Khorne ultimately agreed to Axis's request. Right under the noses of the other three Chaos Gods, he secretly gave Jaghatai Khan's White Scars Legion a slight push, allowing them to reach Holy Terra several days ahead of schedule.
"Are the other Primarchs all right?" Axis asked.
It did not matter how many Space Marines died.
Even if an entire Legion was wiped out, as long as its Primarch survived, it could be rebuilt in a matter of decades. This was, after all, a war of attrition.
"They are fine," Khorne replied, "The final battle will begin in a few days. Both sides are currently building up their strength. I must also inform you that I will be deploying Angron into this fight. And I have more bad news. Slaanesh has completed Fulgrim's blessing, and he has completed his transformation. His Legion, the Emperor's Children, have now been transformed into Noise Marines."
The goal of the Four Chaos Gods was to place the Emperor on the Golden Throne, trapping him in a state between life and death. To achieve this, Khorne had to unleash Angron, a Primarch he had successfully corrupted a century ago. At the same time, Slaanesh had also granted Fulgrim, whose physical body had been destroyed by Axis, a new daemonic form forged from the stuff of the Warp.
"I understand," Axis said, "All the Primarchs have been strengthened by me with the Fruit of the Tree of Might. Dealing with Angron will not be a problem. As for Fulgrim, send him to Sanguinius."
Axis possessed this much confidence.
He had sent at least one of the fruits to every Primarch, even those on the side of the traitors. The only one who had not consumed it was the true Angron.
Even if that one were to ascend to a Greater Daemon or a Daemon Prince, his power would not increase significantly. As such, any of the Primarchs currently on Holy Terra could handle him, be it Rogal Dorn, Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus, Vulkan, Corvus Corax, or the soon-to-arrive Jaghatai Khan.
The only real threat to be wary of was Fulgrim, who had completed his ascension. Among all the Primarchs, only Sanguinius had the body enhanced by Ki his Saibaman, making him the most powerful.
Only the Great Angel could face the ascended Fulgrim.
"Hahaha! You certainly are confident," Khorne chuckled, "I will help out a little from the shadows. Now, I will end our communication, lest the others discover it. We will begin the mission once we are at Holy Terra." After speaking, Khorne severed the connection with Axis and devoted his full attention to the siege.
After Khorne departed, Axis sighed in resignation. The situation on Holy Terra could only be described as a battle for survival. Despite this, neither the Emperor nor Magnus had urged him to rush to the battlefield, as if they had reached some sort of tacit understanding. They did not even ask when his Legion would arrive. Axis understood that this was all part of the Emperor's plan.
The Emperor knew that Axis could not be allowed to participate directly in this battle. If he did, the prophesied Dark King might bring ruin to all of humanity, and to prevent that, the Emperor himself would have to act against Axis.
This form of protection left Axis feeling a little helpless.
Their fleet was already moving through the Webway at maximum speed. In just a few more days, he would reach Holy Terra. For now, Axis needed to prepare himself and focus his mind for the actions that lay ahead.
.....
The Four Chaos Gods had thrown their full support behind Horus, providing him with every means at their disposal.
They empowered him to launch this great betrayal, an act of rebellion second only to the Men of Iron in human history.
"Attack, my warriors! My sons!" Horus bellowed, his black power armour seeming to drink the light. He had issued the order for the final assault, "For the future of mankind, for our new Imperium, we will destroy the rule of the tyrant False Emperor!"
This time, he would conquer Holy Terra and kill the Emperor in a single, decisive blow. After that, he would gain even greater power, the legendary power of the Dark King.
With that strength, he would finally be able to eliminate Axis. The Four Gods had told Horus that he was destined to be the vessel for the Dark King, though in truth, it was a deception.
"For the great Warmaster! For the new Master of Mankind, charge!" A seemingly endless tide of Chaos Space Marines launched the final grand offensive.
The entire Sol System was engulfed in the flames of war, as Loyalist and Traitor Astartes clashed in brutal combat.
In the void of near-Terra orbit, the wrecks of the Imperial Navy intertwined with the twisted husks of Chaos vessels, forming a graveyard of metal that stretched for millions of kilometers.
