♔ Champion ♔ The Flame of Humanity — March 2022 Challenge Winner

[Ageless King]

The Flame of Humanity.​

"In great times of need, desperation makes way towards hope." Warmaster Thaddeus.​

- Dramatis Personae -
Thaddeus Germanicus | Warmaster, Primarch of the 13th Legion, Demiurge.
Alexios Alway | Pride Guard Commander, Master of Security.
Fabius | Pride Guard, Master of Knowledge.
Titus | Pride Guard, Master of Secrets.
Ban | Pride Guard, Warmaster's Centurion.
Stormbird Pilot | 13th Legionnaire Pilot.
Ancient Televesmos | Telemon Dreadnought, 13th Legion.
Captain Rubrik Vairosean | 4th Great Company Captain "The Lion's Claws".
Thestis | Victrix Guard, Standard Bearer, 13th Legion.​

The intenseness of Stormbirds and Thunderhawks that took to the atmosphere against the final Oceanids atoll was amongst the most sumptuous aerial armadas ultimately launched in the Expurgate Peregrinus. Nine hundred craft took off from a score of seized atolls as the last of the daylight faded, the timing of their liftoffs and approach vectors calculated by the Warmaster to assure that each tide arrived precisely when he intended it.

Wailing interceptors and gunships carried off in the jet wash and gritty coral clouds, pursued by squadrons of demigod Stormbirds and Thunderhawks. At an alert from orbit, the hordes of vessels curved their courses, blazing through the sunlit skies on plumes of blue conflagration towards their prey. Within minutes the skies beyond each atoll were filled with opaque, predatory constitutions that revolved like flocks of squawking crows set to venture on a mission of slaying.

Not that a demiurge required mechanical flight, but the King of Kings understood giving purpose to others. This purpose was the descent from the paradises of his solar-system-sized craft to the surface of warfare below to convey scorching battles to the Oceanids. Thaddeus launched from the worldship Bucephalus in the Lion's Roar, a gunship he had personally designed and constructed in the armourium decks of his worldship. Its wings had a more lavish span than a Stormbird, curved in an elegant rearward sweep, and its hooked prow provided it a threatening war visage that pummeled hysteria into the souls of the Warmaster's adversaries.

The Lion's Roar streaked through the alien atmosphere of Laeran, its dynamic re-entry wreathing its wings and body in esoteric flames that ignited up the night sky like a glittering comet.

The metal fixtures of Alexios Alway's Stormbird were gilded, and the internal facings embellished with mosaics illustrating the Legion's conquests triumphed alongside the Wolves of Luna. Grey-armored warriors clashed alongside the cobalt-blue and gold of the Warmaster's War-Born Legion, and Alexios discerned an impulsive ache of regret that they no longer battled alongside Horus and his Legion of Wolves as he gazed at the scenes that bobbed and vibrated before him.
"It's only going to worsen," said Fabius, seeing Alexios' unease.

"Thanks," he shouted back. "I'm trying not to think of the wall of flak we have to fly through to reach this damn place."

Even though the roaring of the engines was muffled by his helmet's auto-senses, it was still deafening, even for demigods. The crack of explosions sounded dull and unthreatening beyond the Stormbird's armored walls, though he knew precisely how deadly they were.

"I don't like this," Alexios shouted. "I hate the surrender to the fates that come with being delivered to a warzone in a manner that's beyond my control.

"You say that every time," noted Fabius, "whether we go in by Stormbird, drop-pod, or Rhino. The only other way to this battle is to walk on water."

Alexios said, "And look what happened to our speartip on Atoll 19, the bird barely made it to the damned rock! Too many good men will die in this fire before earning their warrior's fate."

"Warrior's fate?" laughed Fabius, shaking his head. "Sometimes, I swear I ought to report you to Chaplain Charmosian with all your talk of fates and gods of battle. I don't like it any better than you, but we're as protected as possible, yes?"

