After Sanguinius saved his Blood Chief, Raldoron, he beat his pristine white wings and rose into the air.
He gazed at the rising golden light. Nareth had activated the power fist on his left arm.
A memory flashed unbidden into Sanguinius's mind: a private cabin aboard the Vengeful Spirit, where he and his closest brother, Horus, sat on cushioned sofas, talking.
Horus had picked up a wine glass and poured from a silver decanter.
"Nareth's martial prowess is unparalleled among the Primarchs. Only you and I can match him."
Horus had then spoken of the two times he had fought alongside Nareth.
Not long after the Great Crusade began, he had welcomed his first returned Primarch brother, Nareth.
Their Father had commanded him to guide his brother, fostering a competitive friendship.
He had taken Nareth to a newly discovered system, to teach him.
On that battlefield, Nareth had thrown a punch of thunderous force, impossible to dodge or block.
Horus had often tried to replicate it in the practice cages, but had never succeeded.
The second time Horus had fought alongside Nareth was during the Emancipation of Drune, a beacon of civilization during the Great Crusade.
Tentacled horrors had been controlling human minds, enslaving the entire world.
They had reached the psychic node and encountered a hive-tower-sized, many-tentacled creature.
He and the unyielding Mortarion had both fallen into the illusion woven by the xenos. Only Nareth had been unaffected.
In the end, Nareth, with his unyielding will, shattered the creature's illusion and killed it with his psychic power, emancipating Drune.
Nareth's willpower, he had marveled, was astonishing.
Sanguinius, draped in an austere white robe, a gold chain at his waist, had listened to Horus's account as he ate from a bowl of jade berries.
His white wings had unfurled unconsciously, their tips brushing against the thin white gauze curtains.
He had then discussed with Horus Nareth's victories over Ferrus Manus and Leman Russ.
Russ was a ferocious fighter, yet Nareth had defeated him twice.
Ferrus Manus, considered one of the finest Primarchs, had also been cleanly defeated by Nareth.
They had extrapolated from scattered information, further validating their thoughts.
Sanguinius collected his thoughts, gazing with curiosity at the rising golden light.
In Horus's private practice cage, he had witnessed firsthand Horus's demonstration, reconstructing the punch in his mind's eye. That punch now overlapped with the one he saw before him.
Nareth's swinging fist struck the Wraithknight's elongated arm in a manner it could not evade.
His fist struck the shimmering shield, unstoppable.
Rumble!
The golden light tore through the shield, crushing the elongated arm.
Fire and smoke belched from the shattered limb. The arm exploded, raining down shards of blackened porcelain.
The magnificent xenos war machine shuddered violently.
Whoosh!
The elegant xenos construct tilted, its other arm, a spear, twisting.
The killing light within it built, its distorted, piercing shriek growing ever more shrill.
The blazing brilliance of a star erupted, a surging wave that turned the surrounding ground to glass.
Nareth's body slid, his golden wings folding before his chest.
The surging, torrential flood struck the golden wings.
Sanguinius stared at the golden wings, feeling a sudden lightness in his body.
Ever since he had first opened his eyes in his gestation pod, he had panicked at finding wings upon his back.
From that moment, a great weight had settled upon his heart.
After returning to the Imperium, he discovered that none of his Primarch brothers were like him. Not even Horus.
Only now, witnessing the golden wings firsthand, did he feel the weight lift from his body.
Compared to feathered wings, these golden wings were more alien.
And more resilient.
The rolling waves of heat and the blinding aurora made Sanguinius instinctively recoil.
Nareth extended his wings at a thirty-degree upward angle, yet they refracted flames skyward.
Though Sanguinius conceded his own wings lacked the defensive capability of Nareth's golden ones, they had their own unique advantages.
The pristine white wings on his back beat with a howl, propelling him straight at the intact Wraithknight.
Golden ripples suddenly lapped outward, shooting towards him.
Sanguinius's wings spun, like a pinwheel.
The golden beam from the Wraithknight's elongated cannon howled through the air, grazing his spinning wings.
Sanguinius raised his blade high. The curved, barb-hilted crimson sword blazed with light.
With a crack, the blazing sword spun.
The ghostsword's crystals crackled. Mist billowed.
As the smoke cleared, three pristine white feathers drifted down.
Sanguinius deftly evaded the incoming strike, sliding down beside the Wraithknight, his crimson blade thrusting.
Ribs exploded. Fragments sprayed.
The surging wave of the Wraithknight's suncannon rolled.
The spinning ghostsword crackled and thrummed.
