Inside the command center, Erebus had already been driven half out of his mind by the state of the Hand of Fate, because the situation could not possibly have been worse for him.
Originally, if he had just held out a little longer, he would have been able to tear open the Warp and escape. At that point, even if the ships of the Imperium dared pursue him, they would still have to think twice about the horrors of Warp turbulence.
But who could have guessed that eight lunatics would come riding in on torpedoes and completely cripple the Hand of Fate?
The moment he received word that intruders had boarded the ship, a thoroughly unhinged Erebus could only choose mutual destruction. He immediately ordered everyone out to hunt down the invaders.
As a result, the squads that should have been guarding the bridge had all run off to search for them—
And that gave Bruce's group an enormous opening.
"Erebus!"
When that voice, thick with fury, rang out from behind him, Erebus—still clutching his head in frustration—jumped in shock. He had never imagined anyone could slip into the command center without a sound.
What the hell was going on?!
He spun around—
And the world seemed to collapse on top of him.
Eight people.
They had barged in without even damaging the door.
What was the point of having a door at all?!
Whoosh—
A plasma beam shot straight at Erebus's head, but instead of punching through, it was forcibly twisted aside by an invisible psychic ripple.
"Erebus!"
Bruce rolled across the floor, sprang back up at once, and roared again.
His lightning claws snapped out from their housings as he lunged at the badly rattled Erebus.
The sight turned Erebus pale. He stumbled backward in panic while his mind raced wildly.
Damn it!
Was this guy really a Night Lord?!
For a moment, Erebus honestly suspected the man charging him had to be a World Eater or a Blood Angel, because otherwise how could he be this terrifying? He was already in his face!
Two disintegration fields collided with a metallic shriek, kicking up a violent shockwave.
One of the Blessed Sons arrived just before Erebus could be skewered, swinging a powered staff to intercept the claws.
"Tch!"
Bruce clicked his tongue in annoyance and kicked backward off the clash, using the force to leap away. In that brief gap, he flicked out two Nostraman throwing knives.
The serrated blades flew like leaves in the wind, curving past the Blessed Son on crossing arcs before converging on Erebus from both sides.
"Kill that intruder!!!"
Erebus had finally recovered enough to react. He spun his own power staff in a circle and barely managed to knock the incoming knives away.
The moment that order rang out, the command center descended into chaos.
Erebus had stationed twelve Word Bearers around him, including three Blessed Sons.
Ordinary Astartes were one thing—Black Guards and a Librarian could kill them with some effort.
But the Blessed Sons were another matter entirely.
These were not easy opponents.
They were special Astartes blessed by the Warp itself, each one housing a powerful Chaos daemon in stable symbiosis. Their strength had leapt beyond normal limits, and they could wield Chaos sorcery as well.
Against enemies like that, even the Night Lords' mightiest Black Guards would struggle to put them down.
"Damn, what disgusting creatures."
Bruce landed in a crouch atop a railing, glaring at the Blessed Son before him.
He had known about these units before he transmigrated, but seeing one in person was somehow even more revolting than he had imagined—physically and mentally alike.
There was barely anything human left about them.
Just a writhing lump of malformed flesh.
The Emperor had given them such magnificent flesh and gene-wrought power, and they had repaid Him by becoming this.
The Blessed Son's mutated claw-arm twitched.
His right hand tightened around the staff.
He did not underestimate Bruce just because he stood alone. On the contrary, the daemon inside him had been screaming warnings from the very start.
The man in front of him was extremely dangerous.
If this one killed him, the daemon warned, it might mean true death—so complete that not even a return to the Warp would be possible.
It was the first time the daemon had ever spoken of an enemy like that.
"Tch."
Bruce used the opening to scan the rest of the battlefield.
The situation was not good.
Because of the numbers disadvantage, he had been completely separated from the others. The fighting on that side was intense—there were far more enemies than just two Blessed Sons. Cultists and daemons were everywhere.
Worse still, several Word Bearers had already leveled their bolters at him.
One against four, and he still had to kill Erebus…
Not easy.
Just as Bruce was thinking through a way to break the deadlock, another flash of precognition cut through his mind.
He sprang away at once.
Bolter rounds obliterated the spot where he had been crouching a moment earlier.
He scampered across the ceiling with unnatural agility, seized the instant he needed, and hurled another pair of knives toward Erebus—who was currently chanting Chaos scripture under his breath.
Hum—
The Blessed Son spun his power staff and knocked away the blades meant for Erebus, then leapt upward to Bruce's height and thrust the weapon forward.
Bruce's other lightning claw extended and clamped the staff in place.
The Blessed Son was startled and twisted sideways to evade the follow-up.
But instead of throwing a claw strike, Bruce fired a plasma blast.
