In this chapter, Perturabo learned of Rogal Dorn's declaration from one of his Chaos sorcerers.
The sorcerer knelt on the black iron steps before the Iron Lord's throne, body trembling, and for an instant thought he would be torn apart by the enraged Primarch.
Perturabo kept a long silence. He knew full well there was nowhere to run.
Even if he fled into the abyss of the underworld, the abyss of the Warp, or an ancient void into which even daemons did not easily set foot, even the Nameless One could find him with ease.
That was an existence even the four Chaos Gods could not defeat.
An unmatched existence that could close, with a snap of the fingers, the gigantic rift spreading across the Milky Way, and keep two complete star-gods as pets.
Even as a daemon-primarch blessed by the gods, before that man he was only a large ant.
Therefore he decided not to flee.
Primarchs had their own dignity. They might be killed, but they must not be hunted down and killed like stray dogs.
Perturabo summoned all his sons and gathered every kind of resource.
He himself designed an absolute fortress that used every art of war — enough to drive every war-genius of past and present to despair.
Perturabo himself calculated the optimal overlap angles of each layer of void-shield, himself marked the optimal range parameters of each macro-cannon turret, and finished it in a perfect state.
When Dorn gathered every Imperial Fist and arrived at the planet where Perturabo was, he saw a gigantic fortress covered in the symbol of the eight-pointed star and in spines.
The fortress was built upon a magnificent plateau; every surrounding slope had become a vertical cliff.
In each cliff-face, walls of reinforced ceramite were embedded in many layers; inside them, automatic turrets and anti-infantry traps were densely packed.
This fortress was equipped with multiple layers of void-shields, each driven by an independent energy core.
Energy conduits were buried deep in bedrock excavated through the crust; the overlapping angles of the various layers of void-screening were adjusted so precisely that, under saturated fire, residual energy cancelled itself out.
Furthermore, there were towering, magnificent walls.
The width of the walls' foundations was enough for an entire Titan Legion to deploy upon the ramparts.
The interior of the walls was hollow; on each layer, defensive cannon of different ranges were installed.
"Come. Fight me. Let us settle the duel of ten thousand years ago." Perturabo opened a vox to the Phalanx and spoke with his counterpart.
"Do not become a coward, Dorn."
Dorn, standing on the Phalanx's bridge, looked at Perturabo's projection with eyes that held a trace of mockery. "Perturabo, are you joking?"
The situation has changed completely. The Imperium overwhelms the Chaos forces; its gigantic armies are sweeping the remaining enemies across the entire Eye of Terror.
As a result, you have come and challenged me to a fair and square fight.
During the war on Terra, why did you not speak to me of fairness?
Dorn immediately cut the vox; Perturabo's hologram flickered several times at the centre of the bridge and then vanished completely.
"Destroy this thing's armour with concentrated fire."
Under Dorn's command, the Imperial fleet easily smashed the Iron Warriors' last fleet and reached planetary orbit.
The broadside gun-arrays of every warship laid on the target at the same time.
A terrible concentrated barrage poured down and covered the sky.
From the surface of the plateau surrounding the fortress, mushroom clouds rose slowly; each time they released an intense, dazzling light enough to burn the retina.
The magnificent rock-mountains were smashed to pieces by ceaseless bombing.
Winding rivers crumbled little by little, evaporated into scorching steam-clouds, and vanished into the atmosphere above.
The earth was stained scorched black; every living thing outside the shields' protection became ash in the burnt soil.
Perturabo had dug through the crust, inserted gigantic heat-pipes into boiling magma, and used the geothermal core to convert the planet's own geothermal energy continuously into the energy source of the void-shields and defensive guns.
That generation efficiency was comparatively low, yet its stability was excellent. Unaffected by electromagnetic storms and crustal shifts from orbital bombardment, it could output energy continuously; stable operation was guaranteed.
However, even with a stable energy supply, the shield generators could not endure the Imperial concentrated fire.
Dorn concentrated the Imperial fleet's entire firepower on the calculated weak points.
Every salvo from the macro-cannon struck the shield surface of that region with exact aim.
