After the Blood Angels had secured the dock area, First Captain Raldoron immediately deployed the original two hundred companies into three battle groups and launched the attack.
When Sanguinius had accepted his sometimes volatile sons, to address the Legion's craving for bloodshed, he had, like Nareth, brought a sense of order to the Legion.
Upon its reformation, the Blood Angels had consisted of two hundred companies. When the Angel had proclaimed the rebirth of the reformed Legion, each company numbered about three hundred warriors.
Now, the number of companies had grown to over two hundred and seventy.
Company strengths had also increased; some companies now had nearly five hundred battle-brothers.
Sanguinius, taking inspiration from the Luna Wolves, often formed temporary battle groups of varying sizes based on operational needs.
His most exceptional son, Chapter Grand Master Raldoron, excelled at this.
The Grand Master deployed seventy companies on each flank. As they extended forward, covering the route from the dock area to the node identified by the Librarians, he decided to personally lead sixty companies in a direct thrust towards the node.
Before launching the assault, Raldoron, following tradition, summoned the company captains.
He took a tall, narrow-bottomed cup from a metal case. It was forged from blackened metal, its outer surface covered with a shallow layer of fine spikes.
The tips of the spikes were hollow.
All the captains removed their right gauntlets. Raldoron then took the cup with his bare hand, gripping it tightly.
The sharp spikes pierced his tough palm, drawing blood.
Raldoron passed the cup to the captain beside him, who passed it on.
The spikes were wetted by the blood of sixty captains. The cup grew heavy with the liquid it now held.
Finally, Raldoron received the cup back.
He put on his gauntlet; the others did the same, their ceramite closing with a series of clicks.
The First Captain wet his index finger in the mingled blood of the sixty captains. He made a mark on each captain: a red line on the right wing of the Blood Angels' Legion emblem, a winged blood drop, a ruby droplet with wings.
The Terrans were reluctant to call the Legion's custom a 'ritual'; such religious practices were strictly forbidden by the Emperor's teachings.
They considered it a tradition, a pre-battle custom.
It had been part of Baal's culture since before the Burning War.
By sharing blood before battle, by marking each warrior's armor with blood, the oaths between battle-brothers were reforged and strengthened.
They were all of the same bloodline.
"Our blood-brothers have spread their wings," Raldoron bellowed.
"They are the anvil."
"We are the hammer. We are the storm. We will crush the enemy."
Raldoron was confident. The Blood Angels' swift assault would tear through the enemy lines, leaving a field of xenos corpses for the Shadow of Order.
The captains donned their helmets. A soft whirring sound, and the emerald visors activated.
Various icons and signals were transmitted via neural interface to their cerebral cortices. The warriors of their squads, under the watchful eyes of the Wardens, had completed the Blood Ritual.
Raldoron's battle group loaded bolt shells, preparing to deal death.
They strode out onto the elegant Aeldari pathways. The heavy thud of their magnetic boots echoed. Runes flickered rapidly across their visors.
"Four o'clock. The battle group on the right flank has lured out the xenos hidden in the psychic mist."
"Tear them apart!"
"For Sanguinius and the Emperor!"
As Raldoron issued the order over the primary vox network, he broke into a running stride.
He threw a Krak grenade, which erupted in a storm.
The grenade howled into the Aeldari formation, detonating before the Warlock.
As his psychic shield flickered, the bolt shells fired by Raldoron streaked past the surrounding Dire Avengers, striking the Warlock with precision.
Boom, boom, boom...
Raldoron's battle group joined the firestorm. The rising symphony of explosions drowned out the vengeful storm of Khaine.
"Grenades," Raldoron ordered. "Assault pattern."
The front-line assault squads of each company moved in perfect synchronization with the First Captain.
They pulled cylindrical objects from their belts, holding them ready.
Grenades tumbled through the air, slamming into the Dire Avengers.
The Blood Angels raised their chainswords and other weapons, shielding themselves from the blinding, multi-layered flash of the explosions.
A rolling thunder of detonations echoed. An entire formation of Dire Avengers, along with the Warlock, burst apart.
"Enemy attack!"
The warning from Librarain Kano had barely sounded over the vox channel when flaming meteors streaked from the sky.
Six Seers rose into the air. They swirled within the fiery streams. The flames of hell erupted from their eyes.
The Seers of Magc'Sithraal unleashed their fiery streams without restraint, unconcerned about the Dark Gods who eternally hunted their souls.
The fiery streams from the sky converged, pouring down in a cascading torrent.
The Librarian team raised their force staves in unison, erecting an invisible barrier.
Boom, boom, boom!
The blasts echoed, the ground shuddering violently.
The blinding light stole the Blood Angels' vision.
The mad, raging torrent of fire overpowered the barrier of reason.
