In the sight of Horus and the other Chaos beings, Terra vanished once again, as though what they had just seen had been nothing more than a projected illusion cast by some machine.
In its place stood a new iron defensive line, reflecting a cold metallic gleam beneath the light of the void's Chaos scars.
Across the armored outer shell of that steel line, one could vaguely make out the gigantic insignia of the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, along with huge honor banners.
The steel-forged defense stretched all the way to the edge of vision, a black mass blanketing the void itself.
It was enough to make any enemy feel powerless.
???
"Grandfather!"
"How is that possible? That has to be an illusion, not a real defensive line..."
"By the Changer of Ways, just how many of these steel defenses did the Savior build?!"
Faced with that sight, every cheer and roar caught in the throats of the Chaos beings. Their hearts sank heavily, and a deep sense of helplessness began to rise inside them.
They had charged through endless artillery fire and smashed through the Imperial steel defenses, only to realize they had destroyed nothing but the outer defensive sector.
What now lay before them was the true Imperial line, and it looked even more tightly fortified, its dark gun mouths flickering with fatal light.
The victory the Chaos forces had just seized had been mercilessly stolen away by the Savior.
There had been no victory at all.
Especially those giant reliefs of the Savior on the outer walls of the steel line - it was as if they were looking down on them, radiating mockery and threat.
Clang.
Under the pressure of that sight, a greater daemon of Khorne lost focus, and the weapon in his hand dropped to the ground.
Some of the Chaos beings even began trembling, their limbs going weak, their eyes faintly filling with tears.
That hateful line before them, and that sinister, cunning Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, had already inflicted too much psychological trauma on the servants of Chaos.
This feeling - being given hope only to have it ripped away again - was devastating.
"A double-layered defense?"
Horus suffered the hardest blow of all. Even Worldbreaker, which he had been holding aloft, slowly lowered, and his voice turned hoarse.
He stared at the sight, numb, overwhelmed by exhaustion.
The Savior had built a double-layered Iron Wall around Terra?
This was too much.
Who could have imagined that behind one steel fortress lay an even bigger, thicker fortress? Did the Imperium truly have so many resources that it no longer knew what to do with them?
"Savior, is this your tactic? To bury me under endless fortifications?"
Horus covered his abdomen and took a deep breath. His face twisted, and even his lips were trembling uncontrollably.
His liver hurt a little.
Ever since the battle began, this Dark Emperor had been commanding beyond his limits. The strain had drained him terribly. Even with a daemonic Chaos body, he was nearing exhaustion under the burden.
Originally, Horus had thought the hardest part was already over, that from here it would simply be a matter of driving forward in triumph.
Who could have imagined this was only the beginning? He felt like he could not keep going.
Sure enough, the Savior was the true enemy he had needed to fear all along.
Troublesome beyond belief.
Horus stared at that hateful defensive line in silence.
He was starting to feel depressed.
At that moment, he raised the threat level of the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium, all the way up to the level of a lifelong mortal enemy, no less than that false Emperor himself.
The whole region fell silent. No one spoke. The momentum of the Chaos host sank lower and lower.
No one knew how they were supposed to break through this new steel defense and reach Terra.
"What do we do now?" Magnus asked, looking toward the Dark Emperor with a slight frown.
The Crimson King still held himself proudly, unwilling to bow beneath the Savior's steel walls.
He wanted the Chaos coalition to keep its will intact and continue fighting, rather than sink into despair.
Anything less would be a disgrace to all the rebel primarchs and would leave them unable to hold up their heads before the Savior.
Then the other fallen primarchs and greater daemons also turned their eyes toward Horus's back, their expressions carrying a trace of concern.
There was no doubt about it. The Dark Emperor was the only one who could continue leading the Chaos armies forward.
Only he could use the art of command and control of the battlefield to reverse the disadvantage, allowing Chaos to defeat larger forces with fewer numbers.
All of them were watching Horus, hoping this Dark Emperor could hold himself together and keep Chaos from being shamed.
