Chapter 98: For Mankind!
whine—whine—
The tight carapaces of the Tyranids rubbed together, creating a high-pitched, vibrating sound, like a prelude to death.
BOOM!
A mushroom cloud erupted. A nuclear landmine had been triggered.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Before it could be buried by the swarm, another chain of mushroom clouds rose.
But it was futile.
The ground suddenly began to tremble. The clouds of dust were torn apart by a physical mass. A thick black shadow emerged from the radiation cloud, as if a city wall were surging over the horizon. It was a swarm that covered the entire skyline.
At the very front of the swarm, a Norn Emissary let out a piercing shriek.
Those who tried to stop it from feeding, those who led the food in resistance.
All must die!
"Die!"
Half the land was already glowing from the molten fire. A skull-whip lashed out, shattering countless crystals, and shot straight for the Lord of Change.
CLANG!
The whip struck the staff. Kairos used a spell to deflect the whip, then flicked the sparks from his staff.
"The Anathema's power is eroding this place," one of Kairos's heads said. "Yirlach, leave this place. Go to the rift of the ritual. You need to twist that ritual, to make the Anathema's plot fail."
"What must I do?" the other Lord of Change's query finally sounded.
"..."
No matter how many times it happened, the daemons could never get used to Kairos's manner of speaking.
The massive blue body paused, then spread its wings and departed. In the moment before a plot came to fruition, Kairos's words could still be trusted.
"Kairos!!!" Ka'Bandha continued to roar. With a speed that even a Primarch would have to take seriously, he cleaved down on the shield Kairos had raised. The fabric of the Warp itself flickered for a moment, spewing flames.
He had already taken the skull of a Tzeentchian Greater Daemon, giving the Blood God another collectible with which to mock the Lord of Change. But the Blood God did not seem happy. He seemed to require more blood. So much so that even Ka'Bandha's own inner fire was stoked ever higher. He continuously lashed out with his whip at this iron tortoise that would only hide behind its barrier, occasionally throwing out a nasty spell to annoy him. He hated this kind of opponent.
The crimson angel is so close!
He was about to clash with the most ferocious unit of the Hive Fleet. His life was about to be devoured by the swarm, his soul to fade away in the shadow of the Warp. And one of his most prized warriors was being held up here by Tzeentch's schemes.
How am I supposed to be happy about this? Can I be happy?
The Blood God gripped the shattered edge of his Brass Throne, carving the imprint of his hand into it. With the passage of time, His patience was about to be burned away.
[Ka'Bandha!]
A rain of blood fell from the sky. The Blood God sent down another divine edict.
CLANG!
Another clash. But Kairos found that his opponent's will to fight had vanished. Clearly, there was something on this planet that his opponent valued, something that far outweighed Ka'Bandha's hatred for him.
I see. This is the guidance of fate. It is fate that has brought me here, to deliver a painful failure to the Blood God's plan.
Kairos immediately beat his wings.
At almost the same instant, the two Greater Daemons took to the sky together, one after the other, flying towards the other side of the planet.
"Abandon the decapitation strike. Consolidate the forces. We need to proceed to Lord Karna's position," an Ultramarine veteran quickly commanded, raising his hand.
"Yes, my Lord!"
In an instant, the faces of every member of the squad lit up with joy. It was the joy of finally being acknowledged by an elder, of being able to step onto a truly glorious battlefield.
The Ultramarine veteran looked at the excited Black Templars and Carcharodons and couldn't help but smile with a hint of reminiscence, as if remembering himself, back on Macragge, choosing to take the trials to become an Ultramarine just to prove himself to his own father.
"Listen, Black Templars and Carcharodons," the Ultramarine said sincerely. "You have nothing to prove to me. In my eyes, you are all outstanding. You look back at history, at the Emperor forever bound to the Golden Throne, at the loyal Primarchs, all vanished or gone, and yet you have defended humanity for ten thousand years."
"You have always been outstanding, more outstanding than most of us. Perhaps a son of Dorn is not good with words, but I can convey my thoughts to you clearly."
"The stories of the loyal are left in the past. The deeds of the loyal are carved on stone walls. I have seen the age when the Emperor and the Primarchs walked among men. To be able to witness your stories now is an infinite joy. My life has no regrets."
"But you are different. Your stories are still long, and they deserve an ending that matches your sacrifices."
"Elder!" Orlando and Tyberos were both stunned. They had never thought they would hear such words from an elder from the ancient past. On a normal day, the elders spoke very little, which left them completely unsure of their attitude, always with a feeling of anxiety. Tyberos was better off; the Sharks were naturally reclusive, and they had a good relationship with the four transmigrators. After all, Arthur had been sparring with them for a month. But every time Orlando noticed those Imperial Fists, he would instinctively feel a sense of shame.
He had never imagined that, in the eyes of the elders, they were actually so outstanding. That they were not their shame.
Of course you are outstanding. Of course you are not a shame.
"But now, we need your strength. But we do not wish for you to give up your own lives for ours," Romulus's serious voice came over the comms. "Do not grieve for our sacrifice. You should cherish the brothers at your side as you cherish us. Because we are born equal, and our lives, after they are lost, will all gather in one place."
"We should grieve for the passing of any man, but the living will cross the path paved by the dead, and in the end, tell the dead the result."
"Yes." The Ultramarine veteran showed a flash of surprise, which was then replaced by an expression of acceptance. "Let us go together."
