By now, the old Blackstone web-routes had reached—and strip-mined—almost every civilized world they could touch.
New veins of wealth were getting hard to pry loose.
If there had been any other way, Eden would never have reached for so crude a lever as this so-called "resource collection task force" that stirs up brush-fire wars.
In truth, it was a raiding host—Space Marines, the Terror Legion, the Steeljaw Ork Empire's hired brutes, and more besides.
Only elites were invited; only specialists in combined-arms deception made the cut.
It might be the largest ad-hoc pirate armada in galactic history.
"For Humanity's future, I'll have to make the xenos and heretics of the Milky Way suffer a little," Eden decided.
These weren't campaign-level offensives. The plan was to pick soft targets, or else hit places where the enemy's defenses were thinnest.
The goal was rare materials. The doctrine was smash-and-grab, then vanish.
Thanks to the Spirit-Net's vast intelligence lattice and computing power, each raiding column had its targets pre-selected.
The harvest began.
They would feint to draw away local battlegroups, then strike from an unexpected vector. Anything that took too long or bit too hard would be skipped without hesitation.
Ordinarily, burning this much fuel and munitions on smash-and-grabs is bad business.
But the Savior had war-power and shells to spare.
If the team brought home the right resources and bought time, the price was acceptable.
And since the whole enterprise was sweeping and, frankly, shameless, they did not paint it with the Savior's sigil. No reason to soak up needless hate.
They raided in the Despoiler's name instead.
"Only our brother Abaddon can carry the blame for a spree this large. Has nothing to do with me," Eden mused, flipping through the op orders with a pleased nod.
Yes, this raid would breed enmities with hundreds of sectors and factions.
Most of those renegades, xenos, or Chaos warbands couldn't touch him—but if they started raiding his borders every other week, it would still be annoying.
So the Resource-Collection Marines had blacked out their armor; even their transports and ships gleamed the same void-dark.
They carried Despoiler tokens and munitions as planted "proof."
The Terror Legion would raid under the Despoiler banner as well.
Plenty of Terror Legionnaires had served the Black Legion and Abaddon before pledging to the Prince of Excess.
Going back to their "old uniform" for a while was trivial.
And the latest from Intelligence said—
Abaddon had put a few real wins on the board lately. Even the Aeldari had bled to him; his hauls were not small. He was swaggering again, plotting something grand.
If Eden was going to pillage anyway, why not dump trouble in the lap of that top-knotted, pointy-skulled blowhard—keep him busy and far from the Imperium?
Can't have him derailing construction schedules.
In short: the Despoiler did it. If anyone wants revenge, go ring Abaddon's doorbell.
—
The Galaxy, an unnamed system.
Boom—boom—boom—
Great lances and macro-batteries stitched fire through the void.
Two Ork armadas had fought their way through a knot of warp-riptides and were now brawling at knuckle-range—so close that stray boyz drifted everywhere in the black.
Some greenskins, riding jump-jets or the recoil of their guns, launched like jagged meteors to head-butt the enemy.
Others weren't so lucky—hauled into engine intakes or spun into the eddies, gone without a trace.
Before long—
The Steeljaw Ork fleet, devotees of "Rogga," couldn't hold the line. After eating one brutal volley, they broke off, diving into the currents and vanishing.
"WAAAGH—!
"Edork's da strongest of all Orks! He'll clobber any git what ain't lookin'!"
Warboss Skinscrappa howled his triumph.
This had been a war of faith. The invaders—heretical greenskins who worshiped Gork—had been routed. They slunk away, beaten.
Victorious, Skinscrappa's horde bellowed and swelled—bodies and biceps bulking under the high of a win.
Their faith in Edork only grew.
Boasting and bashing their chests, they headed home.
Navigation? Who needs it. They followed gut and "'s gotta be dis way," and somehow made it back to their turf.
A dull iron-lead world, capped by a colossal Ork fort.
Once the realm of the Red Freaks, now a green paradise.
…?
"Waa—where'd me fort go?!"
In low orbit—
Warboss Skinscrappa opened his maw to declare victory and froze, staring at the world below.
So did his Big Mek adviser and the clan's warbosses.
Every Ork went slack-jawed.
The ground was bare. The bastion was missing. Smoke still curled from raw dirt.
They'd been robbed.
So neatly, so brazenly robbed that not only had the fort been stripped—so had the foundations. The surface was pocked by giant pits.
The bites of mega-excavators.
