Central Plaza of the Royal Court.
Before Paul's landing, over four thousand elite Dal warriors had massed here.
They were King Charles's Royal Guard. Every single one had participated in over fifty "harvests."
Each had survived brutal genetic augmentation and grueling, lethal trials. They averaged over two point eight meters in height.
Around their necks hung grisly necklaces strung from human finger bones.
They wielded the pinnacle of Dal weaponry: long-barreled energy rifles capable of piercing power armor in three shots, and bio-crystalline shields that could effortlessly deflect las-fire.
They were even backed by twenty light combat mechs... machines they had forced captive human mechanicums to design and build.
The moment Paul stepped from his drop pod, the Dal Royal Guard erupted into a chorus of enraged, greedy shrieks.
"It's a human! A golden one!"
"Capture him! Offer him to His Majesty!"
"I want his skull for a drinking cup!"
The front rank of a hundred Royal Guards hoisted their energy greataxes simultaneously, their split maws emitting a synchronized, ear-piercing screech.
"For King Charles!!!"
The sonic wave hit like a physical wall of force.
Paul slowly raised his head.
His dark gold eyes swept over the four thousand enemies, and the rotation of the five stars began to accelerate.
"For King Charles?"
His voice boomed through the external vox-emitters of his Terminator armor. It was deep, calm, yet carried a resonance that seemed to physically shake the soul.
"Then what of the humans you penned like cattle, butchered, and devoured..."
"...Who fights for them?"
The moment the words left his mouth, Paul moved.
He didn't tap into his psychic powers; he simply stepped forward and swung his axe.
With his first step, his sheer physical strength worked in perfect tandem with the Aquilon Terminator Armor's internal anti-grav suspensors and hydraulic servos. This propelled the three-ton behemoth of armor forward with a burst of speed rivaling that of a Scout Marine.
To the Dal soldiers, Paul was nothing more than a golden blur, closing the thirty-meter gap in the blink of an eye.
The first swing was a brutal horizontal cleave.
The disruptor field of the Watcher's Axe drew a ghostly blue arc through the air. The five Dal Royal Guards in the front rank immediately raised their shields to block...
In theory, their bio-crystalline shields were capable of deflecting las-fire, stopping kinetic rounds, and even briefly withstanding melta blasts.
But against a power weapon's disruptor field, the structural integrity of matter was utterly meaningless.
Shields, arms, breastplates, torsos.
Everything that crossed the path of that blade was violently reduced to base atoms in a thousandth of a second.
The five Dal Royal Guards didn't even have the chance to scream before they were vaporized into five slowly expanding clouds of metal and bloody mist.
Paul didn't even pause.
He spun into his momentum, driving the axe into a second sweeping arc.
A Dal combat mech attempted to intercept the blow with its dual energy claws. Those claws were strong enough to peel open the side armor of a Leman Russ battle tank, but against the Watcher's Axe, they were sheared cleanly in half like wet paper.
The blade followed through with unstoppable force, cleaving the entire mech—and the Dal pilot inside the cockpit—straight down the middle.
"ROAAAR!!!"
The remaining Dal Royal Guards finally snapped out of their shock and unleashed a frantic barrage. Hundreds of energy beams converged on Paul, drowning his position in a torrential downpour of pale green light.
But it was entirely useless.
Paul didn't even bother to dodge.
A luminous green armor of raw psychic energy slowly materialized over his dark gold warplate.
This psychic manifestation was the culmination of years spent honing his trait of Compassion, flawlessly expanding to encompass his entire Terminator suit. Not only did it completely nullify psychic and energy-based attacks, but it also actively and effectively healed his physical form.
The Dal energy blasts slammed into the barrier, achieving nothing more than scattering into faint ripples of light. They couldn't even scorch the outermost layer.
And Paul's counterattack was only just beginning.
He opened his left hand, spreading his five fingers wide as he aimed at the swarming cluster of Dal soldiers on his left flank.
