Chapter 33: The Battle for Ullanor (3) |
Chapter 33: The Battle for Ullanor
Part 3: The Victory
Location: Throne Room of Urg Mag Uruk Thraka
It took a long time for Ogadin Vulkan to finally die.
Though deep in combat, his Primarch mental faculties allowed him to know exactly how long it took him to perish. For the first three hours and fifty six minutes of combat, the Master of the XVIII Legion wielded his custom power maul with unbridled fury, smashing aside xenos whenever they tried to get close, and saving Astartes with every swing. They had scored a few blows, but his mastercrafted armor was not so much as scuffed.
In the fifty seventh minute of the third hour, he saved Garviel Loken from a devastating blow that surely would have killed the Lunar Templar. That in itself was not overly troubling, as he had been saving his sons and nephews almost the entire time. What did cause him to take notice was the fact that it was only one ork that had bested Loken, and his nephew hadn't been caught unaware. That was not supposed to be something that happened, not to a captain in the Legiones Astartes. This ork was faster somehow, more able to keep up with the demands of fighting an Astartes in combat.
A slight change in the scent of the battle let Ogadin know that his nephew activated the special implant of the Lunar Templars. He was moving faster, making reactions he was not able to mere seconds ago, and still he was losing. As Garviel Loken became stronger and faster, so did the ork he was fighting. The Primarch rushed over to help his nephew deal with the creature, and was even more perturbed when the ork was able to dodge his blow before Loken's bolter round smashed through its face. Vulkan had perfect memory, and knew that he would have picked out that ork hours ago if it had been that good of a combatant at the start of this fight. Further investigation was needed, but that didn't make it easier to do during a full-on battle.
Though not a master of the psychic arts like his brother Magnus was, even the barest hint of psychic potential could sense the power brewing in the room and Ogadin Vulkan had been trained by the best tutors the Imperium of Mankind could locate. Raw, primal power pulsed from the priestly looking ork near the back of the chamber, and though the Primarch couldn't see it with his eyes, the psychic energy emanating from the creature was palpable.
With an almost flippant casualness, the priest-ork raised the staff in his hand and aimed it at the charging Primarch. Lightning struck him and coursed through his body in the fifty ninth minute of fighting, as the last of the orks was reduced to a burning pile of gore. The path to their chieftain was clear, but the creature simply raised his hands and pain erupted in every single nerve Ogadin had. Soon, the smell of burning ork flesh was joined by the smell of his own skin cooking and peeling off. He tried to shield the energy with a gauntleted palm, but the heat coming from the lightning was enough that it still roast the hand inside.
He ignored whatever pain there was with the biomancy he had practiced for almost a century now, and there were mercifully few nerve endings left that he had to heal. His Perpetual nature wasn't enough to keep up with the damage output however, and with another wave of its staff the priest-ork sent the XVIII Primarch flying backwards with a blast of concussive force. Smashing into the same pillar that his brother collided with, it was simply too much for his body to bear and Ogadin Vulkan died precisely four hours after the fighting had begun.
Death was only a passing acquaintance for him though, and a flash of golden light brought him back to the world of the living only seconds after he passed. A mortal human, even a fellow Perpetual, would have been too disoriented to react to their surroundings. The superhuman physiology that the Emperor had endowed his sons with had allowed his eighteenth son to be alert and on his feet ready to fight less than a second after his reincarnation.
"We have something in common, human." leered the head ork, slamming its staff down on the ground which caused the orks nearby to become enraged and grow in muscle mass with visible speed. "It seems that death has no hold on either of us."
"I have the power of the True Warp governed its rightful rulers in the form of Humanity." Vulkan declared defiantly. "There is nothing in common with whatever foul xenos tricks you claim to have."
"Oh you poor, pathetic species. Did you really think you were alone in your mastery of psychic powers?"
Vulkan felt an invisible pull in the room, as psychic power was being drawn from somewhere into the robed ork and then into the staff. Green lightning manifested from its tip and electrified the Primarch once again. Ready for it this time, the damage Ogadin took was far less severe as he leapt behind the pillar to avoid the worst of the damage.
"My species has been able to manifest their desires into reality for millions of years." the ork continued. "But we were broken, stunted for reasons that have been lost to time. Urg Mag Uruk Thraka has changed that. We believe in him, human. We believe he will uplift us, mend what we do not realize is broken. We believe that under his reign, our empire will stretch across the stars. We believe he can do anything."
"And because we believe it, therefore he can."
More lightning, but not at the pillar he hid behind. His sons and nephews were under attack now, and he saw them die smoking in their armor. He could not bear the sight of it, and Vulkan leapt in front of the coursing energy of his own free will, shielding the Astartes from the worst of the attack at the cost of his own life once again.
When he had life forcibly breathed back into him once again, he looked at Garviel Loken and saw one bloodshot blue eye where the helmet lens had been cut away by an ork's axe. If Ogadin didn't act soon, they were all going to die.
"Go…" the Primarch said, the weariness evident in his voice. "Take what remains of our legions and retreat. Ensure more of their kind does not enter in here. I shall do what I can here."
"And what Lord Khagan?" the Commander of the Justaerin asked, motioning towards the crumpled form of the V Primarch. "We cannot just leave him."
"You will all die if you stay here" Ogadin shot back. "I will get the corp- I will get my brother. I promise you, Garviel Loken. You shall see me again, and I will not be alone."
Wheeling around, knowing that another attack was coming, Ogadin grabbed a charging ork and used him as a shield to block the energy coursing his way. Seeing that the Astartes were fleeing and the Primarch was getting better at blocking his attacks, the priest changed tactics once again, striking the staff into the ground and holding out his hand in a commanding manner.
"Another death, how very curious" the ork called. "When I was killed, I was almost dismissed as no longer worthy of the Great Beast's plans. But my master had different plans for me. I was brought back to life because that is the power he wields. A power that he now allows to flow through me."
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Ogadin realized that this ork was not unknown to him. During the early days of the Ullanor Crusade against the greenskins, reports had poured into the Imperium's crusading forces about the orks' psychic field known amongst their foes as a 'WAAAGH!!!'. At the head of these orks gone mad with power was a greenskin that called itself Zahubu-Ura-Grog, the Prophet of the WAAAGH. But the Lightning Riders had made vanguard advances into areas controlled by the greenskins and Tengri Khagan had personally slain the creature in single combat, beheading it with a single stroke of his power scimitar.
His brother had not been prone to deceit, and records that Ogadin had seen from that particular campaign had recorded a much smaller ork being killed with relatively little effort on the part of the Primarch. The creature that had dealt so much death to the assembled Astartes was a good deal taller than the recorded information about Zahubu, and most certainly possessed a head that Zahubu should not have had.
"You are so predictable." the creature crowed, noticing the flare of recognition in Ogadin's eyes along with the slight moment of doubt. It pulled down its fancy robes and revealed a thick scar that traced all the way around its heavily muscled neck. "You still think to impose order and reality upon this conflict. I am indeed Zahubu-Ura-Grog, and not only do I prophesy the WAAAGH!!!, I also channel it. The Great Beast is the embodiment of our power, and it is for others to utilize it to further our empire."
As the ork wasted time gloating in his victory, the last of the Astartes were able to leave the room, with Vulkan covering their retreat with his Typhon Hammer. He estimated there were still well over a hundred orks, not including Zahubu, left to deal with. And now he was all alone. A single human holding back the green horde that if allowed to leave, would threaten to drown the entire galaxy in blood.
"You have not won yet" Ogadin said, so softly it was almost as if he was delivering terrible news to a dying friend. "There is still strength left in me, and there is more strength than any of us know in Humanity."
"That won't save you" the Prophet taunted. "Your empire might be strong, but you are all alone. I wonder, how long will it take for you to stop coming back? I am eager to find out, as are the Beasts-In-Waiting, I think. Just think of how fun that will be, to see the future of my species manifesting before your very eyes."
Tightening his grip on his power maul, the XVIII Primarch let out a low growl and pushed forward. The orks, these so called 'Beasts-In-Waiting', were starting to live up to their name. It took longer and longer for Vulkan to kill them, and their numbers were such that they kept scoring blows upon him. The armor held on, longer than even Ogadin had expected, but it too gave away and the blows from their weapons started to land upon his bare flesh.
