Chapter 425: Praise the Changer of Ways! Warp Daemons! Summoning Circle!
BOOM—!
The Ten Thousand Sons flagship trembled slightly as it fired its weapons. Amon could clearly feel the vibrations coursing through the deck beneath his feet.
His heart was heavy.
Because joining the battle weren't just the Death Guard—but also the Space Wolves, Dark Angels, and the Ultramarines fleet formations.
The Thousand Sons had about as many ships as the Death Guard alone, but with three other Primarch legions entering the fray, the Thousand Sons were instantly plunged into absolute disadvantage.
If this battle kept going as it was, the Thousand Sons were doomed!
"What do we do…? If we don't break through the Death Guard's blockade first, we can't even find a direction to escape!" Amon felt utterly cornered.
At that moment, Sekhmet stepped forward and offered his thoughts:
"The Death Guard are closest to us right now. I suggest we close the distance and engage them in close quarters!"
"That way, the Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves won't dare open fire with full force—doing so would risk friendly fire on the Death Guard ships."
As an elite veteran Terminator of the Thousand Sons, Sekhmet had a wealth of battle experience. Though he served under Azhek Ahriman, he was still considered half-Terran by origin.
But his thinking aligned with Amon's. Until the truth was fully revealed, Sekhmet had no desire to die a disgraceful death.
Amon's eyes lit up. "Good idea. Let's do it!"
Amon wasn't particularly experienced in directing galactic warfare. Most of the time, he stayed in the rear lines—handling logistics, researching psyker theories, and cultivating operatives like the Unseen.
His role was more akin to the head of an intelligence agency than a battlefield commander—more like the chief of the Jinyiwei. He only had a modest grasp of battlefield command and was not deeply knowledgeable.
If it weren't for seasoned commanders by his side, Amon wouldn't have the confidence to face off against four Primarchs simultaneously.
Soon, under Amon's orders, the Thousand Sons fleet began to close in on the Death Guard formation.
Artillery fire from all four loyalist legions rained down like a torrential storm, striking the Thousand Sons fleet. Their protective force fields rippled violently under the onslaught.
The escort ships surrounding the Photep shuddered violently under the barrage, taking the brunt of the fire to shield the flagship. But their shields were rapidly being worn down.
BOOM—!
It wasn't long before a Thousand Sons ship's force field overloaded. A barrage of fire consumed it in seconds.
Brilliant fire bloomed in the void. The first warship to fall in this Imperial civil war was no more.
That ship had carried over five hundred Thousand Sons Astartes—many of them seasoned veterans with countless battle honors.
But in the face of the Imperium's highest power struggles, they were nothing but pawns—wiped out by their own kind's firepower.
"Faster! Get us closer to the Death Guard!"
Amon roared in fury, his voice sharp and enraged across the Thousand Sons' comms network.
The legion's sorcerers began chanting incantations and weaving malevolent curses into the shells they loaded into their cannons—imbuing them with deadly warp energy.
Some of these enchanted shells would unleash horrific plagues, others would disable enemy ship engines, and some could even shatter the very souls of those inside the enemy ships. The effects varied wildly depending on the sorcerer's spontaneous creativity.
Mortarion had always hated psykers with a passion—and he especially loathed this kind of warp-infused artillery.
Which was precisely why he was so hell-bent on eradicating the Thousand Sons as quickly as possible.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—!
The explosion of the first warship seemed to trigger a devastating chain reaction. More and more Thousand Sons ships were overwhelmed as their shields failed.
One by one, they exploded—each blaze a beautiful yet tragic Lotus of Death blooming in the void.
The outer perimeter of the Thousand Sons fleet turned into a sea of fire. Wreckage drifted helplessly in space, like whales dying at the end of their lives.
Many of the Thousand Sons Astartes hadn't perished with their ships. Instead, they were hurled into space by the massive shockwaves—left to suffer impacts from the debris, suffocate in their shattered power armor, or be gunned down by enemy ship-mounted autocannons.