In his dark gold eyes, the star representing the trait of Wisdom flared with blinding intensity.
Psychic energy erupted.
It wasn't a physical, manifested attack. It was a direct, devastating strike against the very consciousness of living beings.
Wisdom Trait: Mental Crush.
Within a fifty-meter radius, over two hundred Dal Royal Guards froze simultaneously.
Their pupils violently dilated, their jaws dropping slack as thick drool spilled from their lips.
Every single complex cognitive function was forcibly severed in an instant. Their brains were reduced to only the most primal, autonomic reflexes... breathing, a heartbeat, and then...
Death.
Because the very second they froze in place, the Grey Knights' bolter rounds found their marks.
Two hundred storm bolters roared in absolute unison. Every single mass-reactive shell had been psychically blessed, carrying devastating lethality against entities of the Warp.
Though the Dal were creatures of the materium, the sheer kinetic fury of the bolt rounds was more than enough to punch straight through their armor.
And the Grey Knights' targeting logic was terrifyingly precise: carotid arteries, eye sockets, hearts, and spinal ganglia.
They didn't aim for maximum collateral damage; they aimed for maximum, hyper-efficient lethality.
In a single volley, two hundred Dal Royal Guards dropped dead.
Then came the second volley, and the third...
The Grey Knights anchored themselves around Paul, forming a steadily expanding ring of purification. They advanced with perfectly synchronized footfalls, their staggered firing rhythms, reloads, targeting, and execution operating like flawlessly engineered clockwork.
The handful of Dal soldiers that miraculously survived the storm of bolter fire and closed into melee range were immediately met with the brutal disruptor fields of Nemesis force halberds or the holy fire of purifying grenades.
This was a dedicated anti-daemon task force executing an overwhelming, asymmetrical slaughter against conventional infantry.
Paul also didn't stop.
He pivoted, throwing a devastating left hook. He used no weapons for this strike—only the sheer, crushing mass of his golden power fist.
Yet, this punch carried the obstacle-shattering authority of his Pioneering trait.
The Dal guard who took the hit felt its breastplate cave inward, right before the armor plating on its back violently exploded outward. The kinetic shockwave punched completely through its body, instantly pulverizing the skeletons of three Dal comrades standing directly behind it.
"Stop him!!!" a Dal commander shrieked, frantically waving its war banners with both arms.
The surviving Royal Guards surged forward like a manic tide. Energy weapons, kinetic firearms, and even specialized capture nets and chains. All available measures were deployed.
But Paul was like a super-dreadnought carving through a tempest. No matter how vicious the storm raged against him, he remained an immovable, unstoppable force.
Every sweep of his axe claimed multiple lives; every piston-driven punch cleared an entire sector.
The occasional stray energy beam that actually managed to strike his armor was instantly deflected by a faint flicker of the Compassion psychic barrier, failing to leave so much as a scratch.
This was no longer a conventional battle.
It was a sheer demonstration. Paul was showing the Dal—and every single xenos on this world that viewed humanity as cattle—exactly what human power looked like.
He was showing them the terrifying, unbridled wrath that erupts when the oppressed finally clench their fists.
In just three short minutes, the four thousand Royal Guards in the central plaza had been slaughtered to less than half their number.
The pavement was thoroughly soaked in a thick quagmire of green blood, and severed limbs were piling up into literal mountains.
Yet, upon Paul's golden Terminator armor, there was not a single scratch.
--
Central Balcony, Royal Court Pyramid.
King Charles of the Dal stared down at the golden figure ravaging his plaza.
This tyrant, who had ruled Planet Dal for over three hundred and twenty years, stood at a staggering four-and-a-half meters tall, easily dwarfing even General Grosh in sheer mass.
He wore a suit of heavy armor woven from black crystalline ore and adamantium. Embedded across the surface of his warplate were hundreds of preserved eyeballs.
Every single one was harvested from the "delicacies" he had personally butchered.
Charles shared the common simian-headed, humanoid physiology of his species, complete with the signature split maw.
