-Simulation-
You loosened your grip on the melta bomb, releasing it into the diseased cavity of Typhus's body. The device's casing was already scalding hot, the thermal core building exponentially toward critical detonation.
Quickly, desperately, you pulled out your thick arm from deep within the Herald's corrupted flesh. The limb was constantly being eroded by the sticky, foul-smelling green ichor that clung to your ceramite like acid. Warning runes flashed across your visor as the corrosive fluids ate into the armor's surface, leaving pitted scars that would never fully heal.
Your two blood-red magnetic boots stepped heavily against the deck, servos screaming as you drove the Terminator armor into a rapid backward retreat. You needed distance. You needed to be anywhere but in the blast radius when that bomb went off.
In a flash of realization, Typhus's eyes, visible through the cracked lenses of his helmet, suddenly widened with shock and rage. The Herald couldn't help but let out a roar that echoed through the corridor, a sound caught somewhere between fury and disbelief.
He instantly raised one massive palm covered with a corrupted metal gauntlet, thick fingers spreading wide. He moved to thrust the hand hard into his own diseased body, clearly intending to pull the melta bomb out from the wound before it could detonate.
However, the injury healing ability that Nurgle's Chosen were so proud of, the gift that had made Typhus seemingly immortal, had completely become the Herald's death sentence.
Before his thick fingers could even touch the corrupted flesh of his abdomen, the huge wound that you had forcibly opened simply disappeared. It vanished in an instant, healing completely as diseased tissue knitted itself back together with supernatural speed. The melta bomb was now sealed inside, trapped within Typhus's body with no way out.
At the same moment, just as you had begun your retreat, Mortarion moved with the terrible speed only a Primarch could achieve.
The Pale King, wearing the ancient armor of Barbarus, stepped forward quickly. His movements were economical, precise, born from centuries of experience in dealing death. The giant scythe Silence suddenly danced in his palm, the weapon moving so fast it seemed to blur.
The blade cut through the fetid air with a sound like tearing silk, easily severing Typhus's thick arm. The limb that the Herald had raised to tear open his own corrupted body again simply fell away, separated from its owner before Typhus could react.
The next moment, the severed arm, exuding a green rotting stench that made even the corrupted air seem fresh by comparison, fell to the ground completely. It hit the deck with a wet, meaty sound that echoed through the passage.
Mortarion's yellow eyes suddenly widened with terrible focus. The giant scythe Silence, still held firmly in his palms, changed the direction of its attack in mid-swing. The weapon moved like lightning itself, sweeping toward the neck junction of Typhus's rotted power armor with inexorable purpose.
The terrifying speed and power of this attack far exceeded even your enhanced perception. You had fought beside Primarchs, had witnessed their might, but seeing Mortarion move with such lethal intent still sent a chill through you.
The sharp edge of the giant scythe seemed to rub out wisps of fleeting, dazzling sparks in the air as it cleaved through space itself. The friction generated heat and light, a testament to the impossible velocity of the Primarch's strike.
In that instant, Typhus, who had just lost his arm and was still reeling from the shock, didn't even have time to wave the daemonic scythe gripped in his remaining hand. He couldn't defend himself, couldn't dodge, couldn't do anything but stand there as death descended upon him.
The sharp edge of the giant scythe Silence flashed past Typhus's neck in a blur of corrupted metal. Mortarion's thick fingers immediately caught the Herald's horned helmet as it separated from the body, plucking it from the air with casual ease. In the same fluid motion, the Primarch's huge form moved backward explosively, putting distance between himself and the doomed Herald.
In that frozen instant, Typhus's body, with its horned helmet now slightly tilted and cleanly severed, stood motionless. The corpse swayed slightly, bloated like an overfilled balloon, and all movement ceased entirely.
Then the melta bomb detonated.
Lines of extremely hot and terrifying light burst outward from Typhus's rotted body, shining through gaps in the armor like a miniature sun trapped within corrupted ceramite. The brilliance was blinding, forcing you to divert your gaze even through your helmet's protective lenses.
Countless gouts of terrifying magma, expanded violently to the point of boiling, completely melted Typhus's tall body. The Herald of Nurgle simply ceased to exist, consumed by heat intense enough to liquefy adamantium. Not even a trace remained, not a fragment of bone or scrap of armor. Everything was reduced to superheated vapor and molten slag.
At this moment, Nurgle's Chosen Typhus had been successfully expelled back to the Garden of the Father by you and Mortarion working in concert. The daemon would reform eventually in the Warp, but it would be centuries before Typhus could return to the materium.
You stared at the gradually melting metal deck within a radius of tens of meters, watching the rising traces of smoke curl upward through the corrupted air. The melta bomb's detonation had carved a perfectly circular crater into the ship's structure, the edges still glowing cherry-red with residual heat.
A smile appeared on your lips, hidden safely behind your metal helmet where the Primarch couldn't see it. Victory, even a temporary one, was worth savoring.
"The Herald of Nurgle is dead. He has been expelled back to the Warp and cannot return for some time." You spoke calmly, keeping your tone neutral and factual. You turned to stare at Mortarion's huge back, at the Primarch who stood silhouetted against the dying light of the melta blast. "Next, the problem we should solve is how to eliminate the Destroyer Plague afflicting the Death Guard. So far, perhaps only the Emperor possesses the power to accomplish such a feat."
The words were barely out of your mouth when you sensed the shift in the air.
The sharp blade from the giant scythe Silence suddenly fell toward the top of your head with killing intent.
You roared subconsciously, pure instinct driving your reaction. You instantly raised the Bloodthirsty Manreaper gripped tightly in your palm, bringing the weapon up in a desperate block against Mortarion's sudden, treacherous attack.
Metal shrieked against metal as the two weapons collided, the impact sending shockwaves through your arms.
"Twenty-Two, the two things I hate the most are, first, being lectured and told 'this is all for your own good,' and second, that old immortal in the Terra Palace."
Mortarion blinked his yellow eyes slowly, deliberately. He stared at the eyepiece of your helmet with an almost deathly cold gaze, utterly devoid of warmth or mercy. His majestic and deep voice echoed in your ears, each word dropping like stones into still water.
"But you keep saying these things over and over again. You are simply begging for death."
You almost laughed out loud at the Primarch's twisted, childish reasoning. The absurdity of it threatened to overwhelm even your survival instinct. Here stood a demigod, a being of immense power and intelligence, acting like a petulant child who refused to take his medicine.
Instead of laughter, you let out a roar from deep in your chest. You drove the thick arms of your Terminator armor upward with all your enhanced strength, forcefully pushing away the sharp edge of the giant scythe. The weapons separated with a grinding screech.
"Mortarion, you have come all the way from the poisonous death world of Barbarus to where you stand today. Why are you fighting?" Your hands tightened around the cold haft of the Bloodthirsty Manreaper until you felt the weapon creak in protest. You stared at Mortarion as he raised the scythe Silence for another strike, and you roared the question in a deep voice that carried all your frustration and disbelief. "What is it all for?"
"Why fight? For myself! And only for myself!" Mortarion, his face still hidden behind that white breathing mask, almost roared his response back at you. The words were delivered with absolute conviction, with the certainty of one who had never questioned this fundamental truth.
The next second, the giant scythe Silence cut through the air once more, descending heavily toward your blood-red body in a brutal overhead strike.
The Bloodthirsty Manreaper rose to meet it, and the two weapons collided again. A loud, ringing crash erupted from the impact, echoing through the corridor like a great bell being struck.
After hearing the Primarch's words, you fell into complete silence. Your mind went quiet, all thoughts of persuasion dying stillborn.
You no longer attempted to convince the Primarch with words. Speech had failed. Logic had failed. Appeals to duty, to his sons, to the Imperium itself had all failed utterly.
You had become deeply disillusioned with the capricious whims of the Pale King Mortarion. Perhaps all the Primarchs who had participated in the Horus Heresy truly were troubled children, beings of god-like power wrapped around cores of psychologically damaged humanity. Perhaps they were all, in their own ways, mentally ill.
You quickly drove the Khorne Terminator armor forward, refusing to surrender the initiative. The Bloodthirsty Manreaper, suddenly trembling in your grip as though eager for the fight, cleverly deflected the terrifying attack from the giant scythe Silence. You used the Primarch's own momentum against him, redirecting the force rather than trying to match it directly.
You immediately pivoted and swung the Bloodthirsty Manreaper in a wide, sweeping arc toward Mortarion's huge body. The weapon sang through the air, its living eyes tracking the target with predatory focus.
However, before your strike could land, tremendously powerful psychic energy instantly surged outward from Mortarion's massive frame. The Warp itself seemed to ripple and distort around the Primarch, reality bending to his will.
He stared at your metal helmet with those cold yellow eyes, and the psychic power, which carried with it the property of complete imprisonment, suddenly crashed down upon you like invisible chains. Your blood-red body froze in place, locked as firmly as if you'd been encased in adamantium.
