(UPDATE) Galaxy in Flames
Karen
信奉者
- Location
- Ireland
Mortarion and Leman Russ did not know they had both been betrayed until it was far too late. When the Terminus Est entered the Fenris system, joined by several dozen Death Guard warships, that fleet remained in silent orbit as they stood in waiting, a silent killer, a serpent coiling around the wolf's den. Yet, Russ did not hesitate, sending a runner on the frigate Roki under the command of Bjorn to alert the defenders of Fenris, raising the PDF and limited Imperial defenses, along with attempting - and failing - to reach the world of Somnus in attempt to bring elements of Battlefleet Solar to support the VI Legion. Russ would be first to arrive, mustering his entire battlefleet in protection of Fenris, and as Typhon promised, his fleet stood down, moving to join Russ' formation as a rearguard. Mortarion would arrive not long after, not realising that he had been duped until the Hrafnkel opened fire upon the Endurance, savagely striking the Death Guard warship as the Space Wolves moved in quickly for the kill. Mortarion, no doubt expecting some kind of explanation over the hololith would only see an enraged Leman Russ glare down at him from across the ship, mouthing two words before the signal broke: Die traitor. The guns of the entire Rout fired upon the Death Guard armada, while the Terminus Est and her escorts stood far behind, the 1st Great Company standing at arms.
Grulgor and Tayge would be the first to act, leaping into battle as the horrific entities that Mortarion leashed to reality teleported onto Fenrisian ships, swarming them with horrific plagues and diseases while Ignatius himself sought out the Wolf-King as his prize. The battered numbers of Ullis Temeter would quickly join the battle, seeing Mortarion's initial plan, no matter how secret it was, as folly as the steadfast and loyal warrior would join his fellow Astartes in battle, hurling himself against the Fenrisians. Kolak hesitated to betray Mortarion's command, but before he could act, the trap had been sprung.
Captain Kolak dying as the Life-Eater Virus is unleashed on his ship
Fired from an innocuous frigate; the Eisenstein, torpedoes mounted with the Life-Eater Virus struck the Endurance and Kolak's battle barge, quickly flushing the artificial atmosphere of the two capital ships with the intensely venomous toxin which detonated, crippling and reducing Kolak and a good portion of his entire Great Company to mist in the void as a salvo of lance fire from the Space Wolves obliterated the highly explosive ship. Only quick thinking prevented the Endurance sharing the same fate as a great deal of the ship was sealed off from the horrific world-killer, though the Eisenstein was blown out of the void by vengeful warships, sent hurtling as another piece of rubble across the Fenris system. Even with this monstrous betrayal, the Death Guard inflicted significant damage on the already under-repaired Fenrisian fleet, destroying several ships in short succession as the Endurance continued to fire her massive guns unabated, the Shipmaster refusing to back down as Mortarion was set upon by another, equally nefarious threat. Whatever entities Grulgor brought with him from the Immaterium, the same things that had taken his soul and turned into what horror he had become now, had followed the Endurance through the warp, and now, wrapping around and choking both fleets, they began to swarm them. Un-life took the ships of the two legions as diseased things swarmed through tears in the already fragile Warp, the Fenris system proving a perfect site for the terrible ritual that Typhon had chosen to deploy.
On the decks of the Space Wolf ships and their orbital stations, living death marched as Grulgor, impervious to bolter fire along with his 2nd Great Company, now known as the Eater of Lives, marched from ship to ship, seemingly bending reality to manifest, at will, at the locations of Wolf Priests, devouring their screaming minds and ripping them apart with hordes of raised, flesh-eating mortals. Five ships did Grulgor and his warriors consume in their destructive path, leaving rusted, rotting hulks that seemed to coalesce, caught in an unnatural drift towards the planet as the Terminus Est and her fleet moved closer to the battle. As Mortarion led his warriors on the reclamation of the Endurance, Grulgor arrived on the Hrafnkel, overwhelming and killing Ohthere Wydmake in a brief duel before the arrival of Leman Russ and his Huscarls. Russ only had nine of his Great Companies, the rest being left behind to rule over the ruins of Ragnarok and bring stability to the Imperium there, meaning that his forces were already diminished as they battled over Fenris.
Russ, wielding his sword and bolt-pistol, charged the undead thing that had once been Grulgor with a rage that simply flowed like the blood from his weapon, having cut his way through thousands of undead mortals and hundreds of Death Guard to find the presumed leader of this treachery. Whatever Grulgor had become was a mercy compared to what Russ promised to inflict on Ignatius, who seemed confident in his victory. The duel was violent, with Grulgor fighting with a pair of lightning claws that sheared through even the thick battle plate of a Primarch with little effort, but Russ was faster, and every wound inflicted seemed to only cause his blood to boil and a feverish madness to take hold of his heart as the terrible diseases that seemed to ooze from Grulgor's weapons and very person simply burned out as they came in touch with Russ. In reality, he was being protected by the remaining Wolf Priests, who had allowed themselves to be taken by the Immaterium to the most extreme to protect him from the constant touch of the great Lord of the Cycle. As Russ battled, the poisons began to overwhelm his primarch physiognomy, and no doubt knowing this, he seized upon a discarded vortex grenade, catching Grulgor with it and banishing the thing into the Immaterium. In that instant, all the living dead that swarmed the Hrafnkel died, turning into piles of mud and gore, and the battle began to turn.
