Seeing the enemy flagship sprout twisted tentacles, all the Blackwatch forces chose to retreat and rejoin the Coalition, surrounding the enemies who had already boarded their ships.
Guilliman had long since been surrounded by most of the World Eaters and Chaos cultists as he fought on the front line. Only the protection of his Primarch guard had allowed him to hold his ground. But with Guilliman drawing nearly half the enemy's fire, the other soldiers had been able to stabilize the defensive line.
Bloodlust was affecting the Ultramarines. They didn't have the same powerful resistance to the Warp as the Blackwatch, and corruption from Khorne had already begun to interfere with their fighting.
Macragge's Honour had drawn a tremendous amount of enemy fire earlier. Most of the enemy had boarded the flagship, leaving only them and some Blackwatch warriors behind to hold the line. They had to keep the enemy at bay so the rest of the crew could operate the ship and provide fire support.
Remembering Hogg's words, Guilliman immediately sought out Lynn when soldiers in the Legion began to go berserk. As a true core member, Lynn had already learned about Chaos from Hogg. The Eldar and Ultramarines who lacked sufficient resistance had been kept in the rear.
The warriors whose minds had been affected by Chaos Corruption were led away. The Blacklight Cultists accompanying the army began performing a ritual on the spot, summoning illusory tentacles. Their repulsive presence drove away the bloodthirsty frenzy.
The recovered Ultramarines and Eldar provided fire support, while the sufficiently resilient Blackwatch took the front line. But they were still short on manpower, and a brutal tug-of-war raged through the ship.
The World Eaters who had boarded were all seasoned fighters. The towering Chaos warriors displayed astonishing skill, and one cleaved through a surrounded Blackwatch Shield Guard with a single axe swing.
Without a meat shield to protect them, the mortals were quickly picked off. The strained defensive line began to collapse. Far away on the battlefield, Astra Militarum soldiers and Chaos cultists traded kills in the corridors.
Just then, the returning Blackwatch forces joined the battle. Caught between attacks from both sides, the enemy fell into a frenzy.
With reinforcements finally at hand, Guilliman roared, "For humanity! Kill these Xenos!"
"Kill those Xenos scum!"
"Waaaagh!"
With a single slash, he split the enemy before him in two. Xenos corpses already carpeted the ground around him as Guilliman led his guard into the fray. In Realspace, only a Greater Daemon could withstand a Primarch's strength.
At last, after the two sides had fought relentlessly, the enemies who had breached the ship were wiped out. But their own casualties remained appalling.
Entire Astra Militarum regiments had been wiped out. In the cramped corridors of a ship, the fearless Chaos cultists and World Eaters were simply too much for ordinary mortals to handle.
"Hogg, where are you?" Guilliman called over the comms, but received no reply.
First Company Captain Rossmanderson emerged from the reinforcements and reported, "Lord Guilliman, my Gene-Father is still aboard the enemy flagship. He told us to wait for the right moment, then withdraw to the planet's surface."
Hogg had returned to his original size and become the living core of this Gloriana-class Battleship. Most of the enemies aboard had died in the tremendous attack he unleashed just moments ago. But Hogg needed even more energy for his next move.
He remotely maneuvered the Blacklight to draw the remaining Chaos Fleet toward it. As the distance closed, Hogg played the Angler, using the Blacklight as bait to reel the enemy fleet in toward him.
As a knockoff C'tan, Hogg could warp Realspace. He couldn't snuff out a sun like a full-fledged C'tan, but at close enough range, his raging electromagnetic force could tear apart the remaining ships. Combined with the explosion of the flagship packed with nuclear bombs, it would be enough to rip open the encirclement.
The moment the Chaos forces appeared, Hogg understood: Khorne's target was him. He wanted to stop Hogg from changing Angron's fate. But breaking through the Veil in the thirty-first millennium came at too high a price, so he had pulled a group of followers from the future to surround Hogg instead.
He had to hurry. If he was fast enough, he could save Angron and shatter fate completely. Just as he was about to lure in the remaining ships, footsteps sounded aboard the flagship he had taken over. A squad of surviving World Eaters came before him.
Though these World Eaters bore the marks of Chaos, they were far calmer than the bloodthirsty madmen wholly controlled by the Butcher's Nails. One Chaos warrior with a bare arm stepped out of the group and silently saluted Hogg. It left him utterly bewildered.
"Who are you? I've never seen World Eaters as calm as you!"
The silent warrior removed his helmet. His head, implanted with the Butcher's Nails, was hideously distorted, yet he still managed a twisted smile.
"Honored Primarch whose name we do not know, thank you for showing us a sliver of hope. I beg you to kill Angron, that worthless piece of trash. You must never let him fall into the Blood God's hands again."
The warrior dropped to one knee and pleaded. Behind him, the other World Eaters followed suit, each removing his helmet. Every one of them had the Butcher's Nails implanted in his skull. The living devices tormented them, twisting their wills.
"Uh, shouldn't we be saving Angron?"
"My lord, there's no point. Our worthless father doesn't deserve to live. He betrayed us and became a true Joker in the future. We're the War Hounds of the future."
"You're Kharn?" Their distinctive garb and such "filial" words brought a name to Hogg's mind.
"Yes, my lord. We don't have much time. When you took control of the ship, we regained our senses for a brief moment. But its gaze is still upon us. Soon, we'll become bloodthirsty madmen again. We'll help you open a breach and buy you time."
Hogg wasn't entirely convinced by the World Eaters before him, but if they really could lure in more ships, that would greatly reduce the resistance he would face later.
"I accept your request. I'll do everything I can to save my brother, but I need you to gather the remaining ships and bring them as close as possible. Then overload the reactors and detonate the nuclear bombs." A tentacle passed a backup detonator to Kharn.
"As you command, my lord!" Kharn picked up the detonator and led the remaining World Eaters toward the bridge. After all, as he'd said, there wasn't much time.
Sensing the Blacklight's position, Hogg pulled an assault pod from his pocket dimension. His tentacles began to retract, while a Power Klaw gouged a huge hole in the deck beside him. He adjusted the pod's angle and launched it, striking the battered Blacklight as it passed nearby.
Following orders to approach the flagship, the World Eater ships gathered around their former flagship, the Conqueror. Just as they had once answered the call of their Gene-Father.
Following the countdown he had set in advance, Hogg took out a detonator and silently counted down. If Kharn and the others failed, he would detonate it a second time himself.
He stroked the Conqueror's bridge. Beside him stood its mistress, long since fused with the ship. "It's time to end all this. Let's call it a strange, troubled dream that was never any fun."
As Hogg left, the torment of the Butcher's Nails intensified. Frenzied thoughts disrupted Kharn's movements, but the Eaters of the World, given a moment's respite, would not submit to fate.
"Angron, you worthless piece of trash! Go eat shit!!!"
The button was pressed. The overloaded reactor and the nuclear bombs detonated together, and a blinding flash and explosion carried everything nearby into oblivion.
Lowering the detonator in his hand, Hogg severed the flesh connection he had left aboard the Conqueror.
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