Yuki's arm pierced through the ceramite breastplate of the Ultramarines Honor Guard like a quenched steel spear. Shards of plating flew, yet the impaled warrior, with staggering willpower, tensed his body and used the last of his power armor's energy to lock Yuki's arm in place.
"For Macragge!" he roared into the vox-channel, simultaneously pressing his bolter against Yuki for a point-blank shot.
Three seconds. It was enough time for four other Honor Guard members to complete their tactical encirclement. Bolts poured down like a torrential rain around Yuki, their warheads exploding into sheets of fire against his psychic shield.
"Hmm, this is getting tricky. Librarians and Dreadnoughts are on their way. Did these guys not go to reinforce the hunt for the main fleet?"
Yuki's form expanded amidst the barrage, rising from the height of an ordinary man to stand level with a Space Marine. His tendrils snaked through the breaches in the armor; the Honor Guard warrior's body convulsed violently, yet he still attempted to pull the trigger. When the tendrils finally seized control of his brain, his turn toward his former brothers was as stiff as a marionette on strings.
Hopper suppressed the surge of nausea in her throat. Her melta gun burned blinding spots into Yuki's psychic shield. As Yuki raised both hands, an invisible psychic storm swept across the battlefield. The Ultramarines maintained their firing line despite the nerve-shredding agony. One of them stood directly in front of Hopper—a tactical positioning that inadvertently shielded her from a lethal psychic shockwave at the cost of having his own head completely shattered.
The battle reached its climax amidst Yuki's wild laughter. Hopper charged forward against the psychic turbulence, her helmet cracked and her face stained red with blood.
Ultimately, it was the arrival of the Chief Librarian that changed everything. Varro Tigurius was consumed by a cold, righteous fury. For the Tyranids to invade Macragge was a profound stain on their honor. For such loathsome xenos to appear within the Fortress of Hera and slaughter his sons before the eyes of Guilliman was an unforgivable sacrilege. What angered Tigurius even more was that his prophecies had only sensed a potential threat to Macragge, but he had never expected it to manifest like this.
A psychic pulse shattered Yuki's barriers, causing his expression to instantly sour. What made it even worse was that the Librarian's psychic support provided the other warriors an opening to attack. Under the covering fire of several Ultramarines, Hopper appeared before Yuki. Her bolter had been modified with a single-use melta-attachment.
Absolutely unforgivable!
At a distance of one meter, Hopper's weapon spat a gout of superheated flame over five meters long. When the smoke cleared, more than half of the defending Honor Guard had fallen. Hopper stood amidst a floor littered with ceramite fragments, but Yuki had vanished.
The smoke had not yet fully dissipated. Hopper did not speak to the warriors. Seeing the resting place of her gene-father turned into a battlefield would have driven members of other Chapters into a self-imposed penitent crusade. Several fully armed Auxilia officers stepped forward, silently taking command of the area. The lead officer offered an Aquila salute to the Honor Guard, his Adam's apple bobbing involuntarily as his gaze swept over the remains of the fallen Space Marines.
"We leave this place in your care," the Honor Guard sergeant said grimly, his helmet lens smeared with blood. "Call the Apothecaries. Follow us once the gene-seed of our fallen brothers is recovered. This is going to be a difficult war."
As they rushed outside, the murky sky was being dyed a dark red by distant artillery fire. News of the Tyranid invasion had only just arrived here, and the air was thick with the faint, acrid scent of biological acid. Flashes of light flickered across the horizon like routine orbital defense drills, but the clusters of mycetic spores occasionally piercing the clouds reminded all watchers that this was no ordinary conflict.
The Honor Guard sergeant clenched his gauntlets, the ceramite knuckles humming from the sheer force. For a founding Chapter, such a desecration of their home world was an unpardonable shame. Behind him, deep within the Temple of Hera, their Primarch slept in his stasis field.
"We have failed his bloodline," another warrior whispered, his power armor covered in scratches from Tyranid tendrils.
"The Tyranids have evolved again. Their raid speed was beyond anything we imagined. The planetary defense systems were sabotaged in advance, and the orbital defense cannons were destroyed. Curse these xenos."
Hopper wiped away the blood seeping from the corner of her eye; that single-use melta-attachment caused damage to the user as well. She noticed the ground vibrating slightly—a sign of the main Tyranid force approaching. She looked up at the polluted sky. The battle had only just begun.
"Yuki, that person just now was definitely you."
Hopper's attendant sister had already brought a replacement helmet. "Lord Tigurius, that strange human was the Tyranid vanguard. He was the one who led the fall of the Ender Sector years ago. I am still unsure of his status within the Swarm, but—"
Chief Librarian Tigurius interrupted her. "Quiet, girl. I must attempt to break the shackles of the Shadow in the Warp and find the trail of the Astraeus Fleet."
Astraeus Fleet—that was the name the Imperium had given to the hive fleet that destroyed the Ender Sector. A moment later, Tigurius awoke from his Warp visions. "The east. That monster is in the east."
Hopper understood that Tigurius had sensed the anger and lingering regret in her heart. "My thanks."
"This is our fury as well," Tigurius replied.
Yuki was in a rather good mood. "That girl Hopper has changed quite a bit. I didn't even recognize her at first."
The fact that her bolter had a melta-attachment had genuinely surprised him, though fortunately, it wasn't a serious injury for someone like him. He just needed a little time to regenerate. The real problem was Tigurius.
The Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines was one of the most powerful Space Marines in existence. Compared to the legendary and tragic path of Mephiston, Tigurius's life was pure legend. From the moment his psychic talent was discovered, his power had grown steadily, securing countless victories for the Chapter. Like Mephiston, no one truly knew the upper limits of his power. In the Warhammer world, anything involving psychic power had a massive variance between its minimum and maximum potential.
Out of caution, Yuki chose to retreat. Assassinating Guilliman was unrealistic; though there were no obvious signs now, the Emperor would never sit idly by and watch his son be killed. If he tried something and the Warp responded by accidentally waking Guilliman up, that would be a true disaster. With his current strength, facing a Primarch head-on was still a fantasy.
As he thought, the civilians of Macragge were fleeing for cover. Members of the Ultramar Auxilia, whom Yuki didn't recognize, were setting up defenses. Yuki casually used his psychic power to shatter their barricades. The goal of the attack on Macragge was to draw away the Imperial forces attacking the Aether Fleet. Once he confirmed the situation there had improved, he would retreat immediately.
"?"
He froze, seeing Hopper suddenly appear several hundred meters ahead of him. How had she moved faster than him?
"I've found you."
A blessed bolt shell exploded against Yuki's body.