Almost simultaneously, the dust settled on three separate battlefronts. A holy radiance, a cryptic arcane singularity, and a wild burst of frost—three starkly different powers—had each, in their own stunning fashion, proclaimed the end of the C'tan war-constructs.
The cheers from the Imperial fleet nearly shattered the communication channels, while the comm traffic of the Rangda command ships descended into utter chaos and despair.
Who could have imagined it? The Rangda had thrown their entire might into a single, decisive push to crush the Imperium of Man, only to be met with a far more absolute and despairing failure.
It was not only Axis and the three ascended primarchs who had unleashed their divine might. Kratos had also transformed into his Super Saiyan mode, displaying a power that was nothing short of immense.
The defeat of the Rangda was sealed.
The ensuing battles no longer even required Axis's intervention. The sea of Imperial warships and the torrent of Space Marines conducting boarding actions were more than enough to annihilate the remaining Rangda fleet.
"Oh, Powerful being, I do not yet know your name," asked the C'tan Shard, "If you wish to commune with my three brothers, then by all means. If their answers differ from mine, then you may seal me away at once, or even attempt to kill me."
If these C'tan Shards could absorb the energy of stars, they would have no need for their so-called original bodies. Every shard, by devouring enough stellar energy, could evolve into a complete C'tan once more.
"My name is Axis," he replied, cutting the creature off. "We can talk later. For now, you are my prisoner."
With those words, Axis enveloped the C'tan Shard before him in a powerful shroud of ki and transported it to Solus Prime.
The C'tan Shard's form was colossal. Even drained of much of its energy, it was still a behemoth dozens of meters tall. Such a monstrous entity could only be contained within the deepest cells of Solus Prime.
Axis sent a notification to Magnus, Sanguinius, and Leman Russ, instructing them to bring their captured C'tan Shards to his vessel as well.
Upon receiving the message, the three primarchs did not hesitate. They used their psychic abilities to teleport directly back to Solus Prime.
"Axis, what do you plan to do with these C'tan Shards?" Sanguinius asked.
"For now, we will imprison them. My ship has a prison designed to hold them," Axis explained.
"Be careful, Axis," Guilliman's voice came over the vox from the bridge of the Macragge's Honour, where he was still commanding the battle. "These entities are not to be taken lightly. The archival data I have reviewed states they cannot be destroyed, only sealed. You had best prepare a secure cell for them."
On his way to the front, he had consulted the sealed Imperial archives, learning how the Emperor had once defeated and imprisoned the C'tan Shard on Mars. These creatures possessed immense combat power, could manipulate the fundamental energies of the universe, and would gradually recover their strength over time, making them exceedingly dangerous.
"Leave it to me," Axis said confidently. "Solus Prime has technologies you know nothing about."
After cutting the communication, Axis and the three other primarchs conducted the prisoner transfer.
"We will leave this to you then. We are returning to the battlefield," Sanguinius said, giving Axis a simple farewell.
Sanguinius, Magnus, and Leman Russ departed Solus Prime and returned to their respective legions to continue directing the war.
Once everyone had left, Axis, accompanied by Kasha, went deep into the ship's interior and found Grandu, the Necron Chronomancer.
"Lord Axis, you never fail to bring me surprises," Grandu's metallic voice rasped as he saw the captives. "And look what we have here. It has been a long time, you pieces of trash." The Necron's scorn for the C'tan Shards Axis had captured was immediate and absolute.
In Necron society, the status of the C'tan was the lowest imaginable, less than slaves, lower than everything.
Every Necron, regardless of dynasty, rank, or station, viewed the star gods with a venomous and profound hatred.
"Damned traitors!" one of the C'tan Shards projected with a wave of psychic energy. "We granted you supreme power! We solved countless physical paradoxes for you! We freed you from your cursed flesh and gave you biomechanical ascension! And how did you repay us?"
"Hahaha! How amusing," Grandu roared in rage. "All you cosmic abominations brought us was destruction and damnation! You devoured the souls of our people!"
"That was merely part of the transaction. Your souls were useless, but as sustenance, they increased our power. We did not treat you unfairly."
"Wait!" another shard interjected, its focus suddenly locked on the Necron. "You have a soul! How did you come to possess a soul?"
Something was not right about this Necron. The souls of the Necrontyr had long ago been devoured by the C'tan.
"Perhaps the world showed me favor and led me to Lord Axis," Grandu sneered. "Though it is not my original soul, at least I now have one."
"That is enough, Grandu," Axis said, raising a hand to cut off the argument. "I did not bring you here to bicker with these four. I need your help to construct a prison to hold them. Is that a problem?"
To be honest, Axis viewed the feud between the Necrons and the C'tan as two evils turning on one another. The C'tan were far from good, but the Necrons were no saints either. In their ancient past, the Necrontyr, in their quest for eternal life, had waged war against the Old Ones, only to be utterly crushed.
Then the C'tan had appeared, offering aid in exchange for the biotransference ritual. At first, it was a mutually agreed upon pact, a devil's bargain made willingly. But after truly losing their souls and their flesh, the Necrons had grown to resent their masters. They feigned servitude, fighting alongside the C'tan to defeat the Old Ones, but then immediately sowed discord, turning the C'tan against each other. They picked them off one by one, shattering nearly all of them into countless shards. In the end, it was a war with no victors; the Old Ones were annihilated, the C'tan were shattered, and the Necrons entered their great sleep.
"Not a problem at all, Lord Axis. This is something we are very good at. In fact, these four were once imprisoned by my dynasty," Grandu declared.
