Chapter 171 - Battle of the Demigods
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A blur of blades and flashing steel.
To any onlooker, the battle between the fallen primarch and the cloned primarch was nothing more than two smeared afterimages. Every clash of weapons erupted in blinding sparks. Every shift of stance moved faster than the retina could track.
The warriors of the Imperium could only see the shockwaves carving furrows into the ground, hear the roar of colliding metal reverberating through the toxic fog. The lethal, exquisite dance of offense and defense unfolding between the two demigods was simply beyond them.
But at the heart of that high-speed vortex of death, both primarchs saw each other with perfect clarity, every movement, every intention, laid bare.
Each felt the undisguised killing intent in the other's eyes. Both thirsted to end the other's life.
The Lord of the Night, Curze, had joined the fray.
His Lightning Claws traced ghostly blue arcs through the air, weaving a deadly net with the Phoenician's silver-white blade-light.
Two primarchs fighting together should, by any logic, have been enough to suppress the fallen serpent. But the daemon primarch blessed by the Lord of Pleasure held a clear edge in both speed and strength.
The fallen Fulgrim's four arms were like four independent weapons, each launching attacks from a different angle at once. The daemonic wings at his back made his movements eerily unpredictable. And that long serpentine tail lashed like a whip, constantly striking at his opponents' lower bodies from angles neither could anticipate.
Four arms. A pair of wings. One serpent's tail. Seven attack points, each capable of adapting to the shifting battlefield in an instant.
But the Phoenician was adapting too.
Clone or not, he was still a gene-forged primarch.
That genius mind, operating far beyond the scope of anything human, ran at a frenzied pace. In the span of a single nanosecond, he had already generated no fewer than a hundred offensive plans. Each was precise down to millimeter-level sword trajectories, each simulation accounting for full counter-strategies against all seven of his opponent's attack points.
Most of those plans were imperfect. Too many flaws. Too much risk.
Clone-Fulgrim did not care.
He had long understood that imperfect plans were the norm. He didn't need all of them, he only needed to pull a few workable ones from that hundred and act.
Imperfect, but sufficient.
The thought flickered through his mind, and for just an instant he found himself thinking of that other version of himself, the one from a parallel world who had reached the same understanding through enlightenment.
Imperfect, yet flawless.
He struck.
The Phoenician's sword-tip rained down on the fallen original's throat, heart, and eyes in a torrent of razor thrusts, each strike so fast it left afterimages hanging in the air.
At the same moment, Curze launched his madman's assault. Lightning Claws slashing, stabbing, tearing. His entire being moved like a frenzied leopard, surging out of the fallen serpent's blind spots again and again.
Under that combined pressure, high-low pincer, frontal onslaught, flank harassment, the fallen serpent was driven back step by step. His serpentine tail carved deep furrows into the scorched earth as he retreated.
But the serpent who had wallowed in pleasure for ten thousand years adjusted quickly. This evenly matched battle had finally, genuinely, caught his interest.
Seriousness. A virtue he hadn't worn in ten millennia. It surfaced on the daemon primarch's face now, rare and unmistakable.
"I will take your head, clone!"
The fallen serpent laughed, wild and unrestrained, his four arms brandishing poison-quenched blades simultaneously. Violet light wove a dense killing net through the air.
"You will be the most precious piece of my collection! Perhaps I'll even do something special with your head, hahaha!"
The laughter was grating and obscene, every syllable soaked in Slaaneshi filth.
The Phoenician didn't take the bait. Not a ripple crossed his face. He stayed utterly focused on the delicate balance between defense and offense.
Blade parrying. Footwork shifting. Wrist turning.
He poured his entire mind into every movement, refusing to let even a sliver of emotion disrupt the rhythm of the fight.
But soon, the combined effect of the two primarchs began to erode. Not because their coordination had broken down, but because the fallen serpent had identified the one disrupting his rhythm most: Curze.
That damned Nostraman bat. Always so fond of planting a boot on his exquisitely beautiful face. It kept reminding the fallen Fulgrim of another golden figure he could never shake loose, that cursed Archangel of Baal.
Curze's kicking style. He had definitely learned it from Sanguinius.
The fallen Fulgrim had long since shed any brotherly sentiment for Curze. Yet he was still enraged by this.
How could this mad bat learn it? What right did he have?
In a lightning-flash instant, one of the fallen serpent's hands shot out and seized the incoming Curze by the throat. The grip was terrifying, five fingers closing around the Lord of the Night's throat like iron pincers.
At the same time, his other two hands steadied their blades and caught the Phoenician's follow-up slash.
"I have had enough of your harassment, Konrad."
The daemon primarch bared a hideous grin at the Lord of the Night.
"I should never have taken you under my wing. I should have let the Lion deal with you instead. You unloved orphan, have you forgotten who guided you?!"
Curze's throat was locked shut. His jaw clenched.
Then a thick glob of corrosive spittle shot out and hit the fallen serpent square in the face.
"You shame me, Fulgrim!"
The Lord of the Night's hoarse voice forced its way out through that constricted throat, every word laced with bone-deep hatred and something deeper still, grief.
