Chapter 435: Think, What Can You Do?
Caliban, Planetary Capital, Aldurukh
No one could believe what was happening before their eyes.
The Lion's Gate Spaceport had fallen.
Just over ten days ago, under the leadership of their various Order Masters, they had been conducting tactical drills, utilizing Caliban's industrial terrain—now a staple of the Imperium's infrastructure. They had all passed through the spaceport, gazing up through the atmosphere, slowly choking on industrial smog, to the stars above. They had dreamed of the grandeur and invincibility of the Dark Angels under the Lion's command.
Gareth witnessed the spectacle once more.
A fortress rising from the ground, piercing the clouds. Even on the clearest day, it was impossible to see the spire of the spaceport. The Lion's Gate was built to serve the Lion.
But now, it had fallen into the Lion's hands.
The Lion's battlefield acumen allowed him to identify the planet's weakness in an instant. As Luther's macro-cannons began to blossom in the void, a decisive and precise tactical drop pierced the atmosphere. The Lion's near-invincible individual prowess filled the gap in landing numbers, tearing open the defensive lines.
The spaceport's vital logistical capacity allowed the Dark Angels in orbit to ferry a ceaseless stream of troops to the surface. From heavy armor to waves of cannon fodder, everything reinforced the besieging Lion's army. The warriors, landing with his fury, poured fire upon every living thing that attempted to fight back.
The Dark Angels on the surface were about to experience that grandeur and invincibility firsthand.
Fully armed armies, tempered by a century of war, flowed through the streets and over hills of rubble like water, filling every crevice in their path. They charged in suffocating silence.
Bullet holes pockmarked the rockcrete. Heavy weapons fire punched through colonnades and shattered buildings, kicking up waves of dust over vast piles of debris.
If one were to compare this to the subjugation of a rebellious Imperial world, then without a doubt—
This was a perfect war.
"Do something, Gareth."
The offensive was slowing.
Away from the Lion, in places his peers could scarcely see, someone released the trigger of their weapon. Squads exchanging fire suddenly ceased, looking at each other, then, guided by some unseen signal, moved through the streets, spontaneously converging. It was as if the war before them no longer concerned them.
In orbit above, the control of various warships was wrested away by the anomaly, scaling back the bombardment. The surface anti-air batteries also tacitly ceased firing.
But the Lion pressed on.
He was the conductor of this war.
"Think... what can you do..."
Gareth muttered to himself, watching the Neophytes who didn't even know where to run, roaring and firing their weapons to vent their terror.
He couldn't let these brothers die anymore.
Even if their souls now had a sanctuary, and everyone knew that standing beside the Primarch meant death was not despair, not the beginning of hell, perhaps not even the end.
But death was death. Death meant they would be severed from reality.
They were not Drakus, not Dantioch, not Rann, not Hal. They were not the celebrated warriors who shone brightly during the Great Crusade.
They were just nameless nobodies trapped on this planet since birth.
They couldn't come back.
They hadn't even witnessed the existence of hope, not even for an instant.
He closed his eyes, recalling the figure in his mind—backed by the night, yet shining like the dawn.
He opened his eyes. Before him was the fire of war, no different from the countless Imperial worlds they had saved over the decades.
"I can save more people. I want to save them."
Gareth whispered, helping the last civilian onto a transport bound for the northern shelters. Then, he stepped in the direction the Knights had come from.
Several Dark Angels raised their heads.
After quickly reporting and handing over their tasks, they chose to follow.
Bang!
A bolt round fired by a Space Marine tore through the air, but missed its target.
This was not due to a lack of skill. These rigorously trained warriors were born for the battlefield; war was etched into their blood. Seeing the fleeting figure ahead, they instinctively aimed and fired the moment they saw the Lion.
But in the split second it took for the Space Marine's eyes to gather the image and his transhuman reflexes to raise the gun, the Lion's blade was already there.
Shing!
Blood sprayed. Not even a whimper remained.
The Lion was so angry.
Angry at Luther's betrayal. Angry at the Dark Angels' resistance. Angry that they could not be as pure as their Primarch.
The Lion believed he had done his best.
He was the exemplar among the Primarchs.
When Horus wagged his tail for the Emperor with his achievements, the Lion had already led the Dark Angels to the next battlefield.
While that annoying Guilliman was smugly expanding his little kingdom, the Lion had already left a planet, returned to Imperial compliance, in his wake.
While the lying Perturabo was wallowing in self-pity over perceived unfair treatment amidst the ruins, the Dark Angels under the Lion's command were still on terrifying, unnoticed battlefields, erasing yet another enemy that could not appear in the records for the Empire.
The Lion never asked anyone, not even the Emperor, for a reward. Loyalty was its own reward.
But why did these Dark Angels choose betrayal?
What right did they have to betray?
This was unacceptable to the Lion. He couldn't understand how a Legion forged in his image could have such a massive stain.
The Knights organized a counterattack. Being treated as an enemy by a Primarch would trigger a fight-or-flight response in anyone. The Lion smelled that tight anxiety.
His face was as calm as black water. He lunged swiftly to the side, easily evading the lines of fire, letting the bolts strike the far wall or even his own "allies."
Even a Space Marine was not as fast or tough as a Primarch. Even with power armor, being covered in explosives could be fatal.
"We're going to die."
Kyle Crane, a Knight-Squire of the North Star Order, thought this, and soon laughed at his own arrogance.
The Lion definitely wasn't coming for them. He wouldn't even care what they were thinking as he cut them down.
Someone craned their neck and saw the Lion striding west, stepping over the corpses of their comrades, trampling the ruined streets, seeking a target truly worthy of a demigod's wrath.
A company of one hundred men was now reduced to a dozen.
They hid on a hill of broken bricks and shattered glass, breathing air thick with fear.
No one knew where they should go. The buildings around them were either burning or leveled. The streets were buried in rubble. Before them was only the Lion, the enemy who wanted to kill them.
"We have to fight," someone said.
"What did you say?" Crane asked.
"Fight," the man repeated, staring intently at a collapsed residential block nearby. "Go back. Fight him."
"We'll die," Crane shook his head bitterly.
"We're no different from dead already." The man gripped his sword hilt tightly.
Just a brief exchange, and the Lion would find them.
"Of course. What else can we do?"
Watching the Lion chasing them into the 'encirclement' without fear, blade in hand, Crane smiled bitterly.
"We have nowhere to run—"
A suffocating silence descended on the Neophytes.
"I am Kyle Crane," Crane said suddenly.
"I know," his comrade replied, staring at the Lion, not sparing him a glance.
"Damn it, don't you have any vox discipline? Why say this now? It's pointless..."
"It matters to me. Really," Crane said. "It's all we have left. I am Kyle Crane, Dark Angel, Neophyte of the Order of the Blade."
"I am Alvin Ramirez—" another voice suddenly chimed in. "Same as above."
"I am Vane Suarez. Apart from joining the Order of the Three Keys, same as above."
"I am Leonidas Morgan, Ravenwing Initiate. Same as above."
"I am..."
Voices rang out one after another. This was a battlefield taboo.
However, as a unit from the same Knightly Order, this squad of Neophytes, being Outer Circle members, didn't have fancy titles to declare.
The man waited patiently for them all to finish, then nodded.
"I am Gabriel Patterson."
That was all that was left of them.
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