Alexios nodded, knowing that Fabius was right. Understanding that the rest of the fleet had to share in honor of conquering Twenty-Eight Three, Lord Thaddeus permitted the fleet interceptors to launch several raids to knock out the worst of the Oceanids' air defenses.

"Besides, our Warmaster mentioned the planet's core isn't allowing teleportation through its naturally occurring defense field," Fabius explained.

"Yet he can turn a bolt round into a snowflake," countered Alexios.

"Purpose, my battle brother, our father has purposes for everything in his kingdom." Fabius smiled over at his Pride Commander.

Much of the Oceanids' defensive capacities had been rendered to rubble, though there was still a startling amount to endure. Alexios glanced down the length of the crew compartment to see what influence their fierce travels were having on his men, content to know that they appeared as favorable as though they were on an exercise mission.

His warriors might be calm, but he was not, and despite Fabius' consolations, he knew he wouldn't be satisfied until he was at least watching the pilots guide them in. Alexios was trained to fly a Stormbird and even had some time in the newer Thunderhawks, but he was the first to admit that he was only a fair pilot.

Others with more extraordinary mastery were to scramble them into battle, and since the Warmaster's plan required absolute, immaculate precision for this assault to work, he had preserved his apprehensions to himself until it was too late to do anything about them.

Alexios collided a palm into the restraint of his grav-harness and propelled himself to his feet, grasping the brass handrail that ran the length of the ceiling.

"I'm going to the flight deck," he declared.

"You going to fly us in?" questioned Fabius. "I feel more unassailable already."

"No, I just want to glimpse what's going on."

Fabius didn't respond, and Alexios turned towards the cockpit as the aircraft jolted in the air and felt the hammering of a nearby detonation. He made his way along the companionway and pulled open the door to the flight compartment.

"How long till we reach the landing zone?" Alexios shouted over the din.

The co-pilot spared him a glance and shouted, "Two minutes!"

Alexios nodded, apprehensive about speaking but not desiring to divert the pilots from their burdens. The twilight sky beyond the armored glass of the cockpit was illuminated as luminous as day with traceries of gunfire and flak, the fleet's interceptors dueling with the remaining airborne units of the Oceanids clear a path for the Legion's warriors. Alexios could notice a bright island of light hovering in the sky, the temple atoll like a beacon in the gloaming.

"Foolish," he said to himself. "I would have enforced a blackout."

The compartment was filled with an eerie red light, and Alexios suddenly thought of blood. He wondered if it was an omen for the battle to come, then shook off such a gloomy thought. Omens and portents were for weak minds that did not know the truth of Creation and wild barbarians who needed a reason for the sun to rise or the rains to fall.

Alexios was beyond such trifling superstitions, but he grinned as he recognized that his obsessive routine of modifying his battle gear and beseeching it to keep him safe before going into battle might be considered superstitious. No, he resolved, honoring your battle gear was just sensible, not superstitious.

He crouched down in the doorway, unwilling to return to his seat and perversely fascinated by the web of light and explosions painted on the sky. even as he watched the intricate ballet of fire into which they flew, a blazing light filled the cockpit as the Lion's Roar passed overhead, its more incredible speed meaning it would be amongst the first of the assault craft to reach the atoll.

Flames still trailed from its wings, and Alexios smiled, knowing it was no accident that the Warmaster had decreed that this attack should be launched at night. The flickering red glow of the flames was reflected in the crew's faces, and Alexios was once again seized by the certainty that something terrible was going to happen.

Not just to him, but to his entire Legion.

Alexios' gut tightened as the Stormbird suddenly veered to one side, and he heard the pilots swear. A thudding impact struck the side of the Stormbird, and Alexios felt a sickening lurch as the mighty craft dropped through the sky.

His mind filled with thoughts of the yawning abyss of the world sea below, remembering the battles he had fought beneath its empty darkness and having no wish to revisit that cold, subterranean world.

"Port engine's on fire!" shouted the pilot. "Increase power to the starboard engine."

"Stabilisers are gone! Compensating!"

"Cut off the fuel feeds from the wing and get us level!"