"Horus?" Magnus took a few steps forward, intending to console his brother primarch, the Dark Emperor.
From where he stood, he could see Horus's shoulders trembling, as if he had fallen into some overwhelming emotion he could no longer contain.
"Hahahahaha!"
Suddenly, Horus threw his head back and laughed, battle-fire returning to his eyes as he resumed the bearing of a king.
"Savior, do you really think this is my limit? Do you really think a defensive line like this can stop the Dark Emperor?
"You underestimate me far too much!"
Horus's imposing presence returned. He turned to the fallen primarchs and greater daemons behind him.
His gaze was icy as he gave the order, his tone allowing no refusal.
"We continue the assault, no matter what stands ahead.
"From this moment onward, any being that fears battle will be branded a lowly coward and a traitor, and will suffer the cruelest tortures imaginable.
"The Savior cannot stop the coming of Chaos. The great Dark Emperor will lead you to smash every line the Savior has built.
"And trample Terra beneath our feet!"
Horus's attitude was one of absolute confidence and ruthless resolve.
As the false Emperor's instability deepened, they no longer had any road left but forward. Only one desperate blow, destroying every obstacle before them, could give them any hope of sealing away that tyrant before he lost all reason.
More importantly, Horus did not want to lose to the Savior.
He did not want to lose to the being who had humiliated him so viciously.
The Savior's earlier coldness and emotional violence had burned themselves into Horus's mind. He would rather die in defeat than lower his head and admit loss.
And smashing the steel defenses the Savior had poured his heart into building, slaughtering the loyal warriors under him, was the best revenge possible.
When the Savior returned, Horus wanted him to see nothing but blood and wreckage filling the void.
Hum.
A vortex storm formed in the void above Horus's head, while black flames ignited across his monstrous body.
He looked like a god manifest in the material world, radiating incomparable wisdom and the power to command.
That was one of the authorities he wielded as the Dark Emperor.
"Now you will see what true extremity looks like. Destroy the Savior's defenses!"
Countless strands spread from Horus's terrible daemonic body into the void, followed by a relentless explosion of commands and the unceasing projection of warp-power into the battlefield.
In an instant, the Chaos armies received order after order. Moving in perfect coordination, they surged against the steel defenses like a swarm.
"Slaughter!"
"Blessings of plague!"
"Hear this maddening, ill-omened sound!"
"Ah, I see the weakness in the line. Its collapse will come soon enough!"
Under unified command, the allied armies of the gods displayed far greater power than before. Fearless and unstoppable, they crashed forward.
The rainbow tides of Chaos hammered against the metal walls. Every moment, immense numbers of daemons died, and more Imperial firepower was bled away.
The sea of stars was burning.
Beep beep beep!
In the command hall of Holy Terra, shrill alarms blared without pause.
Chaos's offensive had become too violent. Every commander was trapped in a state of extreme anxiety, struggling just to keep up.
Even with the processing support of the Machine-Goddess and chemical enhancement, they still could not match the terrifying speed of thought possessed by Horus, the Dark Emperor.
In his current state, driven by a willingness to burn himself out and aided by the Chaos Gods, he had gone beyond the limits of both humanity and the primarchs, reaching another dimension altogether, infinitely close to godhood.
Across the giant virtual sand table, new red lights kept appearing, while the blue lights representing the Imperium were constantly blinking out.
The data was changing so quickly that even the mechanisms inside the table were beginning to overload, visibly lagging.
"We can't stop him. We just can't stop him..."
Rogal Dorn stared at the situation unfolding across the virtual sand table, and deep in his eyes, for the first time, there was a trace of fear.
That traitor Horus's command skill was too terrifying. Even with Dorn giving everything he had, he still could not keep pace. One defensive line after another was collapsing, one platform after another falling.
Horus had nearly seized complete control of the battlefield. He targeted the weak points of each sector and could even precisely evade the heaviest concentrations of fire.
