"It appears they have prepared a welcoming ceremony for us."
Although danger was rapidly approaching, Rowan exhibited absolutely no sign of fear, rely speaking in a mild tone.
Azure light blossod within Cybia's pupils, her gaze seemingly piercing through the heavy bulkheads as she spoke in an ethereal voice: "The incoming hostiles number approximately five hundred. They are predominantly mortal cultists, comprised of mutinous naval rating boarding parties, variously modified heavy servitors, and several corrupted Ogryns."
"I have confird it; there are no Chaos Space Marines among them. They are essentially re fodder units."
She paused for a mont before adding this addendum.
"Hah, exactly as expected from a horde of honorless heretics."
Leonardo, gripping his Guardian Spear, let out a snort of utter disdain. "These cowardly traitors are capable of nothing more than this. We shall crush them."
Just as his words fell, the densely packed thundering of footsteps drew ever closer.
Finally, a massive, swarming horde of Chaos cultists—their limbs grotesquely mutated, their skin carved with a myriad of blasphemous brands—poured around the corner, fully exposing themselves to the group's line of sight.
Their minds had been so thoroughly corroded by chaotic corruption that they lacked any semblance of rational thought; with bloodshot eyes and contorted faces, they charged forward in a state of absolute frenzy!
However, it was profoundly unfortunate for them that the enemy they faced was not the "fragile, impotent Astra Militarum" as the Chaos Astartes often claid, but rather an apex kill-team whose combat efficacy ranked among the absolute elite across the entire galaxy.
"Let the Emperor's will be the torch that purges the shadows!"
Lucia roared a famous litany from the Fables of the Ecclesiarchy, taking the absolute vanguard of the charge.
She unfurled her wings once more, her form tearing through the air with a rolling, thunderous roar. Like a golden teor, she violently crashed directly into the heart of the horde.
BOOM!
Before the very first cultist she made contact with could even raise a hand to parry, the revving teeth of her chainsword tore through his throat, sending his head flying high into the air. Even as a decapitated corpse, the sheer montum of his frantic charge carried him staggering forward for several paces.
Without a microsecond of hesitation, Lucia swung her relic storm shield. The savage, sweeping strike instantly encompassed a massive arc, launching a tide of bodies hurtling backward with shattered bones and severed tendons, carpeting the deck in ruined flesh.
But the slaughter had only just begun. Following closely behind was Leonardo, his transhuman speed lagging only a fraction of a second behind Lucia's divine montum as he swiftly arrived at her flank.
The four-ter-long Guardian Spear moved like a coiling dragon, howling through the air as he wielded it with absolute mastery.
The apex martial prowess of the Adeptus Custodes—artifice that vastly surpassed the furthest limits of transhumanity—was unleashed to its absolute maximum. Thrust, parry, cleave, pierce, sweep... an endless, unbroken torrent of infinitely complex strikes reaped the enemies before him like the scythe of the Reaper itself.
Even as the disruption blade harvested heads, the bolter integrated into the spear fired continuously. Under Leonardo's microscopic, perpetual tactical adjustnts, every single cultist who even attempted to raise a weapon was instantly t with a mass-reactive bolt detonating through their skull the very instant their hand moved.
The two warriors, advancing in flawless tandem, carried an apocalyptic, unstoppable montum, scything down every enemy before them like wheat before the harvester; absolutely nothing could stall their advance.
Standing perfectly still behind the vanguard, Cybia's eyes ignited once more with blinding blue witch-light. A torrential storm of psychic lightning arced outward from her form, whipping up howling gales within the corridor.
She softly breathed a single word:
"Detonate."
As the syllable fell, the eyes of dozens of Chaos cultists scattered throughout the horde simultaneously ignited with the exact sa azure witch-light.
They instantly surrendered to Cybia's telepathic domination, either turning their weapons to rcilessly gun down the allies surrounding them, or simply pulling the pins on their lta bombs directly within the densest clusters of the horde.
