The Savior's fortress-engine has already reached the outer perimeter of the daemon palace. You should go out and meet the enemy."
The captain of the Emperor's Children knelt on one knee and reported.
Because of the warp rites, countless pockets of space had overlapped with the planet, and Fulgrim's palace had been projected directly onto the surface.
"The hypocrite has finally stepped into the battlefield I chose for him. I doubt he has any idea that this is a foreordained ending."
Fulgrim drained the last sip of blood-wine, rose from the throne, and fastened the venom-laden silver serpent rapier to his waist.
He descended the steps. Behind him, innumerable tendrils shrank and wove themselves into a twisted mantle of flesh.
The Fallen Phoenix had finally waited long enough.
It was time for him to march out.
The Savior believed that using a fortress-engine to launch a sudden assault was some sort of masterstroke.
In truth, that move had long been anticipated.
He could not escape the inevitability of fate.
Every struggle was meaningless, every step only leading him closer to his own tragedy.
For that battlefield was already seeded with traps prepared in concert by the Prince of Pleasure and the Changer of Ways: nine overlapping arrays of sorcerous mist.
Now, the Savior had appeared on the edge of the battlefield within the pre-ordained nine hours.
In the ninety-ninth second of the ninth minute, he would step squarely onto the trap and fall into an irredeemable defeat.
"The hypocrite's opponent will be me, and only me, the one who will cast him down.
The galaxy will witness this unique and perfect duel."
Such were Fulgrim's thoughts.
The Savior was not the most skilled warrior among the Primarchs.
In terms of pure technique, he was pitifully weak, relying only on the might of his warp-nature and the faith-power granted by that skeleton.
All his previous victories had been achieved by leveraging those powers to crush his enemies.
Strip away the warp-nature and the power of belief, and purely on technique he could not defeat any Primarch.
Especially not Fulgrim.
The Phoenician fancied himself one of the mightiest of all Primarchs.
So long as he prepared the battlefield, he could defeat any of his brothers.
He had taken the head of the Tenth Primarch, Ferrus Manus,
overcome and absorbed the warp-nature of the Fourth, Perturabo,
and brought low the Thirteenth, Roboute Guilliman.
These feats were proof enough.
Now it was the hypocrite Savior's turn.
Once the Savior stepped onto the trap and his warp-nature and faith-power transmission were suppressed, he would tumble into the perfect stage the Phoenix had set.
A hell of ecstatic torment.
That man would suffer beating after beating, humiliation after humiliation, displayed to the world in the most pathetic, disgraceful state, his dignity completely annihilated.
After that exquisitely entertaining spectacle of shame, the perfect Phoenix would make his grand appearance, challenge him, and drive the ordeal to its climax.
In the end, he would hoist the Savior's severed head aloft and take his final bow amidst unmatched glory.
"Ah, what a flawless performance it will be. The audience will be beside themselves, even the Gods will come to watch."
Fulgrim was thrilled at the thought, already eager to drive the venom-slick blade into the Savior's neck.
To savor, one by one, each of that man's moments of agony and disgrace.
He would strip the hypocrite of his armor, destroy that counterfeit face,
and make him die in the ugliest manner possible.
Nor would it end there. In full view of all, he would use the special relic, the Margata Stone, to draw out the man's power.
He would strip the soul of its warp-nature, reducing him to a lowly being without any empyrean essence at all.
"Now… the curtain rises."
The Fallen Phoenix's smile twisted with malice. With a flick of his flesh-cloak, he stepped into the sorcerous array and vanished from the great hall.
A short time earlier.
The outer perimeter of the daemon palace.
The region where the warp overlapped Kalisde turned out to be far larger than expected, stretching for hundreds of kilometers.
Within it, one could faintly make out decaying mountain ranges and garden-like stretches of soil.
The Redemption Expeditionary Fleet had dropped a mass of armored forces into this region to stem the steady tide of daemons.
And the number of armored units was still increasing. Their ultimate objective was to push the line forward,