"Decimation!"
The Primarch's very first command plunged the parade ground into absolute deathly silence; even the blowing dust and sand froze mid-air.
The Legion warriors stood frozen where they were, holding their breath as they stared up at the giant atop the high platform in utter disbelief.
Decimation!
As Space Marines who had thoroughly studied strategic texts and mastered tactical principles, how could they not know the meaning of this horrific punishment?
Originating from the military of ancient Terran Rome, it was an extraordinarily ruthless extreme penalty used to punish an entire legion that had committed severe transgressions.
Only a single question burned in the minds of the Legion warriors: Had their Legion truly failed? Why was their Primarch subjecting the entire Fourth Legion to such punishment?
Behind the genetic Primarch, the Legion Master snapped back from his shock. An icy chill ran straight down his spine as he stepped forward with trembling limbs, desperate to query his Primarch.
Perturabo raised a hand without turning his head, cutting off his gene-son's attempt to question him.
A genetic Primarch disciplining his own Legion required no justification whatsoever. Yet, he was willing to offer a reason so that his Legion would accept this bitter retribution.
"You have disappointed me beyond measure!"
Atop the high platform, the Primarch's muffled reprimand erupted with scorching rage, searing into the souls of his Space Marines: "Weakness! Stupidity! You have brought shame upon my bloodline!"
"Endowed with superhuman bodies crafted by the Emperor, your contributions throughout the glorious Great Crusade have yielded a pathetically sluggish pace of conquest!"
"You have betrayed the power inherited from my flesh, and worse, you have betrayed the profound trust placed in you by the Emperor!"
Overlooking the silent square where only dust and wind rustled, Perturabo demanded of his Legion: "Are these reasons enough?"
"You have only one choice."
Perturabo raised his hand, his index finger slowly sweeping across the formation from left to right, his voice abruptly rising into a thunderous bellow: "Atonement!"
"Atonement for your cowardice! Atonement for your failure!"
"Strip off your armor! Bare-knuckled! Strikes to the head and throat are strictly forbidden. Caster away the weakest dross within this Legion, and forge what remains into true steel!"
"Iron Warriors!" Perturabo's roar dispelled the blowing dust, proclaiming a name that echoed deafeningly across the plaza: "Purge the weakness from your hearts and from this Legion! From this day forth, you are Iron Warriors—iron without, iron within!"
---
The dust and wind blew on, yet the suffocating dead silence across the parade ground remained unbearable.
The hearts of the Legion warriors trembled. Eyes filled with deep sorrow, they looked left and right at the brothers with whom they had once stood shoulder to shoulder in battle.
The innate instinct of genetic submission left them unable to defy their Primarch's command. No matter how repulsed they felt inside, they would ultimately carry out this ruthless sentence.
Perturabo turned to face the Legion high command, his eyes devoid of grief or joy, consumed entirely by the cold logic of making his army strong: "The same applies to all of you. Purge your weakness through decimation."
"The entire Fourth Legion requires a thorough cleansing to tear away weakness from top to bottom."
Facing their Primarch's brutal sentence, the faces of the Legion high command turned completely drained of color. Their hanging hands repeatedly clenched and unclenched as an agonizing struggle raged in their hearts.
If they obeyed their Primarch's command, one-tenth of their battle-brothers in the Legion would die beneath the fists and boots of their own kin.
If they refused the decimation, the Legion would face the unbridled fury of their Primarch, bringing down an even more devastating sentence of absolute annihilation.
Perturabo offered not another word, standing by with cold eyes as he waited for his gene-sons to take action.
Decimation was necessary.
The shadow cast by the high platform swallowed the parade ground inch by inch, crushing doubt and resistance.
The Legion would be reborn from the flames, becoming a sharp blade in his hand—coldly pointed toward the enemy, never again to flinch or falter.
CLACK!
Plasteel slammed against stone. The Legion Master dropped to his knees before his Primarch, his voice trembling with resolute despair: "We shall execute your command!"
BOOM—!!
The Legion Master's submission sparked a brief commotion across the ranks, only to be swallowed whole by deathly silence once more.
The blowing sand wailed softly as it swept across the motionless ranks.
The Legion high command descended the high platform, standing before the main formation and calling upon the Legion serfs to begin stripping off their power armor.
The Legion serfs trembled violently, murky tears streaming down their faces. Daring not to look at the Space Marines, they began unbuckling the interlocking seals of the power armor.
"What are you crying for?" a commander growled softly, shattering the pervasive grief: "That is the very weakness our Primarch despises."
The Legion Master looked out over the assembled formation, forcibly holding back his sorrow as he issued his command to his brothers: "Obey the Primarch's command! Decimation is decreed—begin removing armor!"
With that spoken, as if stripped of all remaining strength, he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. Closing his eyes, he spread his arms wide to let the serfs strip away his power armor as quickly as possible.
Following the Legion Master's order, the Fourth Legion departed the parade ground burdened with grief, entering various barracks to strip their armor in preparation to execute the decimation.
---
"Pure insanity!"
Once inside the barracks, a warrior of the Fourth Legion cursed under his breath.
He was not actually a warrior of the Fourth Legion, but Alpharius, who had infiltrated their ranks to observe how his brother intended to reorganize his Legion.
Decimation?
Alpharius shook his head in helpless disbelief. He truly could not comprehend this absurd command to "purge weakness"—had his brother used his brain even for a single second?
When he first infiltrated the Fourth Legion and learned that Perturabo had gone to the archives to study his Legion's history, Alpharius had felt a flicker of genuine admiration. He had thought his brother's approach was brilliant: dissect the Legion inside and out first, then produce a highly efficient reform plan tailored specifically to the Fourth Legion.
And the result? This was it?
The grand, long-awaited plan: execute a decimation first, inflicting a non-combat casualty rate of ten percent upon his own Legion!
Alpharius felt a ringing in his ears, as though a warhammer were pounding against his brain. His brother's incomprehensible maneuver practically choked the breath out of him.
"My Lord," a quiet whisper snapped Alpharius back to reality. The Alpha Legion operative beside him looked equally bewildered as he requested instructions from his Primarch: "What should we do?"
"There are over a thousand Alpha Legion covert operatives embedded within the Fourth Legion. A decimation will inflict heavy losses upon our network as well..."
His whispered tone carried a hint of panic. Infiltration operatives feared random chance events above all else—they were entirely uncontrollable, rendering all contingency measures useless.
Furthermore, many embedded Alpha Legion operatives had undergone deep hypnotherapy, believing themselves to be genuine Fourth Legion warriors, making it impossible to use subterfuge to bypass the decimation.
Three warriors turned their gazes toward their Primarch; this four-man quarters was already an Alpha Legion intelligence node. If the decimation proceeded as planned, one of them—perhaps even the Primarch himself—might end up as a target marked for death.
Alpharius fell silent.
He raised a hand to rub his aching temples, his disguised face now wearing an expression of complete, irrepressible helplessness.
He glanced toward the doorway, where several Legion warriors who had stripped off their power armor walked by with desolate, silent expressions, dragging their heavy footsteps toward the courtyard outside.
Alpharius naturally had ways to slip away and remain completely untarnished by the bloodshed. However, once the decimation concluded, nearly ten thousand Fourth Legion warriors would lie dead at the hands of their own brothers, leaving massive gaps within the Alpha Legion's intelligence network.
How could he put a stop to this decimation?
Leaning against a dark corner, he furrowed his brows in deep thought when his eyes suddenly lit up, a look of intense anticipation flashing across his face: "I'll get a normal person to stop this tragic, self-destructive farce."
"Vox communicator," he gestured to his gene-son, a eager smile breaking across the corners of his mouth: "Thank goodness he's still on Terra waiting for the Nûr delegation."
Indeed—without a moment's hesitation, Alpharius had thought of Blazkowicz.
