Warhammer [515-517] (Patreon)

Chapter 515: Titus's Fierce Onslaught — First Slay the Daemon Prince, Then Battle Mortarion

"Great master, everything proceeds according to your plan. Mortarion thinks he can suppress you—and the lady as well!" Tartarus said.

During the last Terran Crusade, Rhodes had intended to take Magnus alive and hold a public trial, executing a renegade primarch before the masses.

Now Rhodes finally had his chance.

"Let's go. We head to the battlefield as well," Rhodes said.

"My lord, whom should we bring this time?" Tartarus bowed and asked.

"You're giving Mortarion too much credit. To deal with him, I don't need an entourage. You and I are plenty," Rhodes smiled.

Mortarion was a triviality. Rhodes figured that even if he didn't go in person, his stand-in Barbarue might be able to handle the job. This trip was simply to bag Mortarion and bring him back.

"I understand, great master. We depart," Tartarus nodded, opened a golden portal, and stepped through with Rhodes.

…

Time rolled back to several hours earlier.

In a pitch-black gulf of deep space, the First Fleet of the Indomitus Crusade encountered the plague legions under Mortarion's command.

Upon contact, the Chaos fleet launched an assault. Countless corrupted daemon-wrought weapons roared, bombarding the Imperial line.

Seated on the bridge, Barbarue issued orders in Rhodes's name: bring up the void shields to maximum and hold the energy screens firm.

"Warriors of the Imperium, the enemy of Chaos is upon us! Fight bravely—do not betray the Emperor's trust!" Barbarue bellowed on the command deck, posing as Rhodes.

"For the Imperium! For the Emperor!"

"Exterminate the Chaos traitors—open fire!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Imperial destroyers and cruisers formed a firing line and poured counter-battery fire into the Chaos host. Macro-cannons and lances screamed; torpedoes knifed into the void toward enemy hulls.

Thunder rolled across the Chaos fleet's void-shields in pulsing light.

Meanwhile, the Adeptus Astartes—Rhodes's gene-sons—obeyed their primarch's orders, boarded assault craft, and began massed boarding actions.

They were joined by Imperial storm troops and squads of Battle Sisters. Flashes of blue teleport light arced as Rhodes's gene-sons used teleport bracelets to jump straight into the traitor marines' ships.

Space Marines stormed the enemy holds, chainblades and powered weapons howling, and fell upon the daemons.

Chaos hellbeasts and daemon-engines. Ranks of traitor marines, sorcerers, and cultists counterattacked the boarding parties.

Warp-sorcery shrieked wild. Bolters thundered in the cramped innards of ships.

Chaos Astartes also attempted boarding, but their craft smashed against Rhodes's fleet's energy screens before they could reach their targets.

From Rhodes's flagship launched a wave of King Joe automatons—Titan-class units capable of fighting in vacuum. Working with Imperial aircraft, they savaged the enemy boarding craft.

Once clear of their bays, the King Joe split into four independent forms and ripped into the Chaos cutters, blasting them into drifting scrap.

Even Astartes, exposed to open space, could do little—they died quickly to cold vacuum or under a torrent of fire.

"Order the Chaos sorcerers to use psychic rites—teleport directly into their compartments," Mortarion commanded from his flagship.

At his word, a new boarding wave began, Chaos troops using sorcery to jump onto Imperial vessels.

Imperial Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, and mortal troops left to garrison fought them savagely.

"Purge the traitors! Purge the heretics!"

"Sisters, the Gene-Mother watches us! Hail the Daughter of Ice!" A towering Sister raised her chainblade and roared.

Having implanted genetic seed from Elena, the Sisters could wield the power of frost; cold radiated from their armor.

Daemons and warp-spawned filth who dared close were frozen into statues—then shattered.

"Kill! Slay the False Emperor's dogs!" traitor marines bellowed, clashing with these unfamiliar, terrifying Sisters.

