My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 426: Can't Fight—There's No Way to Fight!
"Calm down!!! Guilliman!" Angron roared. Without the slightest hesitation, he swung his fist straight toward Guilliman's face.
Roboute Guilliman had never fought Angron before, nor had he ever experienced a combat style as explosive as Angron's. Guilliman abruptly stepped back, Angron's punch slicing past his face with the force of its wind.
Seeing the attack fail, Angron immediately twisted his body to the side. In one motion he grabbed the thrown Gorechild that lay nearby. The chainaxe roared with a deafening growl.
"Fall back! Khârn, take everyone and pull back—but don't get too far from me!" Angron shouted, his eyes locked tightly on Guilliman.
He was certain this was his brother. In fact, as someone who possessed the ability to sense the emotions of others, Angron had been able to distinguish illusion from reality from the very beginning.
Roboute Guilliman was in terrible shape.
Angron saw the thick blood flowing down his armor, mixed with fragments of something blue—Guilliman had killed an Ultramarine, or rather, something wearing the skin of an Ultramarine.
He looked noticeably older, far more weary. Layers of dried blood stained the sides of his face. Time seemed to have poured down upon him, eroding Guilliman.
Roboute Guilliman had sunk into a state of irritated fury, yet within his azure eyes there still remained a sliver of clear determination.
"Guilliman! It's me! Angron!" Angron shouted, dodging Guilliman's sword strike. He was certain Guilliman heard him—but he didn't believe him.
Roboute Guilliman had been trapped in the illusion for far too long. Perhaps he had already fought "Angron" countless times within those illusions.
Angron had to make Guilliman realize that the one standing before him now was the real Angron.
Angron sidestepped again, evading Guilliman's short blade. Guilliman immediately followed with a sweeping strike, which Angron blocked with his axe.
A thunderous crash of metal rang out as the weapons collided. The two Primarchs stared each other down.
Under normal circumstances, Angron would feel his blood boiling with excitement during a fight.
But not now.
Even the clash between Primarchs failed to stir any battle lust within him. Instead, he felt unusually clear-headed—almost relaxed.
Perhaps he was still savoring the feeling of that strategic retreat earlier.
Angron stared straight into Guilliman's eyes.
"Guilliman, think about Mortarion. He's still waiting for you on Macragge!" Angron roared.
"And remember how Hades taught you to recognize Chaos?!"
Guilliman's eye twitched.
For a brief moment, he pulled himself away from the inertia of battle.
Fight. Observe. Analyze. Fight. Adjust.
He had repeated this pattern for so long that he no longer devoted much mental effort to it.
Like a machine on an assembly line.
And Guilliman had discovered that this was the best way to suppress his anger and fighting spirit.
At the beginning, endless daemonic armies had surged from the blood mist. Roboute Guilliman fought them relentlessly. He became exceptionally aggressive and furious, but he always restrained his emotions just before crossing the red line he had set for himself.
Time stretched into something unbearably long.
Eventually, perhaps realizing that such tactics would never defeat Guilliman, the opposing consciousness changed the illusions he faced.
He saw the Emperor.
He saw Horus.
He saw Corax.
He saw Tarasha Euten.
He saw the bastard who had killed his foster father…
He saw everything.
Things that made sense. Things that were absurd.
Everyone he had ever known—and many he had not.
He fell into illusion after illusion, each one attempting to break him with words.
Usually it would begin with an emotionally devastating scene. Then came the arguments. Then the unbearable truths thrown at him.
And finally, battle—while they shouted at Guilliman, step by step trying to shatter his understanding of the world.
Guilliman had already summarized the pattern.
At first, he knew they were illusions. He tried to argue with them. Roboute Guilliman would shout back with statements filled with logic and reason.
He analyzed.
He debated.
He tried to prove to them that life and civilization were not sustained by war. Under the right conditions, the probability of war breaking out in the galaxy could be reduced to an extremely low level.
But the enemy never responded with direct debate.
They avoided that point entirely.