Compared to their other Primarch brothers, Blazkowicz operated on far more rational logic. Upon learning of such a cruel order for decimation, he would never sit idly by.
Taking the vox communicator hastily handed over by the Alpha operative, he swiftly drafted a command and dispatched it to the Legion intelligence center.
"Strip off armor!"
With everything set in motion, he instructed the mortal operative disguised as a Legion serf to begin stripping his armor. His face wore a relaxed expression mixed with intense anticipation.
Had it not been for his immediate surroundings, Alpharius would have nearly hummed a tune.
He harbored no fear whatsoever of sparking a conflict between Legions.
A conflict only occurred when two sides were evenly matched; when one side delivered a one-sided thrashing, it was called a stern education forged in iron and blood.
The Alpha operative glanced at the contents of the secret message, his expression instantly turning strange, though the atmosphere inside the Hydra safehouse gradually lightened.
---
At that very moment, upon the encampment's parade ground, the first wave of the decimation was about to begin.
The first batch of penalized warriors numbered over a thousand—all high-ranking officers of the Legion leading by example to execute their Primarch's command.
A servo-skull holding a urn of wooden lots hovered before a ten-man squad, conducting the draw for decimation.
The Legion Master who drew the death lot actually wore a relaxed expression. With a gentle smile, he spoke to the brothers assigned to execute him: "Do not hesitate. Soaking your hands in the blood of your own kin is by no means your desire."
"Our Primarch requires a ruthless Legion to carry out his absolute will."
The others stood pale-faced, their lips quivering as though wanting to say something, yet no words came out.
"Prepare!"
Seeing the drawing of lots conclude, the commanding officer stood atop a high vantage point, closing his eyes and turning his head away: "Begin!"
With a sorrowful, enraged roar, as the command flag snapped down, the brutal slaughter of their own blood kin commenced!
Atop the high platform, Perturabo's heart twitched violently. A flicker of emotion surfaced at the corners of his eyes, his hanging hands twitching slightly.
Ordering his own offspring to slaughter one another naturally brought him no joy, yet to forge the Legion, it had to be done.
In the end, all emotion dissolved into a cold, unfeeling stare directed down at the parade ground where the stench of blood detonated.
The executioners formed a circle, swinging iron fists down upon former brothers who had drawn the death lot!
The executioners formed a circle, swinging iron fists down upon former brothers who had drawn the death lot!
In an instant, iron fists struck like Space Marine heavy artillery, blasting a mist of blood from flesh and shattering bodies forged from the same genetic line into ragged pieces.
Limbs and torsos exploded in blood and meat under the iron fists, crushed alive into raw pulp.
There were no mournful wails across the parade ground, only a deathly, silent endurance.
Flesh and blood flew, and shattered along with it were the humanity, sorrow, and empathy within the hearts of these Space Marines.
The executioners' hearts howled silently. Iron fists stained with their brothers' blood trembled violently, their souls torn as if by jagged trauma, plunging into an abyss of ice.
Everything they had once cherished fell into a dark, bottomless chasm along with their tumbling brothers, never again to receive a single shred of mercy.
The Legion warriors had changed—transformed completely inside and out.
Like a slab of raw iron, they were cast once more into a furnace fueled by the lives of their own kin, tempered through agony to purge unnecessary emotions and forge themselves into unfeeling, lethal weapons.
Atop the high platform, Perturabo watched as his blood offspring transformed through the gravest crime of kin-slaying, emerging as Iron Warriors—iron without, iron within!
Across the Legion parade ground, the blood of Space Marines flowed freely. The eyes of the observing warriors, which had initially averted themselves in unbearable sorrow, gradually hardened into cold, unblinking stares.
Without a doubt, if this decimation continued, the Fourth Legion would become a force of unfeeling butchers.
Blended into the crowd, Alpharius grew anxious as well, constantly urging in his mind and hoping external aid would arrive quickly to put an end to this tempering forged in brotherly blood.
BEEP-BEEP—
A sudden, sharp alarm answered his urgency, causing a faint smile to flash briefly across Alpharius's lips.
Throughout the Imperial Palace, Custodes rushed out of their posts and raised their heads toward the sky, their visual scanning systems already locking onto incoming targets from orbital space.
The Palace's anti-air batteries activated, entering automated target-acquisition protocols and aiming at several high-speed targets falling below the Lion's Gate.
They were Space Marine drop pods, merging into the bustling orbital traffic of the Lion's Gate Spaceport and utilizing massive cargo transports to conceal their trajectories.
On the Palace training grounds, Custodes looked toward the Blazkowicz Marine recruits, silently tightening their grip on their Guardian Spears, their fierce gazes tinged with deep suspicion.
`[HIGH THREAT DETECTED: Blazkowicz MARINES FLAGSHIP DISPATCHED DROP PODS]`
`[VELOCITY: MACH 30]`
`[IMPACT CALCULATION: FOURTH LEGION NEW ENCAMPMENT]`
Inside Terra's Orbital Defense Command, the cogitator arrays snapped out of their monitoring state. Animatronic faces issued cold vocal alerts as holographic projections marked the real-time vectors.
At the Lion's Gate Spaceport, electromagnetic sparks lingered on the belly of the Throne's Majesty as multiple drop pods plummeted toward Terra.
`[ACTIVATING DEFENSE RESPONSE SYSTEM]`
In a fraction of a second, Terra's high-orbital defense platforms disengaged stand-by mode, their auspexes locking onto the drop pods as they entered the intercept sequence.
`[OVERRIDE AUTHORITY APPROVED. DEFENSE SYSTEM DISENGAGED]`
At the critical moment, high-level clearance terminated the interception system. The orbital defense platforms unlocked their targets and returned to alert mode.
Terra's defense sirens ceased, and relevant personnel received an aftermath notice: Emergency defense drill concluded; alarm disengaged.
Upon learning it was merely a defense drill, most personnel let out a long breath of relief.
Only a select few looked up at the rapidly plunging drop pods, sensing that matters were far from simple.
---
Before the alarm was triggered, Blazkowicz and Dorn had been at the Imperial Fists' encampment, watching Dorn's sons practice their martial arts and offering occasional critiques.
At the peak of the sparring session, a Blazkowicz Marine hurried over, leaning in to whisper into his Primarch's ear.
"What?"
Blazkowicz's face contorted with astonished fury. He stood up abruptly from his seat, his eyes sharp as swords, and growled at the Legion warrior: "Say that again?"
Executing his Primarch's order, the Legion warrior repeated: "Primarch Perturabo is conducting a decimation within the Fourth Legion."
The unmasked words hit the ground, plunging the training grounds into absolute dead silence.
The Imperial Fists warriors halted their duels, sheathing their swords in shock, their faces filled with utter disbelief.
"What?!" Dorn leapt up from his throne, eyes wide with fury. A rare shadow of rage surfaced upon his usually stoic, mountain-like visage.
Decimation!
What could the Fourth Legion have done so wrong for Perturabo to visit such a horrific punishment upon them?
"Orbital drop. Target: Fourth Legion encampment. Halt the execution of the decimation."
Urgency demanded action. Blazkowicz issued an order to the Throne's Majesty through their neural link, commanding his warriors to deploy immediately.
In the next second, the belly of the Throne's Majesty opened wide. On-call Legion warriors boarded drop pods and descended toward the Fourth Legion's encampment.
"With me!"
Dorn roared, pointing toward the pad at the far end of the training grounds: "There is a shuttle over there!"
The two leapt down from the reviewing stand, accompanied by air-defense sirens echoing across Terra.
As Blazkowicz sprinted toward the shuttle, he raised his left gauntlet, rapidly deploying high-level authorization codes to override Terra's defense grid, preventing subsequent panic and civil unrest.
"The Fourth Legion encampment!" Dorn instructed the pilot to take off, holding onto the cabin frame with one hand as he said furiously: "How could he do this?!"
