BOOM!
A searing neutron ray screamed through the air, melting the bulkhead into a charred, molten state.
In the nick of time, Perturabo relied on his superhuman reaction speed, dodging the fatal blow by a hair's breadth within a nanosecond.
Had he been hit, he would have had to rely on Caelan's psychic barrier to withstand the damage.
While the Black Judge was attacking Perturabo, Dorn seized the opportunity to strike from the flank.
The Black Judge reacted with astonishing speed. The seemingly cumbersome mech lashed out with a razor whip with incredible agility. The sharp whip blade crackled, screaming through the air, forcing Dorn to give ground.
Though the withered, desiccated body curled inside the mech was so frail that even a child could kill it...
Thanks to Dark Age technology, the Black Judge piloting the mech could match an unarmoured Primarch!
The Primarchs' weapons were also inadequate. Though they had acquired power swords and power mauls from the Astartes armouries to replace their mortal blades, these weapons were custom-made for Astartes.
In a Primarch's hands, a power sword felt like a dagger, and a power maul felt undersized.
Though these weapons could easily slice through the Black Judge's thick armour, and the Primarchs could wield them adeptly, the size disparity still prevented them from fighting at full capacity.
If Caelan intervened, he could easily crush the mech or simply tear the Black Judge's withered body from its sarcophagus.
But this was a trial for the Primarchs. They had to defeat the Black Judge on their own power.
It wasn't just about winning or losing, nor was it meaningless persistence.
They wanted to prove to their father that they could stand on their own.
Caelan's psychic barrier was a safety net. If they needed it to absorb damage...
They would have already lost!
"You damned monsters! You're not human! What are you?!"
The Black Judge was visibly panicking, his voice distorted and shrill with anger.
On his tactical display, the Primarchs' combat data constantly refreshed with horrifying values.
These values had long since broken through any understanding of human physiological limits. This was a realm unattainable by natural evolution.
'Whatever they were, these things were definitely not human!'
'No wonder they called that thing 'Father', this whole family wasn't human. Their mother certainly wasn't human either!'
And as the only Black Judge stationed on the ship, he now realised he was a cornered beast.
The Arbiter's defences had completely collapsed. Though other Accusers and servitors remained on board, they clearly couldn't reach the bridge.
His kin on the Judgment Rock were light-years away, and these monsters before him clearly wouldn't accept any form of surrender.
He was completely isolated, without any hope of rescue!
He was no match for these monsters.
That seemingly mortal, inhuman entity had yet to act, calmly watching his offspring's performance.
They were clearly using him as a whetstone!
"How rude. I am a perfectly normal mortal!"
Caelan simply assumed the Black Judge had mental issues. As the saying goes, a dying man's words are chaotic.
Even with defeat certain, he could still turn the tables at the brink of death, turning enemies against each other.
'Ridiculous. The bond between father and sons was not so fragile!'
The power sword's blade slashed diagonally behind the Black Judge. A shower of sparks flew from the friction between blade and armour.
Dorn's strike was perfectly calculated, angle, force, timing, all flawless.
Yet the thick armour was like an insurmountable barrier. The sword's tip stopped short of the sarcophagus.
The Black Judge's mechanical arm swept through the air with a howl. Dorn dodged decisively.
The 'water dripping through stone' approach might be slow, but this steady, grinding tactic ensured his safety.
The grievous wound on the armour drove the Black Judge to a frenzy like a dying beast. He let out a terrifying roar: "Those mortals you've bewitched will never understand what kind of inhuman monsters they are bowing to!"
"I only ask for a few million worthless lives, but you will drag all of human civilisation into the abyss!"
"Even if I die, I'm taking you with me!"
The Black Judge raised his neutron ray cannon. The blinding beam forced Perturabo to evade, while he lashed out with the razor whip to stop Dorn's attempted flanking attack.
The energy core on the mech's chest turned a terrifying crimson. The hum suddenly escalated into a piercing shriek.
He had lived for millennia because he feared death.
To prolong their lives, they had long since lost all scruples. At every moment, thousands of mortals endured long, painful deaths, their 'fresh squeezed' genetic material extracted to extend the Judges' withered existences.
He feared death, but now death was unavoidable.
And fear, pushed to its extreme, became rage. Rage, in turn, clouded his judgement.
The Black Judge charged at Caelan with heavy, pounding steps. Overload warnings flashed wildly in the cockpit, but he had already shut down all safety protocols.
Rather than wait for death in fear, he would fight his enemies to the death, taking them down with him!
BOOM!
The mech's core suddenly erupted with blinding light. The overload alarm cut out an instant before the explosion, leaving only the Black Judge's final, maddened cry: "Come to hell with me! You monsters wearing human skin!"
The violent blast wave and scorching plasma flames surged like a tsunami, instantly sweeping across the bridge.
Even if it didn't kill these inhuman beings, it would blast the bulkheads to shreds and suck them all into space.
The Black Judge believed that even inhuman beings couldn't survive long in the cold vacuum of space!
But just as the destructive energy was about to spread and tear open the bulkheads, a sapphire psychic barrier suddenly formed, tightly containing the explosion.
The raging flames slammed against the barrier from within but could not tear through its seemingly fragile surface.
The expanding energy distorted the barrier into an irregular shape, iridescent ripples playing across its surface, yet it remained perfectly sealed.
When the blast reached its peak, the psychic barrier finally stopped expanding outward.
It collapsed inward at tremendous speed over the next few seconds, compressing the plasma flames into a searing hot sphere that ultimately vanished with a soft pop.
"Mutual destruction? Take that up with my psychic powers!"
Caelan flicked his finger, and the psychic barrier vanished without a trace.
Silence reigned on the bridge. Only a few wisps of smoke rising from the charred wreckage proved that the Black Judge and the earth-shattering explosion had ever existed.
"Father." Perturabo bowed his head deeply, his fists clenched, his heart filled with shame.
In the end, it still fell to Father to clean up the mess!
Caelan sighed softly. "Abo, crouch down a bit. I can't reach you."
Perturabo silently knelt on one knee.
"Don't be so conflicted." Caelan reached out and smoothed his disheveled hair. "What's shameful about relying on your father? Or do you think I, as your father, am not good enough to show to others?"
Perturabo's head snapped up. "Absolutely not!"
"Well, then." Caelan smiled gently.
"The Black Judge was fully armed, possessing top-tier technology passed down from the Dark Age of Technology."
"You didn't even have proper weapons. This was never a fair duel. The outcome of a single battle means little."
"The Black Judges have entrenched themselves in the Meratara Cluster for ages. There will be plenty of opportunities to face them again."
"When you rejoin your Legions, don your custom power armour, and wield suitable weapons, then it will be your time to shine."
"Without me, you might still have defeated the Black Judge eventually, but it would have been much harder."
"But without you, I can't pilot a ship. Even if I got to space, I couldn't board the Arbiter."
"No one is superfluous. We are all indispensable!"
"Stand up, Abo. You two still have work to finish."
Perturabo slowly straightened up, ramrod straight, his eyes resolute as if he had made a firm decision.
"I understand, Father."
Father was right. They were all indispensable!
He turned to the control console and familiarised himself with the ship's controls.
They had to take all weapons systems offline to prevent any desperate Accuser from launching an orbital bombardment of Olympia.
Olympia was his nation, his world.
Here lived his father, his family.
If any Olympian was harmed under his protection, it would be his failure!
A Primarch's learning efficiency is astonishing. They had already learned to pilot starships back on Inwit.
Since all human civilisations originated on Terra, and the legacy of the interstellar empires had never been broken, both Inwit and the Black Judges still used the Dark Age of Technology's universal language, High Gothic. This drastically reduced the learning curve caused by language barriers between different civilisations.
Some technologies of Inwit and the Black Judges also shared the same underlying principles.
The ship's level of automation was also exquisitely sophisticated. From engine regulation to weapons arrays, from environmental maintenance to navigation calculations, every subsystem was highly autonomous. Even a handful of people could control the ship adeptly.
"Perturabo."
Perturabo looked up. His brother rarely addressed him by his full name unless the matter was very serious.
His brother was as straightforward as ever.
"We..."
Perturabo knew his brother all too well. He calmly took over the conversation.
"Father once told me about a psychological principle from ancient Terra called the Duck Test: If something walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, looks like a duck, and pecks like a duck, then it must be a duck."
If it looked human, talked human, walked human... then it was human.
Whatever lay beneath the surface.
Perturabo had met his father on a cliff.
From the very first moment they met, he understood that his father was anything but ordinary.
There seemed to be a kind of destined connection between them, drawing them together.
It was similar to the stellar vortex, yet different.
In truth, he understood everything.
The Black Judge wasn't entirely wrong. If his father wasn't human, then neither were they.
Because they all shared the same essence.
Father always told them to accept and explore their own essence, even if that essence came from the stellar vortex.
But Father didn't seem to realise that he himself possessed the same, even deeper, essence.
That was why they were drawn to each other.
But regardless, this didn't change the reality that they were father and sons. He would not be swayed by the Black Judge's provocations.
It only strengthened his resolve to destroy the Black Judges. They had sealed their own doom!
"Can the Black Judges still be considered human?"
Perturabo asked, then answered his own question.
"In my opinion, no. They lost their humanity and their scruples long ago, using mortal lives to eke out an existence."
"They are crueller than the vampires of ancient Terran legend. Vampires only drank blood, but these... they literally suck the marrow from the bones."
Abhumans are still human, as long as they retain their humanity and are willing to fight for humanity.
But beings like the Black Judges... even the Imperium of Man would not accept them. They were far too heretical!
Fortunately, the Black Judges' bodies had long since withered, leaving them unable to procreate, and they would never share the secret of immortality with the Accusers.
