Where the Cinder-Burner Fell.
Currently, this Tzeentch Greater Daemon was struggling to stand back up.
The wound at the root of its right wing was bone-deep, and crimson-gold daemon blood splashed like magma, corroding craters emitting green smoke into the charred concrete ground.
Its magma carapace was covered in a crisscrossing network of slash marks; the deepest one extended from its collarbone down to its ribs, nearly cleaving it in half diagonally.
"Gu... urgh..."
The Cinder-Burner let out a low whimper.
Those burning Warp fireball eyes locked dead onto the golden figure descending from the sky, and for the first time, unmistakable... wariness surfaced in its eyes.
As a Greater Daemon seated at Tzeentch's throne, commanding the authority of incineration, it had experienced countless battles in the Warp, burned stars, and even fought a Farseer of an Aeldari Craftworld for three days and three nights without suffering defeat.
But never had an opponent beaten it to such a pitiful state.
Extreme speed.
The speed of that golden bug was simply unreasonable.
Paul landed twenty meters in front of the Cinder-Burner, the Watcher's Axe angled toward the ground, crimson-gold daemon blood still dripping from the blade.
His voice echoed through the Custodian faceplate, carrying a tone of impatience.
"Don't worry, I'll chop you down to a chicken carcass soon enough."
The Cinder-Burner froze for a second. Chicken carcass?
It had lived in the Warp for countless ages, devoured the memories of innumerable mortals, and learned countless languages across the galaxy, but it had never heard this term before.
But its instincts told it this definitely wasn't a compliment.
"Golden... bug..." The Cinder-Burner struggled to stand up, its giant magma claws pressing against the ground, emitting a sizzling sound of burning. "You have... enraged a favorite of the Changer of Ways... You will..."
"Will what? Will I be written down in your boss's little black book?"
Paul cut it off, the corners of his mouth curling beneath the golden faceplate.
"Then you better make sure you spell the name right." He paused, speaking with utmost seriousness. "Remember this: Demetrian Titus, Praetor of the Imperial Custodes' Covert Inquisition. If you want revenge, make sure you look for the right guy."
The instant his words fell, Paul moved rapidly.
The azure psychic energy of the Pioneering trait violently erupted!
The anti-grav suspensors of the Aquilon Terminator armor engaged at maximum output, the jump pack burst a second time, coordinated with the extreme enhancement to the armor's performance provided by Spiral Power.
His entire body transformed into three golden afterimages.
The Cinder-Burner's Warp fireball eyes rolled frantically, attempting to lock onto Paul's true body.
But it was too late.
The first afterimage appeared on its left, the Watcher's Axe slashing at its neck.
The Cinder-Burner instinctively raised an arm to block.
CLANG!!!
The axe blade clashed with magma carapace, detonating a sky full of sparks.
But this strike was only a feint.
The true killing blow came from below.
The second afterimage had slipped beneath the Cinder-Burner's abdomen at some point. The axe blade slashed upward, targeting the deepest wound on its abdomen.
RIIIP!!!
The wound was torn open further, crimson-gold fragments of viscera mixed with daemon blood spewing out.
The Cinder-Burner let out a screech of agony, its giant magma claws swatting downward.
It hit empty air.
The third afterimage appeared behind it.
Paul gripped the axe with both hands, the azure psychic energy of Pioneering entwined around the blade. Spiral Power flowed down the arms of the Terminator armor, pouring into the cutting edge.
CRACK!!!
The cinder-feathers on the Cinder-Burner's left side were severed at the root.
Once detached from the main body, the wing condensed from Warp flames twisted and expanded mid-air, ultimately detonating into hundreds of fireballs with a loud bang.
Paul showed no intention of stopping, seeming genuinely intent on chopping it down to a chicken carcass.
The fourth strike slashed the Cinder-Burner's right knee.
The fifth strike cleaved open its left shoulder carapace.
The sixth strike, the seventh strike, the eighth strike...
The Cinder-Burner attempted to counterattack, but every single one of its movements was anticipated.
It tried to gather its Order Disintegration Breath, but the moment the light lit up in its throat, Paul's axe buried itself in its jaw.
It tried to blanket the area with flames, but the azure psychic energy of Pioneering made Paul's speed absurdly fast. The expansion rate of the flames couldn't even catch up to his retreat speed.
"Grey Knights! Psychic suppression!" Paul ordered over the regional channel.
In the sky, the one hundred Grey Knight players simultaneously raised their Nemesis force halberds.
This time they switched to a more covert method: psychic interference ripples.
These ripples would not directly attack the Cinder-Burner's Warp essence. But they acted like static, interfering with its perception and making its control over psychic energy sluggish.
For Paul, this was enough.
"About time."
He looked at the Tzeentch Greater Daemon, Cinder-Burner.
This Greater Daemon currently looked absolutely pitiful.
