The Royal Court Plaza fell dead silent.
Charles Darwin lay in that pooling puddle of cooling green gore, the crimson in his ape-like pupils already faded.
His spirit was completely broken.
Three hundred years.
He had ruled this planet for three hundred years.
He had killed more humans than there were living Dal on this planet.
He had sacrificed tens of billions of human lives, all just to beg for a fleeting glance of favor from the Blood God.
He thought he was a god.
He thought he was at the absolute top of the food chain.
He thought he had finally peeled off the humiliating label of being a human-made bioweapon.
Until today.
Until this golden creature dropped out of the sky.
Until he watched with his own eyes as the emissaries sent by the entity he had worshipped for three centuries...
One erased in a single swing.
One hacked into literal ash.
And the last one chopped in half like a slaughterhouse pig right in front of that golden figure.
And that golden figure?
He didn't even have a scratch on him.
Charles stretched his split jaw to the absolute limit. His four rows of serrated teeth snapped weakly at the empty air.
He couldn't speak anymore.
His vocal cords had been crushed the moment his head was stomped into the blood pool. Every ragged breath bubbled with green gore welling up from the back of his throat.
All he could do was stare. Stare dead at the golden figure casually walking toward him.
Paul stopped right in front of him.
His golden combat boots stepped to the edge of the blood pool. The splashing green liquid hit his psychic shielding and hissed into vapor.
He looked down.
His dark gold pupils locked onto those dying eyes that had once burned like fresh blood.
"What..."
Charles wheezed, squeezing the words out from the depths of his throat.
"What... the hell... are you..."
Paul didn't answer.
He just lifted his right leg.
The heel of his golden boot hovered exactly over the crown of Charles's skull.
Charles's eyes instantly shot wide open.
"A mongrel like you."
Paul said slowly, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"Never deserved to be brought into this world."
He didn't waste another breath.
He stomped down hard.
Squelch!
That ape-like head, covered in short black hair, its mouth split to the ears and its four rows of teeth still mindlessly twitching...
Popped like an overripe grape.
It completely exploded.
Jagged fragments of bone sprayed outward, painting an ugly, irregular stain across the bedrock.
Charles Darwin's mangled corpse twitched twice before going completely still.
The tyrant who ruled Planet Dal for three hundred years.
Khorne's so-called Chosen in the mortal realm.
Reduced to a splatter mark, without even a whole corpse left behind.
–
[Regional Channel (Crimson Dawn)]
[How Many Floors Can You Carry a Sack of Rice]: "..."
[Optimus Lemme Pilot You Real Hard]: "..."
[You Ashe I Soraka]: "Uh... did I just hear... a squelching sound over the comms?"
[Have You Been Loyal Today?]: "You heard right."
[Execute Old Man the War Criminal]: "Fuck."
[Grandfather Nurgle Loves All]: "Fuck."
[Paradox Players Aren't War Criminals]: "That was literally a Xenos king who ruled over billions of xenos."
"And the final review he gets is..."
[The Imperium's Last Gambler]: "Never deserved to be brought into this world."
[The Imperium's Last Gambler]: "Absolutely brutal. Destroyed his body and his soul."
The channel went quiet for two seconds.
[The Emperor's Tax Must Be Paid Even if the World Ends]: "Paul is..."
[The Emperor's Tax Must Be Paid Even if the World Ends]: "Usually such a chill guy offline."
[Has White Scars Sped Today]: "Yeah."
[The Emperor's Tax Must Be Paid Even if the World Ends]: "So why does he fight like such an absolute savage?"
[Has White Scars Sped Today]: "Because he wasn't fighting a human."
[The Emperor's Tax Must Be Paid Even if the World Ends]: "Fair point."
--
Paul stood there.
He looked down at the unrecognizable smear of gore beneath his boots, silent for a few seconds.
Then he lifted his head.
A system interface popped up in his vision.
[Server-Wide Faction Quest]
[Quest Name: Dawn Expedition - Annihilation of Planet Dal - Hard]
[Type: Epic (Phased Progression)]
[Scope: All Crimson Dawn Faction Players]
[Phase Objectives:]
[Phase 1: Annihilate the Dal armed forces on the surface of Dal LM-1. Completion: 18%.]
[Phase 2: Slay the Dal King, Charles. Status: Completed. Killer: Paul.]
[Phase 3: Thoroughly purge the Dal xenos civilization. Status: Incomplete.]
[Reward Mechanism: Merit points calculated based on individual and overall faction performance in this campaign, progressing the overall quest completion phase.]
Paul's eyes lingered on the third objective for a few seconds.
Thoroughly purge.
He scanned the Royal Court Plaza.
Dal royal guard corpses littered the ground everywhere. The green blood had basically turned the entire rocky plaza into a swamp.
In the distance, Tax Bro was leading a Terminator squad, ruthlessly mopping up the last handful of Dal officers still trying to put up a fight.
Even further out, the roaring scream of White Scars' jump pack echoed constantly as he hunted down the scattered Dal stragglers trying to break out on the flanks.
The gray tide of the Dawn Defense Force had already spilled over the edges of the plaza, pushing aggressively into the Dal residential sectors right behind the pyramid.
Sporadic gunfire and screams drifted over from that direction.
Mixed with the terrified shrieks of Dal civilians.
Paul pulled his gaze back.
He had absolutely nothing to say about it.
Xenos civilians?
There were no civilians on this rock.
When Paul had traced back through Charles's memories, he had accidentally caught glimpses of how these "civilians" lived their daily lives.
He saw a family of four... a father, a mother, and two young adult Dal boys, sitting around a dinner table.
A steaming stew pot sat in the middle.
Chunks of tenderly boiled meat floated in the broth, the bones stewed completely white.
The mother smiled, said something, and ladled a massive bowl for each of the boys.
The two teenagers buried their faces in their bowls, aggressively shoveling the meat into their mouths.
The father leaned back comfortably in his chair, swirling a glass of deep red wine brewed directly from human blood.
Paul slammed the door shut on that traced memory.
Then, he looked up at the sky.
The Wisdom trait flared to life deep inside his pupils.
It was a distant, ancient... guiding light.
Across lightyears of the void.
Across the endless sea of stars spanning the Imperium's massive territory.
He saw a deep blue planet.
He saw a colossal fleet hanging in its orbit, its hulls painted in extravagant colors, their bows adorned with the purple and gold Aquila.
He saw the flagship's gorgeously opulent bridge, which was basically the size of a small mobile fortress all on its own.
And standing dead center on that bridge, clad in rich purple power armor, his long white hair cascading over his shoulders, his face as flawlessly handsome as a sculpted masterpiece…was the perfect Primarch.
But he saw even more than that.
He saw the surface of that planet. In a smoke-choked warzone, he saw players with golden IDs floating above their heads fighting desperately, trying to hold a defensive line that was seconds away from completely collapsing.
He saw players with black IDs lurking in the shadows on the flip side of the battlefield, using whispers and schemes to quietly push the giant wheel of fate.
And he saw the sword.
The blade enshrined deep within the heart of a Xenos temple, its edge rippling with a highly sinister, profane light...
The Blade of the Laer.
Paul slowly reeled his gaze back in.
The guiding light of the Wisdom trait faded from his dark gold eyes.
A slight smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Year 000.M31."
He whispered to himself.
"The Cleansing of Laeran."
"Interesting."
He paused.
"Let's go then."