Angron's greatsword and Datch's longsword collided.
The instant the two weapons struck, a terrible shockwave and a metallic crash rang out.
Rubble, shell casings, and dried bloodstains at their feet were all blown away.
Angron roared and kept bringing the sword down, launching attacks as fierce as a storm.
That deep-red body had been twisted and reshaped by the ritual of ascension; it was like a moving volcano.
Every swing of the sword held pure force enough to smash a Titan's armour to pieces.
His attacks lacked technique and rhythm. They were nothing but a relentless chain of slashes driven by the Butcher's Nails and inexhaustible rage.
With every blow, the ground shook; a sharp, explosive sound made the air tremble.
Amplified by the Infinity Gauntlet, Datch pushed his own speed to the limit and became like a whirlwind.
He wielded the longsword covered in dazzling electric light with unmatched skill.
Each evasion accurately seized the gaps in Angron's attacks; each counter accurately slashed the fragile seal-rings at Angron's joints.
White Scars power armour was as fragile as paper before an ascended Primarch, yet Datch made up for it with speed.
The two sides waged a fierce struggle atop ruins destroyed again and again by bombardment; Angron's greatsword carved countless trenches several metres deep into the ground.
Datch's longsword left more than a dozen shallow wounds on the Primarch's deep-red skin, yet they healed rapidly.
Angron was, in the end, an ascended Primarch blessed by Khorne.
His power is born of distortion and pure rage.
After evading another attack, Datch's both hands split from the base of the thumbs; vivid red blood seeped out.
The force of the impact made him stagger several steps backward.
Before he could recover his stance, Angron was already close, raising the greatsword to slash.
Datch was too late; the blade grazed his left elbow.
With that rising daemonic force, the ceramite plate was easily slashed through.
The severed arm flew through the air and fell several steps away. Bright-red blood sprayed from the wound.
"This is the endgame now…"
Datch showed no expression of pain at the severed hand; on the contrary, he spoke a wry line.
Angron raised an excited roar.
The gods of the other dimension witnessed this sight and cheered in excitement.
If you can defeat the Nameless One, you can erase his traces and overturn the course of the war.
In this interval, the Nameless One tore apart the fate-anchors the four gods had painstakingly woven in the river of time, transformed into a shining giant, and destroyed and completely smashed the "First Murder" in the net.
The existence that uprooted Erebus's tomb in the Temple of Deven.
The war on Terra is the gods' most important foothold.
In order to remove this anchor point, the other party deliberately chose to confine himself inside a human body.
Challenging the gods as a human is the gods' greatest crisis and, at the same time, their last chance.
If Angron can defeat the Nameless One's human incarnation, it will symbolise that the gods are invincible, and the gods will be able to maintain this firm position.
Angron charged toward the other party, raising the greatsword high, intending to behead Datch.
Just as Angron's greatsword was about to come down, Datch tensed his body, put force into it, and rolled left.
The blade wreathed in hellfire grazed his shoulder armour, plunged into the ground, and produced a terrible crack in the ruins.
Just as Angron pulled the sword from the ground, Datch leapt.
He gripped the longsword in his right hand and thrust the tip, aiming at Angron's left chest, near the heart.
Using the momentum of the roll to accelerate, he pierced the ascended Primarch's chest.
The blade-edge, covered in electric arcs, instantly punched through the dark-red skin, pierced tendons and bone blessed by Chaos, and accurately stabbed the heart through the gap between the ribs.
Then suddenly, with a powerful blow,
the long blade slashed Angron's left chest, punched through the entire ribcage, and came out through the right ribs, creating a shocking rent and exposing two powerful hearts.
Bright-red blood sprayed from the wound and scattered toward the sky — a shocking sight.
Angron cried out in pain and stepped back several paces.
The greatsword slipped from his loosened fingers and slammed into the ground.
The Primarch reached out intending to cover the great wound in his chest, yet it was useless.
Every time the heart beat, hellish, scorching blood sprayed.
Datch gave the Primarch no time to breathe.
He stepped forward and delivered a swift, accurate slash to Angron's neck.
Like a hot knife cutting butter, it easily slashed the other party's neck; Angron's head flew off.
This sight astonished every enemy on the battlefield.
They stood dumbfounded; their minds went blank.
