The Swarm's offensive came at the perfect moment.
It happened just as the Transmigrators interrupted the ritual, forcefully buying time for the Legion of the Damned.
It was right when Karna's clash with the Hive Tyrant reached its fiercest peak, when Titans wrestled amid the Steel, and the Guard Militant fought a desperate deathmatch against the Swarm in crater-pocked trenches.
Yet before they could even catch their breath, another sharp blade, backed by a boundless wall of foes, surged toward them.
Slash!
The Red Tear carved through flesh. Flames fueled by pure rage distorted the air, and through that slightly warped light, Karna, locked in his fierce struggle with the Hive Tyrant, realized that the entire path ahead was choked with enemies.
A dense, suffocating tide of hostiles.
At the exact same moment, the Guard Militant at the feet of the Titan spotted the new arrivals. Their shock lasted only a fleeting second. The Adeptus Mechanicus's discipline, as cold and rigid as Gears, prevented them from breaking ranks; instead, they focused even more intensely on slaughtering their foes.
"Burn and perish!"
Furious flames erupted. A massive pillar of fire pierced the enemy formation, leaving a trail of molten magma in its wake.
The inferno swallowed the area like a rising tide washing over a beach, until it crashed against a solitary Reef.
"Roar!"
At the very forefront of the Swarm, a Norn Assimilator was already charging forward.
It was a truly terrifying behemoth.
With a sweeping strike of his spear, Karna knocked the Hive Tyrant aside, using the momentum to block the Norn Assimilator's savage cleave.
Cold, tyrannical, and ravenous!
Karna clearly felt the sheer will behind this force as the brutal xenos swung its massive bladed limbs and brought them crashing down.
For the first time, the crimson angel chose to retreat.
The martial prowess etched into his very body alongside his boundless rage told him that no matter how furious he was, he had to fall back.
Only by stepping back could he seize the chance to claim victory.
But the Norn Assimilator was absolutely not going to give its opponent that opportunity.
It had sacrificed its synaptic node capabilities and discarded its psychic powers, exchanging them for the absolute pinnacle of close-quarters lethality.
Moreover, he still had to contend with the encirclement of the Hive Tyrant.
Karna was forced into a grueling game of kiting. Even as incandescent fury seared his arm along the shaft of the Red Tear, he ruthlessly suppressed the Black Rage.
Thud-thud-thud!
A Haruspex smashed through the blockade of defensive fire, barreling head-on into the sluggish human ranks.
Crash!
A cybernetically enhanced human body, weighing several hundred kilograms, was sent flying into the air. The Haruspex lashed out with the grasping claws from its maw, instantly crushing a combat servitor.
The endless Swarm began to breach the Guard Militant's defensive lines, scaling the Titan's colossal frame. They gnawed at power cables, desperate to devour the enemies within.
This was the Swarm. Whenever you thought victory was within your grasp, it would unleash even more, even stronger foes to drag you back down into despair.
The Swarm glared greedily at The Angel before them.
It would devour The Angel's genetic material and spawn an even more magnificent hunter!
"Haha!"
The Angel laughed aloud, raising his spear. The battle would rage on.
It was as if this bloody struggle would never end until every drop of his blood ran dry.
The Hive Tyrant was the first to roar and charge forward.
Squelch!
Several figures blurring with maximum speed dashed past.
It was Tyberos and Orlando. In a fraction of a heartbeat, they shattered the Hive Tyrant's already failing defenses, kicking the towering beast out of a gladiatorial arena that no longer belonged to it.
Amidst the artillery barrage, the Adeptus Astartes found their marks, ready to end the xenos' lives even if it demanded their own sacrifice.
Rumble!
Countless artillery shells shrieked through the air.
This was the Cadian bombardment. The ordnance blanketed the Norn Assimilator with surgical precision, stripping chunks of carapace from the behemoth now deprived of its ritualistic protection.
"For our Tomorrow!"
This was the uncountable Crusade Force. They surged like a tidal wave against the Swarm, their sergeants hoisting banners high as they marched forward.
One man took a hit to the chest and fell; he was a laborer from the lower Hive City.
Another snatched up the fallen standard and pressed on; he was a scavenger from the underhive.
A third shoved a corpse aside to hoist the battle standard aloft once more; he was a once-respectable merchant from the upper spire.
They built a towering wall with their very lives, rescuing the Titan named Helios from the Swarm's relentless siege.
