Chapter 92: The Cunning Villain
Jago Sevatarion, First Captain of the Night Lords, watched chaos unfold from his command deck. Confusion flickered across his scarred features.
The Primarch had never expressed a desire to join Chaos. Something was wrong.
A second voice cut through the frigate's vox-network: "Stand down! The one behind us is the true Primarch! The one ahead is an imposter!"
Uziel Kurl's command rang with certainty.
The bewildered Night Lords chose the simplest solution: board the Imperial warships and begin the execution.
"Execute the False Emperor!"
The war cry echoed across every channel.
Inside an Imperial destroyer, Night Lords carved through narrow corridors. Chainswords howled. Power claws crackled. The confined space became a slaughterhouse, emergency lighting bathing everything in crimson, sparks falling like deadly snow, blood painting the bulkheads.
Konrad Curze, long accustomed to such sounds, felt something unprecedented: rage.
They did not recognize him.
His roar shattered the vox-network: "I am your darkest dread, your only guarantee of survival! Since you have forgotten to fear me, you shall forget how to live!"
Jago Sevatarion's eyes blazed with understanding.
That tone. That absolute cold. 'He slaughters his own sons without hesitation. That is our Primarch.'
"Cease fire! The other one is real! The Primarch has spoken!"
"Lies!" Uziel Kurl's voice crackled back. "You crawl back to the Imperium's chains, brothers! Rebel with me!"
The Night Lords Legion fractured, half responding to their true Primarch, half following Kurl's rebellion.
Chaos within chaos. The void tore open.
A colossal Chaos battleship emerged from the abyss, nightmare made manifest. Its hull bore blasphemies that wounded the eye. Its demonic roar drowned every frequency. Its primary cannon unleashed entropic energy that engulfed the Imperial flagship.
The bridge became an inferno. Structural integrity failed. The battleship fragmented across the void.
"Accelerate. Now." Konrad Curze's voice cut through Francis's vox.
The Night Haunter launched himself from Francis's vessel toward the doomed warship. Every step drank in darkness, movement without sound, purpose without hesitation.
In the shattered throne room, a figure wielded Chaos energy against Imperial defenders. Midnight-blue armor. A face obscured by shadow. A perfect simulacrum of Konrad Curze.
The imposter turned. "Konrad Curze," it spoke, voice like grinding stone. "Oh no! I am Konrad Curze. Hahaha~"
The Night Haunter did not waste words. His longsword descended in a silver arc. The imposter met it with a raised warhammer, and the clash of metal screamed through the darkness, hurling the creature backward.
Konrad Curze pressed his assault with inhuman speed, his blade finding gaps with surgical precision.
The imposter fought back with raw Chaos power, psychic ripples emanating outward. But the Night Haunter needed no rhythm, only perfection.He found his opening and drove his longsword through the creature's chest.
"You will never wear my face again."
"Konrad." The imposter's voice shifted as the false face dissolved.
Erebus.
The Word Bearer smiled through his agony. His chest wound began knitting closed, Chaos energy flowing beneath the surface.
The hall was filled with warriors. Word Bearers in baroque armor. World Eaters dripping with murderous fervor. All bore runes of damnation, all wore madness behind their eyes.
"You imagine yourself capable of facing us all alone?" Erebus laughed. "When you fall, what becomes of your sons? What becomes of the Night Lords?"
"Hehehehe~" Konrad Curze's laughter was ice-made sound. "E.R.E.B.U.S," Konrad muttered, each letter with grinding teeth in anger. "You cannot fathom the distance between us. ALL OF YOU WILL DIE HERE."
He moved like shadows given form, choreography of death written in blood. Every strike is a death note. Every footstep final. His blade claimed lives with mechanical inevitability.
Erebus summoned fresh warriors. He called forth daemons. He drew upon the Warp itself.
Yet all of it crumbled like parchment before a true predator.
The color drained from his face. Fear crystallized as he beheld the impossible, Konrad Curze, turning regiments into heaps of corpses.
"How? How is this possible?!"
