News of Mortarion captured alive reached Macragge, under attack by Chaos fleets, and massively boosted the defenders' morale.
"Glory to the Lord Commander of the Imperium!"
"Glory to the Imperial Heir Apparent!"
"A noble and great victory! The daemon traitor is defeated—taken alive!"
"We push harder! Warriors, annihilate the daemons, retake our home, purge the scum!" Vulkan, the Lord of Fire and Dragons, raised his massive thunder hammer and roared.
Empowered by cosmic kaiju energy, the Lord of Fire became a giant nearly 70 meters tall.
He swung his hammer, clashing with an upgraded Great Unclean One.
A swollen mass of meat, oozing acids—a nauseating monster a hundred meters tall, a moving mountain of flesh, drooling thick green fluid that infected and corroded the land. Only a gigantified Primarch like Vulkan would face such a foe.
"Roooar! The Great Father blesses you! Receive His gifts! All of you will be blessed!" the bloated green giant bellowed.
Behind it, countless Nurgle daemons, Death Guard Chaos Marines, and fallen cultists raised their weapons high, cheering for their Great Father's gifts.
"But not today, monster. Today you die by my hand," Vulkan roared.
His roar turned into a Warp shockwave, detonating in the skies above Macragge. The 70-meter giant flared with molten crimson light.
He stepped forward; under cosmic kaiju power the ground became boiling steel. The Great Unclean One's feet sank into the searing trap.
"For the Emperor!" The Lord of Fire's hammer descended like a star aflame.
The daemon tried to parry with a corroded scythe, but the ancient Salamanders runes on the hammer-face burned through the weapon on contact.
With sickening pops of bursting fat, the hammer punched through the daemon's rancid gut; the pus-blood vaporized into a reeking emerald haze before it could spray.
The swollen colossus staggered back, watching in shock as its wound failed to regenerate—seared by eternal fire—howling in agony.
"Impossible! The Father's gifts… will never—" Its wail was cut off.
Vulkan's titanic hand clamped its putrid head like iron tongs of magma. "Your 'Father' can't save you."
His voice rumbled like a volcano on the brink. Fingers tightened; the bloated skull warped in the heat, pus and rot hissing into steam.
It thrashed, tendrils trying to wrap Vulkan's arms, but the corrupt flesh ignited to ash the instant it touched him.
"Now, to ash."
White light flared in Vulkan's eyes. He raised the hammer again, the head gathering flame enough to scour stars.
Boom!
The hammer fell. Blinding fire swallowed the field.
The Great Unclean One's body exploded into quarters; every flying chunk of meat burned to nothing midair, not a scrap left.
The shockwave swept the battlefield, flinging back Nurgle daemons and Plague Marines, their bodies twisting in the heat and crumbling to dust.
Gigantified, Vulkan's might was unimaginable, making the Chaos host falter.
Cosmic kaiju power fused with his Unkillable nature, plus awakened Warp essence—his strength multiplied dozens of times.
Endless flame poured from him, a vengeful inferno scorching the Nurgle host.
"Now!" At his roar, Salamanders ships in orbit unleashed firebombardments.
They swallowed the Death Guard's plague phalanxes. The Ultramarines counterattacked; Cato Sicarius led vanguard units like a silver-blue lightning bolt through daemon lines.
Rhodes's reinforcements—the Space Guard legionaries—entered the fray, charging under Vice-Commander Tyberos.
When the surviving daemons tried to reform, the sky turned dark red.
Vulkan sneered. Fiery wings unfurled behind him; he became a blazing comet plunging into the enemy.
He seized the largest plague-drake's jaw in midair; muscles fueled by psyker might tore the daemon in half. Its guts rained down upon the fleeing Plague Marines.
On the ground, Salamanders Terminators in Purifier flame-tanks crushed the scattering cultists.
Each exhaust spat white-hot fire blessed by Vulkan, burning Nurgle's gardens to ash.
The Ultramarines' strike cruiser Pride of Macragge, with new macro-plasma batteries, vaporized plague ships attempting landings in low orbit.
"Salamanders—forward!" Vulkan's roar shook the earth, wreathed in soul-searing flame.
His sons charged, lava-weapons ripping fire-walls through the foe.
Ultramarines followed—bolters thundered, power swords flashed, weaving a net of death.
Rhodes's gene-sons fired pale-blue Peddani beams, deleting daemons one by one.
Then, behind the collapsing Chaos line, a Warp rift yawned open—Typhus, Lord of Contagion and new Death Guard Primarch-in-all-but-name, appeared.
He arrived with the Death Guard elite—his corroded Terminator plate crawling with maggots; his manreaper dripped universal solvent.
"Vulkan! Your fire will gutter out, but the Father's plagues endure forever!
I'll slay you here, as I defeated Mortarion. The era of Primarchs is over; ours has begun!"
Typhus howled, scythe cleaving for the Primarch.
Vulkan sneered. Hammer met scythe; the shock shattered a hundred meters of ground.
"Your master is captured alive. You're next—cinders," he said, striking harder, each blow fury to burn worlds.
"Arrogant maggot!" Vulkan's roar tore a burning gash in the Warp. Hammer met scythe; the blast vitrified the soil for hundreds of meters. The heat could melt anything.
Flame-Golza is the perfect cosmic kaiju for the Lord of Fire. After conversion to cosmic kaiju…
Golza's heat, tempered by stellar energy, is lethal to approach—even for Astartes.
Typhus's armor warped; maggots popped like blisters—but his laugh stayed raspy.
"You cannot burn away the Father's gifts! He shields me!"
He poured plague-fog from his scythe to corrode Vulkan's weapon.
But the hammer, reforged by cosmic kaiju power, would not decay—the Salamanders runes flashed; the fog burned to nullity before it neared. Vulkan seized the opening and uppercut his jaw.
"This one's for the Imperium you betrayed!" The Primarch's fist was a stellar core. Typhus's helmet shattered; his rotted face carbonized and sloughed off to bone.
Nurgle's blessing forced his flesh to knit, fibers writhing like worms.
"Useless, Vulkan! I've transcended life and death—" He slashed, the blade scoring Vulkan's pauldron, leaving a green-smoking scar.
A heartbeat later, Vulkan's Unkillable trait surged; the wound sealed in flame.
"Let's see whether your pestilence is tougher—or my wrath eternal!" Don't think only you regenerate. Learn what the Unkillable can do.
I'm the most durable Primarch; after fusing with cosmic kaiju, even more so.
Vulkan suddenly dropped the hammer, seized Typhus's shoulders with molten-iron hands, and ignited him from within with white-hot purging fire.
Typhus shrieked inhumanly, viscera boiling, maggots bursting in his veins—yet Nurgle's blessing kept him writhing.
"I told you—you can't burn me!" He snapped his jaw down and vomited a concentrated plague torrent at Vulkan's face.
At the last instant, golden light flared in Vulkan's eyes; a kaiju-forged firewall appeared and vaporized the toxin.
"Your tricks end now."
His back flared; wings of pure flame opened. He became a burning meteor, driving Typhus into the sky.
Fused with cosmic kaiju, he could easily reach space. This time he would end the so-called new legion master.
A head-on blow to Nurgle for all the mortals slain by the God-Plague—the Salamanders' wrath.