In the weightlessness of the void, once-agile and powerful warriors became as helpless as newborns. They couldn't fight back. They could only passively accept death at the hands of their fellow Astartes.
This heart-wrenching scene weighed heavily on the hearts of both sides.
Yet the blinding blasts, the crimson blood, dulled any sense of pity. The constant drum of cannon fire stirred up the wild, primal rage deep in every warrior.
Once the instinct to kill took over, all that remained was the will to fight—to the death.
"FASTER! GET US IN RANGE!"
Amon's teeth clenched so tightly they ground audibly. He was growing increasingly desperate.
Although the Thousand Sons fleet was indeed approaching the Death Guard, Mortarion seemed to see through Amon's plan.
He issued orders of his own, pulling the Death Guard away—keeping a precise, frustrating distance from the Thousand Sons.
It was like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey—always within sight, but forever out of reach, no matter how hard it chased.
Meanwhile, the Space Wolves and Dark Angels kept up their artillery barrage on the Thousand Sons fleet.
Both Russ and Lion El'Jonson had to keep a close eye out for a sudden appearance by Magnus, so they refrained from committing their flagships to the battle.
Instead, they symbolically fired a salvo with their secondary batteries, then sent in cruisers and escort ships to continue the assault.
Even Guilliman wasn't going all-in. His flagship only targeted the flanking ships of the Thousand Sons, avoiding a direct strike on the Flagship.
Yet even so, the Thousand Sons fleet was disintegrating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Amon was nearing despair.
Facing four opponents with overwhelming superiority was already a losing proposition—now with such coordinated tactics, there was no opportunity to break through.
BOOM—!!
Two more Thousand Sons ships exploded in spectacular fashion.
By now, the Thousand Sons had yet to inflict any significant losses—but their own had reached one-eighth of their fleet. Over ten thousand Astartes were already dead.
These were demigods in the eyes of ordinary humanity.
Yet on this battlefield of gods and monsters, their deaths were as insignificant as squashed insects.
At this rate, the Thousand Sons were all but fated to perish in the Prospero system.
But unbeknownst to all, their fleet had drawn close to the edge of a Mandeville Point—a region of space where the Warp and realspace were exceptionally thin.
"…That's odd. I think I hear something—like a voice, near and far…"
Inside one of the Thousand Sons ships, in a dimly lit corridor, an Astartes named Vayne suddenly stopped, looking around uneasily. He turned to his companion, Gard.
"Did you hear that strange sound?"
Gard frowned, puzzled by Vayne's paranoia.
"What are you talking about? There's only our footsteps in here."
Every Thousand Sons warship was inscribed with psy-reactive runes to block out mundane noise. Aside from his and Vayne's footsteps, Gard hadn't heard anything at all.
HSSSSSS—!!
This time, the eerie sound exploded right next to Vayne's ear, making him instantly tense up as if facing mortal danger. His muscles coiled reflexively, ready to strike.
"There's no mistake! Something is here!"
Vayne raised his chainsword in one hand and his staff in the other, eyes darting warily across the corridor. But Gard still heard nothing and chalked it up to battle nerves—thinking Vayne was just too tense and imagining things.
Yet Vayne ignored his companion's dismissal. The strange noise grew louder and louder—like a legion of formless, unseen spirits whispering all around him.
"Something foul's infiltrated the ship! We need to report this to Amon—now!"
Vayne finally realized something was terribly wrong. But it was already too late.
As Gard reached for his comms unit to make the report, he suddenly noticed—Vayne's head had vanished.
It was simply gone, severed clean from his torso with a surgical, smooth cut—like an executioner's blade had struck in complete silence.
"Damn it!"
Gard shouted as he swung his chainsword wildly around him, slashing at thin air. He activated his comms to report:
"Command, this is Gard—we've got hostiles on board! I think they're Warp—"
His words cut off abruptly.
Gard's head, too, disappeared without warning, leaving behind only a twitching, headless corpse.
HSSSS—
With that chilling noise, the air around the two corpses distorted. From the warped space emerged two translucent, writhing figures.
They were Warp Daemons—manifestations of the Immaterium.