Augmented like Astartes with gene-seed, these Sisters were no weaker—and far more devout. They were, in a sense, the upgraded, unhinged variant of madwomen.

"The new Imperial primarch will die by my hand," Mortarion laughed.

He had to win this war. He had to fulfill Grandfather Nurgle's task. Otherwise, he could not wash away his shame—the colossal humiliation Typhus had dealt him.

"For Nurgle's loving grace!" Rotting Death Guard smashed open a pressure door, spraying corridors with stinking pus.

The lead Plague Marine raised his bolter—only to have three icicles spear through his skull. The Sisters' ice-warded armor glimmered cold blue in the dim companionways.

A hellbeast charged, roaring. Several Sisters combined their power, flash-freezing it into a sculpture.

"Pathetic counterfeit—you face a true Astartes. I grant you the mercy of death," croaked a Death Guard champion, his plague-scythe slashing at the Sister superior holding her chainblade aloft.

Clang!

The weapons collided.

Ice and virulent toxins clashed, a visible shockwave bursting from the point of impact.

The Sister superior staggered back several steps, but her eyes burned with fanatical will. "Heretic… you will be purged! For the Gene-Mother."

She growled, chainblade roaring; razor ice crystals formed along the teeth, blessed by the Gene-Mother's frigid bloodline.

The Chaos champion chuckled hoarsely; pus seeped beneath his rotten faceplate. "Foolish Imperial dog—you do not comprehend Grandfather's gifts!"

He whipped the scythe; a toxic miasma belched out, corroding the metal bulkheads.

"By the Gene-Mother's pure blood—Judgment of Ice!" The Sister superior raised her blade; a polar storm erupted, freezing the onrushing plague cloud into blue shards.

Cracks raced across the champion's bloated frame. He stared in shock as Grandfather's blessing was overruled by some older law of frost. The chainblade split his skull.

…

Elsewhere, Titus, leading the Astartes boarding operation, confronted a Daemon Prince.

"Dogs of the False Emperor—you seek your own deaths." The Nurgle prince sneered.

"For Lord Rhodes! Brothers, purge the heretic!" Titus led the charge, great power sword in hand.

Steel met warp-wrought flesh, and the Daemon Prince was hurled backwards.

"Impossible—how do you wield such strength?" the prince gasped. He had been blessed by Grandfather and sacrificed tens of billions of mortals to ascend.

"Foolish traitor—you're not fit to live. Death is your only grace," Titus roared, blade swinging.

"Behold Grandfather's gift! See the gulf between you mortals and me!" the Daemon Prince bellowed.

Corruption surged within him; warp energies swelled him to a 60-meter monstrosity with an 80-meter wingspan.

"This is Grandfather's true blessing. Mortals—witness my power!" he crowed.

"You're not the only one who can grow," Titus snorted, triggered his Ultra-Beast form, and swelled to over 60 meters, roaring as he charged. For the great Gene-Father, he would tear the foe apart.

Under the warp's rot, the prince swelled further, skin sloughing pus and maggots, carrion wings shadowing the field.

His laughter came like a plague gale, carrying the wails of souls: "Behold, servants of the False Emperor! Grandfather's benediction! Your flesh will rot, your souls return to the Garden!"

"Not today." Titus's sword fell.

The giants battled among shipwrecks; each clash made the warp shudder. The prince's blighted scythe hacked down—Titus slipped aside, the blade cleaving a battleship's flank.

Titus struck—his power sword rammed into the prince's gut; a cataract of pus sprayed forth.

"Pitiful mortal! You cannot kill me! Grandfather's gift makes me eternal!"

The prince grinned; his wound closed at sight-speed, maggots weaving flesh anew.

Titus wasted no words. His sword's disintegration field screamed and chopped into the prince's head.

"Let's see if Grandfather can save you twice."

The head burst like a rotten gourd—yet a flood of maggots rose from the neck, reforming a twisted face.

Holy fire wreathed Titus's blade; one stroke split the body from crown to crotch, unquenchable purifying flame devouring the gash.

Not long ago, Titus had merged with a cosmic phantasm-beast gaining sanctified flame that scorched daemonic souls. Rhodes had blessed him with the Emperor's psychic might.

What others could not kill, Titus could, borrowing the Emperor-avatar's power.

Rhodes indulged his most formidable commander greatly—even Titus's power armor was forged of extradimensional metal.

That metal had been stripped from an Emperor avatar, suffused with the Master's psychic benediction—a holy panoply.

"No! Impossible! Great Grandfather—save me!!"

The Daemon Prince's wail echoed in the warp, but Nurgle's rot was utterly consumed. Flesh carbonized in the flames and fell to ash.

Titus stood amid wreckage, his body shrinking to normal as he came down. His armor dripped daemon ichor. He raised his sword and roared to the surviving Astartes: "Victory to the Emperor! Victory to Lord Rhodes! Forward—slay the traitors!"

"For the Gene-Father!!" the marines answered, chainblades snarling, bolters roaring as they pushed deeper into the Chaos fleet.

They cut down everything before them.

"…"

Mortarion, on his command throne, witnessed the warrior's might.

He saw the slaying of a Daemon Prince—not an ordinary one, but an upgraded, giant-form prince.

Strength no less than his own.

Could he truly win? Regardless—he had to go.

Mortarion gripped his great scythe, Silence, and strode toward Titus.

At least Grandfather had blessed him again; he was stronger than a few months prior.

His steps echoed across rotten decks, his rebreather venting toxic fog, his withered staff dragging a trail of decayed warp residue.

"A dog of the False Emperor dares butcher Grandfather's favored?"

His voice was a charnel chorus, and Terminators of the Death Guard followed in silence, their corroded armor crawling with nurglings.

Titus looked up. Warnings flared in his helm as the death primarch's psychic pressure rolled over him. A corrupted primarch stood before him.

He did not flinch. Holy flame still burned along his blade.

"Mortarion—your time is over, traitor," Titus said, voice low and adamant through the vox.

Though facing a primarch, he felt no fear. For the Gene-Father, he would defeat Mortarion here and now.

Chapter 516: Mortarion Beaten Into Silence

Mortarion moved—his body blurred into a sickly green streak, faster than mortal eyes could track.

His great scythe carved a ghastly arc; space itself seemed to split with a rotting wound.

Titus raised his sword. Emperor's holy fire met plague miasma; the blast shredded a hundred meters of metal around them.

On this clash, Titus did not yield—his golden power blade flared brighter and began to force down Mortarion's scythe.

"Is that all you've got?" Titus taunted.

He had expected much of a fallen primarch. So far, not impressed. Mortarion's speed was high, but not dazzling to his eyes.

The primarch's strength, too, felt underwhelming. Titus didn't even need to grow to giant form to press him. Thanks to Rhodes's enhancements, Titus stood three-point-three meters tall; compared to Mortarion's near four meters, the gap wasn't so large.

Titus unleashed the Emperor's wrath—his sword's disintegration field thrummed, golden psychic power surging for Mortarion's chest.

The Death Lord slipped his torso aside and smashed Silence down on Titus's pauldron. The extradimensional armor rang—and held.

Silence failed to harm the suit. The armor had come from an Emperor avatar, forged by Salome and Yapool on Rhodes's orders. It could expand to giant form or contract—an artifact by any measure.

As with the sword, the armor held the Emperor-avatar's psychic charge.

"Your armor… why does it bear the Emperor's power? Are you his champion?" Mortarion withdrew Silence scythe and stared at the towering marine.

The blade's nimbus reminded him of his father's power; for a moment he wondered if this had been the Emperor's own sword.

Impossible—his father's sword was in Guilliman's keeping.

"No comment," Titus snorted, and pressed the attack.

Mortarion vented virulent warp-toxins—Nurgle's corroding force. Any normal Astartes in that cloud would see their armor rot away, then their flesh, dying in moments.

But Titus's armor sang—the Emperor's sigils flared, and holy might dispersed the corruption.

"The Gene-Father's power protects me," Titus said.

This time he did not call upon the Emperor by name. The source was the Emperor, yes—but it was his Gene-Father who bestowed it, via the giant Emperor-avatar.

"Impossible! No one but my father can wield such power—no one!" Mortarion howled, scythe weaving a blur as he attacked in fury.

Titus remained cool, eyes steady, blade meeting every blow.

"Powerless rage," Titus shook his head. The fallen primarch had lost a warrior's calm—his strikes grew sloppy, his guard full of holes.

"You wretch—I'll kill you!" Mortarion roared.

Titus seized the opening and brought his sword down.

"For the Emperor! For Lord Rhodes!"

The blade bit into Mortarion's chest; holy fire scorched corrupted flesh. Mortarion screamed.

"You think… this can kill a primarch? Behold Grandfather's new gift," Mortarion snarled.

His body swelled; rotten wings spread; a psychic storm swept the field. Titus stood unmoved amid the blast, a pillar unbowed, golden plates blazing like a war-god.

Mortarion hovered, rot surging like a tide; he stood fifty meters tall.

Nurgle had not sent him to Vashtorr for a full giant-form refit, but had upgraded him with a titanic corpse-beast frame to counter giant foes.

"Now, mortal, witness true despair. Behold a daemon primarch's power!" Mortarion raved.

His loss to his own gene-son, Typhus, still festered. He could not lose again. Grandfather had granted him gigantism—he would slay this Emperor's champion.

"You think only you can grow?" Titus scoffed. Ultra-Beast power ignited; he swelled to sixty meters.

"Damn you!" The daemon primarch spewed clouds of corrosive flies at Titus.

The stench of Nurgle broke on the Emperor's gold. When Titus underwent Ultra-Beast augmentation, he used flesh from an Emperor-avatar.

In theory, his strength matched the giant Custodes—and thanks to Rhodes's care, his effective power ranked just below a primarch within the Imperium.

The giants clashed again. With the corpse-beast frame, Mortarion had grown stronger—perhaps enough to fight Typhus to a draw.

But today he faced Rhodes's champion, his deputy commander—the most dangerous man in the legion.

Their collisions shook the entire warship. Even a Gloriana-class couldn't bear such blows.

Titus's iron fist burned with golden fire. His uppercut smashed Mortarion's jaw—maggots and rot flew.

As the daemon primarch reeled, Titus seized a decayed wing, hip-threw the fifty-meter giant, and pile-drove him into a mountain of scrap.

Boom! Boom!

The ship quaked; the Gloriana-class reached the verge of structural failure.

"Your strikes are as flimsy as Nurgle's snot. You're not worthy of my father's attention," Titus boomed through his helm amps, taunting the fallen primarch.

He raised a boot etched with golden sigils and stomped Mortarion's gut. The deck crumpled; the Death Lord vomited bile-green gore.

Silence stabbed from the poison fog—Titus caught the blade barehanded, sparks screaming where gauntlet met daemon-edge.

With a roar, he snapped the corrupted artifact in two.

"Impossible!" Mortarion's compound eyes flickered wildly.

Nurgle had blessed that weapon himself. A mortal had broken it.

Before he could recover, Titus's burning fists hammered his breastplate, each blow ringing with the Emperor's wrath. Nurgle-blessed armor peeled like dead bark.

Pus jetted from Mortarion's seven orifices. He tried to conjure a plague-cloud; Titus's knee strike shattered his chest.

As he doubled over, an iron elbow came down, caving half his face and filling his vision with sparks.

"This is for the Gene-Father!" Titus drove his powered fist into Mortarion's gut; the disintegration field turned rotten viscera to slurry.

