"Russ's" diminishing capacity for thought couldn't comprehend why this topknotted Astartes before him had been able to hold him back for so long.
Abaddon was covered in wounds from head to toe. If not for the several Exterminatus Relics fighting alongside him, "Russ" would have torn him to shreds long ago.
"My father once told us that you were the brother he envied most — because you took away the affection that should have belonged to him alone."
Abaddon's helmet had been smashed apart. He simply tossed it aside, exposing the face that had taken three of "Russ's" full-strength blows and remained intact.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. He could feel that most of his internal organs had been ruptured.
The surrounding "Wolf Guard" had been killed to the last. "Wolf Lord Jorin" had been exiled back to the Warp.
Now, on the entire field, only "Russ" remained — fighting the Exterminatus Relics.
"But I think I misunderstood what he meant. What he truly envied was not you, not his Primarch brothers — it was the Emperor's gaze. His favor."
"So he always wanted to become a true elder brother — the First-Born in the truest sense, in the eyes of every Primarch."
Abaddon caught "Russ's" spear, his longsword holding steady.
"He never managed it. Because many Primarchs never acknowledged him. It was only after his death that I learned — the Luna Wolves were never truly welcomed by the other cousin-Legions."
Under "Russ's" furious roar, Abaddon began pressing forward, driving the Wolf King back step by step.
"But I am different. I will lead the Legion back to its peak. Even without a Primarch, I will realize what my father once dreamed of."
Abaddon's gaze grew harder. He looked at the Wolf King — that face unmarked by a single scar, grown ever more like Horus, now set with an iron resolve.
One strike sent "Russ's" spear flying. The Exterminatus Relics closed in rapidly, driving the Wolf King back in a relentless tide, his wounds healing with agonizing slowness.
The Blood God would bless him no further. The anti-psyker field made his body weaker still.
Abaddon seized an opening — launching himself forward, leaping through the air, landing on the Wolf King. The Talon of Horus drove deep into the shoulder blade from above.
"Traitor. You will be the first — but never the last."
The longsword swept across the Primarch's throat. That enormous body crashed to the ground and dissolved into Warp energy, dispersing throughout the interior of Vengeful Spirit.
"My lord — it is over."
Frix's great phase gauntlet closed tight around "Corax's" skull. This fight was his victory.
Looking at the Primarch he had once admired so deeply fallen to what he had become, Frix's heart was not at peace.
"Why — do you — not — finish it?"
"Corax" had no strength left to resist. He was weak, drained of all force. Frix and the Exterminatus Relics had far exceeded anything he had anticipated.
Frix was quiet for a moment. He would have preferred this Primarch to face judgment — not die here at his hands like this.
"This is — a traitor's — end."
"Corax" saw Frix's hesitation. But with no will left to survive, he simply wanted it over.
Traitors deserve death. It was a truth that many traitors acknowledged even about themselves.
It was simply that they had been swept along by the current of events, step by step into the abyss, and by the time they came to their senses it was already too late.
Crack.
In the end, Frix twisted the Primarch's neck. He watched him vanish from between his hands.
At least in his own galaxy, the Raven Lord remained loyal — not trapped by those snares, not driven by desperation over his sons into a reckless bargain.
Damn Chaos. And damn all those traitors.
Frix looked out through the viewport at the galaxy now veiled in a shadow of the Warp, and his hatred for Chaos and the traitors deepened by three more degrees.
In the command room of Mountain Formation, Dorn and "Sanguinius" faced each other across the silence.
The barely audible hum of the anti-psyker devices was, to the ears of two Primarchs, a thunderous roar.
Dorn, gripping the phase chain-sword, looked at the "brother" before him — the Lord of the Blood Angels, in whom no trace of his former perfection could be found.
Corrupted wings tore free from "Sanguinius's" back — once immaculate white feathers now smothered in pustules and rotting flesh, each beat sending clouds of plague flies into the air, Nurglings scurrying merrily among them, filling the room with a teeth-grinding chorus of shrill laughter.
The once magnificent, intricately wrought power armor was overrun with rot and bacteria. The blood-drop insignia on the pauldrons had been eaten away beyond recognition, replaced by a vast suppurating ulcer that wept pus without cease.
But Dorn could see that "Sanguinius's" eyes held sorrow.
