Chapter 77: The Burning Hand
Fulgrim's massive, serpentine body frantically charged toward the warp rift emanating purple mist in the centre of the hall.
"Damn it… damn it!"
The Primarch's four arms flailed wildly, clearing away the rubble in his path.
He did not want to admit it, but his heart was truly filled with fear.
The flames burning on Mortarion's scythe, Guilliman's Emperor's Sword, and that seemingly insignificant yet utterly eerie little girl…
And those resurrected spirits.
This was not the stage he thought it was, a target for his brother Roboute. This was a trap! A trap prepared specifically for him by the insidious Corpse-Emperor and the cunning Roboute.
"As long as I get back to the Palace of Slaanesh… back to the Sixth Ring of the Dark Prince…"
Fulgrim reassured himself.
"As long as I get back, even that desiccated corpse should not dare to easily extend his hand into the Prince of Pleasure's domain!"
The rift was right before him.
The massive warp rift, to him, was a door to a safe zone, emanating a comforting, intoxicating sweetness.
Thinking of the punishment games the Prince of Pleasure might inflict upon him back in his chambers, a smile crept across Fulgrim's face.
He stretched out his longest arm; his fingertips almost touched the edge of the mist.
He even had time to glance with a superior eye at the Greater Daemon also being driven to flee by Guilliman.
However—
the instant his fingertips sank into the mist—
Buzz—
A destructive aura emanated from the depths of the rift.
It was definitely not the slippery, seductive psychic energy he was familiar with.
It was more like an erupting volcano, filled with the brutality of lava and steel.
Fulgrim's smile froze.
He felt a wave of heat wash over him.
The purple mist churned violently, then turned an ominous black.
"What—"
Before Fulgrim could react,
a fist—
an enormous, silver iron fist, its surface shimmering with a liquid sheen and burning with black flames—
slammed straight out from the depths of the rift.
The punch was not fast, but it completely blocked Fulgrim's already pitiful escape routes.
Bang—!!!
A muffled, heart-stopping thud.
The silver iron fist slammed solidly into Fulgrim's eerily beautiful face.
Fulgrim's massive serpentine body was sent flying, as if struck head-on by a battering ram.
The daemon Primarch traced an ungraceful arc through the air, flying backward for a full ten metres, smashing through three waves of daemons along the way, before crashing heavily into a wall.
Rumble—
The entire wall collapsed, burying the elegant daemon prince beneath a pile of rubble.
"What… what is this?!"
Zarakynel the Calamity, who was about to follow it inside, was startled.
It abruptly stopped, its six arms tightly wrapped around itself, staring at the rift that should have been its back door.
In its perception, it was no longer a passage to the Palace of Pleasure.
But rather, a blacksmith's forge spewing out black flames.
Tap, tap, tap.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the rift.
A colossal figure, like a mobile fortress, strode out of the black flames.
He was much taller than a normal Astartes, even broader than Guilliman in the Armour of Fate.
He wore heavy, unadorned black armour. The armour was scarred with countless battle wounds, as if he had just been transported there from a bloody battle.
And on his hands—
there were no gauntlets.
His arms possessed a strange, flowing, silvery metallic quality.
One hand gripped an enormous warhammer, its head ablaze with black flames of destruction.
The Forgebreaker.
The artefact that once belonged to him, then given to Perturabo, then taken by the traitor Warmaster Horus, and ultimately vanished without a trace.
Now, in the form of a psychic projection, it had returned to the hands of its true master.
As for his head—
even the most discerning observer could not spot it.
Only a blazing black flame, shaped like a skull.
Hiss…
Eileen, standing some distance away, gasped.
"Old Huang… did you summon this? What kind of design is this… it is so cool! A headless knight?"
[Holy crap?]
Old Huang's voice in her mind changed, filled with the shock of seeing a ghost (in a sense, it truly was).
[Do not joke around! This level… this ruthless character with the essence of a Primarch's power, how could I possibly handle this little bit of electricity I have absorbed?!]