Alexios gripped the edge of the door as the Stormbird swung wildly to the side. The crew issued orders to one another and attempted to stabilize their flight. Emergency lights flashed across the command console, and Alexios could hear the warning klaxon of the altimeter. Though he could hear the strain in the pilots' voices, Alexios listened to their training and discipline through the emergency procedures with determined efficiency.

Eventually, the gunship leveled out, though angry lights still blinked, and the altimeter klaxon still sounded.

A palpable sense of relief filled the flight compartment, and Alexios began to ease his grip on the edge of the door, leaving grip marks behind.

"Well done, people," said the pilot, "we're still flying."

Barely a moment later, the entire left side of the Stormbird erupted in flames. The glass of the cockpit disintegrated, and flames boiled into the gunship. Alexios was hurled to the deck, and a seething wall of flame lit up the sky.

He felt the heat on his armor, but it could do him no harm, though scads of burning fuel dribbled from the plates of his legs and arms. The roaring of the wind filled his senses as the gunship spun, cold air roaring through the stricken Stormbird and howling in his ears.

Miraculously, the co-pilot was still alive, though his flesh was horribly scorched, and his skin was ablaze. Alexios understood nothing was to be done for him, and the wounded demigod's exclamations of misery mingled with the wind as they spiraled downwards to annihilation.

Alexios saw the black wall of the ocean rushing up to meet him, and cold, wet darkness swallowed him as the Stormbird smashed into the water.

Screaming from the coral towers filled the air, more strident than Ban remembered, and he was struck by the notion that the atoll was shrieking in anger. These alien warriors fought as hard as they had killed in this campaign. The last of the Oceanid defended this place, but if there was any desperation or fear in them, they didn't show it.

The Stormbird had barely touched down when Ban and Titus of the Warmaster's legendary Pride Guard had led the warriors of the First onto the atoll, the monstrously thick plates of their Terminator armor reflecting the firelight of battle.

The sound of screams and gunfire and explosions filled his senses, though his armor protected him from the worst of it. The War-Born spread out around him without any orders, and he knew that the same scene was being played out at thousands of other locations throughout the atoll.

Distant gunfire reached out to them, but what had carved through Mark IV plate barely scratched Terminator armor.

If only we had more these, this war would have been won long ago, thought Ban, but the general issue of Tactical Dreadnought armor had only just begun once more after the rebellion at one of the War-Born's war forges.

"Forward," ordered Ban, as his warriors fell into position behind him. The Terminators moved off in a phalanx, bolters and inbuilt heavy weapon systems ripping apart any Oceanid that stood in their way in a flurry of broken bodies and pulverized coral.

The forces of the 13th Legion had surrounded the temple like a closing fist and would now crush the last of its defenders.

Flames leaped skyward as strafing gunships sawed towers apart with high explosive shells and supported the ground troops. Heavier transports were inbound with armored units: Land Raiders, Predators, and Vindicators.

Heavy footfalls pounded through the battle, and Ban saw Ancient Televesmos smash through a wall of coral that served as a barricade to a group of Oceanid warriors armed with a high-powered energy weapon. A lance of green energy speared into the Telemon Dreadnought's sarcophagus, and Ban cried out as he saw the damage, but the mighty war machine shrugged off the impact. Televesmos picked up the nearest Oceanid warrior and broke it in two in his monstrous fists as gouts of yellow fire from his underslung weapon burned them from their cover.

Ban and his warriors finished the job, sending a hail of shells tearing through the burning corpses of the aliens.

"My thanks for your assistance," said the Dreadnought. "Though it was not needed."

Sudden orange light bathed the battlefield in a hellish glow as Lion's Roar screamed overhead, Thaddeus' attack ship taking him to the very heart of the battle, to the temple of the Oceanid.

"Come on, Titus!" shouted Ban exultantly. "We follow the Lion's Roar!"

