Imperium Ascendant

Chapter Twenty: The Lunar Crusade

Location: High Altar of the Four Phases.

Date: 813.M30 (Ten hours since the battle for Luna begin)

Moving faster than his bulky Terminator armor should have allowed Horus charged the Bloodthirster. It counter charged him, roaring a bloody war-cry and swinging its storm of weapons. Kine-Shields flared into being around the Primarch as he weaved between the attacking blades. Horus moved through the Daemons guard and slashed across its chest with the Spear of Destiny. The wound did not bleed from the deep cut Horus had inflicted, but instead burned with white light, forming a searing scar on the creature's flesh.

Horus tried to back out of the Daemon's reach while parrying attacks with both Spear and Kine Shield. He was a fraction too slow and a salvo of six arms smashed into his left flank. The blow would have killed an Astartes and it tossed the Primarch a few meters. Superhuman agility and a bit of telekinesis allowed Horus to land on his feet. Spinning to face the monster Horus snarled and leveled his weapon. This was the first time he had used the Spear in combat and did not fully understand its capabilities. Now was as good of a time as any to test his gift.

Guided by some intuitive insight, Horus channeled his psychic energies into the weapon. A Primarch is a being of both realms of existence. Each brother was a Soul of unfathomable power inhabiting a superhuman body. Capable of channeling huge amounts of Warp-Energy into a body that could handle it. Now, a fraction of that godlike potential was discharged from the Spears tip.

Like the bastard child of lighting and a Lance Battery, its struck. The blinding flash forced battle surrounding them to stop for a moment. The Astartes helmets compensated for the blast, the Berserkers were not so lucky. Most were blinded, a few of the unlucky outliers had their eyes and exposed skin burned away. The Spear's Beam struck the Daemon square in the chest, obliterating most of its torso and continuing through the fiend. It blasted into the meeting point of the Bloody Gate and the chamber walls. Ripping open the entrance to the Khornate Temple and gouging a hole in the outer parts of the temple complex. The psychic might of a Primarch focused through a resonant artifact proved utterly devastating, beyond even Horus' expectations.

Horus staggered back, shocked by the destructive force he just unleashed. Despite being mutilated beyond reason the Daemon staggered forward. Blood and gore leaked from its catastrophic injuries. Leaving a grisly trail as it staggered towards Horus. The Bloodthirster's host body was rapidly falling apart. It growled curses and threats in the dark tongue of its native language as it stumbled forward, desperate to get close enough to spill the Primarchs blood. Horus channeled a few sparks of psychic energy into the spear. Letting the blades psi-crystal edge grow into a great mass of spiked warp-matter. Instead of a spear, he now held a massive mace. Like a headsman of old he lifted his weapon up and brought it down on the Daemons head, and with a resounding boom that reverberated through both the material and immaterial planes, the Bloothirster was banished.

Though Horus lacked the control and knowledge to fully kill the monster, he did manage to maim it. The saga of its defeat became etched into its being. Now it's bloody banishment became as part of its story as the ancient massacre that birthed it. If Kha'aksha the Bloodthirster were to ever gain the strength to enter the material realm again, it would be a broken crippled thing.

With the Daemon destroyed, the Berserkers were quickly finished off. The battle had taken its toll. Apothecaries worked to harvest Geneseed and patch up the wounded in the battles lull. Even the Primarch felt the toll of what he had done. Horus was young, lacking the control and endurance he would gain in the ensuing centuries. His body had barely withstood the energy he unleashed and his mind was taxed. The Primarch actually used his weapon as a makeshift walking stick for a few moments as he recollected himself. Soon his remarkable regenerative abilities started to kick in. It would take days for him to return to prime condition, but for now, he could fight.

The new form his weapon had taken suited Horus better. A mighty cudgel to crush the foes of mankind. Learning to change its form and function would be valuable tool. Hammer, Spear, lance, halberd. Many weapons of war to slay the foes to come. Holding up the Longinus and facing his sons Horus let out a roar of triumph. Then he pointed the hammer head at the Gate and issued the order to continue the assault.

