"Failure. Accept your death…"
Huron's Tyrant's Claw burned with hellfire as it slowly pressed into Abaddon's chest, the vicious warp-malice in its talons ready to shred both body and soul—
To erase him utterly.
The Black-hearted King was savoring it—torturing and humiliating Abaddon.
The thought that he would personally end the Warmaster of Chaos and take his place sent a thrill through him.
And then—
Huron sensed danger. Amid the sudden snarl of engines, some terrible beast was bearing down on him.
He snapped his head up into the blinding glare of an ornate grav-bike's headlamp—and his vision went black as his body vanished off the dais.
BOOM—
A super-heavy dark-gold grav craft smashed straight through Huron Blackheart, caving a very visible dent into its prow.
The brutal impact sent the vehicle fishtailing, tongues of stylized flame fountaining from its cowling.
"Throne—what did I just hit?!"
Eden wrestled the craft back under control and skidded to a flamboyant stop, framed in his vehicle's firelight, bristling with menace.
He'd kicked on a taboo relic built into the bike to make time—and it had been a little too spicy: the speed spiked to several times hypersonic.
He'd blown past his own formation, nearly lost control—and apparently turned someone into roadkill on the way in.
"Th—the Savior…?"
A Black Legion Chosen gaped and whispered the name.
Other Black Legionaries froze, stunned into a hush.
It had happened too fast.
A moment ago they were drowning in despair, watching their Warmaster humiliated at Huron's boot, a breath from the end—
And helpless to stop it.
Then, like judgment from on high, the Savior blasted in—one hit, and the unstoppable Blackheart was rag-dolled off the platform.
Their master was—temporarily—saved.
Awe flooded the Chaos warriors' faces… and caution. They all knew: the Savior was no ally of theirs.
Huron, launched by the super-heavy impact, cratered into external gantries in a plume of shrieking metal. He staggered, dazed and incandescent with fury.
He had not expected to be moments from crowning himself Warmaster… and get blindsided by a grav-tank with handlebars.
"Sa—vi—or?!"
Recognition poured oil on the fire. "Kill… KILL THEM!"
He clawed his way out of the scrap-heap, slag dripping off him in glowing beads, then laced the air with warp-marks to flag the Savior's position—
A red beacon to every other hunter in the scrum.
He had never imagined the Savior would risk crashing this execution. But perhaps it was perfect:
If he killed both Abaddon and the Savior here, his own acclaim—as new Warmaster—would be beyond measure.
Spurred by Huron's ping, the surrounding heavyweights moved as one.
Zzzl—
"Wretched human!"
A searing particle lance ripped from a Necron Overlord's ashen staff, scything toward the Savior at blistering speed.
The Overlord was livid—the human had spoiled his vengeance. And ever since the Silent King struck Humanity from honorable parley, he'd had no patience left for "monkeys."
The beam splashed over the dark-gold grav craft's howling escort field and guttered out.
At the same instant—
"…Why me? Did I dig up your tomb or something?"
Eden blinked at the Overlord's unprovoked hate. He had just arrived. It did look like he'd plundered the dynast's sepulchre and run off with the heirlooms.
Then he remembered—and felt a tiny twinge of guilt.
Most of the xenos here had been dragged to Savadore by aggro the Savior's "resource-recovery armadas" had redistributed. So yes—he had, in a way, dug up their tombs.
"My bad, then!"
He offered a magnificently unapologetic apology, slewed the bike, and hosed the Overlord's position with the craft's relic melta batteries—
A ten-meter circle of white sunfire erased a ring of Lychguard; melted limbs clattered across the decking, and the Overlord himself vanished in the glare.
Such was the bite of the Savior's dark-gold grav craft; its shields and guns were decadent, bordering on obscene—
Stronger than many super-heavies, even rivaling Knight-class walkers.
Eden didn't stick around to confirm the dynast's status. He drifted back toward Abaddon.
The Despoiler lay in mortal peril, with an Ork Warboss and a Tyranid Hive Tyrant closing for the kill.
"Laodun, you cannot die—not now!"
Eden's tone was sharp.
He swung turrets and raked the Ork Nobz and a Lictor clutch leaping at Abaddon, forcing them back—for the moment.
Which, naturally, painted the biggest target on his back.
An instant later—
Huron's red warp-flare scrambled the grav craft's field; an incoming Ork Warboss shoulder-checked the bike, flipping it.
Eden hit the deck hard.
"For him to be alive this long… Laodun's tougher than he looks."
Eden shook it off, feeling pressure from all quarters.
The dais was a greatest-hits album of nightmare foes: Chaos elites, Necron lords, Ork heavy hitters, Tyranid apex beasts. The most dangerous arena in the galaxy.
No one stood that and smiled.
If Old Roboute had dropped in here, he'd likely be the one getting dog-piled and pummeled into the plating—even the Warmaster himself had gone down.
"The Savior… is finished."
Huron watched the ring of killers close around Eden and smirked.
