Chapter 269: Iron Warriors: Has My Father Come Again to Draw Ten, Kill One??

Belisarius Caul had never felt this before.

A grand, immense, powerful will suddenly surged into his body.

What a will it was—his soul and every mechanical component of his body bowed in submission to it.

Spontaneous power flooded his frame; his mind had never been so clear, and forgotten, damaged memories suddenly reappeared from his storage units, lost knowledge returning to Belisarius Caul's mind.

In a daze, Belisarius Caul sensed the gaze descending from the Highest Heaven.

A blue figure stood within the Highest Heaven, a deep, lonely pocket resting upon its belly.

Belisarius Caul felt as if a gaze emanated from within that pocket.

He could not help but look into it, feeling his soul sinking into it.

He saw—he saw a radiant age, a time of extreme mechanical advancement, he saw

the might of the Machine God sustaining that age, countless technologies beyond human comprehension born in that era, the corrupting forces of the Warp nonexistent, only reason, technology, and progress shining bright.

It was a sacred age, neither of this galaxy nor within the Warp.

Caul could not help but yearn to fall into that white pocket, to reach that age.

"Not yet, Caul."

"The sacred time of the twenty-second century has not yet closed."

A voice of refusal came from the pocket; Belisarius Caul recognized its owner—

Then, the vision before Caul vanished abruptly.

But the will that had descended upon Caul remained.

"Caul, can you hear my voice?"

Zhou Yun's voice echoed within Belisarius Caul's will.

He had tried calling out to Caul several times, but for some reason, Caul had remained frozen in place.

Belisarius Caul gave a slight nod, lowering his head, whispering within his mind: "I hear you, Lord Zhou Yun."

Seeing Caul finally respond, Zhou Yun nodded lightly.

He could feel his will now linked to Caul's consciousness; even Caul's ten-thousand-year accumulation of knowledge lay open before him.

But Zhou Yun had no time to study it now.

He swiftly conveyed his intentions to Belisarius Caul.

Euphranie had told Belisarius Caul that only her Old Hag's Blade, channeling Inader's deathly power, could reverse life and death.

That was incorrect.

According to Sanguinius's earlier words, Zhou Yun could do it himself—and he could even use it to corrupt Roboute Guilliman to some degree.

This was something Inader could not easily accomplish; He was not yet strong enough to corrupt a son of the Emperor, at best leaving minor tricks upon Guilliman.

But the death-related power within Zhou Yun had been forcibly imposed by the Emperor himself—corrupting Roboute Guilliman would be far easier.

Thus, Euphranie was unnecessary; Zhou Yun's own hand could achieve the same result.

Belisarius Caul listened to Zhou Yun's plan, his eyes flickering faintly with light.

Macragge roared in flames across its entirety.

Warlord Titans stood among the mountains, their bodies twisted by Chaos corruption into half-flesh, half-machine monstrosities, unleashing their firepower indiscriminately.

Apocalypse-class missiles, possessed by demons, tore through the sky, shaking the void shields of the Hera Fortress, causing the seven mountain ranges upon which the fortress stood to tremble.

Smaller Punishment-class Warbringer Titans strode forward on massive legs, their bodies bristling with jagged iron spines, spewing scorching industrial toxins, their Ravager volcano cannons shrieking as if billions of souls wailed within them.

Many of the Ultramarines' war machines beyond the fortress walls shattered under this onslaught, collapsing into molten slag.

The Warhound Titans, inscribed with the Iron Warriors' sigils, were smaller and more agile; they charged at full speed, like beasts scaled up hundreds or thousands of times, racing across the battlefield to swiftly flank the Ultramarines' positions.

Meanwhile, the Knight families arriving to reinforce the Ultramarines rapidly formed their ranks.

Yet even Sovereign-class Knights could not withstand the onslaught of the enemy Titans.

Calgar's roar echoed along the front line of the walls, countless spheres of blue, white, black, and yellow energy exploding against the void shield before him.

Raptors of the Night Lords descended from midair, shrieking and howling.

But the moment they landed on the walls, Calgar's power fists tore them cleanly in half.

The Black Legion's invasion intensified; more Traitors appeared on the battlefield—Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Word Bearers.

Yet what truly troubled Calgar was not these Traitor Astartes.

It was the Titans standing among the nearby mountains.

According to Diggory's prophecy, before launching the Thirteenth Black Crusade, the Great Devourer Abaddon received aid from a man.

The Primarch of the Traitor Legion Iron Warriors, the Lord of Iron, Perturabo.

Though this Primarch did not directly join Abaddon's campaign, he provided Abaddon with vast quantities of war machines and demonic engines.

