<<<[New Fanfic Poll Start!! These Are The Contestants!!]>>>
[One Piece: Since I Can't Be A Celestial Dragon, Then A Villain It Is!]
[Shokugeki: Starting With The Dark Cooking Society Legacy]
[Yu-Gi-Oh!: Undefeated and Ultra-Meta!]
<<<[How To Make Your Favorite Fanfic Win!?]>>>
[Most Power Stones = 1 Point]
[Most Reviews = 1 Point]
[Most Votes On Poll = 1 Point]
<(The Poll Is On P@tr3on! For Free To Everybody!! And It Will Only Last A Few Days!!)>
===========
Eden could tell at once—that was the voice of Abaddon the Despoiler.
The howl was so ragged it curdled the blood.
It was rage and it was lament, a wail riding the warp and echoing across Savadore's void.
It told the whole story: a protagonist suffering a crushing setback, choking on fury, failure, and grief.
"Brutal…"
Eden actually felt a flicker of sympathy.
It was the second time Abaddon's home base had been gutted. All that hard-won stockpile—gone again.
If this had happened to him, he'd probably be even more incensed than Abaddon.
In that cry he also heard a dream shattering.
Word was Abaddon had been preparing his Fifteenth Black Crusade; looks like this one was over before it began.
Worse than the last.
Before long Eden had Abaddon's position pinned.
A battered Ark of Omen lay besieged by the Red Corsairs' Blackstone Fortress and a swarm of warships. A Tyranid bio-ship clung to its belly like a barnacle; even the outer hull had become a battlefield.
On that thirty-plus-kilometer mass of rock and wreckage, heretics and xenos of nearly every mighty species in the galaxy were piled into a wild, all-you-can-brawl boarding melee.
Spicy didn't begin to cover it.
Clearly, the Despoiler had aggro'd half the galaxy; the joint dogpile of factions and species left him with no way to respond cleanly.
Which was one reason he'd failed to stop the looters from hauling off the Blackstone Arks of Omen.
"Abaddon's done. Odds are he won't even find a window to run."
"That traitor's drowned the Imperium in misery—about time he met a spectacular end. Shame we won't be the ones to finish him."
Eden and the Khan watched remote feeds streaming back from recon elements and read the field.
It was carnage.
The Ark was sealed both sorcerously and physically—Red Corsairs and other warbands fouled the warp with hexcraft; Aeldari and Necrons layered space-locks and soul-locks.
Tyranids and Orks by the million clogged what exits remained.
In short, Abaddon, trapped beneath the feeding frenzy, had no way out—
Unless he could personally erase every high-tier assailant.
To assemble this many enemies at once and trigger a boarding free-for-all of this magnitude? That was… an Abaddon original.
Granted, the Savior had helped—by painting an enormous target on the Despoiler's back.
"What's our move?"
The Khan rolled his shoulders, watching the Savior weigh it. His palms itched; he wanted more xenos and heretic heads for his tally.
But their resource-recovery flotillas had already taken everything that wasn't welded down. The logical play was to withdraw.
"I'm thinking." Eden frowned.
He was tempted to pull out; any further delay and their fleets could be dragged into the scrum for real—and that got messy.
But a nagging sense said if he simply left now, the wider board would shift against him later.
The Eye of Terror—the biggest Chaos nest in the galaxy—might be on the brink of a sea change because of this war.
Maybe he should put a thumb on the scales?
"Khan, prep for boarding."
Eden decided at last, a cold grin carving his face. "When a bedlam like this comes once in a century, skipping it would be a crime.
Don't you think?"
"You're right. My White Tiger blade thirsts for heretic blood."
The White Scars Primarch was just as eager.
They headed to the armory, loading themselves down with heavier kit. Thunder Custodians and White Scars Destroyers mustered in strength.
They all knew this would be a hard fight.
Out in the dust-wreathed void—
Dreamweaver and her screen shifted into a spearhead, the flagship at the point, and burned straight toward the melee.