The air-defense sirens cut out abruptly as the drill notice used to cover up the panic was broadcast down the chain of command.
"To integrate his Legion," Blazkowicz said with an iron-clad expression, brushing away the holographic display on his left arm as he watched the ground recede beneath them. "Though I do not understand why he chose such a brutal method."
The two fell silent, crouching at the door of the shuttle cabin while the wind outside howled louder and louder.
The Legion pilot pushed the throttle levers to maximum. The shuttle's engines shuddered, its speed climbing continuously as it hurtled toward the Fourth Legion encampment.
---
At the same time, the tragic scene of brother turning on brother at the Fourth Legion encampment was interrupted by urgent alarms from local cogitator arrays.
`[AUSPEX DETECTS HIGH-SPEED TARGETS]`
`[DESTINATION CONFIRMED: THIS ENCAMPMENT]`
The Legion warriors snapped out of their stupor. Subconscious reflexes honed through long training caused them to halt their attacks immediately, looking up toward high orbit to spot incoming air strikes.
They saw jet-black drop pods engraved with crimson runes, trailing plumes of exhaust as they descended rapidly.
"Clear out!"
In the startled crowd, Alpharius shouted out, disguising his call as a panicked reflex.
Sure enough, the Fourth Legion warriors on the parade ground snapped to their senses, dragging their heavily injured or dying brothers along as they hastily cleared the drop pod impact zone.
On the high platform, Perturabo gripped the railing with one hand, shattering stone between his fingers. The expression on his face flickered with volatile darkness.
He had anticipated that the decimation would bring trouble, but he had never expected it to arrive this fast.
Who had leaked the news?
By now, Perturabo realized that someone had leaked intelligence regarding the Fourth Legion.
Furthermore, the intelligence had moved at an absurd speed: no sooner had he made his move than trouble arrived right on his doorstep.
Slightly narrowing his lead-gray eyes, he scanned the parade ground to investigate how the information had escaped, only to meet a sea of bewildered faces.
The emotions of his Legion warriors had suffered a violent upheaval—their faces bore unbearable pain and dazed realization, but notably lacked any guilt or shame.
A series of sonic booms arrived in quick succession as the drop pods plummeted at Mach 30, firing their retro-thrusters a mere ten meters from the ground!
The drop pods ground to a halt almost instantaneously, using a ten-meter buffer zone to transition from hyper-velocity to a dead stop.
The retro-thrusters blew away the swirling sand and vaporized bloodstains, setting down firmly upon the parade ground.
Perturabo's expression grew solemn, his breathing heavy. His sharp gaze pierced through the dust, looking upon the figures stepping out of the drop pods.
From the markings on the pods' exteriors, he already knew who had arrived—Blazkowicz's sons.
Only they could withstand the instantaneous deceleration of Mach 30.
As the dust blew clear, tall black-armored warriors emerged, surveying the surrounding devastation.
Their leader took a step forward, removing his helmet to show respect to the Primarch, bowing deeply toward the giant atop the platform.
When he straightened up, his face was impassive and his eyes carried neither sorrow nor joy. His calm voice echoed across the parade ground: "My Lord, please halt your actions temporarily."
"Wait until your brother arrives to discuss the matter before making a final decision."
Astelan spoke in a measured, even tone, remaining composed and unbowed before the genetic Primarch, yet yielding no ground.
The Captain of the Primarch's Guard believed that an order such as decimation should never have been issued by a Primarch—yet here it was.
"Oh?" The corner of Perturabo's mouth curled slightly, making his cold face appear all the more terrifying: "There is no hint of entreaty in your words."
As his words fell, the atmosphere on the scene froze instantly. An invisible pressure radiated down from the high platform, the air vibrating violently under a sudden, furious bellow: "Are you commanding me?!"
HUM~
The roar struck like thunder, its invisible pressure heavy as a mountain, pressing down relentlessly upon the Blazkowicz Marines' Primarch Guard.
Around the twelve Blazkowicz Marines, the air quivered. Under the unreserved aura of the genetic Primarch, space itself grew thick as sludge.
Facing the interrogation, Astelan shook his head slowly, his voice as steady as before: "I bring a message: your blood brother requests that you wait for him."
His response was deft—rather than confronting the Primarch head-on, he simply stated the purpose of his arrival.
Dropping directly onto a brother Legion's parade ground via orbital insertion was undeniably an offensive move. If the Primarch chose to make things difficult, it would be easy for him to hold it against them.
"A clever answer."
Perturabo's smile was icy, devoid of the slightest warmth.
He walked casually toward a nearby weapon rack, turning his gaze back to his brother's sons. His eyes burned with an overcast malice, deep within which a storm of fury flickered: "However, regardless of who it is, offense demands a price."
Alarm bells rang in Astelan's heart, and his hand instinctively tightened around his spear!
Atop the high platform, Perturabo kicked out at the weapon rack. Swords and blades flew forth like missiles, hurtling down toward the Blazkowicz Marines below.
When a Primarch struck out at whim, the sheer force behind it was extraordinary. The edges of the weapons tore through the air, their glinting coldness arriving in a heartbeat, far deadlier than bolter fire.
Had it been ordinary Custodes or Space Marines, they would have been utterly incapable of blocking such a sudden barrage, leaving them dead or at least critically wounded.
Regrettably for Perturabo, his targets were Blazkowicz Marines!
"Intercept them," Astelan warned over the neural link, his tone carrying a note of political prudence: "Mind the Primarch's pride."
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
The sharp, ringing echoes of clashing steel caused a flash of astonishment to pass through Perturabo's eyes.
Blazkowicz's sons whirled their spears, precisely catching the hilts of the incoming blades. With a subtle rotation of their spear-shafts, they used fluid counter-force to deflect the crushing momentum.
Yet the shafts shuddered violently under the immense force. The spinning blades ultimately broke free from their deflection arc, embedding themselves deep into the shimmering gold armor of the warriors.
"Do you forgive our offense, my Lord?" Astelan asked softly, making no move to pull out the sword lodged in his chest plate, his demeanor remaining completely undisturbed.
Dead silence fell across the parade ground. The incredible display thoroughly shocked the warriors of the Fourth Legion.
Though they had no idea how much strength the Primarch had put into the strike, the raw visual evidence told them that they themselves could never have blocked it. Every single one of those blades would have cut them down effortlessly before they could even react.
The Blazkowicz Marines may have appeared somewhat disheveled, but they remained composed, having successfully weathered a Primarch's wrathful strike without serious incident.
Deep within the crowd, seeing that the Blazkowicz Marines were unharmed, Alpharius let out a quiet sigh of relief, his tense muscles gradually relaxing. He had summoned his brothers to halt a tragedy; they had come on his word, and had anything gone awry, he would have stepped in to save them from Perturabo's hands even if it meant exposing his identity prematurely. Within the Imperium, the importance of the Blazkowicz Marines was on par with the Custodes themselves.
Atop the platform, Perturabo raised an eyebrow, the storm of rage in his eyes dissolving into intense interest.
The Blazkowicz Marines possessed two distinct traits: an extraordinarily low gene-seed compatibility rate, but individual combat prowess that was absurdly potent. Upon his return, while reviewing imperial data aboard the Buchephalus, he had come across much of their public documentation.
The Twenty-First Legion—the Blazkowicz Marines—was an extreme Space Marine Legion. Compared to the vast numbers of other Legions, their total force had yet to surpass two thousand warriors. Furthermore, the number of casualties among their candidates exceeded the combined total of all other Legions.
During the early stages of the Great Crusade, other Legions had voiced minor criticisms regarding this approach, yet now, virtually no Legion dared question the Emperor's allocation of resources to them.
Because the Blazkowicz Marines were simply that formidable!
In the Imperium's war-room simulations, if engaged in a direct, drawn-out war of attrition, they might eventually be ground down; but should they launch a sudden strike, few forces across the galaxy could withstand their edge.
