“Father…” Horus closed his eyes, his massive chest heaving with a rhythm louder than thunder.
*Clang.* A rusty piece of scrap metal hit the floor, echoing crisply through the space.
When he opened his eyes again, the dull gray ash of defeat had receded, though no trace of his former pride remained.
He spoke in a voice low and raspy.
“You’re right, Kaelen.” “I, Lupercal, will never fail the Master of Mankind’s expectations again.
I will never…
fail.” “I am his fierce general and beloved son.” The Wolf God looked up at the mortal standing before him.
This time, he scrutinized the young man carefully.
For a brief moment, he felt Kaelen closely resembled his favorite son—Garviel Loken, the handsome young Captain of the Luna Wolves’ Tenth Company.
In his memories, Loken had also stepped in whenever he strayed, offering counsel with sound, measured words.
“Kaelen, do you know what happened to Loken in the end?
I know he’s dead, but…
I want to know.” “After you died in your final duel against the Emperor, he stayed aboard the Vengeful Spirit to watch over your body.
Later, he tried to persuade Abaddon to surrender, but Erebus ambushed and killed him.” Kaelen’s voice hardened as he uttered Erebus’s name.
In the entire Warhammer universe, Erebus was hands down the absolute scum of the earth—a total piece of trash and a traitor to all mankind!
“Erebus?
That chaplain!” Horus raised his voice.
“I should have killed him long ago!
Ever since he joined my Legion, he did nothing but spread his bullshit doctrines!” “Where is that damned bastard now?” “He and many of the traitors hid inside the Eye of Terror.
As for us, I don’t even know which sector this planet is in.” Kaelen sighed and shrugged helplessly.
Hearing this, the fire raging in Horus’s chest flickered out momentarily.
Right at that moment— “Wooo—Wooo—!” A blaring mechanical alarm erupted through the ventilation ducts overhead.
Red emergency lights flashed wildly, staining the corridor in a blood-red glare.
Chaotic footsteps echoed rapidly as armored metal boots stomped the floor, accompanied by the throat-shredding barks of cyber-hounds.
“Iron Skull Gang reinforcements,” Kaelen said, his face darkening as he grabbed a wrench off the floor.
A cyber-hound’s sense of smell was a hundred times sharper than a mutant rat’s.
In this enclosed lower level, the reek of blood left from the earlier slaughter was practically a glowing beacon.
“We need to get out of here.” Kaelen quickly scanned for an escape route.
He glanced back.
Dressed in his iconic moon-white Terminator armor, Horus stood out in the dark underhive ruins like a giant walking spotlight.
Not to mention his colossal frame—there wasn’t a ventilation duct in existence that could fit him.
“That shell of yours is way too noticeable.” “I can take it off.” Horus reached up, gripping the neural-link node at his neck, ready to rip open the pressure seals with his bare hands.
“Hold on!
Fight cybernetic freaks butt-naked?
You haven’t even fully healed yet!” Kaelen blurted out, stopping him in a hurry.
Kaelen immediately pulled up his System panel, his eyes sweeping over the 99,900 points that had just been credited to his balance.
He tapped into [Equipment & Items].
[Concealment Cloak: Legacy technology from the Raven Guard Legion.
Blocks thermal, acoustic, and optical detection, automatically adjusting to fit the wearer’s size.
Price: 5,000 points.] *Buy.* Two oversized, drab gray cloaks—resembling little more than ragged burlap sacks—materialized in his hands.
“Put this on!” Kaelen tossed one over.
Horus caught it with one hand.
The moment the cloak touched the Terminator armor, the nanofibers along its edges rapidly expanded, completely enveloping his massive frame.
Gloomy shadows draped over the moon-white armor, stifling his heavy breathing and the hum of servo-motors.
He melted entirely into the darkness of the corridor.
“Move!” Kaelen put on his cloak and led the way toward the blast door on the far side.
Threading through several abandoned pipes littered with garbage and mutant fungi, they descended into the true lowest depths of Planet Rhys’s hive city.
The air reeked of engine oil, sewage, and rotting corpses.
Wastewater trickled down rusted walls.
