Underhive
The carnage was at its peak. The battle raged, a symphony of detonations, daemonic shrieks, Bastion war chants, and the constant roar of flamers. Geysers of blood and metal debris flew through the air thick with smoke.
Julius advanced, unperturbed, at the heart of the storm. His four Pillars and his escort of Spartans formed an indestructible core around him. His army was a perfectly oiled machine, a wave of steel and fire sweeping aside everything in its path. He observed the scene with the detachment of a strategist.
The Irons Skulls, immune to fear or pain, crushed, sliced, and pulverized hordes of mutants with mechanical efficiency. The Sisters of Silence, for their part, didn't even need to exert their physical strength. Their mere presence was poison to Chaos. He saw three of them, in their heavy Colossus armor, surround a Bloodletter daemon. The daemon, deprived of the warp energies sustaining it, became slow, confused. A simple coordinated strike from their massive power fists reduced the creature to a bloody pulp.
Then his eye caught another danger. A Bloodletter, more agile, was swooping down on an isolated CMC-400 squad. Without hesitation, Julius grabbed his Black Spear. The weapon instantly lit up with electric blue arcs. With a fluid, powerful motion, he threw it.
The spear crossed the air like a lightning bolt, piercing the daemon's skull with a wet thunderclap. The creature collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Julius approached with a heavy step, placed his foot on the convulsing chest of the daemon, grabbed the shaft of his spear, and ripped it out with a sharp tug. He looked at the corpse, then raised his eyes towards his army, still advancing inexorably.
In the Tower of Flesh
Mother, from her balcony of pulsating flesh, watched the massacre with growing horror. Her legions, her master's delights, were being decimated. Julius's troops weren't just powerful; they were an antidote. And those Nulls... if one of them, if one of those silent Sisters reached her, it would be the end. A true end, dissolution into nothingness, with no possibility of returning to Slaanesh. Fear, an emotion she hadn't felt in centuries, pierced her.
She turned a frantic gaze towards Be'lakor's clone. He did not seem panicked. He observed the battle with an almost... amused calm. A terrible revelation struck Mother.
He knew. He knew what to expect. And he left me in ignorance.
A cold anger and pure hatred rose within her, temporarily erasing her fear. Be'lakor's clone felt her gaze and turned his head. His shadowed eyes sparkled with cruel malice.
"You want to know if I knew?" he asked, his voice a satisfied purr. "Of course I knew."
Mother was speechless, shocked by the direct admission.
"Before I go after prey, I do my homework," he continued with contempt. "What? You didn't? You thought this would be a simple conquest?"
The Daemonette clenched her claws, her beauty twisted by rage. She couldn't defy him here, not now. She had to survive. Her survival depended on victory, or at least on sufficient chaos to flee.
"We must overwhelm them!" she hissed, her voice losing all musicality to become a shrill cry. "All of them! All my children, to the attack! Crush this army!"
She turned, shrieking psychic orders to her court of daemons and cultists devoted to Slaanesh, launching them into a desperate, fanatical charge. Be'lakor's clone watched her gesticulate, a mocking smile on his lips. So amusing to watch passionate minds thrash about, he thought.
On the Front Line
A Ghost, having just eliminated a cultist with a knife, swept the area with his sensors. His blood ran cold—not with fear, but with tactical alert. In the distance, a new wave was forming. No longer disordered hordes, but compact blocks of daemons and cultists, and among them... vehicles. Jury-rigged rocket launchers, armored bulldozers bristling with blades, overloaded transports crammed with screaming berserkers.
He immediately transmitted the alert. "Command, this is Ghost-7. Massive enemy concentration approaching, sector Delta-9. They have heavy support. Improvised type, but heavy."
The calm voice of the command center responded in Julius's helmet. "Received, Ghost-7. Lord Commander?"
Julius, back on his command vehicle, showed a grimace. "Good. Tell the Thors, the Vikings, the Siege Tanks, and the Goliaths... to play with them."
The order was executed. From the sky, Viking fighters in assault mode dove, their missiles tracing lines of fire towards the enemy vehicles. On the ground, the imposing Thors, veritable mobile fortresses, opened fire with their particle cannon batteries, turning the rocket launchers into torches. The Siege Tanks, heavier, concentrated their fire on infantry concentrations, each shell digging a crater and pulverizing dozens of bodies.
But the finishing touch came from the Goliaths. These huge bipedal war robots, armed with twin cannons and missile launchers, advanced in a line. They didn't target the vehicles, but the makeshift fortifications and buildings from which the cultists fired. Their salvos demolished walls, burying defenders under tons of rubble. The already ruined city was methodically razed under this coordinated deluge of fire.
Mother's desperate attempt to overwhelm Bastion's lines shattered against a wall of steel and explosives, reduced to mere supplemental cannon fodder and smoldering scrap metal.