Las-cannon fire tore through the void. The roar of macrocannons vibrated the planet's crust, and the flare of torpedoes streaked through the vacuum on desperate trajectories. The once-mighty orbital defence platforms of the gas giants were now mostly cold, lifeless debris.
The sons of Dorn, the Imperial Fists, mounted a desperate resistance from the last few massive space stations and the asteroid fields within the planetary rings.
The Chaos Space Marines swarmed like a black tide, their drop pods and boarding vessels crashing relentlessly against every loyalist strongpoint.
"Down with the False Emperor! Overthrow the tyrant's rule!" they chanted, their profane war cries echoing as they stormed the fortresses.
"For the Imperium! For the Emperor! Warriors! Brothers! Fight back! Destroy these traitors!" an Imperial Fists sergeant roared, raising his chainsword high before charging into the mass of warped and corrupted Chaos Marines.
Siege cannons of the Eleventh Legion blasted gaping holes in heavy armour plating. The Death Guard's Plague Marines advanced through dense bolter fire, hurling blight grenades and corrosive filth into the breaches.
Dressed in battered power armour, the loyalist Space Marines engaged in bloody melee within narrow corridors. The shriek of chainswords, the thud of power axes, the close-range roar of bolters, and the searing beams of energy weapons filled the air, mingling with the agonized screams of the dying and the blasphemous shouts of the Traitors. The atmosphere was thick with the stench of ozone, blood, viscera, and the vile effluence of Nurgle.
An Imperial Fists veteran smashed a Plague Marine's helmet with his broken power fist. A moment later, a Chaos power sword pierced his chest. With a final roar of defiance, he detonated the melta-bomb on his belt, immolating himself and the enemies around him.
In defensive warfare, the Imperial Fists displayed astonishing endurance and combat doctrine. The forces of Chaos often had to suffer several times the casualties just to capture a single one of their fortified positions. Each defensive bastion was a masterpiece designed by Rogal Dorn himself; taking them would cost a river of blood.
Alongside them, several thousand Iron Hands, led by their Primarch Ferrus Manus, had been assigned by Dorn to remain on Terra, reinforcing the final defensive line around the Imperial Palace.
At the Uranus and Neptune defense lines, the shattered remnants of the loyalist fleet were surrounded and cut off, forced to fight and die alone. The great warships of the Dark Mechanicum unleashed lethal energy beams and virus bombs tainted with the corruption of the Warp, reaping a merciless toll.
There were approximately three hundred thousand Space Marines on Holy Terra. They faced over three million Chaos Space Marines, a staggering ten-to-one disparity.
In addition to the Astartes, a vast horde of twisted Daemons assaulted the loyalist lines. The Chaos Sorcerers who followed Horus had also opened numerous portals woven from human flesh, unleashing hordes of daemons into realspace. Horus had descended into madness to win this war.
Fleshy portals gaped open in the cold void, and swarms of lesser daemons, like Bloodletters, Nurglings, and Horrors of Tzeentch, poured forth like locusts.
They swarmed over the surviving Imperial ships, engaging in brutal boarding actions. The interiors of the vessels became bloody slaughterhouses where mortal crew members stood no chance against the daemons' claws and fangs.
The entire defensive line around Holy Terra was on the verge of collapse. Just at this critical moment, a portal tore open in space.
Jaghatai Khan arrived, leading the White Scars in a charge into the Sol System.
"Warriors! For the Imperium! For humanity! Destroy these traitors!" Jaghatai Khan declared, raising his chainsword high.
"For the Khan!" A group of White Scars, who had once considered joining Horus, were the first to charge into the Chaos forces.
The twisted monstrosities and heretical abominations that now passed for Chaos Space Marines were a complete subversion of everything they had known. The sight filled those who had once considered siding with the Warmaster with deep regret. The Imperium's rule may have been harsh, but Chaos was something far more monstrous and sickening.