On the Endurance, things had seldom improved as the sheer scale of Calas' betrayal unfurled. Mortarion, fighting deck through deck, breaking Fenrisian boarding actions and destroying the various minions of the Plaguefather, would be betrayed for a seventh time, by his Deathshroud. Their artificer armour had been inscribed with potent scriptures of Lorgar's design to be invoked when the time was right, and, with the hidden words laid into their armour, each of the Deathshroud suddenly seized up, as if captured by their armour, agonised screams emerging from those trapped suits as they seemed to become one with their armour and weaponry, the Warp spilling forth like an unrestricted tide. When Mortarion no doubt tried to rip one of his Deathshroud out of their prison, he found that they had been reduced to gore.
Sweeping through another deck, he found himself in a portion of the ship that had been ripped apart entirely by weapons of his brother's battleship, seeing the ice world of Fenris below, and how it died. Spires the size of torpedoes, like the fangs of serpents spat forward from the Terminus Est and the Warp, seemingly reaching out from the Oculus Terribilis. Made of the rock of asteroids and the same fungus that the Death Guard encountered from the warp, these spires struck the ground, unleashing colossal clouds of an unholy death, only being held back by the permafrost of the world, though the ground was not as fortunate as death swarmed through the lakes and wildlife of the planet, choking it in the first layer of Typhon's horrific spell. In reality, Calas was burning through hundreds of slave-psykers donated by the Night Lords to complete this task, the sheer scale of the ritual burning away at his humanity as he physically struggled to continue this assault on Fenris, but the damage had been significant, and now, declaring himself for the Grandfather, he sent his fleet forwards, striking upon the wounded loyalist Death Guard, Mortarion included, blasting apart even more ships and scattering the Death Guard across the Fenris system. By this point Russ had collapsed from the poison running through his system, and Jorin Bloodhowl, Jarl of Dekk-Tra, taking command of the battle, gathering what forces he still had and pulling back to a certain extent, only to be caught stunned by another shocking blow.
The Pride of the Emperor, backed by a colossal fleet, including several Mechanicum assets, arrived on the outskirts of the system, immediately throwing themselves into the battle as violet and gold joined the throng of grey. From the command bridge of his flagship - now turned largely into a pit of orgy and other violent excesses - Fulgrim determined who could be turned, or who of these so-called Witch Hunters, one he had not seen since Nikaea, the other he had believed to have turned to the Grandfather's protection, or so Typhon said. Typhon would not lack in courtesy, simply exclaiming that Mortarion had turned against them, intending to rebel against both Imperium and the Gods, but Russ, struck by the Life-Eater Virus, was dying quickly, but yet could be saved, could be generously offered to the Plaguefather, or the Brass King to be saved, for the Emperor's light had grown dim in Fenris, and his Wolf Priests would not be able to save him. Fulgrim made his move not long after that.
The Emperor's Children, specifically those gifted by Bile
The first boarding torpedoes struck the Endurance with series of thumps in the soundless void, Mortarion watching as streaks of gold seized upon his ship while a detachment of warships clad in midnight pulled away, unleashing the new horrors that had been crafted in secret by Chief Apothecary Bile in the depths of his personal ship in stars that cringed at the horrific things being made there. The Night Lords descended upon Fenris, and the Fang fell not long after, with the War-Sage taking the world hostage right underneath Russ and Jorin. Bloodhowl had dispatched forces to counter the VIII Legion, but was assured that the two legions had come to support him, and, in such a moment of intensity, there was little reason to resist, as if he could. The Emperor's Children that swarmed Mortarion's ship did not do so in significant amounts, and the Reaper saw as much, noticing that many of those he encountered were swollen to the point of breaking the ceramite they wore, or wielding barely functioning weapons, they were castaways, dregs deployed by Eidolon that had once been loyal to Saul Tarvitz and turned into horrific 'improvements' by Bile. Fulgrim himself did not appear, nor did he send his most prized warriors to the Death Guard ships, as he had a far more wicked purpose.
Mortarion, outnumbered and embattled, had little choice in the matter: it was to either lose himself and his entire Legion here, or withdraw and consider the bloody sacrifice he had made here a significant purge of what he had deemed a venom in his Legion. The Endurance, bleeding corpses and energy, began to pull away and those few ships not locked in place by the Rout were slowly withdrawing, fired upon by the vengeful VI, opportunistic III and Calas Typhon's host. It was a wonder that the gellar fields would even flicker to life as the fleet broke from the battle, entering the Warp, the few ships left behind being destroyed in short order. By the end of it, Temeter was dead, Grulgor was dead, Tayge was dead, Kolak perished to the very weapons the Death Guard claimed to master, and only a scant few officers remained under Mortarion's immediate command. Things seldom improved on Barbarus, or so he heard, as Nathaniel Garro had, a Terran, had been ordered to take command over all of Barbarus, leaving the promising scion Vorx in a difficult position. The Siegemaster had been fleetmaster for Mortarion, responsible for ensuring that the mighty guns never missed their mark, and this exile for a 'noble cause' on Barbarus had left him feeling disillusioned, a blow to the morale of those who hated themselves so unflinchingly. When he learned that Garro was to be sole regent, he had grown distrustful of the messages from his primarch, and it only took the seeded doubt whispered from the very lodges he was told to purge to decide that answers had to be found. Drawing from his reserves and taking what ships he could muster from the Mechanicum, the Siegemaster would leave Garro to rule over Barbarus and make for Mortarion's last location according to the messages, that being Fenris.