Perturabo's sudden attack had been meant as a test, and the result was indeed surprising. The renowned strength of the Blazkowicz Marines was by no means mere rumor.
"Fascinating," Perturabo let out a smile.
Relying on his innate hyper-intellect, he saw right through the superficial disarray to the underlying truth: a physical durability and supreme martial skill that vastly outstripped ordinary Space Marines. Though the spear-shafts had trembled, the fact that Blazkowicz's sons could block a Primarch's strike delivered in anger was nothing short of extraordinary.
He waved his hand generously, saying, "I forgive your offense."
"Your generosity is vast as the sea of stars," Astelan replied politely, reaching up to pull the longsword from his chest plate. Over the neural link, he added: "Well done."
With the raw strength of the Primarch Guard, knocking the incoming blades aside would have been trivial. To conceal their full capabilities—and to avoid embarrassing a genetic Primarch—the Legion had deliberately staged that seemingly narrow escape.
The Guard warriors extracted the embedded blades and set them gently upon the ground as a sign of respect to the Primarch.
Now that basic decorum had been restored, the drop pods were no longer needed. Their automated return sequences engaged, lifting them off the parade ground to rocket back up toward the voidships.
Another plume of dust rolled across the area, cutting through the prevailing tension.
As the Blazkowicz Marines stood aside, the warriors of the Fourth Legion snapped back to reality, rushing to carry their heavily injured brothers off for medical treatment.
The parade ground sank into a heavy, oppressive quiet as they waited, until a streak of vivid yellow light cut across the sky. A transport ship bearing the emblem of a black iron fist hovered directly above the ground.
Two towering figures leapt down from a height of a hundred meters, slamming heavily onto the stone floor.
"Praise the Primarchs!"
The Legion warriors dropped to their knees, shouting in welcome at the arrival of two genetic Primarchs.
"Perturabo!"
Seeing the dried bloodstains across the parade ground, Dorn could no longer contain the rage in his chest. Pointing directly up at the platform, he launched the first accusation: "Why did you order your Legion to execute a decimation?"
"Tell me—what crime have they committed?!"
It was no wonder he was so furious. After taking command of his own Legion, Dorn had reviewed the imperial archives and discovered that the Imperial Fists had once fought side-by-side with the Fourth Legion. On Salz, Blazkowicz had led imperial forces against the homeworld of the psychically sensitive Lizards, and the two Legions had forged a firm camaraderie during that campaign. When questioning veterans of that war, Dorn had received overwhelmingly positive accounts, giving him a favorable impression of the Fourth Legion.
Had they arrived a moment later, these honorable warriors would have nearly perished under an internal decimation. How could he not be enraged?
"Are you interrogating your own blood brother?"
Perturabo descended the stairs of the platform, his expression dark as he addressed his brother directly by name: "Rogal Dorn?"
The collision between Primarchs—even a clash limited to words—carried absolute sharpness, sparking intense friction across the parade ground. Under the crushing aura, the surrounding Space Marines found their breathing laboured, clenching their fists to withstand the invisible pressure.
"Is there a second Perturabo standing here besides you?"
Dorn showed no quarter, his gaze sharp as a razor as he locked onto his brother stepping down the stairs: "Answer me—"
The rest of his sentence was cut short as his arm was seized by Blazkowicz, halting the verbal escalation.
Blazkowicz shook his head. He did not meet Dorn's questioning look, turning instead to address the Space Marines gathered across the ground. He cast a brief glance toward Alpharius hidden within the ranks, giving an almost imperceptible nod, before speaking to the Fourth Legion warriors:
"Return to your quarters and shelters. Do not pry into what happens here."
"And you as well," Blazkowicz pointed to his Primarch Guard: "Your task is complete. You may depart."
Hearing his brother's words, Dorn quieted down, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to suppress the surging fury in his chest. He immediately understood: conflicts between Primarch brothers should be kept away from the Space Marine Legions as much as possible, preventing personal friction from escalating into strife between two Astartes Legions.
The Blazkowicz Marines rendered a warrior's salute and turned cleanly to leave. The Fourth Legion warriors looked up toward their genetic father.
Perturabo said nothing, his icy eyes fixed on Dorn, who met his stare without backing down. Their silver-gray and golden eyes locked in a visual confrontation that seemed to crackle with tension.
"Execute the order," Perturabo said without shifting his gaze, waving his hand dismissively to allow his warriors to obey his brother's instruction.
With three genetic Primarchs present, even the Space Marines' retreat was executed with extreme caution, terrified of drawing down thunderous wrath.
A surreal silence settled over the parade ground. As the Space Marines departed, only the three confronting Primarchs and the bloodstained ground remained.
"Answer me!" With everyone out of sensory range, Dorn demanded sternly: "Why did you issue the order for decimation?!"
"To rebuild the Legion," Perturabo stated, his voice hard and cold as iron: "To temper warriors through the blood of the weak, forging a army of iron and blood."
"However," he pivoted, pointing his finger directly at Blazkowicz and Dorn for overstepping their bounds: "None of this is any of your concern."
"I am the genetic father of the Fourth Legion. How I handle my own blood offspring rests entirely upon the authority granted to me by the Emperor. The life and death of this Legion are mine to command!"
"To forge an army of iron and blood?" Hearing the response and counter-question, Blazkowicz nodded first in agreement: "That in itself is unassailable. To make a Legion strong, certain measures are necessary."
Just as a flicker of satisfaction touched Perturabo's face, thinking his brother was taking his side, Blazkowicz's expression abruptly shifted as he asked: "Did you truly have no other way?"
"As the genetic Primarch of this Legion, endowed with supreme intellect, could you really think of no other method?"
Blazkowicz looked straight into Perturabo's eyes, his gaze a hundred times sharper than Dorn's, his words piercing straight to the core: "Are you telling me that as a superhuman entity, you couldn't conceive of any other approach, and could only build your Legion's strength upon the corpses of their own kin?"
He took a sharp step forward, his aura instantly intensifying: "You certainly have the right to determine your Legion's fate, but you do not have the right to make your warriors butcher one another—making innocent soldiers pay with their blood for your so-called 'tempering'!"
Overwhelmed by the crushing aura, Perturabo's leg muscles tightened instinctively, wanting to pull back from the terrifying pressure.
In the very next instant, his face turned utterly horrific—under his brother's sheer presence, he had actually reflexively tried to step back?
"What are you flinching from?" Dorn caught that split-second tremor, his sharp words cutting deeper than any blade.
His shining golden eyes flickered with a shadow of doubt, scrutinizing his brother: "Is this what you call being 'iron without, iron within'?"
Arriving alongside Blazkowicz by shuttle, Dorn had demanded the reasoning behind his brother's order for decimation the moment they met. The root of this conflict between brothers lay in Perturabo's ultimate creed—"iron without, iron within."
Yet at this moment, Dorn's scrutinizing gaze carried a sharp edge of disdain: Perturabo's performance had disappointed him immensely.
Facing Blazkowicz's direct interrogation of his true motives, their brother had retreated.
Perturabo—the Lord of Iron proclaimed by their Father, the Emperor—was not as unyielding as he seemed. Beneath his imposing, resolute exterior hid a fragile core that even he himself failed to realize.
Perturabo choked on his brother's swift, relentless questioning. Unskilled in verbal sparring, he froze on the spot, forgetting how to counter for a brief second. His facial muscles twitched, and cold frost seemed to congeal across his brow.
Dorn seemed blind to Perturabo's changing expression, nor did he remain quiet as he usually did. His composure shattered by anger, a torrent of accusations poured forth like a broken dam, submerging his brother: "If you cannot achieve it yourself, why do you demand that others achieve it through such horrific means?"
"As the genetic father of a Legion, we must lead by example!"
