The moment the massive, feral-looking mechanical flying disc appeared, it instantly drew every Chaos warrior's attention.
On the disc were all kinds of twisted machines wreathed in flame, radiating an oppressive intimidation.
That Terror Legion–styled disc itself was a dreadful Chaos engine.
It bellowed with infernal howls that shook the soul without pause, and the gaping black gun-ports were enough to make even veterans' hearts tighten in fear.
More importantly, the being on the disc, smothered in dense hellfire, emanated an even more horrifying Chaos aura.
That presence alone flattened the commotion at the inspection grounds.
Every warrior raised their head, staring up at the newly appointed warlord.
"By iron's name, we welcome a mighty existence. The Iron Warriors will become even stronger…"
"An existence even our lord respects will surely lead us to greater glory and greater kills!"
Balan and the other Chaos Terminators spoke with excitement. The instant they felt that presence, any initial resentment or resistance vanished completely.
According to the commanders, that being was the brother of their gene-father, and would command the Iron Warriors from this day onward.
Their gene-father, meanwhile, would retreat behind the front lines to forge even stronger Chaos engines.
This was not a coup, but cooperation between brothers.
So the Iron Warriors accepted it quickly, especially given how cold and harsh Perturabo's rule had always been.
They wanted a new master to lead them to war more effectively.
Besides, the new warlord had brought enormous stocks of Terror Legion weapons, armor, and vehicles.
What reason did they have to refuse?
The Iron Warriors practically wanted the new warlord to take office on the spot and start handing out wargear.
And not only the Iron Warriors, but the other Chaos warbands too.
This warlord had forced unrelated warbands into formation with a heavy hand, but he clearly looked like someone with the strength to make obedience inevitable.
"What a terrifying existence. Since when did Chaos produce someone this powerful?"
"Is he some unknown fallen primarch, or a newly ascended demigod daemon prince?!"
Ardis of the Fire Angels watched the Chaos disc-engine drift closer and felt his anticipation rise.
That warlord's entrance, complete with special effects and its own music, steadily dissolved the warriors' dissatisfaction.
Chaos warriors worship strength.
The fact that this being could make the Lord of Iron willingly surrender command was proof enough of unstoppable dominance.
Now they were feeling that pressure for themselves, and no one dared complain.
"After that warlord appeared, the Imperial forces began pulling back. Even the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, hasn't shown his face."
Ardis noticed the changes on this battlefield.
The Savior's Redemption Titan clusters, the Space Marine formations, and the Astra Militarum forces that resembled Solar Auxilia had all withdrawn beyond effective engagement range.
"Without question, this new warlord is stronger than the Lord of Iron. Even the Savior has to step back for now."
The Fire Angels Chapter Master drew a deep breath, a bold possibility taking shape in his mind.
His excitement only surged higher.
At last, Chaos had produced someone who could suppress the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium.
Ever since the former Chaos Warmaster, Abaddon the Despoiler, suffered catastrophic failures in his Fourteenth and Fifteenth Black Crusades, and his base at Savadore was plundered repeatedly afterward, he had fallen into complete collapse.
Chaos had lost the kind of figure who could stand against Imperial primarchs.
On the Imperial side, the Savior had risen with ruthless momentum, stacking one grand victory after another, placing immense pressure on the forces of Chaos.
Chaos warbands were leaderless, and no one could shoulder the burden of a true large-scale crusade.
As for the lord of the Red Corsairs, he still could not fully command loyalty, and was far inferior to the Savior.
Worse, there were rumors that he had once been ambushed and beaten senseless by the Savior, without even seeing the man who did it.
Humiliating.
Why did Ardis know these stories so well?
Because he had led the Fire Angels through the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Black Crusades, as well as the defense of Savadore.
The results had been horrific.
"That was a shameful experience…"
Remembering it, Ardis's body trembled with stress, as if the humiliation was still fresh.
