With the invasion of the Twelfth Legion raiders, the scene in the darkness began to become chaotic.

For the loyalists, the enemy's numbers, firepower, and will to slaughter were overwhelming.

Fragments of stone, metal, and terracotta steel splattered on Daeor's terracotta breastplate and belly, making a large tinkling motion.

In his flickering malfunctioning tactical eyepiece, he saw many of his companions over the months being hit by the World Eater,—— if they could still be called World Eaters, the former Twelfth Legion's white and blue power armor was now stained a deep shade of reddish-brown with stale or more fresh blood, huge horns that seemed to be emerging from their helmets, and they emitted the heat of soot and some kind of chemical stench—Terra. If it's not witchcraft and magic, then what is it? What makes a former warrior look like this?

Daeore raised his gun and fired at the gap in the sudden influx of attackers, Kyle Lorne turned his back to him, distracted by the attack, completely oblivious to the fact that something was wrong with his friend.

Pilamus's feathered gold tiara and royal purple swayed faintly in the flash of gunfire, and he fell into the encirclement, but the World Eater saw his cloak still dancing unyieldingly with his blade out of the corner of his eye.

Daeore just pulled the trigger and let the recoil of the shot feed back into his fingers, knowing that he had barely hit anything, but doing so would have made the nail in his head feel better, and would save him from having to be forced to experience the pain of taking the life of another former brother in the only conscious second.

How many were killed? Maybe a hundred? Two hundred? With his past, familiar or not-so-familiar faces in the Twelfth Legion, Daeorr was tired of killing, but the nails they had put into their heads to show their loyalty would never be satisfied.

"I am loyal." He raised his hand in a mutter, his fingers unconsciously digging at his skull.

Tears blurred his eyes.

He felt pain because of anger, anger at the sudden realization that the death he deserved was not allowed to befall him.

Yes. The World Eater got it perfectly.

Death is the end that Angelon, the father of genes, has given him and his brothers, and there is only death.

"I am loyal." He muttered as the warrior of the Shadow Moon Wolf reached out to him, as if to pull him along the small staircase to break out of the encirclement.

Kylllorn was turning his back to him, firing back at the wobble, horned figures of the Twelfth Legion soldiers who had swooped in in the dark shadows, "We need to get out of here as soon as possible, this place is lost." ”

He said, glancing apprehensively in the direction of the Emperor's Son and the Death Guard: the two brothers they were fighting with had been separated too far apart, and were gradually being blocked on the other side of the attacker's line.

"We have to go. If we continue to fight. ”

"Fighting?"

Daeore muttered as his fingers were trying to peel off his own cheek, "Fight." I am loyal. Fight. ”

"Yes, fight," the Shadowmoon Wolf pulled him desperately up the stairs and continued to fight back at every turn, "we will fight the traitor to the last breath." ”

For some reason, at this moment Daeorl had a strange feeling that Kyle Lohn was not speaking to him, but to himself.

How ridiculous, when he was about to figure it out, he thought, how ridiculous, he said he was going to keep fighting.

The nails are singing loudly.

Tell him that he doesn't care what he's killing.

Just pull the trigger.

He will be free.

In the madness and destruction of betrayal.

Liberation – death.

Daorr laughed out loud at the moment when he knew the fate of deliverance he had been promised, and he laughed so much that he could barely breathe, and his vision completely blurred by sweat and heat saw the Shadowmoon Wolf hear his laughter and turn to him in confusion.

In the Star Marine's genetically enhanced and modified neural perception for battle and battlefield, he and he stared blankly at the muzzle of the Bolt Bolt raised by the World Eater towards the pine-green cuirass of the Sea - the Terra-Warrior of the Sixteenth Legion was no means a defenseless recruit, and the wealth of experience, the physical strength and combat skills of the Space Marine remained intact in his body under the name of the Shadow Moon Wolf.

What really made him unbelievably and unrelentingly destroyed was betrayal.

Like anyone else and everything that has been destroyed by betrayal.

"I am loyal!"

The muzzle of Daeor's gun was pointed at the breastplate of his brother and comrade-in-arms, and his index finger pulled the trigger.

The nails in his skull sang in joy and began to explode — not as stingy as before— to fire devastating doses of endorphins into his brain—

He saw the incredulity and sadness in Kyle Lorne's body and gesture - he hadn't even had time to get angry at him.

But so what—since the skies of Istavan III were ignited by vengeful spirits, there has been no place for miracles here—

White-gold light.

The eyes of the World Eater are filled with tears of physiological irritation.

"I am loyal."

He muttered while feeling the power of the trigger feeding back to him, and he didn't let go of it even when the light made him temporarily blind.

He could almost imagine the Legionnaire's seapine green cuirass, which had been trying to hold him down and call back his Legionnaire for years of fighting for humanity and the Emperor, had been dented, pierced, and punched by a betrayal bomb before falling back in tatters into the dilapidated ruins beneath István III.

A dazzling white-gold glow fills the dark, semi-enclosed underground space.

All the creatures that were illuminated covered their eyes with a roar.

Having adapted to the extreme darkness of the environment, they all temporarily lost their vision.

Something followed.

Very massive, unusually fast, full of power.

He heard the sound of many terracotta armors crashing or falling to the stone floor at about the same moment.

- A being who had made Daeor's mind begin to feel tired, kind, calm, and horrified at what he had just committed, and who had made his nails roar angrily in his head, had arrived.

It's coming.

He heard a voice.

Someone walked up to him.

The tears of the world eaters are growing more.

It's physiological, he thinks, but he can't stop them, he doesn't want to stop them.

There was a hand, unusually large, large enough for Astarte's skull to look small in his hand.

With warmth and gentle power, it was caressed over his head.

The nail struggled a few times in a reluctant roar, and then stopped as if it had been drained of energy.

There appears to be a pharmacist's needle inserted into his armored medical interface.

Before he was paralyzed by the drugs, Daeore heard his genoplasm speak to him in a noble voice he had never heard before, but that he had wanted to hear since his first day as a legionnaire.

"You've done a great job, now I'm here, don't worry, follow me."

(End of chapter)