The atrium of the Dark Age base held its breath. Machinery hummed faintly beneath the deck, the sound swallowed by a silence thick enough to smother. Smoke from gun barrels curled in ribbons across the high vaults, catching pale lumen glow that guttered like candles before a storm.

  Two figures faced one another across the short span. Guilliman stood like a fortress given flesh, blackened ceramite scarred but unbowed, the Emperor’s Sword burning white-gold at his side. Opposite him loomed Abaddon, Terminator plate a mountain of baroque iron and horn, the Talon flexing like a beast eager to feed, Drach’nyen writhing with warp flame. Between them the air thrummed, the chamber itself straining to contain the weight of their names.

  Abaddon’s lips peeled back in something too sharp for a smile as lightning crawled across the Talon’s claws. Instinctively he reached for the favor of Tzeentch—for the whispers that had steered him to victory so often before.

  Agony bloomed instead, a throb behind his eyes that left him half-blind with pain. Four months of silence. Four months of headaches. Four months of failure. Useless bastards, he muttered inwardly.

  Foresight denied, he relied on what remained: cold experience. His gaze dissected the Avenging Son. Cobalt ceramite scored and blackened, but intact. Shields steady. Weapons familiar. Nothing he had not broken before.

  Except the blade. The firebrand pulsed with more than heat. It burned with legacy, curse, promise.

  I wonder which will prove stronger: a dead man’s last weapon, or the power of gods who never die.

  His grin widened, lupine and cruel, as he lifted his blade in challenge.

  Let us find out.

  ...

  Guilliman drew a steady breath, the air harsh in his lungs, his frame still trembling from the furnace-light he had unleashed. Fire lingered in his veins, every nerve raw, but he forced stillness into his stance. The Avenging Son could not show weakness, not here.

  Across the atrium, Abaddon waited — a mountain of iron, the Talon flexing in slow hunger, Drach’nyen burning with a false dawn. Warp-forged. Blood-fed. Armored in blasphemy. The weight of that presence was a millstone pressed against Guilliman’s chest.

  He had no gods. No blessings. No sorcerous wards. Only armor scarred by mortal battle, gouged and blackened where bolts and blades had struck but not broken through.

  What he had, instead, was his mind.

  In fractions of a second, the battlefield unfolded within him. Move and countermove flowed like water through stone, scenarios branching and collapsing. He saw the Talon’s bolters roar, felt his gauntlet rise. He saw the Emperor’s Sword falling in a killing arc, only to meet Drach’nyen’s azure flame. Again and again he spun the dance forward, factoring not only Abaddon’s strikes but the shifting tides of allies and enemies locked in battle around them.

  Each path ended the same. The calculus was merciless.

  A minute earlier—before he had loosed the sword’s white fire, before he had poured strength into that act—the odds might have leaned closer to balance. But now, with the tremor in his limbs and the ache in his chest, every line ended with his death. His head on the deck. The Four laughing.

  Unless he refused the script. Unless he refused to play the Despoiler’s game.

  He exhaled, eyes narrowing as the fire along the blade guttered, then steadied. Abaddon expected a warlord’s contest of brute strength, of gods made flesh.

  Guilliman’s lips tightened. So let him expect it.

  And when the moment came, he would show the Warmaster that the mind was a weapon sharper than any claw or demonblade.

  ...

  Abaddon struck first. The Talon spat boltfire in a thunderous volley, each shell detonating against metal as he advanced with the grace of an avalanche. Guilliman raised his gauntlet, the underslung bolter answering with disciplined bursts, mass-reactives slamming into ceramite and refractor shields. The atrium became a blender of shrapnel, lumen strips bursting overhead in cascades of sparks as the giants closed the distance.

  Drach’nyen howled as it came down in a brutal arc, azure fire searing scars into the air itself. Guilliman met it with the Emperor’s Sword, white-gold flame crashing against warp-born hunger. The impact birthed an explosion of light that rattled the foundations of the chamber. Walls buckled, conduits shrieked, the floor plates trembled as if reality itself strained beneath the collision. For a heartbeat, the titans locked, godfire grinding between their blades.

  Abaddon bared his teeth in a predator’s snarl. “You govern, I conquer. That’s the difference, uncle.” Talon spat sparks as he bore down, lightning crackling. “You bury soldiers in ledgers, not graves.”

  Guilliman’s expression did not change behind his helm. His voice, when it came, was steady, measured—the verdict of a commander, not the bluster of a duelist.

  “Better ledgers than disasters.” he shoved Abaddon back, white fire blazing “Horus needed one crusade. You’ve squandered thirteen.”

  His sword snapped down in a disciplined arc, scoring a molten line across Abaddon’s thigh. Warp-warded plate absorbed the worst of it, but the blow forced the Warmaster to adjust. Guilliman slid aside, avoiding the retaliatory sweep of the Talon with practiced efficiency.

  For the first time, the Despoiler’s grin faltered for a moment before the raw hate bled into his words. “Say his name again—” Drach’nyen shrieked wide. “and I’ll rip your tongue from your skull.”

  Abaddon surged forward as Drach’nyen’s fire carved the air in a murderous sweep. Guilliman snapped his blade upward, catching and diverting the demonblade’s fury skyward. Abaddon did not hesitate—he stepped into the bind, the Talon of Horus lashing upward in a blur, lightning claws lunging for Guilliman’s gut.

  The Primarch’s powerfist slammed down, sparks exploding as it battered the strike wide. The shock rattled the atrium, a crack of force like tectonic plates grinding. Guilliman pivoted hard, breaking contact, and in the same motion turned his sword against the environment itself. White fire sheared through a towering support column.

  Molten metal groaned. The gantry above gave way in a shriek of tortured steel, collapsing in a cloud of shattered girders and choking dust. Smoke and falling debris swallowed the two giants, reducing their godlike duel to silhouettes carved in fire and shadow.

  Abaddon shouldered through the rubble, his armor clattering with debris. His strikes grew wilder, angrier, hacking through haze and ruin, his fury gouging lines of fire through the choking dark.

  Guilliman saw it.

  Cataloged it.

  Step by step, he yielded ground—not retreating, but reshaping the battlefield. Vox orders crackled through private channels, clipped and precise, even as his focus never left the demonblade’s screaming edge. His blade-work was defensive, his movements deliberate, each parry calibrated not to kill, but to funnel.

  Not a duel in a circle. A battlefield Guilliman was building.

  Every clash narrowed the lanes. Every collapse forced Abaddon into choke-points. Every parry bought a fragment of time. Seconds. Heartbeats. Each one precious.