He hadn't expected such recklessness: storming the very heart of the melee alone and pulling every eye.
No single Primarch could weather that many high-tier enemies. Pure weight of fire would drown him.
If the Savior died here, the Imperium would suffer a wound it could never truly mend.
He left the "soon-to-be corpse" and surged for Abaddon again, the Red Corsairs butchering through Black Legion Chosen and the custodian-commander Carter's Thunder Guard.
The Tyrant's Claw and skull-axe whirled; void-air screamed as his swelling warp-strength tore at space.
Elsewhere—
Seeing the net tighten, Eden's eyes hardened. "So be it. All-out."
Brrrrrrm—
He lit everything—every shield, every field, stacking layers until the power bars slammed into the red.
No cheap backstabs today.
Bands of color and sheets of gold light rippled around him until he blazed like a miniature sun.
Filthy rich. Ludicrously over-engineered. Pay-to-win incarnate.
The sheer spectacle—shields on shields on shields—made the attackers' killing intent stutter for a heartbeat, as if pressed down by weight.
"Mother—!"
A charging Chaos lord skidded, swore, and backpedaled so hard he nearly tripped.
Hard-tilt. Full mental break.
He was basically in rags—no iron halo, much less the relic-grade toys the Savior wore like jewelry.
Dog-damned plutocrat.
More importantly, his instincts screamed that he couldn't get through those defenses—and would die trying.
He slunk back into the pack, and the mob switched to barrage: bolter-storms, green gauss, crude Ork boom-sticks, gouts of Tyranid acid—
A tidal whiteout over the Savior.
"Not ideal! Khan, where are you?!"
Eden dove behind a broken buttress; it vaporized in seconds under the pounding.
He had to tank it with stacked fields and crackling psychic bulwarks.
But there were too many guns. Waves on waves. Outer shields shattered one after another.
If help didn't arrive, it would get ugly.
Thankfully, as his defenses hit the halfway mark, the sound he'd been waiting for rolled in: engines—many of them.
"The Khan's here!"
Relief flashed through Eden.
Which meant the main body of his relief had punched through. The vise would loosen. He could pivot to the actual objective.
The White Scars Primarch tore in on his sacred mount Pale Eagle, a white streak ripping a hole in the encirclement.
Thunder Custodians and White Scars Destroyers followed, carving the field with their own grav craft and exploding the noose around the Savior.
"Your bike is way too fast."
The Khan pulled alongside, flicking gore and ichor from the White Tiger blade. His look had a hint of betrayal.
Getting left in the dust because your bro secretly installed a warp-hotrod kit? Painful.
"I swear I didn't know—just dug it out of some ruin—first time on the throttle."
Eden vented a crackling surge of psychic lightning and cleared a wedge of slicing Tyranid sword-beasts. This place produced a new horror every second.
He caught the longing in the Primarch's eyes and barked a laugh. "Fine. Take the booster after this. Bolt it to your ride."
Frankly, that much speed nearly turned him into wreckage; better in the Khan's hands.
The Primarch looped Pale Eagle around Eden, body-blocking bursts and scattering more boarders with slashing passes.
Emotion threatened to choke his voice. "Brother—today's bullets? I'll eat them all for you!"
His eyes then snagged on Eden's scintillant gilded armor, the overlapping halos of shield-fields—his expression complicated.
Covetous, even.
Weapons, bikes, armor—every true warrior's joy.
Eden rolled his eyes. "You turned me down at the armory. I told you to swap suits. You said you fought best in your millennia-old legend plate."
He had several of these heresy-tier suits in storage—chests of forbidden relicry. When he was bored, he went relic-hunting in the warp. His archaeologists combed ruins on an industrial scale.
Most of the goodies ended up on him.
"Done. I'm swapping the moment we're back!"
The Khan looked physically ill with regret.
He knew Eden was loaded—just not this loaded.
Compared to the Savior's kit—stuffed with the best of ten thousand years—his antiques were, well… antiques.
Guilt burning, he took even more fire for Eden, flinging himself into harm's way with wild abandon.
Reward debt demanded payment.
"Easy, brother. I can still hold."
Eden winced at how close the Primarch was to becoming a very expensive human shield.
He pointed with his chin at the looming Hive Tyrant. "Split—take the bug. I'll handle the Ork. Then we punch through."
He'd drawn plenty of aggro, but Huron's push was savage. If the pirate-king broke the freshly re-formed Black Legion line and finished Abaddon, this whole trip would have been for nothing.
"Understood!"
The Khan nodded once and arrowed for the Hive Tyrant.
Eden cleaned the immediate ring, then squared to the incoming Ork Warboss. Weapons cracked together, shockwaves rippling the air—
Raw force meeting raw force.
He hadn't expected the Warboss to be so cunning: using other attackers' fire as cover, the brute slipped into the blind-spots for a beheading strike—a heavy-armored assassin.
"Tch. You try to back-club me? Not today."
