“These Tyranid vermin truly are cunning and insidious.” Dante’s hyper-sharp transhuman senses instantly identified the terrifying lethality of the yellow fog.
It was a highly virulent, weaponized biological gas engineered specifically to target human physiology.
Even the nineteen genetically enhanced organs of an Adeptus Astartes couldn’t fully filter it out.
“Let them come.
The wrath of the Great Angel will tear them limb from limb.” Gabriel Seth stared at his battle-brothers, all newly clad in heavy Terminator Armor.
An absolute, unshakeable confidence burned in his chest.
A furious, primal thirst for slaughter roared in his veins, desperately demanding a target to vent upon.
He was going to prove to the Forefather that giving the Flesh Tearers elite wargear was the absolute best investment he could have made.
They were the bloody edge of humanity’s blade!
The unyielding shield against the dark!
The purest manifestation of the Great Angel’s pride!
If any new shiny toys pop up in the future, the Forefather better hand them straight to us.
We’ll use them infinitely better than any other Chapter!
As for our parent Chapter, the Blood Angels?
Sorry, but the competition for the Forefather’s favor has officially begun.
When the galaxy burns, nobody cares who the ‘Firstborn’ are.
The only thing that matters is who spills the most blood for the Emperor and humanity.
“Well said, Seth.
Let the wrath of Sanguinius fall upon these wretched xenos.” Dante raised his axe.
“Open fire!
Heavy weapons prioritize synapse creatures and large bio-forms!” Following Dante’s command, the Imperial defenders unleashed absolute hell into the toxic fog.
A dense curtain of mass-reactive bolter rounds and searing energy beams tore through the air, punching deep into the yellow mist.
Horrific, gurgling shrieks echoed out as the Tyranid swarm was systematically shredded.
In response, Biovores and Tyranid Warriors lurking behind the fog returned fire.
Volleys of crystalline bio-munitions, searing bio-plasma, and highly corrosive acid rained down, scoring direct hits on the Sisters of Battle and Astartes who couldn’t dodge in time.
Fortunately, their brand-new, factory-issue power armor was vastly superior to the patchwork, century-old relics they had previously worn.
The vast majority of the Tyranid bombardment failed to inflict lethal damage.
However, as the dense fog crept over the Imperial lines, it seemed almost alive, aggressively hunting for micro-fractures and exhaust vents in the power armor.
Even with the armor’s internal life-support systems redlining to filter the toxins, trace amounts of the corrosive gas managed to breach the seals.
Defenders began to choke, their throats burning as if they had inhaled liquid fire.
If the concentration of the fog continued to rise, it was only a matter of time before the life-support systems failed entirely.
Just as the commanders were scrambling for a solution, a volley of glass bottles arced over their heads from the rear.
Crash!
Crash!
Crash!
The bottles shattered across the frontlines, splashing a glowing, ethereal liquid over the Imperial defenders.
Almost instantaneously, the burning in their lungs ceased, and the agonizing symptoms of the bio-toxin vanished.
“What is this…?
Forefather?” Dante whipped his head around, genuinely stunned to see Vane casually pitching Splash Potions of Poison Resistance like a baseball pitcher.
Vane gave a quick nod in acknowledgment before immediately going back to chucking potions across the trenches, ensuring absolute blanket coverage against the Tyranid gas.
Seth grinned, a savage joy lighting up his scarred face.
You seriously cannot ask for a better set of ass to kiss.
He doesn’t just hand out elite wargear; he acts as a localized, omnipotent apothecary too!
The man is literally the ultimate support unit.
“Praise the God-Emperor!
This is undeniably His divine providence!” Canoness Amity prayed fervently, her voice ringing with absolute devotion.
Thanks to Vane’s localized potion bombardment, the Tyranids’ toxic-fog strategy was completely neutralized.
The Hive Mind quickly registered the failure and instantly pivoted, ordering the swarm into an all-out zerg rush to drown the Imperial lines in sheer numbers.
Yet, the Imperial defenders stood like an unbreakable wall of iron.
No matter how aggressively the chitinous tide crashed against them, the Tyranids merely shattered themselves against the bulwark.
Revving chainswords and crackling lightning claws effortlessly carved through the surging bio-forms, leaving carpets of mangled limbs and gore in their wake.
However, as the brutal attrition dragged on, a terrifying problem erupted among the Flesh Tearers.
Without warning, several battle-brothers completely abandoned their defensive positions and launched suicidal charges straight into the endless Tyranid swarm.
The defensive line fractured.
A tidal wave of Tyranid bio-forms instantly flooded toward the gaps, desperate to widen the breach and collapse the entire human defense.
In the absolute nick of time, the ancient, blood-soaked Dreadnought, Skoldon—a four-hundred-year veteran of the Chapter—stepped into the breach, using his massive adamantium chassis to physically plug the hole.
“Fall back!
Do not let the fury consume you!” Seth roared, brutally carving his way toward Skoldon as he desperately tried to vox the battle-brothers who had lost themselves to the Black Rage and Red Thirst.
Every single son of Sanguinius was fundamentally cursed by the Flaw.
The moment their sanity snapped, they were violently submerged in ancient hallucinations of the Siege of Terra, devolving into mindless, hyper-violent killing machines.
And unfortunately for Seth, the Flesh Tearers’ genetic mutation was notoriously severe.
Their casualty rate to the Flaw was so astronomically high that it had completely ruined their reputation; practically no Imperial faction was willing to deploy alongside them.
“Quickly, petition the Forefather for aid!
He can cure this!” Dante shouted over the vox-net, seeing the Flesh Tearers breaking formation.
“The Forefather can cure the Black Rage and Red Thirst?!” Seth’s eyes nearly bulged out of his helmet.
“Yes!” Dante nodded vigorously.
