"No! Let go of me, you damned—curse you!"
Typhus struggled and cursed, but Vulkan's arms were stellar forges, spearing upward.
They punched through the clouds to the edge of atmosphere. On the ground, soldiers looked up to see a second blazing sun.
"Be purified, traitor!" Vulkan pushed his psyker power to the limit. His body swelled again under cosmic kaiju force; cracks in his skin jetted liquid flame.
Fear finally reached Typhus; his regeneration failed under the heat. Armor melted; rotten flesh turned to ash.
The Great Father's blessing seemed unable to withstand the Lord of Fire.
"Father… save me…" His howl cut off—Vulkan flexed and ripped him in two.
Before the halves could fall, a dragon's breath engulfed them, annihilating even the soul.
Vulkan plunged like a fire meteor, detonating among the daemons, scattering them.
"Typhus is dead! Angels of Death—grind them to dust! Destroy the traitors!"
His hammer smashed down; the shockwave pulped hundreds of Plague Marines.
The terror made even Plague Marines hesitate. Was this really a Primarch—or an inexhaustible Titan?
Is this an opponent we can defeat?
"Roar! The Great Father won't fail!" A clutch of Daemon Princes and Great Unclean Ones refused to flee.
A dozen gigantified greater daemons and princes encircled Vulkan, intent on a kill.
"Come together, then—I won't have to hunt you one by one!"
Vulkan's roar boomed. The 70-meter giant strode like a moving volcano.
A plague-greatsword chopped down; Vulkan didn't dodge, letting it bite his flaming shoulder—the blade melted to slag on contact. "Too slow."
He grabbed the daemon's horn and smashed its pustular head into the ground. The earth cracked; magma geysered up and swallowed it.
A Daemon Prince dove from behind, spreading diseased spores from bat-wings. Vulkan's fire-wings swept out, cleaving it in half.
Two more raked his back—only to be blasted away by reactive flame, their arms carbonizing mid-flight.
"The Father's gif—" A charred greater daemon tried to rise; the hammer fell like a meteor into its chest.
Runes flashed like a supernova; it ignited from within, bursting into a storm of sparks.
Burned to nothing in the terrible heat.
"Is that all? Is that the fullness of Nurgle? Answer me, daemon!" Vulkan's voice was a corequake; heat warped the air for kilometers.
Seven remaining greater daemons roared and merged—pus and rot weaving a nauseating meat-mountain.
They combined all power to face the terrifying Primarch.
The fused abomination stood over 200 meters tall. Its belly, a patchwork of anguished faces, split and vomited acid enough to corrode a starship.
Vulkan crossed his arms; a shield of pure kaiju flame condensed around him.
The acid hissed, but couldn't pierce the barrier.
"My turn."
He transmuted the shield into a spear of fire and hurled it through the daemon's belly.
As it screamed, he leapt high, set for a home-run swing.
The hammer fell with unstoppable might—sky-splitting fire erupted. The blast was so bright mortal Astartes couldn't look.
The shockwave swept the field, flinging Nurgle's army across a hundred kilometers. Vulkan pushed his kaiju energy to the edge.
When the glare faded, a sight to remember forever: Vulkan knelt on one knee at the center of a kilometer-wide lava lake. His hammer had melted from overload, but he stood unscathed in the fire.
Worse for the foe, the scattered daemon-soul fragments around him were being burned away by his flames.
The last Daemon Princes tried to rip open Warp-rifts to flee. Vulkan simply raised his left hand—chains of fire snared their ankles.
"Come and go as you please? I think not." The chains snapped tight, dragging them back.
No Daemon Prince or greater daemon would leave alive today. All would die.
"The Emperor's wrath. My wrath. The Imperium's wrath. The wrath of every mortal you butchered—all become flame, now."
A five-hundred-meter pillar of fire shot skyward—kaiju-powered annihilation burning for minutes.
When the light faded, no trace of Nurgle remained—not even tainted soil, now vitrified into pure glass.
"Impossible…" A Death Guard captain fell to his knees, plague rifle slipping from trembling hands.
The scene shattered their last shard of faith—they had watched a single Primarch burn a dozen Nurgle-blessed greater daemons and princes like kindling.
Surviving Death Guard dropped their weapons, keening in despair.
Nurgle's gifts seemed laughable now. Vulkan returned to normal size and faced the traitors.
To everyone's surprise, he didn't execute them on the spot.
He strode forward, each step leaving molten prints in the scorched earth.
"Carry a message to your Chaos masters," he said, voice calm—and more terrifying than his roar. "Tell them the Imperium has awakened. Tell them I will personally purify every world touched by plague. Tell them—prepare for humanity's revenge."
It was the final warning to Chaos—and the most stunning coda to this epic battle.
Vulkan spared only a few Plague Marines to bear the message. All other Nurgle daemons and cultists would die here.
The surviving daemons broke and fled; some leapt into their own Warp rifts. Mefilas, watching, smiled and sealed nearby portals with terrifying telekinesis, trapping them.
What an enjoyable battle—hardly any chance to act; the Lord of Fire was on a rampage.
His display of power even made Mefilas feel dread. Vulkan and the master's fire-aspected kaiju Golza were a perfect match.
Vulkan drew a deep breath; stored kaiju energy became a dragon's breath of annihilating heat, sweeping the field, purging fleeing daemons and corrupt land alike.
Salamanders, Ultramarines, and Space Guard Astartes roared and charged.
The Space Guard picked off runners with precise Peddani beams; Ultramarine vanguards speared through the Death Guard's last line.
Leaderless, the Chaos host collapsed—some burned, some were blown apart.
When the last Great Unclean One turned to charcoal in Vulkan's molten grip, the surviving Death Guard began a full retreat.
The Lord of Fire stood amid a sea of corpses, shrinking to normal size. His breath still shimmered with heat. He told Sicarius, who arrived to link up, "Tell Guilliman: Macragge's sky belongs to mankind again."
The defenders raised power swords to the stars, and a new battle-cry shook the sector:
"Hail the great Lord of Fire and Dragons!"
"Hail the mighty Salamanders!"
"Long live the Imperium!"
Nurgle's hosts were defeated. His plague war had wrought unimaginable disaster early on, but the two plague armies he sent were crushed in under a month.
Dozens of greater daemons and Daemon Princes died outright. The fallen Primarch-turned-Daemon Prince Mortarion was captured alive. Typhus, Nurgle's chosen, was slain by Vulkan.
With their defeat, the God-Plague's virulence waned, though it had not vanished.
On the Kaiju World, at Rhodes's command, a hundred million Imperial laborers worked around the clock to erect a sky-piercing energy amplification spire. Once complete, it would disperse every plague.
…
In the Warp, a pitch-black, winged, crow-feathered figure stood before a palace gate.
"Lorgar! How long will you hide? Come out and face me."