The dying started to happen more and more often. If he focused on getting closer to Zahubu, the Beasts-In-Waiting scored enough lucky blows to kill him as the Prophet made them stronger and stronger. If he tried to thin their numbers, Zahubu would simply shoot lightning out of his staff and eletrocute the Primarch to death. They were in a holding pattern, waiting to see which one would give out first. The energy of the WAAAGH!! seemed infinite to the Primarch, but he also would reincarnate immediately after each and every death.
"Zog it!" Zahubu roared. "I'm getting bored of this fight! End it now, boys!"
The staff slammed hard into the ground in rapid succession, as invisible waves Ogadin could now feel started to wash over them all.
The Beasts-In-Waiting fell to the ground, twitching and screaming as muscle writhed beneath the surface of their skin. They grew and changed as they did, with some becoming mountains of muscle and fangs, while others became more refined and slender with a particularly vicious look in their eyes.
Vulkan could tell that if given enough time, these creatures would no longer be fit for the part of their title that was 'In Waiting'. These were the first beginnings of a future Ork Empire that the Imperium wanted to crush in its birth pangs. If Urg Mag Uruk Thraka and his acolyte were able to keep tapping into the potential of the WAAAGH!!!, then perhaps one day their Great Beast would become the god they seemingly wished him to be.
That musing, however, would have to wait. He needed to kill them, and kill them immediately or else the situation would just become worse and worse. There were twenty one of them left, a number that made Ogadin worried about its auspiciousness for their desired place in the Ork hierarchy. His first instinct was to try and kill them all, now that Zahubu was solely focused on empowering the Beasts-In-Waiting and seemed incapable of the lightning attacks, but now his opponents moved faster, and some of the larger ones seemed capable of surviving a glancing hammer blow now. With twenty one of them, it was hard to kill one without another Beast-In-Waiting killing Vulkan before a solid hit could land.
On his fifty seventh reincarnation, a thought occurred to Ogadin that chilled him to his core: what if, instead of killing him, they managed to take him alive?
Location: The Outer Wall of the Great Citadel
He was fast, faster than he had ever felt in his life. Was this what accepting his role in his father's plan felt like? How much had his own guilt and doubt weighed him down over the years?
During their youths, the Primarchs had often debated with one another what aspect of the Emperor's personality they had taken from their father. Some like Magnus and Phillip were obvious, and others like Eddard and Dante were easy guesses. But there were a few, like Horus, that were more complicated. Several dinners had devolved into shouting matches between various sides as they tried to think exactly what it was that Horus had received. Individual talents like his charisma were obvious, as was his military genius. But what that all represented was another matter entirely. After much discussion, Horus himself told them he knew what about his father he was supposed to be: he was his Ambition, his desire to be the best, and to dominate whatever challenge lay in his way.
As it was in the Emperor, it was in Horus. As he gazed upon the Beast of Beasts, he felt only a desire to best the creature in single combat. Doing so would signify to both man and ork who the real power in the galaxy was. So Horus gave into that ambition. He did not let it control or consume him, but rather used it to shape him into what his father had always intended him to be.
Horus Lupercali's fists were blurs of golden light as he rocketed towards his foe. The Beast of Beasts would die by his hands this day, and the Ullanor Crusade would end in glorious triumph. Uruk Thraka slammed his axe down at the charging Primarch, but a gauntleted fist enveloped in searing gold flames connecting with it in mid swing, shattering one of the Beast's two axes into hundreds of fragments. That same punch followed through its destruction of the axe and landed squarely on the Beast's chestplate. A smaller figure would have been sent flying back, but such was the xenos' mass and density that all it did was cause the monster to take a few staggering steps back and look in disbelief at the small crater on its chest.
"Yes!" it roared, lifting its remaining axe and saluting Horus with seemingly genuine respect. "I could see you holding back in my throne room. This is the real you, unburdened and unrelenting."
It tapped something on its armored wrist, and began to speak again.
"You are the perfect foe for all to bear WITNESS!"
With that last word, there were echoes all around them, along with an electronic screech of microphone feedback. All along the Great Citadel, every single massive pict screen which had displayed ork propaganda now showed feeds of Horus and the Beast of Beasts. He could not be perfectly sure, but Horus had an educated guess that there were screens all over this citadel, broadcasting their fight to all forces fighting around it. No matter who won the fight, both armies would know in mere moments. It was a bold move by the ork, and a sign that it was still supremely confident in its ability to defeat an empowered Horus.
Without warning, Urg Mag Uruk Thraka leapt forward as the XVI Primarch was distracted by the pict screens, slicing back and forth with his remaining axe he now wielded with both hands. Due to the Anathemic energies of the Longinus, Horus was able to avoid the swings though sometimes by mere centimeters. Upon a particularly large and wild horizontal swing, the Primarch spun around to his left, dancing along the length of the shaft towards his foe. With a left hook that impacted with enough force to actually cause a thunderclap of sound. The Beast roared out its fury that was lessened by the fact that its broken jaw made all of its rage muffled.
It threw a punch of its own but Horus caught the blow with his crossed forearms and rode the energy up and away, landing approximately ten yards away from the Beast with a smirk upon his face. His decision to use the Longinus as flaming energies in his fists was a deliberate choice, as beating the Beasts of Beasts with his hands would send a powerful and primal message that humanity needed none of their technology to defeat their deadliest foes. All that they needed was their own power, and the knowledge that the Golden Path provided. Though a powerful statement, it did mean that he would always be at a disadvantage when it came to reach, as the Beast still possessed one of its two great power axes. He would need speed, and for the fight to remain a close melee affair if he was to emerge victorious.
The Beast seemed to realize that fact as well, and revealed a trick that it had been concealing. Horus had assumed its power armor was simply a durable piece of protective equipment, far more thin than what he was accustomed to seeing other orks wear when they possessed technology. But Urg Mag Uruk Thraka was no ordinary ork, and had clearly made use of Aeldari assistance when designing this armor.
With a mental command, twin missile launchers popped up from the top of its shoulders and let loose half a dozen mini warheads that streaked their way towards the Primarch. With as close as the two combatants were to each other, it took less than a second for the missiles to reach the Primarch and the area all around Horus was enveloped in clouds of debris. Uruk Thraka roared at his triumph before he noticed a thin trail of dust that arced up and out of the cloud. Almost too late, he looked up and realized that the Primarch had somehow been fast enough to leap out of the explosion radius. Horus Lupercali fell down like a meteor from the heavens and landed right upon the Beast, his hands cupping the ork's head as well as they could given the size difference.
"Burn!" Horus screamed and allowed his soul to join with the power of the Longinus to cause the energy surrounding his hands to grow in size and power. Flames leapt all over the Beast of Beasts' face as it roared in fury, its skin and muscles sloughing off under the intense heat.
Despite the power of the attack, Urg Mag Uruk Thraka remained upright and grabbed the Primarch with his free hand to throw him away. Once again, Horus went with the motion and landed on his feet far away from the ork. He was not overly worried. Speed was clearly on his side, and the supposedly 'Great' Beast could not touch him. And now his skin was burning off him, a blow that would have sent even the greatest of daemons screaming back into the Warp to be enraged at their painful demise.
Yet, he could already see the ork regenerating. Its eyes grew back and bright green flesh spread across muscles reknitting so fast Horus could hear the popping even as far away as he was. It did not matter. If the last attack didn't work, he would just have to make the next one hit a little bit harder.
Uruk Thraka seemed to be thinking similar things as Horus was, and was already lifting his axe for another round. Grinning, Horus obliged him and sprinted forward as his brain calculated half a hundred different ways to demolish his enemy. His options expanded even more as the Beast threw his axe which Horus dodged with contemptible ease as it flew past him and embedded itself in the stone behind him. Now the ork had given up its reach advantage and still remained behind when it came to speed. Horus relished in the notion of picking apart its defense bit by pit.
An uppercut was thrown, but Horus calculated that it was too far away to be of any real danger to him. Clearly the Beast needed time to adjust to using its hands as its great weapon, and had tried to punch Horus too early, missing him by almost half a foot.
