"BEGONE!"
Death's bone blade plunged directly through Angron's skull, adding yet another brutal spike to his head.
With a vicious snarl, she seized the damned Butcher's Nails embedded in his skull. Empowered by the collective psychic force of the Hive Mind, she ripped them out in one horrific motion.
"Gladiator slave! Begone, back to your master!"
Death was drenched in blood, her state scarcely better than Angron's. Truth be told, had it not been for the relentless support of nearby Tyranid bio-forms, she might have suffered an outright defeat.
Angron let out an earth-shattering roar as his physical frame began to collapse, his warp essence dragged back into the Immaterium to await Khorne's inevitable, wrathful resurrection.
Now, Death needed to handle the next target, free her three remaining sister-subentities, and then—
...
She froze mid-motion.
A surge of terrifying warp energy distorted space once more. Across the galaxy, eighty-eight Khornate Warbands engaged in planetary slaughter instantly exploded, their spilled blood flowing backward into the Immaterium.
Even as hundreds of billions of Imperial citizens across those worlds were unknowingly spared, Death witnessed a scene that defied all logic.
With an unholy screech, Angron rematerialized directly in realspace, charging straight at her once again.
That bastard Khorne! He had forcefully triggered Angron's immediate resurrection, disregarding the tactical disadvantage it might cost him in the Great Game of the Chaos Gods!
Death had no choice. She could only pray that her three sisters would swiftly eliminate their respective targets.
Meanwhile, War found herself completely stymied by the void shields of the Imperial Titans.
Against heavy, lumbering Warlord Titans of the Imperium, she and the Hierophant Bio-Titans could have torn them apart. But the Aeldari Wraithtitans were a different story—their fluid agility constantly intercepted her strikes, preventing her from executing a decisive blow against the Imperial war machines.
The only saving grace was that War and her two Hierophants had pinned down several enemy Titans, preventing them from overwhelming other critical sectors.
Pestilence was locked in a deadly dance against two Harlequin Masques—hundreds of Players, two Solitaires, a vanguard of Craftworld Farseers, and an Avatar of Khaine.
The Aeldari Wraithtitan that had previously engaged her had even shifted targets to reinforce the line against War once the Avatar of Khaine materialized.
"These pests... even my plague vectors can't poison them! Why didn't the Hive Mind just carve off a chunk of Nurgle's meat back then?!"
As for Famine, her situation was the most precarious. She was besieged by Crypteks of the Necron Royal Court—veterans of the War in Heaven armed with unleashed, ancient technologies.
Yet, despite these stalemate duels among the absolute apex combatants, the Tyranids maintained a crushing advantage in the mid-to-lower tactical echelons.
Their sheer numbers and relentless unit quality were steadily grinding down the anti-xenos coalition forces.
Furthermore, Yuki—unburdened by any high-tier adversary—was aggressively expanding the swarm's tactical dominance across the field.
Yuki darted across the shattered battlefield. The Imperial defense networks had been thoroughly pulverized; all that remained were isolated, self-organized pockets of desperate resistance.
Yet these suicidal remnants—warriors who had abandoned all hope of survival, intent only on selling their lives as dearly as possible—proved to be the most troublesome to clear.
Yuki cleaved through a Blood Angel's torso with a swift arc of his blade, his gaze locking onto a group of warriors engulfed in spectral flames up ahead.
The Legion of the Damned again. At least Ferrus Manus didn't show up this time... small favors.
Yuki had already factored the arrival of the Legion of the Damned into his operational contingencies.
Compared to spectral Astartes, the golden-winged figure hovering in the sky was far more infuriating.
The Sanguinor. Yuki always treated this entity as a miniature avatar of Sanguinius himself.
And its presence here meant one thing: Dante was nearby.
Aerial reconnaissance confirmed a concentration of several dozen Space Marines below. Though their armor was painted obsidian, the crude overlay of black paint over red heraldry confirmed their identity—Dante and his command squad.
Just as Yuki locked onto his target, the Sanguinor sensed the murderous intent.
Beating its golden wings, it dove directly toward Yuki like a falling star.
"Dammit, guess I have to cut you down first!"
Before Yuki could engage, an abnormally powerful psychic barrier intercepted the Sanguinor's diving vector.
Yuki turned in shock, his gaze falling upon Eleven, who had materialized at his side.
Her body was frail and emaciated. Though the nutrient fluids of the Tyranid swarm had preserved her youthful features, she was painfully thin—a stark manifestation of time's relentless toll on a mortal body.
"Don't always leave me in the rear to recover, Boss," she rasped, her voice trembling yet resolute. "The Emperor's will is still waiting for you to fulfill it."
A sudden wave of intense guilt washed over Yuki. He hesitated, unsure whether he should finally reveal the truth to this girl who had followed him for nearly a century, fighting against her own original faith for the sake of a lie.
"Go, Boss. Whether it's for the God-Emperor... or for Miss Yuno."
"?"
Eleven forced a faint, weary smile. Psychic energy erupted around her, swirling into a massive gravitational vortex that pinned the Sanguinor in place, while tendrils of psychic force wrapped tightly around the golden entity like living serpents.
"I believe in the God-Emperor. Who the Emperor truly is... I can judge for myself. But Boss... I can feel my time is almost up. When the moment comes, please... just let me go."
Yuki gave a heavy, solemn nod. Bypassing the trapped Sanguinor, he surged toward Dante, who had already spotted his approach.
"Dante!"
"Xenos filth!"
Dante raised his weapon, bracing for the impact.
The duel was unequal from the very first frame. Dante had endured weeks of continuous high-intensity combat, capped off by an escalating meat-grinder of a siege.
Yuki's biological architecture, on the other hand, ensured he suffered no physical exhaustion. If anything, the constant influx of biomass made him fight with increasing ferocity.
Furthermore, Yuki possessed the raw combat capability to defeat a Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes.
Within three exchanges, Dante's parry was shattered, his guard blown wide open. Had the Sanguinary Guard not hurled themselves into the fray, both of Dante's arms would have been torn clean off.
Yuki's claw pierced through a Sanguinary Guard's helmet, discarding the corpse as he closed the distance to the critically wounded Dante with terrifying speed.
"DANTE!"
Chapter Master of the Blood Angels, Regent of Imperium Nihilus, hero of mankind, a legend of two millennia—end here!
BOOM!
Yuki was suddenly blasted backward.
He flipped several times mid-air to disperse the kinetic shockwave before landing firmly on the blood-soaked earth.
Standing between him and Dante was an Astartes weeping tears of sinister, crimson blood. From the shattered remnants of his armor paint, Yuki recognized him as a warrior of the Angels Numinous.
"KILL!"
The warrior had completely succumbed to frenzy. Yuki realized at a glance that this Space Marine had accepted the corruptive gifts of Khorne, hovering on the absolute brink of Daemonhood.
"To sabotage my victory, you'd even pull a stunt like this? Khorne, you absolute bastard!"
Looking at the warrior before him—radiating demonic taint yet somehow maintaining a strangely pure physical frame—Yuki felt a sudden, sharp knot of anxiety tighten in his chest.
Instinct warned him that time was rapidly running out. Abaddon, that absolute fool, was probably about to drop the Blackstone Fortress onto Cadia!
Harriman gripped his power sword with both hands. Behind him, a grotesque, crimson phantom surged with suffocating, lethal intent.
"You really think I won't hack you to pieces?!"