Chapter 27: Wolf King vs. Red Angel
The bridge of the Heracla Fenrir hummed with quiet tension as Francis walked toward the Navigator's station.
Behind him, Leman Russ's heavy footsteps echoed against the deck plating.
Francis paused when he saw the hunched figure bent over the navigation console. "Another lamb for the slaughter," he muttered, though it wasn't clear if he meant the Navigator or himself.
"The previous Navigator served us well until the end," Leman Russ said, misunderstanding his brother's words.
"This one has guided us through seventeen successful translations, and he knows his duty."
The Navigator sensed them coming and turned around.
House Belisarius markings decorated his robes, and the ritual scars around his third eye showed years spent staring into the Warp's depths.
When he saw Francis, something primitive stirred behind his enhanced vision.
"Lord Francis," the Navigator said, his voice carefully controlled. "I trust our passage through the storm-winds proved... educational?"
Francis studied the man with predatory interest. Here was no green recruit but a seasoned void-walker who had survived where others died. The corruption in his blood would be refined and potent.
"Indeed. Your bloodline carries impressive resilience." Francis stepped closer, his presence filling the space between them. "Tell me, Navigator Korin, that is your name, isn't it? Do you ever dream of going beyond your House's limitations?"
The Navigator's scarred features tightened. "My Lord, I serve the Imperium as my blood demands. Nothing more is required."
"Required, perhaps. But what about desire?" Francis's voice carried an undertone that made Leman Russ shift uncomfortably.
"What if I could offer you sight beyond the traditional boundaries? Navigation through passages that would kill your peers?"
Korin's third eye dilated without his control. "The Warp... shows many things, my Lord. Not all are meant to be seen clearly."
"Wisdom," Francis acknowledged. "But also limitation. A few samples of your blood and tissue would be enough for my research. The benefits to Imperial navigation could be... substantial."
Leman Russ moved forward. "Francis. This Navigator has served faithfully, so I won't see him butchered for your experiments."
"Butchered?" Francis turned to his brother with apparent hurt. "I only want to enhance what the Emperor has already blessed. Small samples, carefully taken, he'll heal within days."
The Wolf King's eyes narrowed as he read the currents beneath his brother's words. Francis had many gifts, but simple honesty had never been one of them.
"Blood only," Leman Russ decided. "And not enough to weaken him."
Navigator Korin watched the exchange with growing unease. When Francis approached with the sampling tools, the void-walker's training fought against his instinctive fear.
"My Lord," Korin said quietly, "I have seen your works in the Warp's reflection. The... entities there speak of you with interest."
Francis paused, needle poised above the Navigator's arm. "Do they? And what do these entities say?"
"That you walk paths others fear to tread. But paths walked alone often lead to dark destinations."
For a moment, something almost like uncertainty flickered across Francis's features. Then he pressed the needle home and drew blood that seemed to pulse with its own inner light.
"Dark destinations, Navigator, are often the only ones worth reaching."
In his laboratory deep within the ship's bowels, Francis worked by the light of bio-luminescent cultures. The Navigator's blood filled a crystal vial, its surface rippling with patterns that hurt to look at directly.
He had sampled the blood of dozens of psykers over the years, and each one offered glimpses into humanity's emerging potential. But Navigator blood was different, refined through centuries of selective breeding and Warp exposure.
Francis brought the vial to his lips and drank.
The taste started as copper and electricity, then shifted into something like crystallised starlight. Information flooded his consciousness: family data, psychic resonances, memory fragments from generations of void-walkers.
[Navigator strain: Belisarius Tertiary
Genetic markers: Enhanced Warp sensitivity, resistance to minor corruption
Personal resonance: Duty, fear, pride in service
Hidden trait: Latent prescient abilities]
The changes began right away. Bone and cartilage reshaped themselves across Francis's brow as his body absorbed the new genetic material. The sensation was neither pleasant nor painful, just inevitable.
When the transformation finished, Francis had a third eye that rivalled any Navigator's. Through it, he saw the Warp as layers of probability and intent, shifting patterns that revealed the universe's hidden structure.
Curiosity overcame caution, and Francis opened his enhanced perception fully.
The laboratory dissolved around him and was replaced by the Warp's true nature. Here was beauty beyond human understanding, and horror that would drive lesser minds to madness. Entities of pure thought and malice drifted through dimensions of living emotion, their attention drawn by his newfound sight.
One approached, its form shifting between a beautiful woman and a collection of screaming mouths.
'Little angel,' it whispered without words. 'How long have we waited for you to see truly'
Francis slammed his perception closed, and the laboratory came back around him. Sweat beaded his brow despite the chamber's controlled temperature.
"Attention from the void," he muttered, checking his reflection in a polished surface. "The price of advancement."
The sound of approaching footsteps warned him that Leman Russ was coming. Francis activated his armor's adaptive camouflage and concealed the third eye beneath a layer of synthetic flesh.
"Brother," the Wolf King said as he entered, "are you well? The serfs reported strange readings from your laboratory."
"Just the usual research fluctuations," Francis replied smoothly. "I've been working to improve our Navigator's capabilities. The results should prove... illuminating."
Leman Russ studied his brother's face and noted the slight flush and dilated pupils. "And the Navigator himself? He seemed concerned about something earlier."
"Korin has wisdom unusual for his calling. He understands that progress requires sacrifice." Francis began organizing his equipment with deliberate casualness.
"Speaking of which, I'll need uninterrupted time for the next phase of my work. Perhaps you could make sure the crew doesn't disturb me?"
The Wolf King hesitated as his instincts warned him of hidden dangers. But Francis had always walked closer to the edge than his brothers, and his results spoke for themselves.
