"Truly worthy of you, old Ka'Bandha…"
Eden felt the violent surge of murderous energy rippling through the rift in the Veil and could not help but sigh in awe.
He had never imagined that Ka'Bandha could arrive so swiftly—and that he would hurl himself alone against the entire Slaaneshi host.
This was no ordinary warband. It was a coalition of Slaaneshi Greater Daemons, a host vast enough to tear down most of the Imperium's bastions or bring ruin to entire worlds.
But old Ka'Bandha had charged without hesitation. His brother… truly reckless!
The only question was—could he endure it?
...
Beyond the Rift, in the Warp
"Blood for the Blood God!"
Ka'Bandha wasted no words. He lifted his massive axe and bellowed, hurling himself into the path of the Slaaneshi host.
In the mind of the Exalted Bloodthirster, there were only two foes worthy of consideration: the Savior Primarch of Hope, and all others—who were merely "walking trophies."
There was no weighing of odds, no hesitation.
Charge. Kill. Spill blood.
BOOM—
Ka'Bandha slammed into the ground, his axe blow erupting into a volcanic geyser of magma that consumed entire ranks of daemons in fire and ruin.
After that, there was no finesse—only carnage.
The Exalted Bloodthirster rampaged through the Slaaneshi legions like an unstoppable juggernaut, a living battering ram of flesh and brass. Wherever he went, nothing remained but mangled corpses and shattered war engines.
A Greater Daemon of Slaanesh leapt to bar his way—yet with a single exchange it was struck down, its head ripped free.
"So weak… unworthy even as a trophy."
Ka'Bandha sneered, crushing the severed head in his palm before backhanding another daemon into ruin with his axe.
The other Slaaneshi champions trembled at the sight.
They saw the trophies nailed upon his iron rack, the severed heads of foes once stronger than themselves, and their fear grew.
"He cannot fight all of us at once! Close on him!"
A Keeper of Secrets rallied its kin, darting in with a poisoned stinger, aiming to plunge its venom into the daemon's flank.
But the strike pierced only an afterimage.
Before the Keeper could react, Ka'Bandha loomed before it. Darkness filled its vision, then nothing more.
"Cowardly wretch! I despise ambushers most of all!"
Ka'Bandha's fist crashed like a cannon into its skull, reducing it to pulp before he hacked the corpse apart with contemptuous blows.
But even he could not ignore the sheer number of foes. Wounds opened, some gouged to the bone, yet still the Exalted Bloodthirster fought harder.
The more blood he shed, the stronger his aura flared. The battlefield itself fed him, the killing energies of the Warp flooding into his veins.
The Slaaneshi lines broke. Their encirclement shattered. Daemons scattered in terror as Ka'Bandha's axe claimed them by the score, while lava storms consumed thousands more.
"Dark Prince… save us…"
One Greater Daemon whispered, trembling as it watched Ka'Bandha's wrath. A heartbeat later, its skull was smashed flat by a flying axe.
All across the Slaaneshi domain, their legions quailed at the revelation: this was why the Blood God's champions were feared above all.
...
In the Brass Citadel
Flames of crimson rage roared within the halls. The shadow of the Blood God towered higher, not with blind anger but with fierce pride.
Khorne poured blessing upon blessing into His chosen son.
If such boons could be rendered in mortal terms, Ka'Bandha was being showered with endless streams of roaring fire and thunderous applause.
The vision of his rampage was carried across Khorne's realm, projected into the minds of every daemon of the Blood God.
Humiliation suffered at the hands of Slaaneshi champions, shame borne under Synnyssa the Voice and Dexyssa the Claw—all of it was purged in a tide of roaring exultation.
The daemons of Khorne howled their worship.
For in the realm of the Blood God, only strength commands respect.
And Ka'Bandha was more than strong—he was unstoppable, incandescent with slaughter, unrivaled in his glory. This battle would be remembered as the fiercest charge in the annals of Khorne's domain.
"Ka… Ka'Bandha, you can even defeat the Scourge of Hell, can't you?"
Upon the gates of the fortress, the broken form of Anggrath, former First Champion of Khorne, hung in chains as a warning. He watched his old rival's rampage, and even in defeat, felt pride.
Yes. That was a foe worthy of contest.
To Ka'Bandha, though, Anggrath was already relegated to the rank of bystanders—irrelevant.
At this moment, there was only one name sung in blood and fire: Ka'Bandha.
...
The Rift Battlefield
Wounded but relentless, Ka'Bandha carved his way through, sustained by bloodlust and the endless tide of slaughter-energy.
The Slaaneshi champions dared not face him directly. Instead, their armies hurled salvo after salvo—soul-shrieks, warp-horn blasts, endless volleys of sonic fire.
