V3 Chapter 10: The Mightiest Daemon of Slaanesh, the Daemon That Hunts Greater Daemons, the Projection of the Monarch of the Hunt
Facing the charge of Slaanesh's Champion, Duvette showed not a trace of fear.
He even allowed himself a slight smile.
Ideaus stood at his side, the Fourth Company captain still gripping his chainsword, his gaze locked on Lucius.
Duvette did not look back.
"I take the lead."
"Support me."
Ideaus had not finished forming a response when Duvette was already moving.
The power sword met the Blade of the Laer.
In the instant the two weapons connected, Lucius felt immediately that something was wrong.
The mortal in front of him was marginally stronger than him.
More strangely, his movements were beginning to slow.
The sensation was wrong in a way he could not place. Lucius was standing in the central hall of the governor's palace, he could hear the gunfire and screaming and armour impacts all around him, and yet his body felt as though it had been dragged into the deep ocean floor.
Pressure closed in from every direction.
His reactions were stretching.
His blade strokes were becoming sluggish.
The Gift of the Ocean was working.
The crushing weight of the Abyss of Ithaka pressed down entirely onto Lucius, and for the first time the Champion of Slaanesh felt his perfect rhythm being forcibly broken from the outside.
Duvette's expression showed nothing.
He struck at Lucius again and again.
Blue disruptive field arcs flashed between them, accelerating with every exchange. The arcs ran along the power sword's edge, compressing the space Lucius had to move in stroke by stroke.
Lucius tried to step back and found that stepping back had also slowed.
He tried to pivot and found Duvette had already closed the route.
Ideaus watched this and could not keep the shock from his face.
Lucius had just taken his arm. He knew from personal experience exactly how dangerous this enemy was. And yet this mortal Commissar was dominating the exchange in a straight fight.
"Why so quiet?" Duvette said, landing another stroke. "Is this your idea of perfect swordsmanship?"
Lucius roared and accelerated his blade.
The Blade of the Laer drove repeatedly at Duvette's guard, but every movement was pulled back by that deep-sea weight. The more urgency he brought to it, the more clearly he could feel himself slowing down.
Duvette continued. "You die to stronger opponents again and again and crawl back each time with your foul master's help."
"What a pitiful hound."
Lucius's face twisted.
He loathed this tone more than anything.
This mortal knew his name. He knew his history. And he was delivering the humiliation with an expression of complete indifference.
"Silence!"
Lucius brought his blade down.
Duvette turned aside and drove the power sword upward from below.
"I have hunted enemies considerably more powerful than you." His voice was quiet. "And you are just another insect that dies on my blade."
The next stroke landed.
Lucius's sword hand was cut away at the wrist.
The Blade of the Laer spun through the air and struck the floor with a sharp, clear sound.
The Emperor's Children around them surged.
Several blade champions moved to press forward and take up the fight against this strange mortal in their master's place. They had barely taken a step when thirteen Black Shields were already in front of them.
Markus stood at the front.
These black-armoured Shadow Wolves looked at the Emperor's Children before them. The silence lasted only an instant.
Then the fury broke from them.
These were the old enemy. Looking at them brought back the Horus Heresy, the betrayal, and the truth buried under ten thousand years that they had only learned at the end.
Duvette's abilities were still running through them.
The skills had pushed their strength to an extreme threshold. In this moment, the thirteen Black Shields radiated a pressure approaching that of the Adeptus Custodes.
A warped Emperor's Children warrior swung his blade and charged.
Markus raised his shield to meet it.
The shield face came down. The force drove through the power armour. The warrior's upper body and armour collapsed together, the remains flying into the side gallery.
The Black Shields did not stop.
They drove into the main body of the Emperor's Children, howling "Traitor," throwing the crimes and the betrayal of the old Legion back at them.
The Emperor's Children tried to answer with blade-craft and speed.
They found quickly that the black-armoured warriors in front of them were heavier, more savage, and considerably more familiar with the kind of fighting the Legions had done than they had anticipated.
One traitor after another was torn apart.
The space around Duvette went quiet again.
Lucius had lost his sword hand. The fury on his face had not gone. He stumbled back, the Lash of Torment lashing wildly at his side, until Duvette's blade cut through one of its lengths.
Duvette walked toward him step by step.
Lucius suddenly threw his head back and laughed.
The sound was sharp and forced, carrying contempt that was being held together with difficulty.
"Killing me will be the decision you regret most." He raised his pale face. "Come then, I—"
The sentence did not finish. Duvette was already inside his reach.
The power sword moved.
Lucius's head left his body and came to rest on the blood-soaked floor.