Eden's Resource-Collection host had drawn away the world's main horde, then hit the surface like a hammer.
Inquisitorial records from millennia past hinted the planet held an active, self-healing metal—back when xenos had ruled it.
They smashed what garrison remained, then dug until the living seams ran dry—loading ore, plating, and bodies both—then jumped.
When Skinscrappa limped home, all he found was a honeycomb of holes. His fort and half his population were gone.
"WAAAGH!!!
"Who nicked me stuff—dug up me land—SKINSCRAPPA'S GONNA PEEL 'EM!"
He raged, vowing to find the thieves.
"Boss, look—uh… there."
Big Mek Brainy-Git swallowed hard and pointed at the ground, terrified the boss might eat him in a rage.
Skinscrappa followed the Mek's finger.
There, built from fort plates, rose a sigil hundreds of meters tall.
An eye at its heart, encircled by barbed arrows.
The Eye of Horus—favorite badge of the Warmaster of Chaos, Abaddon the Despoiler, and his Black Legion.
"Find 'em… and get ME REVENGE!"
Skinscrappa didn't know the Eye's pedigree. He didn't care. It was the enemy's calling card—an insult he could smell.
He howled the Waaagh!, mustered the fleet, and set off on a vengeance crusade to hunt whoever flew that mark.
The armada plunged into a random warp reach and roared away.
…
The Galaxy, a Tomb World.
The buried pyramids had been pried open and toppled, ancient energy veins exposed, the surface littered with metal wreckage—
Some of it tangled with hulks of Chaos Titans; all of it was the tomb-guard's corpses.
Phalanxes of living metal had been cut down by raider science and speed.
The vaults were cracked; rare alloys and Blackstone were stripped; even more weapons—and the bodies of tomb-guardians—were hauled off.
"Savages! Robbers! To despoil the treasures of the Undying!"
The Phaeron of the Tavoh Dynasty emergency-booted from torpor, took in the gutted complex, and seethed.
A living metal monarch, sapphire-hued and wreathed in concentric filigree, a gem-crowned helm upon his head. A mantle of metal behind him shimmered red.
He swore a cruel reprisal. Such vermin merited no mercy—only annihilation.
"Silent King… your most loyal vassal wakes. Tavoh will chase your vision of glory for all the long-dead.
"But first—one query. Have you seen this mark?"
He reached the Silent King upon a private band, absorbed the galaxy's latest, and sent an image of the raiders' sign.
An eye, stinking of warp-taint.
From the King's reply, the Phaeron found his target—Abaddon. The Black Legion.
Pirates rooted in the great warp storm, strong and shameless.
He didn't know why they'd expended so much to rip only the outer vaults.
It didn't matter. He would repay them in kind—by smashing their foundries and burning their worlds.
Hummm—
A crescent Tombship rose from mountain roots, boulders and magma pluming as it clawed for the stars. Behind it, a flood of living-metal warships.
The Tomb World was fully awake, its heart alight with hate.
Its wrath fell upon the so-called Black Legion.
…
The Maelstrom.
Red Corsairs domain, Gholis Sub-sector.
Huron Blackheart, the Tyrant of Badab reborn, crushed an Eye of Horus token in his red bionic claw. Flames licked the shards to slag.
He looked down at Xhovet, his plundered holding, and bared his teeth.
The vaults had been ransacked; a trove of rarest stock was gone.
"Lord Huron, without that shipment we must push back the war-forge bastion again."
The Corsairs' Furnace-master, Alchemist Valtes, seethed. The raid had gutted his schedule.
"Abaddon does keep me entertained, doesn't he…"
Blackheart spoke the Warmaster's name with a faint, ugly amusement. He feared no one.
He had bled the Imperium at Badab, kidnapped the Great Khan Jubal Khan, even ambushed and briefly bagged Roboute Guilliman on his road to Terra—none of it beyond his reach.
"How many times is this now?"
"Abaddon and his Black Legion—do they really think I won't answer?"
The Black Legion's hunger had grown these last years. They'd crossed blades with the Corsairs more than once, and skimmed off takes Huron had marked as his.
He'd stomached those losses; a war would only fatten other enemies.
But this time, Black Legionnaires had dared hit a Corsair world.
Unforgivable.
"They will pay, with no bargaining," Blackheart judged.
"And… Abaddon, my lord?"
Valtes ventured, nervous despite himself.
The Warmaster's terror was legend; challenging him made any sane man sweat.
