Chitter—
Densely packed carapaces rubbed against one another, emitting a fine, vibrating hum that sounded like the prelude to death.
Boom!
A mushroom cloud billowed into the sky, the unmistakable sight of a triggered nuclear mine.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Before the first blast could be buried by the advancing swarm, a continuous chain of mushroom clouds erupted across the battlefield.
But it was to no avail.
The ground suddenly began to tremble. The radioactive fog was torn apart by physical forms as a massive, dark shadow pierced through the clouds. It looked like a towering city wall surging forth from the skyline—a swarm of Tyranids that covered almost the entire horizon.
At the very forefront of the swarm, the Norn Assimilator let out an ear-piercing shriek.
Those who tried to stop it from feeding, those who led its food to rebel...
They all had to die!
"Die!"
Half of the land was already glowing from the molten fires. A long whip adorned with skulls snapped through countless crystals, lashing straight toward the Lord of Change.
Clang!
The long whip crashed against a staff. Carlos channeled his sorcery to deflect the lash, then shook off the sparks lingering on his weapon.
"The power of the Accursed One is eroding this place."
One of Carlos's heads spoke. "Ilma, leave this place. Head to the ceremonial Rift. You must reverse the ritual and render the Accursed One's plot useless."
"What do I need to do?"
Only then did the other Lord of Change's question ring out.
"..."
No matter how many tis it happened, the daemons could never get used to Carlos's way of speaking.
The massive blue figure paused for a mont before spreading its wings and soaring away.
Right up until the very mont a sche was realized, Carlos's words could still be trusted.
"Carlos!!!"
Ka'Bandha continued to roar. Moving with a blinding speed that even a Primarch would have to treat with deadly earnest, he cleaved right into the Shield erected by Carlos. At that mont, a Rift to The Warp briefly flashed, spewing out raging hellfire.
He had already claid the skull of a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, gifting the Blood God another trophy with which to mock the Lord of Change. Yet the Blood God did not seem pleased; He seemingly demanded even more blood.
This caused the fury within Ka'Bandha's heart to surge ever higher. He relentlessly lashed his whip against this iron tortoise who only knew how to hide behind barriers and occasionally disgust him with insidious sorcery. He absolutely despised opponents like this.
The Crimson Angel was so close at hand!
He was about to clash with the most frenzied vanguard of the hive fleet. His life was about to be devoured by the swarm, and his soul would completely fade away within the Shadow in the Warp.
And yet, one of His proudest warriors was being bogged down here by the sches of Tzeentch.
How could He possibly be happy about this?
How could He possibly be pleased?
The Blood God tightly gripped the shattered edge of the brass throne, carving the imprint of His palm into the tal.
As ti dragged on, His patience was on the verge of burning away entirely.
"Ka'Bandha!"
The sky began to weep Blood Rain, and the Blood God cast down His divine oracle once more.
Clang!
Another violent collision erupted, but Carlos noticed that his opponent's will to fight had vanished.
Clearly, there was sothing on this planet that the Bloodthirster valued far more deeply than his hatred for the daemon bird.
'So that is how it is. This is the guidance of fate. Fate has brought here to deliver a bitter defeat to the Blood God's plans,' Carlos thought.
Carlos imdiately flapped his wings.
At almost the exact sa mont, the two Greater Daemons took to the sky, flying one after the other toward the far side of the planet.
——
"Abandon the decapitation strike. Consolidate the forces. We need to head to Lord Karna's sector."
An Ultramarine, who had been leading Tyberos and Orlando in executing high-threat Tyranid units, quickly raised his hand.
"Yes, my lord!"
Almost instantly, looks of pleasant surprise washed over the faces of every squad mber.
It was the joy of finally receiving acknowledgnt from their Elders, the thrill of being allowed to step onto a battlefield of true Honor.
Watching the excited Black Templars and The Sharks, the Ultramarine could not help but smile in reminiscence. It was as if he were rembering his own past in Ultramar, when he chose to participate in the Ultramarines' trials just to prove himself to his gene-sire.
"Listen to , Black Templars and Sharks."
