My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 400: The Crusade of Steel (Part 2)
Across the smoke-choked wasteland, the airwaves boiled, and faintly, something like a dragon's roar tore through the raging wind.
Stormbirds weaved through the storm clouds. Looking down from above, one could see silvery webs spreading densely across the red-brown plains—metal crawling over ochre soil as emerald lightning leapt skyward.
"Praise Hades!!!"
Engines thundered as iron cavalry charged straight into the enemy ranks. Machines crackling with pale-green lightning slammed headlong into flesh-and-metal abominations wrapped in hateful arcs of energy, and titanic detonations erupted.
Shouting litanies, Archmagos brought down the Omnisian axe upon the foe. Bloated, razor-edged lower limbs like those of a crawling insect impaled the enemy. Torn crimson robes were shredded into blood amid writhing joints.
"Heretic!!!"
The Archmagos cried out, striking again at the pinned flesh-machine construct. The blow split the creature's skull. The imprisoned daemon shrieked—its vocalizers shattered—as cable-worms of twisted metal burst from the daemon's body and lunged toward her—
Brilliant green light flooded the battlefield, illuminating her face twisted in revulsion. The stench of burning filled the air as the cables fell lifelessly to the ground.
A massive impact shook the earth. An Iron Warrior charged toward the Magos, who was still examining the enemy's ruined body. In the next instant, a warhammer flew from behind her amid gunfire. An Iron Father surged forward, hammer raised, smashing into the attacking Iron Warrior.
The Archmagos jolted in alarm and instantly swung her guns toward the next enemy.
In the distance, ancient and blasphemous chants rose—numbers interwoven with symbols, the fury of machines given voice. Vashtorr spread its wings and ascended into the sky. Every cable writhed like a living thing, bared and snarling. It stood upon a horizon lit by hellfire, calling out loudly to its followers.
Flames ignited beneath its feet, slithering like venomous serpents into the formations below. The forge-fires of the Creator blazed upon every Iron Warrior and every abominable construct. Metal cables reared up, splitting open like fanged maws.
Soldiers roared and howled as they charged the enemy, the flames upon them surging forward alongside their advance.
Fire that scorched the heavens illuminated every Iron Warrior locked in combat with the Iron Hands. Twisted, infernal flames burned with hateful intensity.
And on a far, distant shore—
The land lay silent beneath a pall of darkness. Absolute blackness and stillness descended. From time to time, emerald lightning exploded outward, and for a fleeting instant, living beings glimpsed a strange metallic monument slowly rising on the horizon.
Within the darkness, faint points of silver glimmered like stars in the night.
A profound, bone-deep cold flickered within the eyes of every Iron Warrior. Their pupils were pitch-black.
In the rolling, ink-dark River of the Underworld, pinpricks of starlight flared—souls' final moments of brightness. The light burst forth, then sank once more into the churning river, falling into eternal sleep.
Blasphemous flames were extinguished within those waters as well, ending in screams torn from collapsing throats.
Hades drew a deep breath. He hovered in midair, a faint, pure-white radiance illuminating his face. He heard every prayer. The airwaves became tangible, flowing before him like trembling strings of a lyre.
The wind screamed past his ears. It felt not as though he were moving, but as though space itself were rapidly contracting.
Hades remained expressionless—closer now, closer still.
Reflected in his eyes were the two figures locked in combat, and the swelling mechanical monstrosity nearby.
Perturabo blinked uncomfortably, trying to shake off the soul-shuddering cold. He clenched his teeth, blood seeping from between them.
The descending Forgebreaker suddenly filled his vision!
Clang!
Sparks exploded. Ferrus immediately raised the hammer again and struck. Hellfire roared behind Perturabo, the stench stabbing into the nostrils of the Lord of Medusa.
The two Primarchs grappled at unimaginable speed, their forms blurring into afterimages, like twin banks of gray mist racing across the air.