Over the Imperial world of Vanaheim, the battered Death Guard fleet arrived in force, having travelled through the warp and taken significant casualties the whole time. The remnants of the 4th and 5th Great Companies had, in the chaos of the retreat, been taken over by Lieutenants Ujioj and Holgoarg, and even the Luna Wolves that had been dispersed among the Legion were in shambles, with Verulam Moy and Tybalt Marr, the two captains chosen to lead the exiles having killed each other on their flagship when it turned out one had sided with Little Horus in a brief encounter between the former Luna Wolves. Aximand had attempted to recruit his former brothers into the Emperor's Children, Moy attempted to, Marr refused. Three of his Companies were in open rebellion, joining the massive warfleet being assembled by Fulgrim just within striking distance of Terra over Fenris, while Vorx and the 6th quickly arrived in orbit of Vanaheim which had become something of a containment zone for the impending disaster as it reached Terra.
Rogal Dorn, Praetorian of Terra, the Last Wall
Malcador was among the last to learn of the Battle of Fenris and of Russ' apparent death, for nothing was heard from Bloodhowl and the surviving warriors of the Rout as they lay under the coiled whip of Fulgrim. With the ruins of Mortarion's fleet surrounded by the guns of Battlefleet Solar at Vanaheim, with the outspoken Grand Admiral Suait-Falkan demanding that he be given the order to simply obliterate the treasonous Death Guard. The Council of Terra descended into a feverish panic that spread to the wider Senate, and with concerns of treason and further rebellion spreading into Segmentum Solar many worried that whoever led the treachery over Fenris - presumably Fulgrim - would strike for Terra next, and that Mortarion was simply bait, a wounded animal for Battlefleet Solar to get distracted by. The Grand Admiral was unconvinced, but cooler heads managed to prevail, and the Praetorian of Terra would be tasked to investigate and learn of what happened while a squadron of Solar's warships remained at a distance in orbit of Vanaheim while the rest dispersed in preparation to defend. In a matter of months, Terra had gone from a relative calm to a sudden and tense aura as the entire Council shifted their priorities and moved quickly, far too quickly. Dorn's command to rebuild the Imperial Palace had turned, by writ of the Regent, to build a fortress instead of a mere palace, while Malcador committed to every contingency and secondary plan he could've written in the wake of the Emperor's departure. Battlefleet Obscurus, which was largely sent to Tempestus to assist the Legiones Astartes into bringing compliance to dozens of new systems, and Pacificus had been sent to Ultima to assist in transporting Excertus Imperialis formations and fighting off Greenskin assaults. Only the Imperial Fists and Battlefleet Solar stood ready in the immediate situation should Fulgrim come for Terra, and that was only the start of it all.
Mars, already in a chaotic state, broke out into fully fledged civil war as Kelbor-hal sought to purge those who did not wish to join the 'true Warmaster' and his cause, rallying his Pure Mechanicum and the mighty maniples of Legio Mortis as the vanguard, devastating his chief rivals as the whole planet was consumed in the fire of rebellion. Legio Tempestus, the only other Titan Legio with the numbers to even challenge Mortis, were destroyed in the opening weeks of the war defending the Magma City, Archmagos Koriel Zeth's domain. It is said that Kelbor-hal unleashed a terrifying scrapcode that destroyed communications on Mars in its entirety, rendering the world blind and deaf as an Imperial Fists fleet moved into orbit. You could imagine how surprised he was when psychic residue from astropathic communication read upon by the Terran choir found that elements of the XX Legion had snuck past the Imperial Fists blockade, and were now planetside.
Alpharius' arrival was not yet discovered, but unbeknownst to him, the amber eye of Terra had been entirely focused on Mars, and even his most covert methods did not escape the watch of the Legio Custodes. Mars on the surface was seldom any better than the rest of the Imperium, a war that rendered the entire surface desolate tore apart the planet. Rogue Imperial Knights, Titans, even entire formations of Legio Cybernetica and Skitarii battled against one another in a desperate bid to reunite Mars; the Mechanicum lay broken, Kelbor-hal had all but disappeared from Olympus Mons and one of his chief agents, Lukas Chrom, had taken control of the Martian war effort, and upon further prodding and sleuthing, would learn that the Fabricator-General delved into the Vaults of Moravec, opening them against the strict writ of the Emperor and delving into the forbidden heretical archaeotech that lay beneath. Stories of an abominable intelligence, of a girl with a particular gift, of a vault holding a dragon, all of this information flitted through the noospheric network, and of the heroic death of the Magma City in vengeance against Legio Mortis.
Dorn did not rest with just Mars, as he rallied his entire Legion to quick action. The entire Crusader Host, representing all twenty Legions in some for another, were detained in the deepest dungeons underneath the Imperial Palace, while a ship was sent under the command of Captain Polux to investigate the Shrine of Unity, a comet locked in orbit with Sol that was stewarded by the Word Bearers. All of Sol was placed under the strictest of lockdown as things went to hell very quickly. Sporadic food riots across Terra from sudden supply draughts, food brought from across the galaxy being stopped for weeks in orbit of the planet that fed the monstrously high population of the planet quickly turned to rebellion as certain Hives became the sites of massive battles between Arbites, Astartes, gangers and other dissidents against the regime. Terra was not alone in this factor, as what had been believed to be an isolated event, and as news from Ultramar poured in, worlds all across Segmentum Solar broke down, rebellions all across the Imperium, be it sporadic from logistical issues or the works of the Great Plan, the Truth, it didn't matter, what mattered was that the dream of the Emperor had turned to ash so quickly in the span of a year. Stars burned as once loyal fleets turned traitor and fired upon another, Astartes slew Astartes on far-flung expedition fleets, and darkness consumed the galaxy in a new war. Yet, on Terra, in the mountains, a rock solid foundation stood, even if the Emperor of Mankind would not see it, Rogal Dorn would serve as a rock resisting the tides of destruction, for that was his duty as the Praetorian, and he would be successful.