  And in the quiet recesses of his mind, Guilliman could almost hear Koron’s countdown ticking, the fate of the Gauntlet measured in heartbeats.

  Abaddon burst through the haze with a surge of brute strength, hurling rubble aside in showers of sparks. His voice was raw, volcanic with contempt.

  “You think you can hide behind ruins?”

  Guilliman raised the Emperor’s Sword, its fire unwavering in the smoke. His gaze, cold and unblinking, met the Warmaster’s fury.

  He parried the Talon wide, flicking it up at the peak to send the heavy gauntlet high. “No,” sparks showered their helms “you’ve forgotten the difference between a commander—” a twist, a riposte shearing conduit“—and a brute.”

  The chamber groaned again, a dying beast of stone and steel. Outside, the battle still raged, its fury beckoning. And with every step, every clash, Guilliman was dragging Abaddon closer to it.

  Drach’nyen came down in a two-handed arc, azure flame chewing reality, and Guilliman’s blade snapped up to meet it. White fire met warp-fire, once more the shockwave blasting dust and shards from the walls. Abaddon bore down, snarling, the Talon hammering forward in a blur. Lightning claws scraped sparks across Guilliman’s chestplate, gouging deep rents in the Aquila, but failing to pierce.

  Guilliman struck back with his powerfist, snapping the demonblade wide, then riposted with a downward stroke. The Emperor’s Sword screamed through the air, carving a molten furrow across the floor as Abaddon twisted aside.

  The Warmaster pressed close, a flurry of killing strikes, each one heavy enough to cripple a tank. Guilliman parried, deflected, angled each blow to gouge pillars, struts, walls — never giving Abaddon the clean duel he wanted.

  Another strike sent Guilliman staggering against a fractured bulkhead. Sparks rained as Abaddon lunged, Drach’nyen whistling for the kill. Guilliman ducked, pivoted, and drove the burning blade sideways into the wall. Steel buckled, the ceiling above groaning as another section of gantry came down. A deluge of debris cascaded between them, forcing Abaddon to bull through the wreckage.

  Abaddon’s voice cut through the chamber. “Come out of your maze, commander.”

  Their blades met again, fire against fire, force against force. Guilliman leaned into the lock, his voice level even through the strain.

  Their blades locked, shrieking through boiling air. He leaned close, voice edged like a blade. “I am.” He forced the blades down an inch, steam burning around them. “You just don’t see the ground shifting under your feet.” sparks bit his cheek, his lips curled. “Horus would have.”

  With a twist, Guilliman broke the bind, the Emperor’s Sword flashing out in a brutal cut that sheared through a pressure conduit. Superheated steam erupted in a geyser, flooding the atrium in boiling haze, visibility collapsing into a choking fog.

  Abaddon roared his fury, the sound reverberating through the steel bones of the facility. The Talon lashed blindly, lightning claws carving sizzling scars into walls and floor alike, each strike close enough to rattle Guilliman’s armor. Drach’nyen howled through the mist, a beacon of warp-fire hacking at the cloud.

  Guilliman slid past one such sweep, sparks cascading as his sword kissed the Talon’s barbs. The maneuver carried him inside the Warmaster’s reach, and with a precise strike of his powerfist into the Warmasters side, he drove Abaddon back a step, the armor plates cracking under the impact. Rubble crunched under the Despoiler’s boots, the smoke briefly parting around his mountainous form.

  But there was no denying the strain. Guilliman’s breath rasped in his helm, every inhalation fire, every exhalation lead. Sweat stung his eyes, dripping beneath the seals of his armor. His muscles screamed with each motion, the weight of his own plate dragging heavier with every heartbeat. It took every ounce of skill, of drilled perfection and battlefield instinct, to keep that cursed blue blade from carving his throat open.

  And always—always—the countdown ticked, silent but deafening.

  T-minus 00:01:00 to firing.

  ...

  He was bouncing on his toes now, lungs burning, every breath a hiss through clenched teeth as he stared at the thing in front of him — the crystal disc, suspended at the center of a storm of broken spacetime. Distant, yet all too close. Light bent in jagged arcs around it, shadows stretching wrong, the air vibrating with a low groan that had no source. The timer burned in his vision, bleeding down its last moments.

  “Sasha?” His voice cracked, his mind was already running hot, pushing his augmetics and neurons to their absolute limit to stretch every second from the conversation.

  ‘Only sixty-two percent complete.’ came the reply, raw with strain.

  T-minus 00:00:53.

  “Plenty of time,” he muttered, but there was no strength in it, only the brittle edge of defiance. “Plenty of time.”

  He forced the air from his lungs, grounding himself. Left foot braced back, right forward. With a metallic clunk, his boots locked to the decking.

  One thought, and his grav-field coalesced into a crude cocoon around his left arm. He flexed the hand, feeling the weight of artificial gravity gather around it, disturbingly similar to the churning singularity before him.

  T-minus 00:00:44.

  Another command, sharper, brought his nanites flooding into his arm. Every spare mote of silver drew inward, reinforcing joints, thickening metal with armored mesh and slabs of ablative plating. He left only the bare minimum in reserve for medical actions.

  He knew he’d need them. Probably more than he had.

  It wouldn’t matter. Gravity and geometry didn’t give a damn about armor.

  But the lie of protection steadied him. For now.

  T-minus 00:00:31.

  A grin ghosted over his lips — pale, thin, manic. An idea. Stupid. Insane. But what was one more insanity, stacked on the rest?

  He slapped his free hand against the pillar around the lens, firing off a single packet of code. The system hesitated, then accepted. Warnings cascaded across his HUD, then vanished as the PA crackled.

  A half-second later, the base’s speakers howled to life.

  The chamber drowned in Ork Rock.

  Not music, but a sonic fistfight of chainsaws, gunfire, and someone bellowing off-key over explosions. The walls vibrated in sympathy, dust spilling from fractured beams, rivets quivering in time with the beat.

  ‘Koron!’ Sasha’s voice snapped, incredulous, a knife-edge of panic. ‘What the hell are you doing?!’

  Koron barked a laugh, cracked and wild, his fingers already drumming along like a man possessed. “Hurling madness at the wall and hoping something holds!” he shouted back, jaw tight.

  Somewhere in the blaring noise, a deeper pulse throbbed — green, alien, and laughing.

  T-minus 00:00:17.

  The music shook the chambers walls, Ork rhythm hammering through steel and marrow alike. Koron felt it crawl across his skin, infectious and impossible, as though the universe itself had been beaten into marching time.