Under ceaseless bombardment, the shields' light changed from a steady flicker to violent irregular fluctuation.
Overloaded shield generators emitted an ear-splitting metallic sound and jetted thick black smoke from deep in the burnt wall-foundations.
Dorn's force destroyed the fortress's outer defence line with terrible firepower.
The large gun-arrays, plasma arrays, and anti-air laser towers Perturabo had placed in the city-wall embrasures and on the outer cliffs were changed one after another into burnt wreckage by the Imperial fleet's merciless orbital bombardment.
Perturabo thought Dorn would seize this chance, commit airborne troops, and conduct a siege.
He had long since prepared a backup plan: plasma mines buried over a wide area inside the city walls, rapid-deployment routes for exchanging turrets under the ruins of each destroyed strongpoint, and multiple overlapping ambush networks built around each fortress.
If Dorn dared to land, he would make them pay a great price.
This was the optimal solution derived from countless iterative calculations of his logic-engine.
Drag Dorn into a ground war and shave away the Imperial numerical advantage in close combat.
He would, as he had done in the Battle of the Eternal Fortress, use meticulously designed defences and gradually suck the blood from the Seventh Legion.
"The age has changed, brother." Dorn stood on the Phalanx's bridge looking at the tactical projection.
"Ammunition is now unlimited. Who would want to fight such an outdated siege war with you? Is there a master of war who does not use orbital bombardment? Bomb thoroughly and destroy Perturabo's fortress completely."
Torpedoes, missiles, and rays poured down like concentrated fire.
Plasma torpedoes exploded on the surface of the fortress's void-shields; countless small pale-blue suns surged like a wave.
Each solar lance ionised the atmosphere within several hundred metres for a short time and left a warped pale-blue arc of light in the high air.
Missiles accurately pierced the slight gaps that appeared after the void-shields were continuously suppressed, entered the fortress, and caused a series of explosions of flame and shockwave.
Shells and lance-rays, like a precisely calculated rainstorm, struck every corner of the fortress's surface without mercy.
Terrible explosions occurred one after another; each time the earth shook and shockingly deep craters opened in the plateau bedrock.
Rock at the crater rims melted rapidly under high temperature and cooled, forming black glassy crater-rings reminiscent of ancient volcanoes.
During this, Perturabo used various means to provoke Dorn and try to bring him to a final duel.
However, Dorn ignored his words and continued to insist on orbital bombardment.
This state continued for two months.
Perturabo's fortress was destroyed layer by layer by ceaseless bombardment.
The outermost void-shields collapsed completely at the end of the first month.
The shield generators were wrapped in a great quantity of black smoke rising from deep in the fortress.
The ambush positions Perturabo had designed to stop Dorn's ground forces were swept from the ground together with the buildings that had housed them.
Only when the fortress's last wall remained did Dorn order an airlift.
Imperial Fists units landed by aircraft and swept the remaining enemy.
Giants of the Titanicus followed immediately behind; with the heavy steel feet of giants, they crushed burnt wreckage and cut a path.
The knightly houses' armoured units deployed under the giants' cover.
Leman Russ tanks, Baneblade super-heavy tanks, and various enhanced armoured vehicles the Mechanicum forge-sages had temporarily mobilised from Mars and other forge worlds were all dropped onto the ground.
By Dorn's order, these steel weapons raised a storm of bombardment.
Volcano-cannon beams, turbo-laser pulses, white-hot macro-cannon shells, and pale-blue fireballs of plasma incinerators.
Every available weapon loosed fire in unison on the Iron Warriors' last defence line.
The entire operation had no technique at all; it was only breaking the line by brute force.
Titans smashed through the Iron Warriors' last gate; knightly armoured units poured into the fortress through that breach. Imperial Fists and supporting army troops followed the armour and swept the remaining defenders one by one.
"Your conduct is a blasphemy against the word 'war.'"
When Dorn burst into the palace where Perturabo was, together with Sigismund, Rann, and veteran Imperial Fists, Perturabo denounced Dorn in anger.
"The purpose of war is to win victory," Dorn answered calmly. "Wasting the lives of ordinary citizens for so-called glory is the act that blasphemes war."