Arbites slowly ended the major breakouts of unrest on Terra, Imperial Fists and the Imperialis Armada stabilized the worlds of the Segmentum Solar, thousands of mortals perishing in the process to bring a slow and bloody order back to it all, and it was then, then that Mortarion and his wounded fleet arrived, and word of the darkness over Fenris. Yet, the Emperor did not emerge, in fact, Constantin Valdor and the Custodes almost entirely disappeared from workings of the Council of Terra, withdrawing into the Sanctum Imperialis by His command, leaving only Malcador and Dorn of the original triumvirate.
Konrad Curze, Lord of Nostramo
Abandoned. Lost. Betrayed. Curze had been left on the edge of the galaxy, staring into a bleak, bleak void and left to die. His ship was in ruins, surviving on only the bare minimum. Many of the mortals, already badly wounded by the slaughter, were dying out, flickering lamps in the void and the remaining Astartes were almost constantly on edge - the sheer scale of the treachery, the venom, meant that no one could be truly trusted, and with Sevatar leading a relentless purging of any suspected, it had meant only several hundred, if that, remained loyal to Curze personally. They chose to wait, and wait, to see if anyone would come and finish them off, and no one did, for as far as the traitors knew, Curze was beaten, and it was only a matter of when he would die out on the edge of the Imperium.
On the dead world of Haples - a fitting name for a hopeless planet - the remaining Night Lords sallied out, launching small expeditions to retrieve whatever bare supplies they could for the mortal crews, be it food or medical equipment improvised from the planet's scarce natural resources. The Nightfall drifted into low anchor, an obsidian dagger hanging on the bare threads of stability as Talos led expedition after expedition, uncovering odd foodstuffs that could only really grow on the edge of the galaxy, and to some extent, synthetic healing solutions were found, allowing the Apothecarium to run on bare minimum as many of the surviving Night Lords had been grievously wounded by their kin, though with every step, Curze saved more of his sons, a meagre reward for their loyalty, but that was the path of redemption for one who had allowed his descent to be so far, so deep.
A possible salvation came in the form of an Eldar device, a mysterious - and undamaged - Webway gate that stood perched on a rocky outcrop not far from the initial landing site, and given it wasn't inert, it had been used recently enough. The Imperium knew little of the Webway, but Curze would know that it was their solution to Warp travel, but restricted to specific anchor points that meant he could only truly go where the Eldar had set his route. He could try wait it out, to see if a relief force would eventually come, or make enough repairs to the Nightfall to allow it to travel by conventional means to the nearest Imperial world, or gather what he had left, and enter the Webway and attempt to make his way to anywhere but here. In this choice, he would see something he had not seen in a long time, for on this dead world so, so far from the light of the Astronomican he would find himself staring into that pale, godly eye again, staring at him from the stars with a mocking laugh, and he would see his death again, his horrific visions returning to him in tidal wave as the tragedy of the Imperium became apparent to him.
Even if he desired to save it, he saw the future, and saw what it was destined to become: a colossal entity so decadent and so absorbed in constant war that in the ten thousand years from this moment almost nothing would change, yet, the Imperium would slip further into tyranny, injustice, corruption, set upon a self-destructive path by a brother he had thought loyal. Outside the Imperial Palace, which more resembled a monstrous fortress, a corpse sat upon a golden throne, surrounded by massive stone incarnations of his sons - Ferrus Manus, Rogal Dorn, Roboute Guilliman, Sanguinius, Corvus Corax, Vulkan and most unsurprisingly, Horus Lupercal - yet Curze was absent, as were Perturabo, Mortarion, Angron: the outcast sons were to be forgotten, to be left in the dust of history. That was the future he saw, the one that this galaxy would be set upon should the great work of the Emperor as promised would succeed.
Lion El'Jonson, Everchosen
Across the galaxy, over and beyond stars that remained still, over frozen breaths, the treachery unfurled its horrific hand. In orbit of Nuceria, the first shots from the guns of the true traitors fired upon the loyalists. The Tetrarch Stolos had refused, standing his ground against the Lion, and for his defiance he would die. The Invincible Reason along with the wider fleet of the Dark Angels turned, without hesitation, on the battle barge of the XIII Legion. They did not even have a chance to resist before being simply obliterated by the massed fire of a fleet ten times their size - the only survivor would be the lone frigate that fled for Macragge earlier - with the Lion not even giving the Ultramarines the honour of fighting them in the field. Despite this ruthless destruction, the Lion's true prize did not back down. The final charge of Angron began with a resounding war cry in the Magnoid's name.
The slaughter was relentless - the scant few ships Angron had were blown apart, the Conqueror heavily damaged as it shuddered upwards from Nuceria's orbit, ramming into the Invincible Reason as the two titanic warships were locked in the clash. The Lion himself, with his Knight-Paladins, would storm the Conqueror without hesitation, meeting Angron on the lower decks as the scant nine hundred or so World Eaters left joined their primarch in the final large. Clad in the splendour of Lhorke's cloak, wielding his Black Blade, Angron met the Lion in battle. It could be said a hundred times over that such a duel was impossible for Angron to win by conventional means, in fact, he was expecting to lose, but he was going to bleed the Lion for every fallen World Eater. The XII Legion fought like rabid dogs, with Kharn killing at least four dozen Dark Angels before Merir Astelan executed him, the Legion Master falling prey to being simply overwhelmed by a combination of bolter fire and whatever foul powers the Calibanites had become entranced with. Crude avatars of the Gods arrayed the decks the two primarchs fought through - on one end, you had the War God, on the other, the Calibanite Lion - these aspects, these formations, they embodied the two legions as they battled, as one had accepted its descent with a greedy pride, a desire to be the true rulers of the Imperium.
