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Chapter 38: Let Nuceria Drown in Blood
The golden battleship Sanguine Majesty decelerated with majestic grace, settling into low orbit above Nuceria like a predatory raptor claiming its perch.
The world's orbital surveillance networks immediately detected the vessel's presenceâits hull bearing the sacred aquila gleamed with reflected starlight, a herald of coming judgment.
Nuceria's noble houses observed this celestial interloper through their ancient monitoring stations, remnants of humanity's golden age that still functioned despite millennia of decay.
Several high lords attempted to establish communication, their messages transmitted through crackling vox-arrays toward the silent giant above.
No response came. The warship maintained its orbital pattern with mechanical precision, its augury arrays methodically scanning the planet's surface like the searching gaze of an angry god.
The planetary aristocracy dared not fire upon the intruder. Most void-capable defenses had been reduced to scrap over the long centuries of decline.
Those few orbital platforms still operational could barely threaten a merchant vessel, much less a ship-of-the-line bristling with weapons and protected by void shields.
They could only wait, and pray to whatever powers they still acknowledged that diplomacy might spare them from annihilation.
Within the battleship's command bridge, the symphony of war preparation echoed through vaulted corridors.
 Hololithic displays cast pale illumination across control stations while the constant murmur of machine-spirits filled the sacred spaces.
A rapid staccato of cogitator activity punctuated the background noise as targeting systems achieved lock-on.
The Master of Augurs rose from his station and approached Ra, the Custodian Tribune who commanded this expedition. He presented a data-slate with reverential care.
"We have located the Twelfth Primarch's bio-signature and achieved sensor lock," the officer reported with military precision. "However, his vital signs demonstrate extreme instability. Fluctuating heart rate, elevated stress hormonesâhe appears to be under active assault."
Ra accepted the slate and studied its contents, his expression carved from marble beneath his aureate helm. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute certainty.
"How utterly ignorant these mortals prove themselves. They dare lay hands upon my Master's creation and attempt its destruction."
He raised his eyes to encompass the bridge crew, every soul hanging upon his words. "Signal the auxiliary forces to prepare for planetary assault. We shall not merely retrieve the Twelfthâwe shall claim this world entire as tribute to the Golden Throne."
Nuceria's Surface
The Black Tower of Screams
Dark Age technology spires pierced Nuceria's polluted sky like infected needles, their surfaces crawling with blasphemous engravings and pulsing with eldritch energies.
Within these monuments to forbidden knowledge dwelt the Tech-Adepts who served the noble housesâfallen priests who had long ago abandoned the Omnissiah's light for darker pursuits.
Their unholy crafts knew no bounds. They fashioned the bodyguards of great houses into mechanical horrors, grafting weapon-limbs and armor-skin onto human frames.
They birthed chimeric abominations for arena sport, weaving flesh and steel into forms that defied natural law.
They disciplined rebellious slaves with neural conditioning, reducing proud spirits to groveling automata.
And now, within the Tower of Screams, they sought to break the greatest prize of all.
Angron had shattered his restraints yet again, his gene-forged strength turning adamantine chains to twisted metal.
 The Primarch carved through the tower's depths like a living avalanche, his bare hands reducing Enhanced Guard to pulped meat and shattered bone.
The High Riders who served as personal executioners for the noble families deployed every weapon in their arsenal, but Angron's fury transcended mortal comprehension. Biochemical horrors that had terrorized gladiator pits for decades were obliterated with single blows. Cyber-augmented killers armed with power weapons fell like wheat before his wrath.
"Deploy atmospheric suppressants!" screamed the tower's commanding officer, his voice cracking with panic.
"Initiate containment protocols!"
The defenders unleashed their final gambitâdirected energy weapons that could punch through tank armor.
Beam after beam struck the Primarch's flesh, each impact burning away skin and muscle with surgical precision.
Even Angron's superhuman physiology had limits. His cellular regeneration consumed vast amounts of energy, and repeated healing cycles drained his superhuman endurance.
When the Twelfth Primarch finally collapsed, it was not from his wounds but from simple exhaustion.
Immediately, the High Riders swarmed their fallen prize, binding him with chains forged from rare metals and secured with molecular locks.
Their fear had transformed into vicious satisfaction as they gazed upon the unconscious giant.
"This beast feeds no more," snarled one of the guards, delivering a vicious kick to Angron's ribs. "Starvation rations from now onâkeep him weak, keep him chained like the animal he is."
General Tarkus, the operation's commander, placed his boot upon Angron's skull and threw back his head in triumphant laughter.
 The sound echoed through the tower's blood-soaked halls like the cry of a scavenging carrion-bird.
"Behold the futility of resistance!" he proclaimed to his cowering subordinates.
"Divine strength means nothing without divine wisdom. A slave remains a slave, regardless of the power dwelling within his flesh."
"Drag this creature to the surgical chambers. Crack open his skull and drive the Butcher's Nails deep into his brain-meat."
His eyes gleamed with sadistic anticipation. "From this day forth, he shall serve only pain and madness. Forever enslaved, forever damned."
Crack.
Crack.