Instead, they attacked Roboute Guilliman himself rather than the beliefs he defended.
All they truly wanted was to provoke his anger and make him lose control.
Guilliman could feel his strength being worn down helplessly. Perhaps he could remain standing and fighting for thousands of years more, but would this illusion last for thousands of years as well?
Within those illusions, Roboute Guilliman had nearly fallen into the abyss more than once. He had futilely held the corpse of his mother in his arms while, beside him, the broken and shrill laughter of Curze rang out in mockery.
They kept persuading him—give up, give up—shattering the very foundations of Roboute Guilliman's logic with one "fact" after another, each more illogical than the last.
Finally, during one of the countless attempts by "Angron" to persuade him, Roboute Guilliman's face went expressionless. He raised both hands and suddenly clapped them hard against the sides of his head.
His entire world rang with a dull buzz.
Guilliman raised his sword and took the initiative to attack the illusion.
As long as he did not listen, he would never be corrupted.
Roboute Guilliman returned to his original pattern: fight, observe, analyze, fight, adjust. Whenever the blood in his ears dried and his hearing returned, Guilliman would repeat the same method—destroying his own hearing again.
By all logic, if he lost his hearing and could not hear any voices, then all those tempting words would be useless. And without external interference disturbing his thoughts, Guilliman believed he would never waver.
If Guilliman "heard" those voices again, then it meant he was still within an illusion—and Roboute Guilliman would waver even less because of it.
He sealed off his thoughts and fought purely on Primarch instinct.
He saw the slowly rising sea of blood, the crimson waves crashing toward him—
But Roboute Guilliman only followed the procedure he had originally set for himself: fight, observe, analyze, fight, adjust. He executed it mechanically, trying his best to avoid accumulating anger from the endless repetition of the cycle.
In the end, he remembered only that he must fight, observe, analyze, fight, adjust—
Those distant, beautiful memories—twisted and exploited countless times—had long since drifted away.
"Guilliman!"
Angron's roar exploded again and again.
Guilliman realized his hearing had recovered once more. He quickly retreated, attempting to destroy his hearing again.
Suddenly, a hand shot forward and grabbed Guilliman's wrist.
Guilliman immediately turned to look at Angron—something was wrong?! According to his calculations, 0.003 milliseconds should not have been enough time for Angron to close the distance.
The sound of bones cracking rang out.
Guilliman instantly swung his sword, but the blade struck only empty air. Angron stared at him and let out another roar.
"Guilliman, back then—how did Hades teach you to recognize Chaos?!"
Hades.
Guilliman's long-sealed thoughts began to stir. He searched through his memories and suddenly realized something—
There was only one person he knew who had never once appeared in his anger-filled recollections.
It was Hades.
Angron noticed that Guilliman's attack speed had slowed. He bared his teeth in a grin.
He had guessed correctly.
Hades was someone who would never appear in the illusions.
Those cowards feared mentioning him. They feared reminding people of him. They wanted them—wanted humanity—to forget him.
But for those who had known Hades, forgetting someone who left such a deep impression on them was far too difficult.
"…Who is Hades?"
Guilliman spoke hoarsely, staring at Angron in disbelief as the frequency of his attacks slowed.
Angron deliberately lowered his axe. He spread his arms, as if attempting something.
"You know him, Guilliman."
Flickering flames danced in his eyes. Angron subtly felt a sharp pain stabbing into his brain—it seemed he had not yet reached the stage Hades had once described as the "use your brain whenever you want" phase.
Angron wanted to try something.
Just like when he had tried tactical retreat.
He took a deep breath and felt Roboute Guilliman's emotions.
Roboute had begun to think again. That was the Lord of Macragge's instinct. His multi-threaded, complex thought process started up once more, confusedly searching through the past.
Who is Hades?
Roboute's instinct saved him.
As Guilliman focused on recalling memories instead of resisting anger, Angron reached out and grasped Guilliman's emotions—pulling him together with him as they escaped the towering sea of blood.
He succeeded.
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