Vashtorr murmured softly. It raised its artisan's hammer, blade-tipped fingers pointing toward the site of the Primarchs' duel.
Behind Perturabo, concealed metal spikes shot forward like venomous serpents, surging toward Ferrus—each spike shimmering with armor-piercing toxic light—
Hades shouted sharply. He thrust his hand upward, palm open. Lightning gathered in his grasp.
Clench
Emerald arcs detonated like brilliant fireworks. Across Ferrus's Terminator armor—entangled with silver filaments—green thunder roared forth like a dragon, slamming straight into the onrushing spikes.
In a split second, spikes met lightning. The blades of the Lord of Medusa and the Lord of Iron collided once more. In that flash of sparks, Ferrus curled his lips into a mocking smile, veins bulging as he locked eyes with Perturabo—
Clang!!!
Perturabo's arm went numb. Forgebreaker came crashing straight down. Perturabo twisted aside in haste, the hammer skimming past his flank. Gritting his teeth, eyes blazing, he clenched his fist and smashed it toward Ferrus's breastplate!
Flames surged up his gauntlet, carrying a dizzying, nauseating stench.
Around Ferrus, countless tiny silver levitating droplets converged,扑向 the raging fire.
Blood spilled from the corner of Hades's mouth—too far, still too far!
The iron fist shattered Ferrus's guard. He coughed hard, but the Lord of Medusa did not retreat. He took the blow head-on, then used the closing distance to hook Forgebreaker against Perturabo's weapon. After a shriek of tortured metal, hammer and blade fell together to the ground.
Ferrus raised his iron hand. Rippling silver light flared as he charged straight at Perturabo!
Vashtorr called out, its hoarse voice like the roar of a factory—
+Believers, return to the embrace of the Machine God! Accept the breath of machinery!!!+
Within the illusory tides, colossal metal behemoths rumbled into motion. Faith—faith in the tireless pursuit of the mechanical path, the path of the artificer!
Research. Design. Forge.
The demigod was gathering its authority—this was its function. No being who devoted itself to the Machine God's path could escape!
The Magos screamed in agony, yet not one retreated. They would rather ignite their self-destruction protocols, push their engines to maximum output.
The Iron Hands, too, stiffened for a moment. The mechanical augmetics within them grew hot, scorching in time with their heartbeats.
The title of the Lord of the Underworld felt like a final thread of hope. Some even trembled as they abandoned praise of the Omnissiah, turning instead toward the throne of the Lord of the Underworld.
Pale-green lightning surged upward, carrying absolute, ice-cold rationality. It cooled souls boiling with Warp corruption, dancing alongside crimson flames.
Hades!
Hades!!!
Living beings cried out.
Va. Sh. Torr.
Hades silently repeated the name. He felt the symphony of mechanical rhythm—this was not something Warp-chaos could ever control. This was perfect harmony, belonging to physics itself! The aesthetics of the universe's truth! Not the hollow, idealist illusion of some Warp-born creature!
The truth of the physical universe belonged to humanity!
Hades exhaled a breath thick with blood. The space around him began to subtly distort.
On a battlefield vastly greater and more eternal, stardust of concepts gathered and scattered. Turbulence curled and unfurled like water in a lake, as the radiance named [Machinery] and [Rationality] slowly flowed into a bottomless abyss of origin.
No—no!!! Vashtorr screamed. That monster did not even know how to wield these forces—it was nothing but a greedy, ignorant glutton!
The glutton Lord of the Underworld drew a deep breath. A twisted smile crept across his lips. Blood transformed into silvery liquid metal, white silver sheathing his body. He felt the authority of the Void Dragon stirring within him, memories of observing—of holding—the Nightbringer surfacing from the past.
The River of the Underworld roared and surged.
Black water dripped down.
Vashtorr subconsciously touched its own face. For a dazed instant, it saw its hand covered in murky black filth.
But in the next moment, only its own hellfire flickered at its fingertips.
