Five minutes later.
"Ghazghkull... you truly were a rare and worthy adversary. I guess I won't be able to forget you for the rest of my life."
Commissar Yarrick offered a heartfelt sigh as he slowly retracted his mechanical claw.
Standing before him, "Ghazghkull" Mag Uruk Thraka had completely collapsed onto the ground.
That massive frame—which had once resembled a mobile fortress—was now reduced to a fallen heap of scrap iron.
Ghazghkull's entire lower body had been ground into a bloody pulp, looking as though he had suffered a brutal bisection.
The crude black heavy armor was torn into twisted sheets of iron; internal organs and mechanical debris sloshed together, streaming out from that terrifying severed wound and spreading across the scorched earth of Armageddon.
At a single glance, the scene was horrifyingly gruesome.
Seeing that victory had apparently been decided, the two sides across the battlefield reacted in starkly different ways.
"Long live the Commissar! Long live Yarrick!"
"For the Golden Throne!"
Over on the human line, cheers erupted like a tidal wave.
Even the veteran guardsmen, who were usually calm to the point of cold indifference, could not contain themselves as they held their hellguns high, roaring with raspy voices at the very top of their lungs.
The Imperial Aquila battle standards were raised high, snapping fiercely in the gale.
Meanwhile, the Orks were utterly despondent, as if mourning a parent.
"Thraka—Thraka's been downed!"
"I fink—I fink dis ain't right at all!"
"We's beaten! We's beaten!"
The Ork front fell into absolute chaos. The green-skinned Boyz ran around in aimless panic—some cast down their weapons and turned to flee, others stood frozen on the spot in utter bewilderment, and still others began beatings among themselves, attempting through pure instinct to re-establish a new Boss who could command respect.
Those Goff clan battle standards that had once set their blood ablaze were now tossed carelessly onto the ground, left to be trampled into ribbons by the fleeing mob.
Their structure, their discipline, and the courage they drew from their Warboss completely crumbled into dust with Ghazghkull's fall.
Indeed, the duel was over.
Victory belonged to Yarrick.
Yet his admiration had been entirely genuine as well.
Throughout this duel, Ghazghkull had unveiled numerous tricks that left even the Commissar impressed.
That was a tactical cunning that only Yarrick—who had locked horns with Orks for the better part of his life—was qualified to appreciate.
Ghazghkull had not relied solely on brute force to charge blindly like ordinary Orks; instead, he had laid traps and woven lethal ambushes at every single turn of the fight.
The details of the clash remained vivid in his mind.
At the very beginning of the battle, the two collided like two artillery shells launched directly at each other.
Ghazghkull's massive mechanical power claw met Yarrick's claw in a head-on clash, unleashing a deafening metallic screech.
Yet at the precise instant of that first impact, a hidden hatch on Ghazghkull's mechanical claw suddenly flipped open, revealing a deadly "Kustom Mega-Blasta" welded together from scrap metal and hoses that spewed lethal energy.
The barrel was pointed straight at Yarrick's face, firing at point-blank range.
Had any other Imperial hero taken that move, they might very well have perished on the spot under that single strike.
Unfortunately, Yarrick was no longer a mere mortal.
With zero startup delay, he instantly used his reality-warping powers to deflect that howling mass of green energy, which detonated in the clouds with a blinding burst of green light.
His ambush thwarted, Ghazghkull didn't pause for even a split second—he immediately issued a roaring command, and a vast canopy of Ork artillery shells rained down like a torrent, submerging the entire no-man's-land.
This was a contingency he had set up beforehand.
Ghazghkull knew how cunning Yarrick was, so he was using his own Orkish cunning to play the game.
He didn't care that the artillery would cover himself as well—he had heavy armor and thick, tough Ork hide, whereas the 'humie' before him appeared to possess almost no decent armor protection whatsoever.
Trading artillery strikes for lives was a guaranteed profitable transaction in his calculations.
Regrettably, that was entirely Ghazghkull's own assumption.
Before formidable reality-warping power, those artillery shells proved utterly pitiful.
In terms of baseline defense alone, Yarrick was even sturdier than Ghazghkull, who was clad in heavy battle plate and possessed the frame of a light tank.
The blast shockwaves and flying shrapnel slammed into that invisible barrier like rain hitting the surface of a calm lake, dissipating into nothingness.
