On the bridge of the Obelisk, a grim and familiar rhythm began. Lord Inquisitor Varrus, now the de facto supreme commander of the gathered Imperial forces, began issuing orders with the cold precision of a master strategist who had waged this war for centuries.
"Admiral," his voice resonated with quiet authority to the commander of the Imperial Navy battle group, "form a defensive battle line at the Mandeville Point. Lance batteries on my mark. We will engage their forward pickets and bleed them. A war of attrition is one we are prepared to fight."
"Captain Arken," he commanded, turning to the Deathwatch commander, "prepare your Kill Teams. We will identify their flagship, and you will lead teleportation assaults to cripple their command structure."
It was a sound, solid, Imperial strategy. It was a plan that accepted casualties as a necessary price for victory, a strategy that would take weeks, perhaps months, of brutal ship-to-ship combat and bloody boarding actions. It was a strategy Rimuru found to be completely unacceptable.
"Lord Inquisitor," Rimuru said, his voice cutting through the flow of commands. All eyes on the bridge turned to him. "Your plan is sound, from a certain perspective. But it is wasteful. You will lose ships. You will lose thousands of lives. And you will give your enemy the one thing they desire: a grand, sprawling battle of death and disease to please their foul god."
He stepped forward, his gaze fixed on the holo-lith showing the enemy fleet. "There is a more efficient way. A surgical strike."
"He speaks of my own strategy," Arken grunted. "A teleport assault."
"Not quite," Rimuru corrected gently. "Your teleporters are imprecise, short-ranged, and tear a hole through the very Warp you are trying to fight. It is a brute-force method. I am proposing a scalpel." He pointed to the largest, most grotesquely corrupted vessel at the heart of the Chaos fleet. "That is their flagship, correct? The psychic and command nexus of their fleet."
Ciel's analysis flowed into his mind, confirming his observation. <
"I will go there," Rimuru stated simply. "Directly to its bridge. And I will cut the head off the snake." He looked at the Deathwatch Captain. "But I will not go alone. A king does not fight a battle by himself. Captain Arken, I require an honor guard. Your best warriors. We will deliver the first and last blow of this battle ourselves."
The audacity of the plan was staggering. A direct, pinpoint teleportation to the bridge of a Chaos flagship, deep within a hostile fleet. It was suicide. But the calm, absolute confidence with which Rimuru spoke made it sound like a simple logistical maneuver.
Varrus stared at Rimuru, his ancient mind weighing the insane risk against the incredible reward. If it worked… the entire Chaos fleet would be thrown into disarray, a headless beast ready to be culled.
"Their shields," Kael cautioned, stepping forward. "Their bridge will be protected by the strongest wards and anti-teleportation hexes they possess."
"Their wards are designed to counter the chaotic energies of the Warp," Rimuru explained patiently. "My method does not use the Warp. It simply… relocates a section of space from one point to another. It is a door they do not know exists and for which they have no key."
Varrus made his decision. "Captain Arken. Select five of your finest veterans. You have your target. The fate of this battle rests on your gauntlets."
A grim, almost feral smile touched Arken's scarred lips. This was a mission worthy of the Deathwatch. "It shall be done, Lord Inquisitor."
Minutes later, Rimuru stood in the Obelisk's primary teleportarium, not to use its arcane machinery, but simply for the space it afforded. With him stood Captain Arken in his hulking Terminator armor, and five other black-clad Deathwatch Marines, each a veteran of a hundred campaigns against the alien. They checked their storm bolters and activated their power weapons, their stoicism a mask for the adrenaline coursing through them.
"Are you ready?" Rimuru asked.
"We were born ready," Arken growled.
Rimuru nodded. He raised a hand, and the very air around the seven of them seemed to shimmer and fold. There was no violent psychic surge, no ozone-scented tear in reality. For a single, disorienting moment, the universe simply turned inside out.
And then they were there.
The transition was so smooth that it took the Astartes a fraction of a second to register their new surroundings. The air was thick with the stench of decay and stagnant, recycled air. The deck was a grotesque fusion of corroded metal and pulsating, fleshy growths. Wires and pipes snaked across the walls like diseased veins, weeping foul, viscous fluids. Cackling, one-eyed Nurglings gnawed on cables at control consoles manned by bloated, pustule-covered mutants.
And in the center of the bridge, on a throne of bone and rusted iron, sat the ship's master. He was a Chaos Lord of the Death Guard, a giant in corroded, puke-green Terminator armor, his form swollen and bloated with the blessings of his god. A great, rusted scythe rested in his hand, and swarms of black flies formed a buzzing halo around his horned helmet.
For a single, beautiful moment, there was pure, unadulterated shock on the Chaos bridge. Then the Lord roared. "Traitors! Daemons! How did you—"
His roar was cut short by the disciplined, instantaneous violence of the Deathwatch.
"For the Emperor!" Arken bellowed, his storm bolter erupting in a deafening barrage of explosive shells that turned the mutant crew to slurry. The other five marines opened fire, a perfectly executed kill-sweep that cleared the consoles in seconds.
The Chaos Lord, shrugging off the bolter rounds as if they were irritants, lumbered forward, raising his immense Manreaper scythe. "I will boil you in your own armor!" he boomed, his voice a wet, gurgling sound.
Captain Arken met his charge with a thunderous crash of ceramite against corrupted steel, his thunder hammer meeting the scythe in a shower of sparks. The two titans were locked in a duel of gods.
A trio of Plague Marines, the elite warriors of the Death Guard, emerged from an alcove, their bolters spitting blight-filled rounds. Before their shots could find a target, Rimuru moved.
He drew Soulcleaver. The blade made no sound, but the air around it grew cold and clean. A Plague Marine lunged at him, its bubo-covered knife thrusting forward.
Rimuru's sword swept out in a simple, elegant arc. The blade met the corrupted ceramite, and it did not clang or spark. It passed through the armor, the flesh, and the very soul of the traitor Astartes as if it were not there.
The Plague Marine froze. A thin, clean line of silver light appeared across its chest. Then, its entire body, its armor, its blighted soul, and the daemonic diseases that infested it, dissolved. It did not explode or bleed. It simply unraveled into a cloud of pure, clean energy that faded into nothing. There was no corpse. There was no smell. There was only an empty space where an agent of Chaos had been.
The other two Plague Marines halted their advance, their rusted helmets tilting in a moment of pure, instinctual terror. This was not death. This was un-creation.
Rimuru dispatched them with two more silent, effortless swings.
On the other side of the bridge, Arken, with a final, desperate roar, brought his thunder hammer down on the Chaos Lord's helmet, cracking it open. But the Lord was still moving, his scythe swinging back for a killing blow.
Before it could land, Rimuru was there. He laid the flat of Soulcleaver's blade against the Chaos Lord's back. "Be purified," he whispered.
A wave of silver light erupted from the sword. The Chaos Lord screamed, a sound of pure agony as the foul blessings of Nurgle were burned away, his daemonic strength unraveling, his connection to the Warp severed. He collapsed, his armor now just a hollow, corroded shell.
The bridge was silent, save for the heavy breathing of the Deathwatch. They had won. The head of the snake was severed.
Rimuru walked to the main viewport, looking out at the vast, unaware Chaos fleet. He turned to the ship's master control throne, where a single, terrified Nurgling was trying to hide.
He looked at Arken and his victorious but battered team. A cold, calculating smile touched his lips.
"The head is severed," he said. "Now, let's make the body tear itself apart."