During the Fourteenth Black Crusade, the Fire Angels warband had sailed into the crusade aboard their only voidship, a Nine-Handed escort ship.
They wanted to follow the Chaos Warmaster and take vengeance on the Imperium.
But the moment their fleet completed translation and hadn't even stabilized, they saw it.
An Imperial fleet, endless as a storm-front, already waiting.
That time, the Fire Angels and the other warbands had translated alongside the Warmaster's flagship, the Planet Killer, straight into the heart of an Imperial fleet's staging area.
They assembled inside the enemy's mouth.
A tragedy so brutal it bordered on comedy.
In the next instant, the Planet Killer and the Chaos fleet were raked by concentrated fire, suffering crushing losses.
The Fire Angels were lucky to survive and flee in panic alongside the other warbands.
Even their only escort ship lost nearly half its hull, escaping on the last surviving engines.
Several Fire Angels were torn into the void, vanishing without a trace.
"Thank the gods the Imperial fleet went after the Planet Killer and couldn't spare attention for us, or the Fire Angels would have been wiped out."
Ardis sighed.
Every time he thought of it, he felt both shame and fear.
That Despoiler, that Chaos Warmaster, had dragged his followers straight into the abyss.
"Yes. We lost many brothers that day, and even our vault was looted in the chaos."
Behind Ardis, several captains murmured, their voices low, their memories matching his.
The Fire Angels' first action after turning to Chaos ended right there.
Just like the Fourteenth Black Crusade, that "crusade" ended before it even began.
They did not even clearly see what Imperial ships looked like.
They only remembered the wall of naval guns and lances that filled their vision, the wreckage of exploding Chaos vessels, and the screams in the vox.
Thinking of a war that ended before it began, the Fire Angels fell into heavy silence.
"Worse, we learned nothing, and still joined that Despoiler's Fifteenth Black Crusade…"
Ardis thought of it and shut his eyes in pain.
He blamed himself.
"It was my fault. I trusted Abaddon again, and the Fire Angels paid an even higher price."
"My lord, you can't blame yourself. Joining the Fifteenth Black Crusade was a decision we all made together."
"Who could have imagined the Black Legion would be this pathetic, unable to suppress even those Red Corsairs?"
The captains were grieving too, tears clouding their eyes.
After the Fourteenth Black Crusade, the Fire Angels escaped the Imperial fleet's encirclement and fled to the neutral Galleum Forge World.
They stayed there to repair their Nine-Handed escort ship.
Chaos resources were so scarce that warbands would fight to the death over a suit of armor, even over a mouthful of water.
The Fire Angels still having a voidship at all already made them fortunate.
At least they did not have to march on foot, or rely on unstable teleportation and live like scavengers.
Their escort ship had been critically damaged, and repairing it consumed their last reserves.
Once it was finally fixed, they desperately needed a new war to plunder the resources required to keep the warband alive.
Chaos warbands usually took what they needed from the Imperium or from xenos, but the richest profits came from major crusades.
Any successful crusade would blaze across thousands of worlds, and they could loot supplies freely, seize humans as fresh recruits, and rebuild their strength in one bloody harvest.
Then Abaddon announced new developments.
The Black Legion had forged a terrifying Blackstone Ark of Omen, a mobile fortress of a warship with devastating power.
He would launch the Fifteenth Black Crusade with it.
"Abaddon swore it would be an unprecedented crusade, with spoils beyond imagination."
"And that's why we made the same mistake again."
Ardis reflected bitterly.
He should never have believed Abaddon's promises, especially after Abaddon's prestige had already fallen so far.
But the former Warmaster spoke with absolute certainty.
He called it the grandest Black Crusade yet, and even shouted slogans about setting the galaxy ablaze.
Ardis was tempted.
He led the Fire Angels out from Galleum Forge World aboard their newly repaired Nine-Handed escort ship, racing toward Savadore to assemble, terrified of missing the crusade.
But when the Fire Angels arrived, the situation had already collapsed.
