The searing heat of the plasma beam vitrified the ground inside the blast zone. The Firstborn within it melted together with their vehicles.
The dreadful beast's roar stopped as well, falling into eerie silence.
"Is it over?"
Tears shimmered in Mako's eyes. The Firstborn had used their lives to destroy the abomination the gods had released.
Vostroya would survive.
"No. According to monitoring data, the Omnissiah's wrath did not destroy the beast. Physical attacks are nullified before warp-evil."
For the first time, the Archmagos's electronic voice carried emotion, with a thread of fear.
"This planet no longer possesses any weapon capable of resisting it. Our survival probability is below 0.13%…"
The senior priest's mechanical body glowed red under overload. Many augmetics warped and melted.
He could no longer control the machinery.
As he spoke, the flare from the plasma beam faded, and the people could once again see the struck area.
Inside the crater of crystal glass, the dreadful daemonic body slowly pushed itself upright, and fear spread like a contagion.
The horror beast turned its head toward the wall. The recent strike had enraged it.
Boom—
Then it leapt and smashed down toward them. The impact of its massive body made the high wall shudder.
Fear!
Mako stared at the horror beast less than a hundred metres away, and fear drowned him. His body locked up.
He could sense it watching the wall, watching every life behind it.
"It's looking at me?!"
This time, Mako finally saw what the horror beast truly looked like.
It was roughly thirty metres tall. Its body still bore fire-red fissures left by the beam, like a monster stitched together from countless daemons.
Across the outer layer of its skin, daemonic heads hissed and howled, while grass-like hands and feet twitched and swayed.
He could even make out the melted heads of the Emperor's Angels and fragments of their golden master-crafted armour. Each head was gripped in a twisted daemonic hand.
Angels who had once been loyal to the God-Emperor had been fused into the abomination before him.
It was blasphemy beyond measure.
Mako could also feel the horror beast's power. Blood-red sinews—formed from warped daemonic bodies—coiled around its frame, contracting and throbbing.
He did not doubt that the abomination could knock a Titan down with a single punch.
Clang, clang, clang!
The regimental commander heard metal striking metal.
The sound came from the horror beast's skull, as though something metallic inside its head was slamming again, again, again.
Keeping it in eternal rage.
As the abomination drew closer, filth spread across many sections of the wall. Massive blood-red flesh-vines sprouted and grew.
Mako felt as though his mind had been pulled out of his body. He lost the ability to think, to move.
Time slowed. The wall trembled.
At some point, the horror beast had already torn apart the hive's colossal mech-cannon.
It seized the cannon's body and smashed it into the wall. The Archmagos's ruined frame dangled in midair with the cannon.
The Archmagos was cursing something.
"Binary. He's probably cursing the abomination in the Omnissiah's name, right?!"
The thought came to Mako for no reason at all.
The Archmagos kept firing a melta weapon, but it inflicted little damage. In the end, he was smashed into the wall along with the cannon.
All the wall's gun emplacements unleashed their final volleys. Firelight burst again and again across the horror beast's body.
In rage, it slammed into the wall repeatedly. Each strike carved cracks tens, even hundreds of metres long into the towering metal barrier.
Warp-molten lava ate through the wall. Firstborn died screaming.
Mako watched, wide-eyed, as a super-heavy tank flew through the air and smashed toward him.
Boom—
The super-heavy vehicle tore through a roaring gun emplacement along its path, and then the blast shockwave hit.
It was like slamming face-first into a wall. His body lifted uncontrollably into the air and crashed through a supply crate beside him.
Pain!
Several of Mako's bones cracked. The pain snapped him back to clarity.
"Beast. Face me. Vostroya's Firstborn will never submit!"
He stared at the abomination right in front of him, roared, and raised a bolt pistol, firing in fury.
It was the only weapon he had left.
But Mako's roar drew no attention at all, just like the bolt shells that struck the abomination's body.
He emptied the pistol into it, and it did not even seem to notice.
That was true despair.
"No. Look at me!"