These entities had already parasitized the bodies of numerous Thousand Sons Astartes. What was unfolding now was simply the final step: full possession.
Blood began pouring from the fallen warriors' broken power armor, forming a twisted runic circle on the ground. A powerful psychic pulse echoed through the Warp—and more daemons answered the call.
Soon, the two headless bodies rose again. Their heads had been replaced by semi-transparent, floating masses that shifted and shimmered.
As the seconds passed, grotesque features began to take form—decayed flesh, oozing pustules, pulsating tumors of warped flesh.
The Warp had fully descended upon the Materium.
The daemons, having possessed Vayne and Gard's corpses, had successfully entered realspace through their husks.
"Praise the Changer of Ways—!"
A dry, gurgling voice echoed through the corridor.
The two daemons knelt, using the spilled blood to enlarge the summoning glyph, expanding it across the floor, walls, and ceiling. Strange runes—impossible to understand—now covered the entire corridor.
By the time a nearby Astartes squad arrived to investigate, the horror was already well underway.
"What are you doing?!"
The Thousand Sons warriors—highly trained psykers themselves—immediately recognized the crimson, blasphemous runes. They were unmistakably summoning circles for the Chaos Gods and their daemons.
"Damn it! Kill them!"
The squad leader drew his bolt pistol, but for some reason, his trigger finger wouldn't move—as if frozen in place.
The same was happening to the others. Their limbs locked up; body parts that had previously mutated from Warp healing began erupting with fresh, uncontrolled mutations.
Old wounds once "cured" by Warp entities now flared back to life—twisted and magnified beyond recognition.
Before their horrified eyes, the daemons surged forward, guided by the glyphs and tainted flesh. They devoured the Astartes' souls and took over their bodies with ease.
"Praise the Changer of Ways."
The newly possessed Astartes—now daemon-hosts—resumed their grim task, using fresh blood to continue expanding the summoning circles.
Similar outbreaks erupted all across various Thousand Sons vessels.
At first, the scattered reports of a few missing Astartes didn't raise alarm—especially in the heat of battle against four Primarch legions.
But the truth couldn't stay hidden forever.
Distress signals kept pouring in. Finally, Amon took notice.
"They've boarded us? Impossible!" Amon's brow furrowed deeply.
Even if Thousand Sons weren't the best at melee combat compared to elite forces like the Shadowmoon Wolves or Space Wolves, there was no way they would fail to send a complete transmission before being wiped out.
Not even the Varagyr Wolf Guard under Russ could pull that off with such efficiency.
Besides, they were still far from the Space Wolves, Ultramarines, and Dark Angels. The only contact was via artillery fire—boarding action was out of the question.
As for the Death Guard? Even less likely.
Mortarion was doing everything he could to stay as far from the Thousand Sons as possible. There was no chance he had ordered any boarding actions.
If all those possibilities were ruled out…
"Amon… my psychic powers feel… stronger than usual. Could it be… the Warp?"
It was then that Ankhu Anen finally spoke up.
Amon froze—then realization struck like lightning.
They were near a Mandeville Point, where realspace and the Warp overlapped far more than normal. Psykers could tap into much greater Warp energies here.
But that meant the reverse was also true.
The Warp could reach into realspace more easily too.
And what came from the Warp… was never benign.
"Oh no… Daemons. Warp Daemons!"
Amon's face went pale.
This was the worst possible timing. Four Primarchs had their attention locked onto the Thousand Sons—and now daemons were manifesting aboard their ships?
This all but confirmed the worst Imperial fears. The Exterminatus order from the Emperor would seem entirely justified.
Their righteous claim to "purge the traitors for the good of the Imperium" would now look like naked rebellion.
"Gather all ships! Move into the Megacorp's anti-Warp field! Cease all outward attacks immediately! Everyone—initiate internal sweeps and purge every last invading daemon!"
Amon acted swiftly.
His orders went out at once, and the scattered Thousand Sons fleet began regrouping—rushing toward the Megacorp fleet's position, where powerful anti-Warp fields offered protection from further intrusion.
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