They had arrived.
The distant Steel drew closer, accompanied by a deafening rumble.
They were here.
Boom!
With its crew synchronized, the Titan unleashed its payload once more. This single, devastating strike finally obliterated the Hive Tyrant's skull.
Following that crimson beam of destruction, a flood of Steel crashed onto the battlefield.
More, and even more!
Were these organisms not afraid of death? What purpose did their emotional brains serve at all?!
In a rare display, the Hive Mind radiated pure exasperation. The Norn Assimilator tore through the overlapping kill-zones, desperate to plunge into the infuriating human ranks. Its burning carapace, split by two jagged horns, formed three distinct streaks of blazing fire.
It was a literal embodiment of blazing fury!
Clang!
The Angel descended once again, blocking the Norn Assimilator's path.
Meanwhile, the Heavy Armored Units continued to pour on the firepower under Romulus's orders.
Volkite blasts, searing beams from Volcano Cannons, and overcharged plasma consistently licked at the two combatants locked in their melee.
The boundless kinetic and thermal energy stripped away the Norn Assimilator's flesh and shattered its joints. Yet against The Angel, whose body was bathed in radiant light, the onslaught only managed to score his armor and scorch his skin.
More and more warriors poured onto the battlefield, leveling their weapons at the enemy.
The colossus that had been flaunting its might just moments ago was now like a fragile Reef battered by monstrous waves, on the verge of snapping apart every time it was submerged!
"Hahaha!"
With a manic grin and aided by the endless barrage, Karna drove his Red Tear deep into the Norn Assimilator's skull.
The Norn Assimilator had traded its synaptic node abilities and destructive psychic prowess for unparalleled physical strength and resilience, but now...
Now, with a flaming spear impaling its body...
As The Angel's wrath ignited an endless inferno, as the spear tip finally shattered its ultimate defense...
"Come, burn with me! Step into death with me!"
Boom!
Accompanied by a howl from The Empyrean, it was as if a critical threshold had suddenly been breached. The Norn Assimilator erupted into glorious flames, surrounded by countless spinning embers that resembled moths drawn to a roaring fire.
Karna gripped his spear tightly, his eyes locked onto the fading enemy as it crumbled to ash within the blaze. The Blood God's fire licked at his own flesh, attempting to drag him directly into Khorne's embrace.
The Blood God was destined for disappointment.
When the inferno finally died down, the Norn Assimilator's massive form had vanished without a trace.
Karna plummeted from mid-air. He had grown completely numb to the agony ravaging his body; he simply stared down at his hands.
His gauntlets had vaporized. His flesh had melted away. Blackened finger bones drifted slightly in the wind, almost giving him the illusion that these appendages no longer belonged to him.
But now, it was all over.
His enemy had been reduced to flying ash, and he had survived.
Furthermore...
The Angel peered at the sea of humanity below, at those who would tear through a tide of xenos just to reach his side, and offered a soft chuckle.
'I have never fought alone.'
"Angel!"
A wrathful meteor streaked across the sky as Ka'Bandha, having finally shaken off Carlos, approached with a mighty beat of his wings.
He had witnessed The Angel's fearlessness, his sacrifice, and the raging inferno that had melted his enemy to slag.
This thrilled Ka'Bandha. The Bloodthirster pumped his leathery wings, unable to stop himself from recalling the events of ten millennia ago.
Yes, this was exactly how it all began.
He watched the exhausted Angel fall from the heavens, observing the contented smile that bloomed on his face the moment his adversary was defeated.
That smile.
Ka'Bandha tightened his grip on his massive axe, already fantasizing about the eternal war the two of them would wage upon the Blood God's wastelands once The Angel achieved his Daemonic Ascension.
That damned smile!
Snap!
A pair of spectral blue claws clamped down on the airborne Ka'Bandha, freezing the Greater Daemon in place.
Carlos, having just manifested from a teleportation spell, channeled a transmutation hex. Ka'Bandha's armor began to liquify, eating away at the Bloodthirster's flesh.
A jagged Rift flared to life behind them, its swirling talons poised to swallow them both whole.
Thank the Gods, it was The Angel who had granted him the clarity to gaze upon the present once more, allowing him to finally thwart the Blood God's scheme.
Since the Changer of Ways' grand design had brought him here, Carlos was certainly not going to let Khorne get his way.
"No!!!"
