Shukra stood before the captain's chair, witnessing the slaughter.
Watching the councilors who had followed him for years bleeding out on the deck. Watching his loyal guards getting torn apart by bolter fire. Watching that terrifying figure in purple and gold slowly advancing toward him.
His fists slowly clenched at his sides.
And then... he let them go.
He let out a deep sigh.
He knew the Diasporex Alliance was finished.
This nomadic civilization that had endured for thousands of years, a democratic alliance forged by humans and xenos alike, an ancient fleet that had been drifting since the Age of Strife... had finally reached its end.
Demeter stopped five meters in front of him. He rested the tip of his power sword against the deck, warm blood still dripping from the blade. His cold, hard eyes stared at Shukra with absolute calm.
Shukra looked up, meeting that piercing gaze.
"Why?" His voice was hoarse, heavy with infinite exhaustion and sorrow.
"All we wanted was to survive."
"We never once provoked the Imperium of Man."
"We've wandered this sector for thousands of years, never claiming a single human world, never shedding the blood of a single Imperial citizen."
"We just wanted to live."
His gaze swept over the corpses littering the bridge... the bodies of the human councilors, the mangled remains of the xenos delegates, the fallen forms of his loyal guards.
"If you had just left us alone, we never would have left this sector. We were no threat to the Imperium."
His voice dropped to a hollow whisper. "We only wanted to harvest energy. We only wanted to keep existing..."
"So why..."
Shukra locked eyes with Demeter once more, a final flare of anger and incomprehension burning in his gaze.
"Why slaughter us down to the last man?"
A brief silence fell over the bridge.
The few guards still putting up a stubborn fight stopped shooting, turning to look at their captain.
Demeter stayed quiet for two seconds.
Then, he spoke.
His voice was perfectly level, stripped of any emotion.
"From the moment you chose to open fire on an Imperial fleet, 'why' ceased to matter."
He paused, slowly raising his power sword and pointing the tip straight at Shukra's chest.
"There is only..."
"...extermination."
Shukra closed his eyes.
He knew that was the only answer he was going to get.
In this ruthless galaxy, weakness was the ultimate sin.
Survival was never something you could beg for; it was something you bought with strength.
When the armies of the Imperium arrived at your doorstep, concepts like peaceful coexistence and non-aggression were nothing but a weak man's pipe dream.
The Emperor's Great Crusade had no need for allies—it only demanded subjects.
And those who refused to kneel met only one fate...
Exterminatus.
Shukra opened his eyes.
The anger was gone. The confusion was gone. All that remained was a profound, almost liberating sense of peace.
"Do it," he breathed softly.
Demeter didn't hesitate.
He thrust his power sword forward, executing a flawless, surgical decapitation.
Blood sprayed from the stump, running down the energized blade to pool on the cold metal deck.
His body slowly crumpled to the ground.
In the final fleeting moment before his consciousness faded to black, the last thing he saw was the banner of the Diasporex Alliance hanging from the ceiling...
The crossed crystal and olive branch, drifting down lazily in the shockwaves of the explosions.
Three minutes later.
The final guard collapsed into a pool of his own blood.
The entire bridge of the Diasporex Tear had fallen completely under the control of the Emperor's Children.
Demeter stood over Shukra's headless corpse, silent for a couple of seconds.
Then he turned around, sweeping his gaze across his Legionaries as they cleared the battlefield.
"Assess casualties, secure any prisoners, and process the spoils of war."
His voice returned to its usual steady baseline. "This victory belongs to the Emperor's Children."
A low, rumbling cheer went up from the Astartes.
Standing a short distance away, Liam watched the scene unfold and let out a long sigh of relief.
Mission accomplished.
Demeter had snagged the first blood achievement.
Fulgrim should be...
Wait.
Liam suddenly realized something.
He whipped his head around, staring back toward the ruined blast doors.
Deep down the corridor, faint footsteps were echoing closer.
The footfalls were rushed, heavy with an irrepressible... blind fury.
Liam's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
He glanced at the cheering Imperial faction players and hissed into the regional channel:
"Boys, pull out. Now!"
Over three hundred figures silently slipped toward the rear of the bridge, vanishing into the ship's labyrinthine maintenance corridors.
Just as they rounded a corner out of sight, a figure wreathed in purple stepped through the shattered doorway.
Fulgrim.
He stood in the breach, soaked head to toe in gore. The Blade of the Laer was still dripping green xenos blood.
His flawless face was an absolute, terrifying blank.
But his eyes...
Those violet eyes were locked dead onto the figure in purple and gold standing in the center of the bridge.
Staring right at Demeter.
Staring at the son who had beaten him to the punch, who had claimed the head of the enemy captain before he could.
His own gene-son.
Deathly silence slammed down over the bridge.
The cheering died in the throats of the Emperor's Children, their smiles freezing in place.
They looked back and forth between Demeter and their father at the door.
The air in the room practically turned to concrete.
Demeter turned around, meeting Fulgrim's gaze.
There was no arrogance or pride on his face, only his usual, level-headed calm.
"Father."
He hammered his right fist against his breastplate in a flawless Imperial Aquila salute.
"The Second Company has completed its mission. The flagship is secure, and the enemy captain has been executed."
Fulgrim said nothing.
He just kept staring unblinkingly at Demeter.
Staring at the figure standing in the center of the bridge, covered in the enemy's blood.
Staring at the son who had stolen the glory that was meant for him, the perfection that was meant for him, everything that was meant for him.
The Blade of the Laer trembled slightly in his grip, its sickly magenta glow bleeding violently from the cracks in its scabbard.
The sword's whispers detonated inside his mind.
Look at him...
Your own son stole your glory...
He doesn't deserve this perfection...
Only you are worthy of true perfection...
Fulgrim's eyes completely flushed a toxic pinkish-purple.
He slowly opened his mouth.
His voice was hoarse, icy, and laced with a bone-chilling tranquility.
"Well done, Demeter."
He paused, a slow, unnatural smile creeping onto his face.
A smile that sent a spike of freezing dread down the spine of every single Astartes in the room.
"Very well done."
--
The Warp, the Hidden Domain.
Watching the feed, Lucian's grin grew wider by the second.
His gaze pierced through the screen, resting on that purple-clad Primarch.
Meanwhile, deep within the distant corridors of the flagship, Liam was leading over three hundred Imperial faction players in a frantic retreat toward a safe zone.
In his mind, that nagging, bizarre sensation had finally been answered.
It had been way too smooth.
So smooth it was ridiculous.
Now he knew exactly what had been lurking behind that god-tier run of good luck.
Fulgrim... he thought to himself silently. Whatever you do, don't blame Demeter for this.
He looked up, peering into the invisible expanse of the Warp.
A complicated mix of emotions flickered in his eyes.
If you're going to blame anyone...
Blame that old trickster pulling all the strings from the shadows.
--
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