A trap.

A conspiracy.

A sacrifice.

Istavan III.

Angron Petra chewed on the word, which tasted bitter and metallic, and he wasn't sure if it was because too many people had died here in the last two or three months, and the air had become strange.

After all.

The planet is home to eight billion people, and some of the tens of thousands of loyal Space Marines from different legions who have been dropped here in advance, with few heavy weapons and vehicles.

All of these lives were reduced to a foul-smelling organic ooze by the rebels' viral bombs during the first aerial assault, and their bodies, souls, shattered dreams, and the combustible gas of all the biomass remnants on the surface of the earth ignited the entire atmosphere of Istavan III under the orbital bombardment.

The flames burned so violently that the oxygen levels on the surface of this world dropped considerably.

He looked up at the sky obscured by billowing smoke and dust, and continued to walk on his way, following the guidance of his mental bond.

——————————

Daeorr didn't know if there were any other surviving World Eaters here.

In the past few weeks, if not a dozen weeks, he himself had been the only World Eater he had ever seen—not counting the brothers he had killed who had followed Angelon's betrayal.

He didn't know how he survived, or why he could or still survived.

All he remembered was that the destruction caused by the initial bombardment of the virus bomb and the World Eaters, led by Karn—who himself was a member of the Eighth Company—most of his brothers—had they hadn't rushed out in grief to shoot into the sky and confront the betrayal of the Warlord and the Primordial during the bombing—

They all chose to use the only weapons at hand to face Karn's Eighth Company and the other forty-nine remaining brothers of Dalian.

50,000 people.

50,000 devourers loyal to Anglon.

Fifty thousand devourers who betrayed the Empire.

The other fighting brothers of Daeorr are sworn to the death against the betrayer, preferring to face destruction in the face of their bodies like a true war dog warrior than to be shot in the back as they flee.

The nails were pounding at him, and he tried to think of something else to make it quiet.

He recalls what he had encountered in the last bunker they thought was safe.

With his legion, and once his, Angelon rushed in with all his struck brothers, blasted open the adamantite gates of the bunker, and slain the commander of the Thirteen, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth Legion loyalists in a battle of eight heartbeats, the Fourteenth Legion's Olkeson, the calm Death Guard, who was torn to shreds alive, the entrails and blood of the Space Marines splattered on the creamy white and blue dirty armor of the World Eaters, embellished with Anglon's brass armor and giant chainsaw axes.

Memories of the original form and the fight made him unhappy with the nail in his head, and dissatisfied with why he couldn't join them in destroying everything.

The nail sang a shrill song in his scalp, and it throbbed an inch below Daeor's scalp and skull, provoking even more intense pain to ask him to do something to grant him a second of calm and false comfort caused by endorphins.

He snorted in pain again, new blood running down his nostrils, casually wiping them off, and Daeore spat out the empty shell of the empty bag of high-energy triglyceride gel that he had been sucking in anticipation in the ruins of this little underground station.

The light outside was very faint, leaking slightly from the crack in the roof of this station, which was tens of meters underground, and only a glimmer of light could be seen at the top.

The near-darkness of the environment did not affect the Astartes' vision, except for the occasional glimmer of light or flickering: their power armor was in tatters, and the failure of the bird's display made their eyepieces flicker with a jiggle.

There is a team of warriors guarding one side of the staircase, which leads to the ground, albeit small and winding, but designed for emergency use by mortals.

There were two remaining exits, an underground tunnel with one side of the collapse hidden in the darkness and the other open to the east, guarded by twenty-two warriors on a rotational basis, as the main entrance and defense point for the loyalists, along with their last support weapons and vehicles: a predator tank that could not move without one track, and a dreadnought of death guards that were visibly deteriorating due to a lack of apothecaries and technical maintenance.

The last of the apothecary brothers in this group, the gloomy Fros, belonged to the Fourteenth Legion; But he had been shattered eight days earlier, shattered, bottles of flesh and genetic seeds, mixed with clay steel powder, and he had died at a volley fired at him by searchers of the Twelve Legions, laughing wildly at him.

When Daeorr first joined up with Commander Olkson's loyalists in the ruins, they were more than five hundred in number, and much better equipped than they are now.

Now they have less than fifty brothers.

His facial muscles twitched nervously, and a stream of heat came out of his nostrils, fishy and sticky, but this time he didn't reach out to wipe it.

"Are you alright? Brothers? Something firm and gentle sounded, and Daeorr turned his gaze to the place where the sound had come from, his eyes glazed over, and his vision was only two points.

He clenched his weapon and made an attacking gesture towards the other.

The nail was roaring, urging, he was hurting, he was confused, he was dazed, he was thinking.

Why? Wasn't I one of the first people to be on Anglon's side even when I knew he was crazy?

Wasn't I one of the first warriors to volunteer to put the same implant in my head as our genetic father after tackling the rebellion of the Terra veterans?

Didn't his friend and mentor, the former Legion Commander Jill, die in a bloody mess of flesh and blood in the depths of the Conqueror, as they now call it, in the depths of the Conqueror?

Remorse, shame, and guilt poured out from the depths, almost drowning out the pain and anger that had been surging him with nails.

The red in his vision began to fade.

"I'm not your brother." The World Eater said vaguely. "You're not my brother either."

"We are brothers now, Daeor." The other party pressed his hand, and called him patiently and calmly, showing a sense of skillfulness that had been repeated many times, as if he had called the World Eater back again and again, "Brother, it's me. ”

His eyes widened, trying to see the person in front of him, the exhaust holes on the side of the Power Armor blowing in the hot wind with the fire paint mark and a few pieces of oath paper engraved with the oath before the first Saint Song City landing, and the many honors and more insignia on the other Power Armor and his legion insignia were obscured by the wearer's many efforts.

A broken blaster hangs from under his hand armor.

He could see the other side's sea pine green livery clearly.

The other party's name also emerged with heat from the bloody depths.

Kyle Lorne Warbottom, his friend, a warrior of the Shadow Moon Wolves.

(End of chapter)