The Savior had allied with the Red Corsairs to strike Savadore in a sudden raid.
The battlefield at Savadore became a slaughterhouse of overlapping wars.
The Savior's forces, the Red Corsairs, xenos armies, the Black Legion, and hundreds of Chaos warbands tore into each other in every direction.
A single cauldron of madness.
Worse still, the raiders seized the moment, smashed through the dockyard defenses, and stole the massive Blackstone Ark of Omen.
That was when Ardis understood.
The Black Legion was finished.
Everything was finished, including the Fire Angels.
He tried to pull his warband out, but a charge by greenskin xenos smashed into them.
They crashed onto the hull of Abaddon's flagship Ark of Omen, the Heart of Terror.
That void-giant was being boarded simultaneously by Imperial forces, the Red Corsairs, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons.
A grotesque buffet of invasion forces.
To avoid the greenskin tide, the Fire Angels had no choice but to push deeper into the Heart of Terror, searching for allied Chaos battle-brothers.
And on the ship's core battlefield, Ardis witnessed a scene he would never forget.
Abaddon the Despoiler, the Chaos Warmaster, was being assaulted by the lord of the Red Corsairs, and a Necron overlord, and an Ork warboss.
He collapsed from exhaustion.
Even the Talon of Horus was ripped from him by Huron Blackheart in a moment of public disgrace.
From that moment, the Fire Angels Chapter Master knew Abaddon was done.
His prestige was shattered, and he no longer had any right to the title of Chaos Warmaster.
Ardis remembered it too clearly.
"Just when I thought Abaddon would die, the Savior arrived."
"With a single blow, he sent Huron Blackheart flying."
"He was the strongest existence on that battlefield. Even Abaddon and Huron couldn't compare."
Ardis had seen the Savior's strength with his own eyes.
That being smashed a mighty greenskin warboss with nothing but raw flesh and bone.
He broke the Chaos assault and forced the xenos back, carving a path no one dared block.
Ardis had joined the encirclement of the Savior too.
He fired a single shot.
Then his vision went black, and he lost consciousness.
"The Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, knocked me into a coma with one punch."
Ardis touched the scars where his facial bones had shattered, his body trembling as fear returned.
His helm had been blown clean off, and he had collapsed on the spot.
The force had been monstrous.
Ardis realized the Savior had been surrounded and did not even treat him as a true opponent.
If that being had wanted him dead, he would have died instantly.
It had been a nightmare.
Even now, Ardis remembered the dreadful gaze he saw before he fell.
He had been afraid.
In truth, Eden had been under the "blessing" of the Ork god Rogo at the time, swinging wildly in a frenzy.
Anyone who met his eyes, or turned their back on him, risked having their head smashed apart.
Ardis was fortunate.
In the chaos, one of his captains dragged him away from the core battlefield.
Otherwise, if he had stayed unconscious much longer, he might have become Tyranid food.
Not long after, he woke and learned what happened next.
The Savior had saved Abaddon and driven Huron Blackheart back.
The plunder of the Black Legion ended in ruin, leaving only wreckage as far as the eye could see.
The Fire Angels suffered just as badly.
They turned to Chaos and still hadn't even killed a single Imperial soldier, yet they had lost what little they had left.
Their Nine-Handed escort ship had been stripped clean by some damned greenskins, reduced to a bare shell.
They lost their only means of Warp travel.
After that, the Fire Angels were crushed, forced into a long period of recovery.
Then came this moment.
Four fallen primarchs had joined forces to attack the Imperium's Vostoniya region, laying a trap to kill the Savior.
An opportunity they could not miss.
"Finally, we have a chance to take vengeance on the Imperium."
"The Fire Angels' first battle against the Imperium cannot fail."
"We must strike the Savior hard."
Ardis gathered every Fire Angel, swearing an oath and staking everything.
Then he led them aboard Bonebreaker's Chaos warship and came to the Vostoniya muster.