Braving the sky full of fiery rain, Yarrick charged forward.
His movement speed became a blurred afterthought under the enhancement of reality warping. With a single strike of his claw, he gouged a gaping hole into Ghazghkull's thick chest plate.
Hot blood spurted outward.
The enraged Ork prophet let out an earth-shattering roar.
Only then did the true battle truly begin.
Yarrick could feel that in some indescribable corner of the Warp, Gork and Mork were roaring at the top of their lungs.
The two Ork deities bellowed continuously, joyfully waving their arms as boundless power flooded like a rising tide straight into Ghazghkull's body, cheering on their chosen champion and seeking to make this war all the more joyous.
And so...
The momentum radiating from Ghazghkull surged wildly, violently, explosively!
That mountain-like frame expanded by another circle, broken bones re-fused within green luminescence, and torn muscles regenerated at a speed visible to the naked eye.
He stood like a colossal titan rising against a storm, every step making the earth tremble beneath him.
Yet Yarrick... was not about to back down in the slightest!
What a joke.
As if you were the only one backed by a deity's blessing!
That wasn't your exclusive privilege!
Even setting aside Lord Adam—a walking deity in the physical realm—Yarrick remained a warrior of the Emperor!
And along with Yarrick's invocation, he could clearly perceive that single gaze emanating from the Golden Throne atop Holy Terra.
Indeed.
At that moment, the Emperor had turned His gaze here as well.
And so, under Ghazghkull's astonished eyes, the momentum surrounding Yarrick likewise skyrocketed, exploded, and surged frantically!
Golden flames ignited within his eyes, and his figure seemed to loom impossibly tall amidst the warping of light and shadow!
'You were the one who started this!'
The battle instantly escalated to an entirely new tier.
At that moment, it was no longer a mere duel between two individuals.
They were like vessels housing the wills of deities, acting as representatives of both sides on this battlefield to conduct a duel representing higher dimensions.
They roared.
They bellowed.
Every clash between them reduced everything in their surroundings to absolute ruins, and every wound healed and regenerated amidst the struggle between the gods.
They fought.
They slaughtered.
Amidst the surrounding host of thousands, the disoriented shouts, war cries, and clashing of weapons all dissolved into background noise for this magnificent duel.
Yet, in the absolute end...
Even with Gork and Mork frantically pumping endless streams of power into Ghazghkull's body, Yarrick—armed with reality-warping capabilities—was simply far too strong.
The power bestowed upon him by Lord Adam was no simple magnification.
It multiplied a hundredfold and a thousandfold under his will, and under the Emperor's gaze, it received another thousandfold boost, climbing at an exponentially mad pace.
And so, straightforward and unyielding, sheer force shattered all tricks.
When his opponent's stamina was depleted and he finally ran out of strength, Ghazghkull exposed a single flaw.
And Yarrick seized it.
His mechanical claw unleashed a roar unlike anything before at that instant, falling like a executioner's greatsword descending from the heavens to deliver that decisive, killing strike.
Ghazghkull's lower half was ripped to shreds by that claw on the spot—flesh and blood flew, steel twisted, and the armor blessed by Gork and Mork proved as fragile as paper before Yarrick.
The combat came to a close.
And now, Ghazghkull's upper torso lay prone on the ground, gazing blankly up at the sky of Armageddon—forever shrouded in ash and firelight. Within those savage, Orkish eyes, an emotion that had never been there before finally emerged.
Bewilderment.
'I lost?'
'I'm the prophet of Gork and Mork...'
'How could I lose?'
'How could I possibly be defeated like this by a 'humie' in a fight so thoroughly satisfying?'
"You lost."
The voice of his archenemy finally pulled Ghazghkull back from this wildly chaotic daze.
He stared with wide, blank eyes, laboriously turning his massive head to look at Yarrick standing before him.
Yarrick stood right in front of him.
His wrinkled face was rugged and calm, his power claw hung at his side, and not a single extra ripple of emotion could be seen in that modified single eye of his.
"You lost," Yarrick repeated calmly.
He didn't even need to expand his senses to realize this self-evident truth.
Along with the downfall of Ghazghkull—the single most powerful Ork warlord in centuries—in a honorable duel, the Orks' Waaagh! field had begun to collapse and dissolve.
It was a chain reaction spreading across the entire Armageddon front lines.
