A towering Destroyer-class Heavy Automaton plummeted from the heights, slamming violently onto the broad transport platform. The sheer force of its mass caused the entire antigravity structure to lurch downward several dozen meters.
Below, a swarm of Sapient Machine Automatons surged into the midst of the Aeldari captives, dragging the collapsed xenos aside to clear a central killing ground of several thousand square meters. The transport platform finally deactivated its antigravity modules and settled firmly in the center of the cowering Aeldari.
The impact sent the Doomrider, still clutching a fistful of spirit stones, staggering. The gems spilled from his grasp as he struggled to maintain his balance. The surrounding daemons and traitor Astartes fared no better, reeling from the kinetic shock.
The Destroyer, however, did not pause for a microsecond. Its massive power claw lunged forward, snapping at the Daemon Prince, who stood at barely half the machine's height.
The battle was joined instantly.
The Emperor's Children and the daemonic host surged toward the perimeter of Aeldari captives, bolters roaring in the traitors' hands. Yet, the same machine-thralls that had just cleared the area threw themselves back into the line of fire, using their reinforced metallic frames to intercept every shell intended for the xenos.
The panicked Aeldari stared in numb bewilderment at the machines shielding them from their ancient foes.
"Protect spoils and captives."
The synthesized voice boomed throughout the hall. Such vocalizations were a calculated necessity. While all units possessed multi-channel data-link capabilities, vocal commands were broadcast simultaneously to ensure operational integrity in the event of signal interference or scrapcode corruption. Even a disconnected unit would know its directive.
To the Aeldari captives, however, this directive felt like a searing brand of humiliation. To be protected in the face of death by the very things tormenting them stirred a flicker of gratitude they loathed to acknowledge.
Bolter shells detonated against the carapaces of the Sapient Machine Automatons. Though the explosions left craters and blackened scars, the effect was negligible; the repair rate of the nanite swarms far outpaced the damage output of the traitors.
When these automatons broke into a predatory run, the sheer mechanical pressure they exerted was terrifying. In the vast space, hundreds of thousands of Aeldari trembled at the edge of the abyss, while in the center, a ring of machines encircled the Slaaneshi invaders.
At the absolute heart of the storm, the Destroyer and the Doomrider clashed.
The Emperor's Children quickly realized that ranged fire was useless against these anomalous constructs. Whether struck by bolt, melta, or plasma, the damage appeared severe, yet the machines knit themselves back together in seconds, continuing their inexorable advance.
The daemons of Slaanesh, driven by frenzied impulse, threw themselves into close quarters.
The machine-thralls were not primarily designed for war, but that did not mean they lacked the capacity for slaughter. Their heavy industrial manipulators easily crushed daemonic skulls. Sub-arms deployed a terrifying array of utility tools: red-beaming laser cutters sliced through warp-flesh with clinical ease; high-output plasma welders incinerated daemons from the inside out; industrial shears snipped through daemonic blades and necks alike.
They plunged into the daemonic ranks like blood-soaked dervishes.
The traitors of the Third Legion swung power swords and chainaxes with practiced ferocity, only to find their weapons and limbs ground into slurry. Powerful hydraulic arms seized the Legionaries, snapping them like dry kindling. Particle-vibration fields on the machines' sub-claws sheared through chain-teeth and power fields, while laser cutters decapitated Astartes in a single sweep.
Plasma fire turned traitors into screaming funeral pyres. Every mundane tool on the automaton's frame proved to be a weapon of horrific efficiency when applied to biological targets. Their only weakness was a lack of dedicated long-range weaponry and a relatively "fragile" base frame, but with the aid of nanite reconstruction, fragility was no longer a factor.
And in the confines of the hall, range was a luxury no one possessed. A Sapient Machine Automaton could cover a hundred meters in mere seconds.
As his followers were systematically butchered, the Doomrider, who had not tasted such suppression since his ascension, began to regret dismounting his daemonic bike. Without his superior speed, he was forced to rely on his smaller stature to dance around the Destroyer's ponderous strikes.
His Daemonsword lashed out repeatedly, wreathed in overwhelming Warp energy that bypassed physical durability. The blade bit deep into the Destroyer's chassis, the sorcerous energies cracking the outer plating.
Yet, the wounds were ephemeral. The gashes knit shut like living flesh; severed circuits were re-established instantly by the nanite swarms. Meanwhile, the Destroyer's multi-meter power claw left deep, jagged notches in the Daemon Prince's black blade.
Sensing its master's peril, the daemonic bike roared toward the fray. The Destroyer's sub-processors calculated the intercept instantly.
One massive claw lunged at the Doomrider, forcing him to parry with his sword and dive for cover. The other claw snapped out, catching the incoming bike mid-air.
The claw contracted. Arcs of energy flared from the power field. In a heartbeat, the daemonic mount was crushed into a ball of useless scrap.
"NO!!"
The Doomrider let out a harrowing shriek at the sight of his mount's destruction. The daemonic soul bound within the bike erupted from the wreckage, roaring in a senseless, vengeful fury.
A squad of Armored Wardens in the distance opened fire, their atomic pulses lashing the warp-entity. Before it could manifest further, the Destroyer's power claw swiped through the hazy spirit like a man dispelling smoke. The crackling energy field tore the essence into nothingness.
Bereft of his bike and consumed by rage, the Doomrider leaped upward, using the momentum from the machine's own arm to vault high. He brought his sword down in a desperate, overhead cleave aimed at the Destroyer's head.
The strike was true. The massive mechanical head was severed, sent spinning across the deck.
But before the Daemon Prince could let out a triumphant laugh, the Destroyer's claw snatched him out of the air.
Unsure if he could permanently process such a concentrated warp-anomaly, the Destroyer did not attempt to crush him. Instead, it pinned the daemon's body in an unbreakable grip and marched toward the Warp rift.
A ten-thousand-degree incinerator ignited within the claw's palm. A blinding pillar of white flame engulfed the Daemon Prince, the fire pouring directly into the open gateway.
"AAAGHHH!!"
The Doomrider's screams carried a disturbing cadence, the sound of one for whom even agony was a form of ecstasy. As his physical form failed to withstand the thermal and kinetic pressure, his spirit was violently banished back into the Immaterium.
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