This brother knew he had led his entire Legion into damnation. Dorn was certain of it.
He had never fully surrendered to Chaos. He was still resisting, somewhere inside.
"You are hesitating, Dorn."
"Sanguinius's" voice came out heavier than before.
But Dorn simply activated the chainsaw blade. The green force field emitted a deep, steady hum — the Necron's technological decomposition field was more reliable by far than any blessing of Nurgle.
The Unyielding Stone needed no words to declare his resolve.
"This isn't like you."
"Sanguinius" raised his spear and launched into a full charge.
Even warped and bloated to three times his former girth by Nurgle's corruption, even with his wings dragging with rot and decay, his speed had barely diminished.
Before Dorn could fully register the movement, the spear was already before his face. He twisted aside — the tip scraped across his pauldron and left a deep gash — but he did not panic.
He had already read the Angel's movement. The chain-sword slashed hard toward the gaping maw that split "Sanguinius's" torso down to the waist.
"Sanguinius" did not retreat. He brought his longsword up and caught the blow.
The phase chainblade did not cut through the Primarch's sword — tempered as it was by Nurgle's blessing.
But "Sanguinius" felt an enormous force transmit through the blade. The massive body was staggered backward by the impact, his feet dragging two deep furrows across the deck, and he only managed to stabilize himself after thirteen full steps.
Dorn simply rolled his shoulder, and the force passed through him.
"You truly have grown much stronger, Dorn."
"Sanguinius" cocked his head. The face that was no longer recognizably human twisted into a strange smile.
He felt genuine gladness at his brother's strength — but Dorn ignored the compliment and launched his own charge in return.
The chain-sword struck forward with terrifying force. The "Angel" did not choose to meet it head-on — even though he was, among all Daemon Princes under the Father of Plagues, the most durable.
He barely evaded Dorn's lightning-fast blow, and "Sanguinius" began to use his speed to wear Dorn down. Nurgle's side feared attrition least of all, and he was confident that even the current Dorn could not out-last him.
Dorn recognized the intent immediately — but no one knew the interior of Mountain Formation better than he did.
He slipped past a hololithic projector table, used it as a screen to break "Sanguinius's" line of sight, and changed direction suddenly, striking from the rear flank.
The chain-sword came down hard on the root of "Sanguinius's" left wing. The blade cut through corrupted flesh and warped bone as if through nothing — a geyser of foul, reeking pus-blood erupted from the wound.
"Sanguinius" let out a howl of agony. His right wing swept sideways in a brutal horizontal arc. Dorn took the blow, parried, and stepped back a few paces.
He steadied himself immediately and drove the offensive forward again, dodging the spear that came thrusting in after, which punched through the wall behind him — the entire armor plate was corroded away in moments, leaving a hole two meters across, opening into the corridor beyond.
"Your strength has surpassed what I expected, brother."
Even as the "Angel" struggled to withstand Dorn's assault, he did not forget to praise his brother's power.
Dorn did not answer. The unyielding face that had never bent and never compromised had not shown a single flicker of expression since the battle began.
Dorn knew that "Sanguinius" was without Nurgle's blessing here — his wounds would not recover anywhere near as quickly. The time to finish this was now.
He gave "Sanguinius" no chance to breathe, pressing forward in a relentless, unbroken storm of strikes.
The chainblade's crushing blows were beyond endurance even for a Daemon Prince of Nurgle's stature. Nurgle's blessing crumbled to weakness beneath the Necron decomposition field.
The command room of Mountain Formation was being violently contaminated by "Sanguinius's" pus-blood. The clash of chain-sword against spear and longsword rang out and echoed throughout the chamber.
"Sanguinius" had hurled tens of thousands of attacks in the span of half a minute — and now, finally, an opening appeared. He could not withstand Dorn's overwhelming force. The longsword was wrenched from his grasp and flung away.
The chain-sword struck with irresistible momentum, driving into "Sanguinius's" midriff, the chainblade tearing savagely along the line of that great gaping maw.
"Sanguinius" shrieked in agony — but at that same instant his spear thrust desperately toward Dorn, only for Dorn to close his bare hand around the shaft just below the point.
The slick, repulsive sensation transferred through his grip. Dorn paid it no notice. He simply looked steadily at the brother before him, wracked with pain.