Vashtorr shook its head violently, forcing its thoughts back onto the battlefield. Ferrus and Perturabo were still locked in inseparable combat, but Vashtorr knew Perturabo needed only the slightest push.
Out of the corner of its eye, it caught sight of the approaching, terrifying silhouette. Darkness swallowed everything. No, not yet, Vashtorr thought. This was intimidation; the real distance was still there.
A blasphemous steel colossus rose in the far rear of the Iron Warriors' lines. The Word Bearers began to chant. Vashtorr swung its staff again. Around Ferrus and Perturabo, space twisted, explosive psychic energy gathering as if it might detonate at any second.
Vashtorr opened its mouth, ready to chant—
Hades raised his hand. Too late. There was no time. He needed to be closer—closer!!!
Silver gathered in his palm. Lightning swept his disheveled hair aside—
Whoosh!!!
A silver arc tore across ten thousand miles!
A spear formed of cascading silver metal pierced the iron body. Time itself seemed to freeze. Vashtorr spread its steel wings wide, its body shuddering awkwardly in midair. A single lance had punched through its collarbone and burst out beneath its hip.
The vigorous lightning clinging to it had only just faded.
+Lo—+
Vashtorr's scream jammed in its throat. The space around it detonated violently, darkness swallowing everything in an instant. The deafening crash of a massive impact echoed clearly across the entire battlefield!!!
In that moment—save for the two Primarchs—everyone, every mortal, every daemon, froze for a heartbeat. A suffocating, world-engulfing tide surged through the sea of souls. All living beings trembled where they stood, gasping desperately for air, their gazes drawn toward the horizon—
Boom!!!
Mountainous smoke erupted at the skyline as something utterly inconceivable slammed into the earth.
Vashtorr let out a choking, rattling death-sound. Its hideous head was pinned to the ground beneath an immense weight. A claw—already grotesque beyond comprehension—was clamped mercilessly around its throat.
Crack. Crack
The faint sound of something breaking rang out.
A drop of silver-white liquid mixed with blood fell onto Vashtorr's face, sliding down its coarse features.
Vashtorr stared in disbelief at the face shrouded in darkness above it. Its pupils trembled, growing weaker by the second.
That inhuman gaze was fixed upon it.
Blood sprayed from Hades's mouth. Countless lightning-black fissures crawled across his face, sliding down his neck and vanishing beneath the Terminator armor encasing his body.
The wounds left by forcibly tearing through space looked as if they had been seared dry by thunder, leaving behind pure black voids—flat, abyssal planes.
And yet they also resembled the dents of a vessel on the verge of rupture. Something far more terrifying, far darker, was peeking out from within the shell named "Hades," gazing coldly and without emotion at the Vashtorr pinned beneath him.
In that instant, Vashtorr was certain that the monster crushing it had lost every last shred of reason. This was the inevitable price of learning how to break through space itself.
Power had stripped it of sanity.
Or perhaps it had been reduced to nothing but its purest cruelty, its most essential nature.
"Why aren't you dead yet?"
A low murmur escaped, as if spoken to itself. The red light stared at Vashtorr, even glancing down at its own hand in confusion, as though the situation violated some deeply ingrained certainty etched into its very bones.
Vashtorr choked, gasping. The fragment of godhood it had forcibly seized was rapidly dissipating. No—no…
Its mechanical secondary limbs thrashed against the ground like a dying fish beating upon the shore. Black tides washed over the land as it was pinned at the very brink of death by the most dreadful monster imaginable.
+…Lo…gar.+ Vashtorr called out.
Far away, Ingethel suddenly hurled blood onto a ritual array. After a long silence, Lorgar pulled down the lever in his hand—
Above Cadia, the blackstone pylons erupted into violent resonance. Four colors flared at their spires, radiating manic madness!