Countless figures poured forth. There were Adeptus Astartes, Sisters of Battle, The Priest of the Ecclesiarchy, and ordinary Imperial citizens.
In the final split second before his vision was swallowed, Ka'Bandha saw the immense throng surging toward the spot where The Angel had fallen. At that moment, his elation vanished instantly, replaced by a boundless, torrential fury boiling up in his mind.
'At least let me grab The Angel's hand!'
He reached out in vain, but Carlos's mutually assured destruction spell kept him firmly locked in place.
Ka'Bandha could only watch as he was swallowed inch by inch, dragged inexorably back into The Warp, pulled farther and farther away!
Banished together under the agonizing drag of the blue two-headed avian.
"Tzeentch!!!"
"Ritual protection complete. The Lord of Change has been vanquished—yes, sector defense can be handed over to the Legion of the Damned."
In the distance, Arthur stepped across the scorching earth. The severed head of a daemon lay by his boots, rapidly dissolving into the blistering wind.
"Yes, the Legion of the Damned is completely secure. The prototype of the Stormcast Eternals has been finished. We need to maintain the ritual. I will provide continuous reports on the subsequent research progress. Understood, I will have him compile a foundational manual on The Warp."
He was delivering his after-action report to Romulus.
To Romulus, Rameses was a man who spoke in endless, lofty circles. Rather than listening to that eccentric crank up his blood pressure with esoteric research data, a brief and direct guarantee from his childhood friend offered far more reassurance.
Beside Arthur stood Rameses, who had bolted the moment the Greater Daemon was taken down and had only just slinked back into realspace. Accompanying them was Aglaia, leading her retinue along with the Legion of the Damned.
"Understood, lock down the access routes to Sector NE-6. We are heading there immediately."
They cast a distant glance at the fiercely guarded Angel before turning around. Leading their burning ethereal soldiers, they stepped into the Rift opened by the sorcerer, advancing toward their next battlefield.
Yes, the war would rage on.
The Transmigrators' repeated, exhausting efforts had merely managed to reset the tilted scales.
The enemies would not vanish into thin air. They remained a persistent threat. The road to victory stretched endlessly onward, and humanity would continue to bleed.
However, as people turned the tide again and again, as mankind repeatedly ground their enemies' offensives into dust—
A miracle.
A most wondrous and epic coincidence was about to manifest.
While humanity continued to shed their blood and fight desperately for survival.
While The Angel, supported by his devoted followers, once again became an inspiring banner of hope.
While the knight and the sorcerer departed with their nameless legion, rushing to the next warzone.
While Commander Romulus consolidated intel once more, preparing his fresh forces to counter the Swarm's inevitable counterattack.
When that transmission from the void suddenly echoed across the heavens...
"We are the Black Templars. This is the Eternal Crusader. I am Supreme High Marshal Ledodes. Please respond."
"This is the Talon of Law. I am Chapter Master Aeron Lasus of the Nemesis."
"This is the Force of Enterprise. I am Pedro Kantor, First Captain of the Crimson Fists."
"This is the Blade of Ruin. I am Tulsa Kane, High Chaplain of the Executioners."
"..."
One open-channel broadcast after another flooded into the joint fleet's comms network. Even the signal receivers dotting the surface of the Hive City picked up the transmissions.
A cascade of Imperial identification codes passed authentication protocols. The gravity sensors continuously reported massive warships translating from the Mandeville Point into the Pierde system.
It was the armada of the Imperium of Man.
Everyone watched with Bated Breath. Inside the command center, nearly every set of eyes fixed upon the commander who had led humanity to hold the line until this very moment.
Romulus stared at the holographic feed of the fleet continuously pouring into the system. His hands relaxed, then clenched tight as he took a deep breath.
He suddenly understood that feeling.
The feeling experienced by those isolated branches of humanity during the Age of Strife, struggling under relentless xenos bombardment, when they witnessed countless starships broadcasting the banner of mankind translating into their skies.
Those voices seemed to be saying...
Our fleets will blot out the sky, no matter how many suns burn above.
Those voices seemed to be declaring to all of humanity...
The dawn has finally arrived!
"This is Commander Romulus of the joint fleet."
Opening a secured comms link, Romulus finally responded.
"Lord Romulus—"
Supreme High Marshal Ledodes absorbed the steady stream of combat logs relayed from the expeditionary forces on the ground, a profound light of respect gleaming in his eyes.
"Give the order!"