Blackheart's stare went iron-cold. "Are you afraid of him—or do you think I am?"
His voice went hard.
"Ten thousand years ago I led scraps and survivors out of the flames of Badab half-dead—and within decades built a host that can crush any sector.
"Yes, Abaddon fields a might that draws worship. But I forged my state in less than a century; he's taken a hundred times as long.
"He's 'won' and 'won'—and failed, and failed, and failed. I think it's near time the Warmaster retired."
Valtes bowed his head. "As you say. We should not yield.
"But… perhaps we should confirm our culprit. There could be… some mistake."
"That isn't your worry," Huron smiled thinly.
"The Red Corsairs need a victory—even over the Black Legion.
"A Warmaster has died before. Another could follow.
"Start with their forges. Lots worth stealing in those. We won't miss this window."
Truth? Blackheart had coveted Black Legion coffers for years. Abaddon's name no longer cast a long enough shadow to keep those vaults safe.
…
Eden's raiders kicked up commotion across the galaxy.
They brought home ton upon ton of materials needed for building the webway—shipped by convoy to Dawn City.
For now, the haul patched a good slice of the shortfall.
A major win.
"Abaddon's fame is really popping off. Wonder if he's pleased," Eden murmured, scrolling the fresh briefs.
He'd sent out a storm of black-armored cutthroats in the Despoiler's name; the galaxy was screaming "Abaddon" from one end to the other.
On second thought… maybe that was a little dumb. The bastard thrived on reputation; had Eden just fed him?
"Eh. Consider it mutually beneficial."
Eden shrugged and shut the slate.
He was a businessman.
If Abaddon was busy soaking up the hate meant for Eden, he could have a few bragging rights. As long as he didn't blunder in and derail schedules.
Let him string losses a little longer—he wouldn't have much to swing anyway.
Eden had no time to gawk at the Eye of Terror.
He happily counted crates and poured everything back into construction and cashflow.
Only a true, theater-wide war would justify taking his eye off the work.
—
Deep within the Eye of Terror, Savagar.
A dust-shrouded world hung with foundry-platforms and star-forts.
The Black Legion's baseworlds were knitting back together. Here and there you could see the grain of Blackstone in their works.
In recent years, Abaddon the Despoiler had stripped the Vigilance marches of yet more Blackstone and begun assembling novel engines of war—Arks of Omen, birthed from Vashtorr the Arkifane's techno-daemon rites and bound to Blackstone's awful geometries.
On the gantries, Ark after Ark neared completion—gun-towers and keel-veins humming with Blackstone's cold patterning.
When these behemoths stirred, terror would sweep the galaxy.
"Ah. I hear them—the voices of the galaxy and the Sea of Souls—chanting the Despoiler's name."
Abaddon stood in barbed ebony, the Talon of Horus weeping thicker warp-ichor than ever.
He felt his infamy rising and was content.
From the throne-port he looked out on realm and legion. More raiding flotillas were returning with the ores of war.
The Black Legion accelerated—recovering, hardening.
Enough to make any scoffer choke.
"Savior… we'll meet soon. I hope you won't regret all you've done to the Warmaster of Chaos."
He remembered too well: the Savior had nearly bankrupted him; scavengers had clung to the Legion's ribs; discipline had rotted.
He had clawed it back—got his house in order.
And yes—he'd signed more pacts with the Dark Gods, siphoning strength, materiel, and artifice.
Among his prizes: the Arkifane Vashtorr's troves—deep workings of the Arks of Omen—and, above all, Blackstone lore.
Blackstone—greatest war-tech of the age. Weapons, fortresses, ships that bite both realspace and the Immaterium with equal hunger—beyond anything the Imperium's clanking relic-tech could rival.
That—this—was the future: the key to dominion.
"I am not the man I was…"
He lifted the Talon. Faces writhed across it.
"When our new arms are in the field, the galaxy will shudder. The Imperium's armies cannot stand.
"And the master of such an army… is Humanity's true savior."
He had never abandoned the Warmaster's dream—the Black Legion's endgame.
To become Lord of the Imperium. The new Emperor.
Humanity faced too many dooms. Only the strongest could bear the mandate.
"And that is I—Abaddon!
"Tremble, Imperium—the Fifteenth Black Crusade is nigh!"
The Despoiler's eyes burned with bottomless ambition.
There would be one chance to "save" mankind—and he would take it, even if the Imperium had to burn again.
(End of Chapter)
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