The primordial flesh personally ascended by the Blood God had in fact been beheaded by a White Scar.
How… how is such a thing possible?
The Blood God lurking in the Warp fell silent in an instant; the entire brass realm was wrapped in a deathlike stillness.
The gods who had been cheering fell quiet; the earlier excitement vanished; despair floated on their faces.
With Angron's defeat, the last chance to stop the Nameless Ones was lost.
The other party's mark is embedded in the anchor point and is gradually recovering its strength.
The fact that he could kill Angron, personally promoted by the Blood God, is unmistakable evidence that cannot be ignored.
Datch stepped forward, raised a foot, and with a single stamp crushed Angron's head, which was still roaring on the verge of death.
Deep-red blood and ash-white brain tissue scattered in all directions.
Datch stepped on Angron's headless corpse and roared at the World Eaters standing frozen on the spot.
"Traitors."
The battlefield fell silent for several seconds; then the World Eaters raised still more terrible roars.
They swarmed toward Datch like a flood.
Blood-hungry berserkers abandoned every tactic and formation, driven by pure rage, and charged toward Datch without mercy.
Datch swung the sword and faced numerous World Eaters.
From the longsword gripped in his right hand, Angron's blood still dripped.
Due to continuous high-intensity use, the electric arcs on the blade became unstable.
The first World Eater to charge, he evaded, slashed the neck with the sword, thrust it into the chest, and killed him instantly.
The second enemy leapt from the opposite side; he kicked the other party's knee, unbalancing him, then thrust the sword into the seam of the abdominal armour.
The third, the fourth, the fifth.
Datch was like a reaper, mercilessly slaughtering the enemies that assaulted him.
However, after the fierce battle with Angron, his strength had reached its limit.
At this point, without the support of the Infinity Stones, the enhancement the Infinity Gauntlet could provide was limited.
Therefore, Datch cannot maintain peak performance indefinitely.
As time passed, his speed began to decline visibly.
It is impossible to evade attacks coming from three directions at once.
Counters are no longer as precise as before and no longer have the power to kill the other party with a single blow.
Bang!!
Datch was caught from behind by a World Eater and cut in two with a backhand sword. Then two more enemies assaulted him; Datch was hard-pressed to respond.
Clang!!
After fierce combat continued, Datch's longsword was knocked away during a parry.
Once released, the electric arcs covering the blade flickered and vanished.
After spinning several times in the air, it fell straight to the distant ground.
Datch continued fighting barehanded and easily defeated two World Eaters, yet a third figure punched through his breastplate with a power gauntlet and slammed him into the ground.
Immediately afterward, a pack of World Eaters rushed over and began punching, kicking, slashing, and chopping him.
The other party stopped attacking only when Datch's body and power armour had become a heap of irreparable fragments.
After his death, Datch was wrapped in darkness.
The next instant, a notification panel appeared before his eyes.
[The character you were playing has died. A new character is assigned.]
The new role is a Custodian garrisoned in the Imperial Sanctum.
When the prompt ended, Datch opened his eyes and realised he was in a wide corridor.
The corridor was packed with refugees pouring in from outside the palace and from all over Terra.
A child was curled in a mother's arms, tightly wrapped in a tattered blanket.
Adults in ragged clothes leaned against the corner wall, half asleep and half awake.
The air was filled with an unspeakable stench and terror.
Lumen-lights in the ceiling flickered overhead; each time they cast a dim, then dark light into the corridor.
Datch found cover and carefully examined his own appearance.
He wore golden power armour; the golden aquila emblem at the centre of the breastplate glowed warmly in the darkness.
The halberd gripped in the guardian's hand reflected the corridor emergency lights with a cold, sharp gleam.
Datch immediately checked the database in order to grasp the present situation.
At this time, he was located on the third defence line inside the Inner Palace; the outer base of the Delphic Battlement was directly above him.
"It seems the final battle is about to begin."
Datch muttered to himself, shifted the halberd to the other hand, and continued down the corridor.
During the months-long siege, he had borne various roles.
From an Imperial Fist warrior garrisoned on the bridge of the Tear Drop, to a White Scar crewman who fought Abaddon to the death aboard the Spear of Heaven…
A mechanical bird aboard the West Life, piloting a Thunderhawk gunship to bombard Terminator units.
A soldier conscripted from the Kushtun Naganda local militia who fought Angron to the death outside Fort Sixteen.
A Blood Angel of the Gate of Colossi whose head was smashed by Perturabo's hammer on the way to support the spaceport.
To a White Scars commander outside the Eternity Wall spaceport. He had guided Piers and the others into the flame-wrapped ruins.
Now he bears the role of a member of the Imperial Custodes, which means the story is drawing toward its end.
Meanwhile, on the Eternity Wall spaceport front,
Piers, Harry, and the other survivors were fortunate enough to evacuate the spaceport and head for other fortresses.
They were also pursued by rebels along the way.
Some died, yet Piers, Shiban, and others survived.
The ambush at the Saturnine Wall closed the curtain with the fall of the spaceport.
Due to Rogal Dorn's ambush, Abaddon's elite units received a catastrophic blow; the Emperor's Children also suffered great casualties.
During combat, Fulgrim himself was driven into a corner by Dorn, yet escaped using his ascended form.
The Saturnine battle was an overwhelming victory, yet it was not enough to change the flow of the war on Terra.
With the fall of the Eternity Wall spaceport, the enemy's deployment capacity improved dramatically.
An enormous number of troops were dispatched to the ground, including Titans — humanity's strongest ground-war weapons.
Furthermore, the collapse of the Eternity Wall spaceport indirectly led to the shrinkage of the Emperor's protected domain and made it possible for more daemons to invade the real world.
Considering efficiency, Horus firmly abandoned attacking the impregnable fortress Dorn had fortified himself.
In order to defeat the Emperor as quickly as possible, concentrate attacks on the rear Exultant Wall and the Mercury Gate.
Therefore, the rebel main force, once the instant landing was completed, was swiftly committed to the war.
World Eaters, Iron Warriors, Emperor's Children, and Night Lords, together with Dark Mechanicum guardians and rebel Titan Legions, launched a large-scale attack on the Exultant Wall from three directions simultaneously.
Titans are humanity's strongest ground units and possess astonishing destructive power.
If an Emperor-class Titan's main guns fire in unison, a fortress that has lost its shields vanishes without a trace.
A Warlord-class Titan's powerful turbo-lasers can reduce an enemy horde to ash with each shot.
The rebels easily destroyed numerous fortresses and walls using gigantic armies and Titans.
Where they passed, only ruins and scorched earth remained.
In response to the traitors, the Imperium committed its last remaining Titans.
The Titans led by the Princeps advanced onto the battlefield one after another.
Two Titan herds collided on the plain outside the Exultant Wall; fierce combat began at once.
Both sides hurled their rage at each other without restraint.
Powerful turbo-lasers, plasma annihilators, volcano cannons, conversion beams.
Merciless attacks spread a net of pure destruction across the scorched earth stretching before the Exultant Wall. That sight no longer retained its original form.
Due to the traitor attack on the Exultant Wall, Rogal Dorn was forced to abandon command of other fronts and concentrate strength on defending the Exultant Wall.
However, due to ceaseless orbital bombardment and an enemy army far surpassing their own,
the Imperial Titans, after a desperate fight, were almost completely annihilated.
The Exultant Wall too showed signs of a breach being opened by the Titans' repeated bombardment.
The traitors pushed into the city through the breach, fought the loyalists, in that gap planted bombs, and finally detonated the magazine, creating a rent of more than three hundred metres in the Exultant Wall.
The rebels poured into the city through the breach and waged fierce, almost frenzied urban combat with the Imperial garrison.
Thus the rebels' road to the Imperial throne was finally opened.
This battle completely unleashed the daemons of the Warp.
The collapse of the Exultant Wall was not only a physical act of destruction; it also symbolised the Emperor's further decline.
Wherever the traitor army goes, the corruption of the twisted world follows.
Earth, devastated by war-fire, is polluted; stone changes to black; on its surface blasphemous runes appear as if twisting of their own will.
In some places, in dilapidated buildings, foam-like things appear; on the ground abscesses the size of a human brain suddenly swell though no one has touched them.
When the abscesses burst, a foul sticky liquid seeps out; in some cases an elastic liquid mixed with tartar can be seen.
In some places new tumours form or they are torn by writhing roots, and crystals of various colours grow.
Warp daemons wander the ruins of various fortresses, prey on souls, devour humans without mercy, and feast on soul and flesh.
With the Exultant Wall breached, every defence behind Lion's Gate became meaningless.
Rogal Dorn ordered the entire army to withdraw as far as possible to the Sanctum in order to defend the Delphic Battlement, the Sanctum's last defence line.
Jaghatai refused that order. The hawks of Chogoris must not be shut beyond the wall.
He made an outrageous decision: to launch a counterattack on Lion's Gate spaceport.
In order to secure a safe foothold for Guilliman's Ultramarines arriving at Terra in a few days.
Rogal Dorn finally agreed to his brother's reckless plan and gave what support he could.
The plan was reckless, yet unexpectedly successful.
Jaghatai led his sons and launched a swift surprise attack on Lion's Gate spaceport, fighting Death Guard units several times their size.
The battle finally closed with a direct confrontation between Jaghatai himself and Mortarion.
After fierce combat, Jaghatai at last beheaded Mortarion with his own hands and killed him, yet he himself was severely wounded and on the verge of death.
The White Scars fought bravely and finally succeeded in recovering control of Lion's Gate spaceport and reactivating the anti-orbital defence system.
Meanwhile, Corswain of the First Legion, together with the Dark Angels who had rushed to support Terra, tried to recover the Astronomican and light it again.
This is wonderful news.
By lighting the Astronomican again, they can guide the Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves to Terra's location.
Meanwhile, Vulkan, guardian of the Throne, under the guidance of Malcador and the Emperor, sets foot deep into the webway.
Go and deal with the one-eyed, red-skinned ogryn Magnus, who has completely dedicated himself to Tzeentch.
After a desperate and difficult fight, Vulkan, paying countless sacrifices, forcibly banished Magnus into the Warp.
In this critical situation, Datch, a member of the Imperial Custodes, also received a mission.
To reach the open place known as the "Killing Ground" before the Delphic Battlement,
help units scattered between the Exultant Wall and Lion's Gate spaceport withdraw to the Sanctum, then reorganise them and have them defend the wall.
If the enemy breaches the Delphic Battlement, all that remains for humanity is the Eternity Gate and the Throne Room.
The war that follows will be staged in the Throne Room.
The enemy wasted no time and rapidly assembled a great army to attack the Delphic walls.
Before combat even began, the enemy sent tens of thousands of tortured, face-scarred prisoners to the front.
These were loyalist soldiers captured by the rebels in recent weeks and Terran civilians who did not make it into the palace in time.
Their eyes and ears have been gouged out; in the sockets and ear canals only dry, darkened scabs could be seen.
Rusted metal spears pierced their abdomens and chests and were stuck into posts.
Sharp metal thorns bit into exposed skin and caused a quiet tremor every time the wind blew.
The pitiful ones were driven out by the traitors and crawled desperately across the scorched battlefield, aiming for a safe place they could never reach.
Afterwards, they were driven off by rebel vehicles. They were run over or shot.
The traitors used the prisoners' miserable condition to intimidate those still loyal to the Emperor and then tried to urge the soldiers defending the Delphic walls to surrender.
"Horus, the great Warmaster and true Emperor of the Imperium, sends heartfelt greetings to the garrison of the Imperial Sanctum. He praises your unshakable loyalty to this day and highly values your courage in fighting for what you believe to be right."
"Horus has made clear that he is the heir to Terra's throne and crown. All of you, keep this in your hearts. Whether Astartes or human, so long as you cast down your weapons and abandon the Delphic walls, pardon and freedom will be given, and you will be able to leave the battlefield safely."
"If you stubbornly resist and prevent the true Emperor from entering the Imperial Sanctum, you will be regarded as enemies to be eliminated."
"The army advances in one hour. You have ample time to think. Please make a wise choice."
These words were extremely seductive. Everyone who heard them was at once tempted.
If we abandon the defence of the Delphic fortress, the nightmare we have experienced will all end.
The siege has lasted months; countless bombardments, poison-gas attacks, plague, nightmares, and the loss of comrades and family have continued.
If we take one step from this wall and lay down our weapons, everything ends.
Several garrison commanders expressed concern to Sanguinius.
Such a proposal will indeed tempt some ordinary people of weak will.
Those pitiful people have used up all their courage in months of war.
The enemy has given them a chance to survive.
Sanguinius went against the commanders' orders and did not take the emergency measures they had instructed.
When the enemy finished speaking, he beat his pure-white wings, flew up above everyone's heads, and addressed them in a sincere, sorrowful tone.
"I do not want to be here."
This opening confused everyone.
Astartes warriors quietly polished weapons; human auxilia crouched in cover and chanted prayers; Mechanicum priests and servitors repaired weapons and equipment.
They all stopped what they were doing at the same time and stared in disbelief at Sanguinius floating in the sky.
Even the traitors eavesdropping on the garrison's conversation were stunned.
Is Sanguinius about to rebel?
"This is a war we are destined to lose. Strength is severely insufficient while the enemy is numerous. If a miracle occurs, we might hold for a week, yet we will probably be annihilated in two or three days."
"My words may surprise or frighten you, yet I do not lie. Especially not to you who have given everything and endured until now."
"Looking at your exhausted faces, I understand how much you have sacrificed for this war. Each of you has endured a hopeless fight, survived a harsh battlefield, and at last stands on this high wall."
"I have seen the suffering you have endured. And I have seen you shed tears for comrades who died in battle. Fate struck you without mercy, yet you have endured until today."
The Primarch faltered for an instant, then continued.
"Now the Warmaster has promised you a lie in order to survive. But his army cannot keep that promise."
"Now it is my turn. You may think I will tell you to fight Horus once more, to cast away all that remains, and to pay the last sacrifice."
Sanguinius dove from the wall, threw down his weapons, took flight again, and showed his empty hands to the gathered crowd.
"No. I do not intend to ask that of you. You have given everything and answered hundreds, even more, of requests."
"You have endured a dark war you should never have had to experience. You have shown unimaginable courage and unyielding spirit and have proved to me again and again that bravery and fearless courage exist."
"Therefore I do not intend to ask further sacrifice of you, and I do not have the right to do so."
"If you want to leave, leave. You need not be ashamed of failing to fulfil a duty. You need not regard this as surrender to the rebels. You are the bravest people of this age, and you are fighting an unprecedented enemy."
"Therefore, those who wish to leave, please go with my blessing and gratitude. You have done everything that was asked of you."
"If you wish to return to the Imperial Sanctum to spend your last hours with family, go with my blessing and envy, and spend them in peace with your family."
"If you wish to leave the walls before the battle begins and try your luck in the wilderness, depart with pride and honour in the Emperor's name. For you have already become heroes in this war you were forced to join."
Sanguinius's words have a powerful, moving force.
He praised the survivors' courage and sacrifice and at the same time frankly admitted his own cowardice.
"If I could, I would want to leave here. A demigod's instinct is screaming: surrender, survive by any means."
"But I cannot. Because my other half is human, and that half demands that I remain here. Fear is a biological instinct, but courage is humanity's hymn."
"The Thirteenth Legion is on its way. If they do not bring salvation, they will bring vengeance."
"I chose to remain here not because I can win, nor because I am brave, but because this is the right thing."
After looking across the crowd, Sanguinius reached out and gently stroked the wall.
The small holographic arrays installed across the entire city wall all projected the same motion and sound.
"I have said everything I wanted to say, so you need no longer hear my anxiety and confession. All that remains is my question. Will you not leave already?"
The battlefield fell silent for an instant.
But soon someone raised both arms and shouted, answering Sanguinius.
No… absolutely not.
The first shout rang from the shadow of a pile of gun-emplacement wreckage destroyed by bombardment.
Then a second sound, a third, and countless sounds followed.
Conscripted labourers, Mechanicum priests and servitors, remnants of the Solar Auxilia, militia, and every surviving Astartes.
Regardless of social status, everyone raised their voice and raised the same voice.
No… absolutely not.
They will neither leave this wall nor surrender to the enemy.
If death is unavoidable, let them offer their last possessions to the Emperor.
Sanguinius heard the crowd's voice, turned toward the enemy, raised the longsword, and brought it down with force.
"Then let us fight to the last drop of blood."
...
Sanguinius's speech greatly moved the crowd, yet the situation on the battlefield remained hopeless.
When the enemy began the attack, a concentrated barrage of bombardment poured down at once.
The Iron Warriors siege-artillery units and the World Eaters assault units advanced from the front simultaneously.
