"FOOL!" Praal shouted.
His voice sounded distorted and disgusting, like a corrupted and wet soundtrack.
"Have you not seen this world? The wonders you would destroy? This is a city of the gods!"
Lucius moved to his feet, still shaken from the concussive sonic shockwave that had just launched him from the throne dais. His head throbbed, but the intense adrenaline and the intense intoxication he got from the music were pushing him forward, giving him strength.
He lunged forward, but Praal smoothly batted the strike aside, bringing his spear up into a flawless, rigid guard. It was weird that a mortal was capable of not only keeping up with an Astartes but even pressuring him. Their durability and strength weren't the same, of course, but something was amiss.
"This is the city of my enemies," Lucius laughed arrogantly. "That is all that matters to me."
"You are deaf to the music of the galaxy. I have heard far more than you," Praal said, his voice rising with fanatical confidence. "Perhaps you are to be pitied, for I have listened to the actual sound of the gods. I have heard their song, and they damn this galaxy in their wisdom!"
Lucius simply laughed straight in the governor's face, not caring for his words and only for the fight and the dance they had going on between them.
"You think I care about your gods? All I want to do is kill you."
"The gods have already shown what your Imperial Truth will bring to the galaxy," Praal shrieked with utter disdain. "It is a future of nothing but fear and hatred. I was deaf to the true music before they opened my mind to their song of oblivion. It is my duty to end your Crusade right here!"
"You can try," Lucius sneered, his ego completely unfazed. "But even if you kill every Astartes in this room, not that you could, more will come. A hundred thousand more, a million, until this entire planet is ground to dust. Your little rebellion is over, mortal. You just don't know it yet."
Lucius almost spat on the ground when he said 'mortal'. His utter disdain for the man before him was obvious for all to see. He could have used his bolter, or another weapon, or have his brothers gun him down, but he didn't. This wasn't even about the mission anymore; he just wanted to get the glory of the kill. That was all.
"No, Astartes," Praal replied, a dark, unsettling smile appearing across his face. "I have fulfilled my duty. I have brought you exactly where you needed to be, to this cauldron of fates. My work is done! All that remains is to blood myself in the name of Father Isstvan."
Lucius moved backwards as Praal went on the offensive, unleashing a series of quick feints. The governor was a master warrior, it seemed, but the swordsman of the III Legion had faced far deadlier opponents during the Great Crusade and won.
The lethal rhythm of the duel played out behind Lucius's eyes. Strangely, he could see every single move Praal was going to make a fraction of a second before it happened. The room's violent tempo spoke to him on a strange, instinctive level, granting him a sensation of power unlike anything he had ever felt before.
He launched a brutal flurry of consecutive blows, driving Praal backwards with the sheer speed of his blade swings. No matter how skillfully the corrupted planetary governor parried the incoming strikes, each of Lucius's attacks came closer and closer to breaking his guard.
When Lucius caught the sudden flicker of genuine fear in Praal's eyes, a wave of delicious triumph washed over him, encouraging him to push even harder. He pressed the advantage.
Praal's shrieking, musical spear let out one final, dissonant screech before the energised edge of Lucius's power sword shattered the shaft entirely.
BOOOM---!
Pivoting smoothly to throw his full weight behind the blow, the swordsman drove his blade two-handed straight into Praal's golden chest, piercing through armour and flesh and then through armour again. The power-wreathed steel burned effortlessly through the powerful corrupted armour, snapping ribs and tearing bloodily through vital organs.
A surprised, disbelieving look could be seen on his face as Praal dropped heavily to his knees. He was still alive, his mouth moving dumbly as a thick spray of dark blood oozed from the massive chest wound and sprayed on Lucius' purple armour.
Relishing the sickening sound of the governor's internal organs and bones snapping, Lucius twisted the blade slowly.
He placed a heavy, armoured boot firmly onto Praal's collapsing body and slowly pulled his sword out, standing triumphant over his defeated foe.
Around the dais, the remaining Emperor's Children systematically executed the last of the palace guards. But with Praal dead, the intoxicating high in Lucius's blood began to fade, and his interest in the remaining clean-up quickly vanished - like a lightbulb that had just killed the power feeding its own electricity.
He turned his attention back toward the grand throne, already craving that overwhelming rush of sensory overload to surge through his body once more. He behaved like a junkie who was craving another high.
