Paul closed his eyes, operating his Wisdom trait at maximum capacity to carefully brush against that willpower.
He saw him. Ferrus Manus.
Primarch of the Iron Hands, the Tenth Son of the Emperor, and one of the most supreme tacticians and technological masters of the Great Crusade.
At this moment, he was standing on the bridge of the Fist of Iron, looking down at the battlefield through the observation port.
His massive frame, standing over three meters tall, was encased in a custom-forged suit of Terminator Power Armor.
The armor was far thicker and heavier than standard Astartes plate, its surface studded with various ports and weapon hardpoints. His hands were encased in living necrodermis—his iconic hands of iron.
His face was resolute, as if chiseled from stone. He had short black hair, and his grey eyes were like two freezing gemstones, completely devoid of emotion.
But Paul could sense that beneath that icy exterior, the Primarch's will was rapidly analyzing the battlefield:
Warp corruption level: High.
Two powerful heretical Warp entities. Energy levels reduced by 87.3% due to previous combat, but core integrity remains intact.
Local resistance forces: Joint army of the four major factions. Casualties exceed 70%. Morale collapsed. However... they resisted for twenty-eight days.
His willpower continued its scan:
Battlefield perimeter, northeast warehouse district: Presence of an unidentified armed force. Approximately one thousand personnel. Mixed equipment. However, combat efficiency is anomalously high. Casualty ratio against heretics is far below average.
Energy signature: Faint, pure psychic fluctuations detected.
Identity: Unknown.
Threat level: Low.
Status: Pending observation.
Paul realized his probe was on the verge of being locked onto, and he immediately retracted his perception.
Although the psychic perception of the Iron Hands Primarch wasn't as hyper-attuned as the psychic Primarch Magnus, it was still vastly superior to any mortal's.
In that split second, Ferrus had nearly locked onto him.
"Everyone," Paul ordered over the Chapter channel. "Conceal your psychic presence. Keep a low profile. Pretend we're just a voluntary planetary militia resisting the daemons."
[Tax Bro]: "Understood! Acting mode activated!"
[God-Tier Mechanic]: "The Primarch descended personally... This means the Imperium places far more importance on Aurelian IV than we anticipated."
[Have You Been Loyal Today?]: "Or maybe the Planetary Governor's distress signal finally got processed. After all, two daemons pushing the Greater Daemon tier is enough to threaten the safety of the entire sector."
Paul nodded.
He looked toward the center of the battlefield.
There, five thousand Iron Hands had already purged all the lesser daemons near the industrial zone and completely surrounded the two daemon lords.
Now, it was time for the main event.
–
At the edge of the crater, Kans Atens and the other survivors stared blankly at the scene.
The daemons they had fought for twenty-eight days, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of men without making a dent, were now being reaped like weeds before these silver-grey giants.
These are... the Emperor's Angels?
This is... the true power of the Imperium?
"What..." Busir muttered. "What exactly have we been fighting for all this time..."
Right at that moment.
The largest drop pod—a custom-built vessel over fifteen meters in diameter, its surface etched with intricate mechanical patterns—slowly opened its doors.
Smoke billowed outward.
A silhouette stepped out from the smoke.
Standing over three meters tall in Terminator Power Armor painted in silver-grey, his left arm was a complete mechanical construct, and his right hand gripped a colossal Power Hammer.
It was Ferrus Manus's iconic weapon: Forgebreaker.
The moment he stepped out of the drop pod, the very atmospheric pressure of the battlefield seemed to shift.
Ferrus Manus surveyed the battlefield.
His grey eyes swept over the surviving soldiers of the four major factions, over the burning wreckage, over the ground carpeted in corpses, and finally, settled on the two daemons at the bottom of the crater.
His face betrayed absolutely no emotion.
Then, he spoke.
His voice boomed through the external vox-speakers of his Power Armor, easily drowning out every other sound on the battlefield—the explosions, the gunfire, the roars of the daemons.
"I am Ferrus Manus. Primarch of the Iron Hands. Tenth Son of the Emperor. By the decree of the Master of Mankind, I have come to purge the heresy in this place."
He paused, looking at the Lord of Bizarre Mysteries and the Slaughterer of Fury.
"You."
Forgebreaker lifted, pointing directly at the two daemons. "You have thirty seconds to leave your final words or, you can simply die."
The Slaughterer of Fury's response was a thunderous roar.
Dragging its broken body, it charged at Ferrus. It raised its great-axe high, the blood-flames surrounding it flaring up like a dying star's final burst.
Thirty meters.
Twenty meters.
Ten meters.
Ferrus didn't move.
He didn't even look at the Khornate daemon. His gaze remained fixed on the Lord of Bizarre Mysteries, as if waiting for something.
Five meters.
The great-axe swung down.
In the split second before the blade could touch Ferrus's helmet, the Primarch moved.
Forgebreaker swung outward at a speed the naked eye could barely track.
An upward diagonal strike, precise to the millimeter.
CLANG!!!!
The deafening crash of metal slamming into metal instantly ruptured the eardrums of everyone within a hundred meters.
The Slaughterer of Fury's great-axe snapped in half right down the middle.
The entire weapon was severed. The disruption field wreathed around the head of Forgebreaker shattered the molecular structure of the axe blade upon impact.
Then, the hammer head kept moving.
It smashed into the daemon's chest.
There was no explosion. Just a muffled, sickening sound of internal crumbling.
The Slaughterer of Fury's sixteen-meter-tall body froze completely.
It looked down at its own chest.
A massive hole, two meters in diameter, had appeared there.
Its very existence had been erased from the rules of the material universe by the disruption field.
"No..." it let out a final, gurgling roar. "The Blood God... will not..."
It never finished the sentence.
The colossal body began to disintegrate. Starting from the hole in its chest, the collapse rapidly spread across its entire form.
Three seconds later, the Khornate daemon that had driven the four major factions to despair turned into a puddle of dark red ash, scattering into the wind.
The physical form of the Slaughterer of Fury dissipated, banished back to the Warp.
Ferrus withdrew Forgebreaker.
He turned to the Lord of Bizarre Mysteries.
"Twenty seconds. You have twenty seconds left."