"Claudia, you've stolen the treasure that belongs to all of us!"
"His bloodline is so pure, he will give birth to noble offspring for our order!"
"Hand him over! He must belong to all the High Knights!"
"Let me have a turn, please, Claudia! I promise I'll just use him a little!"
Dozens of silver spheres hovered around Claudia like a cluster of stars. Their built-in speakers shrieked in unison, demanding that she comply.
"I'm not discussing this with you," Claudia's cold voice cut through the air like an arctic gale. The hall fell silent instantly. "I'm warning you, don't lay a finger on him. He belongs to me."
"Claudia, you can't keep him all to yourself," boomed the largest silver sphere.
Claudia replied evenly, "I won't keep him forever. But only I will bear his first child. If you want him afterward, you can have him then."
"That could take a whole year!"
"And what if you turn out to be infertile?"
The spheres began chattering over one another again.
Claudia traced the edge of her mask lazily with a fingertip. "It was House Octavia that discovered him. That makes this my legal right."
"One year," the largest sphere declared. "You may have him for one year at most. After that, whether or not you are with child, he must be handed over for our use."
"You mean yours as well?" Claudia asked.
"Yes, including me," the sphere laughed. "I'd like to taste him too."
"Talke, you're a man!"
"No, Talke, you can't treat him like that!"
Talke chuckled. "Relax, I won't hurt him, maybe just the back end a little. It won't affect the front's usability."
"Absolutely not! Your mother and sister can have him, but you cannot! No man can!"
His proposal was rejected instantly, leaving Talke to shrug helplessly. "Fine. But the House Talke will have priority access."
"Agreed."
The High Knights came to an understanding and began gleefully discussing their "turn order."
Then one trembling silver sphere broke from the cluster and floated before Claudia. Its voice crackled with emotion, "Claudia, I love you so much… Why don't you love me? Please, I'll just watch, I'll even share him with you, just let me see you, please?"
"Shut up." Claudia's lips barely moved, but the disgust in her tone was cutting.
"Enor."
A maid silently stepped from the shadows, raising a viciously shaped sonic resonator rifle.
Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger, a pulse of sound shimmered through the air, and the sphere vaporized into smoke before it could even scream.
"Poor Anthony," one sphere snickered. "He really was persistent."
"Serves him right, simping never ends well."
"Pathetic. He's an embarrassment to men."
Laughter rippled among the silver spheres.
Talke asked, "So we're settled, then. But what will you do with the slaves?"
"They dared rebel, kill them all!"
"But they're arena champions. The people love them."
"I said we shouldn't have let them fight in that neighboring city. They got ambushed halfway back!"
"But they won us that valuable mining concession, didn't they?"
"Crassus, they're just delusional slaves," another said. "You're not afraid of them, are you?"
"Of course not. But they shouldn't have challenged the authority of the High Knights!"
"Send them back to the arena, the people will enjoy that."
The spheres decided the slaves' fate among themselves. Claudia only spoke at the end:
"My husband brought along a boy. Send that boy into the arena as well."
"Your husband? Claudia, you're not even married yet!"
"Don't tell me you've actually fallen for him?"
"Oh, come on, his bloodline is so pure, I'd fall for him too,"
Talke smirked. "You're jealous of that boy, aren't you? Is he his child?"
Claudia reclined lazily on her throne, mechanical wings draped behind her as her fingers toyed with a lock of hair. "That's none of your concern. Send the boy to the arena, but not as a slave. I want him to beg me."
…....
"That's what I told them," Claudia purred later to Caelan, coiling around him like a serpent. Her pale arms wrapped around his neck. "Those fools didn't suspect a thing."
Her lips brushed his ear, her breath warm and sweet with the scent of wine. "Darling, how was my performance?"
"Enough." Caelan swatted her hand away. "Talk properly. Keep your hands to yourself."
"How heartless! After everything I've done, you won't even reward me?"
Claudia's eyes shimmered with false tears as she bit her lip and tugged at his collar, tracing slow circles on his chest through the fabric.
Caelan stepped back, suppressing a sigh. Yes, she was stunning, lethally so. Her eyes gleamed like honeyed glass, her every motion calculated to seduce. But he found her beauty exhausting.
Claudia's charm was blazing and aggressive, like the midday sun, dazzling but unbearable. She was too deliberate, too practiced. Her passion felt mechanical.
He couldn't explain it, but something in him felt no attraction at all. Even with Sylvia, he had never felt this kind of void.
Caelan said quietly, "Angron, are you sure about this path?"
The boy nodded. If you want to lead them, you must become one of them.
Just as the Emperor had to be human to guide humanity, the Astartes must remember the blood in their veins is human, not divine. If they see mortals as sheep, they'll lose what they're meant to protect.
Caelan ruffled the boy's hair. "Then go. Turn the world upside down if you must, even if the heavens crack open. If you call for me, I'll break down the gates of hell to reach you."
Every Primarch had his conviction, Curze his justice, Lorgar his disbelief, but Angron's was the purest of them all.
"Really?" Claudia suddenly leaned close again, arms snaking around Caelan's neck. Her lashes brushed his throat as she whispered, her breath dripping sweetness and poison.
"Then will you fight me?"
Caelan raised his hand. "I'll give you a good slap or two!"
"Oh, yes, please!" she said eagerly, pressing her chest toward him. "Don't hold back!"
"Didn't you say you hate roughness?"
"Ohh…" Claudia dabbed at imaginary tears. "I'm so moved! You actually remember what I like. Let's do it, let's help each other become adults. Be as rough as you like, if it's you."
Caelan's expression went blank. 'That's it. I can't take this anymore. Angron, start your rebellion already!'
Hundreds of haggard bodies were crammed into a deep pit, ragged, shackled, branded, still oozing from fresh burns. Their dull eyes darted nervously; the air was filled with the rattle of chains and stifled sobs.
Angron looked up. Towering around them were massive stepped pyramids scarred with acid-etched grooves, except the top steps, which gleamed pristine and smooth, wide enough for only a single person.
He realized instantly what this was.
Not a duel.
A massacre.
A battle royale.
His nerves screamed in warning; the game hadn't begun, but they had to move now.
"Get up!" Angron's psychic voice thundered through every mind. "We all want to live, climb the pyramids!"
His power linked every slave's consciousness, turning fear into resolve, harder than steel, fiercer than flame.
As the first bare foot touched a step, the rest began to climb.
"Wait! The game hasn't started, that's cheating!" shrieked a hovering orb.
Another laughed. "No matter, only one will live anyway. Let's just start early!"
"Dear audience, let me hear your cheers!"
The roar of the crowd erupted from above. Beyond the pit's walls lay a circular arena packed with spectators, citizens who, though oppressed themselves, took twisted delight in the blood of slaves.
Angron felt no rage, only sorrow.
Dozens of metal spheres, "Eyes of the Maggots," the High Knights' drones, hovered overhead. The knights didn't even need to attend. From their jeweled thrones, they toyed with human lives like notes in a symphony of cruelty.
"Let the games begin!"
A shrill wail blasted through the air, stabbing pain through skulls, half the slaves collapsed, clutching their heads, only to be dragged up by scarred comrades.
"Keep climbing! Don't stop!" Angron's voice boomed like thunder. "We'll all live. I promise!"
Then came a metallic groan from above, a massive drainage gate twisting open, releasing a torrent of fetid, yellow-green sludge that reeked of rot and acid.
The flood spread quickly, hissing where it touched metal. Anyone who fell in dissolved screaming into sludge, exactly the kind of entertainment the knights craved.
But the slaves climbed.
The higher they went, the narrower the steps, until only one could stand at the top.
Angron had a plan.
The strongest men crouched to form a living ladder, letting others climb on their backs. They moved silently, saving every breath for survival.
Angron coordinated them through the psychic link, his mind calculating every position perfectly.
He could save them all.
Women and children climbed over bent spines and bleeding shoulders. The walls were smooth as mirrors; one slip, and the whole human chain would plunge into the acid below.
Still, they climbed.
"Up! Don't stop!"
The living ladder rose higher and higher. A frail girl reached the top first, followed by a boy, then others.
It had never happened before.
The crowd fell silent.
Even the ever-cheering mob froze, their breath caught. Only the strained creaking of bones echoed through the pit.
At the base, the men's spines bent grotesquely, joints popping like breaking branches, but they held.
"Another step!"
The acid reached their feet, forcing the lower layers to let go, but those above climbed faster; those who reached the wall pulled the others up with bleeding hands.
"Open all the valves!" the announcer screamed through his orb. "Faster!"
The High Knights wanted despair, not unity. They wanted carnage, not hope.
The acid surged faster, but the ladder climbed faster still.
Only the top three tiers remained, supporting the rest.
Angron stood at the peak, holding the entire chain with his narrow shoulders.
"You first!" one man shouted, pushing him upward.
Angron roared, "Without me, the chain will break! Climb!"
He forced the man to obey, pushing him up psychically.
He alone stayed. That was his duty; he had promised them all they would live.
The acid stopped just below the final step, splashing burns across his body.
"Keep pouring! I want him dead!" the announcer shrieked.
But the valves stayed shut; even the knights wouldn't break their own rules.
They couldn't reach the top, but those above formed a human chain, grasping hands from top to bottom.
"One, two, pull!"
Hundreds of hands slick with blood heaved upward, bones cracking, tendons tearing, until Angron's fingers caught the edge of the wall, and the entire human chain was dragged to safety.
They collapsed on the sand, spent and trembling, but alive.
He had kept his promise.
Angron stood.
No gestures. No shouting. No triumph.
He simply looked up at the hovering orbs and smiled.
His split lips bled, his teeth red, but his expression said it all:
You lost.
In the lowest stands, a filthy boy clenched his oily apron. His throat trembled, then he rasped out, "Good!"
The single word struck the silence like a spark in dry grass. The crowd erupted into thunderous applause, cheering wildly, every clap a slap across the knights' faces.
"You worthless slave! How dare you look at me like that?!" the announcer screeched, his orb diving toward Angron, only to be stopped midair by another silver sphere.
"Claudia, what are you doing?!"
Her lazy voice purred from within the sphere: "Oh dear, you seem to have forgotten, he's not a slave."
"He's nothing but a dog!"
"Then he's my dog," she said coolly. "And only I can punish him."
Her tone brightened. "Attention, everyone, we have a new champion! The victor is… Angron!"
"ANGRON!"
The crowd erupted like a volcano, their cheers shaking the very dome of the arena.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu