The Seventeenth Legion's slaughter came effortlessly. They only had to open their void shields and glide forward; those motionless steel beasts were vaporized and destroyed by the shields. Macro-cannon shells and lances made them boil completely.
This was even easier than target practice, because the enemy's power systems, void shields, and attack systems were still powering up. They only needed to find and aim at those cobalt-blue warships; once locked on, they could destroy them utterly.
Whenever an Ultramarines warship was destroyed, Word Bearers warriors erupted into heartfelt cheers and screams. These people had once destroyed the Perfect City, then forced them to kneel in humiliation beneath the Emperor's oppression.
Today was the day they repaid that humiliation to the Ultramarines.
Today was the day the great power of The Empyrean revealed its ultimate truth.
Gunfire raged. Plasma and beams streaked across hundreds of kilometers, while lightning tore through enemy armor and slaughtered every living thing.
The four-kilometer-long Saber-class frigate began rupturing and disintegrating from within. The battleship Hope was swallowed by white-hot flames. The escort carrier Farewell exploded like a flower, taking tens of thousands of lives as it withered. The engines of the turning Vosphirus were hit, and its collapsing wreckage rammed another troop transport into two pieces.
Those ships laden with honor became eternal tombs without firing a single shot. After falling into the stars, they were caught by a star's gravity and continued to revolve, their valiant crews preserved in the posture of their final moments in battle.
Bought time by the sacrifices of countless brave souls, the remaining warships finally began to recover. Their reactors burned with incredible fury, extracting every scrap of power to set their engines moving once more.
"Macragge's Honour's weapon systems are online. Power systems are about to be fully restored!" The captain's report stirred the primarch, and he immediately ordered the ship's lances to fire at full strength.
The Hellfire-class warship Purifying Flame, which had been attacking the docks, possessed a magnificent shape, like a huge gleaming blade. Its heavy prow could ram small warships directly in half, but its rampage was about to end.
Under the overwhelming firepower of the Gloriana-class Battleship, brilliant lances struck its stern. Stellar heat melted its armor, energy explosions destroyed its engines, and amid a series of secondary detonations, the warship too became cold wreckage in space.
Macragge's Honour's engines burned again. This colossal twenty-six-kilometer warship was the pinnacle of Imperial forging technology, capable of confronting any opponent in space warfare with crushing superiority.
Filled with furious flame, the super-warship tore apart every Word Bearers vessel within sight.
The flagship's revival was a signal. Ultramarines Legion starships large and small successively regained their ability to move. Though most were wounded, that did not hinder their ability to smash their weapons into the enemy.
"Excluding the ships already destroyed and those still out of contact, approximately forty-five percent of the warships assembled at Calth have restored their power systems. They can now join this naval battle."
The captain's report made Guilliman's heart bleed. In just a few short hours, the entire Legion had lost nearly half its warships, yet the mastermind behind it all had not been punished.
"I order it! All warships, unleash full firepower and crush every enemy!"
The primarch's voice rang out across every Ultramarines warship. Macro-cannons and lances formed the only refrain in this brutal space battle.
Every moment, warships exploded and sank, but even more rose up to strike back.
There was no fear. No fear at all!
"Useless. Stop struggling, Roboute. You have no idea what you are fighting against. Horus, the Wolf God, is rising. He will replace the Emperor as humanity's new master and lead all mankind into the embrace of The Empyrean."
"Our other brothers have already chosen to walk beside him. I will be his loyal comrade, along with Fulgrim, Angron, Perturabo, Mortarion, Curze, Magnus, and Alpharius."
"Ferrus is dead. Fulgrim cut off his head. The Gorgon monster was a tremendous threat, but that is in the past. Vulkan is dead. Corax is dead too. How much strength do you have left?"
Guilliman finally understood the message Calth had been willing to use the Weapon Array to attack his flagship to deliver.
It was not merely the Word Bearers who had betrayed them. Half the Empire's primarchs and Astartes had betrayed them.
This was not bad news. It was a nightmare.
"Think with that superhuman brain of yours, Roboute. I would not tell such an obvious lie. You are the most rational among us. You and I have held a grudge for a long time, but I would not destroy your Legion over a petty personal feud. Everything I have done is to overthrow that hypocritical tyrant. I will make humanity truly embrace The Empyrean, embrace that perfect truth!"
Lorgar's eyes were filled with fervor and excitement, yet Guilliman felt as though he had fallen into an ice pit, shivering with dread.
"They have gone mad. They have all gone mad. They destroyed the great cause of revival, yet still claim it was for humanity."
Guilliman desperately wanted to slam Lorgar's head into the ground and ask this crazed zealot: Were the burning Calth and the hundreds of millions of lives that had died also sacrificed for humanity's revival?
"Guilliman, I came here to destroy your Legion because you are too great a threat. Your damned blue smurfs keep popping up in wave after wave like greenskins. You are too dangerous. Your very existence is the greatest variable."
Lorgar leaned forward, nearly breaking free of the holographic projection to pounce directly at Roboute.
"Setting aside our personal grudge, I actually admire you. So, out of respect for you—"
"Please die."
Lorgar's image began to transform. That body formed of light actually dripped sticky grease. Its flesh melted away to expose bone, until it all dissolved into a pool of strange liquid.
Guilliman instinctively sensed the change. He could feel something that should not exist entering the material world.
It was a nightmare from ancient days, malice resurrected through the long passage of time. It came from the Warp Sea, breaking free from Lorgar's skin.
It possessed a gleaming black body, with knotted blood vessels growing wildly across it. Trembling, writhing eyeballs covered its entire form, while fangs, sharp claws, and bat-like wings spread open. A faint light radiated from its surface, capable of touching humanity's deepest fears.
Its savage horns were four meters long, twisted and winding. Its hissing growl exhaled an unbearable stench—the smell of blood, venom, and filth fused together.
Guilliman's hand rested on his sword hilt. He was on full alert.
"Roboute," it spoke in human language, "let the galaxy burn!"
The vile power of the Warp descended alongside an unclean ritual sacrifice. A trace of power from The Empyrean violently exploded upon Macragge's Honour's bridge.
In the explosive tidal wave that did not belong to the material universe, Roboute Guilliman, gene-primarch of the Ultramarines, was swept into space.
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