His voice was high and steady, his tone resolute, turning into a sharp blade that stabbed straight into Perturabo's heart: "We should not act as you do now—lenient with yourself, yet ruthless toward others—"
"ENOUGH!"
Incapable of repressing his rage any longer, a furious roar erupted, scattering the wind and dust across the parade ground.
Perturabo's eyes bulged with rage, his expression hideous and terrifying. His suppressed fury incinerated his reason, and his towering form vanished from the spot!
"SILENCE!"
Swinging a pair of iron fists, he broke the sound barrier with a sonic boom underfoot, charging straight at the relentless Rogal Dorn.
His brother's reproaches had far exceeded the limits of his tolerance.
"Let him come!" Dorn shouted, entirely fearless as he halted Blazkowicz from stepping in. He had already settled into a battle stance: "Show me your determination to be 'iron without, iron within'!"
Blazkowicz checked his step, his dark eyes fixed on the two, ready to intervene the moment the conflict threatened to deepen further.
BOOM—!!
Vivid yellow and lead-gray robes tangled together as two genetic Primarchs slammed into one another. The violent collision of immense strength exploded in a circular shockwave of displaced air.
Perturabo struck in absolute fury, holding nothing back this time. He vented his deafening roars wildly, the air groaning under the onslaught of his fists. He threw punch after punch, his arms blurring into afterimages, filling the parade ground with thunderous booms like heavy artillery.
"What do you know?!" Perturabo screamed, venting his fury as droplets of blood flew from his fists. His bloodshot eyes locked onto the brother before him: "The weakness of an army must be washed clean in blood!"
"The Fourth Legion—my genetic offspring—have betrayed the superhuman vessels granted by our Father!"
The Lord of Iron's fists carried terrifying power, resembling a god swinging a sacred warhammer to smash away all resistance. Interrogations and explanations no longer mattered; violence had become his sole outlet to purge his emotions.
"Betrayed?!" Under the tempest of fists, Dorn stood firm as a mountain, raising his forearms before him to protect himself like a boxer.
"They did no such thing! You only believe they did!"
Dorn barked out, his eyes sharp as lightning, fixated on his brother's chaotic attacks—attacks torn apart by sheer rage.
"Have you asked our Father? Did you hear it from His own lips that the Fourth Legion failed Him?!"
The question sent a tremor through Perturabo's heart, causing his relentless assault to falter for a fraction of a second.
Amidst the endless rain of blows, Dorn finally caught a sliver of an opening.
Seizing the opportunity, Dorn swung his defensive arm in a perfect arc, clenching his iron fist to hurl a devastating right hook!
"An excuse!"
A furious shout echoed, accompanied by the sight of Perturabo flying sideways.
A master of defensive warfare, Dorn's outer forearms were a mangled mess of blood and flesh after taking thousands of heavy blows, yet he had still seized the flawless moment to deliver a razor-sharp counterstrike.
Rubble rattled noisily as the Primarch's massive body skidded across the stone slabs, leaving a hundred-meter-long trail of destruction.
At the end of the trench, Perturabo was embedded in the shattered ground, the flesh on his left cheek shredded to reveal pale bone underneath.
The parade ground returned to silence as the brief clash between Primarchs concluded.
Dorn rotated his arms, flicking off the bloodstains, and stared impassively at his downed brother: "It is all an excuse."
Following the physical brawl, his rage had settled significantly, his voice returning to its usual steady, calm tone: "A clumsy excuse you concocted just to purge your Legion."
"You had countless ways to reshape them, yet you chose the most foolish, cruel, and inferior method possible."
A hundred meters away, Perturabo rose from the pile of rubble. His mangled face was covered in blood, rendering him exceptionally disheveled. Yet this battered exterior could not obscure the glory of a Primarch. Flesh buds sprouted within the crater on his face to heal the wound; within seconds, a scab formed and sloughed off, leaving his resolute face fully restored.
"Have you calmed down?"
Dorn gently wiped his forearm, shedding a large scab as his torn flesh repaired itself in a heartbeat. The superhuman regenerative abilities of genetic Primarchs meant this fight could go on indefinitely.
Yet now, there was no need to continue.
Perturabo said nothing. He looked at Blazkowicz and Dorn, his eyes trembling as an unreadable light flickered within them.
Stubborn as he was, he was not foolish.
He felt no malice or humiliation from his two brothers—only genuine, profound concern. It was precisely out of concern for him and his Legion that they had rushed over to halt the cruel decimation.
Yet facing this care, Perturabo did not know how to respond.
When faced with the Emperor's unreserved acceptance, he had responded with absolute devotion. On Olympia, faced with the endless, greedy demands of the city-state residents, he had given back without asking for anything in return.
However, the Emperor was his superior, requiring his devotion; the Olympians were his inferiors, craving his protection. Perturabo could handle those two distinct roles with ease.
Facing his genetic brothers, however, he was at a complete loss. They shared a bond of blood, holding equal status and standing. They required neither his absolute devotion nor his protection.
That heartfelt, unreserved love was the very emotion Perturabo craved deep inside, yet knew not how to accept.
Perturabo shook his head, his turmoil settling considerably.
His lips twitched, his voice softening noticeably: "I cannot accept the weakness exposed in their souls when my Legion faces the enemy."
"They were meant to be resilient; they must be resilient, using an iron will to crush the enemies of the Imperium."
"I must demand this of them—using brutal measures to purge the fragile humanity from my warriors, tempering them into an unyielding, unfeeling, and silent warhammer of iron."
He evaded his brothers' personal interrogation, focusing instead on his vision for the Legion. The Lord of Iron acknowledged in his heart that his interior was not as indestructible as his armor. Deep within, there lay minor insecurities he dared not voice aloud.
"Brother," Blazkowicz walked slowly toward Perturabo, shaking his head. "You are mistaken."
"Humanity may contain fragility, but it is by no means merely fragile."
"It is an infinitely complex reality—possessing fragility, but also resilience; fear, but also bravery; humility, but also nobility."
"These complex qualities comprise humanity, forging distinct, individual souls—"
As Blazkowicz spoke, he let out a quiet sigh in his heart: Perturabo's initial intention was good—to cast aside human weakness, fortify his warriors' resolve, and elevate the Fourth Legion's combat power.
Unfortunately, he had chosen the entirely wrong path.
The dark and fragile aspects of human nature could never be excised; they were an indispensable part of the human soul. If you strip that away, what are you left with? A pure warhammer, or an empty shell?
Though Space Marines were ideal tools in the Emperor's eyes for conquering the galaxy, if they lost the bounds of humanity, would they still uphold the light unique to the human spirit?
Courage, emotion, hope, and mercy.
These noble virtues were the very light that propelled Space Marines forward.
"Brother," Blazkowicz stepped up directly before Perturabo, his black eyes locking onto lead-gray ones. With a trace of sorrow, he asked in a deep tone: "If we strip away the fragility you so despise... are we still human?"
The parade ground fell into a deathly silence; even the wind seemed to halt.
Dorn and Perturabo—two great Primarchs—bowed their heads, plunged into deep thought. Their lips moved, yet no words came out.
Blazkowicz had elevated the issue of the decimation to an entirely different realm.
Perturabo wanted his Legion to abandon fragility—to abandon humanity—and become Iron Warriors forged of flesh and iron.
Blazkowicz had not stopped him with brute force; instead, he posed a counter-question: Without the bounds of humanity, what do Primarchs and Space Marines even become?
Perturabo's face turned pale. The light flickering in his eyes nearly shattered under the weight of self-doubt.
In a single instant, his mind turned through ten thousand possibilities. His superhuman brain trembled as he contemplated the terrifying depth of that question.
It struck at the very root of everything—touching even upon the authority of the Master of Mankind Himself.
As a keen genetic Primarch, Perturabo instantly made the connection: humanity was a deliberate design of the Master of Mankind for the Space Marines.