His fierce attacks fell short again and again.
Sanguinius circled the xenos Titan, tracing a gleaming, metallic arc.
With a crack, the blade tore through the psychic field, relentlessly biting off fragments the size of fists.
Suddenly, a piercing shriek.
The three xenos Titans roared in unison.
Sanguinius followed their gaze, past the spectral flames rising from their masks, to the blue-white blade in Nareth's right hand.
'The xenos Titans loathe that blade in his hand.'
Three voices, but from nine souls, spoke two words.
The dazed xenos minds focused on the black-armored, golden-winged monkey.
Their elegant bodies trembled with revulsion, seeing the one who held the blue-white blade as a loathsome insect.
Sanguinius had learned nearly a thousand words from his past encounters with the Aeldari. He recognized only one: desecration. The other word was utterly unfamiliar.
Its root, its suffixes, he knew none of them.
Nareth, however, understood the word they spoke: Vaul.
The blade he wielded was the Sword of Vaul.
One of the Hundred Swords of Vaul, forged by the Aeldar god of smiths.
With Sanguinius nearby, he refrained from using the obviously anomalous Blade of Shadows, instead wielding the Sword of Vaul.
The Wraithknight, its body askew, suddenly rose, screaming as it spat a deadly hail.
The armless Wraithknight spun its elongated arm, its spear angrily aiming at the black-armored monkey who had desecrated its sacred artifact.
The "Mentor of Disorder," Nareth, took a single stride, appearing before its elegant head.
Light and shadow flickered in the Primarch's eyes. The blue-white blade spun.
Boom!
The elegant head exploded.
The crystal skull burst. Fragments of bone-like material rained down.
The elegant, curved head erupted violently. The magnificent war machine exploded into shimmering shards amidst the roar of its destruction.
Raldoron watched the storm of shattering fragments rain down, clattering and chiming against the ground.
Facing the xenos Titans alongside Thierry Vierra and the others, he had seen that they were far more powerful, faster, and more terrifying than Warlord Titans.
The Titans were called God-machines, but the Aeldar constructs seemed more worthy of the title Gods of the Battlefield.
Yet Lord Nareth had crushed its arm and shattered its head.
'Lord Nareth is this powerful!'
Raldoron looked up at the majestic figure in the air, the flames trailing from his golden wings brilliant.
Nareth's body slid, his gaze finding Sanguinius.
The one who had been darting and weaving now surged forward, his blade blazing red.
Nareth's obsidian eyes flashed. The tip of the blade thrust, biting into the Wraithknight's elegant wrist.
'It was as if the Wraithknight deliberately offered itself to Sanguinius's attack.'
'Precognition!'
'Although Sanguinius wouldn't fully accept his prophetic abilities until after the Signus Campaign, he still foresaw the Wraithknight's movements, allowing him to win.'
Nareth recalled that during the Defense of Helioret, Sanguinius had destroyed one Wraithknight and then immediately attacked the armless xenos Titan.
A storm of death-hail howled towards him.
His wings beat. He spun to evade.
With a sharp shriek, the heavy wraithcannon's beams shot towards him.
The "Mentor of Disorder's" muscles twitched. His left arm seemed to collapse and contract; his back and right arm expanded.
The fifth, sixth, and seventh layers of the armor Ferrus Manus had forged for him shifted accordingly.
The Primarch's massive body twisted like a paper cutout, the wraith-shot grazing him.
As the "Mentor of Disorder's" right arm abruptly contracted, his waist and back twisted, and he slammed into the construct's head.
Bang!
With a crack, gleaming porcelain shards rained down.
Nareth beat his wings, rising, and looked towards Sanguinius's engagement.
He had noticeably quickened his attack, the tip of his blade tracing gleaming, metallic arcs, biting off shard after shard.
The Wraithknight was covered in a network of cracks, its elegant form fissured.
As Nareth gazed at the battlefield, he felt a shift.
A terrible scream, laden with an eternity of loss and pain, shook the entire craftworld.
It carried the sound of a world's ending, the death-knell of a dying, glorious civilization.
An agony, never before experienced, felled Astartes after Astartes.
The psychic scream tore into their souls. Visions seared their minds.
Bang, bang, bang...
Blood Angels fell in droves, clutching their heads, falling to their knees, their bodies trembling.
Raldoron steadied himself with his sword, his hand planted on the blade.
The Shadows of Order, who had maintained the Thelema mindstate, turned pale, struggling to endure.
Thierry and the others looked into the distance. Elegant constructs appeared, their steps following an unsettling rhythm.
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu