On the plains of Gatherman, Akurduana, lord commander of the Emperor's Children, looked out across the battlefield.
Waves of blue-white and purple-gold crashed together, and the clashes of tens of thousands of Astartes made even the air turn scorching hot.
Gunships spun and fell, slamming into the ground and tumbling into burning husks.
Tank engines belched oily mist, mercilessly grinding over the corpses of those who had once been brothers.
"My son." Fulgrim's armor was spotless, utterly out of place amid the battlefield.
"Will your blade still not taste blood today?"
Akurduana shook his head. "I once served Lord Nimrod. I will not fight him on his world."
"Even if the enemy is the World Eaters."
"He is still thinking of Nimrod." A hissing voice rang out.
"Let me kill him."
"No!" Fulgrim shouted.
"Among my sons, he is the one most likely to approach perfection."
And he is also the most important piece in my ascension.
"That is precisely why you are respected both within and beyond the Legion," Fulgrim said with a smile.
Akurduana nodded in silence. Over this period, he had already screened everyone within the Emperor's Children.
After Lucius and Vespasian took nearly twenty-five thousand men away, his father had summoned almost all of the Emperor's Children to make up his forces.
That had made Akurduana's vetting easier as well. If not for the need to complete the Black Emperor's mission, he would already have led eighteen thousand men away from the fallen Legion.
"Julius. He has set his sights on an enemy captain again."
Akurduana followed Fulgrim's gaze and saw the distorted figure of First Company Captain Julius Kaesoron.
His jaw was split open to an exaggerated degree, no matter the moment.
His blistered tongue let out hollow shrieks, blasting World Eaters down one after