Then, to Horus' great shock and horror, twin lightning claw blades of green psychic projection sprang forth from the back of the fist that was moving past his face. Horus was lucky. His own reaction time had allowed him to push the fist away with an extended palm and it only slashed him across the eye that was filled with psychic fire that could not be damaged by even an immaterial blade. His deflection and arrogance still cost him however, as the Beast's other fist slammed into him own chest, denting his plate the same way he had first dented the Great Ork's. He was far smaller and his opponent was far bigger though, and the Primarch was sent careening through the air back the way he had come. Almost too late did Horus see that there was another part to the Beast's ruse as he noticed that he was going to land directly on top of the axe blade that was sticking up out of the ground. Such a plan had multiple layers, and gaze more credence to the notion that this monster was no savage, but rather a cunning opponent that used Horus' own arrogance and his Emperor-endowed ambition against him. It was a lesson that he planned to make full use of should he live to survive this encounter.
All of that self reflection showed his improved maturity, but did little to help his situation. He was falling down towards the blade, and it was going to impact him right through both of his hearts should he not attempt something. At the last possible second, he twisted his torso enough that it was only his side that was sliced open and not his chest. He had lost a kidney and it was only through his skill in biomancy that he was able to re-seal the wound and allow him to keep fighting, but by the stars did it hurt. And now there was a gap in his armor, one that he was sure that the Beast would exploit if it had the chance. More than that, it troubled him that despite that same biomancy working on the cut over his eye, it would not stop bleeding.
Those thoughts would have to wait, as Horus only barely managed to evade the Beast's furious charge as it slammed into the battlement beside him, picking up its axe as it did so.
"Gork and Mork favor me, champion of the humans." the Beast chuckled. "The WAAAGH!!! allows me to create as well as destroy, as you just found out. Can the fire in your fists do that?"
Horus gave no reply, he was smarter than that now, but he was sorely tempted to change the Longinus into another weapon. His side still screamed in pain, and it appeared that no matter the harm he dealt the monster, it would simply marshal the willpower to instantaneously heal.
The Primarch was faster, and perhaps his weapon was greater than that of the Beast's, but his stamina wasn't infinite. This was a duel he was losing at a glacially slow pace, and if something did not change, and change quickly, he was doomed to lose this battle.
And the millions of Astartes and mortal Auxilia on the planet would see it broadcast live wherever they looked.
Location: Section 43 of the Front Line
"Captain, status report… where in this Emperor-forsaken mess is your captain?"
Cassian Vaughn had been run ragged during the course of this battle. For who knows how long, he had ridden from battle sight to battle sight in a commandered Torchbearer. The exclusive XVIII Legion-pattern Rhino was on its last gasps of life, and it seemed as though an entire cadre of tech magos worked on it to keep the vehicle moving.
Seemingly without rest, the Lord Commander of the Dragon-Forged toured every accessible bastion of the Imperium, ensuring that they were able to fight and keep on fighting after he and his personal guard left. To and fro they went, spreading the good news and emboldening the soldiers in the trenches. It was an arduous task, but one that needed to be done. The Auxilia forces had dug trenches around the Great Citadel and had hunkered down to wait for the inevitable counterattack that the seemingly endless tide of orks on the planet would surely commit to.
As they did, they greenskins crashed upon the Imperial lines like a storm wave upon a tidal wall. For almost five days straight, las fire, bolter rounds, and volkite beams had erupted outwards in a vain attempt to cull the horde that was rushing towards them. The Orks seemed not to care, driven onwards in a mad attempt to reach their warlord and kill every human they could. Their vehicles roared forwards, launching shells of their own as the footsoldiers crashed into the fortifications the Imperium had erected. Titans fought Gargants in the distance as Aeronautica Imperialis roared across the skies trying to down the Ork bomber craft that sought to turn the trenches into radioactive rubble.
In the midst of all of the madness were simple men and women of the fledgling Imperium of Man. As demigods and monsters out of nightmares fought with unbridled fury, it could be overwhelming to be a mere mortal in all of the madness of war. Cassian knew this, and wished to make sure that all serving under him from the mightiest princeps to the lowliest infantrymen knew they were valued and that their efforts were acknowledged.
And it seemed to the Lord Commander that Section 43 was in dire need of more than acknowledgement. Craters from their latest encounter with Ork forces were still smoking, and medical servitors were in the midst of post-battle triage as Cassian Vaughn stepped out of his vehicle to survey the section.
"I shall not ask again," he grumbled, looking around for anyone with even a small amount of command experience. "Where is the Dragon-Forged captain assigned to this section?"
A lowly Battle Brother stepped forward, followed by only three of the usual nine Astartes that made up a squad. He removed his soot-stained helm, and gave an apologetic look as he snapped a crisp salute at Cassian.
"Apologies, Lord Commander," the Astartes said. "Our captain died on the ork's first charge towards our position. Both Marshal-Sergeants assigned to the two squads assigned to this section perished on their second charge. We have held them off, but what you see are the only warriors of the Emperor left standing."
Cassian just took a deep sigh, looking around at the mortal troops around them. Their visible appearance gave little distinction between themselves and underhive scum on some of the worlds the Lord Commander had helped the XVIII Legion liberate. They were bloodied, breathing hard, and almost all had a stare that told Cassian that they were almost too shocked to know he was there.
"State of the line?" he asked, almost knowing the answer before it was said.
"We are low on ammunition, my lord," one of the mortal lieutenants said, and like the Dragon-Forged Battle Brother he seemed to be taking command of the situation as most of his superiors had been killed in the fighting so far. "Some men are already out, and others may only have a laspack or two left. Normally we could use solar charging, but the debris from the conflict blotted out enough of the sun that it's not working."
"And the Astartes?" Cassian continued.
"All four of us are combat ready," the Battle Brother replied. "But we are so few that none of our legion's defensive tactics can come into play. There are simply too few of us to act as we normally do."
The Lord Commander had expected as much, and turned his gaze towards an Imperial Knight that was being attended to by Mechanicum workers. A Freeblade, most likely, and one that had clearly seen heavy fighting judging by the pockmarked exterior of its casing. Fluids both biological and mechanical leaked from various wounds and the wheezing that emanated from various gear points did not give Cassian high hopes about its condition. He didn't recognize the heraldry, and approached it with his helm removed to show his respect for their efforts in assisting the Imperium.
"What is your name, Freeblade."
"Allyria Haddenhoc, my lord," came a voice from the vox speakers on the knight. Her tone was calm, but clearly strained from the wounds that she felt her vessel taking. "And this Eternal Vigilance, a knight that defended my family's lands for millennia until the coming of the Imperium."
"Where is the rest of your house? Do they fight further down the line?"
"They lie on the surface of my planet" came a curt reply. "They are buried under a mountain of ork corpses they took with them. Had your legion not arrived, I would have joined my family and my world. Now I fight for the Primarch Ogadin Vulkan, and the future for humanity that the Imperium promises."
"You are hurt, brave Allyria," Cassian said and not unkindly. "Should you not take your retainers and retire from the field? There is a small lull in the fighting, and you could retreat with your honor intact."
"And abandon these brave soldiers to their fate?" she scoffed. "Even if I so desired, Vigilance would never allow it. Fortunate then, that we are of one mind on this. A few brief minutes of repair, my lord. Then you shall see what the Avenging Daughter of Haddenhoc is capable of. Woe be to any friend or foe that stands in our way!"
Cassian Vaughn just smiled at her, raising himself up from the hunched position he had taken and looking back as the converging soldiers who had come to hear what the legionary had to say.
"Look at the faith this Knight has, soldiers of the Imperium!" he called out. "Not only faith in herself and her knight, but faith in all of you! Faith even in our Imperium! I call on you to stand fast and believe in one another, and take the fight to the enemy!"
"Take the fight to the enemy?" a soldier asked, though it was more an exclamation of dismay at the suggestion than an actual question before the end. "We're exhausted my lord! Hardly any ammunition left and you want us to charge those brutes?"
"You are dead if you stay," one of Cassian's guards warned. "And retreat will leave the comrades on the line to your left and right in a precarious position. You cannot defend, and you cannot run. Your only choice is to charge."