The dwellers of the corrugated tin shacks could hardly be called human—they were walking corpses barely clinging to the shape of men.
Kaelen led Horus through a maze of turns before slipping into an abandoned underground water treatment station.
Once sure they had completely lost their pursuers, Kaelen collapsed beside a rusted turbine, gasping for air.
Horus pulled back his hood, surveying the ruins around them—a place fit for neither man nor beast.
“This is what you call the bottom of a hive city?” the Wolf God asked, his tone dripping with bitterness.
“We fought and bled through the Great Crusade to conquer the galaxy, only for humanity to live like this?” “You get used to it.
The High Lords of Terra and Planetary Governors don’t have time to care about whether underhivers live or die.” Kaelen fished out a brick-hard compressed ration bar and took a strained bite.
“We can lay low here for a bit, but it’s far from safe.
Genestealers operate in this sector, and Chaos cults preach underground all day long.
We’re pretty much starting on nightmare difficulty.” “Are the Defense Forces blind?” Horus frowned.
“And what are these Genestealers?
Some new species of xenos?” “The Planetary Defense Forces can’t even clean up the governor’s messes, let alone help us,” Kaelen scoffed before continuing his explanation.
“As for Genestealers, they’re the vanguard of the Tyranids.
Right now, those interstellar locusts are invading the galaxy.
Funny story, actually.
Ten thousand years ago, your good brother Guilliman accidentally lit a beacon similar to the Astronomican, drawing all those extra-galactic bugs straight here.” Horus listened quietly, his deep gaze resting on the young mortal.
“You are no ordinary scavenger, Kaelen.” How could a bottom-tier underhive scavenger casually produce a divine elixir capable of healing a Primarch, possess secret knowledge spanning ten millennia, and summon dark-tech gear out of thin air?
Kaelen paused mid-chew.
He met the Wolf God’s searching gaze, but didn’t offer a direct answer.
“Everyone has secrets.
We can chat about that when we have time later.
I used to be alone all the time, but I’m not lonely anymore now that I have a Primarch with me.
I’m honored, Wolf God.” Kaelen said with a smile.
“Since you want to save humanity and save the Imperium, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.” The two locked eyes.
In that foul-smelling underground water station, the gears of fate ground together with a rough yet powerful click.
Looking at him, a wave of warmth surged through Horus’s heart.
Brothers.
Friends.
Back during the Great Crusade, he had only ever felt such a bond with Sanguinius.
But the Great Angel was too perfect—so perfect that spending time with him always brought an invisible pressure.
Kaelen was different.
He felt like a true friend.
“Thank you, Kaelen.” The Wolf God returned a smile, pure and heartfelt.
He extended a massive hand—one capable of ripping an armored vehicle apart with ease.
During the Great Crusade, even the highest-ranking generals of the Imperium wouldn’t have been worthy of such an honor.
“From now on, we are friends.” “Hello, my friend.” Kaelen smiled, reached out, and gripped a finger thicker than his own thigh, giving it two firm shakes.
It was an ancient Terran handshake.
“What do we do next?” Horus asked in his deep voice, clearly ready for a major fight.
“Sleep.
Stay alive.” Kaelen let out a massive yawn and found a relatively flat sheet of scrap metal to lie down on.
“I don’t care if you’re a Primarch with a super-brain—a wounded guy needs to act like one.
Leave tomorrow’s trouble for tomorrow’s us to worry about.” As night deepened, the ventilation fans of Planet Rhys’s hive city let out a dull rumble.
Kaelen rolled over, wrapping his cloak tighter around himself as he muttered, “Once I get enough points, I’m definitely upgrading to a super-ultimate supreme Simmons mattress…” In less than a minute, soft snoring sounded.
Horus did not sleep.
He sat cross-legged on the oil-stained ground like an immovable statue, standing guard for the mortal who dared to curse him to his face yet trusted him with his life.
He glanced down at the scabbed wounds on his chest.
Then, the Wolf God slowly raised his head.
Through a broken gap above the ventilation fan, he caught sight of the murky, pitch-black starlight beyond the hive city.
The sea of stars remained as it ever was, but this time, he would never repeat his past mistakes.