No longer restrained by lesser foes, Ka'Bandha rampaged like a hound slipped from its leash. He did not deign to compete with other Greater Daemons for common kills; as one of the Blood God's most favored, he knew that "stealing" found no favor with Khorne.
True glory lay only in the slaughter of the mighty.
His eyes swept the carnage, locking instantly onto the figure watching him with equal predatory focus from across the field: Roboute Guilliman.
"So… Guilliman! Thirteenth creation of the Anathema, Regent of the Corpse-Realm! You shall be the premier offering beneath the Skull Throne!" Ka'Bandha bellowed. With a roar that shook the firmament, he led his Khornate host in a headlong charge toward the Primarch.
Bloodletters, Bloodcrushers, and Skull Cannons surged forward in a crimson tide. Under Ka'Bandha's vanguard, the daemonic wedge tore through the Imperial lines in a heartbeat.
"The hour to seize glory for our Father is at hand! For Guilliman! For the Five Hundred Worlds!!"
The Commander of the Ultramarines Honour Guard stood undaunted. As the pride of the Legion and the Victrix Guard, they raised their bolters and their Axes of Ultramar, meeting the daemonic charge with a defiant howl.
Guilliman himself, the Emperor's Sword held high, led the counter-charge.
In the madness of the 41st Millennium, despite the prevalence of world-ending ordnance, the ultimate resolution always came down to cold steel. As the chainswords of the Astartes clashed with the Hellblades of the Bloodletters, the battle dissolved into a theater of horrific slaughter.
The Honour Guard fought as champions, reaping a harvest of daemonic heads. The Legio Custodes, those golden sentinels, were even more devastating; though they were occasionally maligned by history, here, unfettered by narrative convenience, they were gods of war.
Yet, the fundamental logic of the Warhammer universe dictates that while the rank-and-file bleed, the masters must duel.
Ka'Bandha cleaved through a squad of Imperial Fists and Ultramarines with contemptuous ease, turning his mocking laughter toward Guilliman.
"ROAR-GHAHHH!!"
With a thunderous cry, Ka'Bandha brought his axe down in a strike meant to split the world.
Guilliman met the blow with the Emperor's Sword. Though the blade appeared slender compared to the Daemon's massive weapon, it was a shard of the Emperor's own will. The sword held firm against the impact, but Guilliman fared worse. He was never the most martially gifted of his brothers; he was a statesman, an administrator, the "Duke of Wellington" of the Primarchs.
The supernatural strength of the Bloodthirster surged through the parry. Guilliman's hands went numb, and the legs of the Armour of Fate were driven deep into the Martian-red soil of the plateau.
"Kugh—! Not... not yet!" Guilliman roared, heaving upward with every ounce of his gene-enhanced strength to shove the daemon back.
To Ka'Bandha, it was a joke. The Greater Daemon spun his axe in a blindingly fast blur, a feat of supernatural weapon-mastery. One stroke aimed for the head, followed instantly by a backswing targeting Guilliman's midsection.
The Primarch was forced into a desperate, reactive defense, left with no opening to strike back.
"Hahaha! You are a pale shadow of Sanguinius! Your skull is hardly worth the effort of taking!" Ka'Bandha mocked. Seeing the blue giant failing, his laughter erupted like a volcanic vent.
At the mention of his martyred brother, Guilliman's composure broke into incandescent fury. He lunged with all his might, but his strikes found only empty air or the flat of the daemon's axe.
An hour passed in a blur of blood and fire, and Guilliman was flagging.
Ka'Bandha delivered a blow with his full weight, sending the Primarch tumbling ten meters back. The Daemon took to the sky, preparing a final, diving execution to end the Lord Regent's life.
In that terminal moment, a pillar of holy light descended from the heavens, illuminating the entire battlefield.
The mortals who had been driven to mindless bloodlust by the Khornate aura suddenly regained their clarity, much like the Skaven hearing the Great Bell. Even Ka'Bandha was momentarily blinded, the unbridled daemon forced to shield his eyes against the solar-bright emanation.
"Reveal yourself, Light-bringer!" the Bloodthirster roared.
A girl's voice, layered with a thousand divine echoes, answered.
"I am the herald of the Emperor's Light, the Saint of Hope. I am Saint Celestine!"
As the radiance dimmed, the Living Saint stood revealed, clad in gold, her black hair short, her visage a mask of serene, celestial beauty.
The reactions among the Imperial host were mixed. Members of the Ordo Malleus and the Grey Knights watched the winged saint with suspicion and guarded hostility. The common soldiery fell to their knees, weeping and praising the Emperor.
But none were as fervent as the Adepta Sororitas.
Squad Cherubim: "Saint Celestine! Saint Celestine!!"
Squad Seraphim: "Mother Celestine! Please sign my cleavage!"
Penitent Engine: "AARGH-HNNGH-RAAAGH!! (Save us from this agony, Mother Celestine!!)"
Sister Superior: "A-A thousand apologies, O Great Living Saint... our sisters are perhaps... over-enthusiastic. But if I might take a single nude daguerreotype of you to keep under my pillow, it would be most appreciated!!"
"Oh... settle down, my children," Celestine chuckled softly, waving to her devotees. "We are on a battlefield. As for the portraits, I believe I've already seen enough of them on your cathedral windows. Steady now."
Familiar with the madness of her followers, Celestine drifted down to hover just above the ground. With a wave of her hand, a surge of the Emperor's golden light flooded Guilliman, restoring his flagging strength.
"My thanks, Living Saint," Guilliman said, his tone a complex weave of gratitude and distrust. He did not trust the miraculous, yet he had been saved by her too many times to count. "Has my Father sent you? Is the Imperium truly unable to prevail on its own?"
Celestine gestured to two Seraphim to act as her honor guard. She looked at the Primarch with a cryptic smile. "No, blond little prince. I am here by the God-Emperor's decree because the true enemy is only just arriving."
On the opposite side of the field, within the Skaven lines.
The Great Bells of Doom began to toll, though no wind blew and no rat pulled the ropes. Every bell rang in perfect, harrowing unison. A massive rift in the veil tore open, fueled by the warp-chimes and the agonizing screams of the Grey Seers whose bodies were being used as anchors.
A portal, leading directly from the Realm of Ruin, split the air amidst the Skaven host.
A new breed of horror, never before seen in the mortal realm, stepped through. A towering, grey-white Verminlord, muscle-bound and radiating an aura of absolute dread, led a legion of Skaven daemons.
"What... what manner of daemons are those?!" The Inquisitors and Grey Knights were aghast. To see a completely unknown category of daemonic entity manifest on Holy Terra was a stinging insult to their expertise.
This was Skreech Verminking, leading a Vermin Herder daemon cadre. As the King of Rats, he commanded the loyalty of all clans.
In the vanguard stood the Mors Vermin Herders, clad in crimson-black power armor and wielding warp-halberds. Behind them stood the Skryre Vermin Herders, clutching exotic, sci-fi weaponry that defied conventional physics. A few Moulder Vermin Herders followed, their bodies fused into the monstrous beasts they rode.
Lucius had been slightly annoyed during their creation; while he had intended the Verminlords to be tall, lithe, and almost elven in their grace, the Moulder faithful believed that "perfection" meant looking as much like the multi-tailed Great Horned Rat as possible, leading to some truly grotesque self-modifications.
Hidden on the fringes were the assassins of Clan Eshin and the plagues of Clan Pestilens. The latter kept their distance, as even a Skaven daemon's rot could be inconvenient for their allies.
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