Chapter 336: Who Do You Think I Am? Ram It Down!
"So, the glory of the War Hounds is to run away like beaten dogs every time you lose a battle?"
The question silenced the World Eaters around him, who were fuming over the failing war.
"Sergeant Khârn, we should retreat," the woman in the white naval uniform warned.
"And if I say no?"
Digging his gauntleted fingers deep into the steel surrounding the blood-pool, the Regent of the World Eaters stared fixedly at Shipmistress Lotara Sarrin.
The Conqueror had tried to kill Khârn many times, especially after Angron's arrival.
He had lost count of how many times a deck he happened to be crossing suffered explosive decompression, lost power, or had its gravity systems mysteriously reverse.
Wherever he was, terminals were prone to spontaneous combustion. Any specific area where he appeared saw a significant increase in plasma leaks from the lower decks, furnace overpressures, and suicides.
Then daemons would descend, attempting to kill the ship's true master.
The Conqueror was a beast, forever trying to turn and bite the hand holding the leash.
Every day brought a mutiny from the bilges. Daemons would incite some tribe of crewmen in a corner to launch a crusade against the populated areas in search of blood.
"You have no authority to interfere with my command. If you question these orders, you are welcome to discuss them with Khârn the Betrayer," Lotara said coldly.
Khârn looked around, seemingly trying to find that legend among the World Eaters filling the bridge.
Where was the Betrayer?
He wasn't here.
The Blood God would not allow him to come!
"Or we could call upon Lord Angron directly," Khârn laughed aloud.
Lotara glared at him.
"And what about you?!"
The laughter stopped abruptly. Khârn suddenly turned his head, scanning the bridge.
Akhhor the Red-Bound, Captain of the 14th Grand Company, who had personally conquered eighty-eight worlds during the Great Crusade.
Rethrak, a respected World Eaters Apothecary, whose team struggled to pass on new blood to the suffering Legion.
Lhorke, Captain of the 1st Assault Company, who charged forward during the Siege of Terra, only to be thrown into the warp along with his entire unit by a rift weapon during a duel with a Dark Angel champion. When he reappeared to his peers, he was alone, bearing a pauldron with a winged sword emblem.
Ingram, a Terran-born War Hound, a Red Butcher...
Ettore, one of the Twelve...
"How long will you run?"
He roared at these seniors who were famous ten thousand years ago, men he wasn't even worthy to meet back then.
These legendary warriors looked at each other, suppressing the impulses in their minds, trying to understand what Khârn was trying to say, what he wanted them to do.
Khârn looked at these seniors lost in slaughter and pain, his eyes filled with mockery and resentment.
And sorrow.
After a long time—
As the Eternal Crusader's bombardment shook the hull again, Khârn spoke.
"I do not remember the glory of the War Hounds."
"I was just a soldier conscripted from a common world. I was forcibly recruited, indoctrinated to fight for the Imperium, believed in the Imperium's ideals, and became a World Eater."
"Then I was implanted with the Butcher's Nails and thrown onto one battlefield after another."
Khârn tapped his head. The metallic ring of the Butcher's Nails echoed hollowly on the bridge.
"Then we launched the Isstvan Massacre."
"Then we launched the Horus Heresy."
"Then we lost."
The Regent's sharp words made many World Eaters clench their fists.
"Then I was abandoned. My Captain, Shaka, left me on the battlefield to die."
Khârn's pride as a World Eater shattered at that moment.
"I do not know the so-called glory of the World Eaters either."
"If glory is launching massacres on conquered worlds and then fleeing and abandoning comrades after losing the war, then I want no part of it!"
Angron called himself a rebel. Look at what he did.
The World Eaters prided themselves on being warriors. Look at what they did.
Angron loathed the Emperor, so he killed Custodians, tortured his sons, slaughtered the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, but dared not raise his sword against the Emperor.
The World Eaters prided themselves on obedience, so they threw themselves into slaughter, sacrificed to evil gods, and scattered like birds and beasts whenever the war was lost.
A series of questions silenced the World Eaters.
"Astartes shouldn't be like this. At least as warriors, we shouldn't be like this."
Khârn no longer knew what glory was, nor did he have the chance to experience true glory.
But he didn't want to run anymore.
Glory is not blind obedience, not slaughter, not self-deceptive evasion, not becoming a foil for a brighter opponent in the fires of war.
Khârn simply hoped to prove himself with a great undertaking. Prove he wasn't trash. Prove the World Eaters he joined weren't trash.
He wanted to prove that World Eaters were warriors capable of turning the tide of war.
They shouldn't be slaves.
But look at these people. Look at Lotara, still ordering him to retreat.
"I despise you!"
Khârn shouted.
He stood up in his crimson armor, far less physically imposing than these blessed beasts.
But when the beasts met his clear gaze, they looked away evasively.
"Because I am the only one here who resisted my fate."
"The Butcher's Nails tried to take my sanity. I resisted, striking back with reason."
"Angron tried to take my status, letting me sink to the bottom of the Legion. I resisted, seizing his flagship and army."
Khârn walked forward, treading on the carpet of blood beneath his massive feet.
He felt the pain of the Butcher's Nails return.
And it was worse than before.
He gritted his teeth, determined to defeat it as he defeated everything else.
"I am far stronger than any of you!"
The Regent glared at everyone present, every commander.
They once had a chance to break free from Angron, but they brought the suffering back upon themselves.
They once had a chance to resist Angron, but they stood against the Loyalists.
They once had a chance to flee Angron, a chance to resist fate, but they conspired with Lotara and the Betrayer to concentrate and murder those warriors.
Every time there was a chance, every time they went with the flow.
No guts to sacrifice for war, but plenty of guts to use war for slaughter and venting!
"You are failures. You never resisted, so you have nothing."
"The World Eaters have only one chance to be great, and that is now!"
Khârn pressed his fist against his chest and roared.
"Obey my command. No more running."
"This is mutiny," the woman in white scolded.
"Hesitating, posturing."
He turned again, walking towards Lotara, towards her physical form bound to the bridge.
"Pitiful wretches with nothing, not even the resolve to sacrifice."
Khârn swung his axe. He wanted to resist failure.
Blood sprayed.
"You—"
Lotara's figure flickered, then dissipated directly.
Everyone looked at Khârn, then at the trembling fleshy mass on the command throne of the bridge.
They drew their weapons.
The Conqueror chose to descend.
In the observations of the Eternal Crusader, the eternally angry ship roared. She abandoned all offensive means, poured all energy into her void shields, and rammed straight towards the surface.
Towards the Tucana Bastion, one of the three still resisting, guarded by the Burning Angel, Karna.
"Down."
Khârn gripped the edge of the console.
"Down!"
He growled low, watching the perspective drop continuously, watching the blood-red viewports of the bridge, scorched by the atmosphere, be plated with a layer of burning gold.
They would be the clarion call of the offensive, the spearhead pushing this war to a new stage.
They would force the Blood God to intervene. They could create this opportunity simply because they were World Eaters.
Watch closely.
This is what a truly desperate mad dog looks like!
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