Mako screamed as if weeping. His heart felt like it was being crushed in a fist. Fear and humiliation submerged him.
The enemy did not care about him. It did not care about Vostroya's resistance. Perhaps this world was destined to be destroyed.
The wall collapsed.
A gigantic axe made of human bones smashed the metal wall. Behind it lay the hive, and the people within it.
Mako was knocked down by flying debris. Everything below his waist went numb.
He was desperate beyond words. Dimly, he could hear people screaming in terror. The hive's billions upon billions faced annihilation.
"Vostroya will never sur—render…"
His consciousness blurred. With all his strength, he threw his final grenade.
The grenade exploded on the horror beast's body. Against that vast daemonic frame, it was nothing more than a tiny spark.
And yet, to his surprise, the horror beast turned, glaring this way, its expression changing.
Mako felt an odd sense of release. At least he had faced the enemy. Chaos could destroy this planet, but it could not destroy Vostroya's will.
He would return to the Throne.
There was bitterness, but it was the inevitable end, just like the other Firstborn.
"Ah… the eternal beacon of mankind, his will burns like fire, and the stars shine for it…"
In a haze, Mako heard a melodious, sacred hymn.
The singing seemed to come from the heavens, everywhere at once, and a gentle golden radiance like sunlight appeared before him.
It was a light Vostroya had never known.
Then he saw a being in golden armour, like the holy statues worshipped within cathedrals.
Mako accepted his death. They said that holy warriors, in their final moments, could see the God-Emperor's shadow.
He had no regrets now. He slowly reached up toward the sky.
"Great Emperor… have you come to take your faithful lamb home?!"
In his vision, that golden-armoured being hovering in midair reached down and took his hand. The touch felt real.
Then Mako heard a gentle voice, carrying a trace of authority, yet so reassuring.
"Loyal Firstborn, I am the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium.
Your mission is complete. Leave the rest to me…"
As he spoke, Eden injected a restorative dose into the regimental commander's neck, enough to keep him alive.
Then he lifted a hand lightly, using psychic force to cradle the man's body and place him in a safe area.
"Vostroya will not fall. You will all live to attend the victory celebrations."
Eden spoke with the solemnity of an oath. His voice carried outward, and it was also meant for everyone else on the planet.
A hymn-projector allowed his voice to roll through the atmosphere, sacred and unmistakable.
In that moment, countless citizens within the hive looked up at the sky, looking up at the holy presence.
More Imperial warships entered Vostroya's void.
Brilliant beyond measure.
"The Savior. The Emperor has sent his warriors to save us. This planet will be redeemed…"
Mako lay amid the ruins, watching the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, flying toward the horror beast's back.
Like everyone else on the planet, he felt the relief of surviving. An involuntary smile of reassurance spread across his face.
He believed the Savior would destroy the beast the gods had unleashed.
In the distance, the horror beast roared. A violent battle erupted. Golden psychic light flared, and ruins shook.
"No…"
Suddenly, Mako's face twisted in terror, disbelief written across it.
He saw the Savior torn apart by the horror beast!
The Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, was dead?!
In mere dozens of seconds, the being's body was split in two at the waist. Pale gold blood splashed across the ground.
The regimental commander fainted from the shock, his consciousness plunging into darkness, and fear fell over Vostroya once more.
Before his vision vanished, he vaguely saw the immense daemonic body launching up into the sky.
…
"My clone has been destroyed.
According to the data collected by sensors, Angron is stronger than any of us."
Eden spoke calmly.
At this moment, arms folded across his chest, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Guilliman, Lion, Perturabo, and Khan on an open platform of a cruiser.
Five fully armed primarchs looked down upon Vostroya, burning below.
Just moments earlier, Eden had sent a clone to probe the strength of Angron, strengthened by the gods.
That monster's combat power was nearly on par with an Emperor-clone.
So Eden could only answer with his true body, fighting at almost peak condition.
"We can beat that madman." Lion wore new primarch war-plate, his fighting spirit surging, like a great lion about to hunt.
The unknown was what frightened people most.
