Boom! Boom! Boom!
Flaming wreckage slammed into the planetary surface, kicking up towering clouds of smoke and sending shockwaves rippling outward.
Eden could feel metal fragments hurtling toward him at incredible speed.
But he didn't care—he simply continued channeling his psychic power.
Soon enough, those fragments slammed into the deflection field surrounding him, ricocheting away into the dirt and the broken walls around them.
"Warning! Warning! Tyranid swarm approaching Baal II surface. Estimated time: two minutes…"
The comms system blared shrill alerts again and again. (Author got lazy and decided to name the moon Baal II aka Baal Secundus)
Thanks to the coordinated guidance of the Savior Fleet, the main force of the Hive Fleet Leviathan had broken through the defensive line and was headed for Baal II.
The fleet itself had withdrawn behind the planet, constructing a new defense line.
"This place is getting dicey…"
Eden looked up.
Hundreds of faint, flickering black specks had appeared beyond the atmosphere.
Many were Tyranid scouting organisms, while others were the pointed ends of attacking tendrils. Trailing behind them, thick shadows streamed like ribbons.
The Tyranid organisms were faster than expected.
Massive tendrils dangled into the atmosphere, swaying faintly in the breeze.
If he couldn't activate the sorcery array in time and redirect Ka'Bandha's descent from Baal to this location, they'd face a simultaneous assault by both the Tyranids and daemons.
That would be a disaster.
But that was war—sometimes you had to take big risks to win big.
"Lord Savior, the sorcery array is being disrupted by the Tyranids. We need to move faster, or it'll fail entirely!"
Mephiston's eyes were white with light, his whole body glowing faintly as he shouted the warning.
Above them, the sky turned pitch-black.
That darkness wasn't nightfall—it was the swarm of Tyranid spore sacs clogging the air.
Piercing screeches filled the sky.
Eden could feel it clearly—along with the spores, the Hive Mind's psychic pressure intensified, interfering more heavily with the sorcery array.
He turned to the Chief Librarian.
"You hold the line. I'll clear the airspace."
"As you will!"
Mephiston pushed his psychic powers even further, dark smoke coiling from his body. The strain was immense—he was beginning to suffer mild corruption from the intense output.
In a daze, he thought he saw Baal buried in a mountain of Blood Angels corpses, and the mocking skull of the Angel's Bane sneering at his failure.
Just as he was on the verge of losing control—
A surge of golden light poured forth.
The holy energy swept away all the hate-filled filth.
Mephiston turned, eyes wide with awe as he looked upon the Savior.
Golden wings spread behind Eden, as if a god had descended.
The sorcery array had to be shielded from the Shadow in the Warp—but to do that, they needed to clear the Tyranid swarm above.
That swarm covered kilometers, teeming with xenos, including psychic creatures.
Mephiston couldn't even imagine what level of might was needed to wipe them all out in an instant.
Perhaps… he'd get to witness the unstoppable power of a Primarch himself.
Just as he looked on with anticipation—
Eden pulled out a mechanical device.
A… launcher?
"Good thing the Departmento Munitorum built backup defense systems here…"
Eden flipped open the launcher's safety cover, then pressed the firing button.
With a soft rumble, a missile silo opened nearby. Amid warning sirens, a twenty-meter-tall rocket slowly rose.
A high-yield thermobaric cloudburst missile.
Powerful enough to obliterate everything in a multi-kilometer radius—including all the Tyranid biomass in midair.
BOOM!
The cloudburst missile ignited, roaring skyward into the swarm.
KA-THOOM!
A massive mushroom cloud erupted midair, its shockwave rolling out in rings of destruction. The entire sky around them cleared.
A red-tinged sky returned, but now it was raining down bits of shredded meat and foul green ichor.
"Damn… the big boys hit different."
Eden's head buzzed from the thunderous impact, but he still raised a psychic shield in time to protect them from the shockwave—and the falling gore.
This kind of mass-scale battle wasn't worth wasting psychic power on. One big missile was far more efficient.
No need to burn himself out on psionics.
He didn't notice the look of disappointment flickering across Mephiston's face.
"Impressive, right? Bet this hits harder than any psychic trick."
Psychic powers were undeniably destructive—but their cost was high and they weren't always sustainable.
Missiles? As long as you had the ammo, there was nothing you couldn't wipe out.
And besides—
The Savior's domain was already developing psychic-enhanced missiles, even beyond the Sacred Ash Bombs.
Soon enough, humanity's enemies would understand what true annihilation meant.
"Nuclear cleansing."
"You're right, Lord Savior," Mephiston forced a smile, feeling like he was falling behind the times.
Still, he gritted his teeth and kept the sorcery array stabilized.
Now that the Warp Shadow's interference had been temporarily pushed back, Eden could finally pour his own psychic power into the array.
But the effect wouldn't last long—the Tyranid spores were already returning.
He had to act fast to fully activate it.
To reroute the Warp gate that Ka'Bandha had opened—bring it here.
Zzzzzraaaap!
The sorcery array flared to life.
A massive pillar of light shot skyward and pierced into the void.
Mephiston ended his psychic output, leaning on his staff for support, his face lighting up.
"We did it, Lord Savior!"
The Warp rift originally aimed at Baal was now turning—redirected toward Baal II.
He could already see the flickers of Warp lightning.
"Time to get out of here. Or we won't get another chance."
Eden unleashed a psychic bolt, blasting apart a swooping pack of Tyranid Gargoyles.
The swarm was thickening. Fast.
Above them, flapping wings surged together like a black hurricane, ready to consume everything in their path.
But by the time the storm of wings reached the surface—tearing and swallowing all beneath it—
Eden had already teleported Mephiston and himself back to the temporary Savior's Sanctuary.
Immediately after, he stepped into a resting chamber shielded with layers of Blackstone—doing everything he could to mask his presence from what was about to arrive.
Ka'Bandha's kind had sharp senses—especially the Supreme Bloodthirsters.
If all went well, the Chaos Daemons and the Tyranid swarm would clash on Baal II in a titanic bloodbath.
…
In the void above, the Warp's corrupt energies surged into Baal II's orbit, boiling the stars with hellish fury.
As the light of the Immaterium consumed the system, reality itself twisted—becoming more suited to daemonic existence.
A wave of unrelenting, violent psychic pressure spread.
Khorne's power had arrived. The daemons of blood had come.
The Leviathan Hive Fleet over Baal II was engulfed by the Warp storm. The bio-ships convulsed violently, their structures liquefying into pulpy goo.
Screeech!
Bio-plasma engines sputtered out.
A driven-mad Void Prowler slashed out its own eyes with its tendrils.
Nearby, a Tyranid Kraken flailed wildly, ripping apart other bio-creatures in a frenzy.
Inside the ships, the Tyranid organisms turned on each other. Razor talons tore flesh.
Pus and intestines spilled onto the floors.
Just a single instant of exposure—
And Leviathan's tendril fleet was plunged into chaos, falling into disarray from Khorne's violent psychic aura.
They inflicted heavy casualties on themselves.
Many Tyranids lost their minds, shredded by darkness.
Only through the Hive Mind's forceful control were the ships brought back under partial order.
Between the veil of realspace and the Warp, the Supreme Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha was descending—falling endlessly toward the physical galaxy.
In Baal II's atmosphere—
A blazing meteor of fire and hatred suddenly appeared, plunging toward the ground.
KRAKOOM!
Magma and stone erupted.
A colossal impact crater formed.
From its center rose a towering, horned silhouette—the air around it warping from the sheer heat.
From that crater, lava poured and the land cracked apart. Rivers of molten rock began to flow.
It was Ka'Bandha himself—the real deal.
Just his arrival alone twisted reality and remade the land.
"Fear! Scream! The Angel's Bane has descended! All shall be slaughtered and destroyed!"
He roared in triumph, promising the sons of Sanguinius eternal death.
Endless slaughter and terror had come.
The Baal System would scream beneath the boot of Khorne's favorite son and the Devourer's sworn nemesis.
"Praise the Savior," someone whispered.
"The daemon arrived on schedule. Our plan succeeded… perfectly."
Inside the main war command center on Baal—
Tarko suddenly noticed a spike in data on the monitoring equipment.
He shot up from his seat and excitedly announced the good news to everyone present.
For a moment, the room erupted.
Thunderous applause filled the chamber.
Everyone stood and clapped in unison, saluting the absent but revered Savior and the commander of this entire campaign.
Operation 13 had been successfully executed. The Savior's right-hand man was an indispensable part of that success.
Tarko, ever humble, deflected the credit.
He claimed it was all thanks to the Savior's leadership and everyone's hard work. He had only played a minor supporting role.
But in truth—
The entire plan's specific arrangement—fleet deployment, facility placement, personnel coordination, timing precision, and even how the Tyranids were lured—was all directed and managed by Tarko and his team.
A single failure at any point could've doomed the whole operation.
Everyone in the room had been under enormous pressure. None of them wanted to let Baal—or the great Savior—down.
But now, with the Supreme Bloodthirster arriving right on schedule, they finally let out a breath of relief. Smiles spread across the war room.
Now, the losses to Imperial forces would be significantly reduced.
Tens of millions of soldiers would have a better chance of surviving this war.
After a brief celebration, Tarko and a dozen other commanders sat back down.
They focused on the central hololithic map, each monitoring a different defensive zone within the Baal system, issuing orders in real time.
Behind them, a series of massive virtual screens lit up.
Over sixty information warfare departments fed constant updates into the map, refining the battlefield picture while relaying the commanders' directives to the appropriate military units.
Layer by layer, a coordinated command structure linked every force in the Baal war zone.
It became a single, dynamic organism.
Meanwhile, on Baal II—
Ka'Bandha had just finished roaring.
"…Huh?"
The Supreme Bloodthirster blinked, staring at the empty terrain before him.
"Where is everyone? Where are the Blood Angels? Is this even Baal?"
One second later—
He was sure of it.
"Damn those Chaos sorcerers! They botched the coordinates!"
Ka'Bandha vowed to cut off every one of those warlocks' heads when he returned.
Still… he had made it to the Baal system. That was something.
Or so he thought.
Because things were far worse than he expected.
In the void above, the human fleet was still locked in brutal combat with the Tyranid swarm.
Bio-ships exploded into chunks of meat. Imperial ships burst into blossoms of fire and shrapnel, lighting up space like deadly fireworks.
Worse still—
Those stinking bugs had completely infested this planet.
The Tyranid swarm had surrounded Ka'Bandha from all directions.
Massive waves of chitin and fangs rolled toward him, layer upon layer, forming living walls several stories high.
Worse yet, under the influence of Khorne's violent psychic field, the bugs had become even more bloodthirsty.
ROOOOAR!
Ka'Bandha let loose a furious roar, scattering a swarm of Tyranid Gargoyles diving at him from the sky.
But more kept coming.
Tyranid Raveners swarmed up his massive form, but their carapaces ignited and cracked under the infernal heat of his daemonic body.
SSSSHHH!
Several towering Lictors pounced on his face.
These were Leviathan-bred Tyranid assassins, designed for decapitation.
They clawed at him with scythe-like talons and barbed hooks, carving bloody trenches into his face.
Caught off guard, the massive Bloodthirster stumbled backward and collapsed with a thunderous crash—crushing more Tyranids beneath him.
"Filthy vermin! I'll kill you all!"
His fury erupted like a volcano.
He tore the Lictors from his face and crushed them with a snap of his clawed fist.
Then, rising again, he swung his massive hell-forged axe into the swarm.
Each blow split the earth, molten lava geysering upward.
Thousands of Tyranids perished in waves of fire and blood.
But it wasn't enough.
No matter how many he slaughtered—ten thousand, twenty thousand—the swarm seemed endless.
Without reinforcements, he'd be buried in this sea of flesh.
Drenched in rage, Ka'Bandha vowed every last bug would die here.
ROOOAAAR!
The blood-red clouds above caught fire.
A colossal winged shadow of horns and flame loomed across the sky.
THOOM!
Ka'Bandha's axe slammed into the ground.
The earth cracked wide open. Skulls sprouted from the rupture and began to spiral upward, fusing into a staircase of bone nearly a kilometer wide.
Reality itself boiled from the Warp's touch.
The Skull Stairway grew, twisted, and pierced into the unnatural void—linking realspace to the Realm of Chaos.
HOOOOOOOORN!
A brutal war horn echoed, followed by a cacophony of daemonic roars.
The long-awaited daemonic legions descended the stairs—heads down, sprinting toward the surface of Baal II.
These Khorne daemons surged out with unnatural speed, fanning across the battlefield and then regrouping into organized formations of eight and multiples of eight.
They had heard the call of their lord, the favored of Khorne, the Supreme Bloodthirster.
They launched into the Tyranid horde.
Mass slaughter began.
Tyranids shrieked. Daemons roared.
Claws met bone, blades met carapace. The battle spread across most of Baal II.
"Kill them all! Slaughter every last one! Bring me their skulls!"
Ka'Bandha bellowed, vowing to build the greatest octagonal ossuary the galaxy had ever seen—made from the bones of these xenos filth.
Baal II had become a hellscape of flesh and death.
Bloodletters and Gore Knights cut down Tyranid Warriors. Daemon Engines clashed with Tyranid bio-titans, roaring with unrelenting fury.
The Tyranids were being butchered—but continued consuming biomass from the planet.
Their flesh-constructs burned under daemon fire while leeching the planet's resources dry.
Capillary towers toppled beneath Ka'Bandha's axe, spewing corrosive bio-slurry like crashing tsunamis.
At the same time—
The influence of Khorne's daemons split the earth apart.
Boiling blood surged with lava, boiling the Tyranid bio-architecture alive.
Skulls piled high—forming hills across the battlefield.
Reality warped. The terrain screamed. The very climate of Baal II began to change.
Now the whole world stank of iron, bile, and sulfur.
The surface swarmed with daemons, but Khorne's legions showed no sign of stopping.
They poured endlessly from the Skull Stairway.
In response, the Leviathan Hive Fleet screamed and launched another wave of Tyranid spores—birthing a fresh tide of xenos.
Khorne's fury could not be quenched.
But Leviathan couldn't afford to retreat either—not after investing so much biomass.
To abandon Baal II now would be a devastating loss.
…
Inside the temporary Savior's Sanctuary, deep in a Blackstone-shielded chamber—
"Tch… that's insane."
Eden watched the battle through multiple re-encoded surveillance recordings.
Due to the daemonic and Tyranid interference, many of the recordings were distorted—some devolved into abstract madness.
A normal human would've suffered a psychic breakdown just from viewing them.
But to Eden, these were harmless.
He could clearly see all the crucial details.
No doubt about it—
Baal II had become an apocalyptic battlefield. The entire planetary terrain and ecosystem were transformed.
Eden even spotted a massive octagonal symbol formed from skulls.
Now, he could only hope that the two sides would keep fighting as long as possible—draining the strength of mankind's enemies.
"Come on, Ka'bro. Be useful for once. Take down that tendril fleet."
Whatever happened next—
Eden was rooting for his good buddy Ka'Bandha.
He wanted the daemons to win this battle.
After all, the Supreme Bloodthirster had gone all in—burned every last favor to borrow this army.
It'd be a waste not to make the most of it.
And besides, Eden's territory had Holy Ash Bombs.
Compared to the horrors of the real universe, daemons were easier to handle.
If Ka'Bandha could eliminate the main tendril fleet, humanity's pressure would ease dramatically.
"Come on…"
As Eden stared in anticipation—
Ka'Bandha seemed to respond to his silent plea.
The Supreme Bloodthirster took flight in a crimson hurricane.
With eight fellow Bloodthirsters and a force of daemons in multiples of eight, he surged toward the twisted, monstrous Hive Fleet tendril orbiting Baal II.
Ka'bro… is going in!
(End of Chapter)
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