Three Librarians' psychic hoods blazed with flame, their skulls raining down as meteors.
The destructive torrent tore through the psychic barrier, detonating in the center of Raldoron's battle group.
Hundreds of Blood Angels were incinerated to ash, leaving gaping holes in the formation.
Without needing to check his visor, Librarian Kano could feel the agony of his battle-brothers being burned by the psychic flames.
His gaze was cold as he stared at the xenos psykers in the air. They used their powers with wanton abandon.
He would not be like them.
His psychic power was wielded with precision, like a boltgun or a blade.
Not wild, but lethal and precise.
Kano extended his consciousness, touching Raldoron's mind.
"First Captain, attack!"
Boom!
As Raldoron aimed at one of the Seers, Kano swung his force staff.
A bolt shell roared. A psychic crystal blazed.
The bolt shell was wreathed in shimmering light.
Bang!
The diamond-hard shell screamed upward.
Crackle, crackle...
Amidst a series of piercing cracks, the shell punched through the flame shield, striking the Seer's head.
Boom!
The Seer's head exploded.
As the Blood Angels' Librarians propelled Raldoron's battle group towards the psychic node, the Shadows of Order 8th Chapter relieved the 11th Chapter and launched a full-scale assault.
"Guardian" Thierry Vierra strode forward. In his prototype Saturn-pattern Terminator Armor, he was even faster than "Warriors" in Mark II power armor.
He charged forward at high speed, crashing into the formation of Windriders.
After becoming a "Guardian," his blade, reforged for him by the Kassai sword-masters, had been in his service for nearly sixty years. When activated, it now blazed with psychic light.
A flash of leaping, multicolored light, and the Windrider pilots and their jetbikes were blasted into fragments.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
Three Windriders screamed through the air, leaving streaks of afterimages in the Shadows of Order's eyes, flying straight at the black-armored 'umie.
"Guardian" Thierry spun his blade. A dazzling light swept across the afterimages.
Bang, bang, bang...
Amidst the detonations, Thierry spun around.
Mists wafted. The crystal dome glowed with a pale light.
Fiery meteors materialized from the void.
The "Warlock" Librarian's "Eyes of Mystery Prying," faster than his battle-brothers around him, detected the attack hidden within the psychic mist.
The "Warlock" suddenly raised his hand, throwing a cloud of powder made from ground Krakenscale and black obsidian.
Bang, bang, bang...
Amidst the detonations, the fiery streams crashed against the force barrier like a waterfall.
The "Warlock's" face grew increasingly pale. Even with the power bestowed by his father, he could not match the combined attack of the seven Seers hidden within the psychic mist.
Amidst the crackling, the black powder turned to points of light. The range of the force barrier shrank rapidly.
The Librarian's obsidian eyes shifted. He saw, ahead of him, the Honour Guard members' black armor glowing with the pure, clean light of dawn.
The fiery streams crashed down, only to be swallowed by the dreamlike radiance.
The Viscounts of the Court could hold, but what of the ordinary initiates?
As the Librarian pondered, a blast echoed in his ears.
"Guardian" Thierry shot past him, landing within the 4th Company's formation.
He, along with Buca, Captain of the 1st Company, Joe Watara, Captain of the 2nd Company, and Pierre Wright, Captain of the 3rd Company, knelt in unison, planting their greatswords in the ground.
The dawn-like light of "Guard" blazed around them, forming ethereal walls on either side, shielding the warriors within.
The fiery streams surged forward, crashing against the invisible walls, then splitting and scattering to the sides.
"Attack!"
The "Dawn Knights" of the Honour Guard suddenly planted their two-handed greatswords into the ground. Shards of dawn-like light rose into the air.
A raging, scintillating tempest burst skyward, tearing through the psychic mist.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Four Seers were shredded by the "Light Storm."
The "Guardians" rose as one. Pillars of light shot skyward.
The dawn-light emitted by each "Guardian" surpassed that of over thirty "Dawn Knights."
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
The tempest raged, tearing apart the four remaining Seers.
With the Seers who had generated the mist dead, the concealed, shimmering light shone into the "Warlock's" "Eyes of Mystery Prying."
The psychic node!
...
Bang!
A blast echoed. The xenos' foul blood stained the pristine white right wing of Raldoron's Legion emblem.
He glanced at Kano, the sole survivor of the fourteen Librarians. His armor was coated in ice.
Raldoron was about to speak when the communicator in his helmet buzzed.
He listened to the report from the allied force, then looked silently into the distance.
'Thierry, you have bested me.'
'I unleashed a storm locally, but you have become the anvil for the entire battlefield.'
Raldoron was about to issue the order to rally and support his allies when the communicator buzzed again.
He listened to the message, then spoke to Librarian Kano, who had walked to his side. "They're here..."
....
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