Now they had confirmed the enemy's approximate strength and identity. No matter how strong Angron was, he was not invincible.
"From the data analysed by the Logos Armour, we do indeed have a chance to defeat Angron.
But we must be cautious. That fallen brother has the ability to kill any one of us."
As Perturabo spoke, he manipulated automated war-constructs and weapons platforms, forming dense defensive layers in the void.
They would use dozens of modified cruisers and weapons platforms to support the fight, joining hands to face Angron, the gods' chosen.
Their flagships and battleships did not deploy. There was little point, and it would only cause more losses.
The facts had already proven that under warp influence, those ship attacks meant little. They only needed some vessels for interference, or as battle platforms.
"Angron is coming. And there are a lot of daemons."
Eden sensed something and looked toward the flames punching up through the atmosphere as he warned them.
The moment his words fell, the void around them heaved with a warp-storm. More rifts opened. Chaos daemons fell like rain.
Even though the Grey Knights and senior Librarian mentors had sealed the surrounding voidspace with sorcerous formations, the Chaos Gods still paid an enormous price to throw daemons into the area, disrupting the battlefield Eden had prepared.
It showed how seriously they regarded this battle.
Eden regarded it even more seriously. Otherwise, he would never have risked deploying his true body.
Because once he defeated Angron, the gods' plan would essentially collapse. There would no longer be a force in this sector capable of resisting the Imperium's armies.
The Chaos array spread across the stars would naturally be destroyed as well.
"This is the final battle that decides everything. We are permitted only victory, never defeat."
Eden said this silently to himself.
Given the situation, he simply could not afford to lose.
Losing meant catastrophic losses.
Not only would he lose the Old One artifact, the Warp Shield Tunnel-Borer, he might even lose the entire Misty Sector.
If the Imperium lost one-fifth of its territory under his rule, then what would that make him, as Emperor of the Imperium, if not a sinner for all ages?
"Brother Eden, fighting in that showpiece gold armour, are you sure it's fine?"
With battle imminent, Guilliman looked at the decorative golden armour on Eden and could not help asking.
"It's fine. My new armour is activating."
Eden was brimming with confidence.
He had no choice. His True-One Armour had been worn by the clone, and was lost on Vostroya while testing Angron's strength.
Fortunately, it was not a major issue. His latest Redemption Armour was activating. It would be equipped soon.
If not for the fact that the armour had to remain on the forge platform and could not sustain long-term operation, he would have worn it long ago.
More importantly, that armour could not be deployed lightly, lest the Chaos Gods target it.
He had to fight alongside his primarch brothers, burning away Angron's warp-evil and stamina, to buy them better odds.
"Savior!"
Angron's roar, filled with endless rage, rolled in from hundreds of kilometres away. Chaos daemons howled as they surged in.
Boom, boom, boom—
Void weapons platforms and automated war-constructs opened fire to intercept the daemons. Battle erupted across the entire zone.
"We must destroy Angron's skull as fast as possible, or drag him out of the daemonic body the gods built for him!"
Eden crushed the head of a daemon that lunged at him, then reiterated the core objective.
If they could forcibly remove the Butcher's Nails, or tear him out of the mutated daemonic body, they would have a chance to use the Maug'tar Stone to exert influence.
Angron moved at terrifying speed. In the blink of an eye, he reached the designated battle zone.
"Brother Lion. Begin."
Eden looked at Lion and formally issued the command.
He needed this brother to lead the way.
Lion nodded. Runes on his primarch war-plate ignited as he linked his essence to the Warp.
The Warp-energy in this area was so dense that his essence could be applied without restraint.
Crackle—
Visible to the naked eye, a phantasmal Calibanite forest appeared ahead of the platform.
Eden did not hesitate. He and the others charged into that illusory space.
In the next instant, they appeared within the forests of Caliban, breathing fresh air.
Eden and the others activated their jump packs and surged between towering trees at full speed. Before long, they saw the forest's edge.
When they crossed it, they stepped back onto steel ground and arrived on an outer cruiser.