The Imperium fleet's surge did draw eyes—and fire.
Hummm—
The Red Corsairs' Blackstone Fortress gathered and unleashed a black, Chaos-slicked lance; after vaporizing an Aeldari sails-ship, it punched Dreamweaver square in the prow.
But that nightmarish beam barely scuffed the Golden Age relic—only stripping a few layers of void shields.
This was why the Savior dared to crash the party.
A regular Imperial battleship or even a flagship would have struggled to eat a salvo from a relic-class fortress.
And the Corsairs lacked the xenos know-how to squeeze true performance out of the Blackstone.
No sooner had the Fortress fired than it ate a coordinated counter-barrage from the Savior's fleet and nearby Aeldari. Suddenly, it had bigger problems.
Dreamweaver used her speed to break contact and powered on toward the core of the fight.
"WAAAGH—!"
A junk-asteroid Ork space-fort clapped eyes on the human flagship and surged to close.
Gargantuan ballista barrels depressed; a siege bolt nearly a kilometer long slid into place, its grooves packed full of greenskins.
"Brother, can our ship stop that?"
On the jump-deck forward of Dreamweaver's flank, the Khan stared at the incoming siege bolt, jaw tight.
The Ork fort was too close now; there'd be no time to counter. Worse, the greenskin siege engines were pure physics.
Even void shields and stasis fields didn't like those.
Low speed, brute force, primitive design—exactly the bug that tripped Imperial defenses.
What sane species drags medieval siege kit into space—and makes it hit like a macro-cannon or heavy torpedo?
"We're too close; we probably can't swat it."
Eden squinted at the oncoming bolt and felt the weight in his gut. The intimidation factor was real.
Not long ago he'd watched a greenskin fort skewer a Chaos battleship with one of those, chain-boarding through the shaft to rip it apart—
Then feed the hulk into a fortress-sized gear-crusher.
Dreamweaver had just emptied a salvo; she was in a charge cycle. No way she could field a main-battery kill-shot right now.
"Then we fight it from space…"
The Khan's mouth went dry as the bolt swelled in their visors. He lit the field on the White Tiger blade.
If they couldn't stop it, the flank armor would be punched; the chains would carry a tide of greenskins aboard.
And the jump-deck was right in the splash zone. No time to clear it—anyone still here would be sprayed into the void.
Power boots clamped to steel. The White Scars and the troops around them braced to take the hit.
The bolt grew and grew, the greenskins on it resolving into leering faces.
They even felt the onset of acceleration—
???
The ship wasn't dodging. It was accelerating—straight into the bolt and the fortress?
THOOM—
The titanic alloy dart slammed Dreamweaver's flank. After a deafening thud and a rolling shudder, the kilometer-long bolt kicked away—
As if it had struck a wall it could not breach.
Rebound sent shoals of greenskins spinning, their war-rigs caroming across the black like tossed beans.
"I thought you said we couldn't stop it?"
The Khan eyed the flailing green confetti, baffled.
Apparently he'd worried for nothing.
"We couldn't swat it… but it couldn't punch through, either."
Eden planted a fist in the face of a greenskin that had landed on the deck; chain-volleys shredded the rest into tumbling drift.
Dreamweaver's hull was absurdly tough. A junky Ork siege bolt? Please. Even a Rok's super-massive spiral diamond-drill struggled to bite.
In earlier tests, that monster drill had barely carved scars a few meters deep.
Bwoo-bwoo-bwoo!
Alarms screamed: all hands find secure holds and brace for extreme impact.
"Hold tight, Khan—the big one's coming!"
Eden sounded far too practiced, which made the Primarch snap his gaze up—
A colossal machinery-strewn asteroid grew, swallowing the stars.
They were ramming the Ork space-fort at flank speed?!
In any void war, deliberate ramming was a last-ditch mutual kill.
Even high-ranking Orks didn't do it lightly.
"By the Emperor…"
The Khan was weirdly awed.
