At almost the exact same moment, Sevatar, aboard the Remilia, received a message from her primarch and immediately issued a single order—
Attack Prospero.
As the acting supreme commander of the two legions' temporary joint force, Sevatar had full authority to commit combat units and slap the Thousand Sons hard across the face. More than that, if she wished, she could even launch cyclonic torpedoes and give Prospero the full treatment.
Before any warning or omen could spread, a storm of macro-cannon fire and searing beams rained down across the scholarly surface of Prospero. One orbital defense installation after another was destroyed before they could react.
And before the Thousand Sons' fleet and defense satellites could respond, the captains of the Sons of Horus were already directing their ships into boarding actions, because they too had received orders from Captain Abaddon.
The Thousand Sons have been confirmed as traitors! They are attempting to assassinate the Warmaster!
"Krulu, I'm handing fleet command over to you," Sevatar said. "I'm going down to the surface to rescue Father."
Her voice remained calm, but inwardly she was already frantic.
If something serious enough had happened that her usually imposing father had personally ordered an attack, then Magnus and the Thousand Sons were almost certainly guilty of more than mere rebellion. They might already have fallen to Chaos.
No matter what, she had to go down there herself and find her father.
"Yes! Leave it to me, Captain Sevatar!" Krulu accepted at once, then began coordinating with the temporary allied command.
A moment later, the first wave of drop forces was launched toward the planet's core region. At the same time, heavy bombardment poured down from orbit. It was an extremely risky tactic—shelling the surface while dropping troops into it—but it was also the most efficient one.
After all, the odds of being hit by your own side's fire were relatively low. But anything on the ground daring to reveal itself would be blasted flat almost instantly.
And besides, scorched earth after orbital bombardment made a perfect landing zone.
Prospero was vast, and the combined fleet lacked the strength to occupy the whole world, much less grind across it in a methodical planetary campaign. But for the Sons of Horus, specialists in decapitation strikes, there was only one target that mattered:
Tizca, the City of Light.
Take the king, and the rest collapses.
Unlike many other legions, the Thousand Sons were an odd case. They were certainly warriors, but scholars first and foremost. Prospero did possess armed forces, but most of them were concentrated in specific, limited regions.
Which suited the combined fleet's strategic planning perfectly.
Conquering an entire planet and the surrounding star systems was unrealistic. Capturing a single city, though—that was a different matter.
Of course, reinforcements from the other cities would be a problem.
But that was what the Night Lords were for.
Though they were far inferior to the Sons of Horus in a straightforward battlefield clash, when it came to guerrilla warfare and interception, they were first-rate. And with their dispersed methods of spreading terror, they could delay any reinforcements for a very long time.
So long as the Sons of Horus, as the main assault force, took Tizca within the required time, everything would be fine.
If the operation dragged into a war of attrition, then…
Well.
They could always call for reinforcements.
There was nothing more to say about that. Prospero was too close to the Throneworld. The moment the Sons of Horus sent out a distress signal in the Warmaster's name—framing it as a campaign against traitors—help would come. Perhaps even the Imperial Fists would arrive to investigate.
Most of the Imperium still gave Horus face.
"Ten seconds to touchdown!"
"Prepare for landing!"
"For the Emperor!"
"For the Warmaster!"
"Night Haunter! Forever!"
The first wave of drop troops finally broke into the skies above the City of Light, though not before losing nearly twenty percent of their number. Psychic attacks and anti-air fire had nearly turned the whole city into a blazing furnace, but the orbital bombardment never faltered.
Anyone who fired up from the ground was immediately bombarded in return.
Little by little, that city of white jade along the coast was stained by the smoke of war.
The fate of its people, its scholars, its soldiers, its knowledge, its culture, its books, its artworks—everything Prospero valued—was now paying the price for the stupidity of a single man: Magnus.
Tizca's order and beauty vanished almost at once. The tall white pyramids no longer reflected the light of the sun. Thick smoke from the bombardment darkened the sky, just as it darkened the fate of countless Prosperine citizens.