A soaring Titan legion raised an ear-splitting roar of horns, advanced with heavy footsteps, crushed the enemy formation, and launched terrible attacks.
Daemons roared, gathered as a raging wave, and under the gods' will charged toward the Sanctum of the accursed.
The Imperial garrison counterattacked at once; ear-splitting gunfire and the metallic sound of autoloaders rang out.
In this process, no one knows how many Titans were destroyed, nor how many gunships and landing craft were destroyed.
The enemy's scale was beyond the pale. They abandoned every tactic, disregarded casualties, and used every means to attack the Delphic walls.
As a result of persistent, merciless attack, the Delphic Battlement was at last breached.
A Chaos Titan, bearing flesh and bone, charged through frenzied gunfire toward the wall and sacrificed its own life to open a breach.
The enemy plunged through the breach and carried out a frenzied massacre. What they saw was…
The defence units, sacrificing their own lives, continued to withdraw little by little through ruins and trenches and delayed the enemy's advance.
Those who had been defending the Delphic Battlement were exhausted and had lost all emotions such as sorrow and despair.
Even if they witnessed a comrade meeting a tragic death, they only treated the body mechanically and continued the work.
Datch, guardian's halberd in hand, has been fighting ever since.
He had become unable to count how many enemies he had killed. He only remembers that he kept slashing.
The air was filled with the smell of blood and death; the air was filled with white noise composed of countless sounds.
When an alarm echoing to heaven rang from the Emperor's Sanctum, Sanguinius ordered evacuation to the Sanctum.
Datch at last came to himself from the tragedy and withdrew together with the NPCs he had rescued.
The enemy seized this opportunity and intensified the offensive. Datch chose to withdraw while fighting at the same time.
Just as he slashed an Iron Warrior charging from the flank,
a tech-adept staggered and ran toward him.
The other party's deep-crimson robe was tattered; mechanical lower limbs crackling with electricity were exposed.
The hydraulic hose that had been in his left knee joint had at some point been severed by grenade fragments; every time he walked, it left an oily, wet stain on the stone slab.
"Please help me." The adept's voice was squeezed from a broken throat-amplifier. Hoarse, sharp, tearful.
"I am Arkhan Land. I have met His Majesty. Please help me take my friend out. I beg you."
Datch swung the combat-halberd, slashed a World Eater charging from the flank, turned, and asked.
"What's wrong?"
"A friend is wounded." Arkhan Land pointed at a shell crater.
Datch walked over and immediately found the wounded female tech-adept.
On the information panel, the recipient's name is displayed as "Processing Unit-7Y1."
Several ordinary people still remained in the pit, yet all were thoroughly exhausted.
And a genetically engineered ape whose head was smashed to pieces, oil and blood constantly seeping from the wound, chest rising and falling violently.
"Understood. I'll help." Datch said nothing more and issued instructions to the NPCs he had just rescued.
Have them help Land lift Processing Unit-7Y1 and take the wounded humans and the still-breathing ape to the Sanctum.
Datch withdrew while fighting, killed many attacking traitors, and safely guided Land and his companions and the fleeing soldiers into the Sanctum.
Before the Eternity Gate, Sanguinius experienced a moment of unprecedented glory.
Outside the Eternity Gate, he fought thousands of a great army alone.
He slew the great daemon Ka'Bandha of Khorne, destroyed the Titan Warhound that tried to prevent the gate from closing, single-handedly beat back every traitor who poured toward the gate, and at last succeeded in closing the Eternity Gate and withdrawing into the Sanctum.
Datch housed the rescued NPCs in a relatively flat open space temporarily secured between stone columns inside the Sanctum.
The instant all of this was completed, a series of messages arrived on the comm-line.
Malcador has taken the Emperor's place and sat upon the Golden Throne.
Meanwhile, the Emperor, together with Sanguinius, Dorn, Valdor, and others, boarded the Vengeful Spirit.
Vulkan bears the responsibility of guarding the Golden Throne; if the Emperor fails, he will use the talisman of the seven hammers to destroy everything.
Immediately after receiving a message from the Imperial Custodes' internal channel, Datch received a game notification.
The Siege of Terra storyline has advanced to the final battle between the Emperor and Horus. All in-game restrictions have been lifted; the player can use items to change the flow of history.
...