  “No time left Sasha!” he roared into the storm. “Burn it all! Every drop into the plates!”

  His chest seared as the reactor’s safeties tore loose. The flux-core vomited power into the grav-field cocooning his arm. Pressure hit like a hammer, light bending around him, blood fizzing in his veins until every heartbeat felt like detonation.

  T-minus 00:00:12.

  ‘Wish me luck.’ he thought, the words soft, tasting like ash and iron.

  ‘…I wish I could give you more.’ came her reply, quiet, resigned.

  He snapped his fingers straight, a spearpoint of defiance against probability.

  And with a wordless, ragged shout, Koron drove his arm into the heart of the storm.

  Reality bent.

  The sphere recoiled from the intrusion, gravity lashed, light unraveling into colors that had no names, walls bowing like molten glass as shadows were sent snapping into jagged, alien lines.

  The roar followed. Not mere air rushing, but the sound of air ripping in two directions at once, inhaling and exhaling in the same instant. The gale shrieked through ruptured ducts, rattled steel, and hurled shrapnel in savage orbits, steel shrieking as sparks knifed across his armor.

  Pressure smashed into his chest like a siege ram. Reinforced ribs splintered. Organs quivered. His vision swam red as blood burst hot beneath his skin, his own body rebelling against the act. Still he held on, every heartbeat a defiance against the universal force.

  He pushed forward. Inch by inch, each step stolen from spacetime itself. The cocoon around his gauntlet fragmented into tatters of light, its shield cracking beneath the tide.

  Voices crackled through — Lucia, Elly — distorted, delayed, their screams arriving a second too late to matter.

  ‘Time dilation is in effect!’ Sasha’s voice cut through, sharp with static. ‘They can’t help anymore!’

  He looked down. The cocoon was unraveling, a ragged halo where Sasha strained, pouring herself into the breach, her presence stretched thin as wire.

  T-minus 00:00:08.

  A shear struck. Metal snapped — a finger gone. His vision bled red, hot trails running down his neck. His forearm tore open, armor flayed under the endless whirl.

  ‘I can’t keep up!’ Sasha screamed. The channel warped with it, her voice breaking apart, glass in a hurricane.

  And through the ruin, something else began to glimmer. Emerald light flickered along his arm — faint, but growing stronger.

  T-minus 00:00:05.

  CRACK

  White bone punched through twisted forearm plate, blood bursting into mist before the storm devoured it. Pain flared like lightning through every nerve. His scream vanished into the roar — but his mangled fingers scraped the lens.

  T-minus 00:00:04.

  “Come on!” he roared, pouring every drop of power, every shred of muscle into the push. His faceplate nearly kissed the storm, paint and metal scoured away in flecks. He felt his ruined fingers grind against the disc, the weight of the singularity clawing through him, entropy frosting his gauntlet white.

  The emerald energy came then. Wisps at first, but gathering all the same.

  It flickered along his ruined arm. A brutal joy burned jagged through nerves already broken.

  Sasha screamed through static, but Koron barely heard. The Waaagh! wasn’t power.

  It was laughter.

  Reckless, relentless.

  It didn’t care if he shattered.

  It only cared that he moved.

  T-minus 00:00:03.

  “We are out of time! It’s about to fire!” Sasha shrieked as the machine’s charge swelled toward crescendo.

  T-minus 00:00:02.

  Koron hooked his middle finger into the disc’s center. The borescope deployed with a snap — the tiny flexible tube whipping around the far edge.

  T-minus 00:00:01.

  He pulled. Every tendon shrieked. The lens grudged an inch, weight like a world dragging against him.

  T-minus 00:00:00.

  The machine’s voice spoke with the finality of a guillotine.

  FIRE

  For a heartbeat, silence.

  Then the world screamed.

  The sphere collapsed, all its energy funneled into the lens as the aperture discharged the lance.

  But the lens was no longer where it should have been.

  The gravitic torrent struck off-center, expecting to be caught, channeled, dispersed. Instead, it smashed into raw edge.

  Uncontained, the energy ran wild.

  The wave shattered Dark Age alloys like brittle clay, imploding conduits and rupturing bulkheads, turning the interior of the machine into a cannon with only one escape.

  The hole Koron had carved.

  The one he was standing in.

  The lance tore into him before the shockwave even followed. His arm snapped, plates peeling away in burning shards. Wires and false tendons burst free, flailing into the wind. Beneath, his flesh shattered — bones fragmenting into dust inside his skin, muscles ripped from their moorings, raw nerves screaming as they were shredded strand by strand.

  Blood and metal hung weightless in the air as he was hurled on the gravitic wave. Mid-flight, Sasha and Koron fought together, pouring the overcharged reactor into failing shields, re-engaging his grav-plates around his spine. Armor folded inward, sacrificing limbs to reinforce his core.

  His left shoulder shattered as he hit the wall. Shielding flared, then collapsed, as his back tore through ducts and support beams. Jagged metal punched through flesh, out his gut, ripping into his kidney before the momentum pulled him free.

  A dozen more impacts tore at him before the shockwave spat him from the machine entirely.

  He struck the outer bowl with bone-cracking force, the impact sending fractures spiraling through the alloy. The last of his shield flickered, then failed, leaving him sprawled in ruin at the base of the shattered pillar.

  ...

  Across Vigilus, the world came apart.

  The moment the lance discharged, the atmosphere itself shuddered. A groan rolled across the planet — not sound, not quake, but the tortured cry of gravity being bent, stretched, and torn loose.

  On the plains, lakes curled sideways from their banks, water climbing into the sky in glittering arcs before collapsing in broken waves. Buildings bowed as their foundations twisted, girders bending like reeds in a storm no eye could see.

  Armored columns lurched. Tanks bucked from their treads, hulls shrieking as they slammed back down. Inside, men were thrown like dolls against steel walls, bodies bursting under forces no armor could resist.

  In the hive-spires, the effect was apocalyptic. Whole decks imploded like paper under a press. Vox-towers warped, antennas stretching until they snapped, signals dissolving into a chorus of static. Civilians and soldiers alike were ripped from walkways, whirled into spirals of dust and blood, their cries drowned in the resonance tearing through the sky.

  Even orbit was not spared. Escorts staggered as auspex readings dissolved into madness. Vessels tilted like toys in a tide, void shields sparking as they buckled. Crewmen collapsed at their stations, stomachs heaving as vertigo rewrote the pull of their own bones.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  This was no scalpel. No tool of the ancients. This was a wound — vast, unrestrained, merciless — a cascade of destruction ripping through Vigilus without pattern or pity.