As they bickered, massive screens all over the hive lit up and showed a sight that chilled Cassian Vaughn to the bone. Horus Lupercali was fighting against the biggest ork he had ever seen, and he seemed to be losing. No matter what the Primarch did, the ork just shrugged off the blow and kept on attacking, eventually slicing Horus' side open with its axe.
Gasps erupted from the soldiers before they stifled themselves. Seeing a Primarch wounded was a sight that none but the inner core of an Astartes legion were used to seeing on a regular basis. It shook some of them to their core, that these seemingly immortal figures were capable of being harmed like this.
Then, as it seemed the infighting and the doubt were going to destroy any remaining morale the troops had left, the lieutenant from earlier pointed at the screen towards where Horus rose and readied himself for battle once more.
"The Primarch fights, and we must not be found wanting!" he yelled. "Lupercali lives, and so must we!"
The yell was taken up by others, racing through the ranks as they held up their weapons in the air and shouted in one voice: "LUPERCALI LIVES, AND SO MUST WE!"
"The Orks must be tired as well, they've been fighting just as hard as we have." the Battle Brother from the line chimed in. Cassian was proud. The men here were starting to believe again, to dream of a brighter future instead of just blindly following the orders of other men who would control them.
A roar went up in the distance. None present could quite hear the words, but they all knew what it mean. There was another charge by the orks that was going to happen soon. The WAAAGH!!! was building, and soon it would crash down upon them.
"We can do this..." the lieutenant said, seemingly giving voice to his thoughts as fast as he could gather them. "We charge down the hill, and equip bayonets on all of the lasrifles that can't shoot. If we surprise them, and we are fast enough, we should be able to hit them before they're ready to attack. They won't expect it!"
The assembled forces all seemed to be looking at Cassian, eager to hear his command.
"Why do you look to me?" he asked, thankful he had put his helmet back on so that they could not see the grin on his face. "Look to your new captain and your new colonel! This is their attack, and their privilege to sound the charge!"
The new colonel of the Auxilia, recently a lowly lieutenant, gave a quick and easy smile before raising up a fist into the air.
"Fix bayonets!" he screamed as the soldiers who could do so reached into their packs for the proper equipment.
"Charge!" roared the new captain of the Dragon-Forged as the remaining armed forces of Section 43 thundered down the hill.
They did indeed take the orks by surprise, as the greenskins were in the middle of eating and attempting to channel the power of the WAAAGH!!! that was coursing all around them. Their weapons weren't close, and they hadn't even bothered to establish sentries around their own camps, so sure were they that the 'humies' were hanging on by a thread and that they were going to collapse the moment the orks charged one more time.
The first grot died with a surprised squeak, a las round piercing through its skull as roasted squig meat held up on a stick dropped from its jaws.
"FOR THE EMPEROR AND FOR HUMANITY!" came the battle cry as the soldiers poured down the hill that was created during the first day of battle by an exploding orbital missile. They herded the orks and grots where they wished them to go and it was an absolute slaughter. Some of the soldiers, the ones made weak and slow by poor living conditions for almost a week died quickly, but even some of the regular soldiers were scoring kills on orks as they plunged their bayonets into the skulls of the vile xenos.
Just as the orks were beginning to recover and rally behind a warboss that tried to take order amidst the chaos, the true scope of the Imperium's attack was seen. What had attacked them had just been the left flank of their charging force, and now the right side was swinging shut like a door. Now, Cassian's Tochbearer vehicle and the Eternal Vigilance came rushing down the hill with their guns blazing at speeds the still recovering greenskins could not hope to match.
It was all over fairly quickly, with maybe five minutes having elapsed between the first grot's death and the warboss' ignominious end being crushed underneath the specialized Rhino-pattern transport unique to the XVIII Legion. As they gathered the piles of corpses and burned the greenskin bodies, soldier took up impromptu dancing around the bonfire as chants about the Emperor, Lupercali, and the Imperium went up.
"Scouting has reported minimal xenos presence in the area" the new colonel said said, approaching Cassian with a massive grin on his face. The recently promoted Astartes Captain followed behind, inscrutable behind his helmet. "It worked, my lord. It actually worked! They'll be fleeing back into the void before this battle is over. The void, my lord!"
"Well done, soldier" Cassian said with a stately nod. "I need to leave though. Take the soldiers back to your original positon and fortify as best as you can. Reinforcements will come, but they will take time as it is no longer a priority to defend this section."
"Where will you go Lord Commander?" the Captain asked.
"Other places on the line need me" Cassian replied gruffly. "We are an army surrounding a fortress city on all sides, attacked from within and without. And not all of them are as lucky as Section 43 to have such a deep pool of command candidates."
It was a quick drive after that, as Cassian poured over data slates of various positions that needed his 'inspiring' touch. As they passed a massive vid screen, he saw that a stray piece of artillery had damaged it to the point that the images on the screen were indecipherable.
"How fares the Primarch in his duel?" Cassian said, leaning forward so his voice would carry better into the driver's seat.
"I know not, my lord," the Astartes driving replied. "All I know is that he is still fighting."
"Still fighting…" the Lord Commander mused. "A good sign I suppose."
"Fight well, Horus Lupercali" he commanded, muttering under his breath. "You carry the fate and hopes of us all."
Location: Throne Room of Urg Mag Uruk Thraka
Tengri supposed he should be grateful for the searing pain. It at least let him know he was alive.
That sensation was about the only thing that did let him know he was alive though, as he could feel that his eyes were empty and bleeding sockets that throbbed along with the rest of his body whenever his heart tried to beat in his chest. It hurt him deeply, for out of all the Emperor's genetically perfect children, Tengri had been given the best eyesight so that he could always "see what others were blind to" as his father had once put it. To lose such a valuable asset was devastating, and would have been ruinous for a lesser being. But he was a Primarch, and he would endure as he was made to do.
The Emperor's biological genius was repairing most of the damage, but eyes were something that would take time to regenerate, if the WAAAGH!!! energy even allowed regeneration for something like that. And in the meantime, all that he had was the pain that coursed through his body with every heartbeat.
Though he was wracked with pain, he was still a Primarch and that meant that he could block out the pain and focus. Walling off that part of his mind, he tried to make more sense about what was happening to both him and the rest of the throne room.
There was still a fight going on, that much was certain. He could hear the sounds of combat along with the telltale splatter of gore and war cries of the orks. Beyond that sound, he heard the telltale noises of a Perpetual coming back to life over and over again. Ogadin was dying, but he heard no other sounds of Astartes warplate being torn. They were either all dead or they had been able to flee. Considering what else had gone wrong for him, Tengri decided now was a good time to be an optimist.
Another jolt of pain made Tengri realize something else as well. The pain was not radiating from inside of him. It was a pain on his skin, and it was only in specific areas. One pulse more to get the general outlines of the shape, and another to understand the finer points of what exactly was happening with his skin.
Tengri's Thundersoul Drum had shattered upon its use as he teleported himself and all the Astartes onboard his shuttle into the Vengeful Spirit as they escaped the Destroyah. He had assumed it was merely decorative patterns, reminiscent of the aesthetics that the impossibly ancient Terran tribe that made it. But now, its patterns upon his skin were coursing as if there were lightning in it. It was trying to tell him something, making a voice out of every heartbeat that the Primarch had, but Tengri couldn't sense what it was.
Then it hit him. Sense. It was a drum. An instrument that replied on percussion to make sound bursts that echoed throughout a room. Echoes that could be received back if the person had the means and inclination to listen. Here was his father's gift, ready to be used in defense of the Imperium. All Tengri had to do was reach out and take what was being offered.
Lightning that coursed over his skin was allowed into his heart, into his mind. With every pulse, made all the faster by the biological mastery Tengri had over his own body, he saw a clear vision of the room before him. He saw his brother fighting against twenty or so orks that looked to be warbosses of their own. He saw dead and dying Astartes on the floor in desperate need of attention. But what he saw most of all was a supernova of energy being drawn from a broken window and into the body of an ork far away from any of the combat but extremely close to where Tengri was lying as still as a corpse. The fool hadn't even moved the damaged power saber away from his corpse.