"Very well. But if these experiments threaten the ship—"
"They won't," Francis assured him. "I'm far too valuable to risk carelessly."
As Leman Russ left, Francis allowed himself a smile that would have troubled his brother greatly. The Navigator's genetic gifts were just the beginning. Soon, he would have abilities that surpassed any single bloodline.
The entities in the Warp might whisper and scheme, but Francis had walked among monsters all his life. He was, after all, his father's son.
Three days later, as the Heracla Fenrir returned to real space, Leman Russ discovered what his brother had truly accomplished.
Francis stood at the ship's primary viewing port, his armour seeming to shift and writhe in the chamber's lighting. Dozens of additional eyes had appeared across its surface, each one tracking different aspects of local space.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" Francis said without turning. "The Navigator's gift, refined and multiplied. I can see probability streams extending across multiple dimensions now."
The Wolf King approached cautiously. "Francis... what have you done to yourself?"
"Evolved." Francis finally faced his brother, showing features that had subtly shifted during his transformation. "The Navigator's blood contained more than I initially realised. Prescient abilities, temporal perception, enhanced pattern recognition, all of it now integrated into my own genetic matrix."
Leman Russ felt a chill that had nothing to do with the chamber's temperature. "And the cost of this evolution?"
Francis smiled, the expression somehow predatory despite its apparent warmth. "Every advancement requires sacrifice, brother. Fortunately, I've always been willing to pay the necessary price."
Through the viewing port, their destination grew visible: a red world wrapped in the smoke of countless forges. Already, signals from the surface showed World Eaters forces massing for confrontation.
"Angron awaits," Francis observed, his multiple eyes tracking weapon signatures and troop movements with inhuman precision. "This should prove... educational."
Leman Russ gripped his axe's handle more tightly and wondered if the greatest threat to his mission stood beside him rather than on the planet below.
The landing ramp of the Heracla Fenrir descended with mechanical precision and revealed a vista of red dust and burning skies. World Eaters in crimson armor formed battle lines across the landing field, their weapons ready despite the supposed truce.
As the Space Wolves got off the ship, the crimson ranks parted to reveal their Primarch.
Angron stood wrapped in the heat-shimmer of forge-smoke, his Medusan armor scarred by countless battles. But it was the crude cybernetic implants buried in his skull that drew the eye, the Butcher's Nails, archeotech devices that fed on pain and turned it into murderous fury.
Even at rest, the Nails bit into his brain tissue, their invasive tendrils pulsing with malevolent life. Angron's face twisted as fresh agony lanced through his consciousness.
"The loyal dogs arrive," Angron snarled, each word carved from raw pain. "Has our beloved father grown tired of distant threats? Does he now send his pets to bark at his own sons?"
The Nails dug deeper with each syllable and punished him for the brief respite of speech. Angron's hands clenched involuntarily around his weapon grips.
Leman Russ stepped forward, his own temper kindling at the insult. "I bring word from Terra, brother. The Emperor commands an end to the Butcher's Nails, so no more of your sons will be sacrificed to those abominations."
"Commands?" Agony flared behind Angron's eyes as the Nails responded to his emotional spike. "I am not some servitor to be reprogrammed at will!"
Francis observed the exchange with clinical interest, his enhanced vision tracking the neurological feedback patterns created by Angron's implants. Fascinating, the devices weren't just crude mind-control systems but sophisticated punishment mechanisms designed to create addiction to violence.
"How many of your Legion have died from those things?" Leman Russ continued, his voice softening with genuine concern. "How many more will you watch burn out before you admit the cost is too high?"
Angron clutched his skull as the Nails bit viciously into his neural tissue. The pain was exquisite, familiar, almost comforting in its reliability. When he spoke again, his voice carried the edge of madness.
"Those too weak for the Nails don't deserve to survive! They'll never achieve the purity of purpose that your Space Wolves lack!"
The insult struck home like a physical blow. Leman Russ felt his own fury rise to match his brother's, and the carefully prepared diplomatic words dissolved in the heat of wounded pride.
"Take that back!"
Angron's cranial implants pulsed with fresh torment and punished him for prolonged talk. Unable to bear extended speech, he raised his chainaxes and bellowed his challenge.
"Words are weakness! If you would silence me, then prove your strength!"
"So be it!"
Both Primarchs launched themselves forward with twin roars of fury, and their weapons met in a shower of sparks that lit the red sky like falling stars.
Angron fought like a creature possessed, his dual chainaxes weaving patterns of destruction through the air. Each rev of their motors promised dismemberment, and each bite of their teeth sought vital arteries. The Butcher's Nails fed him constant pain and transmuted agony into perfect killing focus.
Leman Russ answered with the fury of Fenris itself, his great axe Krakenmaw meeting his brother's weapons in thunderous impacts that shook the ground. Where Angron was precise brutality, the Wolf King embodied primal violence given form and purpose.
The planet seemed to recoil from their battle. Each collision sent shockwaves through the surrounding forces, and Space Wolves and World Eaters alike backed away from the expanding circle of destruction.
Francis watched through his multitude of eyes and recorded every detail of the combat for future analysis. The prescient abilities he had inherited from Navigator Korin allowed him to perceive probability streams flowing around both combatants, potential futures where one brother fell and the other stood victorious.
But in every timeline he observed, a third figure entered the battle at its climax. The game was not yet complete, and Francis found himself eager to discover which role fate had chosen for him to play.
[End of Chapter]
Bro, you will not believe it, but this book is actually getting an application, can you believe it?
It's a fanfic, LMAO
Also Concept art for the Nuceria here in comment