The webway portal shuddered under the combined will of Shawn, Valen, and the shipboard psykers. Even the Custodes surrounding the breach felt the psychic pressure warp and twist the air.
"Hold it!" Valen barked, his voice laced with both psychic command and the steady burn of his newly mastered Haki. The air was thick with ozone as the veil between realspace and the twisted city of Commorragh split like torn flesh.
Shawn stepped forward, towering now over nearly every warrior present. His Primarch-forged body radiated power, the liquid Haki coiling around him like black, molten armor. In his hands, the air shimmered as Spirit Projection formed into a massive, jagged blade — not elegant, but forged from pure will, hunger for battle, and the raw need to protect.
Beside him, Captain-General Constantin Valdor lowered his spear, golden armor darkened with streaks of Armament Haki. His Conqueror's Haki rolled outward like a tidal wave, battering the morale of every Dark Eldar unfortunate enough to be on the other side of the breach.
"You're sure you want me with you?" Valdor's voice was quiet, a soldier's calm before the slaughter.
"I want them to see exactly what's coming for the galaxy," Shawn said. His voice carried no humor — only the weight of absolute intent.
The breach widened, and the stench of Commorragh hit them — perfumed death, blood, and the faint psychic wail of unending suffering. Observation Haki swept over Shawn's senses, mapping the labyrinthine sprawl instantly. Slave pits. Gladiator arenas. Torture chambers. Thousands of human life signatures, each flickering with fear and pain.
And then he saw it.
A pit — miles wide — filled with human captives, chained, branded, and broken. Some were no older than children.
The world fell silent inside Shawn's head.
Valen glanced at him. "You saw it."
"I saw it," Shawn growled, voice low and sharp enough to cut steel. Liquid Haki boiled from his shoulders, spiraling down his arms into his blade. "We clear it all."
The Invasion Begins
The first strike was surgical. Custodes kill-teams swept into Commorragh's outer districts, cutting through Kabalite warriors like fire through dry leaves. Grey Knights advanced behind them, warp-light and Armament Haki mingling in devastating blasts that tore through the alien architecture.
Shawn didn't lead from the rear. He was in the center of it all — a storm that walked. Every swing of his projected blade shattered armor and bone, every pulse of his Conqueror's Haki sending scores of enemies crumpling in unconscious heaps.
Valdor fought differently. Where Shawn was a relentless tide, Valdor was a scalpel of destruction — precise, untouchable, his Guardian Spear ending lives before his enemies even realized they had been struck. But together, they were something else entirely. Two storms colliding in purpose.
Slave Pits
They reached the first pit faster than expected. Shawn dropped into the arena before the Dark Eldar slavers even realized what had happened. His Observation Haki painted every chain, every lock, every trembling captive in his mind.
"Get them out," he ordered.
Valen nodded, unleashing a wave of psychic power so finely controlled it split locks without harming the prisoners. Grey Knights moved in, shields raised, leading the freed humans toward extraction points.
One slaver screamed something in its alien tongue and lunged toward a child.
Shawn didn't walk — he appeared. His Spirit Projection flared into a gauntlet that crushed the Dark Eldar's skull in one motion. The captive child stared up at him, wide-eyed, until one of the Salamanders gently lifted them away.
"Not one more," Shawn whispered, almost to himself.
Commorragh Burns
As the hours bled together, Commorragh became a warzone unlike anything in recent memory. Observation Haki-guided artillery strikes shattered spire after spire. Armament-clad Custodes crashed through enemy gates. Conqueror's shockwaves dropped entire enemy formations before a blade was even swung.
But the Dark Eldar were predators — and predators fought hardest when cornered. Wych cults descended in acrobatic swarms, Scourges rained fire from above, and Haemonculi unleashed abominations from hidden vaults.
It didn't matter.
Shawn's blade became a living thing, shifting from sword to warhammer to spear with every breath, his stamina fueled by his Primarch-forged body. Valdor matched him blow for blow, their combined Conqueror's Haki blanketing the district in unbreakable will.
Still, it was Valen who made the difference. Every time the webway trembled under Dark Eldar counter-assaults, his psyker-Haki fusion stabilized it, holding open the escape routes for thousands of freed slaves.
The Rampage's End
When the last spire collapsed, when the last pit was emptied, Shawn stood atop the shattered gates of one of Commorragh's grand arenas. His armor was scorched, his Haki flaring wild and untamed around him. Below, Custodes, Grey Knights, Salamanders, and mortals stood among tens of thousands of rescued humans.
He looked over the ruins. The Dark Eldar hadn't been destroyed — Commorragh was too vast, too hidden for a single raid to annihilate — but this wound would never heal.
Valdor joined him, helmet under his arm. "You've made enemies today," he said.
"I've always had enemies," Shawn replied, his voice steady. "Now they know why they should fear me."