Eden lifted his head to look forward. He could now clearly see Angron's massive daemonic body as the gods' chosen, wrapped in hazy warp-evil.
Only one destroyer stood between them, with more destroyers closing in.
Roar—
Under shipboard fire, Angron swung his axe and split apart the destroyer's turret and armour plating.
Cataclysmic warp-molten lava formed from nothing and spread rapidly, nearly tearing the destroyer apart.
He plunged into the destroyer's interior and drove forward. Every obstacle was annihilated.
This was the Red Angel, the World Eater. Swallowed by rage, he never avoided any barrier.
But when Angron reached a plaza, he finally noticed the ship was packed with heavy machinery and high-energy matter.
Then heat engulfed him.
Boom!
In Eden's view, the cruiser that had been refitted into a massive space-scale melta bomb detonated in firelight, annihilated.
The carefully prepared trap struck Angron head-on.
Yet Eden's brow remained tightly knit, because Angron's presence was still there.
But Eden had never expected such things to destroy Angron. So long as they could shave down his warp-evil and stamina, they had served their purpose.
In the next instant, Angron burst out of flowing molten fire and slammed into the destroyer where the primarchs stood.
The battle erupted at once. More Chaos daemons chased in behind him.
"Kill, kill, kill!"
Angron roared as he swung his axe, dismembering every device and slab of metal around him.
The ship was coming apart.
He looked down at the primarchs ahead, snorting flames like a beast looking at insects.
"This is… brutal."
Eden raised his head to stare at Angron looming over him and drew a deep breath.
Anyone facing such a horrific daemonic body would feel pressure.
Their three-to-four-metre frames only reached the level of that horror beast's lower leg.
"Fortunately, we have the advantage of mobility. Being smaller means we're harder to hit."
Eden ignited his blade and slipped through floating wreckage, launching attacks together with his primarch brothers.
They dodged and struck, aiming for Angron's skull with everything they had.
Yet the World Eater, as the gods' chosen, still exceeded imagination.
The cruiser was destroyed in the ferocity of combat. They shifted to a new platform battlefield and continued fighting.
Rip—
Eden sprinted along a ship corridor.
Behind him, Angron pursued. His great axe swept out, and the entire metal passageway was devoured and collapsed.
Boom!
Perturabo's arc-cannon fire struck Angron, disrupting his motion.
Lion and Khan rushed in and together knocked the great axe aside.
An opening!
Eden seized the moment, turned, sprang off wreckage, and drove his blade straight into Angron's eye.
"I did it!"
His heart leapt, and then a gigantic force swatted him away. His chest armour shattered under the impact.
The strike did not succeed at all. Instead, it enraged Angron further. All the primarchs were thrown back.
Eden hauled himself up, cutting down the daemons that surged in.
Watching this, his mood sank further.
Worse, the monster seemed to have locked onto him, refusing to let him go.
Blocked by daemons, Eden could not evade. Angron's fist came down toward him.
This was going to be a severe hit.
"Traitor!"
But Guilliman, raging, charged back and tried to strike, and happened to step into the blow, blocking Angron's fist.
With staggering "luck," this extreme primarch caught the attack that would have crushed the Savior.
Guilliman was smashed to the ground by the punch, yet he did not yield.
The storm in his eyes intensified. Blue arcs spilled from his body. Roaring, he braced that massive fist.
Then this extreme primarch surged again, crashing into Angron, taking the heaviest hits, refusing to break.
"Guilliman is insane…"
Eden pushed himself upright, scalp prickling as he watched.
He could tell that the majority of Angron's attacks were being intercepted by this one brother alone.
Guilliman, by himself, was soaking more than seventy percent of the damage.
If Eden had to take that many hits, he would have been finished long ago.
"Guilliman, I'm coming!"
Eden lifted his blade and charged back in, shielding his brother and fighting at his side.
He would call Guilliman… the hardest man in the galaxy.
Before long, after taking yet another punch, Guilliman dropped to one knee. His voice turned thick and indistinct.
"Brother… I… I can't…"
(End of Chapter)
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