Hatred demands to be appeased with blood.
At this moment, words were entirely redundant!
The Lion lunged toward the Rangdan Overlord. To the eyes of the Space Marines, the Primarch's movements were a total blur; they heard only the rhythmic, heavy clanging of his combat boots striking the floor and the particle trails left in the air as his lightblade slashed through space.
Of all those present, only Selene clearly perceived the full picture of the battle.
The Lion's body generated sonic booms as rings of white vapor exploded around him, closing the distance to the xenos commander in a fraction of a heartbeat.
The Silent Overseer dared not falter. Invisible psychic forces swirled around its body, transforming into a storm of razor-sharp blades that slashed forward.
Clang! Clang!
Crisp collisions echoed through the room, flashes of light sparking in the air with a deafening screech that rang through the command hall.
The kite shield vibrated, turning aside the ambush of invisible force.
This very shield—taken directly from the chest of the Armor of Fate by the Emperor himself and handed to his son—held firm against the unseen assault.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The command hall's ceiling trembled violently as helio-flare rays swept across the landscape outside, shaking the earth and igniting a roaring sea of flame.
Mid-combat, the Silent Overseer suffered a distraction lasting a ten-thousandth of a second.
The command console equipment was still running; massive echelons of Rangdan elites pushing toward the human fortress were being annihilated beneath the blanket of artillery fire.
Breaking through the psychic barrier, the kite shield slammed heavily into the Silent Overseer's frame, sending brain fluid splashing and tentacles flailing wildly in all directions.
"NO!" The Silent Overseer stabilized its floating form, a brutal roar tearing from its mouthparts.
Though it had prepared itself internally, watching its tribal warriors wiped out before its very eyes still ignited boundless agony within the Rangdan Overlord.
Gazing at the human Primarch charging forward once more, it forged its torment into a piercing spike, driving it straight toward the space between Lion's brows.
This blow—intertwined among countless invisible blades—was blindingly fast. For a brief moment, the Lion could not dodge.
The invisible spike sank into his forehead. The Primarch's massive body tumbled to the deck, his power armor grinding against the obsidian floor, showering the hall in a cascade of bright sparks.
The shield slipped from his grip and the lightblade dimmed; in an instant, it seemed as though the Lion had been brought down.
The Lion felt a splitting headache as his mind fell into complete chaos, as if countless freezing, venomous needles were driving through his cerebral cortex, inflaming every single pain receptor. He could feel his mind and soul being pierced through by a cold, malicious dark force.
A soul-freezing chill spread along his thoughts, a bitter emptiness seeking to snuff out his consciousness entirely!
In the physical universe, blood streamed from all seven orifices beneath the Lion's black winged helm. Crimson droplets flew through the narrow space as he tumbled, squeezing out through the gaps of his respirator grille.
Selene caught sight of that splash of crimson. Panic gripped his heart, and he prepared to trigger a teleportation jump to save his brother.
Yet in the very next instant, he saw the Lion raise a hand by pure instinct, gesturing for him to stay back—signaling that no aid was needed.
Suppressing his alarm, Selene raised a hand and used his psychic power to hold back the Dark Angels.
The Legion warriors had snapped to action; watching their gene-father fall, their immediate instinct was to rush forward to his aid. Yet as they launched their charge, their bodies froze mid-stride—an overwhelming force originating from the watching Primarch pinned every single muscle in place.
They could not even let out a roar!
The Dark Angels forced themselves to calm down, observing the duel with utmost intensity: their gene-father was still capable of handling the fight. The other Primarch had certainly noticed the shift in battle, yet had held his hand; this meant the situation had not truly put the Lion's life in mortal peril.
Every warrior of the Legion understood that the brotherhood between Primarchs ran far deeper than even the father-son bond between Primarch and Astartes.
To a Gene-Sire, the Space Marines who inherited his bloodline were functionally endless.
Yet the other Primarchs were non-renewable blood brothers—there were only twenty-one of them in the entire universe!
Sure enough, the Legion warriors watched as the Lion regained control of his body, rising smoothly from his roll.
A sudden, sharp clarity cleared the Lion's mind, shattering the Rangdan Overlord's psychic attack. He shook his head violently; his helmet detached and clattered to the deck, scattering the blood that burst from his mouth and temples.
"Is this the extent of your power?"
Before the Silent Overseer could respond, the Lion rolled across the deck, dodging a second wave of psychic blades, sweeping up his shield as he rose to his feet.
The Lion's golden hair wild, his emerald eyes flashed with cold disdain: "Compared to the nightmares of Caliban, this is utterly trivial."
The Lion sneered, spitting out a mouthful of clotted blood as he ignited the dimensional lightblade in his hand.
Though his face showed nothing but contempt, his internal vigilance had been raised to its absolute peak. Had it not been for the mental tempering forged amid the whispered madness of the Caliban forests, that psychic spike might very well have severely wounded him, leaving him helpless for a crucial window of time.
The Silent Overseer remained silent. The strike it had just unleashed had drawn upon nearly its entire pool of psychic power, combined with a momentary surge of raw emotion; repeating such a feat was impossible.
It looked up toward the dome. Most of its tribe's shuttles had already boarded the warships, and the fleet was slowly getting underway.
"Lion El'Jonson."
