From the depths of the Warp, from the maddened domain of the Blood God, the daemonic horde surged forth.
At their vanguard roared the Primarch of rage—the betrayer son—his howls echoing across the scorched skies of Terra.
The sound reverberated through the bones of the world, a thunderous dirge felt in every corner of the Throneworld.
From atop the high ramparts, Sanguinius, the Angelic Primarch, spread his radiant wings and launched himself into the fray. Without hesitation, he hurled his divine form into the heart of war.
The daemonic legions were without number, an endless tide of hate and fury.
Even for Sanguinius, this was the first time facing such overwhelming numbers. The stench of blood in the air stirred echoes of the distant past, of that fateful stand at the Lion's Gate ten millennia prior.
At his side stood Mephiston, Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels. The potent aura of the psyker tore fractures into the fabric of reality. No daemon could endure his presence for long—those who approached him were obliterated in moments.
With righteous fury, the Blood Angels gave their war cries, weapons flaring as they plunged into the red tide.
Sanguinius unleashed the power slumbering within his transhuman flesh, instincts and skill guiding each strike. His movements were a symphony of destruction—graceful, deadly, unerring.
He was a dancer of death amidst the abyss, cutting down nightmares one after another.
Within the Imperial Palace, Commander Valdo of the Imperial Guard sounded a general mobilization. Hundreds of mortal regiments surged forth. The dormant god-machines of the Titan Legions stirred, and the venerable Dreadnoughts were awakened to war.
They all understood what lay behind the Lion's Gate: a being beyond comprehension—the Emperor—their final, eternal hope.
And yet, the daemons surged.
Again and again they crashed upon the defenders like waves upon a crumbling cliff. Red-skinned, blood-drenched, screaming praise to Khorne—they brought slaughter incarnate.
Walls fell. Bastions crumbled. The defenders were drowned beneath an avalanche of ruin and madness.
There was no stopping them.
Defeat loomed.
"Is this the day the Lion's Gate falls? Can we truly protect the Emperor from this tide?"
The thought—blasphemous, forbidden—crossed Valdo's mind.
The enemy advanced unchecked.
Then—amid the Khorne host—rose a sound unexpected.
A chant.
"Emperor,
Your enemies fall to the sound of the Creed.
When Your hand strikes them down and the scriptures burn,
We sanctify the ashes with martyrdom!"
A tide of humanity surged forward—hundreds of millions strong. The Ecclesiarchy. Fanatics. Martyrs. Preachers of fire and flame.
They threw themselves at the daemonic horde with nothing but faith and steel.
They were not afraid. Their eyes burned with holy madness equal to that of the daemons they faced.
To die for the Emperor was not an end—it was transcendence.
If the followers of Khorne sought blood—be it friend or foe—the faithful sought obliteration, to burn out in glorious devotion.
Thus they charged. They fell in droves, torn apart before they could even reach the enemy—but they did not falter.
Their suicidal fervor blunted the daemonic advance. Pressure at the Lion's Gate lessened.
And in the blood-soaked warzone, they screamed their hymns with cracked throats. Each prayer was filled with rapture—a yearning for annihilation.
Sanguinius and Valdo both sensed the shift. Though communication with the Ecclesiarchs was impossible in the chaos, their purpose was unmistakable.
The fanatics had struck the rear of Khorne's army.
The loyalists and the zealots now closed in from both flanks.
Caught in this pincer, the tide of Khorne faltered.
World Eaters, frothing at the mouth, howled their defiance and carved into the madmen charging them.
Chaos cultists—souls long since flayed into oblivion—hesitated. Confused. Torn between rushing the gate or turning to destroy the zealots behind them.
That hesitation cost them dearly—orbital artillery and macro-batteries lit the sky and annihilated them.
The daemon horde slipped into disarray.
Command chains broke. Orders clashed. Daemons turned on one another.
A frenzied Khorne Berzerker buried his axe into a Bloodletter's skull, bellowing curses as he slew friend and foe alike in a desperate bid to carve a path forward.
Greater daemons trampled cultists and Chaos Marines alike, heedless of distinction.
In the storm of fratricide, the World Eaters tried to break through the Ecclesiarch lines—but the priests did not yield.
Their scepters shattered ceramite. Their holy fire melted power armor.
The sons of Angron fell, reduced to crimson paste beneath their enemies' fury.
The loyalists seized the moment and surged forward.
But not all daemons were disorganized.
"Blood for the Blood God!"
A roar split the heavens. Angron, Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters, had one target in mind.
Sanguinius.
With a sonic boom, Angron beat his wings and flew straight toward the Angel.