The Gate door damaged by Horus's energy burst required only a few gouts of plasmas to final come off its hinges. With a wail of broken and stressed metal, it collapsed, opening the path to the XVI Legion. Before them was a pitch black tunnel, filled with a darkness that seemed to stare back at the Astartes as they gazed into its abyssal depths. A pack of Terminators quickly assembled. They would be the first into the breach with the rest of the strike force following close behind. The chorus of metal boots echoed through the dark hallway, forming a rolling wave of sonic thunder that prophesied doom for the enemies of mankind. Then a new sound was added. A sickening squelch as the Terminators stepped into something that covered the floor before them. As far as the Astartes could see, the chamber floor was covered in a horrid film of blood, broken flesh and shattered bone.

Thousands of people had died horribly in this chamber, and now their remains carpeted the chamber. Horus ordered a Mind-Magi from the legion Librarius to inspect the remains. Kneeling down to commune with the layer of broken meat. After a moment the Librarian jolted back and swore. Gathering his power and prepping wards the Mind-Magi frantically called "Prepare for Battle, Neverborn incoming!"

The fleshy detritus filling the chamber had been left to chum the Sea of Souls. Along with giving bodies to those from beyond. Shadowy tendrils of energy materialized from the Warp, slithering into the broken bodies and knitting them together, giving form to the incarnation of bloodshed and fury. The Daemons of Khorne entered into the Materium. A host of Bloodthirsters howling for Transhuman blood. The cultists of Luna had found many ways to use the power of the warp effectively. Blasphemously using the wonder of human curiosity and scientific understanding to assist the Predators in the Immaterium. The Creed of Four Phases walked a path where ritual and the occult was refined from superstition to an art and science. If these techniques could be further refined…. The Galaxy would burn.

But first the Creed would have to survive the Emperor's Wrath. Which came in the form of Three Legions and their Primarchs. Horus lead his sons in cutting down the Bloodletters. They were empowered by the Warp and could each match two Astartes in might. Any other day this battle would be a bloody and brutal affair for the Astartes. Today it would be a different story. Horus gripped the mace-head of his weapon and dissolved the Psi-Crystal. Now, the bare metal of the Spear-tip was visible. Without the crystalized energy to mask it, the Speartip glowed like a purifying Sun. The power of every myth and legend regarding it, combined with a drop of the Emperors own life-blood made it a thing of light, fire and destruction of all that is evil.

Lifting up the Spear so the light at its tip formed an Anathema-Star of righteous power, Horus let a wave of psionic light fill the Chamber, scalding the Daemons and driving them back. The Astartes charged the howling Daemons and cut through the weakened neverborn. These great fiends of Khorne were cast back into the abyss easily, their connection to the warp muffled and expunged by the radiating light of the Primarch's weapon. The XVI Legion continued onwards, down the dark chamber. The Emperor's Light guiding their blades and bolts against the Neverborn who dared stand against the Imperium of Mankind.

From the moment they stepped on Luna, the sickening sensation of Warp Taint had been felt in the Astartes souls.. Describing it in mortal words, like all Warp phenomena, was not quite possible. A member of the ancient Sigillite order came close though with this description: "Imagine the smell of rotten flesh and the sharp feeling of breathing in bitterly cold air. Now combine those feelings along with the instinctual revulsion a mortal feels upon seeing an atrocity. Such as cannibalism, mutilation, rape, pointless butchery or worse. Then instead of feeling it like you would a sensory input it suddenly exists unprompted in your mind."

The Hypno-Indoctrination that helped make the Emperor's Angels Superhuman protected them from this to a degree. Where mortal soldiers would have become sick and panicked they were simply annoyed. They were his Space Marines and they knew no fear. That would hold true, but as the oppressive aura of Taint worsened the deeper the XVI Legion went. Slowly but surely, they started to feel the gut-wrenching wrongness that was coming from within Luna.

