This is Calth, a Death World.
Once, Calth was a lush, civilized world, a beautiful planet that was developed, prosperous, and vibrant, with manufacturing capabilities that rivaled Macragge.
With an ancient technological artifact called the Superconductor Ring, the people of Calth could cheaply transport their industrial and agricultural products into space, conveniently trading with all of Ultramar.
On the eve of the Great Crusade's end, Calth had developed into the sixth most important planet in all of Ultramar. The people of Calth were proud; they seemed like a microcosm of Ultramar's eternal glory, better today than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today. The golden dream would never fall.
But nothing in this world is unbreakable.
The Word Bearers Legion betrayed the Ultramarines on this planet.
At that time, the already traitor Horus ordered the Ultramarines and Word Bearers to merge with Calth, forming a joint force to counter the Ork threat.
Roboute Guilliman judged that those Orks would not pose a substantial threat to the Imperium, but he mistakenly believed that Horus' true purpose was to mend the rift and gap between the Word Bearers and Ultramarines that had arisen since the city of Perfection incident.
So, the Ultramarines warmly hosted the Word Bearers on Calth, but the Word Bearers repaid them only with betrayal, desecration, and Warp sorcery.
All of Calth burned because of this; this once-beautiful planet lost its atmosphere, the golden dream shattered, and most of the Calthians died in the war, with only a few surviving, barely clinging to life in underground pipes.
Since then, Calth has become an eternal pain in the hearts of the Ultramarines.
Its status is roughly equivalent to Caliban for the Dark Angels, the Burning of Prospero for the Thousand Sons, and the city of Perfection for the Word Bearers.
And ten thousand years later, Roboute Guilliman, Lord of Ultramarines, once again set foot on the surface of Calth.
This was the last stronghold of the Chaos Traitors; as long as the war here ended, all of Ultramar would once again fall under the rule of Macragge.
Inside the Imperial command center in the Calth tunnels,
Guilliman looked at the battle report with a grim expression.
He wasn't grim because of the current battle situation on Calth, but rather depressed because of everything Calth had endured during the ten thousand years of his slumber.
"During the Beast War, an Ork Battle Moon attacked Calth."
"During the Tyranids War, the Tyranids Behemoth Executioner 'One-Eye' rampaged on Calth."
"Just recently, the Word Bearers daemon Prince, M'Kach the Reborn, dug up the grave I personally designed for Captain Remus Ventanus of the Fourth Company on Calth???"
Veins popped on Roboute Guilliman's forehead, his face so grim he looked like he wanted to tear the paper in front of him to shreds.
Alexander casually picked up a handful of dust from the ground and clenched it in his hand. Looking at the grim-faced Guilliman, he originally wanted to tell a classic joke about Calth, the city of Perfection, and the Thousand Sons to lighten the mood.
But just Guilliman standing here, listening to Calth's disaster-ridden history of over ten thousand years, was enough to feel like hell.
The situation before him was probably equivalent to telling Lorgar that the city of Perfection had been bombed three more times, and Angron's grave had been destroyed by the Ultramarines.
Or telling Magnus that Prospero had been bombed three more times, and Leman Russ had urinated on Ahriman's ashes.
Or even telling Lion that Caliban had been bombed three more times, and Leman Russ had urinated at his bedside.
"What impolite things are you thinking about again?" Sanguinius saw Alexander clenching Calth's sand and guessed what blasphemous joke he was thinking.
"Do you have any objections to my joke? This joke is perfect; it has almost infinite expandability."
"For example, if this joke were changed to…"
Alexander's lips curved into a smile:
"A Dark Angel and a Thousand Son were arguing."
"The Dark Angel grabbed a handful of sand from the ground and threw it in the Thousand Son's face: 'These are the ashes of Prospero!'"
"The Thousand Son, not to be outdone, also grabbed a handful of sand and threw it in the Dark Angel's face: 'These are the fragments of Caliban!'"
"Just then, a Cadia Warrior rushed out, shielding the sand on the ground and shouting: 'Stop throwing! Stop throwing! Cadia Stands!'"
"Huh?" Reyna, the Commander of the Cadia 184th Regiment, cast her gaze towards Alexander.
"Yes, yes," Sanguinius nodded gently from the side, "it can also be extended to your homeworld, Terra."
"After all, Terra, besides still having an atmosphere full of nuclear radiation, isn't much better than Calth."
Alexander's face immediately fell.