Were all of the Savior's boarding offensives this feral? They felt more Ork than the Orks.
He barked orders at once:
"Brace for impact—protect the bikes!"
The White Scars flared their escort field generators around their prized mounts.
On the Ork fort's gun-deck—
"Waaagh…?"
The Warboss stared at the oncoming human juggernaut and just… blanked.
So did his boyz, going suddenly quiet as the iron whale filled the sky.
They'd never seen an attack this mad and this strong; usually they were the ones doing the ramming.
Having the roles flip without warning rattled them hard.
And when they saw the cavernous muzzles of the human ship's guns—and the swelling glare of a caged star—they panicked.
The deck emptied in a green stampede.
Too late.
Dreamweaver's Sanctified Novae Cannon spat an ultra-massive plasma lance that tore down the fort's energy screens, strip-mined its outer armor, and swept its turret fields clean.
Before the blossoms of detonation faded, Dreamweaver drove in.
KRAK—
Eden watched fire swallow the sky, then the light died; deck-shields surged.
He raised a shimmering psychic barrier and braced. "Throne, that helmsman's a hot-handed maniac. Youth has… spirit."
Dreamweaver's captain was a top-of-his-class graduate of Loyalty Collegium—a rocket-promotion phenom now trusted to command the Savior's flagship.
Reckless? Maybe. But the kid knew when to strike—this was the way through to the objective, fast.
A heartbeat later the already-ruptured fort, hammered by the Novae Cannon, took the full body-check.
Dreamweaver's nigh-indestructible hull piled into it; the Rok's inherently ramshackle structure gave way, shattered into a cloud of incandescent rubble.
Thud-thud-thud—
Macro-batteries along Dreamweaver's flanks spun up a wall of fire, sweeping aside the largest threats among the drifting boulders.
Pebbles pinged off the jump-deck, harmless now.
Eden brushed rock-dust from his gorget as a report came in from the bridge.
He turned to the Primarch. "Khan—mount up. We're about to board that Ark of Omen!"
As he spoke, the view from the deck opened wide; through the thinning rubble and greenskin debris loomed the vast hull of the Ark.
Webs of gunfire, lance-light, and ripple-waves stitched the void.
Eden swung into his dark-golden grav-bike, twisted the throttle—then shot into the black, arrowing for the Ark.
The Khan and his veterans kicked their engines and fell in.
Teleporting was impossible—the Ark lay under layered interdictions. Boarding torpedoes and drop-pods would be crazy in this soup.
Which left short-hop vehicle boarding: fast, flexible, with escort fields for cover.
And on a hull this huge, you didn't want to get bogged down on foot.
"Wahoo—!"
Eden buried the throttle, a dark-gold streak through the crossfire, riding the high of unobstructed speed—
A prickle of danger hit; he jinked—
A crimson lance flayed the space he'd occupied, the air tasting of scorched particles.
"This place is still too chaotic."
He focused up—threading hazards, knifing around hulks, smashing aside debris with telekinetic flicks.
In a mess like this, old-school boarding pods were suicide. If he'd been in a torpedo can or drop-pod just now?
He'd be paste.
Even normal "free" boarding ran ugly casualty rates for Astartes mid-transit.
Didn't stop them—they loved the heartbeat-spiking rush.
Ssssst—sssSST—
Eden's spear of riders slipped through a hull breach.
They crushed a lot of Tyranid chaff on the way in and gunned for the core.
Soon Eden lifted his magnifier—and saw Abaddon.
The Despoiler was being mauled by a coalition of heavy hitters:
Huron Blackheart, a Necron Overlord, an Ork Warboss, and a Tyranid Hive Tyrant—among others. It was a meat-grinder.
Eden punched the throttle again.
…
On the Black Throne dais—
Dozens of elite champions were locked in a death-knot. Black Legionaries bled themselves raw to hold the tide at the steps—
But several enemy lords had punched through and were hammering their master.
They could do nothing—only watch, sick with despair.
