|3rd POV|
Mortarion gazed upon the dying defenders of the planet, the mangled remains of his enemies crushed beneath his iron-shod boots. His legion surged through the fortifications like a slow-creeping tide of rot and pestilence. He raised the Lantern, his ancient pistol spitting bursts of sickly green energy that reduced incoming Space Marines to exploding viscera. When a challenger dared close the distance, his great battle-scythe, Silence, swept through ceramite and bone with contemptuous ease.
'Fools,' he says in his mind.
He and his sons were the very personification of Death. No matter the ferocity of the defenders' counter-attack, the Death Guard absorbed the punishment with unnatural stoicism, their advance never faltering. Nurgle's foul blessing thrummed through their veins; wounds that would fell a god knit together in an instant, leaving only scarred, necrotic flesh behind.
He looks up and sees a reinforcement bearing the symbol of his brother, Ultramarine, landing on the other side of the city.
"It matters not," he rasped.
Foreseeing their arrival, Mortarion commanded his legion into a spearhead formation to shatter the city proper. The air grew heavy with the stench of decay as they unleashed a barrage of abominable weaponry upon the frantic soldiers huddled in the trenches beneath the great walls.
Eldritch munitions erupted in blossoms of emerald fire, slagging the hulls of the Imperium's most sacred tanks. These Nurgle-enchanted shells punched through reinforced plasteel as if it were parchment. Where the fire did not kill, the subsequent Plague Mist did, seeping into the filters of gas masks and the sealed environments of bunkers.
The miasma performed its agonizing work, torturing the flesh and soul until the humans within were hollowed out, their bodies warping into gibbering Chaos Spawns. These wretched thralls joined the march as mindless meat shields, their biomass swelling and hardening as they absorbed the dead.
No matter how many the Imperium kill, their number will replenish because of the blessing of Nurgle.
At the foot of the inner wall, Mortarion gestured for the heavy ordnance. A group of Plague Marines hauled forward the Rot Melter, a massive Melta weapon bound with the essence of a weeping daemon, its lethality amplified by the warp.
Mortarion commissioned the weapon from the Dark Mechanicus.
The weapon roared, unleashing a concentrated beam of verdant light that devoured the wall. It was a horrific synthesis: the thermal intensity of the Melta combined with the corrosive, entropic will of the Plague Father.
The wall first blistered and cracked under the unnatural heat before simply sloughing away like rotting meat. It was an elegant, if repulsive, solution to a siege. It is a perfect representative of Nurgle's will.
Distracted by swarms of flying daemons, the wall's automated defenses were silenced. They are too busy to attack the marching Death Guards and other Plague Marines. Mortarion led his legion through the breach, a grim reaper carving a path through the heart of the city, leaving only ruin in his wake.
He shrugged off a bolter shell that cratered his shoulder, returning fire with the Lantern to vaporize his assailant. Yet, as they ground forward, a flicker of suspicion touched his mind.
The resistance was too structured, too rhythmic. Each wave of defenders consisted of exactly twenty-five hundred infantry and five Space Marines. Not only that, but they were being funneled toward the massive, grand entrance of the inner sanctum.
They were being lured into a killing zone, the most heavily fortified junction of the hive city.
"Let them try," he muttered. "All things fall to decay."
They reached the plaza where millions stood ready to die. As the Chaos Spawn surged forward, Mortarion looked to the sky. He could feel Ku'Gath manifesting, the Great Unclean One gorged on a sudden, immense surge of Nurgle's power.
The source of this favor troubled him. The Grandfather had promised Mortarion the lead in this campaign, yet he favored the daemon instead. A cold dread, rare for a Primarch, settled in his chest. Something was fundamentally wrong.
The Plague Father never takes back his promise that he has already given. He is not Tzeentch, who is more than willing to take back a promise if it means completing his plan, or Slaanesh, whose so fickle that his promise means nothing.
He stepped forward with his Deathshroud, his elite scythe-wielding bodyguards, intent on breaking the gates and ending the siege in one final swoop. But before the first blow landed, a crushing, familiar psychic weight descended upon the battlefield, stealing the breath from every living thing.
In his mind's eye, a golden figure appeared, a radiant sun of a man, looking upon him with a devastating mixture of disappointment, regret, and cold fury. With a guttural roar, Mortarion willed the vision away, snarling at the ghost of his father.
But the presence did not fade; it intensified. A portal of blinding gold tore open in the center of the conflict. From it charged hundreds of Legio Custodes, their guardian spears dancing as they butchered Chaos Spawns and cultists with a speed that defied the mortal eye.
Following them came the storm-riders: hundreds of White Scars, their ivory armor gleaming, lightning bolts etched in red across their pauldrons. They struck with lightning speed, their bolters and bikes providing a thunderous accompaniment to the Custodes' dance of death.
Two figures stepped through the portal last. One was a brother Mortarion had not seen in millennia. His face was a map of ancient scars and the weary lines of a long life, but his eyes still held the piercing, predatory gaze of the hawk.
This is the Great Khan, Jaghatai Khan, the Primarch of the White Scars.
Beside Jaghatai Khan walked the source of the psychic tempest. The Emperor of Mankind stood nearly two heads taller than the Khan, clad in masterwork gold that seemed to groan under the sheer pressure of his restrained power.
Just like before, his father looks at him in disappointment, regret, and anger.
"Mortarion… how far you have fallen. What a pathetic disappointment you are."
"Disappointment?!" Mortarion shrieked, his voice a rattling wheeze. "I am the one who was betrayed! It is you who are the failure, Father!"
He spits the last word and points his pistol at his father.
"And here, today, I shall finish what Horus failed to do."
He snapped the Lantern up and fired. The beam of decay streaked toward the Emperor, but before it could strike, the Great Khan moved. With a blur of motion, Jaghatai's blade, shimmering with the Emperor's own psychic light, cleaved the energy pulse into harmless dissipating mist.
"He is not for you, brother," the Khan rasped, his voice like grinding stone. "Your reckoning is with me. And this time, I will ensure there is nothing left to return to the warp."
The two legends collided, a rematch of the Siege of Terra. The air screamed as scythe and tulwar met. Each impact sent tremors through the bedrock, the shockwaves shattering the windows of nearby hab-blocks.
As the Primarchs dueled, the Emperor turned his gaze toward a burgeoning tear in reality. Cultists had completed their ritual, and in the distance, the titanic, festering silhouette of Nurgle emerged, a mountain of rot and maggot-ridden flesh.
The Plague Father let out a wet, gurgling roar, pointing a necrotic finger at the Lord of Mankind. He speaks in primordial language, older than the Emperor himself.
Two Greater Daemons lumbered from the rift. Their order is clear and comes directly from their creator. With a silent mental command, the Emperor directed his Custodes to hold the line against the traitors, while he stepped forward alone to meet the duo of horrors.
He exhaled, and the sun seemed to dim in comparison to what was released. His psychic might roared forth a golden hurricane that moved the faithful to tears of ecstasy and struck the hearts of the heretics with the cold paralysis of true terror.
What they are seeing is a being made of countless humans stitched into one. This being is made of gold and the very embodiment of humanity in this galaxy. The golden armor he wears creaks as he struggles to hold back the emperor's tremendous power.
Even when he is going all out, the emperor makes sure the people on the planet do not explode from experiencing his power.
"Come!"
The greater daemons snarl at him and charge at him like wild beasts.
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