You couldn't move. Couldn't even twitch a finger. The blessing of Khorne raged within you, fighting against the psychic binding, but Mortarion's power was simply too great.
At the same moment, an energy pistol with a brass luster across its surface was pulled from the waist of Mortarion's Barbarus armor. His movements were unhurried, casual, as though he had all the time in the world.
That weapon was an ancient alien energy pistol called Lantern. It had been a gift from the Emperor himself to the Primarch Mortarion in better days, when father and son had still stood on the same side. Now it was turned against one who fought in the Emperor's name.
You stared at the gradually brightening brass muzzle, watching the weapon charge with mounting dread. Once again, you burst out with a deafening roar, putting every ounce of will and fury into the sound.
You struggled desperately to drive the Terminator armor, to move even a single centimeter. Muscles strained, servos whined in protest, and slowly, agonizingly, you began to break free from the heavy imprisonment of the Primarch's psychic might. Khorne's blessing burned through your body like wildfire, granting you just enough strength to move.
At that precise moment, Mortarion pulled the trigger on Lantern.
The ancient alien energy pistol fired, shooting out a beam of terrifying energy. The blast was enough to melt through Terminator armor in the blink of an eye, to reduce ceramite and plasteel to molten slag as easily as a hot knife through wax.
You had no time to fully dodge. You'd broken free of the psychic binding, but not fast enough, not completely enough.
You could only grit your teeth hard enough to make your jaw ache and raise the Bloodthirsty Manreaper in a desperate attempt to block. You tried to use the daemonic weapon's supernatural solidity to make one final defense, praying that Khorne's blessing would be enough.
It wasn't.
The fleeting beam of terrifying energy not only melted through the Bloodthirsty Manreaper, reducing the daemon weapon to molten droplets that sprayed across the deck. The beam continued through, barely slowed, and struck your body directly.
Your entire arm and half of your shoulder were completely melted by the energy, the flesh and ceramite simply ceasing to exist. They dissipated into the air as superheated vapor, leaving nothing behind but cauterized stumps.
You suddenly spat out a mouthful of hot blood inside your metal helmet. The copper taste flooded your mouth as pain beyond description crashed through your nervous system. Your half-destroyed blood-red body, having lost the support of one entire side, seemed to collapse beneath you.
You fell heavily to one knee, the impact jarring through your remaining leg. Blood ran down inside your armor, pooling in the joints and making every movement slick and difficult.
At this moment, Mortarion, holding both the giant scythe Silence and the alien pistol Lantern in his palms like instruments of execution, slowly stepped forward. Each footfall was deliberate, unhurried. He had all the time he needed.
"Twenty-Two, do not blame me." The Primarch looked down at you slightly, his expression unreadable behind the breathing mask. He blinked those muddy yellow eyes once, slowly, and spoke in an almost emotionless tone. "For my great vision, which is finally within reach, you are merely a stepping stone on the road. Even Horus served the same purpose."
The words were delivered without malice, without anger. Simply cold, pragmatic fact.
"Mortarion, weakness and ignorance have never been obstacles to human survival." You slowly raised your only remaining hand, your movements shaky from blood loss and pain. With trembling fingers, you reached up and removed the metal helmet covered with fresh battle scars. The clasps released with soft clicks, and you pulled the helmet free.
You pulled the corner of your mouth into a sneer of sarcasm and contempt, the expression made all the more defiant by the blood still staining your lips and chin. You stared up at the Primarch with naked disdain.
"Stupidity and arrogance, the inability to see the future clearly, those are the true paths to your death."
At that moment, Mortarion, who had been looking down at you, seemed to fall completely silent. The already dead and cold gaze in those muddy yellow eyes grew even more ruthless, if such a thing were possible. Whatever vestiges of mercy or hesitation might have remained simply vanished.
And just as he quickly raised the pistol Lantern and pointed its brass muzzle directly at your forehead, preparing to end this once and for all, your remaining hand made its own move.
With the metal helmet now removed and held in your grip, your palm quietly groped for the detonator hidden beneath your power pack. Your fingers found the device easily, muscle memory guiding them even through the haze of pain.
You looked up at Mortarion one final time, meeting those yellow eyes with your own unwavering gaze.
"The twenty-second Primarch greets you, Pale King Mortarion."
You pressed the detonator for the countless melta bombs you'd secreted throughout your armor without hesitation.
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