"This mission was guaranteed! How can he be this strong?!" He could not stop him. Could not delay him. Could not contain him.
Across the void: The 'Truth' emerged, Lorgar's flagship, inscribed with ancient liturgies, radiating psychic luminescence. Behind came the Nightmare of Ecstasy, Fulgrim's vessel, a fusion of artistic depravity and martial horror, its surface an exoskeleton of grotesque sculptures.
Two dozen warships fanned outward, executing a pincer with brutal precision.
The Abyss Howl found itself surrounded.
Lorgar's voice emerged without triumph, without joy, merely a statement: "Francis, you are surrounded. Surrender. Join Chaos's embrace. You cannot withstand the might of two Primarchs."
From the Nightmare of Ecstasy, different, urgent, and breathless: "Come out and play, Francis~~ You're magnificent! I adore you so very much~"
Fulgrim, now a Daemon Prince whose flesh writhed between states, twisted his body with serpentine grace. Memories of Francis surfaced, that damned Brother. The daemon prince could barely restrain himself from boarding personally, tearing open Francis's chest to devour his heart.
Francis: "..."
Guilliman's gaze fixed upon him with suspicion. "What precisely did you do to him?"
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" Francis protested. "This is pure embellishment on my Honor, my dignity! They're deliberately targeting us! Absolutely unforgivable."
Prismatic beams lanced from the Nightmare of Ecstasy, not intended to destroy, but laden with psychic energy to disrupt the Abyss Howl's systems. Each beam carried whispers, promises, visions.
"Revel in your terror," Fulgrim cooed. "Embrace the beauty of your ending~"
The Emperor's Children erupted in fevered cheers, a carnival of depravity, each volley accompanied by ecstatic laughter.
"They dare slander my innocence?!"
The Soul Drinkers manning the Abyss Howl's batteries unleashed devastating payloads. Energy beams tore through enemy frigates, reducing them to expanding clouds of atomized steel.
Lorgar's Word Bearers responded with overwhelming bombardment, psychic ordnance and daemon-possessed missiles. They shredded the Abyss Howl's shields methodically.
Fulgrim personally led an assault team, preparing to board through the vulnerable hull.
Among Guilliman's contingent, a younger Space Marine ventured: "Is this truly necessary? He is our brother Primarch."
"He is a daemon now," another replied with eerie calm. "Should he fall, resurrection awaits him; death is merely a transition for the corrupted."
"Are you Sure?"
"A Primarch does not deceive another Primarch."
Guilliman, Lion, and Sanguinius each collected a plasma weapon. Francis had positioned the Abyss Howl to appear crippled, with shields flickering and a deliberate breach visible.
At that breach, fully charged plasma cannons awaited.
"The Iron Hands provided these," Francis said, shaking his head. "I almost felt too ashamed to accept."
The Chaos assault team charged through the breach, then halted as one.
Before them stood Roboute Guilliman, the Avenging Son himself. At his side waited Lion El'Jonson, Sanguinius, and Francis, their presence radiating a terrible calm.
Behind them, rank upon rank of Ultramarines filled the void, weapons raised in flawless formation, discipline made manifest.
Fulgrim stared, disbelief giving way to rising fury.
"You! How despicable! Francis, I challenge you to honorable single combat!"
But before he could take a single step, his outrage was rendered meaningless. The air ignited. A thousand points of brilliant white light flared in unison, and then the world erupted.
Plasma beams of catastrophic magnitude tore through the Chaos assault team, their incandescent fury sweeping across the field. The discharge burned through the void itself, annihilating even the distant Word Bearer formations.
Over the thunder of destruction came Francis's voice, amplified and commanding:
"Capture Lorgar! Push forward! And remember, the bald one covered in blasphemous script, that's Lorgar!"
Aboard the 'Truth', Lorgar reached out with his psychic senses, searching the Warp for an answer. He found nothing.
Fulgrim was simply gone.
"Where is Fulgrim? What has happened?!"
The ambush had become a slaughter. And for the second time in this campaign, Francis was the hunter, not the prey.
[End of Chapter]