On the southern spurs of the atoll, Rubrik Vairosean was finding things much more demanding than the captain of the First. Too many of his gunships had been shot down, and he knew he was dangerously below the strength the Warmaster had decreed necessary to seize his objectives. The Oceanids fought with a hitherto unseen ferocity, their slithering bodies coiling over one another as they rushed to engage his warriors.

A musky fog enveloped the far reaches of coral burrows, and Rubrik thought he detected a faint reddish tinge. Was this some form of gas weapon? If so, it was wasted against the assaulting Astartes, for their armor was proof against such primitive weapons.

The screaming of the towers was quieter in this part of the atoll, for which Rubrik was profounded grateful. How the Oceanid could live under such conditions, surrounded by an excess of noise and color, thankfully confounded him. Understanding the ways of the alien was a dark path he had no intention of following.

"Support squads forward!" Rubrik ordered. "We need to forge a path quickly. Our brothers depend on us, and I won't have the Thirteenth found wanting!"

Astartes carrying heavy weapons took up positions in the ruins of coral towers, and a heavy barrage snatched at the fog, the thumping of heavy-caliber shells formin ga dense roar in Rubrik's skull.

With suppressing fire laid down, he knew it was time to launch an assault while the enemies' heads were down. Though he disapproved of Alexios' reckless ways, sometimes you had no choice but to go up the center.

"Kollanus squad! Euidicus squad! Front and center!"

Ban smashed an Oceanid warrior to the ground, the energy field wreathing his massive gauntlet ripping through its silver armor and snapping its snake-like body virtually in two. Though the fighting had been burdensome, the protection offered by Terminator armor was prodigious, and Ban had reveled in the sensation of power it conferred. He and his Terminators were punching a hole clean through the defenses of the Oceanid, having only left a single warrior in the care of the Apothecaries. To walk through the fire unscathed was what it must be like to be their Warmaster, though he chided himself for such a ridiculous thought.

The Lion's Roar had touched down a kilometer ahead of them, but from the reports he heard over the vox, it sounded as though the resistance of the aliens guarding the temple was fierce. The warriors of the First were not fast, but their pace was relentless, and with the support of the Ancient Televesmos, they were able to push their way through without difficulty.

Indeed, it felt like the Oceanids resistance was melting away a little too quickly the closer they came to the atoll's center. The ground had become rockier and steeper, the perfect terrain to defend against an attacker, so why weren't the Oceanids using it?

"Titus, what does this feel like to you?" asked Ban, pausing as he clambered over the steep coral and tried to discern a way onwards. The slopes of coral reared above him in an impenetrable barrier, but the Oceanid ahead of them had somehow retreated, so there must be a way through.

"It feels like they aren't trying very hard to stop us," answered Titus. "I haven't fired my weapon in minutes."

"Exactly."

"Not that I'm complaining, though."

"There's something not right about this," said Ban. "It feels wrong."

"Then what are your orders, brother?"

The sound of the screaming towers had grown louder the closer they came to the center of the atoll, and Ban could see that the curving passages that wound their way upwards through the coral to their objective were growing narrower and narrower.

More suited to a being with a serpentine body, he realized.

The sounds of hissing, screaming, and the battle was close and melded into such a cacophony that he wondered why the Oceanid was not driven mad by them.

"The Lion's Roar has to be around here somewhere," said Ban. "Spread out and find a way through the coral. Our Warmaster needs us!"

The sounds of battle were like those described in old poems and tomes: hyperbolic works filled with florid descriptions of combat that were obviously penned by someone who had never seen a war.

Even amid the chaos of a battle, Ban was thinking of poetry and works of literature, and he resolved to keep a tighter rein on his thoughts. Perhaps Alexios was right, and he was spending too much time with the remembrancers.

"Brother!" shouted Titus. "Over here!"

Ban turned his attention to his battle brother, seeing he had found a previously concealed burrow hole that appeared to lead through the porous mass of coral. The passageway beyond was vast, though it would still be cramped for a warrior clad in Terminator armor, and Ban hoped that it led to their objective.

"Let's go, First," ordered Ban, setting off at the fastest pace his armor would allow.

