Blood of Calth (VI, 5k)

004. M31, Calth Orbit, Macragge's Honour.

"It's here!" Ionid Hill shouted.

He raised his gun and fired at the monster that had emerged from his nightmare in the corridor of the fortieth deck.

The thing had a rough human shape, like an outline in the darkness, but it had no limbs. To be more precise, it only had two limbs, and two crew members supported it as it stood and moved.

Their bodies were twisted, their legs moved where their heads should have been, their heads in the center of their bodies, and their arms twisted together at the bottom like steel bars, with blood and bone fragments constantly splattering from their arms.

Their faces were a screaming vortex, their surfaces blank and empty except for black ash writhing like maggots.

Hill and his squad blasted the two crew members to pieces with explosives; their heads slid off their bodies, weeping and turning into molten blood.

The thing lay on the ground, its head tilted back, its faceless form staring at Hill. Hill pulled the trigger again, and the explosive round tore it to pieces.

"Forward!" he shouted, and three Ultramarines ran past him, followed by two Auxilia soldiers. Hill followed them, the last to leave the 40th deck and step into the elevator.

The Macragge's Honour has many such elevators, some of which are the latest models, while others, like this one, are old and make a loud rumbling noise when they move.

Hill stood in the center of the elevator and began to observe everyone's expressions.

The combat comrade Koso was unharmed, only anger blazing across his face. Scout Kors was also alright; he had been slightly injured, but the bleeding had stopped. The Apothecary Jell was similarly fine, as long as you ignored his heavy breathing.

Hill ignored this; he needed to make sure the Apothecary, Jell, was alright.

He turned his head to look at the two Auxilia soldiers, one of whom happened to be looking up at Hill.

"Sir?"

"What's up?"

The man opened his mouth, and after several seconds, amidst the rumbling noise of the elevator, he uttered his question, "What do you think?"

Hill knew what he wanted to ask, and he himself wanted to know the answer, but he wouldn't show the same question.

He simply raised the sword, pressing the longsword from the Primarch's private armory against his forehead. Then he lowered it, pointing the tip at himself, and handed it to the soldier. The soldier took it with both hands and struggled to lift it.

The weight made his expression somewhat dazed. Hill reached for the sword, thus completing this unprecedented and rudimentary ritual.

The doubts were thus dispelled.

"He's alright," Hill said. "The fact that we were attacked doesn't mean the main bridge was attacked too. This is only deck 40, quite a distance from the main bridge. So don't worry, Soldier Pal."

As soon as he finished speaking, the elevator came to a sudden stop. The blue indicator light at the top of the elevator, which showed that it was in good working order, abruptly turned into a glaring red, and an alarm bell rang from nearby.

Everyone understood what that red signified—the engine was broken, or worse.

Hill glanced up, understanding the situation, but remained unmoved. He reached out and pulled the emergency operating lever, opening the elevator's ceiling and lowering two steel chains. Hill and his combat brother Koso began pulling, causing the elevator to rise slowly.

The Apothecary, Jell, began to inspect everyone's weaponry. He replaced a magazine for scout Kors and then had soldier Pal unfold the bayonet of his Radiant Type 4.

Eleven minutes later, they reached the emergency exit on the thirteenth deck, where Hill used his longsword to cut open the hatch.

Strangely enough, this sword is neither Chainsword nor Power Sword; it looks like just an ordinary two-handed longsword, but it cuts everything as smoothly as cutting tofu.

He kicked open the door and entered the thirteenth deck with his hastily assembled squad, where something lunged at him.

It was at least half the size of an troop carrier. Hill saw its crimson Great Maw and the spiral-shaped array of sharp teeth inside. Without a doubt, it had a huge appetite. This wasn't just imagination; it was a conclusion drawn from the many pieces of corpse inside its mouth.

Hill and his squad fed the thing one last time with explosives.

They continued on their way.

After some time, the squad grew to twenty-two men: six Auxilia and sixteen Ultramarines. One of them was a company commander, Vlastorx, from the 111th Company, but he did not choose to take command of Hill.

And so they advanced from the thirteenth deck all the way up to the fifth deck, the group now numbering 133: 36 Auxilia and 97 Ultramarines.

On the battlefield, this force wouldn't even qualify as a "unit," but for the current Macragge's Honour, they might already be considered a striking force.

Unfortunately, there were far more monsters, so many that it was unbelievable. It was as if the Macragge's Honour had fallen into the sea, and these monsters were the waves.

They surged in from every corner, from behind every door and window. Hill had lost count of how many of these creatures he had killed that day; he had even begun to develop a new theoretical framework for them.

He discovered that blades and flames were more effective than bombs and plasma. You might need ten bombs to take down a monster, but with a sword, you could probably do it in one shot. They didn't leave behind corpses after they died; instead, they turned into a black, viscous liquid or vanished into blue smoke.

Undoubtedly, this was not something that conformed to any of the "Imperial Truth," so Private Kur began to tell everyone that they were facing Daemon.

Hill did not condemn his religious beliefs; everyone in the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar was free to believe in their own faith, otherwise so many people who did not believe in the Lorgar religion would not have settled there. In fact, he even agreed with this statement.

"Yes, Daemon," he told the company commander. "I can't think of a better word to describe them, to name these things after monsters from Ancient Terra mythology."

"Perhaps they are," Vrastorques said. "They fit the descriptions in those stories, don't they?"

The company commander of the 111th Company sighed deeply and uttered a single word, "Evil."

Hill agreed again.

Yes, evil.

They are not fighting traitors, Xenos, or anything else that can be understood on a rational level. They are fighting evil.

Fight against evil.

But Hill knew they weren't acting out of justice; they were seeking Vengeance.

"Keep going!" he shouted.

Ten minutes later, they fought their way through the Daemon and reached the main bridge. The armored doors were not closed, and emergency lights illuminated the spacious interior. Everyone felt a sense of relief at that moment.

The reason was simple: they saw Roboute Guilliman.

The Lord of Ultramar was fighting, wielding a sword in both hands against a Daemon that seemed to be two stories tall. It couldn't reach the ceiling of the main bridge of the Macragge's Honour, but it was a monster among monsters.

Looking at it, Hill was suddenly seized by an absurd urge to use a metaphor, which he did not suppress but let slip out.

"What is this thing? Daemon tank armored vehicle?"

Vrastorques laughed, and they rushed into the bridge to fight alongside their brothers who had already arrived.

Under the stark white light of the emergency lights, Hill saw a holographic projection platform that was distorting.

Its original mechanically beautiful circular communication station and the Cogitator array have merged into one, surrounded by distorted and dazzling light. Every second, something pours out of it, and bombs fly towards them like raindrops, but they can only temporarily slow down the momentum and cannot truly stop this portal-like thing.

Hill reached into his belt and pulled five grenades bundled together. He pulled the pin and threw them all over. Sparks flew, and a shrill sound began to echo in everyone's ears.

"Keep going!" a man roared. Hill recognized him—it was Claude Ampion, the Ninth Chapter Master. "Who threw that grenade? Keep going! Keep going! Flamethrowers, push up!"

Robert Guilliman saw this scene from the corner of his eye. He did not smile, but continued to swing his sword. His opponent began to speak human words with his ferocious face. The voice sounded like an unpleasant duet, but it was not a male and a female voice, but a dead man and a dead man.

"You don't understand, Roboute Guilliman, you don't understand what our presence means. You and your offspring are fighting a war you can't win. You can't win because you can't stop it."

Its rough skin was covered with sword marks, but none of them truly posed a danger to it. Roboute Guilliman remained silent and continued swinging his sword.

The flames within the furnace of his chest were rising ever higher, fueled not by the Daemon itself, but by other things. For example, the Word Bearers were bombarding the city of Calth from orbit, and they were launching drop pods toward the plains of Calth.

He was furious; the anger he was experiencing at that moment had exceeded the limits of what a normal person or Astartes could bear. They would have gone mad because of it, but Roboute Guilliman did not.

But the burning intensity in his eyes began to shift.

The Daemon chuckled.

"Doesn't this feel good?" With obvious malice, it grinned, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth. Wriggling maggots and stiff, dead man's fingernails fell from its wounds, and its eyes swirled, a thousand pale faces surging within them.

"Anger. I haven't felt this way in a long time. I am nothingness, a future that neither men nor women want, a nightmare. What do you think I am, Roboute Guilliman?"

"You are a corpse," Roboute Guilliman said.

He strode forward, the blade falling. The Daemon raised its right hand to block the attack, a flash of black light appearing briefly in its eyes, and a malevolent whisper from the deepest reaches of the Warp began to climb up Roboute Guilliman's blade, instantly penetrating his soul.

The destruction of Calth and the catastrophe on Calth's surface began to overlap before Roboute Guilliman's eyes, then transformed into corpses. The corpses of his sons, the corpses of his crew, the corpses of the Calth —and finally, blood, endless blood.

He knelt among the corpses, weeping helplessly as a loser, his body engulfed in blood, the dead grabbing him and beginning to drag him down.

It's all blame, endless blame.

"You killed us, Roboute Guilliman," they say. "It was your incompetence that brought us to our deaths."

"How many more times are you going to do this?" Roboute Guilliman asked coldly.

He gripped his sword and returned to the real world. The furnace blazed like flames deep within his pupils, its intense light almost bursting through his body's restraints and descending upon the world. Since the start of the battle, this Daemon had shown him similar sights hundreds of times.

It wanted to hurt him—first by shaking him in this way, and then by physically hurting him.

"I could keep doing this until the world ends, and there are a million ways to do it, but how much longer can you keep going?" the Daemon chuckled as it straightened up, its massive, rock-like body undergoing some changes.

