When Angron woke up, something was drilling into the back of his skull.
Cold.
Hard.
Barbed.
Every millimeter deeper sent a black flash across his vision.
He wanted to curse, but only a low growl rumbled from his throat—less like a man, more like a beast trapped in an iron cage.
His wrists wouldn’t lift.
His ankles wouldn’t budge.
Heavy black hydraulic frames pressed down on his shoulders, waist, abdomen, and neck.
Forcefield collars snapped against his skin, blue-white arcs of electricity searing into his flesh stroke by stroke, choking the air with the smell of ozone and burning meat.
He glanced down.
His wrists were unnaturally thick, monstrously so.
The chains holding them were thicker still.
If anyone in his past life had told him he’d end up strapped to an operating table, wishing the chains were thicker, he would have thought they were out of their mind.
He couldn’t laugh now.
The nail in the back of his head was doing all the feeling for him.
White shadowless surgical lamps glared blindingly above.
Chirurgeons wearing silver masks clustered around the operating table.
Higher up, behind a glass observation deck, stood a noble in opulent robes.
Platinum silks, a rapier, heavy-armored guards—a face so clean it made you want to smear blood all over it.
Someone murmured, “Angron is awake.” Hearing that name sent Angron’s heart plunging into ice.
Dammit.
Nuceria.
The Butcher’s Nails.
Angron.
As the pieces collided in his mind, only a string of curses remained.
This was a rotten start.
Out of all the people to transmigrate into, it had to be Angron—and at *this* exact moment.
He couldn’t even console himself with “maybe it’s just someone with the same name.” What namesake would be lying on a Nucerian High Rider’s neurosurgery table while the Butcher’s Nails were drilled into his brain?
Behind the glass, the High Rider gave a thin smile.
“Awake is better.” His voice was steady, like someone inspecting a machine that had just been powered up.
“Let the Nails memorize his agony.” The chirurgeon adjusted the drill bit.
The metallic monster at the back of his skull twisted another inch inward.
*Boom!* Pain exploded inside his cranium.
Angron’s entire body went rigid, sending a violent shudder through the surgical table.
The hydraulic arms groaned shriekingly, and the forcefield collars blazed brilliant white.
He nearly shattered his teeth.
*Don’t pass out.* *Whatever you do, don’t pass out.* If he lost consciousness, these bastards would finish implanting the Nails.
The High Rider raised a hand, rapping his knuckles lightly against the glass.
“Doesn’t he treat those gladiator slaves like brothers?” “Excellent.” “Let the Nails turn the word ‘brother’ into the most agonizing spot in his mind.” *Oenomaus.* As the name floated up, his chest throbbed with agony first.
He hadn’t recalled it intentionally—it was this body remembering on its own.
Bloody sands.
Iron cages.
Lashes tearing across his back.
An old gladiator snapping his wrist with a wooden staff, crouching down to spit, *”Brute who only knows raw strength—you’ll die on the red sands sooner or later.”* The memory shifted again.
Karrus shoving half a hard biscuit into his hand, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, still grinning.
*”If you make it through tomorrow, eat an extra bite of meat for me.”* Angron closed his eyes.
It hurt.
These memories didn’t belong to his past life, yet they burned as if he had lived every second of them.
This body remembered them.
This heart remembered them.
Worse, his own memories from his past life were churned up too.
Screens.
Text.
Artwork.
The World Eaters.
Khorne.
Daemon Primarch.
The final battle in the mountains.
Every brother dead.
Angron whisked away.
Reading about it had felt frustrating enough.
Now, those words carried the stench of real blood.
He suddenly wanted to laugh.
Turns out the so-called “canon” was lore from a distance, but a blade when shoved in your face.
The drill dug deeper.
The Butcher’s Nails latched onto his neural pathways, trying to twist pain, rage, slaughter, and pleasure into one mangled knot.
It crawled toward the depths of his brain like a freezing, writhing maggot.
Angron panted, forcing himself not to be dragged under by the agony.
*Where’s the System?* The thought felt absurd even to him.
But he had transmigrated into Angron, strapped to a table getting the Butcher’s Nails.
If there was no cheat, this wasn’t transmigration—it was a botched reincarnation.
A chirurgeon plunged a thick needle into his arm.
“Sedative.” The icy fluid was injected straight into his vein.
A dose powerful enough to knock out a pit beast only dimmed his sight for half a breath.
Then it flared bright again.
The monitors began to shriek.