Ban led his men along the darkened pathway through the coral, raising his bolter. Echoes of battle distorted weirdly through the passageway, and there was a glistening moistness to the tunnel that made Ban think they were crawling through the innards of some vast beast.

The unbidden thought suddenly worried him. Were the atolls of the Oceanid alive? Had anyone thought to check?

He pushed the thought from his mind as he realized it was too late to do anything about anyway, and he pressed onwards, guided by the sounds of fighting and the light of flames.

The tunnel narrowed, and Ban was forced to use the bulk of his armor and the energy of his power fist to break through into the interior of the atoll. Eventually, he saw a dark patch ahead crisscrossed by tracer fire, and he knew that they had found the exit. He just hoped it was where they were meant to be.

Ban emerged into the end of a wide valley of pink coral with a monstrous, twin-spired temple that penetrated the clouds at its furthest end. The valley's edge was fringed with hundreds of screaming, jagged spires that curved inwards so that the valley resembled a toothed wound in the coral.

Clouds of flying Oceanid warriors flocked around the temple's upper reaches, and in the center of the valley, Ban could see the heroic form of the Warmaster battling his way forwards with great sweeps of his ultra sword of golden sunlight, Wailing Sun. Thaddeus' eagle-winged helmet of starlight shone in the darkness exceedingly, and Ban felt enormous pride at the sight of his lord.

The crackling blades of the Victrix Guard, the Warmaster's second layer of defenders, the Pride Guard being the first, surrounded Thaddeus, their long halberds keeping the Oceanids at bay as they forged their way towards the temple at the far end of the valley. He could see the massive form of Brother Thestis at the Warmaster's side, holding the excellent Legion standard of the War-Born high. The eagle atop the pole blazed with a white gold light in the glow of the moon, and the crimson cloth of the banner rippled like silk in the wind.

The lord of the War-Born struck out at his foes with mighty strokes of his sunlight sword, each terrible blow slaying one of the Oceanid. None could stand against him and live, so when the traitorous thought arose that this fight was not going according to plan, it came like an assassin in the night.

The screams of the towers drowned out the screeches of the Oceanid, and Thaddeus relished in the moment of this frenetic battlefield. His Victrix Guard fought like the heroes they were, golden blades killing anything that dared come within range of their deadly halberds, and brave Thestis valiantly held the Legion standard high, chopping apart any enemies that came near him with his long blade. All around them, Oceanid were dying, cut down by deadly sword strikes or gunned down by disciplined, precisely aimed bolter fire. A strange pink musk drifted across the battlefield and clung to his ankles, its scent fragrant and not at all unpleasant.

He had never before experienced such a riot of color and noise, and what purpose it served, he could not fathom. The rearing temple appeared to be the center of the cacophony. Tears in its fabric, like windows, were the source of the loudest screaming, and from them, more of the pink musk seeped into the air. The structure was perhaps three hundred meters in front of him, but without more of his warriors, he saw that it might as well have been three hundred light-years.

Another treacherous thought came to him as his sword clove an Oceanid warrior from head to tail that perhaps they had been drawn into this hellish valley deliberately. The pink coral of its walls and the jagged spires that lined the ridges of its summit reminded him of a plant he had seen in the humid swamps of Twenty-Eight Two that feasted on the incredible buzzing insects of the jungles by luring them into its leafy jaws before snapping shut and digesting them.

He scanned the valley's slopes for any sign of his battle companies. He punched the air as he saw Ban and the warriors of the First fighting their way through the press of slithering, screeching Oceanid warriors towards him. Only the warriors who had accompanied him on the Lion's Roar fought with him, and though they fought bravely, they were being dragged down one by one, and such a rate of attrition could have only one outcome.

Terminator armor gave each warrior the strength and power of a mighty battle tank on top of their already inhuman demigod vitality. This made the Warmaster grin with pride to see them now.

"See now the mighty First!" shouted Thaddeus. "Push on my sons, push on!"