Across the wasteland, every blackstone pylon began to tremble. A profound resonance rose from deep within the earth, and countless arcs of lightning coiled around each towering spire.
Within the Iron Hands' zone of operations, beneath a blackstone tower shrouded in hazy black mist, the Blanks guarding it suddenly spat blood. Blood poured from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth as they trembled and slowly collapsed to their knees.
"No… no…"
One male Blank lay helpless on the ground, brown eyes fixed in despair on the tower as it reversed its polarity on its own. He crawled slowly toward the blackstone pylon's control console, only to watch futilely as it all unfolded.
"…Lord of the Underworld."
A mocking sound exploded beside his ear. The Blank's head dropped forward—and never rose again.
Similar scenes played out beneath countless towers. Psychic energy gathered ever more violently, carrying the power to overturn the entire galaxy. A vast psychic storm—like a tide blotting out the heavens—howled as it surged toward the frontline where the two armies clashed—
Straddling Vashtorr's body, Hades let out a piercing scream. Suppressed by Hades's black domain and unable to move, Vashtorr bore witness to everything—
Why didn't he try to protect himself?!
Time was the most precious thing of all. The dark cloak woven from the black domain behind the Lord of the Underworld suddenly unfurled—blackness spreading as silver-white blood dripped steadily down. Hades roared, and the darkness expanded violently—tenfold, a hundredfold!!!
Yet its depth did not diminish in the slightest.
The River of the Underworld boiled. From the Lord of the Underworld's embrace came a force that wrapped itself around every loyal human soul. The Magos trembled as they fell to their knees, immersing themselves in this supreme, silent river, praying as though offering up their very souls for the safety of their god.
The Iron Hands stared in stunned disbelief. They did not understand what was happening, yet every one of them heard the sound of dripping blood beside their ears. Their souls trembled from the depths of their being, and instinctively—faithfully—they paid homage to that towering presence.
But such fragile faith was utterly insufficient to withstand the titanic waves surging from the Warp!!!
As if sensing the painful struggle of the entity called [Hades], Ferrus—still locked in battle amid the howling storm—let his focus slip for the briefest instant. Bloodlust ignited in Perturabo's eyes. Beneath the shriek of psychic power, the light within his gaze burned ever brighter—
Perturabo struck violently. Blood sprayed everywhere. Ferrus let out a scream like a wounded, caged beast—
The psychic tsunami crashed down. Vashtorr's chest heaved violently, as though it had only just learned how to breathe. Power surged once more from the prison where the black domain had suppressed it. It crawled and struggled, dragging itself away from that monster on the ground—
It succeeded!
In the corner of Vashtorr's vision, the existence called [Hades] looked as though it were dead. He knelt there blankly, staring at the feast prepared for him.
Like an ancient, weathered statue, the skin peeled away from Hades's face. Cracks spread with sharp, cracking sounds, revealing a pitch-black substrate beneath.
Hades seemed truly dead.
In the deathly silence, Vashtorr let out an incredulous laugh. Shaken to its core, it seemed unable to fully grasp what was happening.
Yet the Lord of the Forge could feel godhood beginning to reassemble—the fragments the Lord of the Underworld had tried to steal.
Faith no longer worked, did it?
Vashtorr thought. A god abandoned by faith could no longer wield the black domain. That meant Hades was finished!
It stared toward him—
At Hades's feet, silvery liquid metal shimmered and surged. After Hades released the black domain, those silver and emerald forces gathered once more beneath him.
Silver climbed upward, coating the body where blackness and blood-red intertwined. Pale-green lightning flared to life—
A tidal wave rose to blot out the sky. Within the vast surge, the silhouette of a dragon ascended.
An aspect of the Void Dragon descended into the world.
People raised their heads in disbelief, staring at the sky. Within the nearly solidified ocean of chromatic psychic energy, a silver god rose from the earth, anchoring the final remnant of physical purity in this region.
The dragon screamed as it hurled itself toward Vashtorr.
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