Yes, the Fire Angels had hitched a ride.
All along the journey, Ardis and his warriors had been on edge, terrified their first battle would go wrong again.
As for their earlier humiliations, the Fire Angels had already cut them off mentally.
Those weren't "wars," because they never even started.
So this time, their first battle would be the one that truly mattered.
And it had to draw Imperial blood.
It had to carve out Chaos glory.
Fortunately, this crusade went unusually smoothly.
Their translation was safe.
They did not drop into an Imperial encirclement.
No sudden ambush struck the muster.
Nine hours ago, the Chaos host had fully assembled.
The Fire Angels followed the Iron Warriors and the other Chaos forces, and one after another they teleported through Chaos ritual arrays, arriving on the battlefield of Calisde.
They grew more and more feverish, morale soaring.
The Fire Angels had not set foot on Imperial soil for nearly a century.
This time, they would make it count.
But the moment they arrived, before they fired a single shot, the order to assemble came down.
The new warlord wanted to inspect the Iron Warriors and every participating warband.
They were shoved into formation, forced into ranks, waiting for the warlord's arrival.
"This is a good thing."
"It means the Iron Warriors have gained powerful support, and our Fire Angels can receive stronger wargear too."
As the feral disc-engine drifted closer, Ardis and his warriors pushed those painful memories aside.
They stood rigid, silent, receiving inspection, terrified of offending the new warlord.
If they were used as an example to make a point, or stripped of their right to receive equipment, it would be disastrous.
Slowly, Ardis's nerves tightened.
The disc was coming straight toward them.
Only then did he realize the Fire Angels were near the front of the inspection lines.
In an instant, the Chaos engine's roar and crushing pressure rolled over them, the heat nearly igniting the air itself.
Sweat seeped beneath armor as the Chaos warriors looked up at the hulking machine barely a dozen meters away.
Under that pressure, their respect for the new warlord only deepened.
…
On the disc of hellfire.
"Looks like this Warp-taint 'buff' works pretty well."
Eden piloted that high-tier Chaos engine reserved for a Dark Prince.
Wicked flame coiled around his True One armor, making him look violently ferocious and utterly evil.
Those flames hid his real face entirely.
As Diablo's true self, Eden could imitate Warp-taint with psychic power effortlessly.
He simply drew on the energy of the dark side and let it burn.
The evil presence radiating from him right now was more demonic than demons, completely suppressing even the Lord of Iron beside him, a daemon prince.
One glance was enough to know who the true warlord was.
"Good. Every one of you looks lively enough."
Eden gazed down at the Chaos host below and nodded in satisfaction.
In a moment, he would reveal his true face and deliver a speech, truly taking command of this vast Chaos legion.
As for why he had Terror Legion equipment, and what relationship he had with the Terror Legion?
He would use "allies" as the excuse.
Even so, it would not stay hidden for long.
As the Terror Legion expanded, plenty of people would inevitably realize the truth behind that powerful legion.
It was him, the Savior.
And his close ties to the Terror Legion were exactly what would make the Iron Warriors lower their guard.
If he could support the Terror Legion, then he could support the Iron Warriors too.
"Then let's hand out another wave of benefits."
"Stuff their cheeks until they're bulging."
"After that, all they'll be able to do is shout 'loyalty' and nothing else."
Eden considered it.
Before exposing his identity, he sent another flood of vox-traffic and another wave of Warp-tainted "benefits."
A mass "red packet" drop, delivered through the dark side's projection.
The cost was small, but the effect was excellent.
Anyone who received it would be thrilled.
"Is this… a blessing? Such lavish power!"
"By iron's oath, the new warlord has recognized my battle record!"
Within the Chaos host, many warriors who had fought bravely were suddenly granted Warp-tainted power by the new warlord.
It sparked a wave of agitation.
They grew even more excited.
Blessings were the privilege of high-ranking Chaos entities.
(End of Chapter)
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