The Fedanmore Mountains.
On Nuceria, they were among the most common mountain ranges—though these particular peaks happened to lie near the important city of Deshya.
Because their summits were shrouded year-round in crimson sand and the environment was relatively harsh, many locals treated the region as a traditional proving ground for coming-of-age trials.
But it also held a buried past.
Long ago, a band of slaves had risen in rebellion at Deshya. Unable to take the city, they were forced to retreat to the Dechelica Ridge, where a drawn-out struggle followed.
Yet the high riders of Nuceria held every advantage—resources, organization, logistics. The slaves were steadily driven back until annihilation seemed inevitable.
At that desperate hour, the rebels chose to launch one last assault. Even if they died, they would at least smear their blood—blood that refused submission—across the faces of those noble masters.
And so they charged under their leader's banner.
They had even begun to glimpse the first hint of victory—
And then, at the height of battle, their leader vanished.
No one knew where he had gone. But once their leader disappeared, the slave army collapsed almost at once. The high riders seized back the initiative and wiped them out with ease.
After that, the slaves never rose again. Nuceria's gladiatorial culture flourished as before. No one cared to remember what had happened here, and with time, the story of this mountain range was buried beneath history's dust.
"Why did you bring me to this place?" Angron demanded, forcing down his anger as he glared at Bruce.
From the moment Bruce had said they were going to Nuceria, Angron had felt something was wrong. He had never imagined Bruce would bring him here—to the place of his defeat.
You bastard. Were you this eager to humiliate me? To grind my dignity into the dirt?
Impossible.
You will get nothing from me except rage.
Nothing.
"Hah. History got rewritten, didn't it…" Bruce crouched and brushed the weathered dust from an old stone monument. As he studied the Nucerian script carved into it, he let out a sigh.
Can't change history? Then rewrite it. Nobles really are the same everywhere. If this were Nostramo, they'd have been strung up on the streetlights by now.
"Answer me, Bruce!" Angron roared again.
If Bruce hadn't been carrying those two ridiculous tools on him—one that suppressed his temper, the other that dulled his pain—Angron would already have buried an axe in him.
"Don't start growling yet. I know this place has a very special meaning to you."
"And?" Angron snapped, his face reddening.
He was already on the verge of exploding.
"Did you never think of coming back?" Bruce asked as he walked on. "Did you never think of coming back to see them?"
He had already spotted a group hurrying up the mountain from below.
According to the high riders, the rebels had been evil slaves, and luckily they had been crushed, otherwise Nuceria would have been doomed.
As for Angron's sudden disappearance, they had branded him a cowardly fugitive—someone who deserved to be nailed to a pillar of shame. Never once realizing that this "coward" was now the son of the Emperor with whom they had negotiated.
"There was no point," Angron said coldly.
"My rebellion failed. My comrades died. Why would I come back here? To avenge myself on enemies I couldn't defeat back then, just because now I have the power?"
"You have a point," Bruce said aloud, while inwardly slapping a clown label on Angron.
So because you couldn't win back then, you decided you'd never win later either?
Yes, the Emperor had deliberately forbidden Angron from returning to Nuceria and had privately worked out some kind of arrangement with its ruling class.
But that wasn't an excuse.
Even asking the Emperor—I want to come back and see it once—in exchange for managing his legion properly and carrying out the Great Crusade on schedule, would have been something.
In the end, Angron had simply resigned himself. He clearly wanted to do something, yet he had chosen to believe he couldn't.
They stopped at the edge of a cliff.
Angron's breathing grew ragged behind him, his fists crackling as he clenched them.
Below lay the closed canyon.
Countless skeletons, worn by wind and time, lay piled together there. Most were buried under red sand. Broken weapons and scattered chains still testified to what had once happened.
It was obvious that this had been a slaughter.
And a warning.
The dead should have been buried or burned. That would have been the respectful thing for either side. Instead, the local nobles had deliberately left the bodies to rot in the open as punishment—and even erected a monument nearby.
Afterward, they had boasted about the fate of rebels.
Their malice could not have been clearer.
"Angry?" Bruce asked over his shoulder.
"I want to kill them," Angron said, his voice trembling. "Destroy this world. How could they…"
Whenever Angron was driven to the limit, he stopped thinking. He only wanted to act on instinct—and that instinct was always being dragged around by the Butcher's Nails.
So at that moment, he had only one desire:
Kill.
Like the worlds he had already conquered, he wanted to burn everything here to nothing.
"Our agreement still has twenty-nine hours left. Hold it in for now. More importantly, let's welcome our guests properly."
Bruce, meanwhile, was still using his psychic senses to probe what lingered here.
Most of the spirits had clearly been tainted by Chaos, and the taint pointed straight at Khorne. But to his surprise, a tiny portion of the shattered souls still retained some sense of themselves.
They still carried the will to fight, still wanted to strike back at the nobles who had oppressed them—even though Angron had vanished.
"You knew bringing me here would provoke me," Angron growled. "So why emphasize it?"
"Because if you came here alone, you'd definitely order the world destroyed," Bruce said. "But if you came here with me, isn't it easier to bear?"
"It isn't!" Angron barked. "It just makes me want to kill you too, along with these nobles!"
