As one of the legendary "Three Heroes of the Great Crusade," his fame was widespread among both loyalists and traitors alike. At his peak, he was considered the most powerful Astartes, without exception. As a legend among legends, it was no exaggeration to describe his combat prowess as the "First among Astartes."
Countless accolades were heaped upon him, yet Sigismund cared for none of them. After the long campaigns within the Legion of the Damned, his heart held only loyalty to the Emperor. He had long ago sacrificed his everything; his emotional fluctuations were nearly non-existent.
Adam had seen the reactions of many heroes he had resurrected; Sigismund was the calmest among them. His demeanor suggested he had simply moved from one battlefield to another—nothing more.
To ensure the foolproof slaying of Vashtorr and the completion of his ascension, Adam had recently and decisively allocated a vast amount of surplus Reality Strength to him, turning Sigismund into a Reality Warper.
For others who had also become Reality Warpers, this power meant infinite possibilities: Archmagos Cawl used it to experiment with technology and explore unknown creations; Commissar Yarrick used his Ork-based abilities to enhance his Waaagh! field; and Inquisitor Sibyll used it to amplify and control her already formidable Alpha-level psychic powers.
Sigismund was more pure. He thought of nothing. He did not research, he did not explore, and he did not contemplate. He simply—swung his sword.
And reality naturally responded to that singular will. It gave him no flashy abilities or complex authorities; it simply pushed Sigismund's already perfected swordsmanship into a dimension that defied common sense.
Five minutes ago.
Deep within the Phalanx, in a forgotten storage chamber.
Sigismund knelt on one knee on the cold floor, his black sword resting across his lap. His breathing was nearly non-existent, and his heartbeat was as slow as a hibernating beast. He was waiting. He was praying. There was no emotion in his eyes. No killing intent, no battle lust, not even focus—it was a more absolute state of void. His soul seemed to have been extracted, leaving only this shell to execute a predetermined program.
This was a habit Sigismund had developed after the end of the Great Heresy. He had spent countless hours before battles like this—stripping away all emotion, all fluctuations, and all unnecessary thoughts. Only pure "existence" remained.
When Adam's directive sounded in the mental communication, Sigismund opened his eyes. There was no surprise, no question, and not even a cognitive flicker regarding the "change of plan." His expression did not change at all. Sigismund simply stood up. Then, he raised his leg and stepped forward.
BOOM!
The plasteel floor beneath him shattered instantly! The immense impact turned his body into a human-shaped shell fired from a cannon. The first wall before him was like thin paper, pierced straight through. The second, the third... alloy, plasteel, adamantium... they made no difference to him. At this moment, Sigismund was the embodiment of the judgment descended from the Emperor's will!
The final wall exploded before him! Fragments were controlled as if by an invisible hand, spraying outward at terrifyingly precise angles—the unprepared Dark Mechanicum priests and Skitarii were instantly torn to shreds!
Within the haze of smoke, the target appeared in Sigismund's vision.
Vashtorr.
That horrific creation, with massive mechanical wings and a form twisted from pale rot and hellish machinery, was currently turning around.
What? A... surprise attack?
The glow in Vashtorr's mechanical eyes flashed. At this time? In this place? His danger instincts were screaming in a frenzy. Given the speed and commotion, Vashtorr would have believed it even if someone told him the Primarch Roboute Guilliman had abandoned Terra and come to kill him personally!
There was no time for thought. Vashtorr raised his massive hammer. That Forge Hammer, created by his own hands and consuming countless rare resources, was powerful enough to crush a tank into a puck. He took a step forward, his massive frame casting a soul-chilling shadow on the ground.
As a Warp sub-god and the master of the Forge authority, Vashtorr was never a coward who hid behind ten thousand armies. Moreover, he had currently consumed a large number of sacrifices and was in his peak state. If you think you can take me down with a mere decapitation strike, you are truly dreaming!
The giant hammer swung down! The air shrieked with explosions as the displaced air formed visible shockwaves. The power of this strike was enough to turn a Dreadnought into meat paste!
And then—
Clang.
The black sword met the giant hammer. A terrifying sonic wave, enough to shatter a mortal's eardrums, radiated frantically from the point of contact. Debris was swept up by the shockwave, and the metal floor cracked into a dense web of fissures.
But the result was not the stalemate Vashtorr had imagined.
The hammer was cut.
That chaotic artifact, which he had spent countless efforts on and tempered a thousand times in the forge, was as meaningless as rotten wood before the blade of that black sword. In Vashtorr's mechanical eyes, a flash of disbelief flickered.
The sword edge drove deep through the severed gap, thrusting forcefully toward his throat! In the nick of time, aided by the split-second delay of the hammer, the two pairs of iron wings on Vashtorr's back flapped violently, carrying his body backward.
The blade of the black sword grazed his neck, its disruption field leaving a deep scar on his inhuman body—a wound that even a Warp sub-god found difficult to heal.
"What the hell is that weapon?!"
The terror in Vashtorr's heart was almost beyond words. He didn't know, of course, how many resources Adam had utilized for this moment. To do a job well, one must first sharpen one's tools.
Archmagos Cawl had personally forged the blade using forbidden technologies from the Dark Age of Technology as a base. There was even intervention from Necron technology brought by Magos Suttner, giving the edge a sharpness that transcended the physical plane. Afterward, Adam had used the Solomon Ritual Sword, consuming a massive amount of faith in the Emperor to consecrate it, granting it properties that suppressed Warp corruption.
When such a weapon was held by Sigismund—the swordsman who was arguably second to none in the history of the Imperium—its power was never a simple matter of one plus one. Vashtorr was the first entity to taste this strike.
Before the smoke had even dissipated, Sigismund landed. His movements did not pause, nor did he show any emotional fluctuation because the strike had failed to kill. His eyes remained hollow. His breathing remained steady. He was simply executing.
The black sword adjusted its angle slightly in his hand, the tip pointing once more at Vashtorr's neck. At this moment, the Iron Warriors, Dark Mechanicum priests, and daemon engines, who seemed to have just reacted, finally began to surge frantically in this direction.
But in Sigismund's perception, none of them existed. The only thing that existed was the target. And the next strike.
Vashtorr gripped his shattered hammer as his authority activated again; the weapon began to slowly heal itself within a few breaths. In his mechanical eyes, fear and fury burned simultaneously. Suddenly, he began to realize a cold fact.
This "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" might have been a trap from the very beginning!
This was a trap!