If the Emperor had required a pure tool, He could easily have excised all emotions from the Primarchs and Space Marines right from the initial design phase. Achieving that would not have been difficult for Him.
Yet, He had preserved the Primarchs' humanity, granting the Space Marines under their command the capacity for joy, anger, sorrow, and delight as well.
Humanity, instead, served as a restraint!
Having pierced through to this realization, Perturabo's face turned deathly pale. Beans of sweat poured down his forehead, his eyes filled with utter disbelief.
"No!"
Perturabo shook his head weakly, his voice trembling as he rejected the conjecture that crept far too close to the truth: "How could that be—"
His immortal frame swayed as he stumbled backward, his ghastly face completely stricken. He dared not believe that the very first official command he had issued upon taking charge of his Legion ran directly counter to the Emperor's original intent.
Their Father wished for the Primarchs and their Legions to possess more humanity, yet he—he had attempted to strip away the fruits of His grand endeavor.
"I wished for them to be strong, to crush our enemies with unyielding resistance... was I wrong?"
Perturabo raised his head helplessly, his trembling eyes searching his two brothers, desperately hoping for an answer.
"Your original intent—wishing for your offspring to be strong—was not wrong," Dorn sighed, his face tense. "However, your process and methods were entirely flawed."
"Decimation is merely a brutal execution; it is no foundation for true strength."
"You used a flawed method, and you will never arrive at the correct answer."
"Hypothetically, had your Legion completed the decimation, what you would have gained is a legion of hollow shells—marching resolutely forward, firmly believing that ruthlessness could overcome all, utterly indifferent to casualties and sacrifice."
Perturabo asked in a low voice: "Is that wrong? Ruthless and resolute, where sacrifice and casualties no longer stand as obstacles to victory—the Legion would advance forever, crushing the enemy with absolute dominance."
"No," Dorn looked at his brother, his tone firm and uncompromising: "There are certain things that cannot be accomplished by mere firm resolve alone."
Blazkowicz let out a long sigh as well: "Human strength has its limits."
"For example?" Perturabo countered, attempting to salvage some rational justification from his misstep. "A ruthless Legion, coupled with my intellect—what could possibly be beyond our reach?"
Even after recognizing his error, the dictatorial nature he had cultivated on Olympia refused to concede entirely, trying to weave a veil for his pride out of broken stubbornness.
Facing his brother's desperate, unyielding pride, Blazkowicz simply shook his head in silence.
He had seen right through Perturabo. This brother had developed a somewhat paranoid personality on his homeworld, yet he was by no means an evil person.
Blazkowicz recalled many details: from Perturabo's return, to receiving the gathering invitation but skipping it to rush back to his Legion's encampment without pause, to the figure mentioned in Alpharius's intel that had buried himself in the Legion's archives—only to emerge from those archives and immediately issue the order for decimation.
The entire sequence was swift, direct, and purposeful, lacking even a moment of hesitation.
He had arrived at a conclusion: Perturabo was desperate to prove himself, craving the Emperor's notice.
Dorn was still offering explanations, attempting to convince Perturabo with reason. Blazkowicz, however, remained silent, narrowing his eyes as he fixed his gaze on Perturabo, a flash of insight passing through his dark pupils: "Perturabo."
His solemn tone and formal address cut off the exchange between the two brothers. They both turned to look at him, their eyes filled with surprise.
"Did you use such thunderous measures on your Legion simply so the Emperor would notice what you've done and praise it?"
The calm voice fell heavily onto the silent parade ground, clear and distinct, laying bare the hidden longing deep within Perturabo's heart.
A visible flush flooded Perturabo's face as his breath grew rapid, as if steam were boiling out from his chest.
Surprised, Dorn's eyes widened. Seeing Perturabo's reaction, he knew instantly that Blazkowicz had pierced through the facade and exposed the true thoughts inside their brother's mind.
Of course!
If this was the answer, then everything made sense!
There was no such thing as "purging weakness." Perturabo must have had other options, yet he had specifically chosen decimation.
Executing his reforms through such thunderous, horrific means was nothing more than an attempt to draw the Emperor's approving gaze through an apparent display of unyielding, ruthless resolve.
Yet the surprise vanished in an instant, giving way to a surge of pure fury!
Dorn could never tolerate using the lives of warriors as mere bargaining chips to win the Emperor's attention.
"Unbelievable!"
He growled in rage, raising his hand to point two fingers aggressively at Perturabo like a blade. His expression was dripping with contempt: "You make me feel ashamed!"
Scolding him sharply, Dorn instinctively took a few steps back, wanting to distance himself from the man before him. Perturabo's flushed, shame-filled expression had validated Blazkowicz's revelation, and Dorn trusted Blazkowicz implicitly.
To employ a act akin to self-mutilation merely to draw attention was a tactic Dorn found thoroughly despicable.
"They are valiant warriors!" Dorn grit his teeth, his eyes bloodshot with intense fury as his nostrils flared, exhaling hot air: "How could you belittle their lives using the excuse of a decimation?!"
Unable to restrain his fury, he prepared to surge forward and strike Perturabo. Perturabo, however, stood frozen on the spot, his inner motives laid bare, consumed by shame and shock.
Blazkowicz held Dorn back, pulling him two steps away with a look of disappointment. He had weighed the consequences of exposing those hidden thoughts, yet uttering them aloud brought an overwhelming sense of embarrassment.
For a genetic Primarch to disregard the lives of his genetic offspring merely to catch the Emperor's eye—such a bizarre train of thought was utterly incomprehensible.
"No! No! No!"
Perturabo shook his head frantically in denial, his expression more panicked than it had ever been. Flushing deeply, he waved his hands, looking at his brothers with pleading eyes: "I never thought of it like that."
His voice trembled as he frantically tried to defend himself.
Yet his crimson neck utterly betrayed him, proving that Blazkowicz's words were almost exact fact.
Perturabo had never imagined that his private, fragile motive would be exposed by his brother and laid out so blatantly in the daylight.
He had acted decisively to reorganize his Legion through decimation precisely because he wanted his Father to see that he was willing to offer up blood and resolve to fulfill His expectations.
With his true motives exposed, the Lord of Iron was now more fragile than he had ever been. His eyes welled red, his voice carrying a note of desperation: "I only wanted to reorganize the Legion. I never thought of it like that."
No one on the parade ground answered him; the truth was far too heavy and tragic.
Hidden in the shadows, Alpharius stood frozen in place.
He could not have imagined that the very brother who had stood atop the high tower, speaking with absolute conviction about purging the Legion's weakness and issuing the order for decimation, had been seeking something so absurd.
Suddenly, Alpharius's hidden gaze carried a trace of pity.
Perturabo was attempting to use his Legion's self-mutilation to bargain for something that simply did not exist.
Having grown up by the Emperor's side, Alpharius knew all too well that their Father possessed almost no paternal love—in the eyes of the Master of Mankind, there existed only the grand blueprint and the means to achieve it.
He might possess love, but it was neither exclusive nor personal.
The Emperor loved all of humanity. Had He learned of Perturabo's actions, He would merely have sent the Custodes to deliver punishment—because His son had carelessly damaged a perfectly useful tool for no reason.
"Fool," Alpharius cursed silently in his heart, scorning Perturabo before remaining hidden in the shadows to observe how the conflict on the parade ground would unfold.
"Brother," Blazkowicz stepped forward and placed a hand on Perturabo's shoulder, signaling him not to panic.
A sense of tragedy welled up in his heart, mixed with a sliver of sympathy.
Waking from his gestation pod, he had grown up surrounded by affection; he had never imagined that his brothers would act with such paranoid desperation just to earn a shred of paternal love—walking on eggshells, even paying a catastrophic price, just to catch a single glance from the Emperor.