“Heart rate out of control!” “Muscle density spiking!” “Abnormal neural potential!” “Pain signals are…
being swallowed—” The voices cut off.
Another voice rang in his mind—cold, brief, like a screen pop-up.
[Host consciousness stability confirmed] [Current Identity: Twelfth Primarch, Angron] [Current Fate Node: Butcher’s Nails Implantation] [Comic Gacha System binding complete] [Starter Pack opened] [Obtained: Hulk Bloodline] [The angrier you get, the stronger you get] Angron froze for half a breath.
Then, the corners of his mouth peeled back into a grin.
*Hulk Bloodline.* *Game on.* Deep inside his chest, his heart thudded violently.
*Thump.* The lights flickered.
*Thump.* The chains on his wrists snapped taut.
*Thump.* The nail at the base of his skull suddenly flared hot.
Not from a machine turning on, but from pure thermal buildup.
The sedative in his bloodstream vanished like ice dropped into a furnace.
As the Butcher’s Nails bit into his nerves, the metal body of the device glowed red.
That green power paid no mind to reason or logic.
Pain?
Devoured.
Sedative?
Devoured.
Electricity?
Devoured.
Even the neural signals meant to turn him into a rabid dog were swallowed whole in a single gulp.
Then, every drop of that energy was funneled straight into his muscles.
Dull pops echoed beneath his shoulder blades.
His chest expanded.
His back broadened.
His arms continued to swell within the iron collars.
The hydraulic rigs shivered.
The edges of the restraint rings bit into skin, only to be forced open millimeter by millimeter by expanding muscle.
Scorched, blackened skin split apart, revealing denser, dark-green flesh bursting from underneath.
Veins bulged beneath his skin like throbbing power cables.
The surgical table groaned under extreme stress.
The chirurgeons finally went dead silent.
They stared at the table, watching the specimen that was supposed to be broken by the Butcher’s Nails grow larger and larger amidst snapping chains, dancing arcs, and spraying blood.
The smile vanished from the High Rider’s face.
Angron caught it.
Good.
After all this pain, it was finally their turn to feel miserable.
“Coolant!” “Sever the connections!” “Iron Guards!
Release the Iron Guards!” Coolant lines stabbed into the Nail’s interface port.
The moment the milky white fluid flooded in, the entire conduit ruptured.
Scalding steam blasted onto the chirurgeon’s face; he clutched his visor and fell, howling like a skinned beast.
Panels on both sides of the room slid open.
Four Iron Guard servitors stepped forth—red camera lenses, white-gold heraldry, and riot-suppression arc cannons springing from beneath their arms.
Angron scanned the glass display cases along the wall.
Severed spines floated in pale yellow fluid, each labeled meticulously with numbers.
Age.
Weight.
Pain threshold.
Time of death.
The Nucerians were remarkably orderly.
Even when butchering people into scrap, they made sure to archive the files.
“Fire!” The arc cannons opened up together.
The first blast struck his chest, blowing away scorched flesh.
The second ripped into his shoulder.
The third bored straight through his flank.
Angron looked down.
The wounds steamed.
Shrapnel embedded in his muscle was pressed out by rapidly regenerating tissue, clattering onto the surgical table.
Pain.
It still hurt.
But this time was different.
Pain didn’t crush him; it fed the inferno blazing deep in his soul.
The High Rider had wanted to implant the Butcher’s Nails, but ended up giving him a rage battery instead.
Angron snapped his eyes up.
Behind the glass, the High Rider shrank back half a step.
Faint, but Angron saw it.
He bared his teeth, blood trickling between them.
“Who gave you permission…” The left wrist clamp shattered.
A chirurgeon whipped his head around.
Angron twisted his wrist.
“…to touch my head?” *Boom!* He tore the entire hydraulic assembly right out of the operating table.
Arcs of lightning burst out.
The nearest chirurgeon turned to run, but Angron grabbed his visor and crushed it.
The silver mask caved in; the scream cut off halfway.
The right wrist lock snapped next.
The forcefield collar around his neck overloaded.
He grabbed it with both hands and sheared it apart by raw force.
Currents surged over his shoulders and back, scorching skin only for fresh muscle to push it out.
The first Iron Guard charged, swinging an arc-blade down into his shoulder.
Angron didn’t even flinch.
The servitor’s ramming rig slammed into his chest, its hydraulic legs tearing sparks from the floor as it tried to push him back onto the table.
It couldn’t budge him.
Angron looked down at it.
The construct was taller than an average man, heavier than the augmented beasts on the red sands.
