The assembled Primarchs arrived on the bridge of the Solus Prime and began to observe the Rangda Empire warships on the tactical display.
"The fluctuations from our arrival in the Warp have already been detected by the xenos," Guilliman judged immediately.
For the Rangda, who perpetually monitored the edges of Imperial space, the ripples created by such a massive Imperial reinforcement fleet emerging from the Immaterium were like a roaring bonfire lit in a dark forest.
They realized that the Imperium of Man had committed its most elite forces to the western front.
This was both a colossal threat and a window of opportunity for them to stake everything on a single, decisive battle. The Rangda likely knew that their collaborator, Horus, had been defeated, which meant the full might of humanity could soon turn against them.
However, it was clear that the Rangda held immense confidence in the weapons they had created. They intended to use this battle to utterly crush the Imperium of Man once and for all.
"They are coming, in far greater numbers than before," Karl's voice was grave as he brought up the real-time battlefield feed, revealing a swarm of light-points so dense it was unnerving.
"A full-scale assault! They mean to strike us before we can establish a foothold and break us in one blow," Perturabo's analysed coldly, "A standard spearhead formation. Their objective is clear: our central command, right where the flagship is. Those four C'tan weapons… they are positioned behind the core of their fleet, held as a strategic reserve and an ultimate strike force. Axis, can you reach them?"
"Hmph. They have saved us the trouble of finding them," Axis's eyes blazed with a golden fire.
The battle lust of his Saiyan blood had been ignited. "Guilliman, fleet command is yours. Karl, Perturabo, Lion, hold the line. Magnus, Sanguinius, we proceed as planned." He then turned to the Wolf King. "Our objective is to drag those four big toys out and destroy them completely. Father, do you want to join in? There are four of them, so we can spare one for you."
On the current battlefield, the only ones capable of fighting in the vacuum of space with such immense destructive power, aside from the Saibamen genesons, were the Primarchs who had completed their ascension.
Axis, Magnus, and Sanguinius could survive in space, as could Leman Russ, for they were now all akin to gods of the Warp.
In fact, the three ascended Primarchs were in a better state than Axis, who still needed to deploy a protective barrier of ki energy around his body. The others did not even need to breathe or worry about cosmic radiation.
"Hahaha! Axis, my boy, I thought you had forgotten about your old father!" Russ stepped forward at once, clapping Axis on the shoulder with a wide grin.
"How could I forget you? Of course we must fight this war together," Axis said with a smile. In truth, he had wanted to take on all four of the C'tan weapons himself, but Magnus and Sanguinius both wanted a piece of the action.
With one for each of them, it only made sense to invite his dear foster-father to take the last.
"This works out perfectly. One of their four C'tan constructs for each of us," Sanguinius and Magnus exchanged a look and nodded in unison.
"After we finish off them, we can start tearing apart their ships," Axis added.
The four of them nodded to each other. Magnus then unleashed a his arcane energy, teleporting the group across the void of space. They appeared instantly behind the enemy fleet. After their ascension, the vacuum of space, no matter how hostile, felt as solid as the ground beneath their feet.
"First, a little greeting," Axis said with a smirk. He raised a hand toward a Rangda warship and fired a golden wave of energy.
With a series of deafening explosions, a massive Rangda battleship was obliterated by Axis's attack, disintegrating into a cosmic firework.
"Warriors of the Imperium, prepare to engage!" Guilliman's voice boomed through the fleet-wide broadcast, echoing across every vessel. "All ships, assume pre-planned battle formations! Open fire with all weapons! Show these xenos the fury of mankind!"
Having just endured the Great Heresy, many powers in the galaxy now viewed the Imperium as a weakened state. This war would be a message to all xenos that humanity was not only still standing, but that it remained the supreme master of the galaxy. With warriors like Axis leading the charge, the morale of the Imperial forces would soar to unimaginable heights.
In that instant, the cold void of space was set ablaze.
The Imperial fleet unleashed a salvo from a million guns. A dense storm of macro-cannon shells, searing lance beams, and devastating Nova Cannon blasts rained down upon the surging Rangda armada.
The Rangda fleet was equally defiant, its strange ships spewing clouds of corrosive spores, globs of potent acid, and lethal energy beams. The two volleys collided in space, erupting into a cascade of brilliant and deadly fireworks. The silent detonation of shattered hulls and blinding flashes of light quickly became the symphony of this sector.
Axis, Sanguinius, Magnus, and Leman Russ shot out like four brilliant comets, tearing through their flagship's void shields. They charged straight into the hailstorm of enemy fire, plunging deep into the heart of the Rangda fleet.
A torrential golden aura erupted around Axis as he instantly transformed into his Legendary Super Saiyan state.
A golden-green light flared in the darkness of space, revealing a giant figure standing three-and-a-half meters tall, with explosive musculature and a wild mane of hair. The rampaging energy formed an indestructible shield, deflecting or annihilating any incoming ordnance.
Like a human meteor, Axis carved a path of destruction. Any Rangda warship in his way was either smashed to pieces upon impact or cleaved in two like tofu by the razor-sharp ki blades he casually swiped through the void.
His objective was clear: the nearest energy source marked on the star-charts, one that radiated a cold, greedy starlight.
Sanguinius was like a rising golden sun. He needed no thrusters, propelling himself through the vacuum with pure, sacred power at a speed that rivaled Axis's own. His luminous wings shed feathers of golden light, which, though they appeared gentle, contained immense power.
Any Rangda bio-fighter or warhead touched by them was instantly incinerated, purified into nothingness. With every swing of his blade, he unleashed a colossal arc of burning golden flame that sliced through the thick bio-armor of the Rangda ships as easily as a hot knife through butter.
His light not only assaulted the enemy but also served as a beacon for the surrounding Imperial ships. Bathed in its glow, the crews felt their spirits lift and their aim grow truer. He, too, aimed for a second C'tan weapon.
Magnus's method of combat was the most elegant and yet profoundly deadly.
He floated in the void, his arcane eye shimmering with wisdom. He chanted ancient incantations and with a dance of his hands, countless shimmering runes of violet light materialized and combined around him. Instead of a direct assault, he used his mastery of sorcery for precise teleportation and area control.
He unleashed a beam of arcane light that latched onto a Rangda vessel. The ship's energy shields and engine core were drained and dissolved at a visible rate, turning it into a floating metal coffin.
The life within was annihilated the moment the ray touched them, reduced to their most primitive molecular state.
"Arcane Art: Mirror Labyrinth!" he declared.
A vast space filled with countless mirrored surfaces unfolded before him. Rangda ships that flew into it became lost and disoriented, attacking one another like headless flies before being obliterated by powerful bolts of psychic lightning or concussive blasts of warp energy that Magnus conjured.
Cloaked in arcane power, Magnus flickered through the battlefield like a phantom, his sights set on the third C'tan weapon.
The Wolf King was far more direct.
He channeled his formidable psychic might into raw propulsion, ramming a Rangda ship just as he had seen Axis do before, and tearing a huge gash in its hull. Once inside, he transformed into a giant wolf over ten meters long.
He unleashed a series of thunderous howls, the sheer sonic force of which ruptured the eardrums and burst the heads of every Rangda alien that heard them. The Wolf King's destructive power was no less than the others. After demolishing two more Rangda vessels, he found his intended target.
The overwhelming assault of the four ascended Primarchs instantly tore four gaping holes in the Rangda fleet formation.
Imperial morale surged as the rest of the fleet followed closely behind, ruthlessly exploiting the breaches. On the bridges of their ships, the other Primarchs watched the display of power with awe.
They were all Primarchs, but the strength their ascended brothers now wielded was on a completely different level. Even Guilliman, as he commanded the battle, found himself considering the path of ascension.
Soon, Axis encountered his target.
It was a creature of terrifying scale, a monstrous amalgamation of pale, twisted metal bones and writhing biological tissue, as large as a battleship.
Its head was a great, featureless white mask, and embedded in its chest was a shard that pulsed with a cold, stellar light, radiating an aura of ravenous hunger. It was a C'tan shard.
Its arms were two massive scythes formed of decaying cosmic energy, and their passage seemed to slice and wither space itself. A mental shriek filled with annihilation and starvation assaulted Axis's mind.
"Ugly, you are." Axis sneered.
He did not dodge the massive energy scythe sweeping toward him. Instead, he met it head-on, throwing a punch wreathed in his golden aura.
A tremendous boom echoed in the void. It was a collision of pure power, the golden ki of a Saiyan against the ghostly green energy of a dying star.
Space twisted and collapsed at the point of impact. The scythe, potent enough to extinguish all life on a planet, shattered like brittle glass against the sheer, unadulterated power of Axis's Legendary Super Saiyan form. The massive recoil sent the C'tan weapon's colossal body staggering backward.
The impact of pure force was overwhelming.
The clash between the golden-green aura and the baleful emerald energy violently warped and collapsed the space between them. The C'tan construct's energy scythe, a weapon that could spell doom for an entire world, shattered like fragile glass before Axis in his Legendary Super Saiyan state.
The tremendous shockwave threw the C'tan weapon's enormous body backward, and the C'tan shard in its chest flickered rapidly and erratically, as if wailing in protest.
A huge, blackened crater now marred the part of its body where Axis's fist had landed, with countless twisted metal fragments and biological tissues breaking apart and flying into the void.
A silent, mental roar of agony and incredulous fury erupted from the creature. It seemed unable to comprehend how such a "miniscule" being could possess a power so pure and so cataclysmic.
"Is that all you have? For an ultimate weapon, you are pathetic," Axis declared, hovering in space.
His golden-green aura burned like a star, illuminating a face filled with a savage thirst for battle. He shook his fist as if he had just swatted a fly. "If this is all you are capable of, then this game is over." Axis was, frankly, a little disappointed by the combat prowess of this so-called C'tan weapon.
Giving his opponent no time to recover, Axis vanished, leaving only a golden-green afterimage. An instant later, he reappeared directly in front of the creature's massive, featureless white mask.
"Todaloo bitch!" Axis whispered.
His right fist, cloaked in his golden-green aura, shot forward like a cannonball, letting out a shriek that tore through the fabric of space as it slammed into the grotesque visage.
The impact this time was even heavier, its power more terrifying. The white mask, constructed from some unknown high-strength alloy and biological material, spiderwebbed with cracks like porcelain struck by a sledgehammer.
The tremendous force was transferred through the mask to the entire head structure, which produced a teeth-grinding groan of twisting metal. The C'tan weapon's head snapped back, sending its enormous body stumbling backward through the void. It instinctively swung its other, intact scythe-arm in a wide arc, attempting to force Axis away.
Axis scoffed. Instead of dodging, he shot his left hand forward.
A colossal dragon made of pure ki energy, thousands of meters long and golden-green in color, materialized, looking magnificent in the vacuum of space.
"Dragon Fist!"
With a thunderous cry, Axis thrust his left hand forward, and the immense golden-green dragon lunged at its prey.
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ps?