This was best seen as they reached the end of the long and blood soaked hallway. A great adamantium door capped the end of the hallway. The foul sensation of corruption oozed off of it. So thick and vile it was almost visible to even the most psychically deaf Battle-Brothers. Beyond was the Heart of Darkness. Where the Chaos ritual that unleashed the Warp-Horror on Sol had been performed. The Holy of Holies, the Creed of Four Phases High Altar and Inner Sanctum, which in turn was built directly above the Warp-Rift that the God-Emperor had once sealed away. Truly a place of Chaotic power and evil.

The Astartes felt a vague sense of discomfort and apprehension as they marched closer and closer. The instinctual terror that would reduce any mortal to fouling their undergarments and losing their sanity had little grip on the Transhumans. The Armor of Contempt held strong but an ancient animal-voice in the back of each Astartes mind whispered to them "Whatever is beyond that door can, and will kill you"

Still they had a duty. To fight and die for mankind. So when Horus Lupercali gave the order for them to blast the door down and charge into whatever awaited they obeyed.

Location: The Bucephalus, Approaching Luna

Date: 813.M30 (Thirteen hours since the battle for Luna beguin)

The Emperor of Mankind stood at the edge of his command deck onboard the Bucephalus and watched the newly christened Lunar Crusade unfold. The titanic and ancient mind that was Revelation pulled information and senses from countless sources, ranging from his fine-tuned superhuman ones, to more esotetric links with the Cognatu Ferrum and Astronomicon. He absorbed and understood this data at speeds only the mightiest Golden Age A.I.s could have possibly rivaled. The Emperor directed fleet movements and shared strategy with his sons, doing everything he could to minimize damage to the Cradle of Mankind.

While he engaged in this material war the Emperor also fought an immaterial one. The hideous weight of the Primordial Annihilator pressed on realspace. Like storm smashing into a break-wall, the Dark Gods desperately tried to smash through the Emperor's light and swallow Sol. Each swarm of Daemons and tainted ships that poured from the cracks in reality was fraction of the horde that was broken and banished when faced with the Emperor's might.

The Emperor did not know exactly where the ramshackle fleets of Daemon Ships and Damned pirates was coming from. This was not a loosely organized assault of some chaotic empire. Like the Black Crusades of the God-Emperor's time. Instead it was more like the Warp violently ejecting material refuse through the rips in space/time. Millions if not billions of vessels had been lost to the Warp in the millions of years since the War in Heaven. Space Hulks and more bizarre phenomena were often the result of this tragic state of Warp-Travel. The scrap-fleets and Daemon ships appeared to be another collection of tainted material matter that rode the tides of unreality. Jetsam and Flotsam on the Sea of Souls. Broken and possessed vessels crewed by lunatics, Daemons and worse.

So the Imperium dueled the cursed fleet all across the Void. Each Primarch leading a different front of the battle. Octaviar Perturabo the IV Primarch had turned the void-space around one of the larger rifts into a three dimensional kill box. Anything that spat forth from the yawning void located near Venus was reduced to its base elements by a storm of fire power. Phillip Lot rallied the newest members of the Imperium with his sheer charisma. Turning the wavering hearts of the Saturnyne Ordo to iron-strong believers of the Imperial Truth.

With his sons crushing the forces of Chaos the Emperor ordered the Bucephalus to head towards Sol. The Emperor would broadcast his presence across Terra. Letting his subjects know he had not abandoned them. Then as planned he would arrive on Luna seal the prime Warp-Rift. The details had shifted here and their but it so far things were going just as planned. The lunar taint would be purged, the Legions would be reborn, and mankind would be girded against the Warp. The knowledge gifted to him by his fouler counterpart alongside his own insight gave the Emperor an unmatched understanding of fate.