Feeling the force in that hand grow weaker with each passing second, Dorn's left hand wrenched the spear free from "Sanguinius's" grip and cast it behind him, then in one smooth motion drew a massive plasma pistol from his hip, pressed it to "Sanguinius's" face, and pulled the trigger.
A superheated plasma beam detonated at point-blank range against "Sanguinius's" face. Even a Primarch's body could not endure that.
A vast section of "Sanguinius's" face was charred away. His left eye vaporized outright. Corrupted flesh and muscle crackled under the extreme heat with explosive pops, and the pus-blood was seared and sealed within the body by the temperature.
"AAAGH!"
"Sanguinius" lurched backward — but Dorn did not waste the opportunity. He continued to fire the plasma pistol in relentless bursts, advancing slowly toward his brother with every shot.
Once inside the range of the chain-sword, Dorn holstered the plasma pistol and drove the blade down hard into the left shoulder of the brother who now stood charred and blackened and wholly rotted — the Necron decomposition field tore through the mass of corrupted flesh instantly.
Thick black blood erupted from "Sanguinius" in torrents, making his screams all the more wretched.
"This is your failing, brother."
"You have always thought too highly of yourself. You believed you were the one who could save everything. You always told yourself your sacrifice would mean something."
"But it never did."
Dorn's tone was calm — frighteningly so, the tone of a man filing a routine fortress construction report.
"Your fall did not save your sons. It made them into something more pitiable than death."
"And your betrayal brought no one hope. It only nailed the name of the entire Ninth Legion to a pillar of shame for all eternity. The human Imperium will never forget these years of disgrace."
"Sanguinius" raised his head. From his remaining right eye, something thick and dark ran down — impossible to tell if it was blood or tears.
"You don't understand, Dorn. Someone like you could never understand why—"
"I truly don't understand what any of you are thinking."
Dorn cut him off.
"You only know how to sacrifice yourself. But you never once considered that sometimes the greatest sacrifice is not to step forward and die nobly — it is to live, and endure the pain of losing everything."
Dorn drew a long breath and looked at the brother before him, beyond all recognition.
"Now — let me end your suffering, brother."
"Sanguinius" suddenly smiled. Stranger than before. But Dorn still saw, in that one remaining right eye, a flicker of familiar warmth.
"You are right, Dorn."
His body was trembling — impossible to say whether from pain or from remorse.
"I'm sorry, brother."
For just a moment, the Unyielding Stone softened — then the chain-sword split the enormous bloated figure before him diagonally in two.
The heavy, corrupted body crashed to the deck, then vanished, leaving behind a floor slick with plague and rotting flesh.
Even having received Nurgle's blessing, "Lestrade" was no match for Sigismund — not for a Sigismund who had undergone the Custodian enhancement surgeries.
Sigismund, who had already made a name for himself as a Bladesaint across the major Legions, outclassed his once dear friend in every dimension.
His technique was matched by none among Astartes save Achilleos; his speed was not inferior to Sevatar of the Night Lords or Farith of the Raven Guard; his strength was in the absolute highest tier.
"Lestrade" was beaten badly. The wounds on his body were more than enough to kill. Having already had two hearts run through by Sigismund, the fact that he was still alive at all was a testament to Nurgle's blessing.
But Nurgle's blessing would not save him a third time — because Sigismund's blade was now through his throat.
"You did — well — brother."
The words came faint and thick from beneath the helmet. The power sword slipped from his fingers and rang against the deck.
Sigismund stood where he was and watched "Lestrade's" body dissolve into the deck plating.
"Amit's" right hand had been severed. At the wound's edge, granulation tissue was already writhing and pulsing, as though a new tentacle was groping its way into existence as a replacement.
The gaping mouth in his belly had its lower jaw cleaved away. Intestines had long since spilled across the floor in a wet cascade. The Nurglings had been stamped to death. Melta fire and plasma were purging every trace of filth.
Polux stepped forward to stand before this "brother" who was still forcing himself upright. The chain-sword — now beyond all recognition — could no longer support even one more attack.
"Farewell, brother."
The warhammer came down and shattered "Amit's" skull. The Flesh Tearer collapsed into the filth and blood.
And with the news of Dorn exiling "Sanguinius" spreading through the ship, the final victory of this boarding action was declared.