  Entire city-sections lifted screaming into the heavens, stone and steel tearing loose beneath the weight of their own people. Others collapsed inward, gravity spiking until towers crumpled and flesh liquefied in seconds. And in some places, it chose both — bodies ripped in two, half dragged skyward, half crushed into bloody pulp below.

  And everywhere, the Ork Rock blared.

  The greenskin rhythm rode the gravitic waves like a parasite, warping whatever it touched. Vox-networks choked on it in jagged bursts, auspex dissolved into howling feedback, and even the earth itself pulsed to the beat — a war-drum rattling the teeth of billions.

  On every battlefield, Guardsmen, Astartes, cultists, traitors, Orks — all froze as the sky itself screamed. Weapons slipped. Engines stalled. For a heartbeat, even the greenskins faltered.

  Then the grins came. Tusked mouths split wide, laughter and hunger mingling as the impossible song thundered down from the heavens.

  Gork and Mork had called their sons to war.

  And the Orks answered.

  ...

  The floor gave way.

  Not from cracks, not from collapse, but from reality itself wrenching loose. Gravity reversed with a violent lurch, and the two titans were torn skyward as though the planet had exhaled them.

  The duel shattered instantly. Guilliman’s footing vanished, his stance ripped from beneath him. Abaddon roared as his swing of Drach’nyen carried him upward in a wild arc, the demonic sword screeching against air as debris spiraled past. The atrium itself peeled apart — steel gantries, conduits, and shattered masonry torn free to join the ascent.

  Guilliman caught the whirling chaos in a single glance.

  His body twisted, boots catching briefly on a tumbling girder before he shoved off, redirecting his momentum into a controlled spiral. His blade burned white fire as he used the debris as stepping stones, each motion deliberate even in the storm.

  Abaddon surged toward him through the maelstrom, less controlled, more fury. The Talon slashed out, lightning-tipped claws shredding a rising ductwork in a spray of sparks before swiping for Guilliman’s torso. The Primarch pivoted mid-air, the Emperor’s Sword meeting the blow with a flash that lit the chamber like a dying star. The collision sent both combatants spinning further into the whirlwind of steel.

  Guilliman steadied himself against a rising support strut, using it as cover as Abaddon hurled himself again, fury in motion. Drach’nyen scythed through a slab of flooring, shrieking with warp-hunger as it closed the distance. Guilliman answered with a downward cut that severed the slab cleanly, then kicked off its surface, driving both halves into Abaddon’s path.

  The Warmaster barreled through, shrugging off the debris, his grin wolfish beneath the shadows of his armor. “Even the world rises to strike you!” he bellowed.

  White flame carved through steel as he steadied himself. “The world strikes all men.” He shoved another girder down into Abaddon’s path. “A commander wields it—” the impact sent the Warmaster staggering. “a brute is buried by it.”

  Their blades collided again, white flame against warp-fire, a clash that shook the wreckage into further spirals. The force of the blow hurled them apart, each careening into walls that were no longer walls, but turning planes of shrapnel.

  Around them, the battlefield expanded. The roof split, light spilling through the rents as the reversed gravity dragged them higher, toward the open sky. Outside, Vigilus itself was tearing — hive spires unraveling, armored columns tossed like toys, the heavens boiling with gravitational tides.

  Both titans emerged from the atrium into the rising storm, their duel no longer bound by ground or wall. They met in freefall, blades carving fire through the sky as wreckage and bodies rose alongside them.

  Guilliman fought with calculation, each strike angled to deflect, to reposition, to weaponize the chaos of debris against his foe. Abaddon fought with brutal momentum, every swing a thunderous arc of rage and godfire.

  For one impossible heartbeat, gravity returned. Guilliman and Abaddon dropped like stones, falling towards the shattered floor of the research base in a thunderclap of ceramite.

  Moments from impact, gravity tilted.

  The battlefield rotated sideways in an instant. Wreckage, bodies, and the two warriors were hurled against the walls, now a rushing floor. Guilliman rolled with the impact, slamming his gauntlet into a sparking conduit to steady himself. Abaddon simply plowed through, smashing through a rib of steel to launch himself back into the fight.

  They clashed again in the sliding chaos, blades hammering sparks into the walls-turned-ground. Each parry sent them skidding further across the tilted world, every step a struggle for balance.

  Yet still, Guilliman found the time to attack his foes mental state. “Still unable to grasp a shifting battlefield nephew? Horus would be disappointed.”

  Abaddon bared his teeth, forcing the Emperor’s Sword back a pace. “Horus died a failure. I endure.”

  Guilliman’s laugh was bitter, merciless. “Endure?” Guilliman countered, stepping aside as a datarack tore past, seizing it and flinging it into Abaddon’s path. The cogitator detonated between them, fire rolling through the sky. Guilliman burst free of the smoke, blade leveled. “You crawl in your father’s shadow. He faced the Emperor. You’ve yet to kill even one son.”

  Abaddon snarled, swinging Drach’nyen in a brutal arc that cleaved through a spiraling girder. “I am not Horus. I am the end he never had the strength to be!”

  Another tidal shift as gravity lurched upward.

  The floor vanished beneath them, and they were flung skyward again, carried with the debris bursting through the shattered roof. The two titans careened into the open air, rising through fire and smoke into the broken sky of Vigilus.

  And they were not alone.

  The air war had not ceased. Stormtalons screamed across the heavens, Hell Talons banked in murderous spirals, Thunderhawks and Marauders clashed in burning dogfights above. The gravitic tides caught them all, ripping formations apart, dragging aircraft sideways or slamming them together in collisions that bloomed fireballs through the sky.

  Landing hard on the hull of a tumbling Hell Talon, Guilliman’s gauntlet punched through its fuselage to anchor himself. Abaddon crashed down atop a second airship, claws gouging through its wing as the pilot shrieked in terror. The aircraft bucked wildly, trying to shake him loose.

  Guilliman vaulted from his ship onto a spinning Thunderhawk, landing on its dorsal spine as bolter-turrets spat fire at the Chaos flyers. Abaddon met him there, tearing free of his Hell Talon just as it lost control and spiraled into a fireball below. The two giants clashed atop the gunship, ceramite boots slipping on the roaring craft, blades hammering sparks into its armored hull.

  Twisting his foot to stop his slipping on the hull, his sword locked with demonsteel. “Do you think they chose you for victory? No.” He twisted, forcing Abaddon’s blade wide. “They chose you because you’ll never be Horus. You’ll fight forever—” he hammered his fist forward. “bleed forever—” sparks flared as their blades met. “fail forever.”