Unmatched did not mean perfect however, and the Chaos gods are clever and cruel beings. So when the Bucephalus left Terran orbit after reassuring the masses and headed for Luna, it encountered something truly terrible. The Emperor of Mankind would not fight beside his sons on Luna or work to shut the rift. Instead, he would fight for his life against an unborn nightmare.

Just as the Imperial fleet clustered around Luna became visible as pinpricks of light, existence shook once again. Unlike the system spanning wave of madness the Creed of Four Phases had unleashed this convulsion of the veil was limited to lunar orbit. A great warp-leviathan was stirring directly in the flight path of the Bucephalus, a titan of the deepest reaches of the immaterium. Something that should not and could not exist had been summoned. The blood and misery of Zamora the Squat's death lured this horror out. The ritual the creed used had cast Zamora's soul deep into the warp. Like a meteor of torment it, struck the sea of souls and caused a tidal wave of insanity that surged through Sol.

Zamora had been chosen for this role not simply because he defied fate and stayed loyal to the Anathema however, he was chosen because his soul and existence called out to one of the ancient and unborn monarchs of madness. Roused from its slumber, this dark god devoured Zamora utterly and traced the Squat's fall up to the materium, where the blinding cursed light of the Anathema shone. Incensed and wrathful, the god saw the Sol system and coveted it. Slaves to be claimed, worlds to be exploited, the fires of industry would burn!

With an otherwordly wail, the materium ruptured and the warp began to overlap with realspace. The warp levithan was pulling itself into reality. Every soul-bearing being in Sol felt insticutal pain as the god attempted to force itself into real world. The psionic and daemonic energy the Creed of Four phases were utilizing through the Rift into the future was consumed at a startling rate. Thousands of cloned brains that existed only to suffer and feed the warp were shredded under the strain. Dozens upon dozens of latent psykers across Sol suddenly felt the calling of the Warp and were driven insane by the leviathan's presence.

Despite all the schemes of the Creed and its sibling gods, this lesser Chaos God could not fully materialize. Such an event would have turned Sol and a decent chunk of Segmentum Solar into a new Eye of Terror. Instead, a horrid aspect of the God climbed into the materium. Its body was composed of dozens of Space-Hulks, all reforged into a blasphemous bull-headed image, and powered by the madness and warfare in Sol. An Avatar of Chaos unborn ripped into the void. It sought to break the Anathema and devour mankind in its eternal greed.

The Emperor watched this unfold from his flagship, unable to stop it. Only ensuring it did not further rip open the material. It would pass into realspace, but he would not let it permanently scar the Solar System. Rising from the command throne the Emperor sent an urgent message to all the Primarchs. They were on their own for now. Continue the battle plan and follow Malcador's instructions until the Daemon King was banished. On both planes of existence the Emperor stared into the furnace-fire eyes of the Monster and spoke one of its accursed names. "Hashut…. God of Greed, Fire, Industry and Tyranny."

The God whose number was Four had yet to achieve dread apotheosis and if the Emperor succeeded it never would. Hashut was the name given to one of the Great Daemon Kings of the Warp. Beings who were not Chaos Gods but could be. The God whose number was Four would be the God of industry, machinery and creation. The Squats feared it as Hashut. The Kai-Smiths Sa'a'ram and the Forge of Souls called it patron. Humanity encountered it during the Iron War as Valchocht. The Dark Mechanicus and similar groups through the paths of fate would birth this Daemon King into a new chaos god.

Until that traumatic recreation it should have been confined to the Deep Warp, sealed there along with the other horrors of the War in Heaven, only able to influence the universe in subtle ways until it's rebirth. Yet, in an act of desperate spite, the Primordial Annihilator had unleashed this lesser aspect of itself, defying the laws of time and space to destroy the Anathema.