"Perturabo, your end has come. Today I will put you in a kennel and send you to Terra."
"Dream on! Even if I die, I will not let you have your way." Perturabo had long since resolved to die.
He would never permit himself to be stuffed into a kennel, taken to Terra, and put on trial before the Emperor and the entire Imperium.
Even in dying, a person ought to die with dignity.
The instant Perturabo finished speaking, he immediately began the self-destruct sequence.
The bombs buried under the throne activated the instant he pressed the confirm button and exploded, raising dazzling flame.
These bombs were all designed by him; their power was enough to tear refined gold apart and melt it in an instant.
Just as the flame swallowed Perturabo and was about to reduce the Lord of Iron to ash…
Suddenly, from nowhere, a snapping sound rang.
A shining teleport tunnel appeared at once; a figure in strange clothing emerged from it.
He was the Lord of Absurdity who had driven the gods of the Warp to despair — the Imperium's Nameless One.
"Why is this man here?!"
Terror seized Perturabo's heart, and then a desperate event occurred.
The shockwave and flame generated by the explosion froze in an instant and vanished at an unexpected speed, as if they had never existed from the start.
The nameless man did not stay long. After confirming Perturabo's self-destruct programme had been completely deleted, he snapped his fingers again, opened the teleport portal once more, leapt in, and vanished.
Perturabo sat on the broken throne and was silent.
After a while, he looked up at Dorn. On that cold, steel-like face, a very pained, slow, ugly smile floated.
"Dorn, we are brothers, aren't we?"
Dorn snorted coldly, shouted, and leapt at Perturabo.
"Speak to my kennel."
The two Primarchs waged a fierce fight as if two gods had collided.
Terrible aftershocks struck everything around; the city became complete ruin.
The difference in strength between Dorn and Perturabo was not that great, yet almost all of Perturabo's subordinates were dead or wounded.
Iron Warriors, Iron Circle automata, and Dark Mechanicum adherents had all perished in two months of orbital bombardment and the combat thereafter.
Perturabo was now completely isolated, yet Dorn still had elite descendants.
After fierce fighting, Perturabo fell to the ground.
Numerous Imperial Fists advanced in unison and rained on the Primarch a chain of punches, kicks, and slashes.
Perturabo could resist to some degree at first, yet soon could not move, stood on the brink of death, and was barely breathing.
"Go back and repent to Father." Dorn reached out, lifted Perturabo from the floor, shoved him into a purpose-made cage, and sent him back to Terra to receive the judgement of the entire Imperium.
With the capture of Abaddon and Perturabo, the remaining Primarchs and numerous Chaos warbands fell into a completely desperate situation.
The Eye of Terror could no longer stop the Imperium's advance. If they remained here, they would only be completely smashed by the Imperium.
To survive, they found webway gates the Eldar had left, opened them with blasphemous rites, and escaped into the webway.
Among those favoured by the gods, some fled directly into the abyss of the Warp in order to receive the gods' protection.
While various forces fled the Eye of Terror, the Imperium occupied it safely.
With the greatest Warp rift destroyed, Datch received a mission-complete notification.
[Congratulations on completing the mission! You succeeded in the Imperium of Man's destruction of the Eye of Terror and other Warp rifts.]
[Quest reward: 20,000 experience, 20,000 points, reputation 10,000, item: Spear of the Saint-Slayer]
With an instant of thought, Datch summoned the Spear of the Saint-Slayer into his hand.
The spear was extremely stylish; ancient characters Datch could not understand were carved on it, yet that did not affect his use of the spear.
"With this, the four gods can be completely eliminated."
"Perhaps this mission is the precondition for beginning the counterattack against the gods."
Datch muttered to himself for a while, then noticed a golden question mark on Malcador's icon on the minimap. That indicated the main story needed to be advanced.
Thinking so, he put the weapon away and went to look for Malcador.
At that time, Malcador had only just finished a dream-exchange with the Emperor.
The Emperor had noticed the gods' weaknesses and thought now was the perfect opportunity to eliminate them.
If the Nameless One could be persuaded to act, the Four would vanish beyond history.
...