  The Warmaster’s fury boiled over. With a bellow that shook the sky, he seized a burning bomb casing in his claw, slamming it at his foe with all his strength. Guilliman twisted aside, the blast hammering his shield but leaving him standing, sword raised.

  Calm, unbroken, the Avenging Son looked his foe in the eye.

  “You shall die chasing his shadow.”

  A missile rack swiveled. Guilliman ripped one free with his powerfist and hurled it. Abaddon caught it in the Talon, claws crushing the warhead — the detonation hurled them both from the craft.

  They fell — then the world lurched sideways again, gravity dragging them into chaos.

  They smashed through the fuselage of a Marauder Destroyer caught in the tide. Metal screamed. Crewmen were torn from their stations as the mountains masquerading as men ripped through bulkheads, blades carving molten wounds in steel. Guilliman punched through the hull, hurling himself back into the storm. Abaddon followed, relentless, both titans now fighting through the raining guts of falling aircraft.

  Another lurch. Gravity wrenched upward, dragging them into contrails of fire and tumbling wreckage. The sky was a storm of spinning debris: shattered fighters, sundered wings, explosives ripped from their cradles.

  Guilliman turned them into weapons. A bomb spun past; he caught it with his gauntlet, flinging it into Abaddon’s path. The Warmaster swatted it aside with a curse, the blast painting him in fire as he drove forward, Drach’nyen screaming for Guilliman’s heart.

  Their blades clashed midair, white flame against warp-flame, sparks falling like meteors.

  This was no longer a duel. It was a war fought across the fractured sky — aircraft as blades, wreckage as stepping-stones, missiles as thrown knives. Gravity spun and lurched, dragging them down, up, sideways, never still.

  And through it all, the Ork Rock thundered — on vox, on auspex, on the bones of the world. Every clash of their weapons struck in rhythm, every explosion timed to the impossible beat. Below, Orks howled in ecstasy, engines roaring as their gods’ music shook the sky.

  Guilliman fought with precision, exploiting every shift, every weapon the tempest offered. Abaddon fought with fury, breaking obstacles to kindling, driving forward with god-fed rage.

  Two titans, two wills, clashing in the sky as Vigilus itself screamed apart.

  ...

  Black.

  Not the quiet black of sleep, but the crushing, suffocating dark of a body that had gone past its limits. Koron floated in it for a moment, untethered, pain receding into the distance like the ebb of a tide.

  Then Sasha’s voice ripped him back.

  ‘Koron! Get up! Get up now!’

  His eyes snapped open to a fog of smoke and fractured light. Every nerve screamed as if he had been peeled open. The HUD jittered, fractured symbols blinking across his visor like a dying heartbeat. The air was thin here, the taste of copper and ash on his tongue.

  His chest convulsed as he dragged in a breath. Ribs grated. His arm was gone, or worse than gone. He didn’t look at it. He couldn’t.

  ‘They’re moving on your position!’ Sasha’s voice cracked with static and terror. ‘Ten Rubicae, twenty meters and closing.’

  Shapes staggered in the smoke. Heavy, deliberate footfalls. Glaives scraping against broken steel. Their silhouettes grew clearer with each pulse of emergency lighting: Rubicae, the dust-filled shells of the Thousand Sons, advancing in silent, inexorable ranks.

  Koron tried to push himself up. His body barely obeyed. His spine burned, muscles screaming with the strain of simply lifting himself to one knee.

  Sasha’s voice hitched, shrill now. ‘Move, damn you! If they get line of sight, you’re dead!’

  He coughed, blood bubbling past his teeth, filling the bottom of the helmet. His vision doubled, then tripled. He spat, tried to focus. The Ork Rock still thundered through the wreckage, distorted by ruptured speakers, a mad drumbeat pulsing in his bones. Even that couldn’t drown out the iron rhythm of the Rubicae’s march.

  He staggered to his feet, half-falling against a ruptured conduit. Sparks spat across his armor. His boots dragged through rubble as he tried to move, Sasha feeding him course corrections, her voice rapid-fire, panicked.

  ‘Left! No, left! Use the debris as cover! Don’t let them—'

  The rest was drowned in the shriek of boltfire. A stream of bolt-rounds ripped through the smoke, detonations hammering the wall and floor around him. Shards of concrete tore into his side, spinning him off balance. He hit the ground hard, head ringing, his one good hand clawing for purchase.

  Above, shadows loomed in the haze, golden eye-lenses burning through the smoke. The Rubicae raised their weapons in eerie unison, each movement perfect, mechanical, inevitable.

  Sasha screamed in his skull: ‘Move!’

  His grav-plates flickered to life with a tortured whine. The last working grapple snapped outward, cable hissing as it locked onto a fractured wall. The winch yanked him sideways, hauling his broken body behind what little cover the wreckage offered.

  Sasha’s voice was a torrent of commands, layered with Elly’s, Lucias, Tara and Kala’s panicked interjections until his skull felt too small to contain them. A tactical overlay bled across his blurred vision — a blinking red mark flaring at the edge of his HUD. A maintenance hatch. A way down.

  The winch dragged him again, his ruined arm smashing against rubble. Pain knifed through him, blood flooding his mouth as he bit his cheek to keep from screaming. He forced a command into his implants; the hatch slid open just as bolt-rounds detonated around him, sparking against his shield.

  He hurled himself through, the hatch sealing a heartbeat later. Explosions rang against the steel as the Rubicae’s fire scoured the door.

  He didn’t stop. Couldn’t. The grav-plates dragged at him, half-lifting his staggering legs as he forced himself down the maintenance corridor. Even through bulkheads, the Rubicae’s march carried after him, an relentless cadence.

  “Status?” The thought tore from him raw, jagged. More plea than command.

  ‘Bad. Really bad.’ Sasha’s voice came quick, tight with strain. ‘Multiple organ failures. Shredded muscle groups. Fractures across most of your skeleton. Frankly, it’s faster to list what isn’t broken.’

  A ragged laugh bubbled past his lips, frothing through the blood on his tongue. “Oh. Only that bad?” He coughed hard; hot fluid splattered inside his helm until the world blurred red. He clawed at the retraction catch — nothing but a useless click. Swearing, he tore the helm free, sucking down smoke-laced air. Blood and mucus spilled down his chin, dripping to patter on his chestplate.

  “And the scanner?” he rasped.