The Rangdan Overlord called out the Primarch's full name, its tone unnaturally serene as it floated in the empty air, looking down at the tall silhouette below.
"My people have departed. They will lie dormant in the dark reaches of the cosmos, awaiting the moment humanity stumbles once more."
"The universe is vast beyond measure. There is no empire that endures forever. Even a civilization as ancient as the Aeldari collapsed in a mere instant."
"Humanity has defeated the Rangdan," the Silent Overseer pointed a tentacle at the Lion, its distorted voice dropping to a low, heavy pitch: "We acknowledge our defeat in this war."
"But one day, the Rangdan will return to wage war upon humanity once again."
The Lion listened, yet his feet never stopped moving. He charged toward the Rangdan Overlord, the blade in his hand weaving arcs of dimensional radiance.
"I will utterly exterminate the Rangdan, serving as an eternal sentinel for mankind!"
The Lion's reply was sharp and unwavering. The lightblade pierced through the psychic barrier, plunging straight into the Rangdan Overlord's filthy flesh.
His emerald eyes burned with an unyielding light, pure and free of any doubt. The edge sheared through several tentacles, sending dark, foul blood streaming to the deck.
Even knowing that the explored galaxy contained hundreds of billions of stars, the Lion's resolve remained absolute: "I do not mind scouring the entire galaxy to hunt down a fallen race."
Twisting the longsword, its radiance swept in a broad arc like a full moon as the Lion unleashed a thousand blade-shadows in a single instant.
The very air exploded!
The Silent Overseer gathered psychic blades at the tips of its tentacles to clash against the azure radiance, yet wounds multiplied across its brain-like body. The Primarch possessed immense psychic resistance, rendering mental manipulation entirely useless and stripping away the Overlord's psychic advantage. It could only resort to the crude tactic of condensing psychic force into physical blades, pitting invisible edges against tangible steel.
Yet with its psychic energy drained, it could no longer leverage its strength—defeat was close at hand.
The Rangdan Overlord lacked the terrifying physical body of a human Primarch; its combat skills were exceedingly unrefined, making it impossible to match a Gene-Sire in martial prowess.
Stroke after stroke, every time the azure light swept past, new wounds tore open across the Silent Overseer's frame. Black-green blood poured like a torrent, staining its dark body and making it appear all the more grotesque and terrifying.
The Lion fought with broad, powerful strokes. His shield turned aside invisible blades with ease, while the dimensional blade gifted by Blazkowicz felt weightless in his grip, allowing his strikes to land with lightning speed and lethal precision.
The Space Marines watched two silhouettes locked in combat: one retreating step by step, oozing filth and ruin. The other—glorious and monumental—raised the Emperor's shield and wielded his brother's blade, growing stronger and more fierce with every blow!
Apart from the clashing of blades, the command hall seemed devoid of all other sound.
Yet that was not entirely true. From the sandtable on the command dais, distress signals and reports of the Rangdan army's total destruction echoed continuously.
"AGH—!"
A agonizing shriek tore from the xenos. The lightblade pierced straight through the psychic barrier, driving deep into the Silent Overseer's eye socket and splitting its blood-red eye wide open.
In that fleeting second, a direct vassal unit had been wiped out. Hearing the final farewell of its subordinates, the Overlord suffered a microsecond of distraction—and the human Primarch seized the opening without mercy.
Bright light flared in the Lion's eyes as he seized the chance. Wrapping his right hand tightly around the hilt, he twisted the blade inside the socket, churning everything within into a red paste.
Having landed the blow, he backed away smoothly before the psychic counter-attack could hit.
Splat—
Mashed internal tissue oozed from the eye socket, splashing onto the floor below. The Silent Overseer had lost half its field of vision.
Under normal circumstances, with its psychic sense active, physical sight played a minor role; now, however, it was a fatal vulnerability. In a high-speed duel where momentum shifted by the millisecond, losing half its vision was a clear death sentence—like the Reaper lowering a curtain, casting the final shadow over a dying soul.
The Lion was a brilliant commander, but he was equally a formidable warrior who pursued victory by any means necessary.
Whenever an enemy revealed a flaw, the Lion pressed the assault with relentless brutality!
His footwork was exquisite, positioning his body strictly within the Rangdan Overlord's right blind spot, forcing the blinded xenos to constantly twist its frame to readjust its field of view.
Swinging the lightblade just outside its line of sight, he used its unpredictable trajectory to create a terrifying, omnipresent threat.
The Lion became a deadly matador, using constant rightward shifts to pin the Silent Overseer in a perpetual, disorienting spin.
He deliberately slowed his slashes, slicing away at the Rangdan Overlord's brain tissue piece by piece.
The Dark Angels let out roaring cheers; they knew their gene-father was using the execution of a thousand cuts to claim blood vengeance for their fallen brothers!
Flesh flew and foul blood splattered.
As slice after slice of brain tissue was carved away, the Silent Overseer found it impossible to focus its psychic will, slipping into a state of semi-consciousness.
The writhing outer brain was stripped away inch by inch, exposing internal fluid and vital organs as its life force rapidly ebbed away.
Its body leaned heavily to the left; with its right cerebellum destroyed, it could no longer maintain balance. Spatial awareness shattered entirely, and the Rangdan Overlord crashed down from the air onto the hard floor below.