Chapter 82: Rise, and Let Us Have Vengeance
BOOM!
Just as Domenico, his face filled with confidence, was waiting for these successors to fall into his trap, a torrent of fire from a heavy melta cannon shattered his dreams of victory.
It was like staring into the sun. A sharp echo tore through the air. Feeling the searing heat, the torrent directly engulfed the gathered Word Bearers. The air, like a storm, flayed the flesh from their bones, slowing their breath and heartbeat to a crawl.
Domenico's eyes suddenly became clear.
Wait, are those our exterminatus weapons, or yours?
His eyes widened. All he could see on the other side of the fortress, on the surface of the lava, was a twisted lump of metal, bobbing with the tremors. In the distance, a Glaive was turning its turret, aiming at the next target.
And how did you even get a Glaive in here? Is the road to the fortress even as wide as its tracks?
Cannon fire grazed past him, deflected by his psychic shield. It was followed by a continuous barrage of fire, coordinating with the charge of the Tartaros Terminators, advancing in an absurd manner, with the warriors chasing the creeping barrage.
And is this level of fire support something a modern Astartes, whose heavy vehicle options have been restricted by the Codex, could possibly command?
Domenico instinctively felt that these were his old rivals, wearing new skins to mess with them. He quickly looked around and saw that the Patriarch had vanished.
Ramesses, sensing the Word Bearer's astonishment, sneered. Who plays by those rules with you? So what if the space is tight? We can just create our weapons and equipment on the spot. They weren't some kind of purist role-players. When you have cheats, who's going to fight a stupid trench war with you? They would make the process seem as reasonable as possible, but they would not be bound by it.
He then tossed control of the newly created Glaive to Romulus, while he himself was swallowed by a psychic rift, going to assist his partners in cornering the Genestealer Patriarch.
"No pity! No remorse! No fear!"
Orlando charged at the forefront, his boots stomping on the molten rock, his powerful war-cry echoing from his vox-grille, shaking the very air. In the past, the Chaplain was always on the comms telling him to keep it down. Now that the electronic comms were useless, he could finally shout to his heart's content. With the clear commands from the elders, and without that annoying Tyberos in the way... that big guy had been left behind to guard Lord Romulus. After all, Lord Romulus's dueling ability was... hard to describe. He wasn't weak, of course, but he wasn't exactly strong either. Something was missing. At least in the first three duels, there were plenty of people who could beat him.
"Only the Emperor!" he roared, his power maul swinging to shatter a twisted chain-axe that was cleaving at him, taking the traitor with it. He then leapt into the inner walls of the fortress. The Cataphractii Terminator armor perfectly complemented his martial skill and physical prowess. He slaughtered the Word Bearers, who had been sent reeling by the melta cannon's blast, as if he were walking through an empty room.
"...Is my shield and protector!"
The Black Templars followed with great enthusiasm. Only the Chaplain remained calm, observing his surroundings, constantly pouring cold water on the hot-headed warriors with the elders' words. Sometimes, the Chaplain really felt that he and the Marshal should switch jobs.
"Useless fools!" the Patriarch's mind shrieked.
Look at those Word Bearers, being slaughtered like cattle. She couldn't understand what madness had possessed her to choose to shelter these worthless things.
"Useless, useless!" she muttered. A few hundred men, all with their own agendas, couldn't even manage their communications properly. They had finally gathered together, only to be wiped out by a single volley. They boasted of fighting for ten thousand years, but they didn't even know what equipment their enemies of ten thousand years possessed.
They hadn't fulfilled a single part of their contract, and now they were almost all dead.
If she had known, she would have taken the fortress and gone deep into the planet's core, waiting for the Star-Father to leave before considering her options. Now she had to risk rebuilding the psychic link and dragging out those prisoners to use as a threat...
Her train of thought was instantly cut off. A familiar presence came from behind her.
She whirled around and threw up her left hand.
VMMM!
A power lance flew from the distance and slammed into her psychic shield. As the energies twisted and ground against each other, it began to push deeper. But the power lance was a projectile without a source. After a brief advance, it came to a halt.
But the moment the lance stopped, the crimson Angel, who had been charging at full speed, slammed into the butt of the spear.
CLANG!
The Patriarch instinctively tried to deflect it with her psychic power, but then she saw the black sword sweeping in from behind her. She was forced to reallocate her psychic energy, and the entire monster froze in place.
"Got you."
In that brief moment of stalemate, a hand that had appeared from nowhere touched the carapace on the back of her head. The Patriarch felt, in that instant, her connection to her brood become infinitely clear.
"All is dust..."
With a sigh that echoed in the depths of her soul, a surging power from the Empyrean began to spread through the network, precisely locating every single node within it.
Synapses melted.