And it was not aimed at him.
"Cunning bastard!"
The Blessed Son landed and saw one of his battle-brothers below melt into slag, his fury surging instantly.
"And you calling me underhanded when it's four against one?!"
Bruce laughed and kicked off.
Even though the Blessed Son got his warped claw-arm up in time to block, the force still knocked him off the ceiling. His weapon flew free and was taken from him.
Bang bang bang—
Three Word Bearers on the floor, realizing Bruce no longer had the Blessed Son directly in front of him as cover, opened fire.
They all missed.
Worse, they blasted the flying power staff even farther away.
"That brat is really an Astartes?!" the daemon inside the Blessed Son could not help snarling.
"No idea…"
The Blessed Son landed cleanly, yanked a chainsword from his hip, and thumbed it to life.
That guy's strength was outrageous.
And his reactions were far too fast. He was nimble in a way that made no sense.
While they exchanged those thoughts, Bruce landed too.
He weaved through the storm of bolter fire and closed toward the Word Bearers. Realizing what he intended, the frontmost traitor drew his chainsword to meet him—
But Bruce went low in a slide, sweeping the man's legs out from under him. Then he snatched the stumbling body with a claw and used it as a human shield against the incoming bolts.
"!!!"
The remaining two Astartes froze when they saw their own rounds tear through their ally.
That single beat of hesitation was enough.
Bruce flicked out two more knives.
They struck from behind, biting deep into their backs. The serrated edges lodged inside their flesh so that every breath became agony, the contracting muscles pulling the blades deeper and deeper with each movement.
"Repent, heretics! The Emperor is ashamed of you!"
Bruce drove in with a claw-strike, then stepped back just enough to block the front.
The Blessed Son's chainsword thrust came in hard, but Bruce turned it aside and rolled away, trying to circle for a flank.
Unfortunately for him, Bruce kicked the nearest corpse into him with all his strength.
His movement stalled.
A plasma blast followed—
It burned away flesh, but with Warp-charged resilience reinforcing him, the Blessed Son effectively negated one fatal hit.
Now it was one against two, plus Erebus.
Bruce held up his smoking plasma pistol in one hand while his other claw remained raised and ready.
He was thinking.
How do I get around this obstacle, take Erebus's head, and—ideally—kill that wounded Word Bearer too?
But the answer did not come easily.
Their eyes met.
Then both of them moved at once.
The Blessed Son was faster by a hair.
He surged forward and slashed with the chainsword, clearly intending to exploit the reach advantage of his weapon. Whether Bruce dodged or chose to block, he believed he had a way to kill him.
In close combat, this was his advantage.
But Bruce neither dodged nor retreated.
Instead, he dropped both claws into an X and smashed them into the incoming chainsword.
Crack—
The blade chipped, then split cleanly in half.
The next instant came the wet sound of flesh being pierced.
Sliding in low on one knee, Bruce drove a lightning claw straight into the Blessed Son's abdomen while the grotesque mutated talon of the other arm whipped harmlessly over his head.
"Your soul will never know salvation, heretic."
Bruce rose with an uppercutting slash and severed the Blessed Son's warped arm.
"Cough—cough—"
With most of his torso torn open, the Blessed Son tried to say something, but only a hideous noise came out.
"You will never be saved, heretic."
Bruce repeated it once more and drove the claw deeper.
Then he dragged the still-living but helpless body forward until he stood before the wounded Word Bearer who had fallen to one knee.
Only then did he yank the claw free and bring it down.
And down again.
Two heads burst like smashed watermelons under the disintegration field. Blood splashed across Bruce from head to toe.
After killing them, he turned and looked toward the trembling Erebus.
Although it had taken Bruce a fair bit of effort to dispose of the guards, from Erebus's point of view it had only been about ten seconds.
In that span of time, Bruce had butchered every last one of them.
What kind of monster was this?!
Even the Blessed Sons were no match for him?
Beneath Erebus's shock was another emotion too—
Pain.
Every Blessed Son was a unique, irreplaceable treasure.
And this one had just been killed.
"You… why do you have Konrad Curze's weapons?!"
Erebus suddenly noticed something was very wrong about Bruce's gear.
The weapons were scaled down, yes, but he still recognized them. Those were the sort of weapons only the Primarch of the Night Lords would use.
And when he looked higher and saw the Night Crown on Bruce's head, he became even more unable to understand what he was seeing.
This man had clearly come for him specifically.
But the problem was…
I never provoked him!
I never provoked the Night Lords, either!
"You don't need to know!!!"
Bruce exploded forward in another charge, his roar shaking the room.
"Erebus—you have to die!"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter116)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 118
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 111
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 80
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 112
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 80
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 74
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 48
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 50
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 47
Uma Musume: From Beginner 42
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