The Emperor-Blessed Exterminatus

He was a man who had been tormented by the Inquisition for two hundred years, whose loyalty had been questioned and whose faith doubted by countless people, and who had even been tortured by his own brothers as a traitor.

But he never wavered, never bowed his head, and never showed the slightest weakness in front of anyone.

He may die, his body may be disposed of at will, but his faith must not be defiled.

Kaido places his faith in Guilliman, while Titus places his faith in something older, purer, and more unshakeable.

Therefore, he did not choose to refute Titus's words.

Titus walked up to him, reached out, and patted Kaido heavily on the shoulder.

"How could I blame you for something so trivial?"

Kaido raised his head.

Titus's lips curled up slightly, a smile that carried a hint of cunning, a touch of mischief, and a chillingly malevolent grin.

"But as your brother, you won't even share this top-quality prey with me! It really hurts me! I'm going to steal some of your hidden mead today!"

Kaido remained silent for a moment.

His expression was obscured by the white helmet, but his body visibly paused.

Guilliman, watching from a distance, smiled slightly.

He was very pleased.

When he was first resurrected, Titus was a blockhead, his mind filled with nothing but "loyalty, loyalty, loyalty," and he couldn't even smile.

Now it's all good. He's started joking around, stealing his brothers' drinks, and acting like a brother to others.

That's good.

This is the kind of humanity he wants to see.

After declaring "I stole your mead," Titus turned to look at the dying gardener still stuck in Kaido's sword.

He stomped on Slimux's head, the sole of his Power Armour boot pressing directly onto Slimux's single eye.

"So you call yourself the Great Unclean One?"

Titus's voice was full of disdain as he stepped on Slimux and ground his foot into it, saying, "I thought he was some kind of monster."

Slimux's face was deformed from being crushed by those boots, and his one eye was almost squeezed out of its socket.

The decaying tendril on his body was mostly withered and dead, and mushrooms were falling off his skin one after another, turning into powder as they fell to the ground.

The gardening sickle was long gone, and his seed-planting stick was stuck in the ruins a dozen meters away, with spores still leaking out of the small hole at the tip. Those spores fell to the ground, but were blown away by the storm before they could take root.

He was unable to move at that moment.

Both Titus's Power Sword and Kaido's Chainsword were embedded in his body, and blue-gold flames burned on the two weapons. The flames seemed to have a mind of their own, automatically spreading along his energy circuits, burning and sealing him. It was not only physical damage, but also an erosion of his demonic nature.

He could feel himself disappearing.

It's not the kind of thing that disappears in a flash, but rather it passes slowly, little by little, like sand silently flowing away in an hourglass.

He knew he wouldn't die.

He is Nurgle's oldest Greater Daemon, and even if the Father's blessing is weakened ten thousand times, it will still allow him to rise again on the ten thousand and first time.

But this means that he will be resurrected with a weaker power, and it will take countless years to rebuild his strength and return to his current state.

Titus and Kaido were clearly aware of this.

"You're pretty tough, kid," Kaido crouched down and tapped Slimux on the head with the hilt of his sword, his tone laced with mockery. "We both tried to cut you down at the same time, and you didn't even utter a word. You're a real man!"

Slimux's one eye was filled with tears.

He wasn't trying to cry, but his deformed eyeball was uncontrollably secreting fluid.

His mouth could finally move—because he was in so much pain that the nerves burned by the flames had gone numb, and his muscles were no longer spasming.

He opened his mouth, and with his last bit of strength, squeezed out two words—

"You... beasts..."

Titus and Kaido a glance.

Then they started fighting.

It wasn't the kind of exquisite, back-and-forth sword duel.

Instead, it was a pure, chaotic, and cathartic brawl.

Titus pulled the Power Sword out of Slimux's body, then thrust it back in from a different angle.

Kaido pulled out his Chainsword and then stabbed it again from a different angle.

Titus punched Slimux in the face, breaking half of his teeth.

Kaido sliced off the trembling mushroom cluster on his head with a single sword stroke.

Slimux's screams echoed through the ruins.

He wanted to curse, to roar, to ignite his last bit of power with his anger, but his voice was shattered by the punches and kicks of Titus and Kaido, broken and fragmented, unable to form a single word.

His body, under the combined assault of the two blue giants, rolled around on the ground like a ball being trampled on by two strong men.

They didn't stop until the very last moment, until there wasn't a single good piece of flesh left on his body, until his one eye was smashed apart by Titus's punch, until his limbs were sawed off by Kaido's Chainsword.

Titus raised his Power Sword and pierced Slimux's head with a single blow.

Kaido's Chainsword slashed down simultaneously, cutting the already unrecognizable corpse in two.

Slimux's single eye went out completely.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Salute

At this moment, many Great Unclean One had already arrived at the scene.

On the distant horizon, dark green figures appeared one after another.

Some emerged from fallen trees, some crawled out of dried-up swamps, and some came directly from Warp Rift torn open by storms.

They vary in size; some are as large as small mountains, some are as deformed as behemoths, and some look like a rotting insect magnified a thousand or ten thousand times.

They saw Titus and Kaido, the two swords stuck in Slimux's corpse, and the hunched, motionless old gardener.

They were silent for a moment.

Then they all roared angrily, the roars so loud that the stones in the ruins seemed to bounce.

At the very back of those demons, a tall, gaunt figure with rotting fleshy wings on its back was slowly approaching.

He held the Silence in his hand, and the blue-gold scars that Calgar had given him before still clung to his Power Armour.

His face was expressionless, but his eyes were fixed on Guilliman in the very center of the ruins.

Mortarion.

"Guilliman!"

Mortarion's voice was hoarse and deep, like an echo from a dry well.

Guilliman turned his head and saw his brother standing in the distance, holding the Silence, exuding a chilling aura.

His lips curled slightly upward, a smile devoid of hostility or mockery, only a pure, heartfelt joy.

"Long time no see, Mortarion!"

His voice was loud enough to be clearly heard amidst the storm raging over the explosion ruins. "I've prepared a gift for you!"

Mortarion frowned.

He didn't believe it.

Guilliman is the kind of person who talks about "gifts" but is always hiding a knife behind his back.

Just as he was about to say something, Guilliman pointed behind him.

That rift in the Material Universe has not yet fully healed.

At that moment, countless black dots were flying out of the crack.

Those black dots were moving at extremely high speeds, and as they traveled from the Material Universe to the Warp, they were enveloped in a layer of golden Psionic Energy.

Those were no ordinary shells; they were Exterminatus, relic-level artifacts personally blessed by the Emperor's Psionic Energy.

Each shell's warhead is engulfed in golden flames that never go out, a flame specifically designed to subdue Chaos.