Buildings were collapsing. The psychic shields protecting the people of Prospero were growing weaker by the minute. Fire raged along the coast. Neither the old city nor the central districts were spared.
And as the Astartes descended from the heavens, the Thousand Sons, furious, launched their counterattack. They shouted for the civilians to flee even as they organized defensive lines to block the superhuman invaders crashing down from orbit.
"Why?! Why are you attacking us?!" a Thousand Son roared after using a spell to kill an Astartes who had just stepped out of a drop pod.
His answer came from above—bolter fire and the scream of jump packs.
A Night Lord plunged toward the ground, firing at the "sinners" below. When his bolts were deflected by sorcery, he ignited his lightning claws and lunged forward with a howl.
"For the Night Haunter!"
"We've done nothing! You attacked us first!"
"Shut your mouth, you damned sorcerer!"
While the Astartes tore into one another, the auxilia established a temporary foothold in the landing zone. They worked at top speed, erecting a frontline from whatever materials they could seize on site, securing the area for the next waves of troops.
In the process, they weathered furious counterattacks from the Thousand Sons.
But the auxiliaries felt no fear. Their enemy was a legion of superhuman warriors supported by guardian spirits, yes—but they were fighting for the Emperor and for the Warmaster, to punish traitors and send them to meet their maker.
Death?
That was only the reward for meeting the Emperor.
As more and more troops descended from orbit, the Thousand Sons, after a brief spell of chaos, finally managed to stabilize their lines. More and more Astartes emerged from the pyramidal structures, some not even fully armored, entering battle in nothing but white scholar's robes.
To them, driving invaders from their home world was only natural.
And to the troops of the joint fleet, this assault was a battle fought in the name of the Emperor and the Warmaster.
The deeper they pushed, the angrier they became.
They found Prosperines openly enslaving daemons, people bearing mutated organs, and even xenos that by all rights should have been exterminated long ago.
This wasn't a primarch's home world.
It was a den of heresy.
You have violated the Imperial Truth.
You will be destroyed.
"Captain Sevatar! We've completely lost contact with Father and the acting commander!"
"What the hell?!" Sevatar snarled as she used a chainblade to cut down a Thousand Son, then turned and shouted, "Can't you even pin down their last known coordinates?!"
"No! We can't track them! The Thousand Sons are using interference signals and psychic disruption!"
"Damn it!"
Even as she spoke, several armored tanks painted with the crest of Remilia crushed over the bodies of the Thousand Sons, firing as they advanced. Sons of Horus rode behind them, leaning out to fire over their hulls.
Though the two legions had rarely fought together before, they coordinated seamlessly.
The Sons of Horus used the Night Lords' armored spearheads to drive the line forward, while the Night Lords infiltrated and reconnoitered, feeding targeting data back to the fleet in orbit.
"Whatever happens, this is no longer ordinary treason," a Sons of Horus commander shouted after spotting the enemy's Titan deployment. "The Mechanicum won't let this go either!"
Because then, the earth shook.
Across the grand square, blood and flesh seemed to boil. The roar of a god-engine rolled through the whole city of Tizca.
Then, from deep among the pyramid clusters, a colossal blue war machine emerged, its engine-cry sounding almost like a mournful lament for Prospero itself.
The main cannon charged for a brief moment—then swept the battlefield with annihilating energy, erasing several hard-won defensive lines in an instant.
Behind it came two smaller but far more agile bipedal war machines, advancing in lockstep.
"Enemy Titan-class unit detected! Requesting reinforcements!"
"Hold on! Our Titans are on the way too! Damn these heretics—how dare they profane the glory of the Omnissiah?!"
The instant the Thousand Sons were driven to deploy Titans, the nature of the battle changed.
This was no longer mere treason.
It was outright heresy.
Join here to read ahead.
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I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
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Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
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Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 206
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Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
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The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 106
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 125
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 105
I Can Copy Unique Skills 90
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"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 81
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Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 57
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 45
Transmigrated as Sukuna 59
Checking In in Demon Slayer 59
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 73
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 45
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 36
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 40
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 60
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 30
Why did they assign me to Uma 35
MYGO Beauties 43
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 30
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 31
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