The Orks were hopelessly lost and bewildered, running around in all directions without a shred of their previous organization or discipline, having lost that crucial courage and cohesion.
And above the firmament of Armageddon, that Battle-Moon—which seemed to embody despair itself—was likewise struggling continuously.
That massive war station was surrounded by Imperial battleships—Lunar-class cruisers, Overlord-class battleships, and Emperor-class dreadnoughts arranged in tight bombardment formations, continuously pouring a overwhelming deluge of firepower into this Battle-Moon that had begun to falter, its energy shields and offensive output no longer what they used to be.
That immense, seemingly invincible megastructure was now trembling helplessly in the void like a mortally wounded beast, its surface exploding continuously with chain-reaction detonations of fire.
Indeed, just as Yarrick had said.
Ghazghkull had lost.
And so, Yarrick calmly raised the claw on his right hand.
The mechanical joints emitted a low whirring sound, each blade blade reflecting a cold luster under the dim light of Armageddon.
He walked slowly toward Ghazghkull, prepared to deliver the final strike in the most ceremonial manner to conclude his final battle, his final prey, and his final enemy.
This was respect for himself.
It was also the ultimate courtesy he could grant to a opponent worthy of respect.
Yet right at that moment, a hideous grin broke across Ghazghkull's face.
Upon that blood-covered Ork face, a certain mischievous glint reignited.
"Heh..."
He let out a low, raspy laugh, bloody froth spilling from the corner of his mouth.
"Don't go thinkin' you've won!"
Before his words could finish echoing, a roaring green light abruptly erupted.
It was an intensely blinding pillar of light centered on Ghazghkull's broken body that tore through the very structure of reality, forcefully ripping open a fissure glowing with green Warp light in midair.
This was a direct summons from Gork and Mork.
The two Ork deities were attempting to pull their chosen champion into the Warp, forcibly dragging him away from this battlefield to preserve their beloved warrior from defeat.
Yarrick's gaze turned razor-sharp in an instant.
He hastily mobilized his reality-warping power, attempting to disrupt the teleportation.
His willpower—tempered over decades—poured out like a torrent, cutting precisely into the energy matrix of the rift—and then, he felt the sheer scale of that power.
Unimaginable.
It was a massive Waaagh! field unlike anything he had ever encountered in his lifetime, far beyond his reach, continuously expanding in a brutally tyrannical manner.
The power poured in by Gork and Mork exceeded anything measurable by rational bounds, and within a few short seconds, that rift expanded to a degree that even a reality warper could not easily interfere with.
Yarrick's power cut into it, futile and powerless.
"Dammit!"
Fury surged abruptly in his heart.
This bastard—he was trampling on the traditions of this duel!
After losing in a fair duel, he was actually using such a despicable method to escape?
This aligned neither with the traditions of Imperial humanity nor with the traditions of the Orks.
Yarrick despised it.
And he would never allow it.
Without the slightest hesitation, Yarrick stepped forward at that very instant.
His figure turned into a blur under the enhancement of reality warping.
"Don't you dare!" he roared, hurling his entire body forward like a golden cannonball, plunging straight into that continuously expanding green rift.
When the lingering shockwaves dissipated and everyone opened their eyes once more...
Upon that scorched earth, nothing remained except scattered metal fragments and still-burning battle flags.
The two of them...
Had vanished without a trace.
When Yarrick opened his eyes once more, everything around him had changed drastically.
He looked around, barely managing to discern what manner of realm he had been brought into.
This appeared to be a region of the Warp—much like when he had first received the Waaagh! field in his past—where endlessly many Orks were fighting right here, no different from those in his memory.
"Ha!"
A smile that could almost be described as ferocious broke across Yarrick's face.
Following his inner intuition without hesitation, he sensed the direction of his archenemy.
Yarrick strode forward.
And then... everything in front of him was steamrolled like a heavy truck; Old Bale-Eye rampaged across the terrain, crushing everything in his path to dust!
Even though the Orks surrounding this location were taller and stockier than those in his memory—each possessing the build of a small giant, with some standing as tall as Imperial Knights, looking quite different from the Orks in Yarrick's memory—
What of it?
So what?
Yarrick couldn't care less about any of that now!
He was like a runaway heavy truck charging out of control, carving a bloody path through the horde with sheer force!
"Ghazghkull, you just wait for me!!"