Both wings were severed, the joints of all four limbs had been cleaved open, seventy percent of its magma carapace was shattered, and the wound on its abdomen had practically disemboweled it.
Crimson-gold daemon blood coated the ground, turning half the plaza into a magma pool.
But it still wasn't dead.
For a Greater Daemon-class Warp entity, as long as its Warp essence remained unextinguished, its material body could slowly repair itself no matter how badly mangled.
"Time to end this."
Paul tightened his grip on the Watcher's Axe.
On the axe blade, the azure psychic energy of Pioneering began to compress and solidify inward, ultimately forming a psychic cutting edge as thin as a cicada's wing along the blade's edge.
Spiral Power poured in synchronously, and the disruption field engaged at maximum output.
Every joint of the Terminator armor hummed, the hydraulic pressure surging to critical levels.
Paul raised the Watcher's Axe high!
Cleave!
There was nothing flashy about this strike.
It was simply the most basic, direct, and violent vertical slash.
The axe blade cut in along the crack right down the middle of the Cinder-Burner's head, followed the spine straight down, and finally exited from the tailbone.
SQUELCH!!!
Crimson-gold daemon blood spewed like a fountain.
The Cinder-Burner's body froze.
It looked down at its own body, which had been cleaved in half right down the middle.
The left half slowly slid off, while the right half remained standing.
The light in those Warp fireball eyes began to rapidly dim.
"The Changer... of Ways... will not..."
It couldn't finish its final words.
Paul withdrew his axe and turned around.
Behind him, the Cinder-Burner's bisected body detonated simultaneously, transforming into a sky full of crimson-gold sparks.
A streak of blue-red Warp origin spiritual light rose from the sparks, drifting toward the Tzeentch rift deep within the City of the Holy Anthem like a weary bird returning to its nest.
Paul didn't stop it this time.
Grinding away Warp essence required him to utilize the five traits of psychic energy, and that power... was too conspicuous. Grinding away Warp essence was something that typically required the Emperor's Sword or certain relics to achieve; right now, he was just an ordinary Custodes Praetor!
With Sanguinius present, it wouldn't be appropriate!
Let it go, he muttered to himself.
--
At the same time, on the other battlefield.
Sacken also looked extremely pitiful.
He had dodged Sanguinius's fatal strike, temporarily staving off death.
He only had one and a half psychic wings left, and his left arm hung unnaturally at his side; the elbow had been severed by Sanguinius's blade and was currently being held together solely by blue-purple psychic threads.
The five hundred-plus fallen psykers behind him had slowly stood back up, but their faces were ashen, and the psychic patterns on their bodies flickered erratically, clearly pushed to their absolute limits.
"Cough... cough-cough..."
Sacken coughed up a mouthful of pale blue blood, mixed with fine psychic crystals.
He stared dead ahead.
Sanguinius hovered fifty meters away, his pristine white wings untainted by a speck of dust, the Blade Encarmine angled toward the ground.
"Sacken Alar." Sanguinius's voice was terrifyingly calm. "You have lost."
"I... have not lost!" Sacken roared, his voice hoarse from his injuries. "As long as I am still breathing... as long as the blood of House Alar still flows... I have not lost!"
He violently turned his head, looking at the fallen psykers still holding on behind him.
"Give me... everything you have!"
It was a final act of madness. The psychic patterns on the bodies of the five hundred-plus psykers still able to stand simultaneously erupted with blinding blue-purple light.
All the psychic energy within their bodies surged toward Sacken like a flood.
Sacken's aura began to climb frantically.
Alpha-class... Alpha-plus...
His height began to expand, from two meters swelling to three meters, four meters, five meters...
The psychic wings on his back fully unfurled, spanning over ten meters.
The purple tentacles on his left cheek crawled all over his body like vines, forming profane runes across the surface of his skin.
His eyes completely transformed into stellar vortexes, reflecting millions of future possibilities within them.
"Sanguinius!!!"
Sacken's voice became a chorus of tens of millions of pitches.
"Look at this power! Look at the mighty power of the Changer of Ways! This is the true form... that my House Alar should possess!"
He spread his arms wide, blue-purple psychic energy condensing in his palms into two massive psychic longswords.
Runes of trickery flowed across the blades, every single rune constantly shifting and reorganizing like living entities.
Sanguinius quietly watched all of this.
He didn't try to stop him, nor did he interrupt him.
He simply waited for Sacken to finish before speaking softly.
"Is this what you wanted? Exchanging the psychic energy and lives of your followers for this false strength? Exchanging the future of your homeland for this fleeting vengeance? Sacken, do you truly believe... that this will rebuild the glory of House Alar?"
Sacken froze.
In that instant, tens of millions of pitches argued and roared within his mind.
But Sanguinius's voice pierced through all the noise.
"You will rebuild nothing. You will only drag Aurelian IV... into an even deeper abyss."