So fast that he was almost impossible to track, Tengri was up and clutching his ruined sword as he rushed toward this warp-fueled ork and leapt upwards in the air. The sword came down like death incarnate, but it was a broken thing that was too short for what he intended to do. The original tip of the sword would have pierced through the ork's skull before he even had time to react, but the shortened blade gave the creature enough time to turn around and raise a psychic shield that blocked the killing blow less than a millimeter before it reached the ork. A pulse lifted the Primarch up and off but Tengri landed with all the grace that was expected of one of the Emperor's sons.
"What's this?!" the ork roared, looking up with what Tengri assumed was shock and disbelief. "Do all humies come back to life when we killz 'em? Gotta do it proper this time!"
The V Primarch had always been blessed with the ability to see things that others overlooked. When the Primarchs and the elite of the legions had arrived in the throne room of the Beasts of Beasts, the orks present had spoken with clarity and proper vocabulary, their Low Gothic impeccable and precise. But when flustered, they slipped back into a more primitive state, like this psychic ork was doing now. That was something the Primarch could use, and planned to. All he had to do was handle the ork's attack and he could make his move. The strike would be powerful, but the ork was panicked. It would be wild, and not made with precision. Not to mention that Tengri was entirely too close for this creature's comfort and it would be far more concerned about getting back into a comfortable position instead of proper combat priority.
A psychic heartbeat told Tengri exactly when the ork's staff his the ground and he could see in perfect detail how the psyker's palm was extended. The shot would be high, aiming for his head with the intention of cooking his skull.
He slid down as the bolt of lightning passed over him. He could only see its psychic trail, but he could also taste the burned air all around the bolt and that was plenty close for his preference. The slide carried him far. Far enough that his feet collided with ork's knees and shattered them to pieces.
As it fell to the ground screaming in pain, Tengri sprang to his feet as fast as he could and fell back immediately dowards as he buried the ruined sword into the creature's throat and out through the rear of its skull.
"Zog it all…" croaked Zahubu the Prophet one last time. "Not again…"
And with a flash of green light, he lay still and moved no more.
Location: The Outer Wall of the Great Citadel
Something was different now. He could feel it.
Horus' fight with the Beast of Beasts had gone much like he predicted it would. It was a stalemate that he was losing at a glacial pace. His blows were just a hair slower than they were minutes ago, and he saw that the Beast's confidence was increasing. The regeneration that the creature was capable of was truly astounding, and no matter what Horus did to inflict damage it just shrugged it off and its body looked no worse for the wear.
Its armor was thankfully much less durable than its body. The metal had been shorn off by the power of Horus' Longinus-infused fists and there were no more missiles that sought to shred his innards. The axe and the muscles that wielded it were another matter, and Horus was wracking his brain to try and find a way to mitigate those dangers. So far, he had not succeeded.
Then, for seemingly no reason, Urg Mag Uruk Thraka's eyes went wide. The muscles on his right arm started to ripple seemingly out of control and the swing he was in the middle of went laughably wide. Energy crackled along the blade as it had on several swings, but it was out of control. Some of the Beast's flesh was scorched as the axe embedded itself in the ground and stray lightning hit his leg. The monster barely seemed to notice, and the wound was gone almost as fast as it appeared.
The XVI Primarch was tempted to take advantage of the moment and rush in to strike another blow, but thought better of it at the last moment. His caution was well rewarded, as with a groan and sigh the Beast of Beasts grew another two meters at least, the last of his armor fell off with a popping sound and the leather underneath it was struggling with its newfound responsibilities. It was truly a mythical beast in the flesh now, and Horus was very glad that his caution was winning the battle over his confidence.
But that didn't change the fact that their battle was changing. He needed to know how, and felt like he was almost on the edge of figuring it out. Seemingly unbidden in his head, he knew what Abaddon would have said if he was here and was able to give his father advice:
"You were given gifts. Time to start using them."
After his death at the Battle of Luna, the resurrected Horus Lupercali had learned that the eye Be'lakor had stabbed out in the Inner Sanctum would never regrow. The genetic coding to put an eye in that perfectly carved socket was gone. Nothing would ever come from there, and any attempt to attach a prosthesis had resulted in fried circuitry and an acrid smoke.
But what took its place was an eye of pure Anathemic fire. Though not able to see the physical world, Horus could peer into the Warp in a way that not even his brother Magnus could. Daemons could not hide from him, no matter how deep their infiltration of the Materium. The unseen were exposed, the intangible became noticed, and through diligent training that took him decades to master, Horus Lupercali became able to see the influence of the Immaterium while seeing the material world.
Turning his fiery eye upon the Beasts of Beasts, he saw a thin and dissipating trail of green energy that had just recently been siphoned upwards towards the window they had fallen out of. He remembered the ork that had made the other xenos in the room act in a blood frenzy, and guessed that it had been taking this energy. But now all of that power was contained within Urg Mag Uruk Thraka, and it was more uncontrollable than it was before. It coursed over him and through him, seemingly at random and only occasionally being controlled by the Warlord of Ullanor.
This could only be one thing: the WAAAGH!!! energy that had been learned of on this crusade. Here Horus was, meters away from the genesis of this power. Billions if not trillions of microscopic green tendrils fed into the Beast of Beasts, but there were none going out anymore. That level of power was hard for the warlord to contain, and it made the air around both of them shimmer as the psychic power of the entire greenskin race threatened to unmake everything around them.
A psychic eye was not the only thing that Horus had inherited upon Luna however, and his other gift was just what he needed in a situation like this. Seconds before Be'lakor had plunged the Longinus into his eye, Horus Lupercali had killed himself because of the memories and visions of his dark counterpart. Though the Emperor had healed his sixteenth son of the emotional trauma that he'd undergone at Luna, the memories had stayed behind. He had never been sure why he was cursed to live with these things, but now he had understood the Emperor's intention. Perhaps his father had not known what the memories of the Lupercal might be used for, but he knew that it was better to have that weapon at his son's disposal so his son could use every weapon at his disposal when the time came.
There had been a weapon, one that had been used in another timeline that could kill Urg Mag Uruk Thraka. Indeed, it already had. With a flick of his wrist, the power of the Longinus no longer acted like a flaming corona around his left fist. It arced up his arm and down to his right hand where the light rejoined itself once more and took a new shape, one that were not his yet he remembered with perfect clarity. Metal made of solid golden light started at his right palm and soon encased his entire hand, bulking around the dorsal side into a twin-barreled combi-bolter. The points of all five fingers lengthened out into power claws with crackling energies of their own. This lightning claw was massive, built only for a primarch and full of archaeotech that in this timeline was still buried under the rubble of Cthonia where it would hopefully remain undisturbed. Where there had once been technology there was now the pure uncorrupted power of the Warp. Horus hoped that it would suffice, but he wasn't overly worried. This battle was more about belief than the technology behind their weapons now, and the Primarch had just summoned the one weapon that the Beast believed could kill it.
Because for the first time in ten thousand years, the Talons of Horus were wielded once again on the surface of Ullanor.
"You recognize this, don't you?" Horus said, his voice almost a purr as he advanced upon his prey with the ease that only an alpha predator could produce.
Somehow, the Warlord of Ullanor did. He had never seen this human weapon in his life, but the WAAAGH!!! energies surrounding him screamed into this soul that this was the weapon that killed him. Was he, the Great Beasts of Beast not alive? Yes, but also no. Logic and consistency were mere suggestions to the creature now, as steeped in the power of Gork and Mork as it was. And so while he was very much still alive, this was without a doubt the weapon that killed him.
And as the Beast believed it, he made it so. Such was the power of the WAAAGH!!!
The monster lifted its axe above its head with a snarl, ready to throw it at his hated foe. But Horus was the master of this fight now. He had already won, and would do so again. The combi-bolter was raised and fire erupted from the two barrels, impacting into the creature's right arm as it hefted the axe where multiple rounds exploded in a brilliant flash of golden fire. The Beast's right arm fell to the ground at the spot where it had been raised, separated from the ork's body after that hail of bolter fire. No arm grew in the stump's place, as Horus knew it would not. The Beast no longer believed that it was invulnerable to all damage and would heal. The wound would stay because that was what the ork expected to happen. Fear would lose the creature this battle now, and it was up to Horus to make its expectations a reality.
When the end came, it was short and already a foregone conclusion. Horus Lupercali charged forth, firing the combi-bolter the entire time he did so. The Beast of Beasts tried to shield himself with his remaining arm, and even attempted a rudimentary psychic shield, but it was all in vain. The rounds found their way home, and the once terrifying bestial face became ruined with strips of flesh hanging loosely upon its frame. It looked at its advancing foe, eyes uncomprehending as to what exactly was happening before it.
"Wha-"
Five talons ablaze with the light of the Anathema plunged out of Urg Mag Uruk Thraka's back as the monster spewed out a geyser of blood from its destroyed face. Even though it felt like a mountain was crashing down upon his body, Horus held it upright, looking into its one remaining eye as life left it.
"Even now, at the end, you do not understand" the Primarch of the Lunar Templars snarled as he withdrew his talon and encircled both of his hands in the fire of the Longinus once again. He had made a promise to himself to finish the fight with his bare hands, and he was going to make good on that promise right now.
With one powerful tug, Urg Mag Uruk Thraka's head tore free from its body and the Beast of Beast's corpse slumped over with a detectable rumble. Horus looked right at a broadcasting device that was displaying his new triumph to every single soul it could across the entire Ullanor System.
"This galaxy was never meant for you to conquer!" he roared, holding the head aloft for all to see. "It is humanity's, now and forever!"
With that, golden flames emerged from his hands once more and it burned with a righteous anger against the former Warlord. Once again, the head of Urg Mag Uruk Thraka found itself on fire, only this time, there was no more regeneration. The fire continued unabated and soon turned the monster's to nothing more than ash.
"VICTORY!" Horus screamed as he threw the ash into the air, making a cloud around his head that no victor's laurel could hope to match in accomplishment. "We have our victory!"
"VICTORY!" cheered two Primarchs, hundreds of meters above Horus, who had just finished slaying the last of the fleeing Beasts-In-Waiting who were gripped by sheer terror at the prospect of their dashed hopes and dreams.
"VICTORY!" roared an exhausted Lord Commander of the Salamanders, as a Gargant that was seemingly held together by recently vanished hopes and dreams crumbled to the ground after only the most glancing of blows from a Titan's plasma cannon.
"VICTORY!" said a new colonel, whose new soldiers were either sobbing openly or on their knees as they prayed to gods that had been made illegal long ago. He did not care. This day, out all that they would live in their lives, was worthy of a little rule breaking.
"VICTORY!" exclaimed Jubal Khan, gripping the armrests of his command chair as pinpricks of light symbolizing the ork fleet exploded as they fled in vain to escape the oncoming doom of their empire that spread across the system.
Miles and miles below where the victory celebrations too place, the Emperor of Mankind paused in the middle of a fierce combat against entities that would have made any mind not conditioned against such things a gibbering wreck after the briefest of glimpses. He dispatched it with a contemptuous flick of his wrist and looked up through rockcrete at a sight that only he could see from these depths.
"Hmmm… a victory?" he mused, to himself mostly, as all others were too preoccupied with their own foes to hear him speak.
"Soon. Very soon, I think. But not yet."
Location: The Great Chamber of the Senatorum Imperialis
The Great Chamber was packed. Normally the site of the Imperium's more open side of lawmaking and governing, it also held a special place for all of the most important announcements made by the Imperium. Normally, it was the domain of the High Senators and the various collectio of the Imperium. But now, it was packed with so, so many more. Most of the Imperium's elite within the Sol System were now in this room, along with various top-ranking Adepts from the wider Sector, all of whom had journeyed here to listen to this most critical of announcements. Furthermore, this was being broadcast to the entire Sol System as fast as Instein Relativism would allow, while numerous Lex-Arrays prepared to send the raw data of the recording across the entire Imperium within a matter of hours. The room was tense, restless, a constant hum of tens of thousands of voices murmuring rumors and speculation. Some knew why they were there, others had a very good idea, and yet more were clueless.
On public displays, private devices and many other media, billions of Terra and Luna's citizens had their eyes glued to screens, watching and waiting. Watching was not mandatory, but all but the most essential work had been stopped to allow this to be seen by as much of the population as possible. Such would be the case for the many trillions of Imperial citizens across the galaxy, the very instant that the data made its way through the complex web of Lex-Arrays and physical transfers to each and every world that made up the Imperium of Man.
A man dressed in a simple robe took the stage. He was one who every person in the Imperium knew, the Last Priest of Terra, and now the Advocate-Primus of the Imperial Truth. Uriah Olathaire strode with a confidence only one who walked among the Emperor's favored could possess, moving up to a voxcaster placed on the pristine stage which a mere four hours ago had been where the High Senators had been seated for a Session Peculiaris to discuss the most recent events, those that would now be revealed to the public.
Uriah smiled as he reached the voxcaster, making the Sign of the Aquila to the audience. Billions of hands responded in kind, and the room, nay, the planet, went silent. Five seconds later, the Advocate Primus spoke.
"A century and a half ago, I abandoned my faith in gods, phantasms, parasites, instead choosing to put my faith in humanity, the things we can do as a species if we are united against that which may destroy us. I was the Last Priest of Terra, enslaved to a god that was nothing more than a figment of my imagination, a fancy of escapism to cope with the harsh reality that faced our species at that time. When the Emperor of Mankind, Hallowed Be His Light, came to visit me, he made me aware of another possibility. Faith in our species. Unity and safety for us all was his dream, and so he set the Imperium, confined to Terra as it was, on a path towards galactic dominance".
"I was not alone to see that light, to see that we can only trust each other. One hundred and three years ago, it was Mars who were the first to join us. Combined, Terra and Mars began the great work that would one day be joined by so many others. The mighty hosts of the Legiones Astartes were built with Martian ceramite and Terran courage. Together, they launched the Solar Crusade, freeing humanity's first home from the depredations of Xenos Horrificus, the slavery of tyrants and the madness of the warp. We were ready to continue. But then we were betrayed". Uriah went silent, his words echoing across the room, grim, accusatory. "The Lunar Insurrection was a time of trials. While the fools that served the Dark Gods were crushed, the Imperium was wounded. The insidious voice of doubt began to spread, that perhaps we were not so strong as we thought, that the Emperor's dream was just that, a dream, dispelled and forgotten once reality hit. But such voices were never in the majority. Our loyal citizens kept their faith in humanity, in the Imperium, no matter how hard things became". Uriah smiled. "Today, that faith, that trust, it has been rewarded".
The murmurs returned, many taking their theories as correct, but the room soon hushed as Uriah raised his hands. "The Ork Empire of Ullanor has been defeated. Its leader, a thug calling itself 'Urg Mag Uruk Thraka', has been slain by the Warmaster of the Ullanor Crusade, Horus Lupercali." An image appeared on a massive screen up above and on the live broadcast. The body of a massive creature could be seen, bloody and brutalized, torn and burned and shredded. Cheers filled the room. "The Orks, dangerous though they are, are ultimately cowards. Without their leader, they run and tear each other apart. We have fought Ullanor's Greenskins for nearly two decades, and now their leader is no more".
"As mighty as Horus Lupercali is, we must remember that this victory was not won by one man. And so, I would like to offer my thanks to all those who played their part in this victory. To the Primarchs, who led and fought this most brutal war. To the Primarchs!" he roared, raising an arm and eliciting a cheer from the audience. "To the Legiones Astartes, who took the fight to the Greenskins' citadel and slew their most mighty warriors. To the Astartes!" Another raised arm, another cheer. "To the 100 million Solar Auxilia who fought on Ullanor, to whom Duty ends in Death, who held the line against foes far greater in number. To the Solar Auxilia!"
Once the cheering had subsided, Uriah raised a hand for silence. "We must remember that the Ullanor Crusade was not the only war the Imperium was waging. Ninety years of warfare has cost us many lives. Astartes, Auxilia, Navis Imperialis, planetary defense forces, and, most tragically of all, civilians denied any choice in the matter. A moment of silence could never truly reflect the scale of what we have lost in these last nine decades alone. The Administratum could, I'm sure, provide me with an exact number, but I will not reduce them to a statistic. They were parents, children, siblings, cousins, friends, comrades. A moment of silence is not enough, but I ask that we give it nonetheless, those who died for the Great Crusade, who died for humanity and its survival. Let us remember those who did not live to see the Imperium's triumph".
Uriah's solemn words hung in the air, and the room was silent. The Advocate-Primus held his hands in the Sign of the Aquila and closed his eyes. Many of the audience did the same, tears streaming down the faces of some.It was a long moment, but none dared to break the silence. In the centuries to come, the pose of the Advocate Primus with his head bowed and tears streaming down the side of his face as he made the Sign of the Aquila would be a favorite of painters and sculptors.
Eventually, Uriah's eyes opened. "Those who have fallen are gone, but not forgotten. It is our duty to continue the work they started. That must always remain our strongest conviction". He breathed out audibly. "Death was not the only sacrifice that was made for the Imperium. We have all toiled endlessly for the Great Crusade, and I must extend my gratitude to all of the Imperium's citizens, from the Senators of this august body down to the lowest menial. However large or small your contribution was, I thank you for playing your own part in ensuring that the Imperium triumphed. Ninety years of expansion, diplomacy, development and war were only possible thanks to the combined effort of every citizen of the Imperium, and now our greatest threat has been crippled".
"However!" Uriah said, voice lowering in warning. "This is not the time for the Imperium to let its guard down. Our triumph is great, but it is not yet secure. There is still much work to be done before the Great Crusade can be completed and the Imperium's position secured. I ask for ninety more years. The Ork Empire of Ullanor is leaderless, but the Orks are merciless, allowed to run they will forget their fear, returning to threaten our survival once again. They must be hunted, run down and broken. They must be exterminated without mercy. To do less would consign us to another terrible war. Even after we have broken the Ullanor Orks and their kin on numberless worlds across the galaxy, there will still be other monstrosities to slay. Some will be merciless warmongers like the Greenskins, others subtle and insidious parasites. Countless human worlds live under the leadership of tyrants and fools, crying out for salvation which we are duty-bound to deliver. Traitors to all life sell themselves and others to the creatures of the warp, and must be wiped out lest they spread their cancer to all. And so it is that the Great Crusade must continue. We have no choice. Too much of humanity lives in the darkness, and we must bring them into the light. We will not rest while they still bleed. We will not tarry while they still fight. We will not wait while they still stand defiant against the Xenos, the Daemon, the Heretic. Ninety more years is what I must ask of you all. Ninety more years!"
The room roared back. "NINETY MORE YEARS!"
Uriah smiled, slowly raising his hands. "With our greatest foe at our feet, and no mercy to give, this is the time where the Imperium of Man will make its most rapid expansion. We will need all you can give. Enlist in your local Imperialis Militia branch, every fresh PDF recruit is another veteran free to fight on the front lines. Volunteer for extra overtime, we will need every weapon, every armour, every device you can possibly imagine for this great outward expansion. Join a crew of workers to build the factories our soldiers depend on. And if none of those are things you can do, the Departmento Exacta has compiled an extensive list of ways you can help the Imperium. I would encourage all loyal citizens to visit their local Administratum headquarters to find out more".
"This is a day of triumph, but of humility, a recognition of how far we have come, and how much further we must go. I ask you all to take the next steps on that journey with me".
"Ave Imperator. Ave Imperium. Glory in Excelsis Humanitas!"
Location: The Very Depths of Ullanor
How long had they been down here? Hours? Days? Centuries? This close to their goal, it was impossible to accurately measure time, but the Emperor of Mankind estimated that it was approximately three weeks of constant journeying, ever downwards into the heart of the madness that had gripped this planet for untold millions of years.
It had been a quiet journey at first. And the small part of Constantin Valdor that was still capable of doubt began to wonder if this had not been a waste of the power of the Adeptus Custodes. Even a single squadron could have won any battle against any foe, and yet the Emperor had taken a full thousand of them into the depths of this planet on a mission that none save Him could understand. It was only that doubt about the mission that had assuaged the doubts that the Captain General had about the numbers. The Emperor knew all of this, as plainly as if his longtime servant had shouted it at the top of his lungs, but he let him wrestle with that doubt all on his own. Blind and unflinching loyalty had been a small part of the trap laid for his counterpart, and the Emperor vowed to take as few steps down that road as he possibly could.
All doubts vanished by the second week of their journey as they were ambushed on all sides by Drukhari and Harlequin assassins sent, no doubt, by Cegorach as some performative message to get him to stop before it was too late. It was beyond pointless, as it took until the sixty seventh attempt before the first Custodes even had his armor scratched. The Emperor had not even been forced to use his psychic powers to defend them, which was fortunate for the Custodes, as unbeknownst to them there were older and more powerful predators that were being drawn towards the descending group.
Psychic abominations, each one resembling a different xenos species, assaulted the group. The glimpses of them were fleeting, but they were enough to tell a story the assembled Companions were certain was never meant to be told to mortal ears. One was a bloated toad creature, as tall as an Imperial Knight that sought to cover them all in a ghostly mucus it spat from its found. Another was a mass of whirling tentacles, with none able to see what lay underneath as it flitted from shadow to shadow where it ceaselessly whispered about torments that would drive a mortal mad. A third was a startlingly thin and ghastly pale creature, and one that not even the enhanced and psychically protected Custodes could remember seeing the moment they turned their gaze away from it.
All were repelled by the Emperor, but the powers he drew upon the drive them away or destroy them utterly acted like a bright flame for older and more powerful entities to attack the group. By what the Emperor calculated as the third week, they were almost tangible and both Emperor and Custodies fought together against the combined forces of Aeldari and Abomination.
"I have seen many of these knife-ears before, and killing their kind is no great task for the Companions," Valdor said once, withdrawing his weapon from a Drukhari archon that sought to poison them all with a toxin that would use the decaying chronology of the place to make each second twice as long as the one before. "But these other things… we seem to have no record of them and their movements are unlike anything I have ever seen before. Do you know what they are, my Emperor?"
"Failures," the Emperor said simply, as if looking at a pet he had lost interest in. "All experiments have failures of some kind, and this is where Those Who Came Before disposed of theirs. The closer we come to their success, the closer their failures were to being accepted. Be on your guard, for I do not wish to lose any of you."
The fighting soon became a constant fixture of their lives, though there were less and less Aeldari attacks as they went further and further into the depths of the planet. This was not a place that mortals were meant to survive, and they all would have surely perished if not for the Emperor's constant renewal of their bodies and souls. But whereas the Aeldari were growing less frequent, the psychic entities were growing stronger, with more and more creative ways being required to truly banish them. Three times the Emperor had to reveal his full glory, and in all three cases the things that were drawn to the next battle were truly horrifying to behold. After one particularly difficult fight, the Emperor shared with them the news that Horus Lupercali had triumphed. The Great Beast was dead and the Ork Empire at Ullanor was crushed, never to return. There were no shouts of joy, no celebrations of any kind. That was not the way of the Custodes. Only a tightening of their grips upon their weapons and a renewed resolve that they would not be the ones that caused the delay or downfall of man's ascension.
"How many miles have we traveled, my Emperor?" Valdor asked eventually. "Hundreds?"
"Thousands." came the reply that was so certain that it might as well have been absolute truth.
"Then why are we not feeling the heat of an approaching planet core? Should we not have encountered something besides these endless mazes of stone passageways?"
"Were we entirely in the Materium? Undoubtedly." the Emperor replied. "But Ullanor has not been fully in the Materium for a long, long time. It has wounds that not even I can heal. But just because healing is beyond my power does not mean that cleansing is pointless."
Eventually, at the end of the fortieth day of traveling, they reached their final goal. Two twin doors stretching so far up into the sky that the Emperor knew that if the laws of physics were still to be obeyed that the top of the structure would pierce the upper atmosphere stood before them. Countless pieces of art decorated the panels upon them, and the Emperor's perfect memory took them all in. There was no time for such things as studying to occur at this moment, but there would be opportunity aboard the Bucephalus later to pour over his memories to glean new information.
"When I open those doors, you shall be on your own." the Emperor warned, giving a pointed glance to Valdor and the thousand Custodes that had taken this journey with him. "No matter what comes through these doors, you must protect me. Should you fail, hope for us all is lost."
"We are the Adeptus Custodes." Constantin Valdor replied simply. "We shall not fail."