A chain reaction of thunderous explosions ripped through the throngs of traitors. Blinding flashes of incandescent light erupted consecutively, instantaneously consuming the remainder of the hostile force.
Before Rowan could even raise a hand to intervene, the entirety of the incoming Chaos cultist horde—the force dispatched to stall their boarding action—had been absolutely eradicated by his three retainers.
Although he found it bizarre what exactly the Chaos Lord leading this warband was thinking—dispatching re fodder to throw their lives away, rendering his specially prepared "big boom" completely useless—Rowan did not dwell on the matter. He simply continued to advance with the rest of the group, dragging his Leman Russ Executioner self-propelled plasma cannon, now concealed beneath an optical camouflage field, along behind him.
...
Having witnessed this entire massacre through a warp ritual anchored to one of the cultists, the Chaos Lord's lingering suspense finally resolved into the absolute certainty of his own impending doom.
What in the deepest depths of the warp were these beings?
That Battle Sister with the pure white wings and a halo... she must be a Living Saint of the False Emperor? No, that was rely a glorified title. According to his understanding of the universe, she was unequivocally a Daemon Prince of the Anathema. Either way, he was absolutely certain he could not defeat her in single combat.
As for the other blindingly golden entity entirely encased in massive, heavy power armor... despite his vast experience, he could not identify what exactly it was. Regardless, its combat efficacy was terrifyingly imnse, though to what specific degree he could not ascertain; the cultists were far too fragile to extract any aningful tactical data from their slaughter.
Furthermore, the Chaos Lord faintly perceived that there was a psyker embedded within this kill-team, whose true power ceiling remained completely obscured.
Curse it all! With this level of apocalyptic strength, why were they not boarding a Blackstone Fortress instead of coming here to plague his existence?!
The Chaos Lord's mind raced frantically, desperately searching for a way to break this fatal deadlock. If he wished to continue his grand design for daemonic ascension, he had to first ensure his own survival against this cadre of absolute lunatics.
"Well? Have you seen sothing?"
The languid voice of the Slaaneshi Sister, Miriael, echoed once more. "Truthfully, I am quite intrigued by whatever lapdogs of the False Emperor possess the sheer audacity to board this vessel. Have you discerned their identities?"
Her words suddenly paused, a trace of suspicion bleeding into her tone. "Why are you suddenly looking at with that expression?"
"That is naturally because, among these lapdogs attempting to board my vessel, there is one individual who shares a certain connection to you."
As if violently grasping the final straw of salvation, the Chaos Lord spoke with feigned composure.
He had suddenly conceptualized an absolutely flawless sche, one that could effortlessly extricate him from this lethal predicant.
"Oh? Let us hear it."
Miriael's voice carried a distinct thread of curiosity.
"Within the boarding party, there is a Battle Sister. Her combat prowess is exceedingly lethal, and furthermore... the heraldry upon her power armor indicates she belongs to the Order of Our Martyred Lady."
The Chaos Lord stated with absolute detachnt.
He had not uttered a single lie.
After all, was a Living Saint not technically a Battle Sister? And was her combat prowess not exceedingly lethal?!
"Excellent! That has definitively piqued my interest!"
Miriael beca instantly aroused and ecstatic.
Prior to her fall to Chaos, she herself had been a mber of the Order of Our Martyred Lady. Now, her most absolute, beloved obsession was hunting down her forr sisters, utilizing every conceivable tornt and temptation to drag them screaming into the eternal raptures of Slaanesh.
Unfortunately, over the countless years that had passed, Miriael had never fully satisfied this craving; it was rapidly degrading into a maddening obsession!
"The trap is set!"
The Chaos Lord rejoiced silently within his corrupted heart.
When the ti ca, he would utilize this Fallen Sister as a at shield to engage the intruders. He could then observe the tactical flow of the battle from safety, before deciding whether he needed to imdiately execute an ergency warp-jump to save his own skin.
In this manner, his own survival was heavily insulated. It was practically foolproof!
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