Blood Angels moved to intercept—but Angron was a force of nature. He cleaved through them, his massive axe turning transhuman warriors into shattered wreckage.
Their bodies rained from the skies like falling stars.
The Blood Angels' fire teams opened up, pouring las and bolter fire into the oncoming giant—but the black flame around Angron consumed all.
The Butcher of Nuceria surged forward, closing the distance.
"Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
But before he could strike, another voice rang out from the sky:
"For Sanguinius!"
The Archangel hovered, spear in hand, surrounded by his kin.
His eyes met Angron's—sad, resolute.
It had been ten thousand years since their last duel. Nothing had changed.
Sanguinius looked over the battlefield. What he saw was devastation beyond words.
Ruins collapsing, stone and metal crashing down. The Lion's Gate stood bloodied but not broken.
Corpses lay everywhere, clad in every manner of armor. With his perfect vision, the Angel saw their wounds—saw the pain and horror etched into once-proud warriors.
They had stood for mankind.
And they had died—for Him.
The carnage at the Lion's Gate ten thousand years ago seemed to mirror the present.
Back then, Sanguinius had triumphed over this wretched, hateful brother.
Now, even stripped of much of his power, the Angel still did not believe he would fall.
Mephiston, Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels, stood silently beside the Primarch, calculating—almost mechanically—the time it would take the Daemon Primarch to reach them.
Angron had broken through the Imperial frontlines, but not unscathed. His corrupted armor was rent and torn, his wings burned and slick with lava, billowing thick, choking smoke.
He had torn apart all in his path. No mortal weapon or wall of flesh could slow him—the might of a Daemon Primarch was simply too vast.
Like a crimson whirlwind, Angron annihilated every soul that dared block his path, until finally, he was within striking distance of the Angel.
He raised his immense, blood-soaked axe, ready to strike down Sanguinius once and for all—
And then, a green leaf drifted past his vision.
On this battlefield of fire, ash, and gore, that sliver of green was alien. Angron didn't have time to wonder where it came from before a dense mist swallowed the area.
It shrouded his sight, dulled his senses, and disrupted even the unnatural perception granted by his daemonic form. The fog was thick with verdant hues that had no place in this apocalyptic warzone.
Between the Daemon Primarch and the Angel, black-armored figures emerged—Dark Angels, their forms solidifying from the gloom.
Angron had no memory of their arrival. It made no difference.
The Butcher's Nails drove him forward. He surged with killing intent, his body responding before his mind could question. He struck at the warriors before him with mindless rage.
But none of them were looking at him.
Their eyes were focused behind him.
"Schlkk—!"
The howl of torn armor echoed across the battlefield.
Angron froze mid-swing. A sword had pierced through his back—shattering armor, severing flesh and bone, and exploding from his chest in a spray of corrupted blood.
A tremendous impact followed as the Lion's shield slammed into him. Angron's mountainous frame was hoisted and driven backward by sheer force.
The Lion of Caliban had arrived.
With his full strength unleashed, Lion El'Jonson rammed Angron with the Emperor's Shield, hurling the Daemon Primarch across the battlefield like a comet. Impaled on blade and shield both, Angron was driven through fortifications for nearly a kilometer.
The earth split under their clash. Then, with a thunderous crash, they slammed into a distant bastion. The fortress, once a bulwark of Imperial defense, collapsed in an instant.
When the dust settled, Angron's body was nailed to the crumbling fortress wall by the Lion's blade.
Even the Lion himself—no stranger to war—was left panting.
El'Jonson looked to Sanguinius, now only a few kilometers away.
Their eyes met.
In that glance, the two Primarchs shared a psychic communion deeper than words. A bond rekindled in war. The Lion had taken the brunt of Angron's fury—and given Sanguinius a chance.
The loyalist warriors, seeing the Daemon brought low, surged forward with renewed purpose.
Though he could not speak, Sanguinius understood.
Angron, however, was not finished.
The Daemon Primarch roared with fury and pain. The blow had nearly rendered him unconscious. Blood poured from his wounds—but still, he swung.
Just as the axe would have decapitated the Lion—
The Lion vanished.
In a blur, El'Jonson disengaged and darted into the fog.
Gone.
Angron blinked, disoriented, then roared in rage. The Butcher's Nails screamed in his skull, pulsing with unbearable pain and fueling his wrath.
He stood, ignoring his grievous injuries, and charged after the Lion.
The Lion was nowhere to be seen.
But his sons remained.
The Dark Angels drew their blades and raised their bolters.
"For the Lion!" they shouted.
The cry echoed through the ruined walls and into the hearts of every loyalist nearby. They took it up in turn:
"For the Lion! For the Emperor!"