Even with the defenders holding the advantage in both fortifications and firepower, they still could not stop Horus's advance. Once the Chaos vanguard reached the near-defense zone, that position was as good as lost.
Only now did the Lord of Iron Bulwarks truly realize the vast gulf between himself and Horus when it came to commanding armies in war.
That traitor was more than several times stronger than he had been ten thousand years ago, to a degree that could scarcely be comprehended.
Dorn even found himself grateful that he had not rashly led the Imperium's elite armies to encircle Horus earlier. That would only have led to an even worse defeat.
"Big brother... I failed you. I couldn't properly command Terra's defenders."
Almost in despair, Dorn slumped back into his command seat.
At this point, command itself had ceased to have meaning. The only thing the Imperial defenders could still do was remain in place and hold their own lines using the most conservative means possible.
Yes, that would waste huge numbers of troops and cause even greater losses.
But there was no other option.
Leaning back in his chair, Dorn muttered, "There isn't much time left. I only hope everything can still be saved..."
Along the Iron Wall, another chain of defensive platforms collapsed in fire, like giant whales in the void sinking into the abyss.
"Slaughter!"
Horus's black armor was covered in deep scars as he swung Worldbreaker and destroyed a gigantic gun tower.
Then he and the other fallen primarchs continued pressing toward the core sector, slaughtering their way forward and smashing one hovering close-defense fortress after another.
The Dark Emperor was exhausted to the limit, yet still led the Chaos coalition in breaking through line after line.
They advanced even faster, continuing to go beyond their own limits.
His heart overflowed with battle-hunger.
This was revenge against the Savior.
Forward.
Give everything.
This was true battlefield control.
This was the true art of command.
Boom boom boom.
No one knew how long it took, but at last, the final fortress of that steel defensive line collapsed beneath the impact of Chaos war-beasts and sank into black flames.
The rising heat-waves swept over Horus and the rest of the Chaos host, lifting their cloaks.
Those mighty beings had all personally charged into the heart of the fighting. Their armor was scarred deeply, and they were covered in smoke and ash.
Fortunately, their efforts had not been for nothing.
They had finally broken the Savior's double-layered Iron Wall.
"Burn. Terra will kneel beneath my feet!"
Horus braced himself on Worldbreaker, breathing hard, yet still forced up another surge of warp-fire and smashed apart the floating platform overhead, eliminating the last Imperial threat in that sector.
The floating platform crashed down, setting off a chain reaction. More special blackstone devices began exploding one after another.
That meant this entire sector had fallen completely to Chaos.
"Victory!"
"Victory to the Lords of Chaos!"
The Chaos beings, battered and bloodied yet stubborn to the end, had finally endured long enough to reach the moment of victory.
They had destroyed the last hateful obstacle laid down by the Savior, and tears of joy even welled faintly in their eyes.
Through the command art and indomitable will of the Dark Emperor, Chaos had overcome the Savior's defenses.
"Savior, is this what you wanted to see? Terra's defenses have completely fallen. My authority of command far surpasses your so-called logistical advantage.
"This is true war!"
Horus looked upon the scene with icy eyes.
But when he saw several troop transports continuing to withdraw farther back, something began to feel wrong.
This scene... looked strangely familiar.
"No way... could it be?!" the Dark Emperor suddenly thought of something, and his voice trembled slightly as he unconsciously held his breath.
Not just him. The other fallen primarchs and greater daemons did the same, all of them staring fixedly in that direction.
They had all thought of something deeply frightening.
Then, before the horrified eyes of Horus and the Chaos host, one transport ship after another flew on toward Terra and broke through some kind of veil.
Beyond it, a brand-new and even more colossal Iron Wall defensive line appeared before all of them, cold and gleaming.
"There's... more?" Horus's eyes went wide, and even his consciousness blurred for a moment, as though he had encountered some kind of warp hallucination.
Like being trapped in a ghostly loop.
On that point, the former Lord Commander Guilliman, who had once raced back to Terra only to run into one Vengeful Spirit after another, had hard-earned experience.