“He completely cured the Death Company Marines we brought with us.
They are entirely sane and will never suffer from the Flaw again!” Hearing this, Seth’s expression instantly twisted into a deeply conflicted grimace.
For centuries, Seth had aggressively preached that the Black Rage and Red Thirst were a gift from Sanguinius—a divine burden that fundamentally separated the sons of the Great Angel from lesser Astartes.
If the Flaw could just be miraculously cured…
did that mean the Great Angel’s descendants weren’t special anymore?
It was a very good thing Dante couldn’t read minds, or he would have absolutely clocked Seth in the jaw with a power fist.
Sanguinius himself had explicitly stated in his personal journals that the Flaw was a horrific genetic curse, and he bore profound, soul-crushing guilt for inflicting it upon his sons.
During the Siege of Terra, the Great Angel had foreseen his own death.
He knew with absolute certainty that his violent demise would permanently curse his genetic lineage with the Black Rage.
But to secure a sliver of hope for the Emperor and ensure humanity’s survival, Sanguinius willingly boarded the Vengeful Spirit to face Horus in that final, tragic duel.
The Black Rage and Red Thirst were a curse—the ultimate, agonizing price the Great Angel and his bloodline paid for the survival of the human race.
And yet, here was Seth, taking a curse that caused his Primarch eternal, soul-crushing guilt, and calling it a gift.
Suddenly, Vane plummeted from the sky like a blazing meteor, his Ignis Elytra wings wreathed in roaring flames.
He slammed into the ground, instantly incinerating and blowing away every Tyranid in a twenty-yard radius.
Without missing a beat, he rapidly deployed a line of wooden boats, instantly paralyzing the rampaging Flesh Tearers in Minecraft’s ultimate sealing jutsu.
Splash.
Splash.
Chomp.
Chomp.
He spammed Splash Potions of Weakness and force-fed them Enchanted Golden Apples.
The entire curing process was executed with blinding, practiced speed.
Seth had barely managed to decapitate three Genestealers before he looked back up to see his lost battle-brothers completely cured and staring around in lucid confusion.
Before Seth could even process what had just happened, Vane whipped out the Idol of the God-Emperor and triggered a massive AoE blessing across the entire battlefield.
The golden idol erupted with a blinding, divine radiance, illuminating the blood-soaked cathedral like a second sun.
Beams of pure holy light arched through the air, washing over the Astartes and Sororitas, instantly purging their fatigue and infusing them with supernatural strength and absolute courage.
“Is this…
is this the divine might of the God-Emperor?!
The Forefather can invoke His power at will?!” Canoness Amity stared at the golden idol, her initial shock instantly melting into absolute, hysterical fanaticism.
“He is a Saint!
The Forefather is an officially recognized, undisputed Living Saint of the God-Emperor!
That is why he wields His power without limit!” “Praise be to the King of Kings!
The Supreme God-Emperor of Mankind!
We thank You for sending Your divine emissary to our salvation!” The Battle Sisters behind Amity fell to their knees in the gore, their faces practically glowing with religious ecstasy as they continuously chanted high-hymns of praise before rising to unleash holy bolter fire into the Tyranid swarm.
“For the Emperor!
For Sanguinius!
For the Forefather!” Dante roared, his voice echoing across the plaza.
He charged forward, his crackling Axe Mortalis cleaving through every bio-form in his path.
Inspired by the divine miracle, the Blood Angels fought with unprecedented ferocity, unleashing the pure, controlled wrath of the Great Angel upon the xenos tide.
Refusing to be outdone, Seth and his Flesh Tearers launched a vicious, hyper-aggressive counter-offensive.
Vane casually joined the fray.
Enigma [Death’s Will] blurred in his hands, striking with impossible speed.
Before the Tyranids could even close to melee range, the localized heat aura from his armor instantly set them ablaze, turning them into shrieking, chitinous torches.
A millisecond later, the demonic blade effortlessly diced them into bloody ribbons.
Witnessing Vane’s utterly horrific killing efficiency, Seth and Canoness Amity were left completely speechless.
They had genuinely assumed that Vane was a pure support unit.
Who could have guessed that ‘Support’ was just a side gig, and ‘Frontline God of War’ was his actual main class?
If the Chapter Masters and the Canoness teamed up against him right now, they probably wouldn’t even survive five swings.
After a grueling, apocalyptic slaughter, the Imperial defenders achieved total victory.
The Tyranid swarm, suffering catastrophic losses, broke and retreated, leaving mountains of mangled bio-forms behind.
Seth immediately ordered rotating shifts for rest and resupply, directing his serfs to aggressively reload heavy weapon ammo feeds and power cells to prep for the inevitable next wave.
“Alright, this sector is secure.
Time to head to Tartaros and secure the Void Domes.” Vane was just about to cancel the blessing and pack up the Idol of the God-Emperor when an incomprehensibly vast, terrifyingly absolute Will suddenly crashed down upon the battlefield out of nowhere.
In the very next second, Canoness Amity and her Battle Sisters spontaneously erupted in golden flames.
The holy fire coalesced around them, manifesting as brilliant, burning wings of pure light, making them look like literal angels.
It’s the Big E!
Vane instantly realized who the Will belonged to.
Looks like He finally noticed I was spoofing His IP address and hijacking His divine bandwidth.
Naturally, the Battle Sisters of the Sacred Rose witnessed this terrifying, awe-inspiring manifestation of power.
They were instantly overwhelmed by hysterical, blinding religious ecstasy, falling to their knees and praying with an intensity that bordered on madness.
Even when the highest-ranking Saints of the Ecclesiarchy passed away in a blaze of glory, a divine miracle of this magnitude was practically unheard of.
And yet, here it was, manifesting completely and undeniably right before their very eyes.