The cacophony battered his frame, cracked his armor, seared his flesh.
But he roared through the storm, spitting fire and ripping the guns to shreds.
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
At last, Barag the Glutton arrived with Khorne's legions. A crimson tide of rage met the pink surge of Slaanesh, and the battle climaxed.
Ka'Bandha surged free of encirclement, hacking Greater Daemons apart like cattle.
He was tireless, exultant, unstoppable.
The Slaaneshi host was in shambles.
"Useless wretches!"
Then she came.
Shalaxi Helbane, the Scourge of Hell, the Exalted Keeper of Secrets favored by the Dark Prince.
Her eyes blazed with fury as she beheld the ruin of her army, for this war had been under the Prince's direct gaze. To falter was death.
Only one option remained: destroy Ka'Bandha.
"Ka'Bandha… you will face the Scourge of Hel—"
She never finished.
A crimson mountain slammed into her like a meteor.
CRASH—
The Keeper of Secrets was hurled away, smashing through war engines and vanishing in the rubble.
"…What did I just hit?"
Ka'Bandha shook his horned skull, dazed. He had been hacking for so long he scarcely knew who was who anymore.
Dexyssa, the Claw of Slaanesh, and Synnyssa, the Voice of Slaanesh, the infamous Twin Keepers, fluttered into the haze behind him, filling the air with shimmering clouds of pink toxin.
Masked by the fog, they darted in with venomous staves, striking for his heart.
"Achoo!"
Ka'Bandha sneezed, utterly oblivious.
But at the instant their strikes came, his battle-instinct flared. He wheeled about with the speed of a hunting beast.
Two colossal fists lashed out.
BAM! BAM!
The twins shrieked as their elegant visages were shattered, bone cracking under the blows.
They tumbled skyward in retreat, howling.
"Gods above… even the Scourge, even the Twin Keepers…"
The Slaaneshi daemons faltered in despair, trembling at the sight.
Ka'Bandha, drenched in gore and fire, was a god of war incarnate.
And in the brass realm of Khorne, the Blood God's laughter boomed.
For His chosen champion had brought Him greater glory than any in an age.
Ka'Bandha, the Exalted Bloodthirster, had gone truly mad with slaughter.
And nothing in the Warp could stand before him.
Crash—
Shalaxi Helbane heaved the smashed wreckage off her body and rose, fury burning brighter across her flawless features.
It was the first time she had ever suffered such humiliation.
Yet the Exalted Keeper of Secrets, the Scourge of Hell, did not despair. The stronger the prey, the keener her interest.
Perhaps this Exalted Bloodthirster would bring her… delight.
But before Shalaxi could reengage Ka'Bandha, another vast power pressed upon the field—
—an aura reeking of the Changer of Ways.
An instant later, the Dark Prince's new command reached her mind. A pact had just been sealed with the Architect of Fate; she was to take her elite and race for the city of Commorragh, seize the Black Throne, and do so at once.
Urgency bled through the order.
Shalaxi drew a long breath, glanced regretfully toward the distant, slaughter-drenched Ka'Bandha, and murmured,
"Then our dance must wait…"
With that, she wheeled her cohort of Greater Daemons and the finest Slaaneshi hosts and sped toward the dark spires of Commorragh.
Ka'Bandha and the legions of Khorne would be held by what remained of the Slaaneshi horde—now joined by the mustering armies of Tzeentch.
In the void of the Warp, new tides surged—this time blue.
The hosts of Tzeentch vomited prismatic witch-flame, scouring Khorne's lines. One after another, vast Lords of Change strode from portals of impossible geometry.
They fell upon the Khornate champions beside the Slaaneshi ranks.
For a time the red tide checked and buckled—
and only the Exalted Bloodthirster's savagery kept it from breaking.
Then a special doom descended upon him.
Kairos Fateweaver—the Changer's two-headed oracle—arrived on beating wings, staff aglint, bathing the air in iridescent radiance.
"Ka'Bandha…"
"Be silent—no, you be silent—hee-hee, can you guess which of us is speaking now?"
Both beaks cackled at once, squabbling over the same words.
"You again—the lying trickster," Ka'Bandha snarled, rage rising.
He had always loathed the skulkers and schemers, the poisoners and backstabbers. Such things were beneath a warrior of the Blood God.
"My lies are never false," crooned Kairos. "They are simply truths… told ahead of time."
He screeched and darted aside as the Bloodthirster's axe howled past. The near-miss did not dent his confidence.
He already had the answer to Ka'Bandha. The staff traced a net of symbols on the ground, a sigil-web that crawled into the very air.
"Champion of Khorne, how barren is your wit.
We have watched you, woven tight the threads, and you—
you are the moth already in the net."
The servants of Tzeentch are not famed for raw might—
but that never made them weak. Their sorcery and guile unmake the strong.
A sliver of doubt—so small as to be invisible—slipped into Ka'Bandha's heart. Kairos plucked it taut and fed it on fear.
He spoke the dreadful words—
—and terror burst within the Bloodthirster's mind.
A circle of wicked sigils flared. Spectral crystal chains snaked from nothingness, shimmering—then turning real.
They bound him fast.
The Exalted Bloodthirster, strongest of Khorne's war-sons, was shackled by chains spun from his own emotion made manifest.
And the vision came.
A human shape—
the Savior Primarch of Hope.
Ka'Bandha's foe across a lifetime; the one thing he truly feared.
He stood in a dueling ground. Across from him—the Savior. Around them, all the galaxy watched.
This was the scene he least wished to face: a true, final duel with that man.
And he did not believe he could win.
In the phantasm, the Savior crushed him in moments, ground his face beneath a boot while the galaxy jeered.
He wept—sniveling like a beaten cur.
"No—!"
Reality: the crystal chains tightened, forcing the Exalted Bloodthirster to his knees.
"Look at you, Ka'Bandha—so craven, so brittle," Kairos hissed, lashing him with witch-fire, carving new wounds with every curse.
The Slaaneshi champions piled on their assaults.
Hobbled by his own chains, Ka'Bandha could only block, barely, unable to strike back.
"Cowards! Contemptible filth!"
Khornate daemons roared in fury at the sight of their champion thus ensnared; even within the Brass Citadel the howls of Greater Daemons shook the vaults.
Khorne's own flame surged—yet the Blood God saw it too:
"Ka'Bandha is fallen to the fear within."
For the mightiest of His champions, that was a mortal flaw—
and expectation cooled to iron disappointment.
Under the rain of sorcery and blades, Ka'Bandha's wounds deepened. He began to sag.
"Hss… this won't do…"
Eden received the warning of Ka'Bandha's peril—and worry clenched his heart.
His dream of unifying the galaxy and the Warp was not yet won. How could a brother fall now?
If Ka'Bandha fell and his terrible momentum died, Eden would lose an arm at the shoulder. The road ahead would steepen into a cliff.
One way or another, he would break this crisis.
"Titus—escort me to the Veil rift."
Eden seized a Sacred Bone-Ash Shell and sprinted for the rupture while Titus led the elite Terror Guard, cutting a path.
With Ka'Bandha and the Khornate legions holding the line, the pressure at the Redemption Arena had eased—no fresh Slaaneshi waves poured through.
And with word spreading that the Savior of Hope would soon descend upon Commorragh, the Chaos Gods themselves turned their gaze toward the city, the Black Throne, and that Emperor's clone.
"Hold on, Ka'Bandha!"
Eden thundered onward with the shell on his shoulder—brother racing to brother's side.
Titus and the elite carved forward until they reached the edge of the Veil.
Ordinarily the breach cut both ways—
but for mortals and aeldari alike, the Warp meant death.
Eden knew the Immaterium well enough. He did not plunge through. He leaned just inside, feeling with the Little Sun and his own psyker's sight… and fixed Ka'Bandha's position.
On the far side—
From a neglected fold of the Veil, a pale bone-forged weapon slid forth—and fired.
BOOM—
A newborn sun blossomed over Ka'Bandha's prison. Slaaneshi and Tzeentchian champions screamed, clutching at blinded eyes.
It was all Eden could give.
That quarter teemed with daemons. He could not force his way in—and stepping into the Warp outright risked the Chaos Gods closing their talons around him.
Holy bombardment was the best aid—and Ka'Bandha's hide was thick enough to weather it.
The Accursed energies packed into that sun did their work, staggering the enemy's assault.
Within the vision, Ka'Bandha felt the Savior's breath in the fire, a presence like a brand across the soul.
Help… from an enemy? Perhaps.
Crushed to his knees, the Exalted Bloodthirster stared up at the Savior's phantom—and suddenly understood.
If he was the Savior's life-long foe, how could he die to a coward's hex?
Would that not make the man laugh?
What right had he to stand across from that warrior… if he could not even master his own fear?
Ka'Bandha's gaze hardened. He surged to his feet. The axe fell—
and the Savior's illusion shattered.
With it, the secret terror he had nursed in his heart broke.
The Exalted Bloodthirster burned his inner demon to ash. Power flooded in. Certainty crystallized: in their destined duel, he would take the man's head.
In that instant, he feared nothing—
only battle remained.
He knew now why he had faltered before the Savior—
fear had always tugged his hand.
The next time they met, there would be no dread, no step back. Only a fight to the end—until the Savior fell.
That would be the greatest honor he could pay that man.
End of Chapter）
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