Khârn's right axe hacked into Diocles's pauldron, tearing ceramite like paper. Blood geysered.
"Pain is proof of life! Blood is a warrior's honor—fight!" Khârn bellowed, the left axe scything for Diocles's head.
The Captain barely tilted away, the blade shaving a corner from his helm and exposing his bloody face.
Gritting his teeth, he yanked the sword and overcharged the disruption field on the pull. Khârn's chest wound burst into a red mist—only rousing him further.
The bloodier, the madder, the more likely to draw his master's gaze.
"Yes! Like that! This is battle!" he roared, crossing both axes in a crushing blow.
Diocles blocked; the impact flashed white-hot, the air shuddering, the ground splintering under their feet.
The Sisters' fire washed over from the side, holy flames forcing Khârn back. Diocles reset his stance, breath thunderous in his damaged helm, bleeding from many wounds, but his sword-hand steady as bedrock.
"Again!" Khârn tore through the fire; runes on his axes burned crimson.
They clashed once more, weapons moving faster than sound, blades and axes leaving afterimages, metal screaming.
Every exchange flared sparks; every pass flung blood.
Yet Khârn still wasn't using his full might—he hadn't even grown to giant form. His goal was to kill the Vice Legion Master, the former Chapter Master Calgar, to take that head for the Blood God. He wouldn't waste strength on a mere cohort captain.
The battlefield seemed to still; all eyes were on the duel of superhuman warriors.
Blood and oil painted twisted patterns on the ground; shattered armor littered the air.
This was violence in its purest form—the ultimate contest between Imperial and Chaotic fury.
But only Diocles knew his own struggle. The brute before him knew no fatigue, no pain; even wounds healed in a haze of blood. He was an unkillable monster.
And according to combat feeds from Ultramar, this fiend wasn't going all out; he hadn't become a sixty-meter giant as he had against the Custodians.
He's just toying with me.
Damn it!
Diocles hadn't undergone ultrabeastification, and lacked the power to grow. Against the Blood God's chosen, he had no chance.
And ordinary Ultramarines and Sisters couldn't help here.
Khârn's axe feinted, then hooked upward, splitting Diocles's abdominal plate. Blood spilled. At the same moment, the Captain's power sword buzzed into Khârn's scapula, punching into his chest.
It should have been a perfect trade—him gravely wounded, the foe dead.
But the blood spray suddenly crystallized into jagged spines, locking the sword in Khârn's body.
"Smell that?" Khârn's vox rasped with a filthy chuckle, his torn mouth split to the ear.
"That's your fear." He stepped forward with the sword wedged in his bones; the spike on his axe haft punched into the exposed belly and churned.
Blood fountained. Diocles's mind dimmed; limbs weakened. The Belisarius furnace tried to repair his body, but the Blood God's power was no simple thing.
If not for his Primaris-hardened body—iron bones and corded muscle—he'd already be paste.
His visual module flashed red warnings; his greave shattered under an axe and he fell to his knees. In that instant, he detonated the sword's power core.
In the burst of blue light, half of Khârn's chest became bare bone. But the ribs sprouted fleshy tendrils, which wrapped Diocles and hoisted him into the air.
"Such sweet despair. Such intoxicating fear. Such a delicious taste." The chosen of the Blood God licked the Primarch-blooded gene-seed on his axe—he had just ripped the seed from the Captain's chest.
Gene-seed tasted quite good. The sight stunned nearby Ultramarines. Some tried to help, but Chaos Marines blocked them. This was Khârn's fight.
Diocles collapsed, his body refusing to move.
"Now let me witness the hero's curtain call. The Blood God's chosen will tear your skull free himself." Khârn sank both axes into the ground and spread his arms.
He was ready to take the warrior's skull—an appetizer before his duel with Calgar.
"Release him!" A thunderous roar rolled across the field as a blue-clad figure descended like a storm.
Khârn turned, laughing as he tore open Diocles's shoulder plate, deliberately letting the approaching lord see the gene-seed's blood spurting out.
The opponent he'd long awaited had arrived. Warm-up was over.
"Don't worry—he's not dead yet. If you win, maybe I'll have time to stuff him into a Dreadnought.
I hear you've improved your Dreadnoughts—those half-dead cripples can become some kind of blue giant now. Why don't I see one?" Khârn jeered.
"He won't be put into a Dreadnought. From now on, no one dies by your hand. I'll end your crimes myself. The one who dies today is you," Calgar said coldly.
With the new medicae pods, he wouldn't consign his men to sarcophagi. Dreadnought rewards had been scrapped in favor of ultrabeastification.
And Lord Rhodes was watching. Calgar had nothing to fear.
"Hahahaha! Talk is cheap. Last time on Macragge, who did I beat to his knees? Who couldn't even crawl away?" Khârn mocked.
His body swelled, in an instant becoming a seventy-meter red-armored giant. Calgar said nothing; his body also expanded, becoming a sixty-meter blue-armored giant.
Both sides' Chaos Marines, Ultramarines, Sisters, and daemons pulled back to clear a battlefield for titans.
Khârn's laughter rolled across the field. The seventy-meter giant thundered forward, his blood-red plate crawling with warped runes, blood boiling along his axe blades.
He looked down at Calgar, eyes burning with bloodlust. "Last time, you crawled away like a dog."
His voice boomed like thunder. "This time, I'll hang your head on the Blood God's altar!"
Calgar did not reply. Lines of blue energy ran across his ultrabeast form. His masterwork power fist flared with a ravenous disruption field as he swung for Khârn's face.
Khârn didn't dodge. Grinning, he crossed his axes.
Boom—!!!
The collision blasted a shockwave across the field, collapsing buildings, rending the earth in trenches tens of meters long.
Calgar's fist smashed into Khârn's axe-face. Disruption clashed with warp-filth, the energy storm shredding the clouds overhead.
"Not bad! Stronger than last time! Still not enough," Khârn laughed, heaving Calgar back a few steps.
Calgar slid, steadied, and punched again, the arc suddenly changing—an uppercut snapping into Khârn's jaw.
Crack! Khârn's head snapped back, bloody teeth flying, and his laughter only grew more deranged.
"Yes! Make me bleed! Make me hurt!"
He roared, an axe carving for Calgar's pauldron. Calgar slipped, but the edge still tore a gash, blood seeping.
Without pause, Calgar seized Khârn's wrist, wrenched, and drove a knee into his gut.
Thump! The armor caved, but Khârn only grinned and smashed a headbutt into Calgar's helm, bowling the blue giant over.
Ultramarines around them tensed; some who knew Calgar well had already ordered an oversized stretcher. They feared the Vice Legion Master would end up in the ICU again.
Khârn's armor dented, but he grinned and slammed another headbutt.
Thud!
Calgar reeled, vision swimming.
Khârn seized the moment, axes raised high, crimson energy pooling on the blades, a decapitating strike screaming for Calgar's head.
At the last instant, Calgar triggered a compact energy shield, forming a shimmering barrier.
Kra-koom—!!!
Khârn's axes smashed the shield, a blinding flash erupting. The energy storm flung Chaos and Imperial troops alike.
Calgar snatched the opening and drove his power fist forward—straight through Khârn's breastplate. "This punch—for Macragge!"
He roared, the disruption field ravening through Khârn's flesh.