Thus, upon Holy Terra, the daemons of the Realm of Ruin manifested in the mortal realm on a massive scale for the first time. The arrival of these verminous horrors sent a surge of frenzied morale through the ranks of the common Skaven.
In particular, the presence of the towering and terrible Verminlord, Skreech Verminking, radiated an empyric energy that accelerated the already frantic metabolism of the rat-kin, pushing them into a state of hyper-predatory mania.
"The Horned Rat walks among us-us!!!"
The Skaven shrieked in unison, their chittering cacophony momentarily drowning out the very roar of the battlefield.
The Verminherders, daemons occupying a station equivalent to the Bloodletters of Khorne or the Plaguebearers of Nurgle, had been crafted by Lucius specifically to shepherd the vermin hosts. Like sheepdogs driving a flock, this legion of lithe, ever-shifting apostles of the Horned Rat stood at the vanguard. The mortal Skaven trembled in their wake, terrified to step even an inch out of alignment.
"Rraaghh... vermin of the Lord of Distortion! This war shall be the testament of your failure beneath the Blade of the Blood God!" Ka'Bandha roared from the skies.
Having clashed with these rat-daemons during the wars within the Warp, Ka'Bandha considered them nothing more than a nuisance. They possessed the combined traits of multiple creeds, making their tactics erratic and their arsenal annoyingly versatile, it was as if one were fighting all three other Dark Gods at once.
"Living Saint, what manner of daemons are those?" Guilliman asked, stepping toward Celestine. Though the Saint was hovering, the Primarch's sheer stature meant he did not have to look far up to meet her gaze.
Celestine hesitated. She was not entirely certain how the Emperor defined these new, blasphemous powers.
"Steady yourself, blond little prince," she finally explained. "These are a new Great Enemy. Within the Warp, a new Ruinous Power has clawed its way to apotheosis, the Great Horned Rat, Master of the Formless Distortion. The warp-storms that plagued us were the birth-pangs of this Entity. The God-Emperor has moved to contain the damage, but for now, you must clean up the mess on Terra, little prince~"
Guilliman felt a sudden, mounting migraine. He wasn't sure if his head throbbed because of the birth of a new Chaos God or because he was once again the one left to "clean up the mess."
Based on his own temperament, he suspected it was the latter.
"Hah... Father, the Imperium is already broken a thousand times over," Guilliman sighed, looking as though he might draw a cigar and light it with the Emperor's Sword for a long, weary drag.
"Oh, you mustn't collapse now, little prince. The God-Emperor relies on you~" Celestine patted Guilliman's shoulder with a grin before unfurling her angelic wings. Her voice boomed with divine authority: "Citizens of the Imperium! In the name of the God-Emperor, I come to purge this sacred Throne World of all filth!"
"We follow you, Mother Celestine!!"
The Adepta Sororitas launched a fanatical vanguard charge behind the Living Saint, plunging headlong into the Khornate host. Arco-Flagellants and Sisters Repentia, bathed in the Saint's radiance, fought with suicidal fervor, desperate to wash away their sins in the blood of daemons. Thousands of Seraphim followed like the tail of a comet, the sheer proximity to Celestine's wake driving them into a lethal ecstasy.
Caught in a pincer, the Khornate legions showed no hesitation. For a daemon of Khorne, numbers were irrelevant; there was only the harvest. Ka'Bandha, having extricated himself from the brawl with the Knights and the Abominations, dove straight for Celestine.
Below, Bloodletters met the Sisters Repentia and Arco-Flagellants in a horrific display of blade-to-blade butchery.
"Hahaha! It is our turn-time! YES-YES!" Skreech Verminking laughed, surveying the shifting chaos. He raised a clawed staff. "Advance! Attack-kill!"
"YES-YES! Khorne-things! Die-die!"
A Skryre Vermin Herder, its arm replaced by a brass-bound mechanical construct, signaled the advance. A massive, spinning Doom-Flayer sphere manifested from a warp-rift, rolling through the Khornate lines and crushing everything in its path. From the Skaven rear, Plagueclaw Catapults launched payloads of virulent filth, while warp-cannons and gravity-warping projectors unleashed a devastating bombardment.
Strangely, the damage to the Khornate ranks was far less than expected. Rounds that should have shredded Astartes ceramite merely glanced off the scales of the Bloodletters, their lethality dampened by an unseen force.
This was the hand of Khorne.
The Blood God was acting like a boisterous, cheating spectator. Gazing down at the battlefield alongside the Emperor and Lucius, he bellowed, "No one defeats my warriors with such cowardly tricks! If you have the stomach for it, meet them in honorable, blood-soaked melee!!"
Lucius winced and covered his ears, finding Khorne's shouting grating. The Emperor merely mimicked the motion of cleaning out his ear.
"Very well. Our Skaven have many 'diverse' methods. Let's play," Lucius countered smoothly.
The Emperor remained silent. He was clearly displeased that Holy Terra had been reduced to a game board, but he was currently forced to endure the spectacle.
Lucius shifted his "pieces," the rank-and-file of Clan Verminus, forward, forming a dense, living barbed-wire fence of bodies to blunt the Khornate charge. In the mortal realm, Whitesick, desperate for the favor of Skreech and the Horned One, pushed millions of Clanrats and Slaves into the front lines. They poured a rain of warp-bullets into the Bloodletters; though many rounds were ignored, the sheer volume of fire eventually saw thousands of daemons banished back to the Void.
Then, the red tide of Bloodletters and Flesh Hounds hit the Skaven line.
Hellblades and demonic talons tore through fur and bone. In tabletop terms, it was a high-WS, high-Strength unit with multiple attacks crashing into a screen of trash-mobs with a 7+ save. It was a one-sided slaughter.
But a screen is a screen. Its purpose is to die for time. Lucius then deployed Skryre's specialized warp-constructs, triple-wheeled Doomwheels and Doom-Flayers, into the flanks. Simultaneously, Censer Bearers and Eshin Assassins began to encircle the rear.
The Emperor nodded slightly at the maneuver. "Good. Squeeze the life out of him."
He then pushed the Imperial forces forward, completing the encirclement and trapping the Khornate legions in a multi-layered pocket.
Khorne, however, merely let out a thunderous laugh. "Pathetic! Your pieces are weak!"
The Emperor followed Khorne's gaze. There, in the heart of the storm, Saint Celestine was locked in a duel with Ka'Bandha. The Living Saint swung the Ardent Blade with righteous fury, but she was no match for the Bloodthirster's raw power.
With a terrifying blow, Ka'Bandha's axe sheared through one of Celestine's Seraphim protectors, then followed through with a backhand strike that shattered the Saint's guard and sent her reeling, gravely wounded.
Khorne roared with delight, mocking the Emperor for the fragility of his champion.
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