  ‘Discharged, but erratic,’ Sasha answered. ‘Planetwide gravitational distortions. Not a clean singularity. The base’s shielding blunts most of it here, but everywhere else… it’s bad.’

  “How bad?” His voice cracked on the words.

  A pause. Heavy. Dreadful. Calculating.

  ‘Unknown,’ she admitted. ‘But likely catastrophic. Still… not as catastrophic as a focused pulse would have been. You saved them from that.’

  “Small wins, eh?” he muttered, forcing himself down the corridor. Narrow and unlit, its walls wept condensation from ruptured coolant lines. Every step echoed too loudly, broadcasting his survival to the hunters behind.

  His breath rattled, grin faltering. “…Tell me it was enough, Sasha.”

  She coiled around his mental processors in reply, a pressure warm and steady. The closest she could come to a hug.

  And for a moment, beneath the pain, something else stirred — not her. A heat that wasn’t human, laughter that wasn’t his. A green flicker in the dark, gone before he could grasp it.

  He exhaled, more to steady himself than anything, and pushed on. Worry about that later.

  “Suit status?”

  ‘Shields at thirty. Grav-plates fried — barely holding your weight. Cloak’s gone. Primary reactor cooling. Eighty-four percent of nanites depleted. Armor down to twelve.’

  “Weapons?”

  ‘Left side is wrecked. Rights mostly intact. Pistol…’ She hesitated, a weight behind the words. ‘…is fully functional.’

  Koron spat blood, one tooth shifting loose under his tongue. “Avoidance it is.”

  ‘Then move. They can’t fit very well through the corridors, but with the cloak down, they’ll still track you.’

  He staggered forward, voice hoarse but steady. “Yes ma’am.”

  His steps echoed in the dark, competing with the never-ending stream of chatter Sasha kept up ‘Left fork, twenty meters. Thermal vent ahead, use it to mask your trail. Keep moving.’

  He coughed, spitting blood into the dark, and forced his boots to obey. The grav-plates jittered with every step, dragging him just above the floor like a broken puppet on its strings. Pain lanced through him at each jolt — ribs grinding, nerves flaring white. His body wanted to shut down. Sasha wouldn’t let him.

  ‘Come on, eyes open. The Rubicae aren’t fast but they’re precise. They’ll box you in if you slow down.’

  A sound carried down the tunnel. Heavy, deliberate steps. Their bolters clattered against armored thighs, their glaives scratched in lazy arcs against steel. They weren’t rushing.

  They didn’t need to.

  The map flickered in his vision again, a desperate red line pulsing toward the base’s upper levels. He staggered around a corner, pressing his good shoulder against the wall to steady himself. His vision doubled, then snapped back as Sasha’s override surged stimulant into his veins.

  ‘Don’t fade, don’t you dare fade. I’m hitting the emergency booster in your system. It-‘

  He gasped, jaw clenched. “Won’t last long, I know.”

  The surge brought him back — awareness flaring sharp and cold. He at last noticed the nanites that swarmed through his veins, sealing holes, knitting tissue, replacing what blood could no longer reach. His gut was plugged, organs coaxed into sputtering life from the self-induced, life preserving stasis.

  Stopgaps — enough to stand, not enough to last.

  His arm however…

  His arm was gone. Shoulder to fingertip, every bone reduced to powder, jagged metal glinting red and wet in the flickerlight. It hung useless, bleeding in slow pulses.

  Stopping, leaning on his good shoulder against the wall, he reached for it. “Sasha, prepare a sling please.”

  ‘Koron I don’t think that’s-‘ Her words never reached his ears as his touch nearly blacked him out.

  Knees hit the deck, stomach dry heaving, he managed to speak after several seconds, hand pressed against his temples as he tried to stop the pain from splitting his skull open. “J-just…just lock it in place as best you can.”

  ‘…Alright, hang on.’ Armor shards peeled from his torso and flowed across the ruined limb, fusing into a jagged sheath. Metal cinched bone-dust, binding the wreck to his chest. Koron’s teeth split blood as he strangled a scream.

  When it was done, the pain dulled to a brutal throb. He sagged against the wall, chest heaving, eyes blurred with sweat and smoke.

  Anything more was cut off, as a distant crash rolled through the corridors — bulkhead doors tearing apart under boltfire. Sparks rained from conduits above as the Rubicae pressed forward. Their silence was worse than shouting. They were coming, step by step, without haste, without fear.

  Koron dragged himself through another junction, vision snagging on a broken maintenance panel hanging by a single screw. His hand twitched toward it, mind already racing.

  ‘No time to scavenge,’ Sasha snapped. ‘You need distance, not toys.’

  “Might need toys… when distance runs out.”

  He ripped a plasma capacitor free with a squeal of metal, clamped it in his teeth, and yanked loose the live wires. Sparks hissed as he forced them into the wrong sockets, the hum swelling like a caged sun. The stink of ozone filled the passage.

  ‘They’re through the hatch. Forty seconds.’ Her voice was taut, close to breaking.

  Koron staggered, half-dragged by failing plates, lungs clawing for air. But the thought of golden eye-lenses in the smoke drove him on. The Ork Rock still pulsed faintly through the ducts — not music, but the heartbeat of a predator.

  ‘That likely won’t kill them,’ Sasha warned, following the approaching shells.

  “Doesn’t need to. Slow one down, my odds go up ten percent.”

  ‘Twenty seconds,’ she pressed, voice a whip.

  “Alright,” he rasped. He jammed the capacitor into the panel and staggered on, shoulder scraping steel.

  The Rubricae arrived in silence. Hands raised in eerie unison, warp-fire building in their gauntlets.

  The capacitor went white-hot.

  The corridor erupted into a conflagration of plasma and molten metal. One Rubric lurched, helm bursting into golden dust that drifted like smoke. Another crumpled beneath a warped chunk of shrapnel buried in its chest, sorcery guttering out. The rest advanced through the flames, unbroken.

  ‘Two down. The others don’t care.’

  Koron didn’t look back. His lungs were ash, his legs stone, but he counted the seconds gained. Even slowing inevitability was a victory.

  Ahead, the ducts sloped toward the launch bays. Through the steel came distant thunder — engines, weapons, and demigods battling in the heavens.

  Down here, it was just him. Him and the walking dead.

  ...

  The air howled as gravity lurched again, hurling both warriors through the tumultuous sky, the white earth below.

  Guilliman adjusted first, angling his bulk through the chaos with grim precision. Abaddon spun past, the Talon gouging sparks from a collapsing hab-block as he righted himself, bellowing fury into the clouds.

  Between them, fighter craft screamed, machine-spirits keening as missiles fired wild and ships were wrenched into impossible vectors. A Legion Thunderhawk careened between the Primarch and Warmaster, its fuselage splitting open like rotten fruit. Guilliman vaulted from its spine, sword crashing down.

  Abaddon caught the strike, boot driving into the Primarch’s gut as he twisted, kicking Guilliman away. His eyes burned with hate. “The heir of the Imperium, reduced to flinging rubble like a cornered rat?”

  Guilliman’s voice was ice through the thunder. He flexed numbed arms, forcing sensation back. “Strange, then, that the gods’ Warmaster can’t catch one.”

  The Despoiler’s snarl was venom. With godlike strength he heaved the sundered Thunderhawk, hurling it like a spear. Guilliman’s blade flashed, shearing it apart, burning wings tumbling to crush the battlefield below.

  Gravity lurched again, flinging them both across the sky, tumbling through debris and fire.

  “Koron!” Guilliman voxed, breath ragged. “How long will this continue!?”

  The reply was not Koron’s. A woman’s voice cut in, clipped and taut with strain. “Koron’s busy,” Elly answered. “You’ve got about a minute. The fields are calming.”

  Guilliman’s gaze fell to the writhing surface of Vigilus far below. “Exact time.”

  “Fifty-two seconds.”

  He drew a long breath, steadying himself. He braced for the last seconds.

  Abaddon was too skilled, too strong, too steeped in Chaos to be beaten through risk alone.

  Precision was needed.

  Guilliman twisted midair once more, auspex locking on the Dark Age base below, its roof torn open to the storm. He recalled the Brandt sisters’ maps, every corridor etched into memory, every line of ruin waiting to be turned into advantage.

  The Warmaster barreled toward him, cloak aflame, daemonblade howling.

  Their blades clashed — three bursts of lightning and fury — before Guilliman wrenched free, letting Abaddon’s charge carry him further afield.

  Guilliman spread his arms. He did not chase. He did not even strike. He simply let the storm lift him higher.

  For the first time, Abaddon’s pale eyes widened.

  Gravity returned. No thunderclap, no sorcerous roar — only the cold indifference of reality, slamming shut.

  Guilliman was above, compacting into a cobalt spear that dove not at his foe, but toward the shattered crown of the Voidclaw base. His fall was measured, calculated, the base itself his cushion.

  Abaddon?

  Abaddon had nothing.

  The Despoiler tumbled, momentum betraying him, weight dragging him down. Guilliman had known the dispersal, had timed the storm, had made him overcommit.

  The son of Terra chose his fall.

  The son of Horus had no choice at all.

  ...

  The walls of the Voidclaw base tore past him in a blur of steel and fire. Guilliman, knowing he had seconds, drew back the blade overhead, both hands on its hilt as he drove it into the walls. White hot flames once more gouged the strange alloys, yet the sword bit true.

  But the Dark Age walls were harder than expected.

  The blade met alloy and stopped.

  His grip tore loose, hanging in air for a single long second before gravity took hold, sparks cascading as the Emperor’s Sword remained impaled above, dwindling into white flame as he plummeted on without it.

  He struck the edge of the base, bouncing off it as his momentum bled away, but not enough.

  He hit the ground with the force of a meteor. Earth shattered, stone split, a crater yawning wide beneath his broken body.

  For a long moment, he lay there. Armor in ruins, lungs refusing him air. Breath was razors, movement fire.

  But he dragged air into ruined lungs, inch by inch, because refusal was the only weapon left.

  The world above was still howling in the wake of the fundamental force of natures displeasure, but down here, for a heartbeat, there was only the desperate rasp of his own survival.

  He forced himself onto one elbow, teeth clenched against the fire in his chest. His vision swam, blurred with blood and pain. Slowly, methodically, his hearts beat, dragging life back into his body through sheer refusal to quit.

  For a moment, the war forgot him.

  The air thickened. The crater warped. Shadows bent, the air peeling like torn canvas, the smell of ozone and copper filled his helm.

  Abaddon emerged, striding through the distortion.

  Bloodied, yes — plate cracked, warp-flames licking the rents — but still towering, still grinning, eyes burning with murderous certainty.

  Blood and molten metal flowed backward into him, rents closing, warp-fire pulsing in time with his heart. What should have been ruin was only renewal, the Dark Gods’ laughter made flesh.

  The Warmaster’s voice was a rasping snarl, equal parts fury and triumph.

  “You crawl from ruin, uncle. I rise reborn.”

  Guilliman staggered to a knee, chest heaving, his gauntlet closed on empty air. The Emperor’s Sword was gone, lost to the ruins above. For the first time, he faced the Despoiler demonblade unarmed.

  He turned just in time to see the shadow fall across him.

  Abaddon was already moving.

  The Warmaster’s boot slammed into his chest, a thunderclap of ceramite on ceramite. Guilliman was hurled backward, crashing into the lip of the crater before rolling hard across shattered rock. He tried to rise, but Abaddon was already there, Drach’nyen howling in his right hand, the Talon of Horus flexing like a predator eager to feed.

  Abaddon did not savor the moment, did not gloat nor waste time. The Talon punched through plate and bone, lightning bursting from the wound. Guilliman roared as the claws locked, pinning him. Abaddon wrenched upward, lifting the Primarch bodily, before driving him into the wall. Alloy screamed, blood sprayed.

  The Avenging Son hung crucified on ruin itself.

  Abaddon leaned close, breath hot and fetid. “All your walls of words, all your schemes, all your vaunted might.” he slammed Guilliman into steel again, sparks spraying. “In the end, just another corpse.”

  With a savage wrench, he lifted Guilliman, the Primarch’s massive frame dangling from the Talon’s barbed grip. Warp-lightning crackled around them as Abaddon swung him bodily, slamming him into the outer walls of the base again. Strange alloys screamed. The impact cratered the metal, blood spraying from the rents in Guilliman’s armor.

  The Primarch hung there, impaled, every twitch of movement answered by fresh arcs of pain. Abaddon pressed in close, forcing him to look into his eyes — pale and burning with ruinous certainty.

  “I will watch the light go out,” Abaddon snarled, voice a jagged blade of contempt. “When it does, the Imperium will know hope died with you.”

  Guilliman’s vision blurred red, pain roaring through his chest, but still he met the Despoiler’s gaze, unbroken. Silent defiance in the face of ruin.

  Few beings could have remained conscious with such horrific pain coursing through their nerves.

  But Guilliman?

  Roboute Guilliman was the Avenging Son.

