Chapter 136: The Emperor is Showing Off!
The war on Celestian Star had escalated beyond all projections. Over a hundred million soldiers of the Imperium clashed with approximately one hundred million Orks across the planet's ravaged surface.
Ork Boss Ugugg the Conqueror had finally revealed himself on the battlefield, engaging the Emperor of Mankind directly.
With the warlord's attention focused southward, the Ork attacks on the northern wasteland where Omega held position had diminished significantly.
Omega seized the opportunity. Using the war base as his stronghold, he launched a comprehensive counterattack.
The Alpha Legion dispersed into thirty large army groups, each striking rapidly toward important Ork city strongholds across the continents, capturing the settlements to serve as defensive bastions for the Astra Militarum.
For the first time in over half a year, Omega granted his Company Commanders full tactical autonomy.
The news electrified the soldiers who had endured the grinding defensive siege.
The Alpha Legion surged forth from the northern wasteland like a tide unleashed, Space Marines forming the spearhead of each assault, securing urban strongpoints for the mortal forces that followed.
Alpha Legion forces spread across the entire planet.
Company Commanders led heavy assault columns into direct engagement with Ork warbands in the open wilderness.
The Legion's true capabilities became evident, cities fell, strongholds were razed, and the greenskin presence contracted with each passing day.
Meanwhile, Omega himself, accompanied by Captains Skor and Norton, tens of thousands of Space Marines, Mechanicus war-cohorts, and substantial auxiliary forces, struck out toward the Emperor's battlefield to provide support.
The southern front sprawled across thousands of kilometers of broken terrain, mountains, plains, and shattered earth where the Emperor of Mankind and two Sons of Horus companies waged desperate war against tens of millions of Orks. Countless regimental banners of the Imperial Army rose like stars above the carnage, marking the positions of mortal formations locked in the grinding slaughter.
Fire and smoke choked the air. A clear demarcation line separated the armies, green on one side, the gold and crimson of the Imperium on the other.
Then, without warning, gunships screamed over the Ork rear positions. Ordnance rained down, shells, missiles, and drop pods disgorging fresh waves of Space Marines directly into the greenskin lines. Behind them, an endless stream of aircraft deployed armor, mechanized units, and artillery batteries.
Omega materialized in a mountain forest deep behind Ork lines, his power sword cleaving through the nearest greenskins.
Scattered teams of Alpha Legion Space Marines converged on their Primarch's position with practiced efficiency, forming into a steel spearhead that drove straight into the Ork army's vulnerable rear.
Within hours, millions of Alpha Legion soldiers swept through the surrounding terrain, closing the distance to the main engagement. Bombers and missile strikes carved paths through the Ork resistance.
At the vanguard, towering Titans over thirty meters tall advanced alongside Mechanicum battle-automata, while Space Marines directed massive superheavy tanks that thundered with each volley.
Omega understood the tactical reality perfectly. Charging tens of millions of Orks without overwhelming firepower superiority was suicide.
This battle would be won through methodical application of force, not heroic gestures.
The Legion ruthlessly exploited its firepower advantage, seizing valley passes and mountain defiles to construct interlocking defensive positions.
Heavy weapons swept the approaches in disciplined fire patterns.
The Orks, recognizing that human forces had materialized in the heart of their army, responded with characteristic fury.
Howling mobs charged the Alpha Legion positions repeatedly. But Omega's forces held, fortifying even as they fought.
Missiles descended from orbit in continuous bombardment, targeting the densest Ork concentrations. Explosions rippled across the landscape, dazzling light and choking smoke rising to obscure the sky itself.
The tumult reached even the Emperor and Horus, thousands of kilometers away at the front.
Word of the Alpha Legion's audacious maneuver spread through the Imperial lines. Morale surged. The human forces launched a ferocious counterattack.
....
Days passed.
Impossibly, the Alpha Legion constructed a network of small, interconnected fortresses in the very center of the Ork horde. This defensive zone grew taller and more formidable with each passing hour.
Several days into the siege, the Ork Boss made his move.
The terrain itself rebelled. Behind the Emperor's position on the plain, the ground began to rise with unnatural purpose. Omega, holding the mountain positions thousands of kilometers away, watched in disbelief as the earth near the Emperor warped upward, extending kilometers into the sky before transforming into an enormous maw of stone and soil, an Ork construct given terrible life through gestalt psychic power.
Mortal auxiliaries caught in its shadow screamed as the immense jaws began to close, threatening to swallow entire regiments.
Then the Emperor moved.
Golden light erupted across the battlefield, so brilliant, so overwhelming in its sacred radiance that even at Omega's distance, it seemed to burn directly before his eyes. This was the Emperor's psychic might made manifest.
The golden illumination pulsed. Psychic shockwaves rippled outward, washing over Omega's position in mere moments. Nearly a thousand kilometers of terrain-made-flesh simply ceased to exist.
When the light faded, the upper portion of the colossal maw had been annihilated. The Imperial forces trapped within stood exposed but unharmed, staring upward in shock.
The display stunned both armies into momentary silence.
Countless Ork Boyz gazed at the golden-armored Emperor, and for the first time in their brutal lives, fear entered their eyes. Their bodies trembled involuntarily. The Orks possessed psychic sensitivity of their own; they comprehended exactly how terrifying the Emperor's power truly was.
The rescued Imperial forces erupted in jubilant cheers, crying out the Emperor's name.
The golden radiance dimmed. In that moment of transition, a fifty-meter-tall Ork Gargant thundered forward, closing the distance to the Emperor in massive, ground-shaking strides.
The Emperor, his attention still focused on the dissipating psychic energies, failed to react in time.
Ork Boss Ugugg the Conqueror's power claw snapped shut around the Emperor's armored form, lifting him from the ground.
"WAAAAGH!"
The warlord's triumphant roar shook the battlefield.
Every Ork within hearing distance responded with savage enthusiasm, their fear evaporating in an instant. They bellowed their Boss's victory to the sky.
Psychic energy, raw, green, and turbulent, flooded into Ugugg's body from millions of Ork minds, a tide of gestalt power that made the air shimmer and crack.
Golden and green energies clashed where the power claw gripped the Emperor.
The Emperor's psychic might struggled against the concentrated Waaagh field channeled through the Ork Boss. The struggle was visible for thousands of kilometers, two opposing forces locked in a contest.
Human soldiers across the front witnessed the impossible sight. Disbelief turned to horror. Voices rose in desperate prayer and anguish, calling out to their god-sovereign.
Omega stared across the distance, shock coursing through him. "No way," he breathed.
"No fucking Way!! Is the Emperor actually...he was just unstoppable a moment ago!"
Captain Skor, his enhanced eyes tracking the psychic clash, turned urgently to his Primarch. "My lord, the Emperor is captured! We must act! Can your spatial transfer reach that distance?"
Omega shook his head sharply. He'd improved his personal teleportation to function within a ten-kilometer radius, but a thousand kilometers exceeded all parameters.
"Too far for a personal jump. Bright!" He activated the vox-link to his flagship. "I need coordinates for orbital transfer, now!"
Bright's response was immediate. "Coordinates calculated and locked, my Primarch."
Omega's form blurred, reality bending around him as the teleportation field engaged. He vanished from the mountain fortress, reappearing in his flagship's teleportarium. The constant communication link with Bright eliminated calculation delays, a crucial advantage.
He allowed the long-range teleporter only one minute to cycle and recharge. Then reality bent again, and he was gone.
On the battlefield, Horus reacted first.
The Warmaster launched himself forward with transhuman speed, his lightning claws extended. He struck at the Gargant's power claw assembly, his weapons piercing deep into the mechanical arm's structure.
Three opposing forces are locked in a contest: Orks, Emperor, and Primarch.
Horus ranked among the physically strongest of all the Primarchs. His claws threatened to shear through the power claw's mechanisms entirely. Under the combined pressure from within and without, the claw's grip began to loosen.
From the corner of his eye, Horus glimpsed the Emperor's face. The Master of Mankind held his great sword calmly, his expression utterly without fear or concern. His gaze swept across the ground beside them, focusing on empty air.
The next instant, Omega materialized in a flash of spatial distortion.
The Primarch looked up. In the Emperor's hand, the great sword blazed with psychic fire, golden flames wreathing the blade. Power radiated outward, terrible, absolute, and beautiful in its overwhelming might.
Horus, Omega, and every Custodian, Sister of Silence, and mortal soldier within line of sight witnessed what followed.
The golden-armored Emperor swung his blade in a gentle, almost casual arc.
The Ork Boss's massive, powerful body, legendary among its kind, began to disintegrate. Flesh and bone dissolved into golden particles that drifted away like dust on the wind. Within seconds, nothing remained.
Without its pilot, the Gargant collapsed. Massive alloy components crashed to the ground with thunderous impact, smoke and dust rising in tremendous clouds.
The psychic shockwave that followed purified thousands of charging Orks in an expanding sphere of golden radiance. They too dissolved into nothingness, leaving only scattered weapons and scrap metal in their wake.
The Emperor, wreathed in golden flame, descended slowly to the ground. The wind swept across the battlefield, catching his cloak. He landed without sound, utterly composed.
Every witness stood transfixed. The Emperor appeared not as a man, but as something far greater, a god made manifest.
Horus, relief flooding through him, sank to one knee. Whether from exhaustion or instinctive reverence, he couldn't say. His eyes reflected the dying flames on the Emperor's blade with something approaching worship.
Omega blinked, sand and wind stinging his eyes. His mind raced to catch up with what he'd just witnessed. The Emperor stood completely unharmed, not a scratch, not a sign of strain.
"Holy shit," Omega muttered under his breath. "The Emperor was showing off the entire time."
Beside him, Horus remained kneeling, his eyes bright with devotion as he gazed upon the Emperor's magnificent form. The flames on the great sword guttered and died, the weapon returning to its dormant state.
The Emperor, his back still to both Primarchs, spoke in a voice that carried effortlessly despite its gentle tone.
"Horus. Omeg. I am unharmed. Your swift action to aid me... I am truly touched."
Horus's head snapped toward Omega, "Omega?" Surprise was evident even through his helm. The Emperor had spoken Omega's actual name.
Omega shrugged internally. His identity was compromised anyway. Might as well play along with the Emperor's dramatic revelation. "Your divine might is unstoppable, my Emperor," he said simply.
"Brother," Horus said slowly, rising to his full height. "You've hidden yourself well."
Omega smiled faintly. "Truth and falsehood aren't always what matters. What matters is what people hear, what they see, what they feel. Haven't our Space Marines always worn full armor, their true faces concealed from the masses?"
Horus studied him for a long moment. "You make a fair point. But between brothers, sincerity is preferable to deception."
The Emperor turned to regard them both. He had been unwilling to speak falsely when naming Omega; that much was clear. Satisfied that his sons stood in accord, he raised his great sword high.
Every Custodian, Sister of Silence, Space Marine, and Imperial Army soldier on the battlefield turned their attention to their sovereign's signal.
[End of Chapter]