"This is for the Emperor!" A left hook smashed his temple; a broken horn spun away to pin itself in a distant bulkhead.

Mortarion struggled to rise—his left leg was gone, torn away at the hip.

Titus grabbed his ruined wings and rag-dolled the primarch, slamming him into the deck again and again.

Each impact made the ship quake. Grandfather's blessings crumbled under brute divinity. The Gloriana finally came apart.

Before the final break, Rhodes's gene-sons blue-flashed away via teleport bracelets.

When Titus stopped, Mortarion was a quivering heap of rot. Titus's armor dripped stink. He lifted his right foot; Imperial holy fire boiled around the boot.

"One last blow," he said, voice icy. "For every Imperial world devoured by Nurgle's plagues."

His stomp crashed down. The shockwave flipped the corrupted Gloriana; a mushroom of rot and rust billowed up.

When the dust cleared, the Gloriana was gone. Most of Mortarion's remains had turned to ash.

Titus floated in hard vacuum, staring coldly at what was left—half a head. The fallen primarch clung to life only by a Daemon Prince's monstrous regeneration.

Chapter 517: A Great Victory! The Light-Forged Astartes Project

Grabbing Mortarion like a dead dog, Titus flew straight back to his own ship.

As Rhodes's gene-son, augmented by a cosmic phantasm-beast into Ultra-Beast form, Titus could operate flawlessly in space.

With the Chaos flagship destroyed, Imperial morale surged; cheers shook the void. The enemy flagship was smashed; Mortarion was defeated!

"Glory to the Imperium!"

"Glory to the Gene-Father!"

Chaos morale, by contrast, cratered.

 You've got to be kidding—their Daemon Prince and daemon primarch both lost?

"Mortarion is trash—we should never have trusted him!" a Death Guard traitor spat.

They were still bleeding on the front line against the False Emperor's dogs—then came the news: the Daemon Prince was killed, and the primarch was crushed.

"Damn useless idiot. How are we his gene-sons? He's not worthy to be our gene-father."

"Fools! Beaten by a boarding action—and we expected him to lead us to victory."

In an instant, Mortarion's defeat rippled through the sector. Within his legion—where he had already lagged Typhus in prestige—his reputation plunged to the basement.

No one wants their gene-father to be a weakling no one can beat.

Yet the Death Guard's primarch had achieved exactly that—becoming the only one to be publicly thrashed.

Two crushing defeats in short order—how can a primarch be this weak?

"Brothers, we have not lost yet. There are still many great daemons—those can grow as well. They can defeat that man," a traitor urged.

"Great daemons? Look around. Those giant Titan constructs can pin them down.

Hellbeasts are gnats before them. They can fight in vacuum. Even our corrupted Emperor-class Titans can't do that," a Chaos champion snapped.

They had lost—comprehensively. Technologically, too, they were outmatched. The Imperium fielded new Titans and those silver-red giants that flew through space.

Their strange beams tore Chaos ships to pieces. For the daemons, there was little recourse; only Daemon Princes, greater daemons, and top champions could contest them—and only if upgraded. Unmodified? Don't go near—get shredded.

"It's time to withdraw. Brothers, the Death Guard will not fade. We can count on Lord Typhus!

He is assaulting Macragge—he will surely prevail."

"Agreed. We won't throw our lives away here. Retreat! All units, retreat!" The Chaos Astartes were the first to flee.

With sorcerous help, they teleported to their boarding craft and beat a hasty retreat.

Seeing their betters flee, mortal cultists in the fleet lost all will and turned their bows to run. Nurgle's daemons, sensing a lost field, slit rifts and slipped back into the warp.

Daemons are immortal of a sort—even if banished, they reform in the warp—but it takes time and energy. To die here without reaping souls was pointless.

…

"The enemy's trying to run! Those degenerate traitors are fleeing! Don't let them escape—attack!" an Imperial naval officer shouted.

"For the Imperium! Pursue the Chaos scum!"

Fastest to respond, escorts and cruisers swung about to chase.

"All Imperial ships: annihilate warp entities and traitors present. Do not pursue into the warp. That is an order." The fleetwide broadcast cut in—halt pursuit.

The order was from Barbarue posing as Rhodes. He was a bit helpless—Mortarion was supposed to be his to handle, but the master's bulldog subordinate was too ferocious.

Come on—even he might not match that man. That monstrous will to fight, that terrifying instinct and sheer ferocity—overwhelming.

"This is good, isn't it? We avoid dangerous combat. Unlike you, I'd likely slip up if I fought," said the Zarab impersonating Elena.

"Hmph, fool. Prepare—our master will be here any moment. Our little play is ending," the Barbarue said.

Almost simultaneously, Imperial ships received the supreme commander's order: cease pursuit into the warp, destroy the enemies present, do not translate.

"The commander is right. We cannot chase; the warp is too dangerous—daemons own that realm. Only our Gellar Fields protect us there."

"All hands: do not tear open the warp, do not engage warp drives. Train all batteries on the Chaos fleet—annihilate them."

The battle entered its final cleanup. Trapped Chaos forces were surrounded by Astartes, Sisters, and mortal regiments—and destroyed.

It was a great victory—the First Fleet's triumph. Mortarion's host suffered catastrophic defeat.

By the time Rhodes returned to his fleet, the battle was essentially over. The Barbarue and Zarab briefed him in detail.

"Great master, the daemon primarch is secured in a stasis field," the Barbarue reported.

"I'm going to deal with the prisoner. After I leave, you two will continue commanding the First Fleet to launch the second phase of the Indomitus Crusade," Rhodes said.

Though the battle was done, Rhodes wasn't returning.

"As you command, master!"

Rhodes waved them to remain and made for the brig.

Along the way, Sisters, Astartes, and crew straightened their chests and saluted with the aquila.

"Blessings upon you, great Gene-Father."

"Great Gene-Father, this was an epic victory."

"Gene-Father, did you see our valor? We did not fail your name."

"I saw, my warriors—my children. You fought superbly. I am well pleased," Rhodes smiled, greeting each of his gene-descendants.

He slighted no one—not even Elena's gene-daughters; he greeted them one by one.

Cheers rolled. Some mortal officers and voidsmen knelt before Rhodes, crying out "Imperial Heir Apparent, future Emperor!"

After he had acknowledged all, Rhodes descended to the ship's cells. Since hauling Mortarion aboard, Titus had personally stood guard, without a moment's slack—Daemon Prince or not, the prisoner was dangerous.

"Great Gene-Father, you've come," Titus bowed, giving the aquila.

"You truly surprised me, Titus. I scarcely know how to reward such merit.

I didn't expect Mortarion to be routed by your hand," Rhodes clapped his shoulder.

Titus the sky-splitter—still a terror. As a mere Astartes he had torn Daemon Princes apart; after Ultra-Beast fusion with a cosmic phantasm-beast, he was even more monstrous.

"I seek no reward. To serve at your side, to fight for the Imperium and mankind—that is my greatest honor," Titus said.

"You will have your due. Soon, I will grant you a Light-Forged upgrade.

You will wield the power of radiance, and the phantasm-beast within you will ascend as well," Rhodes said.

After two energy amplifications by the Angel Zog, Rhodes could infuse mortals with luminous energy, making them far stronger.

The blessing varied in strength—at the high end, giants; at the low end, a light-forged boon that transformed the body.

Rhodes called this new breed the Light-Forged Super Astartes.

He intended Titus to be first—one full refounding in light.

It would raise the phantasm-beast within him to standard apex, and lift Titus's power to primarch level.

Other Astartes would receive the angelic light as well, becoming Light-Forged Astartes.

"Thank you for your trust, great Gene-Father," Titus said.