It began to shrink, to transform, becoming almost human-like and extremely small. Roboute Guilliman seized the opportunity, swung his sword again, and this time the attempt was remarkably successful; he severed the hideous head with a single stroke.

But this is not the end, for Tarasha Euten's face is rising from the headless body.

Because Tarasha Euten took her place and stood before Roboute Guilliman.

"Roboute?" she asked, bewildered. "Is that you? Where am I?"

At the same time, the Daemon head that had fallen to the ground began to laugh, its laughter filled with smugness.

A guess suddenly popped into Roboute Guilliman's mind, his face twitched, and his teeth began to chatter.

"How dare you—!" he roared, wanting to swing his sword again, but he couldn't bring himself to strike that face.

"Why don't you think a little deeper, Roboute Guilliman? Why do I have her face? Guess what?"

"You will not reach Macragge. My legions will tear you apart," Roboute Guilliman replied calmly, though his hands trembled.

His reason led him to this conclusion, but what if the truth wasn't as his reason suggested? What if the truth was as Chaos and incomprehensible as what he was facing now?

In case they really have

"Roboute," Tarasha Euten began to call out in anguish, "They... they're everywhere. Macragge is destroyed, I'm so sorry."

"Shut up!" Roboute Guilliman roared, raising his sword again. "You worthless bastard! You think this is enough—"

" --Roboute!" Tarasha Euten burst into tears. "They're everywhere! Why couldn't you protect me?"

Roboute Guilliman took a deep breath, gripping his sword, wavering between hesitation and the attempt to strike. The Daemon head on the ground watched him expectantly, its wound now sprouting countless worm-like limbs.

Its head began to move toward Roboute Guilliman —just this one last contact was enough to bring a Primarch to its knees, and it almost couldn't help but laugh.

How foolish it is to create these powerful demigods, yet give them the weak emotions of humanity, making them so easy to manipulate.

It chuckled as it approached Roboute Guilliman, one of its limbs even touching the Primarch's ankle—it should have continued upwards, but a gauntlet-shaped assault boat interrupted its advance.

It hurtled in from the other side of the vacuum at high speed, crashing headlong into the main bridge of the Macragge's Honour, causing a violent explosion and turbulence. The emergency systems immediately came into play, and the Mechanicum's superb design stabilized the air pressure inside the ship five seconds after the explosion. The mass of the assault boat itself also acted as a temporary barrier, preventing anyone from being sucked into the outside vacuum.

Fer Zalost emerged from the assault boat's hatch like Ghost, his face deathly pale, almost transparent, his eyes empty except for two black flames churning within them.

He raised his hand, and the blade in his hand was thrown, piercing Tarasha Euten's chest with precision, black blood and maggots splattering out.

The world stood still for a moment.

"Daemon—!" he roared.

Flames of fury began to spread from the sword that pierced through her chest, and "Tarasha Euten" began to scream. The Daemon's head also began to scream, and its remaining form began to disintegrate little by little.

Roboute Guilliman roared as he swung his sword, his eyes Radiance once more.

--

004. M31, Calth Ground, Plains outside Leptis Numinus City.

"Let's do it," Van Cleef said.

They launched their charge through the thick fog, an environment created by the enemy—chillingly cold, so dense it seemed almost alive, making even movement difficult for ordinary people. But who said Night Lords couldn't utilize it?

A somber blue light began to appear. The Word Bearers had no idea of this attack, but it was far from over. The sound of Boltgun firing rang out, and the crimson figures immediately fell.

One minute and twenty-three seconds into the attack, the main force of the Word Bearers began to realize that they were under attack from behind. Some began to turn around and rush towards Night Lords's location, but they had already vanished.

Two minutes later, the artillery positions of the Word Bearers reported the attack, and a series of violent explosions began to occur continuously, spreading from the first artillery position to the sixth, with no one spared. The previously continuous artillery offensive immediately came to a halt.

The Word Bearers arrived again, but the attackers were still not caught.

Their commander, Hall Bellos, realized the attackers' true intentions with a rage and ordered everyone to move toward the tanks and armored vehicles.

Five minutes later, the Cultists positions they had been using as cannon fodder and suicide bombers were blown into the air.

"What on earth is going on?!" Hall Bellos shouted at the communications officer.

He found out very quickly.

"Prepare to charge," Van Cleef said.

Forty-three minutes later, shrouded in thick fog, the Word Bearers' tank position was destroyed by a series of explosions that should not have occurred. Ten minutes later, Hall Bellos and his SS, who were attempting to evacuate, were stopped in the fog by Van Cleef, Xianni, and six hundred Night Lords.

"Where are you going, cousin?" Van Cleef asked gently. "Didn't you hear Chapter Master Marius Gage's invitation? He wants you to come to him."

Hall Bellows' response was to roar an order for his troops to fire; he refused, but it didn't matter, because Van Cleef made another decision for him.

He led his head into the underground palace of Leptis Numinus to meet Marius Gage.

One more chapter.