The Lion and the child he picked up traversed the scorched earth left in the forest as the fortress's guns repelled the enemy, with shattered armor and twisted bone fragments scattered all around. The traces on Red Moon Fortress showed it had endured attacks from all directions, but the real reason for its fall was not the number of enemies, nor the breach of its gate.
The Lion pointed to a black fissure in the foundation of Red Moon Fortress's high wall, which snaked upwards from a concrete shell crater.
"Melta bomb?" Zahariel asked. "That would require a significant yield."
"I saw Astartes remains," The Lion said coldly. "These people were not poorly equipped rabble, yet they didn't seal this entrance."
"They killed every enemy on this world that could threaten them, so naturally they felt secure," Zahariel replied.
"The guys we fought in the forest earlier also thought we were just helpless lambs."
The Lion was silent for a moment, then put on his helmet and said, "Since they've left the door open for us, scaling the wall and breaking down the gate would be ungracious."
He advanced swiftly and decisively, having already anticipated it might be a trap, yet unable to suppress the urge to slay enemies.
Passing through the fissure, they entered the dimly lit tunnels within the fortress. The Lion's helmet sensors picked up the scent of promethium fuel and engine oil in the air. He deduced it was a vehicle hangar rather than a bottlenecked chamber, despite such a design being disadvantageous for defenders.
"No power," Zahariel scanned the surroundings. "The circuits here must all be broken."
"Go deeper," The Lion said. "Stay vigilant, in case there's something more acute than us in the dark."
The two advanced along the corridor, discovering a corpse along the way. Through his helmet's visual system, The Lion identified that this mutated body still bore human traces, but already had horns, scales, and hooves. He switched to infrared mode, following the residual heat traces on the corpse towards the center of the fortress.
"Your Highness," Zahariel whispered, "have you noticed that we haven't seen any Astartes bodies so far? If the defenders suffered no casualties, they wouldn't have fallen."
"You mean their bodies were removed?" The Lion asked.
"Perhaps for stripping equipment, or for other blasphemous purposes."
The Lion was furious but remained silent.
As he was about to respond, footsteps interrupted his thoughts. A cultist emerged from behind a door, with two eyes and a giant mouth on the back of its head, letting out a piercing shriek.
The old man directly shattered its head with a punch, and as the body fell, it attracted more footsteps.
"Guard my back," The Lion told Zahariel. He hadn't wanted to get into a fight so early, but he had no choice. The old man picked up a sturdy wooden beam from the ground and began to attack these Chaos spawn.
Enemies surged in like a tide. They were twisted in form, with purple skin, long tails, and deformed limbs, numerous yet chaotic.
Every thunderous strike from The Lion was a deadly killing move, truly embodying the saying, "Youth fears the fist, old age fears the staff." Enemies were hacked and slashed by his wooden staff, sending flesh and blood flying. Occasional attacks landed on his black ceramite armor, only to deflect weakly. Zahariel, meanwhile, used his bolter pistol to clear any stragglers.
Within mere seconds, fear swept through the enemy ranks, and the cultists began to scatter and flee. The Lion, however, had no intention of letting any reachable enemy escape, until there were no living creatures left in the corridor. He stood in a pool of blood, his armor dripping, while Zahariel behind him finished off the cultists who were still clinging to life with his Chainsword.
"You are still as deadly as ever, Your Highness," Zahariel said.
"If only that were true," The Lion muttered, leaning on his wooden staff.
He realized that his speed and strength were no longer at their peak; though the difference was slight, it was undeniable. He suddenly thought of a question:
"Zahariel, where are my brothers? Are they all dead?"
Zahariel lowered his head in thought, because he had also been living as a savage in the mountains for the past few centuries, and he only had a general idea of the Imperium's situation. So he replied after a moment:
"Their situation, like that of the other Primarchs, remains a mystery. The Imperium has largely forgotten them, but rumors persist. Some places believe they are still alive, but the Imperium tries to suppress such possibilities."
The Lion snorted, "Whether they are alive or not, this is Malcador's doing. That old man never gave up control of everything."
"Now, the greatest threat to the Imperium is probably Abaddon," Zahariel continued.
"Ezekiel Abaddon?" The Lion was confused. "The First Captain of the Sons of Horus? He's still alive? Why him?"
"Yes, not only is he alive, but he has acquired power comparable to a Primarch. He just destroyed Cadia."
The Lion sneered, "Well, we'll talk when I meet my brother's wayward son. For now, we have more pressing matters to deal with."
The signs of blasphemy deep within the fortress became increasingly blatant as they delved deeper. The Lion was furious at the Chaos Cultists for leaving rotting corpses everywhere, but this also indicated that no one was active in these areas.
The walls were now covered in various drawings: at first, they were just rebellious, blasphemous graffiti, but gradually they turned into dizzying Chaos scriptures.
The Lion turned into a new corridor, but he felt an unusual dizziness, as if his mind refused to process the surrounding information to distinguish direction or even up and down.
Accompanying this was a faint humming that seemed to come from nowhere, an ethereal chant that had lingered around them at a constant volume since he first noticed it. He reached out to take off his helmet, but Zabriel pulled his arm.
"Better not, Your Highness. We don't know what the air might contain."
A grunt of displeasure escaped The Lion's throat, but he did not shake off Zabriel's hand. He knew the Warp was adept at probing the human heart, and he also knew that Zabriel might be more experienced in such situations, having lived for centuries in this new and dim era.
In the past, The Lion would have relied on his powerful physical constitution to resist any contamination or poison, but some dangers are not merely physical.
"I've detected strong energy readings ahead," Zabriel added.
"If smell and hearing can't lead us to the enemy, perhaps energy can. We can at least destroy whatever our enemies are charging up; that might draw them out."
The Lion flexed his fingers and adjusted his helmet's vision to infrared. As the scriptures disappeared, his dizziness also subsided, but the humming still echoed in his ears.
They encountered no further resistance until they reached a magnificent, carved gate twice The Lion's height. The Lion switched back to normal vision to examine the patterns engraved on it: robed figures, majestic wings, and longswords clasped in hands.
"Sanguinius," he murmured, but his brother's magnificent image had been defiled.
The Great Angel's noble face had been replaced by Space Marine skulls; the Chaos Cultists had managed to chisel the skulls of his children into the metal gate.
Ugly marks and twisted, leaping beasts were deeply carved around the angel; the once noble angel was now distorted into grotesque ornamentation, and most chillingly, the statue of Sanguinius seemed to be slowly seeping blood.
When The Lion brought up thermal imaging, he found that the liquid was flowing out slowly, carrying human body temperature. His thoughts instantly returned to Macragge ten thousand years ago... that was when they were about to disband that foolish "Second Imperium" and return to Terra to reinforce their father. And at the very moment when The Lion, Guilliman, and Sanguinius, the three brothers, were about to part... Sanguinius's perfect face, for the first time, showed a trace of reluctance and sadness... "You say... will we ever meet again?"
The Lion, Guilliman: "..."
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