But the blow Horus faced now was several times worse than what Guilliman had endured back then, because what Horus had found was one supermassive spaceborne Iron Wall after another, each one like a small continent.
Assaulting a civilized world would have been far easier.
Of course, there was a reason for that.
When Eden first proposed the construction of the spaceborne Iron Wall, countless forge worlds had enthusiastically joined in and supplied huge amounts of resources.
After all, building defensive works for Holy Terra and the Savior was an honor above all honors.
Who would willingly miss out?
That caused the scale of the project to expand again and again. And to conceal its true scope, ever more redundant platforms and components had to be built as well.
By the time Eden realized that the project was being completed faster than expected and was continuing to grow, he had urgently expanded it yet again, trying to build an unprecedented space wall.
Mainly because he could not resist the praise coming from the forge divisions, and because he had become slightly addicted to the artistic joy of building giant wonders.
The final concept had been to wrap the entire Solar System, linking the defensive platforms together into a colossal statue of the Savior.
That sacred statue of the Savior would stand across the stars, towering between worlds.
The forge divisions had sworn up and down:
If they built it, then no Chaos daemon horde, and no Tyranid hive fleets either, would ever be able to break the Solar System's space defenses.
More importantly, once finished, the great sacred image of the Savior, Emperor of the Imperium, would be visible even from beyond the galaxy itself.
The moment he heard that, Eden had approved it on the spot. The construction schedule had been two hundred years, wrapping the Solar System into a colossal statue-wonder.
Yes, the cost had been immense.
But it was all for the safety of the Solar System.
The plan had caused no small amount of controversy. The Lion and others had urged the Savior not to go overboard with defense.
In the end, only part of the project had been retained, but even that had still left Holy Terra with multiple layers of Iron Wall defenses.
Of course, the main reason the full project had never gone forward was that the Mechanicus eventually proposed an even better holy Terra defense scheme.
So Eden had decided not to encircle the entire Solar System after all, and instead planned to build that giant statue-wonder somewhere else in the future.
But the steel defenses left behind around Holy Terra ended up playing an unexpectedly crucial role, stopping the Chaos Gods, Horus, and the rest of the invaders in their assault on Holy Terra and buying priceless time for the Imperial armies.
"Damn it!"
"Grandfather... this can't be real..."
Staring at the brand-new defensive line before them, the fallen primarchs and greater daemons fell utterly into despair.
In that despair, they looked at one another, unable to think of any path to victory.
The only thought reflected in their eyes was this:
We can't win even if we go all out. Why don't we all just pack it in and leave?
Once Horus realized the steel line before him was real, he could barely remain standing. His mind blurred.
The Savior had hidden his hand too well.
Bastard.
Absolute bastard.
What kind of matryoshka orbital ring nonsense was this? He couldn't break it. He really couldn't break it anymore.
The Dark Emperor suddenly discovered that all the experience and talent he had once taken such pride in looked utterly pathetic in the face of the Savior's shameless luxury.
What art of command? What King of War?
It was a joke.
It could not even compare to simply stacking absurd surplus armor and resources on top of everything.
He had lost.
After giving literally everything he had, he had still lost so completely.
"No! No! No!"
White ash drifted down as a cold wind swept the field. Horus shut his eyes in agony. At last, unable to support his exhausted body any longer, he dropped to his knees with a thud.
The long strain of overloading himself had consumed the final reserves of his strength, and he toppled backward.
The Dark Emperor lay there on the ground, his face gone green, a faint tear-line crossing the corner of his eye.
He looked utterly despairing, utterly helpless.
At the same time, in the command hall of Holy Terra...
"Why isn't that traitor Horus continuing the assault?" Rogal Dorn swallowed another mouthful of bitter coffee, faintly puzzled.
Yet beyond the sector he was watching, the warp was already beginning to churn.
Deep.
Dark.
The divine avatars of the Chaos Gods had appeared in secret.
(End of Chapter)
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