Not many knew the story of how the Lion fell, but many believed it had begun years ago, when Ferrus Manus was named Warmaster, others would say even earlier, when he first emerged from the forests of Caliban. He had, in his quiet hours of contemplation aboard the Invincible Reason as he enlisted worlds upon worlds into Imperial compliance, thought of a distant past, of the Great Forest, of the Watchers in the Dark, of the Beasts, and it had all brought him closer to what was the Primordial Truth. He did not worship the Gods-that-are, like Lorgar, for the greatest power in the eyes of the Dark Angels was man, and their rightful place in the order of the universe. It was not right, the destruction of Caliban's nature, and even as his homeworld reclaimed cleared landscapes and Astartes left behind by Cypher destroyed what remained in terms of loyalists on Caliban and allowed the forests to reclaim the land, the Lion began his quest, his deepest desire to be Warmaster, his jealousy, his envy, it consumed him, and he allowed Luther's whispers to take his soul, for the Order had returned, but it was not the same. The poison in the Lion's heart had been left by the Emperor, a wound upon his pride.
It was that poison, that rage, that power, that unleashed itself as Angron fought the Lion, and he fought whatever things the Lion had allowed to empower him, for the Lion was a nascent psyker as many of the primarchs were, and now he bled an aura of darkness, of fear, one that even cracked the composure of Angron. Eventually, deep in the bowels of the Invincible Reason, after fighting for three days, the final blow was struck, the Black Blade broken, and the wounded Angron collapsed, his limbs stretched to exhaustion, his body pummeled and beaten to a tipping point, yet, as he reached out for any last ounce of power, the Gods laughed in his face, for Maris would not let Angron kill a warrior who had beat him. The Lion wasn't faring much better, as despite his limited blessings, he was still the same Lion El'Jonson of old, and much like his monstrous duel with Leman Russ, he had worn himself out, but now he stood over Angron, an executioner's blade in his hand, the Lion Sword seemingly begged to claim the life of another primarch.
Below, Nuceria burned. The I Legion had crushed the XII without little effort, and as the desperate forces of the Nucerian auxiliary forces from the Rudiarius desperately held on led by Sibyl, they had not expected that the Lion was to make Nuceria his bloody prize. The Dark Angels razed the cities, bombing them from orbit before Deathwing, Firewing and Dreadwing unleashed their horrific weapons of mass destruction on the civilian population - the death toll counted in the trillions by the end of it all - as the Lion condemned every soul on Nuceria to die in atomic fire. Fires the size of mountains rose to the heavens, blocking out the sun in ash and dust, and an eight pointed star was carved into the very globe itself, staring out at the rest of Ultramar, a beacon glowing with the promise of fire and murder.
A traitor of the Host of Calth
Ultramar buckled, and broke. Luther and Cypher, masterful agents and heavily aided by agents of the Urizen - namely Erebus - had wrought the seeds of destruction around Ultramar for years, and the tipping point had been the death of Guilliman, for while the entrapment of the Master of Macragge proved futile, his connection to his sons meant that the blood spilled over the altar on Davin was more than perfect for a wider treason. Much of Battlefleet Ultramar's officer class had already turned to the traitors, turning their guns on loyalists and crippling the major shipyards at Konor and Occulda, while Saramanth turned for the loyalists. The Five Hundred Worlds burned as Ultramarines turned from benevolent statesmen to bloody tyrants - though not all, as just as many resisted this sudden and warp-infused change - and those trapped fighting the Greenskins on the outskirts of the realm of Ultramar could do little to resist. The Dark Angels were systemic in their destruction, as after Nuceria, they would focus on strongpoints, destroying and disabling them as the remaining Tetrarchs reeled. Macragge still held, though with no leader as Marius Gage still held, the remaining civilian administrators were massacred by Cypher, plunging the planet into martial law under the rule of 22nd Chapter Master Eleon Iasus. The psychic aftershock of Guilliman's undeath turned those like Phratus Auguston into frothing berserkers or madmen, turning on their fellow Ultramarines in an even more violent bloodbath. Calth, like a dozen other worlds, was scoured of loyalists as even the Mechanicum, split between Kelbor-hal's fanatics and those aligned to Ultramar, fought, as Titans marched upon one another on Prandium, causing so much destruction that the entire planet was destroyed in the aftermath. The gods were most certainly appeased.
Vulkan of the Salamanders at the battle of Orizus
Vulkan was the first to arrive in-system, having departed months earlier before the Warmaster and Perturabo to make his way for Ultramar. When he saw the sheer scale of destruction wrought upon the world, his heart turned to ash in his mouth, followed by a newfound hatred for the Lion and the traitors who dotted the worlds. Setting upon Orizus, which had turned traitor with a host of Dark Angels and traitor Ultramarines having seized the important logistics base in the name of the Warmaster, a point of brief confusion before the Lord of Drakes learned of Lion's treachery from the shattered lips of a heretic son of Ultramar. Vulkan's arrival was not unanswered though, as the newly rallied traitor fleet would lash out quickly, trapping him on Orizus as he battled against the fast-moving warships of Battlefleet Ultramar in the void, while millions of mortal soldiers stuffed into colossal bulk transports, along with hordes of horrific warp-mutated civilians charged his warriors - beastmen, they were called - and in that opening battle, Orizus burned in the name of the Emperor as Vulkan seemingly brought some measure of liberation, a hardpoint of inaccessibility for the rest of the loyalists to gather around as word of Ultramar's burning got out quickly.
