Angron's Revenge

"You cannot treat us with such cruelty."

The envoy stammered, terrified.

"No matter why you have come, whether you seek wealth or power to control this world."

"As long as you make a demand, we can negotiate. Anything is possible as long as war is not initiated."

La walked past the broken ruins and stood beside the sleeping Angron.

When Number Twelve slept, he resembled a terrifying, savage behemoth.

His fearsome muscles contained unimaginable strength.

"Number Twelve was meant to be a gift."

"The planet where a Primarch landed would receive more resources and technology from the Imperium."

"Just like Kossonia, it would be rapidly reshaped into a civilized world."

"Nukeria could have also received this gift, becoming a planet of significant political importance to the Imperium."

"But you allowed a Primarch to be reduced to a slave, and you intended to..."

La picked up a Butcher's Nail with silver neuro-cords and looked at the envoy.

"Nail such a thing into a Primarch's head, to corrupt the Creator's work."

The general who had arrogantly stood on Angron's head earlier was now kneeling in the ruins in a sorry state.

In front of the Adeptus Custodes, he couldn't keep any secrets.

With just a little persuasion, he revealed everything the various noble houses planned to do to the Primarch.

Treating Number Twelve as a slave in the gladiatorial arena, and intending to implant this blasphemous creation to utterly destroy Number Twelve.

It was considered restraint on La's part and the others that they hadn't issued a decree to exterminate Nukeria.

The envoy's body trembled with fear.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something.

But La didn't give him the chance, continuing on his own.

"Such humiliation must be cleansed with sufficient blood."

"By this time tomorrow, if the bodies of those slave owners are not delivered here, we will take action ourselves."

The outcome of the negotiations plunged the nobles of Nukeria into despair.

They had once been high and mighty, playing with the fates of their subjects.

Casually stripping those people of their freedom and lives.

Now, the same atrocities would befall them.

Their smiles from before vanished.

In their place were fear and unease.

"What should we do?"

After a long silence in the meeting, a noble finally asked.

Angron, as Nukeria's most powerful gladiator.

The families present had all placed bets on him.

When suppressing Angron, they had all sent their personal guards.

Now, those Golden Armored Warriors were coming to settle the score.

Every single one of them, all the families here, would not escape.

"We must not compromise," the lord of House Tarka declared. "Even if Nukeria turns to ashes, we cannot choose to surrender."

"I suggest we immediately launch a long-range strike against them. These people are powerful, but they only have one warship."

"Once hostilities begin, our stored supplies will be rapidly depleted, and they won't last long."

"As long as we survive the first wave of attacks, we will gain more initiative."

"Then, whether we negotiate or maintain the war, we will be the ones dictating the terms."

The representatives of the other families discussed the words of the lord of House Tarka.

Ultimately, the proposal to go to war was unanimously approved.

In his sleep, Angron recalled the day he became a slave of House Tarka.

He, still young, was confined in a deep pit with hundreds of ragged individuals, wearing iron shackles and slave marks.

A trapezoidal pyramid stood in the pit, and above it was a circular arena filled with spectators.

It was a game that amused itself with the life-and-death struggles of slaves.

Slaves who survived would be given as prizes for bets, sent to the winning family to become gladiators.

When the game began, corrosive acid poured from the circular drainage outlets of the pit, gradually flooding it.

At first, the slaves would help each other.

They supported each other, helping those behind them climb to higher ledges.

They shouted curses at the audience who reveled in their suffering and applauded.

As more corrosive acid was pumped in, there was less and less space to stand on the pyramid.

The crowd became more crowded and more desperate.

Soon, the first victim appeared.

A man lost his footing and fell into the corrosive acid.

The acid could dissolve flesh and bone into a pulp, but it didn't do so immediately.

The man thrashed in the acid, emitting screams that Angron had never heard in his life.

The pain in his voice was so profound that it frightened those around him.

The audience outside, seeing this, let out excited cheers.

The frenzied emotion reached its peak the moment they watched the slave being slowly corroded to death.

