Terra burned.
Across the dying world, the last remnants of the techno-barbarians and warlords braced for extinction. The Unification Wars, once a slow and grueling conflict, had become a campaign of annihilation.
At the head of this unstoppable tide, the Emperor marched.
He stood atop a ridge of black stone, golden armor gleaming like a beacon against the storm-choked sky. Behind him, his warriors—the reforged Thunder Warriors, the first of the Astartes, and newly inducted auxilia—awaited his command. Before them lay Ursh, the last great enemy of Old Earth, its towering spires and fortress-cities bristling with weapons.
Ursh had ruled through terror for centuries, its tyrants wielding dark sciences and warp-touched sorcery. Its current master, Kalagann, was no mere warlord. He was a psyker of immense power, a creature that bent minds and souls to his will.
But against the true Emperor of Mankind, he was nothing.
The final battle had come.
---
The Emperor raised a hand. No words were needed. His warriors understood.
With a deafening roar, the army surged forward.
The Thunder Warriors led the charge, their massive forms crashing into the enemy lines like living battering rams. Enhanced to perfection, their every strike shattered ceramite and bone alike. Astartes squads moved with surgical precision, boltguns roaring as they cut down Urshite soldiers in disciplined bursts.
The defenders of Ursh fought like cornered beasts. They unleashed crude but deadly weapons—plasma cannons scavenged from the Dark Age, chemical bombardments that turned men into screaming husks. Some of their elite wielded warp-gifted blades, their bodies augmented with unnatural strength.
None of it mattered.
The Emperor strode into the carnage like a force of nature. Bullets and las-blasts melted into harmless light before touching him. A sorcerer, clad in ragged crimson robes, raised a staff and spat an incantation of ruin—only for his soul to be unmade by a single glance.
The closer they came to the Black Palace, the more the air itself resisted them. Kalagann's sorcery twisted the battlefield—shadows lengthened, the sky split open with howling voices, and the very ground clawed at the Emperor's warriors.
A psychic storm brewed atop the palace, a hurricane of screaming faces and crimson lightning. At its center stood Kalagann, clad in obsidian armor, his pale features twisted with rage.
"You dare?!" his voice boomed, amplified by the warp itself. "I am the Lord of Ursh! I have ruled for centuries! I have seen the rise and fall of empires! You are nothing but a relic from a forgotten age!"
The Emperor did not answer with words.
Instead, he raised his hand—and reality obeyed.
A golden spear of light lanced from his palm, cutting through Kalagann's sorcerous storm like a blade through smoke. The warlord barely had time to react before the Emperor moved, closing the distance in an instant.
Kalagann struck first. A wave of pure psychic force, strong enough to rip a Titan apart, thundered toward the Emperor. It did nothing. He stepped through it as though walking through mist.
Then he struck.
One blow. That was all it took.
Kalagann's body shattered—bone, flesh, and soul disintegrating in a cascade of golden energy. His death cry echoed across the battlefield, and with it, the last resistance of Ursh collapsed.
---
The fall of Ursh signaled the end. The remaining warlords and tyrants, seeing the inevitable, surrendered. The few who refused were crushed beneath the Emperor's heel.
Terra was his.
No longer a world of fractured, warring states. No longer a graveyard of human potential.
But the beginning of something far greater.
From the highest tower of his Himalazian fortress, the Emperor looked down upon the world he had reclaimed. Already, his armies were expanding, fortifying, preparing for the next phase. The great fleets of the Imperator Somnium and the Phalanx hung in orbit, their forges crafting the tools of a new empire.
But he knew—this was only the first step.
The stars awaited.
And he would claim them all.