Second to arrive was Voygt Kel, Chapter Master of the Raven Guard, who had been sent ahead along with a small number of ships to travel to Nuceria in attempt to relieve Angron, his forces would arrive at Sotha, managing to catch a renegade force of Ultramarines off guard, before being nearly obliterated by one of the truly treacherous - Tauro Nicodemus. Guilliman's sons had been broken over the knee of Lorgar's horrific ritual, and Tauro Nicodemus, when he felt Roboute die, simply snapped, the shock wave breaking over his forces who quickly abandoned the relief effort against Bludblaed and turned their attention on destroying what few loyalists remained. Nicodemus, commanding roughly fifty-thousand as opposed to Kel's thousand, surrounded Sotha, blockading it, leaving one of his officers to siege out the Raven Guard from the void while making off with the rest of his fleet to rally at Konor. It is said that of the XI, II and XVI that had been absorbed into the Ultramarines, none remained steadfastly loyal save for a single officer by the name of Captain Tarik Torgaddon, who died at the hands of the Lion at the Battle of Nuceria.
Corvus Corax himself meanwhile had taken what remained of his Legion, and began to make his way to Deliverance, where his blooded Legion would be put to rebuilding the Raven Guard. Their fleet departed on uncertain ground with Ferrus in orbit of Mundanius. In truth, the Ravenlord had been wracked with concern over the future of the Imperium and he intended to warn the Emperor of the possibility of betrayal and he was no doubt surprised that when he arrived with a smaller force - having detached the rest of the Legion to make for Deliverance - in Segmentum Solar that he learned of Fulgrim destroying the Death Guard and bringing the Rout low. Corvus' rather minor force was an uncertain variable, and as he made for Terra, he quickly found himself effectively under the arrest of the Imperial Fists in orbit of Pluto, learning that Mortarion was under similar circumstances, but at gunpoint, over the world of Beta-Garmon.
Those Raven Guard who returned to Kiavahr would learn that the remaining adepts of the Tech-Lords, those preserved by the Emperor and given over to the authority of the Mechanicum, had, predictably, risen up, firing nuclear weapons at the moon of Lyceaus, sparking yet another conflict across the already breaking Imperium, though the arrival of the Legion was just in time to prevent the second Tech-Lord uprising from going too far and they were quick to crush them, for the Shadow of the Emperor drew over the planet.
The Iron Warmaster, meanwhile, shattered the first significant blockade. Arriving at Ichar where the fleet of Eikos Lamiad battled against the Greenskins, he used overpowering force to quite literally barrel through the Greenskins, destroying their fleet with immense amounts of firepower and levelling their dark fortress, while leaving mortal auxiliaries to clean up what remained with elements of Battlefleet Ultima. When he arrived in orbit of Golsoria, having left the orks broken and beaten, he found himself staring at the atrocity of the Lion's betrayal as thousands of reports of fallen worlds and worse yet, fallen primarchs flooded the Fist of Iron. The only good news to come had been that Vulkan had entered Ultramar with a similarly sized force of around eighty-thousand of his Salamanders, drawing from many of the outposts he had set up after saving Caldera, rallied at Orizus.
His other efforts were not in vain however as drastically needed resources to begin closing fronts were pulled, and more mortal and Astartes forces soon joined his battlefleet in orbit of Golsoria, looking directly at the maw that was the ruins of Ultramar.
Perturabo, Lord of Iron
The IV Legion had been a legion held aloft by pain, by neglect, by a barely held back contempt towards the so-called heroes of the Imperium, now, in this dark hour, it had no choice but to become that hero. From the Iron Blood, Perturabo saw the stars burn, the eight-pointed star seared into his mind's eye as he looked at Ultramar and saw the blind, mindless destruction of the powers of the Primordial Annihilator as the Eldar called it. Destruction reigned supreme, and the Iron Warriors had come not a moment too late, as at the precipice of the fall, so had the greatest forces to prevent the collapse rallied around the outskirts of Ultramar. Throughout the journey, Perturabo had taken his legion apart, piece by piece, mauled as it was, and reformed it, these changes cast his Legion in the very iron they name themselves as, steely muscle and hard foundation from which the Imperium could strike back, or so Perturabo aspired such a conclusion.
Over the Maelstrom, he left his protege, Barabas Dantioch, crippled after his exile to battle the Hrud in command of a smaller force of IV Legion and mortal auxilia to crush the Squats, beat back Kromren, and create an impregnable fortress around the Maelstrom, to prevent anything from emerging from it, for that was what the Emperor would've wanted, or so he thought. Dantioch's reports came far and few, but they were only good news - the reclamation of Heliosa, led by a young aspiring officer named Kroeger, the battle of Piraeus, where a fleet of Greenskins was smashed by Dantioch and the Imperialis Armada, and the eventual counter-offensive into the territory of the warlord Kromren. On Golgotha, he would learn that the Iron Warriors had become well entrenched and were slowly weeding out the rather limited Squat legions, reinforced by the psychic machinations of the Thousand Sons.