Under the astonished gazes of the covering fire teams, the skulls of every Genestealer in the entire fortress ignited at the same instant. The high temperature ignited their brain tissue, turning each and every one of the hideous xenos into a silently screaming, burning skeleton.
"Good work, brothers," Ramesses said, casually tossing aside the cooked Patriarch. Having gotten the information he wanted, he was the first to turn away. He then spoke to Orlando and the others, who had finished their battle.
"After the battle is over, remain in position. Do not go off alone."
"Yes, my Lord," Orlando replied. He then locked his gaze on the Sorcerer, whom he had found repulsive from the first moment they met. This damned wizard was constantly repeating, "This isn't the Five Hundred Worlds." "Why isn't Lord Perturabo here?" "How can the Thousand Sons be here?" "How are these old-timers still alive?"
Orlando swung his warhammer. The words of Chaos were blasphemy, filled with betrayal. He focused on his dazed opponent and shattered his skull in just three blows.
The clamor of battle faded into the distance. The three of them stepped into a massive sacrificial altar.
"..."
The three of them looked at the scene before them, speechless. Every time they thought the Imperium was as rotten as it could get, Chaos would always appear to show them that there was something even worse.
This was an altar made of a slurry of flesh and blood. Within it were humans, their skin flayed, their eyes gouged out. Every occult form of torture that involved possession could be seen here.
And on the high platform of the altar...
Astartes, stripped naked, were hung from the rafters, as if they were not men, but pigs waiting to be slaughtered. The organs on the entire front of their faces had been scooped out. Their exposed, still-throbbing brains were a testament to the fact that they were still alive.
Below these warriors, on the ground soaked with their cerebrospinal fluid, ninety-nine Astartes were bound by chains to the iron floor, their bodies covered in heretical runes.
"..."
The three of them took a deep breath. They almost regretted having eyes.
Ramesses slammed his staff on the ground. A golden flame engulfed the Astartes who could no longer be saved, sending them to the Golden Throne. He then used his psychic power to break the chains, freeing the warriors who were meant to be possessed. He then created a spatial rift and, for show, pulled out robes, using his powers to dress them.
Arthur and Karna quickly went forward to help them up.
"My Lord..." a Nemesis Chapter warrior said, looking at the knight before him, at his own body, now covered in robes. Tears streamed down his face.
The three of them were silent. This was the first time they had seen an Astartes cry.
They also knew what these Astartes had lost.
Honor, dignity, everything that made them an Astartes had been defiled. Even though they had survived, their gene-seed would never be used again. Because they, and their Chapter, would not allow any stain on their legacy.
"Get them out of here. The fleet has engaged the Hive Fleet. The ground defense line needs to be contracted," Romulus's voice came through.
"Right," Karna said, helping a warrior to his feet. "Let's go."
"My Lord," the Nemesis warrior said, looking at the iron hooks that had once held his comrades. His legs, which would have never knelt before weakness, now refused to stand.
"..."
Arthur silently turned and pulled Ramesses away. "Have you found where the old Inquisitor is?"
"I've caught the souls of those Word Bearers. I just need to find the one who knows their location," Ramesses replied. "I need their physical anchor-points."
"Okay, I'll help you look."
Arthur and Ramesses quickly returned to the battlefield.
"The one in charge here was a Tzeentchian Chaos Sorcerer," Ramesses said, crushing a few souls.
"Right."
Under the confused gazes of Orlando and the others, Arthur dragged up the corpse of the Sorcerer whose head had been shattered. Ramesses quickly used the body to confirm the identity of the soul in his hand.
"Found him."
Ramesses sent the information he had obtained to Romulus, who then sent the processed route map to Arthur.
"Romulus, muster the Sisters of Battle and the Inquisition. Request deployment of Dreadwing exterminatus weapons."
Unlike the straightforward combat style of the Angels, the combat doctrines built around Arthur were six-fold, modeled completely on the Dark Angels' Hexagrammaton.
"Request complete."
Arthur quickly went to the control core of the incinerator and opened the discharge chute leading to the Upper Hive.
After doing all this, Arthur returned to the altar.
"Rise," he said to the Nemesis Chapter marines.
Dozens of Dreadclaws descended from the sky, piercing through the breach that had been opened by the shifting hive modules, sinking deep into the altar, and chewing through the blasphemous ritual runes.
CLANG!
The earth-shattering tremor finally roused the Nemesis Chapter marines from their self-loathing.
KA-CHUNK—
These deployment pods, which no longer belonged to the Imperium in this era, opened to reveal sets of exterminatus weapons, suits of power armor designed for annihilation warfare, pushed to their absolute performance limits, which, when worn, would start a countdown on the wearer's life.
"Rise, sons of vengeance," Arthur said, his grip tightening on his sword, a fire igniting in his cold, stern eyes.
"Let us have our vengeance, together!"