"I shared the prophecy with you because I trusted you. And you spread it. From that moment, I knew you had crossed into corruption. Even the Lion — even Russ — is better than you!"
Before the last word landed, Curze's right hand drew the plasma pistol from his side in a single motion and pulled the trigger. BOOM, blazing blue plasma erupted at point-blank range and blasted one of the fallen serpent's arms clean off.
The daemon primarch let out a pained roar. But in the same instant, another blade in another hand swung on pure instinct, carving a bone-deep wound across Curze's breastplate.
Violet-black corruption energy seeped along the blade's edge into the wound. A ghastly gash split open across the Lord of the Night's chest, collarbone to ribs, all at once.
The fallen serpent wasn't finished. His tail whipped out like a massive lash and connected. Curze was sent flying, crashing hard into the wasteland. Rubble and dust erupted skyward.
"My lord!"
Sevatar's shriek tore out of his throat. His power glaive cleaved down and took the heads of two honor guard members who stood in his path, both battle-hardened Terminators, both folding like paper. He didn't stop to finish them. He launched himself forward like an arrow off the string, lunging toward the place where his gene-father had fallen.
Seeing Curze gravely wounded, a flicker of fury finally broke through the Phoenician's face.
His swordsmanship turned ferocious.
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On the other side of the battlefield, the fight between Guilliman and Horus continued.
The two loyal primarchs had divided their responsibilities cleanly. Horus handled the blasphemous creation soaring in midair. Guilliman focused entirely on Mortarion.
The Wolf Shepherd glared at the abomination desecrating his beloved brother, the Worldbreaker thrumming low in his grip. He read the Death Angel's rhythm, found the opening, and moved, a flash of pearlescent lightning curving behind the creature. The Worldbreaker came down with the force of shattering stars and connected squarely with the back of the monster's skull.
The Death Angel's head burst. Putrid fluid sprayed in every direction.
In the same instant, Guilliman's Emperor's Sword found the gap in Mortarion's defense. The golden-wreathed blade carved a bone-deep wound across the Death Lord's flank.
Mortarion let out a muffled grunt. The insectile wings at his back beat hard, carrying him backward.
The Death Angel followed. Its shattered head was already regenerating, visibly, before their eyes.
The two fallen beings hovered side by side in midair. Then the Death Lord and the Death Angel began to spread their most potent plague.
Dark green fog billowed from Mortarion's respirator in a torrent.
Guilliman snapped his rebreather on. Horus moved quickly to his side, angling the glow of the Sanguinius feather within his armor to cover them both.
Faint golden light seeped from the Wolf Shepherd's power armor and formed a halo around the two of them, thin as a cicada's wing, utterly unyielding, burning away every wisp of toxic fog that tried to push through.
"You rely too much on unclean sorcery, Mortarion!" Guilliman raised his head, contempt undisguised in his eyes. "You were never a capable swordsman!"
"You're not so bad yourself, Roboute." Mortarion shot back.
"Among our brothers, you were always that nauseating little model student. Horus." His white eyes shifted to the Wolf Shepherd. "Surely you understand me, of all those present. You were jealous of Roboute once."
"That's because you never truly knew Roboute, Mortarion!"
Horus's voice came out sharp, defending his brother without hesitation. The Worldbreaker hummed in his grip.
"In those days, I too was blinded by appearances!"
The Death Lord answered with a cold snort.
"My patience is spent, brothers. Come and see what the Death Angel can truly do."
With that, Mortarion surged forward, yielding the ground to the Death Angel.
The two loyal primarchs saw something that made their skin crawl.
The pustules covering the Death Angel's body were multiplying at a frenzied, unprecedented rate, rupturing one after another, each burst releasing a cloud of virulent spores. Those clouds churned and spread and merged, draping the entire dueling ground in a curtain of dark green.
Liquid dripped onto the ground and ate through solid rock, leaving bottomless pits where it touched. Toxic gas rolled outward, turning soil to reeking pus within seconds. The entire dueling ground was becoming a death zone, one visible to the eye, one that would not sustain life.
Guilliman could have ordered his forces to raise a protective barrier. He and Horus could have withdrawn.
He gave no such order. Horus didn't look back.
They were gene-forged primarchs. If even they couldn't endure this plague ground, then the mortal soldiers behind them, the men who had trusted them, who had followed them into this hell, what chance would they have?
"There is no honor in this duel, Mortarion!" Guilliman's head came up, his gaze burning.
"I don't care, Guilliman." Mortarion's voice was cold. Empty.
"You are nothing but our father's old slave, awakened by a xenos god. And Horus is nothing but a dead ghost clawing back from memory. You are nothing, both of you, nothing but our father's slaves."
"And what of you, Mortarion!"
Horus roared. His voice split the toxic fog like a thunderclap.
"Do you dare swear that you are free? Do you dare swear — to that vile thing you call Grandfather — that you are not his slave?!"
The only reply was the Death Lord's laughter, loud and mocking, drifting through the poison-thick air.
"Grandfather is forgiving. More forgiving than our father ever was."
A beat of silence.
"I will corrupt you, brothers. And if I cannot, I will kill you."
➤ Next: The Phoenician's Sacrifice
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