"You are mistaken," Blazkowicz said regretfully, feeling the slight tremor in the broad shoulder beneath his palm: "You respect Him. You love Him dearly."
"But He is not worth doing this for."
Hearing this denial of the Emperor, a flash of resentment surfaced on Perturabo's face, his eyes sharpening noticeably: "He is our Father! He is worthy of us dedicating our everything!"
Meeting his stubborn gaze, Blazkowicz opened his mouth, as if unable to bring himself to speak the brutal truth.
He himself had never lacked love, so he naturally could not fully relate to his brother's desperation. Furthermore, that underlying reality was far too cruel—could Perturabo and his other brothers truly accept it?
Without comfort and guidance, Perturabo's paranoia and stubbornness might drive him to commit actions far more horrific than today's.
Blazkowicz pondered for a long time. His dark eyes remained calm and unruffled, yet when he finally spoke, his tone was heavy enough to send a chill straight through to the bone:
"We are tools."
BOOM—!
It was as if a thunderclap had detonated over the parade ground, leaving both Dorn and Perturabo lightheaded and dizzy.
With a look of utter disbelief, Dorn took two steps back before his tall frame could barely brace against the impact of those four words: "We are tools."
Perturabo fared even worse; had Blazkowicz not been holding him, his spine might have collapsed under the weight of those words.
We are tools—
Hearing those words, even Alpharius hiding in the dark let out a helpless, solemn sigh.
He had long held a clear realization of this truth, yet hearing someone state it openly still stirred a deep sense of tragedy in his heart.
We are all tools—
Blazkowicz had torn away the bloodline-adorned glory and shattered the false mask of "fatherly love," laying bare the raw, unvarnished nature of the bond between the Emperor and His Primarchs right before his brothers' eyes.
He had been utterly merciless, piercing the hopeful hearts of his brothers with a prophecy of chilling cruelty, leaving them bleeding and raw.
The blood offspring of the Emperor! What a glorious title.
Basking in that radiant divine light, revered and worshipped by trillions of Imperial citizens, leading the Astartes Legions across the cosmos to forge the glory of Mankind anew!
Yet—the genetic Primarchs who inherited the Emperor's bloodline were, in truth, merely His most efficient and lethal tools.
Endowed with overwhelming martial power, they were physical manifestations of specific facets of the Emperor's soul, as well as the instruments of His ambition to conquer the galaxy. Bound by the illusion of filial kinship, the Primarchs became the enforcers of His will, subduing the cosmos on behalf of the Master of Mankind.
The brutal reality struck like a blade of ice, stabbing through their hearts and souls. The freezing frost crept along their bloodlines, arresting the boundless vitality of the Primarchs.
Perturabo's face turned deathly pale. His brother's unsparing words had shredded the warm veil of affection he had clung to, draining all color from his world and leaving behind only a hopeless, ash-gray wasteland.
He tried desperately to straighten his spine, struggling to resist the hollow, plummeting sensation inside his chest as the truth stood exposed.
"No—no—no—"
The Lord of Iron seemed to age decades in an instant, the luster of his features tarnished with rust. Shaking off Blazkowicz's hand, he stumbled back in sheer horror.
"I don't believe it! I don't believe it—"
At this moment, the eyes he turned toward Blazkowicz were clouded entirely with the rust of pure terror.
Perturabo was no longer "iron without, iron within." From the inside out, he was being corroded by fear and truth, his soul tottering precariously in a void of helpless panic.
As a genetic Primarch, his superhuman senses gave him no indication that his brother was lying. And it was precisely this sincere, unreserved honesty that plunged Perturabo into total despair.
A tool? Am I truly just a tool?
He interrogated himself in the silence of his mind: If so, then what was the fatherly love the Emperor displayed when He reclaimed me?
If his brother was not lying, then had his Father been deceiving him all along?
Countless questions flooded his mind, yielding a multitude of simultaneous answers. The cold logic of his superhuman brain collided violently with his desperate yearning for a father's love, threatening to tear his very soul apart.
Suddenly, a wave of dizziness hit Perturabo. Hot liquid burst from his nostrils, filling his sinuses with the coppery metallic taste of blood.
He raised a trembling hand to wipe beneath his nose; a streak of vivid red pierced through his washed-out, ash-gray world.
Seeing his brother hit by such a devastating blow and drained of all color, Blazkowicz stepped forward to support him.
"Stay away from me!"
Perturabo reacted like a startled animal, his hair standing on end as he leapt back in terror.
He raised a violently trembling hand, his lifeless, silver-gray eyes filled with desperate pleading, begging his brother not to come any closer.
It was the man standing right before him who had shattered his illusions.
Blazkowicz Novick! How could he be so cruel?! Shaping the truth into a lethal blade and driving it straight into his brother's heart without a second thought.
Perturabo stumbled backward, widening the distance between them, terrified that Blazkowicz might strike him again.
Blazkowicz halted his steps. Opening his mouth without uttering a word, he slowly spread his hands before him to show he would make no further moves.
He had laid bare the tragic truth, leaving his brother bleeding and broken.
"Brother," Blazkowicz said, unable to ignore Perturabo's anguish, his deep, resonant voice trembling slightly. "Calm yourself first."
"We need to talk. Properly."
Standing at a distance, Perturabo did not respond to Blazkowicz's concern. Instead, he shuffled over to a flight of stone steps, collapsing heavily onto them as if all strength had been drained from his body.
He sat there, his mind racing continuously, searching for any way to refute his brother's "tool theory."
Yet within the millisecond cycles of his processing, his brother's words only grew closer to the indisputable truth. The harder he tried to purge the cold reality from his mind, the sharper it burned, etching itself deep into his soul.
Perturabo could not deny it: the Emperor had not created him and his brothers out of simple, pure fatherly love. Even if a degree of paternal affection existed, he had no counter-argument against Blazkowicz—the Emperor's relationship with the Primarchs was rooted far more in utility than in true fatherhood.
He was trapped in a logic quagmire; the more he struggled to pull himself out, the deeper he sank...
---
Seeing Perturabo crushed into near-total despondency, Blazkowicz let out a quiet sigh and turned his gaze toward Dorn.
Blazkowicz had once experienced true fatherly love in his life, so he could not fully comprehend the sensation of having one's cherished yearning for a father's warmth shatter into pieces, its sharp shards flaying one's devoted heart.
Perturabo needed quiet now; he was beyond listening to any external counsel.
When Blazkowicz turned around, Dorn's face was not pale with shock, but heavy, clouded in a somber gray.
This unyielding rock, tempered by the harsh blizzards of Inwit, now had his fists clenched so tightly that blood seeped from between his knuckles—a testament to the storm raging within.
Yet he was accustomed to enduring bitter cold, accustomed to enduring harsh frosts, and accustomed to suppressing the emotions in his heart.
Within Dorn's golden eyes, his characteristic resolve had fractured into confusion, revealing a deep sense of aimless loss.
He asked numbly, seeking an answer: "Then what was all our sacrifice for?"
His voice was hoarse and weak. The sole glint of light remaining in his eyes was fixed on Blazkowicz, pleading for an answer—for a reason to sustain his shattered faith.
Ever since returning to the Imperium, Dorn had led the Imperial Fists to fight for the empire, doing everything In the Name of the Father. Now, learning that familial affection was merely a leash used for control, his steadfast heart felt crushed beneath a heavy hammer. He desperately needed a reason to reforge that unyielding rock.
"We called Him Father," Dorn whispered, "and we gave everything for His ideal, plunging ourselves into the mire of endless war. We answered His call, basking in the same glory, all to fulfill that grand vision of reclaiming humanity's dominance."
"Brother, tell me—" Dorn's eyes grew slightly red as he looked at Blazkowicz helplessly, desperate for clarity: "Are we truly nothing more than tools?"
He did not fly into a rage, nor did he weep in despair.
