"You cannot treat us so cruelly."
The envoy stammered in terror.
"No matter why you came, whether you seek wealth or the power to rule this world."
"As long as you state your demands, we can negotiate. As long as there is no war, anything is possible."
La stepped over the shattered ruins and walked to Angron's side as he slept.
Number Twelve looked like a terrifying primordial beast when he slept.
Those fearsome muscles contained unimaginable strength.
"Number Twelve was meant to be a gift."
"The planet where a Primarch lands will receive more resources and technology from the Empire."
"Just like Kossonia, it would be rapidly reshaped into a civilized world."
"Nukeria could have received that gift as well, becoming a planet of great political significance to the Empire."
"But you turned a Primarch into a slave, and even intended to..."
La picked up a Butcher's Nail with silver neural bundles and looked at the envoy.
"Drive such a thing into a Primarch's skull and destroy my lord's creation."
The general who had once stood on Angron's head with such high spirits was now kneeling miserably amid the ruins.
Before the Adeptus Custodes, he had failed to keep any secrets.
With only a few minor methods, they had made him reveal what the great houses intended to do to the Primarch.
They had treated Number Twelve as a slave for the arena and even planned to implant this blasphemous creation, destroying Number Twelve completely.
La and the others were already showing restraint by not issuing an Exterminatus against Nukeria.
The envoy's body trembled with fear.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something.
But La gave him no chance and simply continued speaking.
"Such humiliation must be washed away with enough blood."
"If the corpses of those slave masters have not been delivered here by this time tomorrow, we will act personally."
The result of the negotiations drove Nukeria's nobles into despair.
They had once stood high above all others, toying with the fates of those under their rule.
They had casually stripped those people of freedom and life.
And now, the same evil would be visited upon them.
Their former smiles vanished.
Fear and unease took their place.
"What should we do?"
The meeting remained silent for a long time before a noble finally spoke.
Angron had been Nukeria's strongest gladiator.
Every house present had wagers placed on him.
When they suppressed Angron, they had all sent their personal guards.
Now, those Golden Armored Warriors were coming to settle accounts.
Every single one of the houses here would be unable to escape.
"We must never compromise," said the lord of House Tarka. "Even if Nukeria is reduced to ashes, we cannot choose submission."
"I suggest we immediately launch long-range strikes against them. These people are powerful, but they only have one warship."
"Once the war begins, their stockpiled supplies will be rapidly depleted. They will not be able to endure for long."
"As long as we weather the first wave of attacks, we will gain greater initiative."
"Then, whether we negotiate or continue the war, the decision will be ours."
The representatives of the other houses discussed Lord Tarka's proposal.
In the end, they unanimously approved the proposal for war.
In his dreams, Angron recalled the day he became a slave of House Tarka.
Back then, still young, he had been locked in a deep pit alongside hundreds of ragged figures wearing iron shackles and slave marks.
A stepped pyramid stood within the pit, while above it was a circular arena packed with spectators.
It was a game meant to entertain through the slaves' struggle between life and death.
The surviving slaves would be given as prizes for wagers to the winning houses and turned into gladiators.
When the game began, corrosive acid poured from the circular drains in the pit, slowly flooding it.
At first, the slaves helped one another.
They supported each other and helped those behind them climb to higher steps.
They shouted curses at the spectators who clapped and cheered as they enjoyed their pain and torment.
As more and more corrosive acid was pumped in, fewer and fewer places remained on the pyramid where they could stand.
The crowd grew 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 pulp, but it would not do so immediately.
The man flailed in the acid and let out a scream Angron had never heard in his life.
The pain in that cry was so profound that even those beside him were terrified.
Yet when the spectators outside saw the scene, they erupted into excited cheers.
Their exhilaration reached its peak as they watched the slave slowly corrode until he died.
The cheers were deafening, overwhelming like a tidal wave.
Angron looked at those spectators, bewilderment rising in his heart.
He could not understand why anyone would take pleasure in torturing their own kind to death.
After the first death, the slaves changed. They no longer saw those beside them as companions.
Instead, they saw them as obstacles blocking the ever-shrinking safe space on the steps.
They began slaughtering one another.
Screams rang out continuously as people shoved each other into the acid.
Angron was also forcibly dragged into that ugly struggle for survival.
For a time, he felt the urge to knock everyone into the water.
As a Primarch, he could have done so easily.
But he refused.
Every slave who fell into the acid and screamed filled his heart with pain.
He could not bear to push those people toward death.
Even when he fought, it was only to survive, never to kill.
There had been hundreds of slaves in the pit, yet only a dozen or so reached the top of the pyramid.
In the end, only one could survive.
Without question, Angron was that fortunate survivor.
He tried to resist and escape.
But the slave masters possessed technology from the Dark Age.
Even with Angron's unimaginable strength, he could not contend against them. In the end, he was still subdued.
He was thrown into the dungeon and made into a tool for the spectators' bloody entertainment.
In his dreams, Angron also recalled his first meeting with Oenomaus.
That older gladiator taught him how to fight.
He told him stories of the outside world and soothed the pain brought by all the killing.
Later, Angron fell into a nightmare.
He dreamed that the Nails had been driven into his head.
In his madness, he killed Oenomaus and desecrated his corpse.
Those nobles watched with smiles, discussing how much money that duel had won them.
"No!!"
"I will never allow them to take you from me too."
Angron cried out in agony and woke from the nightmare.
Instinctively, he reached for his head but found no implants.
"You are awake, Number Twelve."
A cold voice came from nearby.
Angron turned 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 Emp—"
Before La could finish, an Adeptus Custodes leaped down from above and interrupted him.
"La, a missile barrage has been detected heading toward us."
La turned and looked out through the broken window.
"I do not know what gave those fools the courage to bare their fangs at the Empire."
"Order the troops to land. We will cleanse this world."
La turned to Angron and threw him a heavy battle-axe.
"Number Twelve, there is no time to explain everything. Take your weapon and prepare for battle."
La raised his guardian spear, and a beam of light shot forth, forming a shield of light.
The other Adeptus Custodes made the same motion.
The Adeptus Custodes possessed the finest equipment of all Imperial forces.
The guardian spears in their hands combined technology from multiple universes.
Not only could they become instruments of slaughter, they could also create shields.
The shield was like an overturned bowl, protecting everyone beneath it.
A few seconds later, hundreds of missiles descended, trailing flames.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Terrifying explosions thundered across the sky.
Surging flames swept upward into the heavens.
Everything nearby was reduced to scorched earth.
"Are they dead?"
"These missiles are equipped with concentrated nuclear warheads. Their power is immense, enough to blast everything within the explosion zone into molecules."
"They are strong, but they are still flesh and blood. They cannot possibly withstand such bombardment."
The family representatives watching the bombardment wore tense expressions, awaiting the result they wanted.
When the twenty Golden Armored Warriors and Angron emerged without a scratch.
Despair appeared on the faces of the many family representatives.
They knew everything was over.
The warship in orbit was the first to launch orbital bombardment against the ground.
The sky flashed repeatedly as tower-like beams and missiles rained down.
Airfields, military bases, and launch platforms received special attention and were swiftly reduced to ruins.
Dense swarms of fighter craft screamed out, rushing toward the ground like hornets to bomb targets and deploy auxiliary troops.
Within half an hour, every city in the world had become a sea of fire.
Angron went to rescue his slave companions, releasing them from the black cells and bringing them into this war of revenge.
His first target was House Tarka.