The throne's back was still facing him, obscuring whoever was seated inside. He moved around and finally saw what it was.
In front of it sat a massive control panel that looked like a monstrously complicated clockwork keyboard. Lucius found himself staring into the glassy, lifeless eyes of a modified servitor.
Its human head was mounted onto a skeletal body made of exposed metal armatures; its organic insides had been completely hollowed out and replaced with intricate brass clockwork. Clicking mechanical lines extended from its open chest cavity to read the sheet music printed in the massive books surrounding the dais.
The servitor's bizarre hands, twenty-fingered contraptions of thin wire and metal, flickered erratically over the control keys.
Without Praal to channel it, the music had fallen completely out of tune and time. The structured rhythms were falling apart, leaving only ugly noise. Lucius immediately recognised that this broken machinery was a pathetic substitute for the euphoric power that had fueled his body during the fight.
Suddenly angry beyond at the loss of that thrilling sensation, Lucius brought his power blade down, shattering the servitor's control panel in one strike.
The background music instantly transformed into a howling, deafening shriek. The terrible sound shook the palace's powerful stone structure before finally stopping entirely.
The music had been weaponised to spread heretical 'truths' about distant gods and turn the normal Isstavnian army into one capable of standing against the Space Marines rather than fleeing in fear.
But now that it had been destroyed and the governor had been killed, all across the war-torn sectors of Isstvan III, the strange voices of the gods were instantly silenced, leaving only the distant thunder of the terrible war against the Space Marines and the horrifying understanding of what was truly going on.
.
The weaponised music had been a distraction.
On the western front, deep within the inner defensive sector marked on the tactical layouts, the Death Guard had smashed through the secondary lines and was almost at the Palace walls. The battlefield stank of burnt promethium, hot metal, and blood cooked into the dirt. But beneath the smoke, a far more chilling, mechanical silence began to take hold.
Now that the musical and chaotic interference had finally fallen silent, the vox-silence suddenly became noticeable.
A volley of gunfire caught the attention of the surrounding Astartes as the remaining rebel forces, suddenly freed from their fanatical intoxication, began to fall back in absolute panic.
Alexei, now firmly rooted inside the heavy, bone-white ceramite armour of a Death Guard veteran, stepped over the body of an Isstvanian officer. His mind, which had now taken over the Space Marine, had basically fused with him, truly making them one person, with Alexei being the only mind that remains.
This had, of course, an effect on him. He was no longer only the former mortal; he was now truly a member of the Death Guard, in every respect, apart from his common sense, the knowledge he still had, and, of course, his power. It showed him the danger of doing what he did.
He had to be careful from this point on if he ever wanted to swap bodies again. Doing so required immense precision and attention to detail. The virus he created to serve as a vector for his existence had to be perfect in
all its specifications.
It was also because of this that he hadn't simply started spreading a virus and forcefully taking over his brothers. They were now his brothers, and he took immense pride in that fact. The fact that their own Primarch, Mortarion, was in on this ploy and wanted to kill them hurt him and enraged him in equal measure.
This would not have happened if he were still the Alexei from before.
The question was whether that was something negative or not. In a sense, it allowed him to take advantage of all the mental training and power that the Space Marine had. It didn't change him fundamentally, as he was still Alexei, but there was that feeling of camaraderie and loyalty that was rather new.
Supercharged by the various viruses, he was already operating like a localised hive network, interconnected with the dozens of dead loyalists he had infected with a zombie virus and reanimated in the immediate area.
Doing this required immense precision, and it would take a while before he could truly make them move as fluidly as they were. But thanks to the essence of the virus, that would take very little time.
Through the shifting wall of promethium smoke, Captain Crysos Morturg stepped onto a shattered parapet, his scarred green-and-white armour covered in grey ash. Behind him, Lachost and several senior line veterans adjusted their bolters, scanning the retreating enemy lines.
"They're breaking," Morturg rasped over the short-range squad vox, his heavy Barbaran accent sounding grim. "The rebellion is fracturing. But something fundamental has just changed across the grid."
"We've lost contact with orbit," Lachost interrupted, his fingers frantically working the dials of his static-choked tactical vox-pack. "There's no signal, Lieutenant. No data packets. It's as if the Endurance and the Vengeful Spirit aren't even up there anymore."
Morturg snapped his skull-like helmet toward the vox-sergeant.
