Chapter 243: Suspected Heresy (Patreon)

More and more eyes turned toward the sudden appearance of the new group of Adeptus Astartes.

Their armour did not merely gleam, it blazed with unquenchable fire, each warrior resembling a living pyre that refused to be extinguished, standing like pillars of flame against the relentless advance of the Traitor Astartes. Fearless beneath the storm of incoming bolter fire, they answered in disciplined bursts, moving with a precision and synchronicity only superhuman warriors could muster.

These Space Marines had not emerged from a warp rift, nor had they been teleported via Talon’s unique teleportation technology. They simply appeared, ghosts made manifest upon the battlefield, their forms solidifying from nothingness like phantoms choosing to step out of the Immaterium.

The Ghost squad advanced with speed greater than even Grey’s augmented stride, bolters roaring as they carved a bloody corridor straight toward Abaddon the Despoiler.

Grey’s gravity shield hummed, always active. He considered deactivating it for fear of harming these apparently spectral allies, but when one of the burning Astartes charged past him, no harm was dealt. The flames licked harmlessly against the barrier, the shield did not so much as scorch the phantom.

That burning warrior crashed into one of Abaddon’s Black Legion Chosen, smashing aside the traitor’s power sword with a blazing bolter as though it were nothing more than a cudgel.

Grey did not linger on where these strange warriors had come from. His attention remained fixed on what mattered.

Abaddon was only ten meters away.

Grey triggered bullet time.

The bio-processor in his augmented spine flared with electro-signals, flooding his senses, dragging his perception into an overclocked nightmare clarity. The world stretched and slowed. In this altered state, every bolter shell’s trajectory hung before his eyes like streaks of light carved into reality.

“K-o-s-s-o-l-a-x!” Sven’s furious roar echoed across the melee as he swung his axe down at Kossolax, the Wolf Lord’s wrath undeniable. Kossolax backstepped, narrowly evading.

Grey altered course, appearing behind Kossolax in the slowed flow of time, and drove his blade into the traitor’s back. Without pause, he surged onward toward Abaddon.

Elsewhere, the Eldar warrior Saal was also closing on the Despoiler, his speed greater than any human could hope for, but still not faster than a bolt shell. A round was already on course to tear him apart, and he hadn’t realized it yet.

Grey barreled into him, knocking him clear, then continued his charge, forcing his way through the Black Legionaries and past Abaddon’s chosen guard. At last, he stood before the Warmaster himself.

As Grey closed, the cursed blade in Abaddon’s gauntleted hand flared, its edge alive with writhing faces, souls screaming silently from its surface, burning with a sickly, emerald warp-light.

Grey’s gravity shield sputtered, collapsing for a heartbeat.

The Warmaster had been waiting. Drach’nyen, daemon-sword of Chaos, cleaved toward him.

But Grey slipped aside the cursed edge with ease, unnaturally fast. With both hands, he brought his roaring chainsword down at Abaddon’s neck.

Yet before the sawteeth could bite, his bio-processor screamed a wound alert.

Pain blossomed. An invisible strike jarred his weapon aside. Instead of decapitating the Warmaster, the chainsword ripped through Abaddon’s arm at the elbow.

Bullet time collapsed. Reality surged back to full speed.

“You insignificant insect!” Abaddon thundered, his rage shaking the air. Even one-armed, he swung Drach’nyen in a devastating arc.

Grey raised his chainsword to block, but the daemon blade carved through it as if it were parchment.

The next strike would have cleaved him in two. Instead, Grey’s teleport beacon activated, tearing him away to the far side of the battlefield.

“Wh—?” He looked down. From his chest jutted Abaddon’s severed arm, still gripping with the talons of the Talon of Horus. Its claws had punched through his adamantine ribs and seized a fusion reactor within his chest.

His bio-processor replayed the last exchange, analyzing frame by frame.

The gravity shield had in fact rebooted less than a microsecond after being disabled, but it had failed to crush Abaddon. The daemon sword had emitted a warp-surge at that exact instant, disrupting the field.

And Abaddon had never truly meant to kill with the sword, for the blade had been a feint masking the real attack. The true strike had come from the Talon, its strike timed with surgical precision.

The system scored Abaddon as the most dangerous opponent Grey had ever faced, a warrior of unparalleled skill and experience.

“Impressive,” Grey muttered, holstering the ruined chainsword. He blasted apart the severed arm still embedded in his chest with a burst from his scatter-laser.

The Talon of Horus’ power claw still remained lodged deep inside, but he ignored the pain. Pain was irrelevant; time was the only resource that mattered now.

Grey raised his gaze. Abaddon stared back.

The duel had taught Grey a bitter truth: no amount of enhancement could substitute for centuries of battle-forged experience. Even with bullet-time, he had only managed to take one arm. Nothing more.

Grey realized that his lack of combat experience meant that if he wanted to pull off a decapitation strike, he would have to pay a price. A successful decapitation and escape unscathed was out of the question; the end result might be mutual destruction... but that didn’t matter.

The Thunderborns had long surrendered their humanity to become living weapons. If Grey must surrender his life to remove the Despoiler from the galaxy, then so be it.

“Again,” Abaddon growled, daemon blade leveled at him.

His Chosen closed in around him, the finest of the Black Legion, clad in the best wargear and trained in unholy perfection. They would ensure Grey would never get close a second time.

Grey triggered his jump pack, roaring forward.

The Chosen rushed to intercept.

Though smaller than an Astartes, the Thunderborn was swifter, weaving through the melee with impossible grace.

“Cover him!” Phoros ripped his power spear free from a corpse, rallying a nearby squad to aid Grey.

But Grey glanced back at Phoros as he advanced. They had fought together long enough for Phoros to understand: this was not his battle to finish.

Six Lamenters, clad in Terminator armor, assembled at Phoros’ side. Under their Chapter Master, they circled wide, preparing a flanking charge.

Grey crashed into the Chosen. Mid-sprint, he disengaged from his power armor.

The Thunderborn warsuit did not fall inert. Even without a bearer, its machine-spirit fought on like a second body.

Together with his armor-double, Grey advanced, pulling free a fusion reactor from the augmetics in his spine with a sickening metallic crunch.

He hurled it forward.

The explosion was cataclysmic. Fire washed across a ten-meter radius, incinerating the Chosen utterly, armor and flesh alike. Grey and his armor vanished in the inferno.

When the flames receded, the golden armor still strode before him, clearing his path and acting as his shield.

Grey emerged as well, ablaze. His synthetic flesh burned away, revealing skeletal adamantium beneath. He was a flaming iron revenant, sprinting toward Abaddon.

And he was not alone. The battlefield howled with madness: burning ghost-Astartes tearing traitors limb from limb, Fenrisian wolves dragging warriors into the dirt, Lamenters in Terminator plate charging like walking fortresses. At the center of the chaos was Grey, a skeletal Thunderborn revenant sprinting with impossible fury, his empty armor fighting beside him like a phantom twin.

All of it unfolded beneath the horrified gaze of Inquisitor Greyfax.

“What… Emperor preserve us…” she whispered. “What manner of heresy is this?”