"Eight people? They only brought eight people?!"
When Angron learned that only eight had stepped out of the shuttle at the landing zone, he was both shocked and amused.
You knew this was my ship, my territory, and yet you still came so lightly defended?
Bruce Wayne… what the hell were you thinking?!
"That's right. The number matches the one given in the notice exactly. In fact, that shuttle was piloted by the acting commander himself. However…"
"However what?" Angron's tone turned cold, his impatience obvious.
If you've got something to say, then say it. Why are you hesitating now?
"Those eight… aren't entirely Midnight Lords. Altogether… they're strange."
Realizing the primarch was getting angry, the Astartes making the report hurriedly explained what was bothering him.
"Meaning?" Angron frowned. For a moment, he genuinely did not understand.
What did he mean, not entirely Midnight Lords? That Bruce Wayne was from the Eighth Legion, wasn't he? If he brought attendants with him, what else could they be—some other legion's men?
"Of the eight, at least two can be confirmed to be from the Thousand Sons."
"Their power armor has been repainted in Eighth Legion colors, but the design is still unmistakably Fifteenth Legion. That's why it feels… wrong."
"The acting commander of the Eighth Legion brought Thousand Sons aboard my Conqueror?" Angron asked. "What exactly is he trying to do? Did you ask why?"
"Report! We did not ask! They are honored guests, and it was by your order that they be received!"
"Fine. I understand."
Angron gave a curt nod and said nothing more.
With his weapon in hand, he strode off toward the arena.
If Bruce hadn't explained himself, then Angron would demand an explanation in person.
Either way, there was still time.
Before that, though, he might as well have a few death matches to warm up and sharpen his edge—then he could properly appreciate this so-called Bruce Wayne.
"Tell Bruce Wayne that I'll be waiting for him in the Blood Arena," Angron ordered.
"Yes, Lord Angron!"
Meanwhile, on Bruce's side—
When they disembarked, Bruce and the others had fully expected to be met with hostility: intimidation, deliberate humiliation, all the classic "welcome to enemy territory" treatment. They had already prepared multiple contingency plans.
But what they found instead was unexpectedly disciplined.
Whether it was the reception detail, the escorts guiding them onward, or the crew moving about their duties, no one tried to stir up trouble. Even the mortal attendants saluted them respectfully.
More surprising still, on one of the Conqueror's famous spectacles—the Odaxica Causeway—they were greeted by the god-machines of Legio Audax. The Warhound Titans, standing in inspection formation, raised their weapons in salute to Bruce, the honored visitor.
For the acting commander of the Eighth Legion and an envoy of Warmaster Horus, such treatment was, in its own way, proof of the respect the World Eaters were showing him.
And because of that, Bruce almost forgot his first impression of the ship itself:
A giant, brutal, utterly joyless fortress of war.
How had a proud Gloriana-class battleship ended up looking this wretched?
And yet, the more he thought about it, the more it made a certain grim sense.
The World Eaters were infamous for their savagery in battle—but only in battle.
As for discipline? Because they had once been the War Hounds, their internal order had originally been extremely strict. Add Angron's absolute, unquestionable authority on top of that, and the whole legion had developed a deep-rooted instinct for self-restraint.
On the battlefield, they were maddened hounds.
Off the battlefield, they were loyal war-dogs.
Still…
"Why the hell do all these people have Butcher's Nails in their skulls?" Hua Falin muttered under her breath as she took in the sights around her.
Along the way to the arena, nearly every Astartes she saw had something grotesque jutting from the back of their head—like twisted metallic dreadlocks.
But it wasn't fashion. It wasn't decoration.
It was the Butcher's Nails.
A device that turned people violent, made battle feel euphoric, and stripped them of any desire to think.
Unless someone was unusually gifted, once implanted with that thing, they stopped being soldiers and became little more than rabid war-beasts.
Overwhelming aggression, negative intelligence.
Like turning a disciplined German shepherd into a rabid mastiff. The cost and side effects were so absurd it made one wonder why such a thing should exist at all.
Even for a military obsessed with offensive power, widespread use of it was a terrible idea. Armies were not meant to exist solely to kill. Discipline and cohesion mattered more.
"That's normal enough," Bruce replied over the squad vox. "Anyone without Nails gets pushed out and sidelined. Angron never personally enforced it, but his sons were far too eager to lick his boots."
He could not help taking a shot at the Twelfth Legion.
If you asked why the War Hounds had become the World Eaters, this was part of the answer.
The legion had once been excellent—disciplined, effective, utterly true to their name as the Emperor's hounds.
But then they drew a father with a shattered mind.
Their loyal war-dog legion became a pack of rabid ones. To ruin such a good legion so thoroughly, while the legionaries themselves clearly knew it was wrong and still followed him—that really was the tragedy of Angron and his sons.
A mutually destructive pairing.
"One wanted it. The other endured it."
"Aren't there factions inside the World Eaters, then?" Hua Falin remarked.
"Not factions," Bruce said. "A mass movement."
Compared to the World Eaters' doctrine of "implant the Nails or be cast out," every other legion's circles, lodges, scholarly cliques, warbands, and little factions looked downright civilized.
And the way the Butcher's Nails had spread through the legion was downright absurd.
At first, it was all about earning their primarch's approval. The World Eaters believed that if they shared their father's agony, then they would finally understand him—and that doing so was noble, right, and glorious.
Anyone without the Nails was not a true World Eater.
An idiotic kind of emotional self-delusion.
The worst part was that the Nails were genuinely lethal, and Angron had never once looked kindly on those who implanted them. But the legionaries, desperate to "understand" him, persisted anyway—dying in droves until they figured out how to survive the procedure.
There had even been no shortage of geniuses who opposed the Nails in theory, only to decide, "But surely I can endure them."
No wonder Angron had fallen into deeper despair.
He had never expected to find people volunteering to become slaves.
And what little affection he had left for the legion had withered even further.
He had not found sons.
He had found imitators.
"This really isn't a problem?" Hua Falin muttered again, eyeing a pair of World Eaters who had started punching each other for no apparent reason. "Mass implantation of something this… blatantly against Imperial Truth?"
"And that," Bruce said dryly, "is why the War Hounds turned into the World Eaters."
The legion's discipline had collapsed badly because of the Nails. Their methods became so savage they often caused serious collateral damage even in worlds the Imperium intended to reclaim. Their once-efficient Great Crusade progress took a major hit.
A lot of primarchs had taken issue with that—Guilliman among them. Even the Emperor had tried to resolve the problem. But Angron doubled down in defiance, to the point that even Leman Russ—who valued fraternal loyalty more than most—had been infuriated by it.
In the end, it had all been left unresolved.
Angron had simply been passed over to Horus's supervision.
So when Horus declared rebellion against the false Emperor and called for retribution, Angron's enthusiastic support had not really been surprising.
He did not care who was "rightful," or who ruled humanity.
He wanted to defy the Emperor.
And he wanted battle.
That was all.
"Commander… our company won't end up like this, right?" a familiar yet oddly unfamiliar voice asked nervously over the vox. "This kind of culture feels terrifying…"
Bruce paused, trying to identify the speaker.
Who… who was that again? Why did the voice make him feel like he ought to save humanity?
Since everyone with him from the Thousand Sons was wearing armor, he could not identify them by sight, and the squad vox did not display names.
"Oh, Megumin? So you won after all?" Hua Falin recognized the voice immediately and sounded genuinely surprised.
"Heh-heh-heh! Of course I did, Lady Hua Falin!" Megumin replied proudly.
"…And how exactly did you manage that?" Hua Falin asked, curious.
The eighth slot had, in theory, been decided fairly: whoever proved themselves in open competition got it.
There had only been one slot.
So how had Megumin of all people fought her way past everyone else?
Bruce was wondering the same thing.
"Because I said I was going to cast Explosion during the competition. Commander Wu Zhi was afraid I'd blow up the Remilia and the library, so they agreed to let me represent the group. They even told me to do well and not embarrass them!"
What the hell.
You threatened to cast Explosion aboard my flagship?
Were you trying to send everyone sky-high?
"Ohhh! So that's how you solved it? Brilliant! That's amazing!" Hua Falin praised sincerely.
Who cared whether this technically counted as threatening her own side? The result was all that mattered. Megumin had gotten herself selected.
"Are you sure they didn't just let you win because you're insane?" Marisa asked with sharp practicality.
If they had not been on the same side, she would already have started cursing.
This was not fair competition.
This was someone strapping on a bomb vest and saying, "Either you let me in, or I blow us all up."
The bargaining value of that position was off the charts.
"Lord Alfred, keep an eye on her," Bruce ordered flatly. "No Explosion without my direct command."
"Understood, Commander!"
"Uh… Commander, why did you just call me by my old name?" Megumin's voice immediately lost all force. "Didn't we agree to stick to codenames when possible?"
"Because I don't trust you," Bruce said bluntly.
Explosion was useful, sure. It could take out a lot of enemies.
But it needed to be cast at the right moment.
If she blew up the Conqueror, they would all die too.
"I'll be careful…" Megumin said weakly.
Amid the banter over squad vox, the eight were led at last to a heavy gate made of crude bronze and jagged spikes, stained everywhere with old blood.
It matched the rest of the ship's aesthetic perfectly.
No beauty. No refinement. Just naked brutality, as if some savage had welded scrap metal into whatever shape seemed good enough.
With a slow groan, the doors opened.
A wave of sound crashed out at them—roaring, cheering, the din of a crowd gone wild. The smell of blood was so thick Bruce almost felt he could chew it. Beyond the threshold, the place glowed like a furnace.
Only then did the pressure truly settle on his shoulders.
He had known the Conqueror contained multiple arenas, fight pits, and gladiatorial spaces.
He just had not expected anything this extreme.
It looked less like an arena than a slaughterhouse.
"Bruce Wayne…"
Angron's voice cut through the noise, calm yet burning with anger.
Bruce followed the escort down a stairway leading into the lower pit.
Even from a distance, he could already see him—
A giant standing in the middle of the half-enclosed arena, clad in bronze armor, axe in hand, his body smeared with blood that had long since dried black.
He had just killed one of his own sons in a duel.
He had won.
His fury eclipsed the battle-lust of everyone present. Every breath he exhaled pressed down like an invisible force over Bruce and the others.
Angron.
The Red Angel.
Lord of the Twelfth Legion.
Master of the Conqueror.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH—!"
The instant their gazes met, Angron let loose a thunderous roar, and the World Eaters crowding the Blood Arena answered with even greater excitement.
"Yes," Bruce said, inclining his head with complete composure. "I've come, Lord Angron."
And with steady steps, he walked straight toward the arena.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 155)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter200)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter110)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter230)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 200
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 180
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/5
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 230
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 220
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/30
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 120
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 135
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 110
I Can Copy Unique Skills 100
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 100
My Harem Is Indescribable 90
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 95
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 105
Still playing traditional Honk 69
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 80
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 70
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 75
Checking In in Demon Slayer 80
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 85
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 70
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 65
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 70
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 70
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 65
Why did they assign me to Uma 65
MYGO Beauties 65
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 55
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 65
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 45
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 45
The Uma Musume Who Became 40
I'm Definitely Not the King of 45
After Maxing Out Every Class 45
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