"The old debt of Twisted-Horn Mors—I shall claim it back in full today!"
Lion tightened his grip on the Spear of Dionysus. Meeting Russ's gaze, his tone carried an unyielding resolve that admitted no refusal: "I must avenge my Legion!"
As the long spear left his hands, Russ felt no anger, merely casting a glance at the golden shaft. A few seconds passed without the Spear of Dionysus returning to his grip, and he understood the Emperor's unspoken intent—the Emperor required an executioner, but as to who actually wielded the blade, He cared very little.
The usual wild grin returned to Russ's face. Baring his teeth, he spread his hands in a magnanimous gesture: "Then let it be you."
He raised a hand, pointing toward the barrier overhead: "Outsiders cannot see through."
Lion nodded with solemn gravity, tightening his hold on the Spear of Dionysus. He would serve as the executioner, purging a stain the Emperor could not tolerate within this secluded domain.
With the executioner determined, the group naturally quickened their pace.
With someone stepping forward to take the burden, Russ looked entirely relaxed. He walked beside Blazkowicz, slinging an arm over his shoulders, his brow light with a casual smile. Lion offered no further words along the way, casually executing a few flourishes with the Spear of Dionysus to adapt to its balance.
A distance of twenty kilometers was negligible for Primarchs.
The shattered defensive forces along their path were casually swept aside, utterly incapable of slowing the eight genetic sons. In truth, even if the enemy's unit structures had been intact, the Rangdan garrisons' defenses would still have been paper-thin before eight Primarchs taking to the field in person.
Reaching the end of the central avenue, the plaza before the command post came into view.
It lay deathly quiet, the Rangdan forces having fled further away. Only a tall, slender black silhouette stood motionless at the center of the plaza.
He possessed neither flesh, nor bones, nor facial features, holding a dragon-coiled war-staff as he awaited the arrival of the Emperor's judgment.
As his Primarch brothers drew near, Solas raised a hand in greeting: "Long time no see."
There was no hatred in his words—in fact, there was a trace of quiet joy. The proud bearing of his blood brothers moved him. Tempered through the crucible of war, they had grown even more composed and mature, clad in gleaming armor and standing with noble, imposing stature.
Solas nodded to Blazkowicz, noting his brother was dressed in a jet-black robe, realizing Blazkowicz had donned it to see him off. This small gesture of courtesy filled his heart with quiet gratitude.
The procession halted. Dorn cast a single glance at the dark shadow before turning his head away, walking toward the perimeter of the plaza without a word, quietly assuming guard duty.
Guilliman's eyes held a complex swirl of emotions that ultimately dissolved into a sigh. Offering a farewell gesture of Macragge honor to his renegade brother, he followed in Dorn's footsteps.
Vulkan gave a light wave of his hand, performing a Nocturnean parting gesture, sighing and shaking his head as he strode toward the far side of the plaza. Alongside him, Ferrus picked up his pace to keep step; the two smiths walked shoulder to shoulder in low conversation, not casting another glance at the black silhouette.
Blazkowicz turned aside, leading Russ and Selene to sit down on a flight of stone steps.
Unwilling to sit properly, Russ crouched on the steps, fishing a pinch of Fenrisian tobacco from a pouch at his waist. Pop-jawing it in his mouth, he fumbled around his armor for a flame. A wisp of silver fire drifted down before him. Russ glanced sideways, catching the silent movement of Selene's lips: Don't mention it.
Ignited, the dry kelp tobacco flared up. Russ pulled a deep breath into his lungs and exhaled several murky green smoke rings, his golden feral eyes piercing through the haze to lock onto his brother's advancing back.
Holding the Spear of Dionysus in hand, Lion lightly discarded his golden kite shield—in a duel involving long polearms, a shield was an encumbrance. He strode forward toward the black silhouette.
"Is it you?" Solas tightened his grip, activating the disruption field along his dragon-coiled war-staff. "I assumed it would be Blazkowicz, or perhaps Russ."
"Does this exceed your expectations?" Lion's eyes turned razor-sharp as he locked into a combat stance.
"It is indeed unexpected," Solas took large strides toward Lion, dragging his war-staff along the deck as stone pavers cracked and shattered underfoot. "Blazkowicz would have granted me a swift end, while Russ is the loyal executioner the Emperor requires."
Lion remained silent. Solas's keenness was uncanny.
On the way here, Blazkowicz had indeed offered to perform the act himself, while Russ had been personally tasked by the Emperor.
"It seems I guessed correctly?" Silence served as confirmation, yet the hollow voice betrayed not a hint of surprise.
Still silence. Lion spoke no more, sinking his posture as the Lion prepared to strike!
Suddenly!
Both figures vanished from the center of the plaza simultaneously. In the very next split second, a violent clash of metal echoed out.
BANG—!
As staff and spear collided, a massive shockwave exploded outward, shattering the stone pavers beneath their feet and sending spiderweb cracks radiating hundreds of meters across the ground.
Lion made no attempt to conceal his killing intent, fine red veins creeping across his eyes. He raised the spear for vengeance—the First Legion had nearly been wiped out in Solas's trap. Today, debts would be settled and grudges satisfied, the final reckoning at hand.
He held nothing back, launching a relentless assault where every strike aimed for a lethal blow. The Spear of Dionysus behaved like a golden dragon, impossibly nimble as it darted toward his opponent's vulnerabilities.