Brother Thestis surfed forward, holding the Legion standard with one hand and cutting his way through the Oceanid with his sword. Thaddeus leaped to join him, protecting his faithful standard bearer's flank as the Victrix Guard rallied to the banner.

"Follow our Lion King!" Ban shouted behind him, and Thaddeus laughed with the sheer joy and artistry of the fighting as the warriors of the First smashed into the Oceanid. Apothecary Mervium had said that the Oceanid was chemically modified to move towards perfection, but they were a poor shadow of perfection embodied by his Legion.

As he punched his fist through an Oceanid warrior's skull, Thaddeus tried to imagine what heights he and his warriors could scale to embark on a similar path and how proud his father would be when he saw wonders and marvels had wrought.

A hissing Oceanid warrior hacked its weapon into the shoulder guard of his sunlight armor; the blade turned to liquid while the Warmaster blasted a heated gaze of golden eye beams down at the poor warrior. Its body was whisked away, ashes dancing among the winds of war.

The demiurge forced himself to concentrate on the fighting and not the glories the future held, seeing that more of his warriors were pushing into the valley through burrow holes in the coral. He frowned at the lateness, for his plan had called for an overwhelming strike delivered to this temple in perfect concert. Somewhere things had gone awry, and many of his warriors had been delayed. The sudden thought troubled him greatly, and his mood darkened.

As more and more of the 13th Legion poured into the valley, Thaddeus and the Legion banner pushed deeper into the frenzied ranks of the Oceanid, the temple now tantalizingly close. A flaring sheet of green fire shot out, and Thaddeus happily accepted it. His sunshine armor kept the green flames away, but he could still feel the weapon's heat. Thaddeus shrugged off the insult that had caught him and turned to face a threat. The Victrix Guard had already slaughtered his attacker.

"The banner falls!" shouted a voice, and Thaddeus saw Brother Thestis on his knees, his body a flaming statue, as the deadly alien fire consumed him. The Legion standard slipped from Thestis's dead hand and toppled towards the ground, the cloth of the banner blazing where it had caught light.

Thaddeus leaped towards Thestis and snatched up the banner before it landed, raising it high with one hand so that all the Legion might see that it still flew. Fire rippled across the fabric, destroying what a hundred weeping women had created for the beautiful Warmaster of the 13th Legion in its unthinking hunger. The eagle's claw heraldry emblazoned upon the banner vanished in flames, and Thaddeus felt his fury rise at the fresh insult to his honor. Burning scraps of cloth fluttered around him, but he saw that the eagle atop the banner pole remained untouched by the fire, as though some greater power protected it from harm.

"The eagle still flies!" Thaddeus roared over the noises of war. "The eagle will never fall!"

With more and more War-Born forces pushing into the valley, there could be no stopping their advance, and they slashed through the alien warriors that stood between them and the yawning cave mouth of the temple.

"We have them now, my children!" shouted Thaddeus.

Holding the shining eagle banner in one hand and his sword of sunlight in the other, Thaddeus fought his way into the temple of the Oceanid.

Wild murals covered every centimeter of the walls, and Ban stiffened as he saw that hundreds of the Oceanid writhing on the chamber's floor, the horrid, dry susurration of their bodies the most hideous sound imaginable.

A teleport flare and the hypersonic clap of air displacement alerted Ban. It was Alexios.

"The planet has given access to teleportation, no answer as to why," Alexios said as he strode forward to lock arms with his battle brother. Fabius was behind him.

"Yes, and do omit to brief our fellow brother that we managed to crash," Fabius waved a golden armored hand at Ban.

"We can differ that later," Ban sounded. "look around you."

The serpentine bodies were hideously intertwined in what looked like some form of grotesque sexual congress.

Clearly, whatever power had driven the Oceanids defending the temple into a manic frenzy did not extend to those within it. They sprawled in languorous repose, their glistening, multi-hued bodies pierced in the same manner as the statues, and their sluggish movements suggesting the effects of a powerful narcotic.