Eden rolled as if he had eyes in the back of his helm; the Ork's sneaky alloy bludgeon hissed through the space his skull had occupied.
He countered on the instant—feinted once—then drove a blazing golden fist square into the Warboss's face.
Dirty, brutal, perfect.
The punch hit like a thunder-hammer; nasal bone and cheek shattered in a spray.
"Hnnff—"
The Warboss reeled, eyes watering, hands clapped to his face. Rage surged; his frame swelled.
Death-fight mode.
"Waaagh—!"
He crashed forward, bellowing straight into Eden's visor. The very air rippled under the sonic pressure.
Greenskin intimidation at its purest—dominance by volume. Whoever roared louder was meaner.
"Seriously?!"
Spit and stench spattered across Eden's faceplate; even the filters couldn't catch all the reek.
"You think that was a roar?!"
He was genuinely offended—and inhaled.
His helm's vox baffles deepened and focused the note—then he let it rip—
WAAAGH!!!
A greenskin-boss roar—punched by Waaaagh-right, saturated in psychic threat—hit the Warboss like a hurricane.
The brute's face skin crinkled in the blast.
And because the roar carried borrowed Warboss authority, its fear-edge bit deeper—especially into a foe already bloodied.
"Me Gork…!"
The Warboss's brain buzzed, a slice of cold sliding into his gut. His red eyes cleared, and a thought he'd never had before formed:
How was the tiny oom-ie louder? Meaner?
Across the deck, other boyz skidded to a stop. A lot of them… just stood there, blinking.
Some of the smaller ones trembled, dropping rusty axes and clubs with clatters.
Other xenos and heretics stared, baffled at what they'd just felt.
Either way, the Savior's WAAAGH-laced, bedlam-loud bellow stunned the greenskins, driving hesitation deep into the Warboss.
Their flinch fed Eden's presence; before the spell broke, he straightened, open-handed the Warboss across the jaw—
"Out of my way."
The Ork toppled, scrabbled back up, and—after one long look at the iron-hard human—did not follow.
Too much WAAAGH in that one.
In the Warboss's heart, a new shadow took shape on the pantheon's horizon—beside Gork (or possibly Mork).
Eden didn't waste time finishing the Ork. High-tier greenskins are hard to kill; even decapitation can be a pause, not a stop.
And triggering the brute's true frenzy here would be… suboptimal.
He burst through the last ring and sprinted for Abaddon.
Most of the nearby champions were tied down. No one could intercept him.
He wasn't three steps away when a stray plasma bolt slammed Abaddon again and punted him into a wall; the Warmaster slid down and lay still.
Eden snapped his jump pack and arced to him.
He crouched by the motionless Despoiler, scowling. "Don't you dare be dead."
"Damn it!"
Huron saw the Savior angling for Abaddon and grew frantic—but Chaos Chosen and Thunder Custodian Commander Carter locked him hard. No clear lane.
"Warmaster!"
The Black Legion had nothing left to throw—only strength to watch the Savior kneel beside their master, despair gnawing.
"Laodun, wake up!"
Eden rolled Abaddon over and tried to haul him back to himself.
The Despoiler was spent—and worse, his will to live had snapped. His psyche teetered on the brink.
His lips moved. "Sa… vior?"
Seeing who knelt over him, he went strangely calm.
"You've come to kill me, then… To die at the Emperor's chosen hand is better than the humiliation of Huron's boot."
He had no strength to resist. He let his eyes fall closed and waited for the blade.
"Get. Up."
The pain he expected didn't come—what landed, instead, was a slap that rocked his world.
???
Abaddon's eyes flew open into the Savior's furious stare, confusion swimming there.
"You plan to just die like this?"
Eden's temper spiked. He glared down at the man puddled like slop on the deck.
No way. Not now.
The Dark Gods had plainly shifted their favor to Huron—chosen him as the next four-gods' champion.
In cunning, in initiative, in win-rate, the Black-hearted King outstripped Abaddon by a margin.
If Abaddon died here, the Black Legion would flounder headless—and Huron would devour them, then unify the Eye of Terror.
That would be disaster. The Imperium would face a worse enemy.
Better to keep Abaddon alive—and set the two of them at each other's throats.
And if Abaddon died and the Black Legion pickets in the Vigilantes Sector collapsed—xenos would swarm in and strip all the Blackstone.
A financial catastrophe.
Also, if he died—who would Eden fleece in the future?
Conclusion: Abaddon cannot die.
"I have failed," Abaddon rasped, meeting the Savior's gaze. "I can't—"
The second slap snapped his head sideways. "Bastard!"
Eden ignored the curses and kept slapping—purely to clear the cobwebs.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he jabbed several doses of panacea-stimm into the Warmaster's armor-port.
"Stand up. The Eye of Terror cannot be without its Warmaster."
He hauled the somewhat-present Abaddon upright and locked eyes with him, tone iron:
"Abaddon—did you forget the grand design of your Black Crusade?"
(End of Chapter)
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