Shattering the Butcher's Nails!
The Butcher's Nails sensed it!
They're spinning even faster!
Faster!
Faster!
Almost freed from the constraints of the skull, the filthy blood-red light had materialized.
It transformed into countless tiny, ferocious tentacles, powerful enough to corrode the soul.
Clinging tightly to Angron's nerves, memories, and fragments of his soul--
They don't want to leave!
They were terrified!
Guilliman's hand grasped the four cursed creations, hot as branding irons and trembling like dying hearts.
"Come back, brother."
He spoke in a deep voice.
The next moment--
He gripped the Butcher's Nails tightly with both hands and ripped it out of Angron's skull!
"Aaaaaaahh...
That wasn't an angry roar.
That was the cry of liberation uttered by a soul that had been imprisoned for ten thousand years, finally breaking free of its shackles!
That was pain—indescribable pain, a thousand times more intense than the implantation itself, the pain of having fragments of the soul torn apart from the metal curse!
That's also--
The first cry of liberation!
The filthy metal contraption, a mixture of millennia of accumulated blood and nerve tissue, hummed and groaned in Guilliman's palm, like a dying scorpion.
They are still struggling, still trying to unleash their final curse!
But they have left the host's body and lost the brain and soul on which they depended for parasitism!
Guilliman didn't even glance at them.
He casually shook hands.
"Snap."
All four Butcher's Nails shattered simultaneously.
It turns into the finest, harmless metallic dust, which drifts away with the wind.
And at this moment, Angron—
He has gone completely, utterly insane.
Even after losing the Butcher's Nails, he did not regain his senses.
On the contrary, the soul that had been continuously stimulated by nails for ten thousand years and had become symbiotic with the curse shattered completely the moment it lost its anchor.
Even the anger in his eyes had been extinguished, leaving only the purest, beast-like killing instinct.
He no longer knew who was in front of him, who he was, why he was fighting, or who he was wielding his axe against.
He just--
Slaughter.
kill.
However, just as he was about to pounce again—
Guilliman moved.
He took a step back.
That step was like moving mountains, like overturning seas, like the center of gravity of the entire Material Universe shifting at that moment!
He dropped the short sword he was holding.
The Roman-style short sword that had accompanied him in battle traced a silver arc through the air before embedding itself in the sand ten paces away, humming incessantly.
Then--
He pulled his arm back.
The movement was so slow that it seemed as if every inch of muscle movement was magnified and stretched by time.
Countless spectators— the Ultramarines, the Adeptus Custodes, World Eaters in the arena—held their breath.
They saw it.
The Lord Regent's right arm, like a fully drawn bowstring, slowly retracted.
That's not accumulating strength, that's gathering momentum.
That wasn't just muscle contraction; it was compressing the weight and will of the entire battlefield, the entire planet, and even the entire Material Universe he represented—little by little—into a single point on his fist!
Twist your waist.
His spine, like a coiled dragon awakening, transmits the power from the very source of life, segment by segment!
His shoulder blades, like the wings of a roc spreading its wings, channel boundless kinetic energy through his bones, muscles, and fascia, layer upon layer!
His heel slammed into the sand, and a circular shockwave emanated from beneath his feet!
Send a punch.
That punch—
Blast out.
Not forward.
Not towards Angron.
It is a journey towards time.
It is about cause and effect.
It is the ultimate shackles called "anger" and "sin" that have bound Angron's broken soul for ten thousand years.
In the stands, Xiang Bang suddenly stood up!
He stared intently at that punch, his pupils reflecting a trajectory that even he couldn't understand or describe, yet which made his entire soul tremble.
That's not martial arts, not combat skills, not any moves he can learn or copy!
That is...
He muttered to himself, as if entranced, as if in awe, as if in a frenzy:
"Okay, okay..."
"A real man... that's how it should be!!!"
At this moment, all the warriors—whether Ultramarines, Adeptus Custodes, or the newly surrendered World Eaters —truly understood.
The Great Lord Regent, the Thirteenth Primarch, Robert Guilliman --
They never revealed their true strength to them.
Those battles to reclaim Ultramar, those charges that pierced the Black Legion, those miracles that shattered the Hive Ship with a single punch—
That's not even one percent of his!
Thousandth!
At this moment, he stood in the center of the arena, bare-handed, without any armor, clad only in the Ancient Rome- style gladiator's armor.
Yet he is like the god of all gods, the emperor of emperors!
Air vibration.
It's not a metaphor.
The air within a radius of dozens of miles around the arena was churned outwards like a tsunami due to the potential energy generated by that punch!
Time fluctuations.
It's not an exaggeration.
In the minds of all the viewers, the trajectory of that punch seemed to be infinitely stretched. They could clearly see every inch of the fist's advance, yet it felt like it was only a fleeting moment!
The Material Universe —oscillation!
There is no Psionic Energy.
There is no Warp power.
Only the purest, most essential forces and laws, derived from the very foundation of the material world, collapsed, erupted, and reshaped at Guilliman's fist!
Ripples spread in layers.
Like the Rock thrown into a calm lake, it spreads outwards from the center of the fist throughout the entire Realspace!
The ripples swept over the Ultramarines ' bodies, and they felt the dormant Smart Atoms within them resonate!
The ripples swept across the golden armor of the Adeptus Custodes, and awe appeared on their unwavering faces, which had remained unchanged for millennia!
The ripples swept across the ranks of the World Eaters, Xiang Bang knelt down—not kneeling, but prostrating himself, a warrior's pilgrimage to supreme power!
And Angron--
He regained consciousness.
Just as that devastating punch was about to strike his mangled body.
After he lost the Butcher's Nails, lost part of his brain tissue, and lost the anger that had been building up for millennia.
His origin as a demigod, as the Twelfth Primarch, and as a warrior—
He's awake.
He saw that punch.
It didn't come at him directly.
Instead, they're coming from the past, present, and future all at once!