The Titans standing upon Macragge's surface were among them.

One Warlord, three Punishment-class Warbringers, three Ravager-class, six Warhounds.

The Black Legion caught the Ultramarines off guard; much of their reinforcement had yet to arrive at Macragge.

These thirteen Titans standing before the Hera Fortress became an almost insurmountable barrier for the Ultramarines.

The Adeptus Mechanicus claimed each Titan was an incarnation of the Machine God's will, a true divine machine.

And now Calgar wished he could grab a Mechanicus priest's rusted iron body by the neck and demand why the Machine God did not manifest immediately to destroy these Titans that defied His will?!

As Calgar cursed,

a Ravager Titan found an opening amid the Ultramarines' artillery fire; it surged forward on iron legs, the ground trembling as it charged toward the Hera Fortress protected by its void shield.

Swinging its claw-like power fists, it effortlessly tore apart two Patrol-class Knights attempting to stand in its way, snatching their bodies and hurling them at the Hera Fortress.

The steel bodies of the Patrol Knights struck the void shield, triggering tidal waves of distortion across its surface.

The two Patrol Knights flickered endlessly between the Warp and realspace, then were violently torn into scattered fragments.

And the larger Ravager-class Titan now stood before the Hera Fortress's void shield.

At that moment, Calgar had nearly prepared himself for the first line of the Hera Fortress to fall—

Suddenly, the void shield flickered.

Not the Hera Fortress's void shield—the Ravager Titan's own void shield flickered, then abruptly extinguished.

This stunned Calgar; what followed left him even more bewildered.

A searing, immense defensive laser descended from the sky.

The searing beam pierced straight through the Ravager Titan's spine, tearing apart its steel-forged body.

The Ravager Titan crashed heavily to the ground, shaking the entire battlefield.

Calgar immediately turned toward the direction the laser had come from—and saw only a single Storm Crow gunship hovering in midair, marked with Ultramarines insignia.

A Storm Crow fired a beam capable of destroying a Titan??

Even the Iron Warriors around him were more confused than Calgar.

The frequency and rate of that laser… it looked exactly like a design from their own Primarch, Perturabo??

Had their father grown dissatisfied with them again?!

Had he grown so dissatisfied that he was now carrying out a "draw ten, kill one" purge against the Titans??

A brief wave of terror spread among the Iron Warriors.

Zhou Yun on the Storm Crow wiped sweat from his brow.

Thirteen Titans, corrupted by Chaos, harbored immense demons; their machine-souls had grown terrifyingly powerful.

Though he had once controlled the machine-soul of the Blade of Glory, that had been possible only because the Blade of Glory itself cooperated and had not been corrupted.

To control these thirteen Titans, Zhou Yun had to overpower the demonic wills dwelling within them.

But—

The ceaseless battles between machines on the battlefield, the roars of countless loyal or only partially corrupted machine-souls,

and the countless dying lives and the dead buried beneath Macragge over ten millennia—

all of these fed Zhou Yun power; he felt the strength drawn from the Warp domains of Malicious Craft and Corruptive Destruction growing stronger.

A Punishment-class Warbringer Titan suddenly twisted its body, breaking free from the Ultramarines' fire net, locking its targeting on the hovering Storm Crow gunship—

"Protect that Storm Crow!!" Calgar roared.

Yet before his voice had even faded, the Punishment-class Warbringer unleashed its Ravager volcano cannon.

In an instant, the Storm Crow and its passengers were swallowed by searing fire.

But a horrifying sight unfolded before the battlefield.

The Storm Crow had been only partially melted by the Ravager's cannon—and that melted portion was rapidly healing, restoring itself within a blink.

The same occurred within the Storm Crow: its passengers appeared unharmed, as if their deaths had been instantly reversed.

This was the power Zhou Yun had gained from the domain of Corruptive Destruction: as long as lives continued to die on the battlefield, he could draw strength from death, continuously repairing himself—and extend this power beyond his own body to those nearby.

Further still, combined with the power of Malicious Craft, he could extend this force to nearby machines.

The range was limited—barely enough to cover this single gunship.

Most aboard the Storm Crow had not even realized what had just happened.

Only Belisarius Caul softly chanted a binary hymn; Caelestis gasped in shock; Euphranie's eyes filled with astonishment.

Zhou Yun turned his gaze upon the remaining twelve Titans.

The twelve Titans instantly froze.

Zhou Yun seized this moment, aiming his mechanized device at the largest of them—the Warlord-class Titan.

"Mechanized Device. Warlord-class Titan."

Zhou Yun pressed the button and leapt from the Storm Crow.

(End of chapter)