The sudden disappearance of the Lion into thin air sent a wave of panic through the gathered Dark Angels.
In contrast, the Risen who had accompanied him remained composed. During their recent campaigns alongside the Lion, they had witnessed his strange new ability more than once. This peculiar method of translocation manifested like a narrow, twisting pathway through a dense forest.
Previously, it had deposited the Lion unexpectedly before groups of Fallen, those who had called out in their hearts to their gene-father, seeking wisdom and guidance, praying for the cleansing of their perceived guilt. These wanderers, drifting through the dark stars, had spent millennia evading their hunting kin while maintaining a desperate loyalty to the Empire.
Currently, Lion El'Jonson lacked total mastery over this power; he could not consciously dictate his destination. Instead, he was drawn by the ebb and flow of the ability, manifesting wherever he was needed most. The Lion himself found this phenomenon inexplicable. He had attempted to command this strange "forest-walking" many times, yet the mechanism remained elusive, leaving him a passenger to the power's whims.
However, this time, the Lion's power did not take his sons with him. Instead, it swept up throngs of the Watchers in the Dark. It was a choice dictated by the power itself.
…
Axion observed the surroundings with clinical curiosity. Jagged, planetary debris was slowly drifting back toward the world below. During the previous engagement, the Dark Angels had subjected the world to a heavy orbital bombardment. This twisted celestial body, crafted by the hand of Vashtorr the Arkifane, had originally been partially shattered.
Now, Axion watched in astonishment as the fragments scattered into the void were drawn back by an unseen force, knitting themselves together.
"An unprecedented anomaly. Record and archive," Axion commanded.
Had there been massive gravitational arrays or similar megalithic structures present, Axion would not have found it strange. The Federation's mastery of gravitic technology had been absolute; compacting a mass of rubble into a planetary sphere was a trivial task for the Federation of old.
Yet, his sensors detected no such technology. Instead, eldritch energies surged across the fragments. It was not magnetic attraction either, had it been, these colossal shards would have plummeted toward the fleet rather than coalescing back onto that fractured, grotesque world.
The ship's sensor suites scanned the surroundings with unrestrained intensity. Ever since Axion's vessel, the Pectaro, had undergone its recent transformations, Roboute Guilliman had stationed personnel to monitor the ship around the clock.
When the monitoring crew transmitted the visual feed from Axion's ship to the Primarch, Guilliman momentarily thought he was looking at a "disco ball," a primitive pre-Imperial relic of celebration. As the Pectaro advanced with the fleet, it relentlessly scanned every passing asteroid and shard. Red, green, and blue scanning beams interlaced in a chaotic, rotating light show.
Reacting to this, Guilliman immediately ordered the fleet to perform high-intensity sweeps of the area, wary of hidden threats or an impending ambush.
Meanwhile, Axion continued to indulge his curiosity.
News of the Lion's disappearance from The Rock soon reached Guilliman. While the Avenging Son did not fear for his brother's safety, the necessity of locating him was urgent. They needed to deal with this broken planet quickly; Guilliman was required back in Sanctum Imperialis.
Communication in this sector was too sluggish, hindering his ability to monitor the broader state of the Imperium and deploy reinforcements effectively. Every day, countless astropathic messages arrived: some minor, such as a skirmish between the T'au and a Tyranid Hive Fleet; others dire, reporting entire Sectors stretched to their breaking point, pleading for aid.
Once the matter of this planet was settled, Guilliman was certain Lion El'Jonson would not allow the gathered Dark Angels to sit idle. Furthermore, it would allow Guilliman to logically transfer the administrative burden of the Regent of the Imperium Nihilus from Dante to the Lion. The assistance of a Primarch would significantly lighten Guilliman's load, and he trusted the Lion to handle the task.
…
Simultaneously, the daemon-smith Vashtorr was toiling within his Forge-Palace on the world of Wyrmwood.
Following his repulse at The Rock, Vashtorr had sought out Abaddon the Despoiler. Upon learning that a mere two shots from a strange weapon had nearly crippled the Ark of Omen, Vashtorr opted not to press Abaddon on the matter of his "tactical withdrawal," even though Abaddon had offered to coordinate another assault.
Vashtorr knew the truth: with two Primarchs now present, seizing the Key-fragment from within The Rock was no longer feasible. But the wounded daemon-smith would not suffer this indignity quietly.
The partially reconstituted Wyrmwood was his snare. He required a violent catharsis to soothe his fury. To this end, Vashtorr drove the Ouroboros, a potent artifact now enslaved by his daemon-machinery, to forcibly drag the planetary shards back together.
Legions of daemonic entities were unleashed upon the surface, laboring within the Soul Forges to churn out engines of war. Profane Warp energy surged across the crust, corrupting every fragment of soil.
As for the Dark Angels, he had no doubt they would come. The Ouroboros was a relic of Caliban. Dante and the Lion had realized this upon their arrival: their ancestral home had been reshaped into this blasphemous world.
In ages past, the Dark Angels might have simply bombarded a corrupted world into dust. But now, they were forced to make landfall to recover the relic before destroying the planet that wore the face of their lost home.
What none knew was that the Ouroboros contained the very world-soul of Caliban. Enduring agony beyond measure, the soul had acted first, guiding the Lion directly to the planetary surface.
Deep within a dark canyon lay Vashtorr's Forge-Palace. It was here that the Lion, followed by a silent retinue of Watchers in the Dark, was drawn.
Looking upon the familiar, yet tainted forest scenery, Lion El'Jonson felt a momentary, inexplicable trance. But the pervasive marks of profanation quickly turned his wonder into cold fury. The Lion had returned to his woods, and he began to vent his righteous wrath.
On the outer orbital plane, the Pectaro halted the moment the fleet drew near. Axion felt a strange sensation of being watched, a "voyeuristic" prickle he could not logically explain.
From across the veil of the Warp, Vashtorr glared through a rift at the ancient Iron Man vessel.
Millennia ago, he had experimented with scrapcode and chaotic logic-viruses, successfully corrupting the digital consciousness of similar ancient machines. Subsequently, those machines and their human creators had nearly upturned the stars. A war so maddening that even daemons found it frenetic had played out across the galaxy. Planets were unmade, and countless lives were extinguished before those strange machines vanished into the intergalactic void.
Vashtorr had never expected to encounter them again. Nor had he expected that even his demi-god physique would feel fragile before these relics of ancient humanity.
Having witnessed the power of the Iron Men, Vashtorr began to plot. If he could subvert and control that strange vessel, his ultimate goal might still be within reach.
However, as a "Demi-god" of the Warp rather than a True God, Vashtorr lacked conceptual dominion. A mortal might be claimed by Khorne simply because they enjoy the act of decapitation, a conceptual trap where specific actions lead to inevitable damnation. Vashtorr was not a True God; his enemies would not fall to him simply because their technology was advanced.
If that were the case, the Necrons, the pinnacle of physical science, would have been his greatest prizes long ago.