To be held in contempt by his own get — Curze's breast kindled with an unprecedented sense of humiliation. It was, to him, the supreme insult.
"Listen well." His voice was arctic. "Employ your full repertoire. Lest you perish in a fashion most singularly unlovely."
The Primarch's dread aura flooded outward like a tangible miasma, pinning the two Tartaros-pattern Terminators in place. In that moment, they were reduced to raw recruits, fresh-inducted into the Legion — cowering before the progenitor, silenced as cicadas before a storm.
"As you command... father."
Yet, though they obeyed the Primarch's directive, their battle-spirit did not flag. The Night Lord standing directly before Curze perceived, faintly, that the momentumradiating from his father had already surpassed the Night Haunter of his own forsaken timeline.
"You dare withhold your assault from me?!"
Curze's voice cracked like a whip. Hesitation was extinguished.
The lightning claw, sheathed in a crackling disjunction field, swept forward once more — this time, with full, lethal intent.
"Father... I pray you... Go to hell! "
CLANG——!
The shriek of tortured metal.
Curze was equipped only with a crudely-forged adamantium claw — yet, in lieu of meeting the Terminator's power-field-enhanced weapon directly, he preciselyinserted his claw-tip into the vulnerable articulation joint of the enemy's vambrace. With the Primarch's transcendent might, he forcibly wrenched apart the interlocking ceramite and adamantium.
CRACK!
The shattered tip of his adamantium claw was discarded carelessly. In the instant he had breached the armoured joint, Curze had already torn the Terminator's gauntlet free with his bare hands. The disjunction field guttered and died.
It was enough.
His right hand plunged into the sundered armour. Curze simply... gripped. The sole obstacle between himself and his prey was annihilated. What followed was slaughter.
SHRIEK——!
In the gloom-shrouded chamber, Curze's form vanished — his velocity exceeding even the perception of these veteran Night Lords.
"Kephal! Report his location!"
"Target is moving rapidly... Target is closing on my position!"
BOOM!
Muzzle-flare erupted from the elevated gallery. The Terminator designated Kephal had activated his Phosphex-pattern heavy flamer. He knew close-ranged projectile fire would not halt Curze's advance. He sought, instead, to screen his withdrawal with a curtain of incendiary death.
"How naive!"
Bolt-rounds were no different to the flames Curze now parted. The former could not match his velocity; the latter's area-denial capacity was purchased at the cost of potency — insufficient to bar a Primarch's passage.
BOOM!
A vortex of fire parted. Through the shimmering heat-haze, Curze emerged, impassive. His right hand, still gripping the sundered lightning claw, drove the weapon through Kephal's helm.
"Forgive me... father..."
The Astartes constitution was resilient. Yet the majority of Night Lords scorned the gifts of Chaos. Bereft of such protection, even a transhuman warrior could not survive the catastrophic structural failure of his cognitive architecture.
Curze did not extend clemency to traitors.
He was silent for several seconds. Then, with a single, contemptuous flick, he discarded Kephal's corpse. One remaining.
"Your name."
Even as he spoke, Curze had already materialised from the darkness before the final Terminator.
"Viscom. My surname... I have long forgotten it, father. The Warp does not encourage such recollection."
"I remember."
Viscom offered no elaboration. He simply charged his remaining lightning claw and launched himself at Curze.
Curze did not move. He simply pronounced judgement — and, in the instant his get closed the distance, executed the sentence.
SNICKT——!
Curze decapitated Viscom in a single, fluid motion. The gulf between Primarch and Astartes was so vast that Viscom had not even registered the blow. His airborne helm regarded his own headless torso with an expression of... not terror. Not relief.
Fulfilment.
They knew, from the very beginning, that they would die here.
Curze's cognition raced. He understood, now. This was indeed a trap — yet its purpose was neither to slay him nor to corrupt him. The true mission of these two Night Lords had been containment.
Damn!
Their actual target is not me!
His mind raced through the individuals he had encountered since his awakening. His thoughts converged, inevitably, upon Nyx. Yet Curze could not credit that these traitors, who could not best him, would dare challenge a Primarch of even greater puissance.
The answer, then, was clear:
The one he himself had sought, but not yet located.
Jago Sevatarion.
...The Raven Prince comes. Flee, Sevatar.
Sevatar crouched beside the still-warm cadaver of a megafauna specimen. His complexion bore the characteristic pallor of Nostraman stock; his eyes were dark, depthless pools.
This was the eighth time today he had heard the 'voice of the dead'. It was his birth-curse — and his latent psychic gift. From childhood, he had perceived the accusatory whispers of the deceased, echoing from the far side of silence.
'Raven Prince'... Why does that appellation evoke such a disturbing familiarity? It is as though I can almost hear their howls in the night...
The frequency of his necromantic episodes was escalating. It was an omen — and Sevatar, who had honed his instincts navigating the knife-edge between life and death, felt his vigilance spike to its apex.
I must return to the family stronghold. Anywhere is safer than this exposed thoroughfare.
He moved through the underhive like a shadow, racing towards his syndicate's sphere of influence. Yet a cold unease slithered down his spine, coiling about him like a venomous serpent.
He did not know how long he had fled. His footfalls ceased, abruptly.
Cold sweat soaked his brow. His breath came in shallow, involuntary rasps.
So quiet. Dead quiet.
Normally, the moment one set foot upon syndicate territory, one was assailed by a cacophony of sounds: the coarse greetings of comrades, the slurred invitations to drink, the latest rumours regarding the depraved entertainments favoured by the spire nobility...
Now — silence.
His field of vision contained no moving entities. Only a cold, substantive dread, enveloping him like encroaching shadow.
The Raven... Prince. He comes. Sevatar... It is you... You are the one who slew us!
The voice of the dead was now shrill — and familiar. It was the voice of a syndicate brother with whom he had shared drink, shared combat, shared everything!
I... I slew you all?!
What does this mean?!
Sevatar's consciousness reeled beneath this absurd accusation. Yet he understood, with crystalline certainty, that a predator lurked within these shadows — awaiting his arrival. And he possessed no avenue of egress.
His hand drifted, almost unconsciously, to the pistol and combat blade at his belt. A strange admixture of despair and violence kindled in his chest, resolving, at last, into a grotesque, defiant rictus.
In the face of death, he had never chosen flight.
At the very least, he would learn what had shattered his family. What had wrung such vengeful accusations from the lips of his fallen brothers.
He pressed deeper into the shadows.
A fresh torrent of death-whispers flooded his consciousness — each syllable a needle of psychic agony. His latent abilities were being dragged forth, consumed by an unseen force.