"I will construct an apparatus to contain them. What's more, they can provide a limitless source of power. Solus Prime can gain a perpetual energy source from them."
The task of imprisoning the C'tan filled him with immense pleasure. The chance to torment these creatures was one of the greatest joys of his existence.
"Then I leave it to you. There can be no mistakes," Axis said with a satisfied nod.
"Lord Axis, please trust us. Cooperation with us is far more valuable than any alliance with those creatures from the Warp," the Flayer spoke again. "If you are willing to help us, the rewards we can offer are beyond your imagination. We could even repay your entire race, allowing human technology to advance by leaps and bounds."
"Do not believe them, Lord Axis," Grandu warned. "The word of a C'tan is worthless. They are a race of deceivers. Deception is what they love most."
"I have already learned that firsthand," Axis remarked, recalling how the shards had initially tried to trick him, claiming they were of the same kin.
"It is no deception! If you so desire, you too could become a star god. All you need to do is help us revive and absorb the energy of a star," the four C'tan Shards persisted, their words dripping with temptation.
"That is the most ridiculous joke I have ever heard," Grandu said. "Lord Axis, you are a being of the material universe, just as we are. The C'tan do not belong in that category."
Axis said nothing, merely waving his hand dismissively. He and Grandu led the four C'tan Shards to a vast subterranean chamber, where special devices had already been constructed to bind them.
Axis had tasked Grandu with these preparations in advance, for when it came to restraining the C'tan, no race was more experienced than the Necrons.
Ultimately, all four C'tan Shards were shackled within the prison. Axis planned to leave them there for some time before returning to speak with them at length.
Meanwhile, on the main battlefront, the Imperial fleet had achieved a magnificent victory of unimaginable scale. What followed was a protracted campaign of annihilation. This would be a long war, for the Imperial fleets still had to venture into the heart of the Rangda xenos' territory and destroy their civilization completely.
Time passed swiftly. For five full years, the Imperium committed a vast number of troops. Led by Guilliman and Axis, they carved a path of destruction deep into the Rangda Empire. The colossal confederation, built from hundreds of xenos species, was systematically wiped out by humanity. During this time, Axis only intervened on a few occasions to annihilate massive Rangda fleets. The rest of the work he left to the legions of his sons.
Axis had intended to find a few more planets to plant Tree of Might fruits, but Guilliman had refused. According to him, the territory of the Rangda would one day become human colony worlds. Without just cause, there was no need for Axis to issue an Exterminatus order.
Over several years, only two planets were deemed uninhabitable by Guilliman and turned over to Axis for disposal. On these, Axis planted the Tree of Mights. All the remaining worlds were preserved by Guilliman as future habitations for humanity's colonists.
The final battle against the Rangda took place on their homeworld. By the time the human fleet arrived, the xenos empire had no strength left to resist.
Facing the immense might of the Imperium and its relentlessly advancing armies, the only thing they could do was wait on their home planet for death to claim them.
All nearby Warp routes had been sealed. With Magnus, Sanguinius, and Leman Russ now ascended to the level of minor warp deities, humanity's travel through the Immaterium was safer than ever. With three such gods guiding the fleet through the Warp, it was nearly impossible for Imperial ships to meet with disaster.
More importantly, these three powerful beings, working in concert, could lock down local sectors of the Warp, preventing any xenos from tearing a rift to escape. Unable to engage in Warp travel, they could not even leave their own star system. All that awaited them was final judgment and extinction.
To broadcast the might of the Imperium of Man, Guilliman chose not to occupy the Rangda homeworld but to utterly destroy it.
"In the name of the Emperor of Mankind, we exercise the authority he has granted us!" Guilliman declared in a live broadcast to the entire fleet.
For the destruction of the Rangda homeworld, they once again used Axis's Tree of Might. Its massive roots burrowed deep into the planet, devouring all life and drawing out all its nutrients. In a matter of hours, it turned a living world into a dead mass floating in space.
Once the planet was lifeless, Guilliman gave the order to bombard it. The Imperial fleet unleashed countless Cyclone Torpedoes, blasting through the planet's crust and turning the now-worthless rock into cosmic dust.
After the war concluded, Axis and Guilliman led the human legions back towards the Imperium. A great wave of human colonists would soon arrive to claim this territory, officially expanding the borders of the Imperium of Man.
Solus Prime and the Macragge's Honour sailed into the Warp together.
"Father! It is my honor to fight by your side," Kratos said, his face alight with excitement as he stood by his father.
These past few years fighting the Rangda had been the happiest time of his life, for he could follow his father and witness his power firsthand. Every time his father fought, it was a terrifying and absolute slaughter for the enemies of mankind.
"Hahaha! You performed quite well yourself," Axis said, clapping his son on the shoulder.
Although Kratos's psionic abilities lacked the sheer destructive force of ki, his potential for growth was immense. In terms of actual combat power, he was not far behind the ascended primarchs.
Watching the harmonious father and son, Kasha smiled warmly.
Just as the two were speaking…
...
In a hidden region of the Warp, a green energy was communing with a black energy.
"Axis has taken the Imperial fleet and is returning. Our plan can proceed. Are you certain it will succeed?" asked Nurgle.
"Rest assured," a dark voice replied. "I guarantee it will."
"It had better. I hope that gilded vessel of yours does not ruin our plans," Nurgle said.
"This time, it is not just him. All the primarchs are my targets," said the Dark King. "The Imperium I desire is not one led by the primarchs."
The current Imperium of Man was not what he wanted.
Under the leadership of the primarchs, humanity would only grow stronger, never falling into the darkness and despair he craved.
...
..
.
ps?