Otherwise, the fate of mortals in the Meratara Cluster would be even more tragic.
"Brother, you're too presumptuous."
Perturabo was taken aback. He had never heard Dorn speak to him in such a tone.
Dorn looked his brother straight in the eye and said, word by word, "I am also Father's son. I always have been. This bond will never fade!"
Perturabo was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded. "So, what do you want to ask?"
Dorn pointed at the augur display. "We have a problem."
On the augur screen, hundreds of crimson dots flashed like bloody rain in the void, streaking towards Olympia at 90% the speed of light, crossing hundreds of thousands of kilometres in the blink of an eye.
Perturabo said, "They don't appear to be Black Judge reinforcements. Their IFF signals are unknown."
If they were Black Judge reinforcements, they wouldn't be identified as hostile.
Besides, the Black Judges had no reason to mount a major invasion of Olympia.
They had just seized the Arbiter. The Black Judges had no Astropaths; their communication relied on courier ships.
Even if they dispatched reinforcements now, it would take at least several weeks for them to arrive.
If it wasn't the Black Judges' fleet, who could it be?
The Meratara Cluster, where Olympia was located, was ruled by the Black Judges. Other interstellar empires wouldn't trespass into their territory.
Unless they were Orks, or an Imperial Expeditionary Fleet.
"Let's hope it's the latter." Perturabo muttered to himself.
Olympia was not Inwit. It couldn't withstand Ork depredations.
"Dorn, bring the ship's shields and weapons arrays back online!"
"I'm trying!"
Taking the weapons arrays offline had been to prevent Accusers from bombarding Olympia. Now, it was for self-defence.
If the approaching force was hostile, the Arbiter could at least strike back.
But just as the two brothers busied themselves with the controls, the Arbiter's comms system suddenly received a full-spectrum broadcast signal.
Zzt!
A holographic projection suddenly bloomed in the centre of the bridge. The iconic MKII power armour of the Astartes came into view, revealing the identity of the newcomers.
Perturabo and Dorn remained silent, their tense nerves relaxing slightly.
Friendly forces.
On the other end of the projection, Phrixus's heart tightened.
He had learned on Inwit that Olympia was just a feudal world, incapable of space travel, let alone building a cruiser.
Yet now, an unknown cruiser hung in Olympia's orbit, and their gene-father was aboard it.
The answer was obvious.
Before their arrival, Olympia had already been invaded.
And judging by the scene, those overreaching invaders had clearly been single-handedly routed by their gene-father.
"My Lord, we... we are late." Phrixus knelt on one knee, his head bowed, not daring to look his gene-father in the eye.
"Phrixus, come and rendezvous with us immediately. We have control of the bridge. You don't need to worry about enemy fire, but there are still pockets of enemy resistance on board. I need you!"
Phrixus's spirits soared upon hearing this. His fists unconsciously clenched. Their gene-father needed them!
This showed that their gene-father had forgiven them!
Regardless, they could not be late again. The Fourth Legion could not fail their gene-father's expectations!
"My Lord, I suggest, "
The ship's captain started to advise, but Phrixus shoved him aside. "Transfer fleet command to you. I'm leading the boarding party myself!"
He didn't want to hear the captain's suggestions. He was boarding today. Even the Emperor couldn't stop him!
...
"For the Gene-father! For the Mentor! For the Emperor!"
"Death to the heretics!"
Boarding torpedoes and assault rams slammed into the Arbiter's corridors. As the armoured hatches blew open, the roar of boltguns and the battle cries of the Astartes simultaneously tore through the enemies before them.
Bolts exploded among the servitors, creating crimson mists of blood. Each round precisely shredded their twisted bodies.
Accusers fought back with powered chain mauls, weapons capable of tearing through ceramite.
But these gene-forged warriors wore only crude armour, as if their masters deliberately restricted their power with flimsy protection.
Their limited genetic enhancements were as insignificant and fragile as any mortal's in the eyes of the Astartes.
The automated weapons in the corridors were already offline. The Astartes faced no meaningful resistance.
Yet this did not ease the Astartes' minds; instead, it filled them with frustration.
They needed brutal combat to prove their worth to their gene-father. This one-sided slaughter did not showcase their strength. How, then, could they earn their gene-father's forgiveness for their failure?
The War-Born and the Imperial Fists had already proven themselves with Ork blood. Would they have to dye their armour red with the blood of mere mortals?
In a corridor leading to the bridge, the Astartes encountered a group of Accusers heading the same way.
The Accusers' neutron rays could easily penetrate the Astartes' power armour, momentarily stalling the small tactical squad.
But then the bridge doors burst open, and a battle cry emerged from within, from mortals.
"Steel within and without!"
The Astartes watched the mortal soldiers unleash precise volleys of las-locks, blasting the Accusers to char. An indescribable, complex emotion churned within them.
How did mere mortals earn more honour than them?
........
30 Chapters [email protected]/DaoistJinzu