You'd run fast, putting distance between yourself and the explosion before it detonated. But not fast enough.
Your body absorbed the intense heat of the blast wave. Even your heavy metal armor provided minimal protection, the superheated metal actually conducting thermal energy directly into your flesh, worsening your injuries.
Because this was a simulation arrival, your enhanced constitution would prevent any non-fatal injury from being truly debilitating.
The pain was manageable, already fading to a dull throb. But your hair... your once-thick gray hair had suffered catastrophic damage. The explosion's heat had scorched it, leaving patches burned down to the scalp, others singed and brittle. When you ran your fingers through it, entire clumps came away in your hand. The smell of burnt keratin was nauseating.
You looked like you'd lost a fight with a flamethrower.
One of your Shadow Wardens approached, drawing a long, wickedly sharp blade from his belt. His expression was sympathetic but practical. "Sir, it's going to look worse if we leave it. Better to take it all off now."
You sighed and knelt, bowing your head. The blade scraped across your scalp with methodical precision, removing what little remained. Cool air touched bare skin for the first time in years. The sensation was strange, vulnerable, oddly liberating.
There was no time to mourn your lost mane.
"Collect everything useful," you ordered, standing and brushing away loose hair. "Weapons, ammunition, equipment, food, water. Strip the bodies if you have to. Load it all into the surviving vehicles."
According to Corax's operational plan, your primary objective was complete upon capturing the Black Spire.
You had options now. Consolidate your position and hold the spire as a strategic anchor point. Or take command of additional armed worker units to interdict enemy supply lines through sustained operations.
The defensive option was sound, practical, safe. It was also boring and wasted your mobility advantage.
You chose offense.
"We're going mobile," you announced to your team. "Guerrilla tactics, hit and run. We use the vehicles for rapid strikes against enemy strongholds, keep them off balance, never let them predict our next move."
Your Shadow Wardens responded with grim smiles. This was the kind of warfare they'd trained for.
The energy engine roared to life with a throaty rumble. Shadow Warden team members mounted the heavy artillery turret on the vehicle's flatbed, securing themselves and tapping the metal hull twice to signal the driver they were ready.
The vehicle lurched forward, suspension groaning under the weight of armed fighters and captured weapons. You gripped the roll bar as the driver accelerated, the rugged terrain making every bump feel like a hammer blow.
The road, such as it was, consisted of packed dirt and exposed rock. The vehicle bounced and swayed, its thick tires finding purchase where they could. Cold wind whipped past your newly bared scalp, making you acutely aware of how much insulation you'd lost.
You passed the first group of armed workers quickly. They were operating massive industrial excavators, the kind normally used for strip mining, repurposed to sever underground communication cables and supply conduits. The machines' huge mechanical arms tore into the earth with grinding efficiency.
The workers saw your vehicle and erupted in cheers. Your burning spire was visible on the horizon, a beacon that told everyone the revolution had begun. They waved enthusiastically, some standing on their machines to get a better view, their joy palpable.
The sight of you, bloodied but victorious, seemed to electrify them. They turned back to their excavators with renewed vigor, digging faster, working with the fervor of people who'd just been given permission to hope.
You couldn't help but narrow your blue eyes slightly, a faint smile tugging at the corners of your mouth despite everything. This was what freedom looked like in its raw, unpolished form.
But the smile faded as you approached the second group of armed workers.
They were pinned down, caught in a desperate firefight outside an enemy stronghold. Bodies lay scattered around their position, too many bodies, workers who'd charged bravely and died badly. The survivors huddled behind inadequate cover, returning fire but unable to advance against the stronghold's prepared defenses.
"Ram it!" you shouted to the driver. "Straight through their perimeter!"
The driver didn't hesitate. The vehicle's engine roared louder as he shifted gears, building speed. The heavy artillery turret on the flatbed opened fire, tracers cutting through the night toward enemy positions.
The vehicle smashed through a chain-link fence like it was paper, then crashed through a prefabricated guard station, sending debris flying. You were inside the enemy stronghold before they could react.
The artillery turret swiveled, firing in all directions. The sudden assault from an unexpected angle shattered the enemy's defensive formation. Guards scattered, abandoning their positions, caught between your vehicle and the armed workers outside.
You vaulted from the moving vehicle while it was still rolling, both axes in hand. Your boots hit concrete and you broke into a sprint, picking your target instantly.
The enemy commander stood near a communications array, shouting orders into a handset. He saw you coming, eyes widening in recognition and terror.
You closed the distance in seconds. The first axe took him in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second caught him across the throat. He went down gurgling, the handset falling from nerveless fingers.
"Out! Now!" you roared, already sprinting back toward the vehicle.
You hauled yourself back into the vehicle as the driver executed a sharp turn, the wheels screaming in protest. You commanded him to punch through the opposite side of the stronghold, heading for open ground.
Behind you, the armed workers surged forward with renewed confidence, their battle cries echoing across the battlefield. The roar of their voices, raw and primal, seemed to shake the very air.
By the time every round of ammunition loaded in the vehicle was expended, your mobile raid tactics had enabled the armed workers to capture thirteen large strongholds and ten medium and small outposts.
The vehicle's ammunition stores were dry, the artillery turret silent. You needed resupply, and soon.
You were scanning the terrain for a suitable target when a radio transmission crackled to life, broadcast on the open channel used for coordination between worker units.