With that, the Emperor turned his gaze to the doors once more and placed both his hands upon their base. An impossibly old intelligence, one that had slain countless individuals it found unworthy to access the knowledge within, touched the Anathema's mind. It was only the briefest of touches, but it was enough for the intelligence to feel the sensation of something terrifyingly familiar. This felt not like the mind of a treasure hunter or a power-mad tyrant seeking an ultimate weapon, but rather it felt as if this was a homecoming of sorts. Though it defied all logic the thing possessed, the doors open at the slightest of pushes from a being it could only recognize as one of its masters.
As the doors opened, the Emperor had no time to take in the scenery before him before a yawning portal the shade of eternal night seemed to reach forward and pull him forward into its depths. Visions of such overwhelming potency it would have fried the mind of any other psyker living in the galaxy today flooded through him and forced him to see what it willed:
They were losing this war. In many ways it had already been lost. Races they had built to fight other threats had performed admirably, but they were not perfectly assembled for this task. And the Slaathion could not allow a tool of anything less than perfection to win them this war.
Their warminds were corrupted, turned against them as the very font of their power overflowed with poison that suffocated their very souls. It was in the material world that their enemies came for them, destroying all in their path. It had to be in the material that they were defeated.
The idea had been, was still, very simple. A weapon that gained more strength the more time it spent fighting. As its numbers would grow, so too would its potency. A perfect solution, all had agreed.
But then the failures kept mounting. Race after race that the Slaathion had allowed to grow and prosper under their watchful protection was brought forth, and entire species were consumed in a vain effort to find something worth producing. All of the death stirred the poison within the Great Beyond, and even further ground was lost on both wars fighting against both enemies. To prevent more death and destruction from leaking into that realm, the failures and their oversouls were cast deep below, guarding the eventual success that would inevitably come.
Eventually, one of their most brilliant scientists came forward with a solution: stop using existing species as the template and create their own. Pure control could be exerted, as no step of the creation would now be influenced by genetic chance. Milennia passed as various life forms were tried before a particular breed of fungus created by the scientist themself. It would do its job wonderfully as a self-sustaining and ever-expanding armed force that would only grow stronger the more it fought, with a specifically designed fresh warmind that would function as an oversoul and psychic generator to manifest whatever supplies the weapon may need.
All that was needed now was the mind itself. It could not be created from the Great Beyond from scratch like the others had. That had been what had given them such problems in the first place. Problems they still did not have an answer to. One issue at a time however, and a fast approaching apotheosis would be instrumental in solving their first and easily greatest problem.
The scientist was chosen in the end. It was only natural that they be the ultimate end of their greatest creation. After all of the discussion, cajoling, bargaining and threatening the Slaathion were known for, eventually all was agreed. The scientist was lead into the very heart of the complex on one of their foremost research worlds. Its twin heads, a unique mutation among their kind though not debilitating or shunned, both looked at their fellows one last time before the process began. The screams were excruciating, as all assembled agreed it must have been to have your soul torn apart at the most minute level and stitched back together again in a way that crossed between the material and immaterial.
Results were all that mattered to the Slaathion however, and the final one was as brilliant as they could have hoped for.
Every sentient species creates a collective unconscious within the Warp. This phenomenon had been used in the past by the Slaathion to create Psi-Constructs. These constructs fulfilled the role other species A.I.'s or Hive-Consciousness would. Super-Intelligences powering, coordinating and in some cases being the infrastructure of their civilization. A creation of a Psi-Construct beyond anything seen before would be needed to power the weapon. And it was perfect. The weapon was ready to be used fully to win the war against their hated enemies.
Named after the Slaathion flesh-speech word for bloody-death. The Krork were an utterly self-sufficient highly adaptable living war machine. Entire worlds were given over to the breeding of Krorks. From where billion strong hordes attracted to and powered by violence would be called forth by their Slaathion handlers and unleashed upon the war's fronts.
Eventually, they won. But the galaxy had been burned almost to ash in order for victory to be achieved. A kill switch had been implemented at the last minute, and when their foes vanished from the galaxy and it was clear that there were no more enemies to fight, the Slaathion issued the kill command and went into their own long hibernation to wait for the perfect moment to reappear to intervene in the galaxy once again.
They had underestimated their own genius. All it took was a few scant fungal spores to start the Krork-forming process. Yet to the recovering galaxy's shock and horror these newborn fungal creatures were not the stoic unwaveringly loyal warrior-beasts they had once heard legend of. The warp-cataclysms unleashed to purge the galaxy had somehow damaged the Psionic-Nexus that controlled the Krork. Brutish feral barbarians built for and fed by war spawned on countless worlds. The War-Field reignited with the presence of its people. Gone was the strong, obedient War-Mind and its legions of Krorks. All that was left of the once brilliant warmind was its brutality and its cunning. In its place, the feral warp-creature Gorkamorka and its rampaging kin the Orks stood, ready to bathe the galaxy in blood for a mission that was no longer active for a war that had long since died away. No hope remained, no option for redemption. Only war. Only the WAAAGH!!!
The Emperor opened his eyes once again and beheld the room around him. Once again, he was not where his physical body stood. He was in a section of the Webway, a kaleidoscope of colors dancing along the walls and sentient theater mask bobbing in front of him, simultaneously human-sized and impossibly large.
"You see yet another of our failures, Anathema." Cegorach said, its voice that of a parent mourning a dead child. "Not our greatest, but certainly one of our longest lasting. I do hope the warning stuck this time."
"That your kind was not the gods that you let millions of species believe you were?" the Emperor replied, contempt dripping from every word.
"That the path you are on is destined for failure."
"Did you really think that I was going to create another warmind with your technology?" the Anathema scoffed. "Your imagination is limited for one that is famed for their creativity."
"Whatever it is you have planned, it will not work. There is still time for us to salvage the only plan that can, for we can still save the galaxy from the Annihilator if you just stop here. Humanity will be saved, along with all other species worthy to be assembled in the end. But if you continue this path, you will ruin our salvation beyond repair. Humanity, and every other species worthy of survival will be slaughtered or enslaved"
"A cage is no life at all," the Emperor growled. "Just a death that destroys slowest of all."
"Is there nothing I can do to stop you on this path?"
"You are too late." was the Emperor's only reply. "Sixty million years too late."
With a flash of golden light, he was returned. The Emperor stood before two opened doors that had corpses on all sides seared by Anathemic fire. All of his senses said that his journey took him no time at all. Less than a second had passed during all that he had encountered, and now all their enemies lay dead at their feet.
He barely gave it any thought, as the prize he had sought after for so long was right in front of him.
A golden throne, massive and resplendent in glory, lay before him. Brimming with archeotech full of psychic potential, it was beyond anything that he had ever imagined. Keenly aware of what had happened to the last poor creature who utilized it, the Emperor of Mankind sat down upon it and let the power wash over him.
It was familiar to him. His power, though shaped in a different way than he had been. He beheld the Warp and all the entities within it. Their fighting amongst themselves had lessened to a great degree and now the gaze of them all was slowly turning back towards humanity once again. Visions of their ultimate designs on his species were made known to him, and tears of righteous fury streamed down his face.
This would not be. He would not allow it. And now he had the tools at his disposal to make his desire a reality.
With a colossal effort, he gathered up the laws of material reality and sent them into the throne he sat upon. In the great ocean of the Warp, a small bubble of reality was created. An island of the sane in a land where such a thing was not known, much less understood. More bubbles soon appeared, and them with a will that had shattered worlds and withstood gods, Atham the Revelation connected them together. No matter how they tried to pierce it, the Emperor's power forbid them from entering. Only when he withdrew his power did the daemons of the Warp pierces through the bubble's surface where a detonating bomb of anathemic power destroyed them utterly and let their terrified masters know what was eventually awaiting them all.
"Master?" Valdor said hesitantly as the Emperor came back for the last time into reality. Time was working normally here now, though space and dimensions were still fluid things. His Captain General looked at his with equal parts concern and eagerness, for it was clear that the Emperor was pleased with whatever had transpired. A rare and genuine smile crossed his face, one that was an unfamiliar sight on a person so used to grief.
"What is this that you sit upon?"
The Emperor of Mankind thought about how best to respond to that, and found that his mind was drawn to the surface of the planet, where the people still celebrated his master's triumph.
"It is a victory." he finally said, the smile still spread across his face. "And the first of many more to come."