
CLAAAAANG—
His axe bit—and the TBM pivoted with the blow, using the strike to roll faster and shed the force, slipping clear.
All eyes in the Bloodlands watched, unblinking.
From their vantage, the Exalted Bloodthirster had met the hell-drill's terror head-on—and knocked it askew.
He had stopped the Daemon-Eater's drill!
RUMBLE—
The Brass Chariot scraped along the war-machine, flipped, and tumbled in a shower of brass and lava.
Ka'Bandha slammed down like a meteor and left a crater when he landed—magma geysers hissing all around.
"What… was that?" he muttered, puzzled.
Had the machine been weaker than he thought? How else could a single axe-stroke have turned it aside?
Before he could make sense of it, An'ggrath's voice cracked across the walls:
"KA'BANDHA—VICTORY!"
A tidal roar of cheers followed, and adoration poured toward Ka'Bandha in waves.
That was something even the Blood God had not done in this hour—yet the Exalted had managed it.
His prestige soared, and for a heartbeat he seemed to pull a little more of War's mantle upon himself.
While the Khorne horde celebrated, the TBM—under Eden's orders—was already bolting.
"We're nearly out of the Bloodlands," Eden exhaled, relief loosening his shoulders.
These brutes were the easy ones. If the TBM had crashed into Tzeentch's Crystal Labyrinth—or Slaanesh's palace—he'd be paste by now.
And then his heart lurched.
The Blood God rose.
One more hit like that and the machine would die.
ROAR—
Dozens of volcanoes erupted together, coalescing into a titan hundreds of kilometers high—molten brass and lava given form. Then an axe of pure magma.
It fell like a meteor—sparks screaming along its edges as it came down.
THUD—
A dark red wound, scores of kilometers long, torn open in the Bloodlands. Lava fountained high enough to drown the TBM—and it did, briefly.
The Khorne horde exploded into a fresh frenzy.
But their joy died mid-shout. At the very edge of the fissure, the Daemon-Eater's machine shot free—hugging the boundary of the Bloodlands and escaping into the black gulf.
"Out at last."
Eden glanced back through the rear panes at the towering, axe-wheeling colossus of fire—and tasted the sweet air of survival.
That had been too close. Another fraction slower and the blow would have been full on.
As it was, the TBM had caught a glancing hit—call it a shattered taillight. Manageable.
And why didn't the Blood God give chase? Because the Emperor was far angrier. Harm His favorite toy, and Khorne would get his dog-head blown off if He stepped across the veil.
"…Why am I stronger?"
Eden closed his fist by reflex—and crushed his gauntlet like foil.
His body was changing. That was faith—war and slaughter—flooding into him. Just as the Emperor could not command belief, Khorne could not either. With such a display of might, the mantle of War had no choice but to add its weight to Eden.
The Dark Gods are slaves to their own powers. Those mantles can migrate. There may be ways to twist that. Interesting.
In the end, this wasn't a total loss. He'd bounce-punted the Blood God and drunk deep of Chaos faith—his power spiked.
He felt ready—readier—to face that nameless terror waiting ahead.
He'd also stamped his authority as Savior.
And he'd put on a nice little two-man show with his "dear brother," Ka'Bandha. Good publicity for both.
The Exalted would be swollen with pride after this, draw more of War's mantle, rally more daemon legions.
Give him time, and he might even bare his fangs at Khorne—or, better yet, Eden could… encourage him to poach troops and go independent.
Chaos Greater Daemons aren't that loyal. A Bloodthirster has trepanned the Blood God before. If the Emperor's own sons can defect, why not a daemon?
Plenty to chew on.
His musings cut off as the view beyond the observation dome shifted again.
They had entered a new region of the Warp.
Before he could react, the TBM jolted—hard—and ground to a halt, as if it had run up against something it could not push through.
(End of Chapter)
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