Another Shadow Warden team, announcing they'd secured an objective and requesting regular armed workers to move in and occupy the position. Standard procedure for a successful revolution: take ground, hold ground, expand.
You glanced at the map display bolted to the vehicle's dashboard, a crude thing showing rough positions of known friendly and enemy forces. Your current location appeared as a blinking marker.
You were near one of the gravity wells. More specifically, near one Corax was actively assaulting.
According to the latest reports filtering through the radio, Corax's force had already captured several gravity wells with remarkably light casualties. Each victory added more captured weapons and ammunition to his arsenal, creating a snowball effect that made each subsequent assault faster and more devastating.
"Change of plans," you announced. "We're linking up with Corax's assault. Re-equip there and join the main offensive."
The vehicle turned, heading toward the sound of sustained heavy weapons fire in the distance.
You witnessed for the first time the true horror of a Primarch engaging in combat with nothing but his physical might.
Even from a distance, you could see the carnage. Corax moved through enemy formations like a force of nature, too fast for human eyes to properly track. One moment he was here, the next there, the intervening space crossed in the blink of an eye.
Heavy weapons tried to track him and failed. By the time gunners corrected their aim, he'd already moved, already killed, already disappeared back into shadows that shouldn't have been able to hide someone his size.
Bodies flew through the air, launched by impacts from his lightning claws. Not whole bodies. Pieces. The sheer kinetic force of his strikes tore enemies apart, scattering limbs and organs across the battlefield like grotesque rain.
You watched him tear into a light armored vehicle, those massive claws puncturing the hull like tin foil. He ripped the entire side panel away and reached inside, dragging out screaming guards who died before they could beg for mercy.
Meanwhile, the Shadow Warden teams moved like extensions of Corax himself. They appeared and vanished, flowing through shadows, materializing behind enemy lines to eliminate commanders and heavy weapon crews. Every assassination created cascading failures in enemy coordination.
You blinked your wolf-like eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by the display of coordinated lethality.
Then you shook it off. Standing around gaping wasn't helpful.
"Move out!" You brandished your two double-edged axes and led your Shadow Warden team into the battle, adding your strength to the assault.
Shortly afterward, Corax's massive three-meter frame approached you, his armor completely soaked in blood that dripped steadily onto the ground with soft pattering sounds.
You were busy killing an enemy soldier who'd pulled a fragmentation grenade from his belt, clearly intending to use it as a suicide weapon. Your axe caught him before he could pull the pin. You wrenched the grenade from his dead fingers and clipped it to your own belt. Waste not.
"Brother, come with me." Corax's voice cut through the battle noise. His expression was serious, more so than usual. "Something's wrong with the enemy defense around this gravity well. They're pulling back toward an underground facility. There must be heavy weapons stockpiled down there that our scouts didn't detect."
You nodded firmly, gripping your axes tighter. Without a word, you fell into step behind Corax as he began moving toward the underground entrance.
He slowed his pace deliberately, allowing you to keep up. Otherwise, you'd have lost sight of him in seconds.
Corax's long black hair, matted with blood and gore, seemed to emanate a palpable aura of violence. He'd become something beyond human, a avatar of righteous destruction. His lightning claws swept through enemy ranks with systematic brutality, rendering anyone in his path into flying chunks of meat and bone.
Occasionally, an enemy managed to slip past Corax's whirlwind assault, either through luck or because they were simply out of reach at that exact moment. You made sure none of them got far, your axes ending their flight with swift, brutal efficiency.
You fought your way deeper into the enemy position, moving as a two-man wrecking crew. The partnership worked seamlessly. Corax handled the impossible threats. You cleaned up what he missed.
Eventually, you reached the entrance to the underground base, arriving just as the last major group of enemy defenders retreated inside. Heavy blast doors began grinding closed, their motors straining.
A devastating barrage erupted from inside: scorching laser beams, electromagnetically accelerated projectiles, and conventional solid rounds, all converging on your position in overlapping fields of fire.
You dove behind a burned-out vehicle, using its bulk as cover. More incoming fire tore chunks from the vehicle's frame, making it shudder with each impact. You couldn't advance. The crossfire was too dense, too concentrated.
But Corax didn't need conventional cover.
He moved with that impossible speed again, somehow finding angles in the storm of fire where nothing existed, using his preternatural agility to reach and eliminate enemy gun positions one by one. Each heavy weapon emplacement fell silent as its crew died, Corax's claws or hammer ending their existence before they fully comprehended his presence.
The fire slackened. Gaps appeared in the defensive wall.
With an angry roar, you exploded from cover, wielding your double-bladed axes in a brutal, furious counterattack against the remaining enemies.
The fighting was savage and close, the kind of combat where you could smell your enemy's fear-sweat and feel their blood splash hot against your skin. Your axes rose and fell in mechanical rhythm, each strike finding flesh.
Fifteen minutes felt like fifteen hours.
Finally, silence fell. Only the crackle of fires and the moans of the dying remained.
You stood beside Corax, breathing hard, your bald head completely covered in sticky, congealing blood. Both of your double-edged axes had shattered blades, their edges chipped and fractured from sustained brutal use. They'd served well but were finished as effective weapons.
You'd need to find replacements inside the facility.
"Come on, brother," Corax said, his deep eyes gleaming with something that might have been amusement. He glanced at your blood-covered bald scalp and grinned. "Let's see what they're hiding underground. Maybe they've got hair gel down there."
Despite everything, you found yourself grinning back.