As Guilliman died, Magnus was the first and foremost to feel it, like a dagger being wrenched through his heart, the Crimson King would manifest himself aboard the Iron Blood, his face drenched in sweat, worry creased across his face. When asked by the Lord of Iron as to why he seemed to distraught, he spoke of betrayal, of a conspiracy so woven into the Imperium that even the all-knowing Sorcerer-King of Terra did not know until the buried dagger was driven through son's heart, and he spoke of his duty, nay, his mission, to bring word of the murder to Father, to warn the Emperor. This was before Ultramar was lit aflame, this was before Angron lay bleeding and dying on the decks of the Invincible Reason, this was before Konrad found hope. In Magnus' mind, everything unfurled before him like a tapestry, and he did not hesitate to take this ultimate task - he would return to Terra, he must. Perturabo tried, and tried to reason with him, to say that the Crimson King's mission is here, in Ultramar, to stop the madness before it had all gone array, but Magnus the Red would not listen, to confident in his success, so unpredictable in his knowledge of the arcane, he shrugged off Perturabo's concerns, but in the same breath, he left the Thousand Sons in the stewardship of Ahriman and the Lord of Iron. Neither knew it would be the last time the two would see each other.
Not long after, Perturabo would arrive over Orizus, to find his brother Vulkan destroying renegade Ultramarines and battling ships that had once sailed under the pride of Ultramar, no doubt forced to plunge in and assist the Lord of Drakes. Neither knew truly that Guilliman had died, nor did they suspect the arrival of Kor Phaeron and the Fidelitas Lex, along with a very much enlarged Word Bearers Legion. Kor Phaeron and Erebus were quick to speak of Lorgar's disappearance, and that with him, Roboute was gone as well, and that a terrible madness took the Ultramarines who turned on the Dark Angels, of a mysterious cult that shamelessly, much to the ire of Kor Phaeron, stole the writings of Colchis and proclaimed Horus and Roboute man-made gods, beings of the Warp that had manifest in flesh to dominate the Imperium, and that this whole rebellion was in the name of a god so foul that even the folly of the Word Bearers, now reformed, was nothing in comparison. To prevent such a terrible tragedy from befalling the whole Imperium, Kor Phaeron was quick to offer his Legion's effort, adding that Erebus was already at war, besieging the Forge World of Gantz in attempt to pry it from the hands of a renegade Ultramarines force.
Jaghatai, the Khan of Khans, He Who Is Like the Wind And Storm
From the Swordstorm, the end of an era came upon Jaghatai in waves. First, he saw the final defeat of the Orks on Chondax Prime, slaughtering them to the last one in one of the most glorious and admittedly prolonged campaigns that had never been expected against an Ork empire - it is said the battle took to the same size as the Battle of Ullanor Prime, where the Khan's warriors swept like a violent storm of white and red, slaughtering Orks by the thousands, from holdfast to holdfast, for the great Horde of Hordes was indomitable, and it was on this world that he found the final freedom he had desperately sought. Guided by the Stormseers through the tumultuous path, the fires of war reforged the White Scars, stronger than before. Bit by bit, the call of the war drums quietened down, disappearing from their minds, the savage bloodlust that had been afflicting the Legion seemingly dispersed as if a red mist cleared their minds.
On Chondax Prime, the Khan would find Urlakk Urruk, and in one of the most legendary and lengthy battles where the two warrior-leaders fought atop bikes across the entire surface of the planet, through the amber grasslands that surrounded the warboss' fortress, both were, should they lose, destined to die a death of a thousand cuts as neither could strike a killing blow, at least, until the Khan came up and victorious. Catching Urlakk on a sharp bend, Jaghatai would pierce the Ork's leg with a long spear, driving him to stop and a violent crash. Even with both his legs broken, Urlakk refused to submit, raising a gun that Jaghatai simply removed by cutting the greenskin's head off, in a last, bitter taunt, Urlakk laughed, speaking of how pathetic Horus looked when he choked the life out of him, how pathetic the Luna Wolves looked when they wept over some soft weakling, and with that, Jaghatai took his head. Then, there was silence, and in that silence, the collapse of the Imperium unfolded before the White Scars as they broke apart the remnants of Ullanor, the tragedy avenged, a story concluded, yet, despite the apparent resolution to one tale, the Khan now stood at a precipice. Ultramar burns, Guilliman is dead, Lorgar is missing, the Lion fights to overthrow the Emperor who decreed the burning of Ultramar.
Jubal Khan, meanwhile, had departed with the rest of the White Scars, arriving after Perturabo's departure over the Maelstrom, joining Dantioch in the cleansing as the stalled counter-offensive launched by the IV Legion was given its final boost, and finally, the largest of the old Ork empires would be thrown into the depths of the galactic core, shattered and broken.
The Alpha Legion did not restrict itself to Mars, for in former Interex space, the rest of the Legion made itself present as a mediator and stabilizing factor. Under Herzog, the Hall of Devices was thoroughly searched and stripped, and the battle-scars of Xenobia Princeps were slowly picked apart as the Alpha Legion moved all the remaining artefacts, while the actual Hall was levelled discreetly. The Interex had been all but wiped out on the moon, their technology hoarded by the Mechanicum and sent back to Mars or one of the other nearby Forge Worlds, though the various tools that the Alpha Legion found proved more than interesting.