The mechanized forces of the White Scars, led personally by Jaghatai Khan, moved like phantoms through the debris fields. They used their superior speed and the terrain to their advantage, relentlessly harassing the Chaos fleets that attempted to bypass the main defenses with lightning-fast strikes and precision attacks.
"Reinforcements!" exclaimed the remnants of the Salamanders Legion, who were the first to spot the White Scars' fleet.
The Raven Guard, who were operating throughout the battlefield as a mobile support force, immediately relayed the news back to Holy Terra.
The message was broadcast to all loyalist forces, greatly boosting their morale.
"Damn it! Why did Jaghatai Khan suddenly appear? You promised me that no reinforcements would arrive!" Horus demanded, his face contorted with anger as he questioned the Four Gods.
The Khan's arrival meant that his greatest fear, Guilliman and the Ultramarines, might also reach the battle in time.
He worried about Axis, his Golden Legion, and that son of his. This completely disrupted his plans and deployments.
"This is not our doing, Horus," Tzeentch hissed. "We assured you that Guilliman's forces would absolutely not be able to reach Holy Terra. We also created a warp rift to trap the system in a single moment of time."
"It's just Jaghatai Khan," Khorne grumbled, "A mere hundred thousand marines. You command over three million Chaos Astartes, and you need not feel any sorrow for how many of this cannon fodder dies."
"Hmph! It had better be as you say," Horus snarled. "Otherwise, our deal cannot be completed. The two I am most concerned about must not, under any circumstances, reach Holy Terra."
"We can guarantee that Guilliman will never arrive," Slaanesh purred, "But Axis is not traveling through the Warp. He is using the Webway. He could reach the battlefield in three or four days, so you must act quickly." They were all aware that Axis had connections to the Eldar Harlequins. They had no way to stop him from using the Webway.
"I will end this battle in three days," Horus declared, "I will personally end the Emperor's reign."
At any cost, the war had to be won. Horus's great Chaos army began to press forward with its full might.
The brutal war in the Sol System continued. Khorne's clandestine aid was ultimately a drop of water in a raging fire.
Though Jaghatai Khan's White Scars had broken through the blockade several days early, surging into the system like a silver storm to join Terra's defenders with a hundred thousand fresh warriors, it was not enough.
Against the endless tide of Chaos spawned from daemonic wombs and hellforges, the reinforcement only allowed the crumbling defensive line to hold for a little longer.
The forces of Chaos deployed a staggering number of Hell-Beast drop pods. These twisted mechanical monsters smashed directly onto the surfaces of asteroids, using their heavy limbs, flamethrowers, and corrosion cannons to wipe out loyalist guerrilla forces.
Jaghatai Khan's blade was slick with daemonic ichor and mutated blood. Ferrus Manus's thunder hammer had crushed countless daemons and traitors. Vulkan, Lord of Drakes, and Corvus Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard, were also becoming exhausted. Yet the enemy's numbers seemed endless.
Left with no other choice, the four Primarchs began to withdraw towards the Imperial Palace to rendezvous with Dorn.
On the battlefield, only the Great Angel Sanguinius remained airborne, dancing through the sky with graceful agility as he slew daemons and destroyed enemy landing craft.
The battle had now spilled onto the surface of humanity's mother world. Debris from the orbital bombardment rained down like a meteor shower, igniting massive fires across the shattered cities and barren wastelands.
The fragile lines formed by mortal soldiers and Planetary Defence Forces were like paper before the Chaos Space Marines and Daemons.
The gargantuan war machines trampled makeshift fortifications, their arm-mounted flamethrowers turning entire trench lines to ash while their rotary cannons shredded any soldiers who dared approach. Traitorous mortal guardsmen, their fanaticism and ignorance just as deadly, had also joined the assault.
The entire Sol System had transformed into a colossal meat grinder. The Imperium's final bastion, Holy Terra, stood like a lone island in a hurricane, enduring wave after wave of the ceaseless, frenzied onslaught of Chaos.
At the front lines before the Imperial Palace, Rogal Dorn himself commanded the defense from the outermost wall at the foot of the Himalayas. This was the final shield protecting the heart of the Palace.
...
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ps?