"You have no need to prove anything to . In my eyes, you are all exceptional. When you look back at history, The Emperor has been forever confined to The Golden Throne, and the loyal Primarchs have all faded away or departed, yet you have still defended humanity for ten thousand years."
The Ultramarine spoke from the bottom of his heart:
"You have always been exceptional—more exceptional than the vast majority of us. Perhaps the Sons of Dorn are not naturally gifted with words, but I can convey my thoughts clearly to you."
"The tales of those ancient loyalists remain in the past, their experiences carved into stone walls. I once witnessed the era when The Emperor and the Primarchs walked among n. To be able to witness your story today is an infinite joy; my life is already without regrets."
"But you are different. Your stories are still long, and you deserve endings worthy of the sacrifices you have made."
"Elder!"
Orlando and Tyberos froze simultaneously. They had never imagined they would hear such words from an Elder of the ancient era.
After all, the Elders rarely spoke on a daily basis. This left the younger space marines completely unsure of where they stood, causing them to harbor lingering anxieties about their worth.
Tyberos was relatively fine. The Sharks were naturally reclusive, and they had a decent relationship with the four Transmigrators, especially since Arthur had dragged them into brawls for an entire month.
Orlando, however, would subconsciously display a look of sha whenever he noticed the Imperial Fists.
He had absolutely never expected this. Were they truly so outstanding in the eyes of the Elders? Were they really not considered a disgrace?
Of course they were outstanding. Of course they were not a disgrace.
"But right now, we need your strength. However, we do not want you throwing away your lives just to save ours."
Romulus's solemn voice echoed over the comms: "Do not grieve for our sacrifices. You must cherish the brothers beside you just as you cherish us, for we are all born equal, and our lives will all converge in the sa place once they fade."
"We ought to mourn the passing of anyone, but the living must march forward across the path paved by the dead, and ultimately convey the final outco to the fallen."
"Yes."
The Ultramarine looked montarily taken aback, but then a relieved expression spread across his face.
"Let us go together."
After the liberated Space Marines began to assemble, the Cadians also received the notice.
The sector where Karna was stationed was the epicenter of the Shadow in the Warp. The Legion of the Damned would be weakened there, and even the Transmigrators would struggle to hold the line.
But the scene that unfolded next exceeded everyone's expectations.
Spontaneously, after only a brief respite, the Mortals noticed that the Cadians—who were supposed to fall back with them—were rallying. And so, they began to gather around them.
Almost none of the troops who had just withdrawn from the front lines chose to rest. Instead, they imdiately integrated themselves into the assault formation.
Everyone looked toward the next battlefield.
Simply because that was where the banner stood.
"That is the banner, and the banner must not fall."
Price took a deep breath, drawing an epic lungful of scorching air. The ensuing sting was simply the best stimulant.
"The fall of the banner would cause our already strained morale to completely collapse. Instead, it is us—our march, our continuous waves of sacrifice—that will prove to everyone that victory is right before our eyes."
"It seems your hot blood has not cooled down yet."
The Commissar stood atop the command vehicle, watching as heavy machinery—now liberated from their previous duties—roared to life and tore across the roads. The morale of the surrounding n was visibly surging higher by the inch.
"Of course!"
Price exhaled that lungful of blistering air and gunned the engine of the command vehicle.
"It is still burning furiously."
Rumble!
The Steel ruins shattered into pieces as the aggressive tracks of the tanks rolled over them.
A colossal army began to charge into the jungle forged of Steel and death.
The ponderous military machines and equally heavy footsteps caused the earth to tremble slightly.
Forward! Advance toward our enemies!
"Then let us use the words belonging to your era as the first whistle of our march."
The Sharks and the Black Templars who had been conducting decapitation operations on the periphery began to converge. Alongside the increasingly active Elders, the Astra Militarum forged in blood and fire, and the people who had endured endless suffering, they let out a unified roar under Romulus's lead.
"May we et again at The Golden Throne!"
——
Thick dust clouded the air, obscuring all vision. The facilities of the computing center had been almost entirely shattered, and the chilling, ethereal phantoms from The Warp ran rampant through the rubble.
Shredded docunts floated in bizarre, anti-gravitational displays. Cracked screens flickered, and from ti to ti, a daemon would crawl right out of them.