A skeleton-key to the Webway, a torch capable of illuminating one's path through the Warp, a series of books and scrolls preserved from Terra itself detailing the incantations of the Primordial Annihilator. Of the less esoteric variety came weapons such as a total atomic disintegrator, a rifle that fired rounds that curved, and the least subtle of all, a series of powered suits that the Jokaero employed during their war against the Interex, or the various weapons and specimens of 'Necrontyr' origin, supposedly gifted to them by the enigmatic Artemorra in ages past, that had been preserved by the Interex. Much of this was destroyed or taken by the Mechanicum, but copies or archives detailing a hundred more different artifacts just showed how much destructive potential lay in the Hall of Devices should the Crimson Brotherhood had first claims on it.
Of the mysterious team of two humans and unmarked Astartes, nothing could be found, at least not at first, for when a civilian woman was pressed for information by one of the XX Legion's infiltrators, they learned of a name, one so unconventional in the 31st Millennium that it could not possibly belong to someone born in this age, yet, if this human mortal proved to be a correct lead, it was most certainly more than nothing: John. Prowling through records of Astartes in service to the II and XI came up with no match to the mysterious agent, not even the Luna Wolves had such a suit of experimental armour - in fact, the only giveaway was the weapon - the boltgun he carried bore a series of inscriptions, kill marks, once used by the Pale Nomads and Dusk Raiders, or the Raven Guard and Death Guard as they would come to be known as.
Sanguinius, Archangel of Baal
Distant Baal had spoken of hope, as even as the Imperium collapsed before the XX and IX Legions, hope came to some fruition as the colony ships sent by the Interex came in far more numbers and significant support than Sanguinius had initially hoped for. In a last, defiant cry, the Interex sent their best and brightest, equipped with the vast array of knowledge and technology that the Interex had preserved for ten thousand years of darkness. Naming themselves the Unbound, this particular group of scientists and traders proclaimed that they would not languish on a single world, but attempt to travel the stars, to bring the light of peace and hope to the wider universe, and that their stay in this galaxy would not be long, for the beacon of humanity is well and truly entrenched here. But, they would grant Sanguinius' castellan great gifts - in the span of a year, Baal would see an end to the acid rains which drenched the lowland tribesmen, an end to the irradiated wastelands which would begin to blossom and grow green again, and an end to the horrific mutations that came as a result. The simply vast technological advantage of the Unbound in matters of peace made it a wonder that they had lost to the Imperium at all, yet, these few who remained were not cruel, offering what they could to Sanguinius in the matters of healing and protection before departing on their great harbour-ships, intending to sail the Great Ocean for eternity. So ended the story of the last of the Interex.
Before the dawn of war came upon the Imperium, Sanguinius departed, his heart no doubt heavy with the lead of regret, of the destruction of the Imperium, and he traversed the northern reaches that his Legion had scouted years prior, for he wished to bring worlds into the Imperium proper. On Rilnacury he found a minor xenos species of salvagers who fired upon his Legion immediately, and they were wiped out by the Angels. Further, he would bring the feudal world of Gedistea into the fold, saving them from the sister-world of Dagua, where an Ork warboss who proclaimed himself Void-King. In the Somostorean Reaches, the IX Legion saw a void whale, one of the last of its kind, traverse the stars, seeking out a new refuge in the coldest of darkness, far from the light of the Astronomican which brought it great pain. Yet, this whale led the IX into the heart of an Ork territory led by a particularly dull warlord named Riptear, who Sanguinius destroyed with little effort. The fact that the Northern Reaches Campaign seemed so painfully normal as world either bent to compliance or was cleared of the life of Orks made only the wounds of the Imperium more grievous they were this close, this close to the final arc of the Great Crusade, and it was all discarded in a single, bloody-handed moment.
...his brother Roboute sitting atop a throne, his eyes glass, a terrible wound across his chest, his face locked in an expression of perpetual agony, a captive within his own temple of flesh.
On the world of Exegol, Sanguinius was suddenly assailed by visions, by visions of his future, of his death. Standing on the marble floors of what appeared to be one of his brother's battleships, he found himself compelled to walk into a grand throne room, where the drapery of the 'Truth' lay arrayed before him, the Brass Tower, the Eight-Pointed Star, the Bloody Hand, among others, and he saw himself, dead, his body broken, his lifeblood oozing into the pale white floor, and above him, stood Lion El'Jonson, clad in armour as dark as midnight, wielding a sword that burned with blue flame, an aura of pure darkness enclosing him, leaving only a pair eyes visible, as Sanguinius watched this horrific end to his life unfold, he suddenly turned, seeing Rogal Dorn and a number of Imperial Fists come crashing through the doors of the throne room, aghast and furious at the Lion's actions, yet, the Lion showed no regret, no remorse, only pity. While he could not hear what they said, Rogal's mouth stopped moving as everyone present in the room, including an as of yet unseen hundred traitor Astartes clad in black and red armour not too dissimilar to the Lion's, no doubt fallen I Legion, turned to see the latest figure enter the room: the Emperor. Time froze, as Sanguinius found himself staring directly at the hollow, even grieving face of his father, for He had lost both his most prized sons, and only time knows what else in such a horrific time that led to this fateful conflict on the Invincible Reason. In that moment, Sanguinius saw HIs eyes, and he was violently yanked from his vision, only to find himself on the barren ever-frozen wastes of Exegol yet again, surrounded by his Sanguinary Guard. Here, they told him of what had happened, of the burning of Ultramar, of the battle of Fenris, of the schism of Mars, of the disappearance of Guilliman and Lorgar, and in that moment, Sanguinius saw one more vision, one he would remember most vividly; his brother Roboute sitting atop a throne, his eyes glass, a terrible wound across his chest, his face locked in an expression of perpetual agony, a captive within his own temple of flesh.