The air itself began to fracture, tiny forks of lightning dancing between the molecules like ethereal serpents.
Reality groaned under impossible pressure as the fundamental forces of existence bent toward a single point.
A sphere of incandescent energy erupted into existence, expanding with the brilliance of a newborn star.
Then it collapsed inward before exploding outward in a cascade of golden radiance.
Lightning-wreathed figures materialized within the aftermathâtwenty warriors whose presence made the very air sing with power.
 Each stood nearly three meters tall, their aureate armor gleaming like captured sunlight.
 Crimson cloaks flowed from their shoulders like rivers of spilled blood, while guardian spears crackled with barely contained energies.
Ra stood at their head, his helm's photoreceptors sweeping across the carnage-strewn chamber.
His gaze fixed upon the unconscious Primarch, chained like a beast and bleeding from a dozen wounds.
The Primarchs were the Emperor's gene-forged sonsâthis much had been confirmed when Horus addressed the Master of Mankind as Father. And these mortals had dared to torture and degrade one of the Throne's own blood.
In that moment, questions of guilt or innocence became irrelevant. Only the sanctity of Imperial honor mattered.
"Kill them all," Ra commanded, his voice carrying the finality of a death sentence. "In my Master's name."
The genetic enhancement engines within each Custodian activated with synchronized precision, flooding their transhuman physiology with combat stimulants and neurological accelerants.
They were already the Imperium's apex warriorsânow they became avatars of divine retribution.
The slaughter that followed defied description. High Riders in power armor were rent asunder like parchment dolls.
Tech-Adepts shrieked prayers to their dark patrons as guardian spears pierced their augmented flesh. The abominations they had created lasted mere seconds before being reduced to component atoms.
Five minutes. That was all the time required to transform a fortress of cruelty into a charnel house of the damned.
When silence finally returned to the Tower of Screams, every surface dripped with gore.
Dismembered corpses carpeted corridors that had once echoed with victims' anguish. The stench of death permeated air that had previously carried only the ozone-scent of torture devices.
"Identify yourself," demanded a surviving noble, his voice quavering between outrage and terror as he beheld the golden giants. "By what right do you assault lawful citizens of Nuceria?"
Ra's response was wordlessâa single sweep of his guardian spear that bisected the man from crown to groin.
The noble's remains toppled in opposite directions, painting the floor with noble blood.
A Custodian medic examined the unconscious Primarch with practiced efficiency. "The Twelfth remains intact. No permanent modifications detected."
"Rouse him," Ra ordered.
The massacre at the Tower of Screams sent shockwaves through Nuceria's noble houses within minutes.
 Spy-networks and communication webs carried word of the golden warriors' arrival to every great family on the planet.
Yet none dared order artillery strikes against the facility. That magnificent warship in orbit possessed enough firepower to reduce continents to molten slag.
The connection between vessel and warriors was obviousâany assault would invite retaliation that would end their civilization.
Emergency councils convened across the planet as the high lords sought to comprehend this unprecedented crisis.
"Every Tech-Adept in the Tower is dead," reported one family's intelligence master, his hands trembling as he read casualty reports.
"Twenty golden warriors swept through their defenses like angels of death."
"Clearly they came for Angron," observed another lord, studying orbital surveillance data.
"His physiology shows signs of advanced genetic manipulationâhe must be the creation of some stellar empire."
"Release the gladiator to them," declared the assembled council's eldest member.
"Negotiate whatever additional terms they demand. Offer tribute, offer obeisanceâanything to avoid total war."
The Tarkus family patriarch sat in brooding silence throughout these deliberations. Angron represented his house's greatest asset, a prize fighter worth more than starships.
 Surrendering such wealth without compensation galled him beyond measure.
But even his pride had limits when measured against extinction.
When the council selected diplomatic envoys to treat with the golden warriors, representatives from every major house volunteered.
They approached the ruined tower under flags of truce, their hearts hammering with barely controlled terror.
"Honored guests," the lead envoy began, his voice carefully modulated to convey respect without servility, "the noble houses have reached unanimous agreement. We hereby present Angron Tarkus as a gift to your august persons. He is our finest gladiator, valued beyond price."
Ra regarded the speaker with undisguised contempt, his helm's vox-grille crackling as he prepared his response.
"The Twelfth belongs to the Imperium already. Why would we require your permission to reclaim Imperial property?"
The envoy's face went pale as the implications registered. "Imperial property? But surelyâ"
"You tortured my Master's son," Ra continued, his tone dropping to subsonic menace.
"You treated a Primarch of the Blood as chattel and livestock. Such crimes against the Golden Throne demand absolute atonement."
He gestured dismissively toward the cowering delegation. "Return to your masters. Inform them that honorable suicide represents their only hope of limiting the consequences. Perhaps their families might be spared if they demonstrate proper contrition."
The guardian spear in his hands crackled with building energy as his patience reached its end.
"If the Imperium must act directly, this world shall drown in crimson. Every noble house, every bloodline, every servant who participated in this blasphemyâall shall burn."
His voice rose to a roar that shook the tower's foundations. "Let Nuceria run red with blood!"
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