"What are they doing?" asked Ban over the din. "Are they dying?"

If they are, then it seems to be a very pleasurable death," said Thaddeus, his golden eyes fixed hungrily on something in the chamber's center. Ban followed his gaze, seeing that the slithering Oceanids surrounded a circular block of veined blacks tone, embedded within which was a tall sword with a gently curved blade.

The grip was lengthy and silver, its surface patterned like the scales of a serpent, and its pommel was set with a winking purple stone that hurled off spectacular reflections.

"They were safeguarding this," voiced Thaddeus, sounding far away and faded to the Pride Guard. Their eyes stung with the smoke, and they could sense the beginnings of a powerful headache as the bluster and glare persisted in assailing at their demigod senses.

"No," whispered Alexios, understanding, but not knowing how he understood, that the Oceanid had not submitted glory in this temple but had been in thrall to it. "This is not a place of glorification; it is a place of supremacy."

Still holding the eagle-topped banner pole, Thaddeus walked into the mass of writhing Oceanid. His Pride Guard and Victrix Guard pushed to follow him, but Thaddeus harbored them back. Alexios endeavored to cry out to his Warmaster, his gene-sire, that something was highly wrong here, but the aromatic haze seemed to rush to fill his lungs, and he could not draw breath to roar as a discordant whisperer hissed in his ear.

"Let him take me, Alexios."

As soon as they were uttered, the words slipped from his mind, and he discerned a bizarre numbness suffusing him, his fingers pricking pleasantly as he tended Thaddeus parade through the sprawled Oceanid.

With every measure the King of Kings took, the Oceanid parted before him, clearing a pathway towards the block of stone, and as he reached the sword, Alexios recalled Thaddeus' words as they penetrated the temple: There is power here.

Alexios could feel exhilaration in the atmosphere, a drag on the wind that howled around the temple's interior, a throbbing in the living walls and... and... the cry of release as a blade slices open an eyeball, the caress of silk across bare skin, the exclamation torn from the mouth of transgressed flesh and the ecstasy of agony as it takes pleasure in its own mutilation.

The Ebony Lion cried out as sensations of horror and ecstasy filled his head, a peal of delirious laughter echoing through the chamber, though none he appeared to hear it. He looked up from the agony to see the Lord of the Stars fingers slip easily around the sword's handle. Alexios felt a tremor run through the temple, a shudder of release and fulfillment, as he watched Thaddeus draw the blade from the block of stone. Like the ancient winds of the emptiest deserts, a sigh filled the chamber.

The Primarch of the War-Born, the Warmaster of the Imperium, marveled at the sword blade, a spectral glimmer thrown across his almond-shaded features by the dancing lights that filled the chamber. The Oceanid still writhed on the ground, their bodies undulating obscenely as the colossal Warmaster lifted the burned banner pole high and drove it into the stone he had just drawn the sword from.

The eagle caught the light and threw off hundreds of fractured reflections from its wings, and to Alexios, the sight was hideous, the light making the eagle appear to twist and write in pain.

"My dear boy, Demiurge of the First Firmament, you've come to one of your father's forgotten voids."

Thaddeus listened to the voice that penetrated his mind.

"Lifting me from the stone, you'll forever bear the burden of the Flame of Humanity, the darkest, truest form of fire that resides in all of Mankind."

"And who decided I would burden by it?"

"..."

"Exactly, your curse will turn into my blessing, using what extinguishes the light of Humanity, I will use it against that assails them," Thaddeus uttered through clenched teeth as he held the weight of infinity within his hold before finally gasping for a genuine breath as the weight vanished and all that was left behind was the weight of the sword.

"Very well then, Thaddeus, Demiurge of Creation, and Son of Sun. My curse is yours to use as you please. I, Flame of Humanity, pledge myself to you."

Thaddeus spun the sword in his grasp, straining it for equilibrium, and he grinned as he radiated his smoldering gaze out over the hundreds of Oceanid sprawled around him.

"Destroy them all," he ordered. "Leave none alive."