Chapter 313: The Brainless and the Unhappy
Eye of Terror, Daemon Forge World Midgard, The Blood Wastes
8th Day, 8th Month, 8:08 PM
The Butcher's Nails were singing low in Angron's skull.
The ancient torture device bored into his brain matter like a red-hot auger, deeper and hotter with every passing second. Flames of pure rage erupted from Angron's sockets, his eyes running with liquid fire as he locked his gaze dead ahead.
Locked onto the Titan forged of iron and silver standing before him.
The Titan wielded a thunder hammer, surrounded by his iron-circle automata like devotees guarding a god-king.
His brother was exactly the same as he had always been.
Perturabo, Primarch of the Fourth Legion. So immersed in his work, single-minded, focused, diligent. Analyzing data, extracting information, making decisions, completing objectives step by step.
Shells struck flesh, bouncing off like rubber rounds hitting steel.
The stinging pain in his skull escalated, stimulating the areas under attack. Angron swung his axe mechanically, his attention drifting to the void, sinking into memories of the past.
Vaguely, Angron recalled a being who resembled him but was weaker.
Lorgar.
That weakling brother, the Arch-Word Bearer who couldn't even sense Corax's shadow-strike like the other Primarchs.
In a fragment of memory, Lorgar had once solemnly declared:
"Demigods like us can tame any pain..."
"Endure it long enough, and the Butcher's Nails will become a source of strength..."
Endure the pain long enough, and it becomes power to be used.
The thought made Angron snort a blast of scorching breath, making no effort to hide his contempt for his brother.
Lorgar's promise now sounded like nothing more than a well-fed slave master throwing a bare bone to a starving dog.
The eternal agony of the Nails had made him neither stronger nor weaker.
His strength came only from the fact that he was Angron.
That was all.
His blood-drenched head slowly lifted, his furious gaze piercing beyond the warp rift to the glittering galaxy outside.
Those cold points of light filled him with loathing.
They were sickeningly pure. They would never know the taste of nerves being cauterized. They were even granted the mercy of death.
Even if it came millions, or billions of years later, it was better than this eternal torture.
Such stars had hung over countless battlefields in his memory.
High above, like nobles in the private boxes of the Nucerian arena, looking down to enjoy the screams of the gladiators.
CLANG!
The clash of weapons rang out across the wasteland.
Angron's gaze collided with Perturabo's pitch-black eyes.
No fear. Only contempt.
He wasn't looking at a brother Primarch of equal standing; he was looking at a rabid beast.
Just like ten thousand years ago.
But now, the Lord of Iron was too stingy to even grant him the insult of "slave." He disdained to speak to his brother at all.
Perhaps the word had simply become a statement of fact.
The Iron Circle automata, forged by the powers of Chaos, surged forward like a tide, each one executing the Iron Lord's will with precision.
Cannons laid down a suppression barrage; hydraulic arms swung weapons.
In the calculated gap created by the machines, the hammer Forgebreaker descended in a perfect parabolic arc toward the Daemon Primarch.
Angron did not dodge.
He charged forward against the lash of weapons, the throbbing Nails atop his head painting his vision blood-red.
BOOM!
The hammer struck his brass breastplate dead center. The explosive shockwave pulverized the solidified lava for a hundred meters around.
Perturabo opened the distance appropriately. The scattered Iron Circle immediately reformed their formation and began to close in.
Then came the chains and blades, winding around him.
Perturabo had learned his lesson from ten thousand years ago. He knew that firepower was significantly less effective against a Khornate daemon.
So the Lord of Iron chose a method that was more classical, more cruel, and more acceptable to the Blood God.
SQUELCH!
Sharp barbs dug deep into flesh, arresting regeneration. The daemon-forges within the Iron Circle roared as the chains tightened inch by inch.
Blood ran down the links.
Perturabo side-stepped a slash that had been slowed by the binding chains with precision, then swung his hammer down onto Angron's skull.
Blood sprayed.
In ancient Terra, strong men would wield weapons and ropes to hunt beasts they could use. They would leash the beast, then stab it with blades, cutting its skin to weaken it, to make it fear them, until even the most untamable monster learned to tremble under the lash and serve humanity.
Just like those ancient hunters, Perturabo was taming a beast.
He hammered methodically, cold and arrogant.
"Arrogance..."
Angron's roar burst from between his teeth.
This roar carried ten thousand years of pent-up resentment, like lava spewing from a volcano, tearing crimson ripples in the void.
Perturabo's Iron Circle was forced back a half-step by the sheer force of it, and the daemon soul in Fulgrim's hand fled in terror at the sound.
The Butcher's Nails glowed like branding irons, illuminating the inside of his skull with a red light.
Angron suddenly felt suffocated.
Though he stood in the boundless Blood Wastes, he felt as if he were caged in the pits of Nuceria. This feeling of confinement made him flap his daemonic wings in fury. Wings of steel and flesh tore through the sulfurous air, carrying him into the sky.
More than ten Iron Circle robots were dragged into the air with him.
VROOOOM!
His chainaxe roared with hunger, slashing toward Perturabo's cold steel body.
Just as he swung, Angron caught a glimpse of the Conqueror drifting in the distant sea of stars, and the shadows surrounding it.
Many times now.
In the void around the Conqueror, he had seen several shadows.
As those shadows approached, as the Conqueror spat out the World Eaters from its belly and cast them toward those shadows, his tormented sons found release.
Their tortured souls vanished.
Hatred.
Unprecedented hatred filled his chest like molten lead.
Spinegrinder's teeth spun at high speed, the adamantium-clad dragon's teeth striking the Iron Lord's armour in a shower of sparks.
It was jealousy. He was jealous that these sons, who should have shared his eternal torment, could find release.
He hated these sons who could be freed.
But that wasn't the only reason hatred consumed him.
Behind those shadows, he saw the spectre of a malignant existence.
The existence that had teleported him away when his fellow gladiators were dying one by one around him, just as he wanted to join them.
The being he hated most.
Why did these brothers remind him of that tyrant?
Angron didn't want to remember his father, and he knew that man had never considered him a son.
But this annoying, loathsome emotion would not fade.
Because that man had a way.
That man could have destroyed him, could have given him eternal sleep, could have created a replacement far stronger than him.
But He didn't.
That man chose to let eternal torture fall upon his son's head, pushing a future even more cruel before his eyes.
Angron shook his head violently. His face, smashed by Perturabo's steel fist, healed in an instant, and he let out a thunderous roar.
The daemon sword Samni'arius clashed with Forgebreaker, the sparks illuminating Angron's twisted face. In that flash of light, he seemed to see the golden dome of the Imperial Palace on Terra again, and the shadow sitting on the Throne beneath it.
The hum of the Butcher's Nails suddenly turned into a high-pitched shriek, like the wailing of a thousand dying men.
Angron hacked with all his might, as if the Perturabo before him was the Emperor he loathed so much.
He hated everything. He wanted to kill everything.
He would wield this lash constructed by his brothers and charge into realspace.
He would soon know what these loathsome brothers were, and he would destroy them with extreme violence.
Or be utterly killed by his brothers!
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