Millions shouted in unison. The battlefield shook not with artillery, but with devotion.
Meanwhile, Angron chased the Lion into a strange woodland.
Warp-touched flora and shifting shadows formed a primal hunting ground—no natural forest, but a realm infused with the energies of the High Heavens.
The Lion had drawn Angron into his domain.
Angron's axe burned with the fury of Khorne, cutting through trees and illusions alike. But the Lion stayed hidden, vanishing into the mists.
Small figures flickered at the edge of Angron's vision—shadows in the shape of warriors, gone before he could strike. The Scarlet Angel roared, cursing as he swung at phantoms.
The Butcher's Nails pounded in his head.
And still, the Lion did not answer.
Then, suddenly—BANG!
A shield struck from the side. The Lion had appeared, only to vanish again as Angron tumbled through the brush.
Angron: "…"
He could no longer describe what he felt. Rage had consumed every thought. Each breath was a curse spat at the First.
His body—still burning with daemonic might—pushed on through the mire.
"Come out, coward!" he howled. "You're nothing but another skull for Khorne's throne! I'll rip you apart, then slaughter your precious mortals!"
But the Lion answered only with silence.
And steel.
Again and again, he emerged from the shadows, struck, and vanished—never giving Angron the fight he wanted. The Daemon Primarch was being worn down, methodically.
Scar after scar was carved into Angron's body. His corrupted ichor drenched the foliage. Though still monstrous, he was no longer unstoppable.
The Lion had drawn him into a war of attrition—and the Red Angel was bleeding.
Victory seemed near.
But then… something shifted.
Something terrible took notice.
Just as the Lion struck again—blade flashing toward Angron's skull—
A roar erupted from the forest.
Not from Angron.
Something older. Something deeper. A bloodthirsty howl of a greater presence.
The warp itself screamed, and the Lion felt it—an explosion of wrath so potent it shattered the veil of the forest.
Even the Lion El'Jonson staggered before the sudden burst of raw, apocalyptic hate.
A great being had awoken.
Angron's defeat forced the Ruinous Powers to raise the stakes. The Blood God Himself, enraged by the setback, unleashed a surge of divine wrath—shattering the fairness of the duel between two demigods and tipping the balance with brutal finality.
But His intervention did not come without cost. Terra was dragged further toward the abyss.
Lion El'Jonson's armored form was hurled from the corrupted forest, flung like a broken blade by the detonation of Khorne's divine fury. The void tore open above Terra's war-torn surface, and the Lion came crashing out of it.
His regal cloak was alight with warp-flame, thick black smoke trailing behind him, shrouding his armor. The impact gouged a trench across the battlefield, his body carving through dirt and debris for dozens of meters.
And from the rift followed a roar—a scream soaked in hatred and bloodlust—and then emerged the mutilated, wrath-fueled form of Angron, the Scarlet Angel.
The Lion lay still for a moment, his breath ragged, his breastplate cracked and bones shattered beneath. Yet it was not the physical wounds that broke him—it was the creeping madness whispering in his mind. Blood—he could smell it, taste it in the air. And never before had it seemed so sweet.
Khorne's power did more than harm the body—it polluted the soul. The Lion, battered and overwhelmed, could not rise.
"Blood for the Blood God," Angron bellowed, a monster now fully consumed by his patron. His eyes glowed with mindless hatred, and his strength surged even further.
He advanced with unstoppable momentum, his daemon axe wreathed in fire and murder. Every loyalist that stood in his way was butchered. Guardsmen were torn apart like paper. Even the golden Custodes faltered under his assault. The line of the Dark Angels crumbled before him.
Nothing could hold him back.
"Skull!" the Daemon Primarch roared, raising his axe high above the fallen Lion.
Just a moment more—and the head of his blood brother would be severed, another offering for the Skull Throne.
From afar, the Dark Angels watched in horror. Some nearly collapsed from despair. Sanguinius himself, along with the Lord Commander of the Royal Guard, screamed in defiance, unable to reach their brother in time.
The axe fell.
And then—
A golden brilliance burst through the gore-soaked sky.
Thick, clotted clouds parted as if by divine will, and a radiant eagle of purest light—symbol of the Emperor's undying will—swooped across the heavens.
In that moment, Lion El'Jonson felt his courage return. The filth clawing at his soul was banished. Khorne's whispers fell silent. The strength of the Emperor flowed once more through his veins.
Bathed in that sacred light, he moved—barely, but just enough.
The massive axe crashed down into the ground where his head had lain only a second before.
He staggered upright, refusing to fall again.
Without a word, the Lion turned and vanished into the shadowed forests of Caliban—his mission fulfilled.
He no longer needed to stay.