[center][h1][u][b]Ursh: The Frenzy[/b][/u][/h1][/center] [hr] The battle was over. The dying embers of Ursh’s ambition lingered as smoldering skirmishes across Mosvoroth. Torn reality had been reknit, closing wounds that threatened to unleash unfathomable wyrd. What remained of the blood haze dispersed like morning fog. An acrid scent remained, yet only the stench of blood and promethium was present. The taint that the Urshites had known for untold generations was vanquished with the Raptor flying high above Kalagann’s ruined citadel. Aeternus flicked his misericordia – a gift from Amalasuntha – free of tainted blood. The last vestiges of wyrd had been stolen from his vityaz opponents, enfeebling their form back to what a mortal’s rightful strength. Their clouded judgement would not save them from his blade, nor the weapons of His golden companions. Aristagoras, the Emperor’s Second Spear, kicked away the defeated Urshites and parted a path for his mortal charges. The rest of the Custodes prepared for the departure of their Master. He descended the fractured stairway before the Emperor returned, unable to face his liege in failure. He had not died in this battle. His future was now uncertain. A courtyard greeted him at the bottom of the citadel’s stairs. None of the flesh amalgamations or horrors of the wyrd remained to witness. Only the carcasses of slaves to darkness, loyal auxilia, and genecrafted giants silently waited. He was certain that they died in the chaos, sacrifices to allow their greater tainted kin to pursue the Emperor. Their struggle had been pointless. Just as his own had been in pursuit of his demise. The voxnet crackled to life with renewed vigor. Battle reports flited through the haze of Ursh’s aftermath. He wasn’t surprised to learn that millions had died on both sides. Kalagann had bled his own people of their vitae, spilling their sacrifice into the wyrd for momentary power. The cost for his ambition was immeasurable. It paralleled the Master of the Line’s desire for Unity. His auspex pulsed awake, reporting sensory data around him as unreality made way for clarity. He could see the various Cataegis squads moving in the nearby theater. The Primarch had started to tune the radius with a blink when the vox spoke to him. +’[i]Brother[/i],’+ the voice whispered to him. It was hoarse, deep and teetered on the edge of sanity. The voice slowly panted, drawing in air as if his lung had been punctured with a knife. The unmistakable drip of bloodlust clung to their words. They were a Thunder Warrior. One that had waged war for longer than any other of his retinue. One that had barely held himself together from the beginning. +’[i]Nero[/i],’+ Aeternus replied. There was no tender, familiar love in the reply. Only the sharp, somber words of a God-Slayer. He narrowed his eyes in frustration, threatening to boil over into anger. ‘One last death’ He thought to himself as Nero panted into the vox. +’I need help, Rex,’ the Praetor stated. His voice was disingenuous, filled with the desire for murder and carnage. Aeternus knew that he was being baited. He knew that the Thunder Warrior had likely slain something that he shouldn’t. Rex knew that he was going to answer the call regardless. +’Send me your position,’+ the Primarch of the God-Slayers ordered. There was no lion’s roar to blast his Praetor’s eardrums, yet his voice was the dull rumble of a resigned beast. He tightened his grip on the misericordia, sheathing it into Amalasuntha’s scabbard as his auspex began to ping. +’I am here,’+ Nero grunted with effort. Aeternus heard the Thunder Warrior’s chainaxe spool to life and the tearing of armored meat. A crunch followed the noise as the Cataegis found his prize. The Primarch doubted that Nero left anything alive at his location. Regardless, he followed the pulse that Praetor sent out as coordinates displayed over his helmet’s lenses. Nero had found himself in a plaza away from the heat of the battle. The First Primarch hefted Apocrypha against his right pauldron, quickening his pace away from the ruins of Kalagann’s Citadel. None followed him down the thoroughfare to his location. Mortals parted away and Cataegis tended to their own wounds. Outlying Custodes in shimmering auramite casually hurried past him to the heart of Ursh. He left as a brilliant light had begun to pour out of the ruins. A light that he would never see again for as long as he lived. Nero’s destination was close. Aeternus weaved through several alleyways, some blocked entirely by the destruction wrought upon Mosvoroth. An impossible quantity of carcasses filled the path, each as mangled as the last. Most were the slaughtered remains of Urshite slave-soldiers. Others were the desecrated cadavers of auxilia. Occasionally, Rex spotted the burnt husk of a wyrd-creatures locked in death with one of His warmachines. He passed them as Imperial workcrews began to filter in from the outskirts, eager to cleanse Ursh of it’s fallen worth. Several minutes elapsed before the plaza came into view. It was a small, outdoor area enclosed by several habzones. Countless statues of Ursh’s past rose like death-defying giants across the area. Each edifice was as painstakingly sculpted as the last, yet it was not their pristine features that drew his attention. It was the lone Thunder Warrior standing