But his maw was far more grotesque, tearing all the way back to the base of his ears to expose four rows of jagged, razor-sharp teeth. A sinister, blood-red glint shone deep within his pupils.
The most striking feature was the weapon in his grasp.
It was a colossal chainaxe, over six meters in length. The blade was forged from a pitch-black bio-metal, its serrated teeth rotating at an agonizingly slow crawl with a deep, menacing hum.
Coiled tightly around the weapon's haft were at least twenty human spinal columns, every single vertebra meticulously polished to a shine.
"How... fascinating," Charles rasped, his voice grating like rough sandpaper dragged across rusted iron.
He flicked his tongue out... a bright red, forked appendage completely covered in cruel barbs.
"Over three hundred and twenty years ago, when I was but a mere hatchling, I asked the humans: 'Why are humans the only things we shouldn't eat?'"
"They sat there bickering amongst themselves about fairness, equality, the right to life... How utterly laughable."
Charles turned to look at the four towering Dal bodyguards stationed behind him.
These were his blood brothers. Each had undergone the exact same genetic augmentation processes as he had, granting them extraordinary, terrifying strength.
"Does food have the right to debate fairness with the butcher?"
"Does prey have the right to argue equality with the hunter?"
He sneered, casually setting his current drinking vessel onto a nearby display rack.
The shelf was cluttered with similar morbid trophies: goblets carved from human hand bones, banners stitched from tanned skin, and wind chimes strung with hollowed-out skulls.
"In my eyes, humanity has only ever possessed two true values."
Charles extended his four arms, raising a single finger on each hand.
"One. As food, to fill my belly."
"Two. As toys, to amuse my mind."
"As for this current batch..."
He pointed out the observation deck window—gesturing toward the Dawn Defense Force soldiers engaged in a brutal melee with the Dal armies, and finally, toward that imposing golden figure.
"They are merely fresher ingredients. And... a slightly more durable toy."
Charles's blood-red eyes narrowed, and his split maw stretched to its absolute physical limits, pulling into a genuine, horrifying smile.
"Prepare yourselves."
He rolled his massive shoulders, the muscles shifting beneath his black armor with a sickening series of pops and cracks.
"I will go down there myself..."
Charles paused, his twin eyes locking onto Paul in the plaza far below.
"...and wring that golden human's head from his shoulders."
"Then, I shall fashion a brand-new wine flagon from his skull."
"I will use it to serve a vintage fermented from the blood of the very kin he so desperately tries to protect."
"I imagine the taste will be quite extraordinary."
Behind him, his four blood brothers dropped to their knees in perfect unison, roaring...
"All Hail the Divine Might of King Charles."
It was the highest form of reverence in Dal culture.
"By your command, King Charles," one of the bodyguards said, raising his head, his eyes burning with fanatical worship.
"But these humans have orbital fire support. To descend directly into the fray is too dangerous."
"Should we not deploy the hundred thousand Royal Guards from the lower levels first? Let them grind down his strength..."
"Unnecessary."
Charles cut him off. He clenched all four of his fists simultaneously, and dark red energy veins ignited across the surface of his pitch-black armor.
The power reeked of the Immaterium...
It was glaringly obvious that the King of the Dal had forged a pact with Chaos, though which specific Ruinous Power stood behind him remained unclear.
"I will make all of humanity understand..."
Charles strode toward the balcony's exit, each heavy footfall leaving a deep crater in the adamantium decking.
"...that in the face of absolute power, numbers, tactics, and their so-called 'civilization'..."
"...are nothing more than the futile struggles of prey at the bottom of the food chain."
"And I, Charles Darwin, the Absolute Master of Planet Dal, the Chosen of the Blood God..."
He shoved open the massive alloy doors, revealing the grand spiral staircase leading straight down to the plaza gates at the base of the pyramid. His blood-red eyes glowed from the shadows like twin lanterns from the abyss.
"...am the one true King standing at the absolute apex of that chain."