"Lord Aglaia, the Volcano Cannon has exhausted its firing charges!"
From the forge world's data center, the captain of the guard relayed a tense report.
"Abandon the platform. Organize the guards to lay down overlapping fields of covering fire."
The force-feedback power armor injected another dose of stimulants alongside a nutrient shot directly into her body. Aglaia and her forces rigidly defended a safe zone that was continuously shrinking.
The world outside the reality stabilization field could no longer be touched. The very mont any weapon or equipnt made contact with the outside, it would mutate into a monster that tried to gnaw off your arm.
Thanks to the Relic left behind by Lord Rases, the mbers of the Inquisition were still able to hold this ground.
They were the Hand of the Emperor; they absolutely had to hold out until the bitter end.
But tragedy always seed to find those who were already unfortunate.
From Aglaia's perspective, she could clearly see the blue giant eagle perched atop the torn-open Do.
Realspace was compressed just a bit further. The Inquisition Guard who had not managed to fall back in ti were instantly exposed to The Warp's influence. Their bodies rely convulsed once before they slumped dead onto the ground.
"Lord of Change!"
Aglaia cried out in shock. Before she could even figure out why she had not mutated into a Chaos Spawn or gone raving mad from the distortion, the blue giant eagle unleashed its sorcery.
Hum!
It was an azure light, freezing everything in its spreading path.
Daemons, humans, and the searing thermal jets blasting from volkite weapons were all suspended in absolute stillness. Even the muzzle flashes of firing bolters hung in the air, captured with crystalline clarity in the Inquisitor's eyes.
Only the blue eagle was unhindered, flapping its wings to descend before swiftly striding toward the Rift.
'It's over.'
Aglaia closed her eyes, but then realization suddenly hit her.
'Wait, why can I still move?'
She hastily broke free from her own ntal paralysis and broke into a sprint. Her bolt pistol rapidly emptied its magazine, leaving a trail of frozen bolter shells hanging in mid-air. Undeterred, she kept charging forward, swinging her power sword directly at the Lord of Change's neck.
"Caw!"
The Lord of Change had completely failed to anticipate that anyone could still move within its ti-stop spell. In the blink of an eye, a deep, bone-exposing gash was cleaved across its face.
Spectral blue blood hung suspended in the air. The Greater Daemon quickly stumbled back a few steps to parry the Inquisitor's vicious slashes, only then managing to channel a burst of pink fire to force her back.
'She is but a Mortal, and even her psychic power is nothing remarkable,' the daemon analyzed.
'So painful!'
In the instant they clashed, Aglaia realized with absolute clarity that this was not an opponent she could fight in a prolonged lee.
She turned her head to glance at the Rift behind her, which had been glowing brightly for who knew how long.
She was the only one left who could still move.
When pushed to the absolute brink, true courage forces one to make the most correct decisions.
Aglaia grit her teeth and made a split-second choice. Without a mont of hesitation, she triggered the detonator on a vortex grenade, then sprinted straight toward the Lord of Change.
The Lord of Change instinctively tried to dodge. It did not possess the luxury of being a pinnacle Greater Daemon who required a complex ritual just to be banished.
But that split-second of hesitation was already enough.
Swish!
A black blade suddenly thrust forward, flicking the tightly gripped vortex grenade right out of Aglaia's hand. Following closely was a heavy boot, kicking both the grenade and the Lord of Change far away from each other.
Rip!
A Rift instantly tore open. Right before the collapsing vortex could completely devour the Lord of Change's body, Rases's hand reached out and ripped off the daemon's head. Drawing upon the techniques he had previously archived, he violently tore the entity's consciousness right out of it.
The ti-stop sorcery broke at that exact mont. The surviving guardsn had yet to even process what had just happened, while Aglaia stared blankly at the flas suddenly igniting over the corpses of the fallen Inquisition Guard.
Behind her, Arthur dragged his entire body out from the Rift connecting to the other world.
"Well done."
The Emperor's ritual was not sothing that could be disrupted so easily, but Aglaia's bravery was the reason the remaining mbers of the Inquisition were still alive.
Aglaia withdrew her gaze, then offered a solemn salute to the warriors who had just returned from hell.
"All for humanity, my lord."
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