  And the Avenging Son yields to no one.

  Guilliman’s powerfist clamped down on the Talon, locking around the barbed gauntlet’s thinner connecting joint with a grinding shriek of disruptive energies against warp-forged plate. Abaddon snarled as the pressure built, his wrist cracking under the strain.

  Guilliman’s other arm snapped up, locking onto the Warmaster’s bicep, wrenching him in close. Drach’nyen screamed, crushed uselessly between their armor.

  The cobalt helm slammed into Abaddon’s nose with a crack of bone, blood bursting between them. “You’ll not—” another strike, blood raining—“have it that easy!”

  Each blow a vow, each impact a curse. I will not yield.

  Abaddon roared, straining, the Talon clawing against Guilliman’s fist. The two giants locked together, weapons forgotten, raw will clashing with raw hate.

  Blood ran hot down Guilliman’s chest, every breath a blaze in his lungs, but still he hammered his helm into Abaddon’s face, feeling the bone crumple under his assault.

  His boots struck dirt. He pushed, shoving the Despoiler back, the Warmaster’s heels skidding trenches through the dust. Abaddon’s features was twisted, bloody, but his rage was unbroken.

  “You shall-“ Guilliman spat, driving his helm forward once more, “-choke on ashes before I yield.”

  The Warmaster roared, wrenching with god-blessed might. The Talon’s claws spiderwebbed cracks through ceramite, lightning surging as they forced deeper, stabbing fire into Guilliman’s chest.

  Abaddon snapped his head forward, meeting Guilliman halfway as he spat out his words, venom buzzing in his voice. “Die with this truth in your heart.” He curled the fingers inside Guillimans chest. “Ultramar burns next.”

  His boast had not yet faded when the sky itself split open.

  A shrieking burning lance of gravitic fire speared down from the storm, smashing into the Warmaster. The impact folded the ground inward like paper, shockwaves rattling the crater’s bones. A moment later the Nyx roared into view, hull gleaming with impossible alloys, its turrets fanning out in disciplined formation. Their weapons sang in unison — beams of compressed gravity and crimson light cutting the battlefield into splintered ribbons.

  Abaddon twisted, snarling, as the first salvo struck. His wards flared, screaming in defiance as gravitic lances hammered against him. The earth behind him disintegrated, collapsing into a sinkhole of warped stone, but the Warmaster stood his ground.

  The Talon faltered, claws tearing free, and Guilliman dropped like a broken star upon the earth.

  The Warmaster did not fall. Not yet.

  He curled inward, cloak aflame, defiance burning brighter than the storm. Beams slammed into him in punishing rhythm, each one enough to tear tanks in half — yet he endured, his armor blackening, warp-flames rising in frantic tides. Drach’nyen shrieked in his grip, feeding on his rage, while the Talon spat arcs of bolter fire that tore into the surrounding stone.

  But the cost was mounting.

  Every lance that crashed into him stole more of his strength. His wards guttered, runes splintering under pressure. Armor split in jagged seams across his chest and pauldron, molten slag dripping from the rents. Warp-flames hissed and spat, no longer triumphant but defensive, dragged taut to keep his flesh intact as the weapons of the Dark Age sought to lay him low.

  He laughed anyway. A ragged, wolfish bark that cut through the barrage. He forced his spine straight even as the lances drove him to one knee, his will alone making mockery of physics.

  Still, the fire never relented. The gunship’s turrets rotated, focusing in, their unrelenting lances of gravitic power locking onto him with machine precision. Reality warped around him, air screaming as it tore sideways.

  For the first time, Abaddon felt the edge of weakness bite into him. His teeth clenched. His gods had given him strength beyond mortals, but not without limit.

  Another beam slammed into his side, shattering the baroque trim of his armor into nothingness. Another tore across his back, forcing his wards into overburn, drawing deeper and deeper on warp-fire that boiled the air.

  He could endure far more than any mortal.

  But even gods bleed when the physics universe demand it.

  The lances narrowed, brightened, targeting systems locking like the gaze of executioners. He saw it in their mechanical stillness — the inevitability of the kill.

  With a snarl, he drove Drach’nyen into the stone. Warp-flames erupted, devouring the air, wrapping him in shrieking azure fire. When the flames cleared — nothing remained but ruin.

  The world snapped hollow, the scent of fire cutting through only smoke and ruin.

  His parting snarl lingered, carried on vox and warp-echo both:

  “Your stolen relics won’t save you forever.”

  ...

  The sky still burned as Stormtalons broke formation. Dark shapes cut through the smoke, formation-lights gleaming as drop-pods slammed into the scarred plain around the research base. Their doors burst wide, pouring out squads of Intercessors and Aggressors, heavy boots shaking the earth with disciplined thunder.

  Guilliman watched them fan out, blue and gold against the storm, lines snapping into place as though written from his own mind. Voxes crackled with clipped affirmatives. Bolters barked, clearing straggling heretics from the wreckage. For the first time in hours, the tide did not feel like it was pulling them under.

  The Black Legion was withdrawing. Reluctant, defiant, but withdrawing all the same. Their lines broke away in ragged knots, war engines limping into retreat as thunderhawks clawed skyward. The battlefield, for this moment, belonged to the sons of Macragge.

  Guilliman drew himself upright, ignoring the agony tearing through his chest with every breath. His voice carried steady across the vox, iron wrapped in fatigue.

  “First and Second Companies, seal the perimeter. I want a dozen squads securing the base. Priority is recovery of Koron and any surviving systems. Bring me everything the Dark Age tried to hide here.”

  “By your word, lord,” came the crisp reply. The squads peeled off, filing into the torn-open maw of the research base with bolters ready, auspex beams slicing through the haze.

  Guilliman’s gauntlet dropped slowly to his side, the weight of command finally sliding from his shoulders. He drew in one more ragged lungful of air — then the strength guttered out of him.

  The Avenging Son slumped against the wall, blood spilling hot across battered ceramite. His helm struck stone with a dull thud, blue eyes dimming as Apothecaries rushed towards him.

  Around him, the battle still raged. Orders crackled through the vox. Primaris held the line. Squads vanished into the research base.

  A faint smile tugged at his lips. His sons would carry the day now.

  For all his failure to slay the Despoiler, he had won what mattered. The superweapon lay broken and still, its voice silenced. The Warmaster’s designs — so far as Guilliman knew — lay in ruin.

  He looked up into the clouded sky as the Apothecaries bore him away. Bloodied lips moved, voice barely above breath.

  “Not victory. Not yet. But enough.”