Remembering that his homeworld, Terra, was now nuked to look like a Mad Max movie, and could no longer grow the juicy, magic-girl-Lion-spring-dream-inducing apples, Alexander felt sad.
"I guess this joke also has a Calth and city of Perfection version, doesn't it?" Guilliman put down the strategic report in his hand, his face twitching as he spoke.
"The Primarch's Superman brain is at work," Alexander nodded, indicating Guilliman had guessed correctly: "If you want to hear it, I can tell you."
Guilliman's face instantly darkened: "I'm going to add a rule to the Codex Astartes prohibiting jokes about planets like Calth, Caliban, Cadia, etc."
Hearing this, Sanguinius revealed a brilliant smile.
He said to Guilliman in a clear voice: "If you dare to write your Erebus-bred Codex Astartes again, I will shatter your Fate Armor with a single Spear of Accomplishment, then have Cawl stitch you into a Dreadnought, so you can never write another word in this life."
"The reason for the problems with the Codex Astartes is that it's not perfect enough; as long as I —" Guilliman argued.
But Sanguinius had already placed his hand on the Spear of Accomplishment.
Tigurius and Mephiston, who had accompanied the two, both subtly stepped back, putting distance between themselves and the two Primarchs.
"Let's talk about it when we return to Terra," Guilliman sighed and conceded: "First, let's end the war on Calth and indeed all of Ultramar."
Calth was the last area in Ultramar where organized Chaos forces were still active.
Its underground was filled with complex tunnels, and the war here had dragged on for a long time.
To end the war as quickly as possible, and considering Calth's important significance,
The two Primarchs and Alexander all came to Calth, each bringing their Librarians.
"Roboute Guilliman's blue boys bite really hard."
Kavalan, a Warpsmith from the Bitter Sons warband, which originated from the Iron Warriors Legion, said through gritted teeth:
"And our teammates are all idiots!"
They hid in the shadows of the Calth tunnels, utilizing the talents inherited from their Primarch, Perturabo, constantly constructing new defensive fortifications, killing zones, and trenches, stubbornly controlling at least one-third of the Calth tunnels amidst the almost infinite tide of Ultramarines, making it the last stronghold of the entire Chaos faction in Ultramar.
Chaos traitors defeated on other planets also gathered in the tunnels of Calth.
These traitors should have become Kavalan's reinforcements and aid for the Bitter Sons warband,
But in Kavalan's view, why were all the other warbands full of idiots?
First, infighting broke out between warbands from the World Eaters and warbands originating from the Word Bearers. Angron's sons roared and madly slaughtered the Word Bearers; one World Eaters Chaos Lord even ascended to daemon Prince status by collecting eight hundred Word Bearers skulls, then continued indiscriminately slaughtering.
Following that, warbands of Abaddon's Black Legion, like idiots, were lured into traps prepared by the Ultramarines and were almost completely annihilated.
There were also warbands originating from the Emperor's Children; these pleasure-seeking fools, upon discovering they couldn't fully indulge in torturing enemies in trench warfare, actually just ran away.
The Thousand Sons warbands claimed they were summoned by their father and used Psyker powers to withdraw from the battlefield.
The Death Guard were even worse; they disappeared from the Ultramar battlefield without even a reason.
And Kavalan's enemies? Originally, relying on the Iron Warriors' ancestral war-craft, Kavalan had even occupied more than half of Calth's tunnels at one point.
But unexpectedly, the Ultramarines dragged in the Imperial Fists who were visiting Macragge for a ceremony to participate in the war, and also somehow dragged in a group of Black Templars. After these sons of Dorn joined the battle, the two sides instantly became evenly matched.
It was said that this was another idea from some Saint Doraemon who lacked great virtue. Rumor had it that he also made the Space Wolves urinate on the ashes of the Thousand Sons' Red Letter Warriors, played videos of the city of Perfection's destruction in front of the Word Bearers, and made a Blood Angels company's faces turn into Horus attacking the Black Legion. It was almost as depraved as Erebus.
Currently, the Iron Warriors led by Kavalan and other Chaos warbands occupied one-third of the tunnels, while the Black Templars, Imperial Fists, and Ultramarines occupied the other two-thirds.
But it didn't matter; they had forged twelve layers of killing zones, transforming the tunnels into a bunker capable of withstanding virus bombs. Even the sons of Dorn couldn't break through this meat grinder —
A roar suddenly erupted above Kavalan's head. He and the Iron Warriors in the bunker watched in horror as the bunker's ceiling disintegrated in the blink of an eye, flying into the sky as if gravity had reversed.