in the center of a gorefest. Dozens of Astartes in black and yellow lay in various states of mutilation. Heads were decapitated, limbs were maimed, and bodies were torn open to reveal the meat beneath. They were precisely killed by one man, but all of them were defiled afterwards with a chainaxe. The culprit was clear. “They aren’t like us, Aeternus,” the Thunder Warrior began to speak as the Primarch arrived. He turned towards Rex with a chainaxe in each hand. Nero had eschewed his gauntlets, pauldrons, and helmet. Vitae from his kills painted his exposed flesh and dark armor in a dull red, detailing it further with small clumps of meat. His horrifically scarred features stared at him. A bald head with skin as thick as leather and augments as plentiful as a technobarbarian. He appeared as the very enemies they had originally been created to slay. “They are not. They are our future. Created without the flaw and born to fight the wars we cannot fight,” Aeternus replied. Apocrypha fell from his pauldron, casually swinging downward in preparation. The Primarch made no move to pull free the misericordia from it’s sheath. “You defend them? Even now as the last of us die for Unity? Do you truly love them more than us, brother?” Nero asked with a mixed tone. He pleaded for the Primarch to answer him and cursed him in the same breath for abandoning them. His chainaxes revved in anticipation. Rex witnessed combat cocktail filtered through his veins in real-time. “They are to be what we could never become,” Aeternus responded as Apocrypha activated. A crimson corona coated the weapon, washing the plaza in a red light and ionizing the air. He stepped closer to the warrior he once knew as his closest friend. He no longer recognized the man that stood before him. Only a murderer remained, unchained and unbound by the flaw that consumed them. “He’s betrayed us. The Emperor has abandoned us! We will never see Unity! We will never know peace!” Nero screamed out in frothing anger. The Thunder Warrior lunged at him with a fury known to their legion. It mirrored the moment that Caligula lost his mind. This differed heavily from that time. Aeternus was ready for him. The First Primarch effortlessly sidestepped the attack in his Tyrant plate, allowing the Thunder Warrior to fall past him. Paired chainaxes cut into the ground, digging up masonic tile and dirt alike. Nero was already spinning around to continue his assault when Aeternus fell upon him. His left fist connected with the Praetor’s skull at a speed thought unimaginable for a Cataegis. The geneknight was forced backwards by the attack, gritting his teeth through the pain as Rex advanced. “[b]Traitor![/b]” Nero cried out in desperate anger. What remained of the warrior that had crusaded across Terra was gone. He had used whatever was left, murdering countless Astartes and saved none of his former prowess for the Primarch. It was an insult and a blessing. A cruelty visited upon him by fate. Praetor Nero jumped at him with both of his chainaxes raised. Aeternus did not hesitate to take the attack head-on, letting the weapons crash against him. The warsuit failed to register the attack, negating damage that would tear through standard ceramite. Rex’s helmet stared at the warrior. A point in time existed where the Thunder Warrior would’ve realized his foolish mistake. The Primarch reached out and grabbed Nero by his gorget, then drove his heavily clad knee into his stomach. The attack was immediately felt as his axes fell away. The Cataegis doubled over, wincing in obvious pain. “I’m sorry, Nero,” the God-Slayer apologized as the Praetor looked up at him. A flicker of recognition crossed his cloudy eyes and tears began to fall. Aeternus saw a mirrored image of golden light spilling out of Kalagann’s citadel. He gripped Apocrypha tight and raised it for an executioner’s strike. “[b]I will cherish your memory forever, Victorius,[/b]" the Primarch solemnly said. His hearts pounded against his ribcage and he felt a spike of regret start to fill his limbs. He pushed it down as he did with every single brother and sister that had passed on. A part of him didn’t have the strength to kill his friend. A part of him wanted to offer the warrior peace. A final part of him wanted to fulfill his duty. His mind screamed for relief. Apocrypha slashed sideways at breakneck speed, decapitating Praetor Victorius Nero of the First Legio Cataegis. The crimson edge of the greatsword split the neck, ionizing the flesh and bringing the warrior’s life to a quick end. An aftershock of conductive force saw a burst of air generate past the slash. His arms screamed in pain as the muscles nearly tore to perform the slice. It was the only peace that Aeternus could give to his dying friend. Rex thumbed the activation rune on Apocrypha’s hilt, commanding the crimson corona to disappear. He rested the blade against his pauldron and leant down to retrieve Nero’s decapitated corpse. The warrior felt weightless as he pulled him up by the gorget, now tinged with his greatsword’s plasmic edge. To him, it brought a small amount of peace to the task. Another soul, burdened with the flaw, given relief at last. His gauntlet tightened on the gorget as he marched out of Mosvoroth. The voxnet was already abuzz with the sound of their next destination. Mount Ararat.