[This is…]
Old Huang's voice held a hint of awe.
[This is the work of the 'big boss'.]
[That old man sitting on the Throne… he sent this one from the warp!]
In the centre of the hall.
The giant with the burning head of flames did not immediately give chase.
He stood there at the entrance to the warp rift, like a god of the underworld guarding the gates of hell in ancient Terran mythology, radiating a terrifying chill.
Slowly turning around, the flaming head "looked" at Fulgrim in the ruins.
Though it had no mouth, a deep, resolute voice boomed in everyone's minds.
"This time…"
The giant raised his warhammer, the hammerhead pointing at Fulgrim.
"You have nowhere to run, traitor Fulgrim."
"A failed creation, still thinking of escaping back to the Dark God to threaten the Imperium again?"
Scrap stones rolled down from the ruins.
Fulgrim crawled out in a sorry state.
A patch of his face was sunken; purple blood smeared his lips. But he seemed to feel no pain.
He just stared intently at the giant.
Staring at the silver hands.
Staring at the hammer.
His body trembled uncontrollably. Not from the after-effects of the punch he had just received, but from the fear and memories deep within his soul.
"No… it cannot be…"
Fulgrim's voice trembled, tinged with a faint sadness.
"I… I killed you…"
"On Istvaan V… that damned xenos blade… I cut off your head with my own hands…"
"I watched your body be torn apart… watched your soul dissipate…"
The giant let out a cold laugh.
The laughter carried rage and unfulfilled fighting spirit.
"Death?"
The giant strode towards Fulgrim.
"Death did end my body."
"But it did not end our duel."
"Nor did it end… my rage."
The giant stopped ten metres from Fulgrim.
"Even after ten thousand years…"
He raised his blazing warhammer.
"Our score… is still unsettled."
"My unworthy… traitorous brother."
—
In the distance.
Roboute Guilliman lowered the Emperor's Sword in his hand.
He looked at that imposing figure, the familiar warhammer, and those iconic silver arms.
Ten thousand years seemed to flow backward in that moment.
He seemed to have returned to the days of the Great Crusade.
That stubborn, competitive, yet incredibly reliable brother.
The one who passionately crafted equipment for his brothers.
The one who always charged ahead, tearing apart all enemies with his iron hands—the Gorgon of Medusa. Ferrus Manus.
"Ferrus…"
Guilliman's voice trembled slightly.
"Is it you?"
He had never imagined that after so many long and desperate years, he would see one of his earliest fallen brothers again.
And beside him,
Mortarion, the former Lord of Death, looked at the burning figure with complex emotions.
Although his relationship with Ferrus was not particularly close, and they had even clashed due to their personalities,
at this moment, seeing his brother, who had also died for humanity and now returned as a spirit,
Mortarion felt a sense of relief.
"So… you did not die alone."
Mortarion murmured.
"The old man… he remembered everything."
—
In the centre of the battlefield.
Fulgrim watched as Ferrus approached.
The figure that haunted his nightmares countless times—his closest brother, the one he had exchanged weapons with after the forging contest, the one he had ultimately beheaded with the Blade of the Laer.
Memories of that moment surged forth like a tidal wave.
The duel aboard The Pride of the Emperor at Istvaan V.
The Blade of the Laer that had possessed him.
Ferrus's anger, reproach, and sorrow as he tried to dissuade him from his corruption and betrayal.
And the brief moment of clarity he felt as his head fell—the overwhelming regret that shattered him.
Though he later sacrificed a portion of his and another Primarch's power to Slaanesh, gaining ascension and "perfection,"
even now, facing his brother again after countless millennia, his emotions still surged violently.
"Is it you…?"
Fulgrim staggered back until his back slammed against the wall.
He looked at those silver hands.
That was his most beloved brother.
He slowly uttered the name he had never forgotten, even in his fallen state:
"…Gorgon?"