The cheers were deafening, overwhelming, like a tidal wave.

Angron looked at the audience, a sense of confusion blooming within him.

He couldn't understand why anyone would take pleasure in slaughtering their own kind.

After the first death, the slaves changed, no longer seeing those beside them as companions.

Instead, they saw them as obstacles, tripping stones on the path to the ever-shrinking safe spaces on the ledges.

They began to kill each other.

Screams continued to erupt as the crowd shoved each other into the acid.

Angron was also forced into this ugly fight for survival.

For a moment, the urge to push everyone else into the acid surged within him.

As a Primarch, he could have done so with ease.

But he chose to refuse.

Every slave who fell into the acid, screaming, caused him a pang of pain.

He couldn't bring himself to push those people towards death.

Even when he acted, it was only to survive, not to kill.

Hundreds of slaves were in the pit, but only a dozen or so reached the top of the pyramid.

In the end, only one survived.

Without a doubt, Angron was the one who survived.

He tried to resist and escape.

But the slave masters possessed the technology of the Dark Age.

Even with Angron's unimaginable strength, he could not resist and was eventually subdued.

He was thrown into a dungeon, becoming a tool for the audience's bloody entertainment.

In his dreams, Angron recalled the first time he met Onomamastos.

This elder gladiator had taught him how to fight.

He told him stories of the outside world and soothed the pain he felt from the constant fighting.

Later, Angron fell into a nightmare.

He dreamed of having nails driven into him.

In his madness, he killed Onomamastos and desecrated his corpse.

The nobles watched this scene with smiles, discussing how much money they had won from this duel.

"No!!"

"I will never let them take you too."

Angron cried out in agony, waking from his nightmare.

He instinctively touched his head, finding no implants.

"You're awake, Number Twelve."

A cold voice came from the side.

Angron turned to look and saw a Golden Armored Warrior he had never seen before.

He looked around and found himself in the ruins of the Tech Black Tower.

"Who are you?" Angron asked. "Where are those bastards?"

"I am the Emperor."

La's words were cut short as an Adeptus Custodes leaped down from a higher vantage point, interrupting him.

"La, we've detected missile clusters heading our way."

La turned his head and looked out through the dilapidated window.

"I don't know what gave those fools the courage to bare their fangs at the Imperium."

"Order the troops to land. We're going to cleanse this world."

La turned to Angron and tossed him a heavy battle axe.

"Number Twelve, there's no time to explain much. Take your weapon and prepare for battle."

La raised his halberd, and a beam of light shot out, transforming into a shield.

The other Adeptus Custodes did the same.

The Adeptus Custodes' equipment was the best in all the Imperium's forces.

The halberds in their hands fused technology from multiple universes.

They could not only serve as deadly weapons but also forge shields.

The shields, like inverted great bowls, protected everyone.

A few seconds later, hundreds of missiles, trailing flames, descended.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

The terrifying sound of explosions echoed through the sky.

Furious flames surged towards the heavens.

Everything nearby turned to scorched earth.

"Are they dead?"

"These missiles are equipped with concentrated nuclear warheads, their power immense, enough to atomize everything within the blast radius."

"They are strong, but they are still flesh and blood. They cannot withstand such a bombardment."

The family representatives watching the bombardment site looked on nervously, anticipating the outcome they desired.

When the twenty Golden Armored Warriors and Angron emerged unscathed.

Despair spread across the faces of the many family representatives.

They knew it was all over.

The warships in the Void were the first to launch orbital bombardment against the ground.

The sky was frequently lit up as tower-like beams and missiles rained down.

Airports, military bases, and launch platforms were the primary targets, quickly turning into ruins.

Dense formations of fighter jets roared out, swarming the ground like a swarm of bees, carrying out bombing runs and deploying auxiliary troops.

Within half an hour, the cities of the entire world were engulfed in flames.

Angron went to rescue his slave companions, freeing them from their dark cells to participate in this war of vengeance.

His first target was House Tarka.