Chapter 245: Angel (Patreon)

“I don’t want to waste my time crushing an insect. If you’re not tired of living yet, you can pretend you never saw me. Walk away now, and you might survive.”

But it wasn’t fear that held him back from slaughtering the mortal before him, nor hesitation born of mercy. Kossolax simply did not wish to waste precious time of his retreat snuffing out something so insignificant.

“I’ve always wanted to duel a Space Marine,” the mortal said, drawing his power sword from his back and stepping toward Kossolax’s towering form, his frame far more massive and gene-forged than any human could ever hope to be.

Kossolax froze for a moment. Duel… with an Astartes? Were mortals of this age truly so bold… or simply insane?

Yet this human’s sheer foolhardy courage sparked a flicker of respect within him, and he decided to grant the mortal a glorious death.

So Kossolax strode forward, speaking as he advanced. “Since you ask for a duel, let us at least name ourselves. So that when death comes, it comes clearly.”

“Grot,” said the mortal, settling into a stance with his sword raised.

“Grot. Very well. I am Solax. Count yourself among the rare few who have heard my true name,” Kossolax said, giving the mortal the name he had borne before his Legion fell to damnation.

The two closed the distance, step by step.

As he walked, Grot issued a command through his implants. With sharp hisses, power armor locks disengaged. Plating fell piece by piece from his body, revealing a man stripped down to muscle, scar tissue, and raw will.

Kossolax halted. His voice rumbled with both irritation and faint amusement. “Do you think I am helpless in my current state? You wish to kill me unarmored, then parade my head through the ranks, boasting you slew Kossolax of the Foresworn without ceramite between us?”

Grot said nothing, continuing forward.

“I warn you, mortal," Kossolax said, watching Grot with interest. “Pride like that will cost you your life, or perhaps it already has.”

“I don’t seek glory,” Grot finally spoke. His voice carried a raw hunger. “I seek only a pure fight before death claims me. It has been ten years since I crossed blades in true melee.”

He shifted stance, power sword raised in both hands, body angled like a duelist of old. “This duel ends in only two ways: I die by your hand, or we drag each other into death together.”

His voice trembled not with fear, but exhilaration. His entire body quivered, as if every cell screamed for the clash to come. For a decade he had suppressed his bloodlust, fearing he would fall to madness like his fallen brother. But now… now there was no need to restrain himself.

He wanted nothing more than to cross blades with a Space Marine, even if it killed him.

“You… you’re serious?” Kossolax’s tone wavered for an instant. In all his years, since the day he clawed his way from the gene-vault to the present, he had never seen a mortal with no butcher’s nails in their skull walk willingly into certain death for a… duel?

There was nothing more to say. Kossolax charged.

Grot stood his ground, calm, watching for the single moment when both could die together.

Kossolax moved like a Predator tank at full throttle, his armored mass devouring the distance. Just as he filled Grot’s vision, the mortal swung.

The blade sang through the air, only to strike nothing.

Kossolax slipped aside with inhuman agility. For a warrior standing over two and a half meters tall in ceramite plate, he moved like lightning. Even weakened, bleeding from earlier wounds, he carried the speed of a predator that had hunted for centuries.

Before Grot could react, agony tore through his shoulder. Kossolax’s ceramite shard punched straight through flesh and bone. With a wrenching pull, the Astartes ripped Grot’s arm free from its socket.

Kossolax raised the severed limb as though to mock him, but his eye caught the gleam of a blade. He leapt back just in time.

Even one-armed, bleeding and broken, the mortal fought with ferocity, blade crackling, his strikes wild but fierce.

Kossolax’s grin sharpened. “Now we are even. One arm each.” He tossed the dripping limb aside.

Grot said nothing. Sword still raised, body trembling with euphoria. His eyes shone with madness, as if pain itself were drowned by joy.

There was no fear. No pain.

Something was wrong with this mortal.

Even with Khorne’s gaze lingering on the Celestial Engine’s battlefield, no human should burn with such defiance.

Unless… unless he was favored.

Kossolax decided not to risk it. The duel would end now.

He lunged. His ceramite shard speared straight for Grot’s chest.

Grot surged forward to meet it.

The shard of ceramite pierced Grot’s chest. Bone and flesh shattered. Agony followed. But in that instant of death, Grot struck back, his power sword plunging deep into Kossolax’s chest plate.

“You insect!” Kossolax roared. Fury ignited his gene-wrought muscles. He seized Grot, slamming him against a wall, and hammered his fists into him. The mortal’s jaw shattered, ribs caved, flesh cratered beneath each blow.

Punch after punch, until breath and life left the mortal. Only then did Kossolax let him fall, turning away.

“Conqueror! Conqueror, respond!”

“…This is Conqu... zzzt—”

Relief surged through him at the sound of his ship’s vox. “Extract me. Now.”

The Conqueror acknowledged and locked onto his signal, warp-teleport systems aligning to snatch him from the Iron Planet’s ruins.

But before the warp transition could take him, something clutched his leg. Kossolax looked down. It was Grot.

Broken, mangled, yet somehow still alive.

“Pitiful creature,” Kossolax sighed, almost amused. He could have crushed him. Instead, he extended a hand. “Come with me. I will have you remade into an Astartes. You’ll gain even greater powers, then you may kill without restraint. The Blood God clearly smiles upon you.”

“Blood… God?” Grot spat blood, voice ragged. “To hell with your Blood God… I won’t become… a mindless butcher…”

Kossolax studied him for a long second. Then, with a casual kick, he hurled the mortal three meters away.

Grot’s body hit the wall with a thud. Something rolled free from his side, a sphere glowing with blue light.

“Blood God damn it all… that’s not a teleport beacon,” Kossolax hissed. “I am done with this.”

The light winked out.

A heartbeat later, fire consumed the corridor. The detonation thundered for a kilometer.

When the smoke cleared, the passage was gone, walls shattered, drones obliterated, the landscape reshaped by fire.

In the wreckage lay Grot. Barely alive, stunned that he had survived though he was no more than four meters from the blast’s core.

Survival brought him no joy. Only fury. Only disappointment. For one who sought death, life was a curse.

He crawled forward, searching for his sword. After two meters, he collapsed, unable to move. Something tugged at him, binding him down.

His fingers brushed a cord. Following it, he traced it back to his own abdomen.

“Oh, Throne… why couldn’t I have died in the blast?”

He lay back, waiting for death. Death was coming, but too slowly.

[“Warning: warp signature detected.”]

The mechanical voice came from his ruined power armor.

[“Warp energy detected.”]

His eyes lifted weakly. Vision blurred, fading until gold light filled it.

From the brilliance descended winged figures. Two circled above, radiant and swift. The battlefield dissolved into brilliance; gone was the metallic ruin, and now there was a golden sky it felt warm, endless, but heavy with an unblinking will. The third winged figure descended, slow and solemn.

Holiness. Beauty. These were the only words that came to his mind. His wounds closed, flesh knitting, even his severed arm and shattered torso reformed beneath their light.

He had been taught since childhood that Space Marines were the Emperor’s Angels of Death. But to him, these women, these seraphic visions radiant and terrible, were what angels truly meant: holiness and duty embodied.

The descending angel knelt beside him, eyes burning with sanctity, wings arching as she inspected his broken body.

Above, another explosion thundered. She turned her gaze upward, wings unfurling as she launched back into the sky.