As the freed Space Marines began to muster, the Cadians also received the notice. Karna's position was at the core of the Hive's shadow. The Legion of the Damned would be weakened, and the transmigrators would also be at a disadvantage.
But what happened next was beyond anyone's expectations.
Spontaneously, after a brief rest, the mortal troops, noticing that the Cadians, who should have been retreating with them, were also beginning to gather, moved to join them. Almost all the troops who had been pulled back from the front line did not choose to rest, but immediately joined the assault force.
Everyone was looking at the next battlefield.
Simply because that was where the banner was.
"That's the banner. The banner cannot fall," Price said, taking a deep breath. The scorching air was an epic dose for his lungs, the stabbing pain the best kind of stimulant. "The fall of the banner will cause the morale, which is already at its limit, to collapse. But us, our march, our continuous sacrifice, will tell everyone that victory is at hand."
"It seems your hot blood hasn't cooled yet," the Commissar said, standing on the roof of a command vehicle, watching as one heavy vehicle after another, now freed up, roared its engine and charged down the road, the morale of the people around them rising inch by inch.
"Of course not!" Price spat out the hot air, then started the engine of his command vehicle. "It is still burning brightly."
RUMBLE!
The steel ruins shattered into pieces as the ferocious tracks rolled over them.
A massive force began to charge into the jungle of steel and death. Heavy military machinery, equally heavy footsteps, making the very earth tremble slightly.
Forward! Forward against our enemies!
"Then let us use the words of your era as the first whistle of our march."
The Carcharodons and Black Templars who had been conducting decapitation strikes on the periphery began to converge, along with the increasingly active elders, along with the Astra Militarum forged in blood and fire, along with the people who had suffered so much. Under Romulus's lead, they all roared in unison.
"We shall see each other again at the Golden Throne!"
Smoke and dust filled the air, obscuring the vision. The facilities of the computation center had been almost completely shattered. Eerie images from the Warp ravaged the space.
Shattered documents floated in a strange, anti-gravity state. Broken screens flickered, occasionally spitting out a daemon.
"Lady Aglaia, the volcano cannons have expended their ammunition!" a captain of her retinue reported nervously from the data-center of the Forge-World.
"Abandon the platform. Have the retinue provide交叉 fire."
Her power armor injected another dose of stimulant and nutrients into her body. Aglaia and the others held their ground in the ever-shrinking safe zone. The world outside the reality-stabilizing field could no longer be touched. The moment a weapon or piece of equipment made contact with the outside, it would turn into a monster that would chew on your arm.
Thanks to the relic Lord Ramesses had left behind, the members of the Inquisition could still hold this place. They were the Hand of the Emperor. They had to hold on until the end.
But disaster often befalls the unfortunate.
From Aglaia's perspective, she could clearly see the giant blue eagle on the collapsed dome above.
Realspace had been compressed a little more. The Inquisitorial retinue that hadn't had time to retreat was exposed to the Warp's influence. Their bodies twitched, and then they collapsed.
"A Lord of Change!" Aglaia cried out. Before she could even figure out why she hadn't turned into a Chaos Spawn or gone mad, the giant blue eagle had already unleashed its spell.
VMMM!
It was an azure light. As it expanded, it froze everything around it.
Daemons, humans, the molten stream of a melta-cannon flying through the air—all were frozen in time. Even the muzzle flash of a bolter was so clear in the Inquisitor's eyes.
Only the giant blue eagle beat its wings, descended, and then walked quickly towards the rift.
It's over.
Aglaia closed her eyes, then realized.
Wait, why can I still move?
She quickly broke free from her self-imposed restraint, lunged forward, and emptied the magazine of her bolt pistol. The bolts froze in mid-air, but her figure continued to advance, swinging her power sword at the Lord of Change's head.
"Gwah!"
The Lord of Change had never expected that someone could still move within its time-stop spell. A deep, bone-exposing wound was instantly carved on its face. Eerie blue blood froze in mid-air. The Lord of Change quickly retreated a few steps, parrying the Inquisitor's swing, and then forced her back with a burst of pink fire.
Just a mortal. Even her psychic power isn't that strong.
It hurts!
The moment they made contact, Aglaia knew this was not an opponent she could fight. She glanced back at the Warp Rift, which had been glowing for who knows how long. She was the only one who could still move.
When faced with a desperate situation, courage will make you make the right decision.
Aglaia gritted her teeth, made a split-second decision, and unhesitatingly activated the detonation button on the black hole bomb, then ran towards the Lord of Change.
The Lord of Change instinctively wanted to dodge. It didn't have the privilege of the top-tier Greater Daemons, which required a ritual to be banished.
And that slight moment of hesitation was enough.
SWISH!
A black sword shot out, flicking the black hole grenade from Aglaia's hand. Then, another kick sent both her and the Lord of Change flying.
SLASH!
A rift instantly opened. Before the black hole's collapse could completely swallow the Lord of Change's body, Ramesses's hand tore off its head. Relying on the operational data he had previously recorded, he violently ripped the consciousness from within it.
The time-stop spell ended in that instant. The surviving members of the retinue hadn't even had time to realize what had happened, while Aglaia stared blankly at the flames that were now burning on the bodies of the fallen Inquisitorial stormtroopers.
Behind her, Arthur pulled his own body completely out of the rift from another world.
"Well done," he said. The Emperor's ritual would not be so easily broken, but Aglaia's bravery had allowed the rest of the Inquisition to survive.
Aglaia pulled her gaze back, then solemnly saluted the warriors who had returned from hell.
"Everything for Mankind, my Lord."
(End of Chapter)