Solas's hands grew numb, feeling a biting chill weave its way up his arms. From none of his other brothers—not even Alpharius, whom he had sparred with—had he ever felt such pure, unadulterated intent to kill, laden with a thirst for vengeance that stabbed straight into his heart.
Faced with this lethal aggression, Solas snapped to absolute alertness. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the blur of an armored leg driving straight toward his lower abdomen. He pulled back cleanly to dodge, caught entirely off guard by Lion employing such underhanded tactics.
"Hmph!"
Lion let out a cold grunt. Sweeping a leg low as he squatted, he kicked up a cloud of shattered stone and grit directly into Solas's face.
Though lacking eyes or sensory organs on his head, Solas still instinctively brought up his defense, spinning the dragon-coiled war-staff to deflect the supersonic debris with a cascade of sharp clangs.
Seizing the opening, Lion brought his long spear down to pin the spinning staff, then drove his armored boot forward with another kick!
A muffled groan escaped Solas as his midsection buckled outward. Like a cannonball cutting through the air, he crashed hard into the base of the plaza's central monument.
A dead silence fell over the perimeter of the plaza. The Primarchs watched Lion with a subtle, complex look of astonishment in their eyes. They had never anticipated that the Emperor's Firstborn would fight with complete disregard for honor or fair play in a duel.
Lion paid no mind to their surprised glances. Leaping into the air to pursue his advantage, his golden spear thrust out in a rapid blur, driving deep into the rubble beneath the shattered monument.
Once the Lion identified an enemy, he showed zero mercy!
His upbringing on Caliban had taught him that in battle, every method was acceptable so long as it secured victory.
Following a flurry of lightning-fast thrusts, the tip of the Spear of Dionysus came away stained with a trail of dark blood. Yet rather than pressing the attack, Lion immediately leapt backward. His beastly instincts were sounding an alarm—a wounded prey would always strike back with desperate fury.
Sure enough, Solas blasted through the pile of rubble, swinging his war-staff in a crushing arc toward the direction the spear thrusts had come from. Yet he found Lion already standing ten meters away, his blow crashing into the deck and gouging out a crater.
"WHY THE BETRAYAL?!" The Lion let out a soul-shaking roar, his deep voice scattering the dust clouds.
He gave Solas no time to answer. Using a query directed straight at the core of his being to shake his opponent's resolve, he equally refused to afford him a chance to defend his actions. This was Lion's style—employing every conceivable measure to assault his foe simultaneously on both a physical and psychological level.
Putting his full strength into bringing the Spear of Dionysus down in a brutal overhead strike, the air shrieked in agony under the crushing pressure.
Solas was thrown into disarray, raising his war-staff horizontally with both hands to block the earth-shattering blow.
BOOM—!
A thunderclap echoed through the air, the violent sonic boom powerful enough to shatter a mortal frame. A visible ring of shockwaves swept across the entire plaza.
Lion's eyes were wide and bloodshot, his gauntlets cracked and his palms torn open and bleeding, yet his hands held the golden shaft down with a vice-like grip.
The ground before him caved inward. Solas knelt on one knee beneath the crushing weight, his war-staff bending under the strain as droplets of dark blood erupted from his arms and legs.
Blazkowicz and Russ stood up in an instant as glances crossed around the perimeter of the plaza. Everyone present knew the duel was nearing its conclusion.
Compared to the god-like grand strategic genius he had displayed in the wider war, Solas's personal combat prowess was far from exceptional—in fact, it leaned toward the bottom tier among his kin. Having lost the offensive momentum, he was entirely overwhelmed by Lion's ruthless, relentless assault, forced into a total disadvantage.
"I—"
"ANSWER ME!" A tyrannical roar cut off the response. Lion's style of combat was utterly merciless as he drove a heavy boot straight into Solas's chest.
Sonic booms thundered continuously as a weak arc of jet-black blood sprayed through the air. Solas dragged a crimson streak along the ground before slamming once more into the base of the monument.
The stone foundation crumbled into flying debris. As black blood splattered from behind his dark frame, the silhouette forced itself back up to its feet.
A flash of golden light filled his vision. Solas brought his bent war-staff up to parry once more, but in his haste, his grip slipped—and the dragon-coiled war-staff was knocked clean out of his hands!
Lion had disarmed him with a full-moon horizontal sweep.
Without pausing, leveraging the momentum of the full rotation, Lion braced the spear shaft and slammed the butt of the weapon violently into the left side of Solas's face, the crack of fracturing bone ringing out with sickening clarity.
Once again, Solas was sent spinning through the air, tumbling repeatedly across the deck to bleed off the kinetic force as he tried desperately to regain his balance.
"The reason for... the betrayal..."
Solas pushed himself up from the ground, coughing up black blood, his hollow voice completely distorted as he tried to offer an explanation.
"I DO NOT CARE!" Lion was already upon him again, an armored boot expanding in Solas's vision until it slammed straight into his face!
His frame tumbled like a broken ragdoll, leaving a trail of dark blood wherever it rolled, before Solas staggered up once more.
The golden spear pierced straight through his shoulder. Lion hoisted his renegade brother high into the air, then brought the shaft down with crushing force, slamming Solas back onto the hard deck!