Swathes of earth were ripped up by roaring Psyker power, and the bunker crumbled under the might of the Empyrean. The Chaos traitors lurking in the shadows of the tunnels were exposed without any protection to the vacuum of Calth.
Kavalan looked with fear at the atmosphere-less sky, at the figures radiating immense Psyker light, like stars.
As a Warpsmith, Kavalan knew the names of these figures.
Reyna, Commander of the Cadia 184th Regiment and Saint Doraemon Prophet, was the weakest among them, yet she casually lifted a mountain and hurled it at the exposed tunnels.
There was also Mephiston, Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels, Lord of Death, the one returned from the Black Rage. His silver steel longsword slashed at the ground, and the cold, solid earth turned to dust and vanished.
Tigurius, Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines, also stood in the sky, Psyker flames spewing from his facial orifices, and Psyker lightning, thicker than a hive city, raged around him.
And there was that figure flying highest, the Archangel Sanguinius, with pure white wings tinged with blue, whose pure light illuminated the sky of Calth like a star, causing countless Chaos traitors on the ground to let out bone-chilling wails.
Kavalan's expression was blank. Had he poked the False Emperor's hook? To have to face these few lords who were enough to blow up all of Calth?
At this moment, both Loyalists and traitors understood that the war on Calth was over, and the war in Ultramar was also over.
At most, in a few hours, their warbands would dissolve in the Psyker might of those four Psyker madmen.
"Mechanized Device: Astramael." A voice echoed in the void.
Kavalan suddenly saw the figure he had just ignored, who was not emitting Psyker light.
It was a blue, round, spherical figure with a strange propeller on its head.
The next moment, Kavalan understood: they wouldn't need a few hours; they were going to die now.
Astramael, replicated from the Blood Angels Librarians and containing the Emperor's immense Psyker power, shone on Calth's horizon for less than a third of a second.
Then, the earth dissolved. Kavalan felt himself swallowed by light, then he and his power armor dissolved together in the scorching heat of the star and the Emperor's Psyker power.
"My Calth!!!" Guilliman in the distant command post watched half of Calth's continent dissolve in the scorching flames, immediately clenching his teeth.
Alexander had held onto this Astramael since Baal Prime, and finally unleashed it today, feeling much refreshed.
After all, this thing was ultimately replicated from a star constrained by the Emperor's Psyker power; even a brief release of its power was enough to melt continents, pierce planetary atmospheres, and cause an entire world's climate to collapse.
But on Calth, there was no such problem. Calth was a Death World with no atmosphere, essentially a giant rock. There was no climate to collapse, so Alexander could unleash this power freely.
Alexander just didn't know that when he released Astramael, the break out of the Emperor's Psyker power also attracted someone's attention in the Empyrean.
"The Emperor's Psyker power." Ahriman stood by the broken Webway, gazing at the fleeting Psyker light in the Empyrean.
He wore a mask carved with ancient Prospero runes, hiding all his expressions beneath it. No one knew what his mood was like at this moment; perhaps there was no longer a mortal body beneath that mask.
He turned his head to look at the Eldar Death Guard he had controlled with the Ninefold Curse behind him.
"Now, xenos, tell me the secrets of your Death God."
Ahriman dragged the black staff in his hand and walked in front of the Death Guard.
He had always wandered in the Webway near Ultramar, waiting to capture the Eldar Death Guard.
"No!" A Death Guard dressed as a feral Eldar directly refused.
Ahriman didn't say much, directly swinging his scepter across his head.
The Death Guard dressed as a feral Eldar instantly turned to ashes and dissipated.
"Hmm?" Ahriman slightly furrowed his brows.
Why no soul? Just an empty shell? No, he failed to restrain the soul of this Death Guard. Something had taken the soul of this Death Guard before him.
"Ah hahahaha." Seemingly noticing Ahriman's expression, a Death Guard dressed as a Harlequin burst into laughter.
"Ahriman! Our souls are blessed by Doraemon, the Human Death God, and return to the 22nd century after death. Where can your despicable soul go?"
The Death Guard dressed as a Harlequin mocked Ahriman, then took a deep breath:
"Pah! traitor of humanity! I, loyal to the human race, despise you!"
A mouthful of spit landed on Ahriman's face.
Ahriman couldn't help but clench the scepter in his hand.
Being called a traitor of humanity by a damned xenos, how f-ing infuriating!!!