Using his psychic Aura to brace the Bucephalus and its escort fleets crew, the Emperor prepared for battle. Pouring energy into the Cogantu Ferrum, he ordered the Psionic Intelligence to use everything available to banish the Daemon King. It might be powerful, but its grasp on realspace was tenuous. With a strong enough push it would be cast into the pit. If it survived long enough to feed and cement its place in the materium, the end of actuality would be vastly accelerated. The End of all things that the Emperor sought to avoid would occur when the barriers between material and immaterial came crashing down. An unborn god incarnating even partially would hasten the rise of madness.

The Bucephalus opened fire on Hashut. Gouts of plasma and more exotic substances smashed into the Hulk-Daemon. Lances of energy focused through the Emperor's Psi-crystals and struck the thing in both planes of existence. Titan-sized shells of silver and adamantium were fired at relativistic speeds. Flights of Custodes and Astartes piloted attack craft were launched. Hashut let loose a piercing roar that defied physics and echoed through the void in response. Its cavernous maw opened up and let loose a blast of superheated and tainted metal. Void-ships worth of Daemon possessed forge-slag flew towards the Bucephalus. The Cognatu Ferrum strained the mighty vessels thrusters and spun the Flagship out of the stream of fire.

The Bucephalus fired broadside after broadside at the Daemon King. It retaliated with a storm of missiles cannibalized from the Space-Hulks component vessels. The jagged black-metal instruments of death smashed into the Bucephalus's shielding. The torpedoes were too slow to trigger the void shield but the Cognatu Ferrum's control of the vessels Ion-Barriers and Kine Shields protected the hull.

Soon the Fighter wings of the Imperial Flagship found themselves facing a new danger. Flocks of Heldrakes poured from cracks in Hashut's form. The possessed attack craft were summoned/built within the Daemon King and now joined the battle. The Bucephalus and Hashut dueled each other above Luna. Like sea monsters of ancient myth they clashed in the Void, the very fate of existence hanging in the balance. Imperial firepower dueled the techno-sorcery that constantly reforged the Space-hulk body. The Cognatu Ferrum desperately tried to do more damage than the Daemon-King could repair. Its artificial soul struggling under mental burden of coordinating the Imperiums Flag Fleet. The Emperor had given it two orders. Hurt Hashut and buy the Master of Mankind time. Even as Hashut's claws racked the ships side and made the Cognatu scream in pain the Psionic Intelligence fought on.

As his servants sought to best the Daemon King on the Material plane the Emperor dueled it in the Warp. Golden Light and dark fire clashed as Anathema and Chaos God-to-be battled. The Emperor faced the near undivided attention and power of Hashut. The patron of the Forge of Souls wielded horrible powers. Soul Grinders from every pantheon flocked to its side. Fighting and dying to fulfill their oath. For Hashut was as much the Forge of Souls as its patron. Just as the Four and their Realms were the same monolithic and horrid entity.

The Emperor did not face this legion of Neverborn alone. The souls of all who fell in the God Emperor's name fought alongside him. Firestorms of Gold and Black dueled each other. Embers that had once been Guardsmen held the line against Daemon Engines and Render Daemons. Angels of Death clad in holy light dueled K'daai Fireborn. All while the Master of Mankind faced Hashut.

With every passing moment, the Daemon King was pushed further on the defensive. The righteous fury of humanity channeled through its Emperor was more than a match for the God of Tyranny. Atham the Revelator had faced down all Four of the Primordial Annihilator's reborn aspects multiple times. On Moloch, during the lighting of the Astronomicon, and at the very moment of his creation when the Shamans had become one and drunk deep from the Well of Eternity. An unborn ghost of a possible god would not best him. It knew this, and the other powers of the warp did as well. Hashut would not succeed in slaying the Anathema, but he could delay him.

Forcing the Emperor to deal with the God whose number was Four. Instead of standing beside Horus when he entered the Inner Sanctum. The XVI Primarch and Legion would face the Darkness alone.

(Edited by Klickator)

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