Then it's working, Bruce thought. He wanted Angron angry—but not so angry he stopped thinking.
After that, the two of them fell silent.
They stared in different directions and thought about entirely different things.
Angron stood staring at the remains of his old comrades, now reduced to brittle bones beneath the red sand. For two hundred years, he had dreamed of fighting beside them to the very end—only for the Butcher's Nails to rip him awake every time the dream reached its climax.
Primarchs did not truly break down. They did not collapse. But looking at what had become of them, Angron suddenly wanted to cry.
If Bruce hadn't been there, he might have knelt at the cliff's edge and begged forgiveness from the dead.
Bruce, by contrast, kept reading the psychic traces left behind. He had confirmed that many of the lingering souls had been tainted by Chaos, and very likely by Khorne in particular.
If the Emperor had not taken Angron away when he did, then perhaps…
Khorne might have descended directly, using the culture and bloodlust of Nuceria itself as a bridge to claim Angron.
Still, compared to that, what concerned Bruce more was how to handle the nobles who were about to arrive.
Compared with fists, words were the harder battlefield.
He needed the other side to accept what happened.
At last, a procession of local nobles and high riders arrived, borne by half-naked slaves carrying luxurious litters. The nobles wore armor, broad swords at their waists. Their slaves all wore metal faceplates and spiked collars; their bodies were scarred and nearly bare.
"Welcome, envoy of the Imperium," one noble said, approaching Bruce with the riders and bowing. "And welcome… noble Primarch."
Bruce said nothing at first, merely returning the courtesy.
"Why did you enter Nuceria without informing us first?" the noble asked. "And why come to a place like this?"
"You expected me to report my destination to you?" Bruce asked lightly. "Should I submit all my next deployments as well?"
The noble stiffened, displeased, but held it in.
He could tell this envoy had arrived in a foul mood.
But the problem was—they had no idea what they had done to anger him.
Bruce's presence alone made them uneasy.
The Imperial court was supposed to be civilized, wasn't it?
Then why did this one feel like dealing with a gang boss?
"My lord, why concern yourself with this place?" another noble asked hurriedly. "There is nothing worth seeing here. Please, come to Deshya instead. We have prepared everything."
"Not yet," Bruce said. "First, I have a question. Do you still remember what happened here?"
"No."
"I thought perhaps you did."
Of course they didn't. Victors had no need to remember what the defeated felt. And to them, those slaves had never been more than insects to crush.
One of the high riders finally spoke.
"My ancestors were among those who crushed the slave revolt here."
Bruce turned to him. "Oh? And what do you know?"
"Not much, my lord. Only that two hundred years ago, a group of slaves, incited by a gladiator named Angron, rose in rebellion. They were all put down here in the end."
He paused, then added, "That Angron was said to have been the strongest gladiator of them all. But he fled. No one knows where he went after that."
"Fled," another noble said with a sneer. "Though even if he hadn't, he'd have died anyway. He chose to live as a coward rather than die as a man. Why did they rebel at all? It was all pointless."
From the perspective of the ruling class, that was all this history amounted to.
Bruce finally understood what kind of figure Angron remained in Nuceria's memory.
"I wonder," Bruce said mildly, stepping closer, "do you know who the Primarch standing here beside me is?"
The noble blinked and stared.
Until now, he had only taken Angron for some giant bodyguard or personal slave—his armor and bearing were too close to that of a gladiator for him to think otherwise.
But Bruce's question made his expression change.
Surely not—
"I would like to properly introduce him," Bruce said, turning and extending a hand behind him. "This is the lord of the Twelfth Legion—Angron."
At that moment, Angron turned around.
His face was a mask of murderous fury.
The killing intent rolling off him made every noble and rider present go pale.
"Ang… Angron?!"
"That name…"
For a few seconds, none of them could process it.
"So you really didn't know anything about Lord Angron, did you?" Bruce said.
To hide the truth, the Emperor had kept even Nuceria itself ignorant of the fact that Angron had become a Primarch and a legion master.
Clever.
Very clever.
"Then… that gladiator who disappeared back then was…?"
"Not disappeared," Bruce corrected calmly. "He was taken away by the Emperor for further education."
The group fell into silence.
Then, after the first surge of fear passed, contempt returned.
So the failed slave had come back.
What if you're a Primarch now? Back then, you were still a slave who had to kneel and speak to us. We entered the Imperium as equals.
The Emperor acknowledged our rule.
We bowed to the Master of Mankind, yes—but not to one of his sons.
Bruce watched them all and said, "Why aren't you kneeling to Lord Angron? He is a noble Primarch, son of the Emperor."
"He is a slave," the noble said proudly. "On Nuceria, nobles do not kneel to slaves."
Bruce let out a soft sigh.
"That's unfortunate."
Then he moved.
A short, explosive punch shot out.
The noble's head flew from his shoulders.
Before anyone else could react, Bruce flipped his lightning claw on, its teeth blazing.
"You think you insulted only Lord Angron? No. You fools have insulted all Primarchs."
He stepped forward and shouted, "Angron—now!"
The next moment, the crimson shadow flashed.
Angron stopped restraining himself.
Join here to read ahead.
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