"Huron—you traitor—you've ruined everything!"
Abaddon's roar cracked, his hate so dense it seemed to burn.
The Fifteenth Crusade he had so carefully prepared—gone. The Blackstone Arks he'd hoarded—lost. And the instigator was this Red Corsair king.
Huron had been first to lead a coalition into Savadore—and had opened the door to the xenos.
Abaddon charged, the Talon of Horus scissoring a Chaos Terminator in half, snatching the victim's screaming soul into its faces—
Then hewing for the renegade with his daemon-sword, Chaos power erupting in sheets.
"Failures don't get to whine like fishwives."
Huron Blackheart sneered, barely bothering to treat the blow as a threat.
The Despoiler was running on fumes.
CLANG—
Huron's skull-etched, fire-wreathed war-axe caught the daemon-blade—but Abaddon twisted, the edge snaking for Blackheart's neck—
The pirate-king didn't even flinch.
Zzzzz—
A Necron Overlord's ash-grey staff spat a focused particle beam into Abaddon's spine, tearing a grotesque wound and warping his swing.
"You can't touch me."
Huron's retort came with a counter—the heavy axe hurled Abaddon back, a mocking smile on his lips.
"Aaagh!"
Too many wounds now.
Abaddon glared at Huron and struggled to his feet—
WHAM—
An Ork Warboss clubbed him behind the skull; his vision burst into stars.
Then the Hive Tyrant's bio-blade raked his chest, carving deep. (Think boneswords—never pleasant.)
Abaddon threw his arms wide; the twisted faces across his armor erupted outward, blasting soul-flame in a circle.
The shockwave knocked his assailants sprawling.
"I need power—whatever the price…"
He bared his teeth. "Dark Gods—I'll bargain again!"
He reached for the Ruinous Powers.
And blinked.
The Dark Gods hung up on him.
Investment fatigue: lately the powers had bled—hard—especially at Commorragh. They'd backed Abaddon for years and eaten loss after loss; this "new Black Crusade" had face-planted before it even set out.
If the Chaos Gods were venture capitalists, they were down to their skivvies on this one.
Keep burning offering, worship, and warp-charge on this champion? No.
"Is this the power you meant?"
Huron's voice rolled over him, proud and edged with a brutal, echoing warp-timbre.
Abaddon looked up—and despaired.
Blackheart burned, red flames mounting, his frame swelling, new mutations warping through his bulk—
His pressure eclipsed the Despoiler's.
"I… can't even match Huron…?"
The chain of failures weighed too heavy; his resolve cracked.
Plainly, the Dark Gods had shifted their stake—to the Red Corsairs' lord, Huron Blackheart.
He was the one they judged fit to rally the Traitor Astartes, to milk their potential—and to hurt the Imperium harder.
Abaddon the Despoiler had been written off.
His death was a foregone conclusion.
"I told you—one Warmaster fell before; you'll follow him."
Power spiking, Huron moved for the kill. The axe and tearing claws shredded Abaddon's armor, gouging mortal wounds.
With contempt, Blackheart wrenched away the Talon of Horus and flicked it aside. "You… and Horus… are utter failures.
Fit only for mockery."
He flung his arms wide as if to receive a coronation. "A new Warmaster of Chaos rises—me—Huron Blackheart, Lord of the Red Corsairs.
Your pitiful record will be forgotten, and the galaxy will wail beneath my tread!"
Abaddon sagged, spent—Huron planted a boot on his chest.
He couldn't move.
Staring up at the pirate-king's heel, memory flashed—those heady days of the Black Crusades.
Especially the Thirteenth—so close.
"Is this… where I end?"
A glimmer of sorrow crossed Abaddon's eyes—and a hint of release.
Tears needled at his lashes but flashed to steam. "Horus… I failed your legacy.
Perhaps it was always fate."
And just as he braced for death—
Engines roared.
Pressure—vast, imperious—rolled across the dais.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 500 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]