The ruined body swayed, then fell.
Duvette looked at the corpse with narrowed eyes.
A short, contemptuous sound.
"Try to possess me if you can."
"I would like to see whether you can manage it, even with your master's help."
He turned away.
"Anderson."
Anderson stepped forward.
"Promethium flamer. Burn the body clean."
"Yes, my lord."
The flames took Lucius's remains quickly.
The fighting in the hall was approaching its end.
Faced with elite mortal troops who vastly outnumbered them, and with thirteen Black Shields in the engagement, the remaining Emperor's Children could only be hunted down one by one in their futile roaring.
The 112th secured the governor's palace's outer corridors, side galleries, and hall entrances in rapid succession.
Inside the central engagement area, the Second Assault Regiment's vanguard and the Black Shield Squad continued pushing forward. The traitor Astartes were compressed into a handful of corners and then cleared by heavy weapons and close-quarters execution.
Duvette walked to Ideaus.
The Ultramarines captain looked at him with an expression that carried a great deal in it.
His severed arm had been sealed. With his helmet removed, the shock of what he had just watched was still visible on his face.
"Once the enemy here is finished."
Duvette said.
"It would be best to have the fleet level this place directly."
He looked at the contaminated hall around him.
"This is a pollution source."
Ideaus was about to respond.
At that moment Duvette felt something.
He spun and looked toward the city wall.
The tactical channel erupted with urgent transmissions from multiple units simultaneously.
"Fourth tower element—contact lost!"
"Psychic detonation at the tower line!"
"Fourth tower clearance squad—no response!"
"Central plaza—anomaly—civilians are losing control!"
The channel was full of noise.
A moment later, more reports flooded in.
The towers on the city wall had erupted with a psychic energy signature of terrifying intensity. The Mordian Iron Guard units clearing the towers went dark immediately, the last footage transmitted showing only distorted light.
In the plaza, the civilians in temporary shelter had begun to wail.
They twisted on the ground in agony, clawing at their own faces, calling out the names of people already dead. The resistance remnants were also losing cohesion: some falling to their knees in prayer, others raising weapons toward their own.
The Salamanders reacted then.
But the moment had passed.
Harath Shen's voice came through the channel, deep and restrained.
"Duvette. You were right. The plaza is gone."
In Duvette's field of vision, six markers blazed into existence that made every red marker at the governor's palace look pale by comparison.
The six markers were positioned at the six points of the hexagonal city wall.
The contamination reading was approaching black.
Duvette's expression changed.
He finally understood. He had been drawn to the wrong place.
Lucius was not the architect of any of this.
Or rather: he had only ever been the bait.
That man had drawn all attention toward the governor's palace—made the Ultramarines, Tigurius, the Black Shields, and Duvette himself conclude that this was where the core of the problem lay.
The true contamination source was the six towers.
The civilians showing red had not been without purpose either.
They and the fanatical rebels had been doing the same thing from the beginning: providing an unbroken supply of extreme emotion.
The grief of losing family.
The despair of facing death.
The hope of rescue arriving.
The deeper despair when that hope was taken away.
Every extremity of feeling in this place had been collected. The governor's palace gathered it; the six towers were where it was distributed and concentrated. The moment Lucius had drawn the Imperium's finest into the governor's palace and held them there, the six towers truly activated.
Ideaus did not have Eye of Judgement.
But even without a red luminescence warning, he knew in this moment that something catastrophic had arrived.
Tigurius stood on the far side of the hall, his expression dark as he looked toward the city wall.
"We were deceived." The Chief Librarian's voice was quiet. "The true horror is now arriving."
"It is the mightiest hunter of the Hungry Lady!"
A voice carrying real fear sounded at the hall entrance.
Sylandri came running in.
Her hood was off. Her Aeldari features were visible to everyone in the room. Yvraine came in behind her, one hand already on her weapon.
"Eldar!"
Ultramarines whose nerves were already drawn tight turned toward them immediately.
Several boltguns came up.
Ideaus raised his weapon as well, despite having only one hand left.
Duvette was about to speak.
A voice sounded simultaneously in the minds of everyone present.
It carried pleasure, malice, and the weight of a verdict being delivered.
[Shalaxi Helbane. The Great Calamity. The Great Hunting Shadow. The Hunting Spear of the Prince of Pleasure. The most perfect Hunter. Pursuer of the Shadow of the Bride of Death. It descends. It will tear apart false courage. It will hunt the one named Yvraine, the fugitive. It will break the one named Duvette, the defiler. It will offer all their struggles to the Prince of Pleasure.]
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