"That's impossible. The fleet's coordination grids are absolute. Try the other strike forces. What about the palace? What about the Eisenstein?"
"I'm having more luck tracking the wider, unsealed frequencies," Lachost grunted, a tone of growing displeasure and alarm piercing his discipline. "I managed to bypass the local blackout and get through to Captain Ehrlen of the World Eaters. They're deployed right outside the central plaza. It's an absolute massacre over there, thousands of civilians charging directly into their chainblades. But Ehrlen couldn't give me any coherent data. The man is lost to the Butcher's Nails' frenzy. He's killing them with his bare hands."
"And the Emperor's Children?" Morturg pressed.
"Nothing. I can't get through to Captain Lucius or anyone inside the inner spires. The palace infrastructure has been playing hell with communications ever since they breached the gates. If only Durak Rask were here."
"Then we utilise the Titan," Morturg declared, gesturing toward the western horizon where a mechanical mountain blocked out the sun. "The Dies Irae is marching with our vanguard. Its high-output reactor arrays can burn a signal straight through this electromagnetic fog. Use its command link to relay a message to the Warmaster. We need the second wave brought down here immediately if we are to secure the city walls."
"Do not waste your breath, Lieutenant," Alexei's voice cut into the frequency, carrying a chilling, synchronised echo that made several surrounding veterans instinctively track him with their bolter barrels.
Alexei stepped forward, his massive, iron-hard gauntlets resting on the frame of a heavy bolter. Through his newly claimed eyes and the viral network rewriting his brain, he could see the tactical situation of the entire sector.
He had already started designing a virus that was flooding his system and enhancing him in a balanced way that still allowed him to keep the armour he wore. There was no time for acquiring a new one at the moment. Time was of the essence.
"Who commands that channel?" Morturg growled, his hand resting on his bolt pistol. "Identify your squad, legionary."
"My identity doesn't matter, Morturg," Alexei replied, as he pointed his armoured hand directly toward the grey sky.
He knew them all. They were his brothers after all. He also knew the name of the Space Marine he now 'was', but he wasn't him entirely; he was still Alexei and wasn't going to use the other name.
"Listen to me, and listen with the survival instincts men of Barbarus are famous for. The fleet didn't suffer a vox-failure. The Warmaster has deliberately sealed the planetary network. We haven't been cut off by the enemy. We have been severed and are about to be crushed."
The Death Guard veterans went deathly quiet. Even for a Legion known for its insane endurance, the statement bordered on absolute madness. It was madness for anyone who had never heard it before, and naturally for Space Marines. Everyone loved Horus; he was the most charismatic and capable of all the Primarchs. Why would he do that?
"Watch your tongue, brother," Morturg hissed, the dread radiating off him turning ice-cold. "To imply the Warmaster--"
"I am not implying anything. I am telling you what is happening," Alexei interrupted.
His digital vox-virus kept the squad frequency open, so Lachost couldn't cut him off. He wasn't able to reach the vox-channels from the ships above, as there was already too much corruption, and he was prevented from interfering, but locally it was possible.
"Moments ago, Captain Saul Tarvitz of the Emperor's Children hijacked a Thunderhawk and broke grid from the Andronius after finding out the truth of what the crew was preparing. He just punched through low orbit under a wall of flak, dropped a warning directly to the surface, then his systems fried, and he called Captain Garro on the Eisenstein. I just talked to both of them before the comms went down for good. The compliance is over, and the trap is springing shut."
Alexei took another step forward, his voice dropping into a register of absolute, terrifying truth. He needed them to trust him on this, since he didn't want to see them die needlessly. They had to prepare and be ready.
"The Warmaster has betrayed us. He has betrayed the Imperium, the Emperor. Our own Primarch, Mortarion, knows of this and signed the order. Every single Astartes who was sent down in the first wave was chosen because they would never bow to a traitor or go against Terra. Right now, up in the dark, the armada is turning its guns on us."
"..."
The other listened to Alexei, no longer thinking about the fact that they didn't even know him. Alexei wasn't someone from the strike force they had assembled. But right now, that wasn't what they were thinking about. It was the vox-comms between Travitz and Garro which Alexei was replaying to each of them.
"Virus bombs," Alexei stated flatly. "The Life-Eater. It's going to saturate the atmosphere and melt every shred of organic matter on this planet into liquid rot within minutes. Everything will die, our Power Armour won't save us."