But right now, it looked like a tin can.
He plunged his fingers into the servitor’s chest plate.
The metal caved, then tore.
The red lens flashed frantically as if finally realizing its peril.
Too late.
Angron pulled outward with both hands.
Machine oil, sparks, and snapped servo-frames sprayed all over him.
As the second servitor raised its arc cannon, he grabbed the barrel, snapped it back, swung the construct by its arm, and slammed it into the wall.
The third servitor retreated.
Angron ripped off a titanium-steel crossbeam from the operating table and hurled it.
The beam speared through the servitor’s head, pinning it beneath the observation platform.
Before the fourth servitor’s weapon could hum to life, Angron was already on top of it.
One punch.
Its upper body caved into the deck.
Its red lens died.
The surgical room fell quiet, save for the sirens and his heavy, ragged breathing.
Angron sat up.
Half of the Butcher’s Nails was still embedded in the back of his skull, neural lines trailing sparks like a leech refusing to let go.
He reached back and seized the exposed housing.
A surviving chirurgeon shrieked, “Don’t pull it!
Your nervous system will collapse—” Angron cast a glance at him; the man’s remaining words lodged in his throat.
Angron’s grip tightened.
Too late.
With a brutal jerk, he ripped it out.
The half-melted Butcher’s Nails was torn free from his skull, dragging scorched neural bundles with it.
Blood sprayed across the surgical lamps.
The world went black for a split second.
The agony felt as if someone had torn his brain in half.
Angron steadied himself on the edge of the table, his knuckles digging into the metal.
*Don’t fall.* *Dropping now would be too pathetic.
Getting a cheat only to collapse in Chapter 1 is an embarrassment to transmigrators everywhere.* Besides, Oenomaus was still down below.
Karrus was still down below.
The slave-warriors who were meant to perish in the mountains were still down below.
Green veins pulsed beneath his skin.
The wound at the back of his skull began to stop bleeding.
In his palm, the central core of the Butcher’s Nails twitched and smoked like a dying maggot.
Angron stared at it.
This thing was supposed to ruin him, destroy the Twelfth Legion, and drag his rage all the way to the throne of the Blood God.
His fingers closed into a fist.
*Crunch.* The Butcher’s Nails shattered.
Behind the glass, the High Rider spun on his heel.
“Lock down the augmetic sector!” “Release neurotoxin!” “Sever access to the lower levels!” His composure finally shattered into pieces.
“Purge the waiting cages!” “Do not let those gladiator slaves see him alive!” Angron snapped his head up.
The lower levels.
The gladiator slaves.
Still alive.
Rage surged up like a tide.
*Charge up there.* *Tear through the glass.* *Smash that High Rider’s head into the wall.* *Right now.* He took a step toward the observation balcony.
The next moment, a voice echoed from afar—through the intercom, through the ventilation ducts, through layers of metal.
Cages rattled.
Chains strained.
Someone was shouting his name: “Angron!” The voice was faint and fragmented, as if about to be swallowed by toxic fumes.
He froze.
His fingers clenched tight, inch by inch.
*Dammit.* *Save the people first.* *That bastard noble isn’t going anywhere.* He turned toward the exit of the augmetic chamber.
Beyond lay locked corridors, elevator shafts, transit rails, gun turrets, gas containment layers, and tier upon tier of steel plating and gun muzzles waiting for slaves.
The High Riders had put vast distance between their dangerous test subject and the arena slaves.
Cautious.
But today, they had locked up the wrong beast.
The alloy doors began to seal shut.
Red lights flashed; sirens shrieked; thick blast doors dropped layer by layer.
Angron stood before the door and pressed both hands onto the metal.
This door had blocked many slaves—pit beasts, gladiators, those desperate to escape.
Not today.
In the original timeline, he hadn’t made it in time to save them.
In this life, the first hurdle was right before his eyes.
Dark green veins bulged across his arms.
He gave a low chuckle.
“Too far?” He poured force into his arms.
The alloy door bulged outward from the center, metal screeching in agony.
Over the speakers, the High Rider roared, “Stop him!” Angron bared his teeth.
“Then I’ll smash straight through.” *Boom!* He ripped the entire door open.
Red emergency lights cast a bloody glare across his face.
Ahead lay no freedom, only the deepest lockdown zone of the Desh’ea Arena.
Behind him, the neuro-augmetic chamber burned.
Ahead of him, the entire slaving machine was whirring to life.
Angron balled his fists and marched into the heart of the red lights.
“Hang on.” “I’m coming.”