What Dorn cared about was whether everything he had done had satisfied the Emperor, his creator.
His question was spoken softly, yet on the dusk-shrouded parade ground where the wind had died down and the sand had settled, it sounded extraordinarily distinct.
Not far away, Perturabo pricked up his ears as well, yearning for an answer.
Blazkowicz parted his lips slightly, preparing to speak, when the sound of hurried footsteps broke the silence.
The three raised their heads to look. From around the corner near the Legion encampment's main gate, Leman Russ came sprinting on all fours, charging toward the center of the parade ground with an expression of intense curiosity.
His breath was slightly ragged, his robes shredded by his high-speed run, leaving only a loincloth around his waist.
It was obvious that Russ had run all the way from the Sixth Legion's quarters.
He glanced around the ground: Perturabo sat on the stone steps looking half-dead, as if his father had just passed away. Dorn wore a expression of deep, bitter solemnity, unable to maintain his usual stoic composure, looking as though he had suffered a devastating blow. Blazkowicz had a look of regret written across his face, clearly surprised by Russ's sudden appearance.
"Carry on, don't mind me~"
Realizing he had likely interrupted his brothers, Russ gave a sheepish grin and trotted lazily off toward a shadowed corner.
In the shadows of dusk, Russ's nostrils flared slightly, catching the scents drifting through the air. His bushy golden eyebrows furrowed from time to time, his sharp gaze sweeping repeatedly over a dark corner in the distance.
He had picked up a fifth scent—someone else was hiding in the shadows.
Indeed, someone was there. Spotting Russ, Alpharius cursed silently in his mind: Here comes that hound-nosed brute. He slunk deeper into the darkness without making a sound.
He despised the acute senses of Russ and his Space Wolves; their noses were far too sharp and could easily track down Alpha Legion operatives. The Space Wolves remained one of only two Legions that harbored zero Alpha Legion infiltrators.
As the scent faded into the deep gloom, Russ refrained from investigating further, shifting his gaze back to the parade ground.
In the shadows, the Wolf King rubbed his hands together, hoping his sprint hadn't been in vain.
Below the high platform, Dorn remained fixed on Blazkowicz, waiting for an answer to his question.
The stubbornness deep in Dorn's eyes was even more profound than Perturabo's.
Iron would rust under wind and rain, but a unyielding boulder remained motionless through the ages—there was no harsh frost or storm it could not endure.
"Are we truly nothing more than tools?"
Dorn stared at the brother before him. It was Blazkowicz who had exposed this cruel truth, and it should be Blazkowicz who answered this question.
He had known long ago that Blazkowicz was distinct in the Emperor's eyes, privy to many secret truths hidden from outsiders.
Blazkowicz did not answer directly; he simply looked at his brothers and shook his head slowly.
For the first time, a pale shadow swept across Dorn's face. His massive frame swayed slightly, his breathing abruptly growing chaotic.
"Why do you care so much about this identity?"
Blazkowicz's voice suddenly rose a few pitches. He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over Dorn and Perturabo, then casting a brief glance over Russ and Alpharius in the shadows.
"The facts have already provided the answer."
Blazkowicz looked back at Dorn and Perturabo, letting out a faint smile devoid of sorrow, filled only with absolute candor: "We are tools, and highly efficient tools at that."
Before his brothers could break down completely, he added with proud conviction: "Yet I like this identity, and I take pride in it."
"Not the pride of being a son, but rather the straightforward clarity that comes with being a simple tool."
Sincere, direct words struck harder than thunder, detonating inside the minds of every Primarch present and shaking them to their very core.
Why?
Both openly and in the dark, the Primarchs furrowed their brows tightly. Not a single one could keep pace with Blazkowicz's line of thought.
The identity of a genetic Primarch—an inheritor of the Emperor's bloodline—was the very origin of their nobility and pride. Yet in their brother's profound mindset, it was deemed inferior to a term as lowly as "tool."
Why?
They remained silent, yet their gazes burned with unprecedented intensity, desperate for an answer.
In the hearts of the genetic Primarchs, the Emperor was their creator, their father of blood, and the sovereign to whom they dedicated their absolute loyalty. In His name, they assembled their Legions and launched a Great Crusade across the galaxy.
Yet now, a strange anomaly stood before them—the strongest and most favored brother among them felt no need to uphold the illusion of filial kinship, taking pride instead in being a mere instrument.
"Come," Blazkowicz smiled, leaving his deeper thoughts unsaid. He extended an inviting hand to his brothers: "Follow me and see for yourselves. Perhaps you will find your answer there."
Blazkowicz firmly believed that facts carried far more power than words ever could.
Dorn took a few decisive steps forward to stand beside Blazkowicz. Though silent, his actions proved his unyielding quest for understanding.
Perturabo rose from the stone steps. His face remained deathly pale, yet his tall frame exuded a renewed, firm aura.
Russ glanced toward the dark corner deep within the structure. Restings his hands behind his head, he sauntered out from the darkening corner, nodding to signal for his brother to lead the way.
Blazkowicz nodded, raising a hand to bring up his tactical interface and plot out a navigational route. The others did not know where they were going, yet without a word of doubt, they waited quietly for their brother's lead.
"We go there," Blazkowicz pointed into the distance. A hive spire towering into the stratosphere stood clearly visible—a massive, sprawling titan bathed in dusk light, where grandeur and abyss coexisted.
In the next instant, the four genetic Primarchs vanished from the parade ground.
Once his brothers had departed, Alpharius stepped slowly out from the gloom. Brows knit in deep thought, he decided to tail them. He wanted to see what this brother—the one with such a crystal-clear understanding of his own existence—was planning to do.
---
The Primarchs moved at blinding speed, arriving at the hive city's outer perimeter in mere minutes.
"Put these on." Blazkowicz caught a drop crate falling from the sky, pulling out several cloaks and tossing them to his brothers: "Phantasm Cloaks. They will conceal our forms."
Without hesitation, the brothers draped the cloaks over themselves, pulling up the hoods to blend seamlessly into their surroundings. The supreme optical camouflage ensured that even from inches away, no normal observer could detect them.
Blazkowicz led the way, following the hive city's power conduits down toward the underhive of Terra.
"This is the hive city closest to the Imperial Palace," Blazkowicz explained as they walked. "It is also the most prosperous hive, built upon the ancient Indian subcontinent. From its highest point, you can look straight down at the Palace."
"Prosperous?" Russ grunted, pointing toward a settlement beneath the conduits.
Mortals had built a shantytown alongside the power lines. Rotten, filthy hovels were crammed together, relying on the waste heat radiating from the conduits to ward off the freezing cold, using crude containers to collect condensate from the cooling systems just to survive. Gang members acted with brutal impunity, beating and extorting precious survival resources from the weak, only pulling back slightly when enforcement patrols passed by.
Dorn kept his face tight, his brow deeply furrowed. He had never imagined such a sight. He had never ventured far beyond the Palace perimeter, knowing only that while Terra was the heart of the Imperium, the lives of ordinary mortals remained harsh. Yet that was merely a vague concept to him, lacking any concrete impression.
Now, witnessing the reality of mortal life with his own eyes, he unconsciously knit his brows and began re-evaluating the memories stored in his mind.
Perturabo looked upon the lives of the Terran mortals and shook his head in silent dismay. As the heart of the Imperium of Man, the living conditions of Terra's populace were vastly inferior even to the city-states of Olympia. The despondency in his heart was somewhat dispersed by a rising wave of pity.
Blazkowicz's next words sent a chill straight down their spines: "This is merely the outer perimeter. There is a stable heat source for warmth and a natural supply of condensate water—to these mortals, this is a blessed paradise."
He pointed toward a massive blast gate at the end of the conduit line: "In there lies the true hive."
A creeping coldness crawled up the spines of the three Primarchs. The flashing indicator lights at the end of the conduit resembled the closing eyes of a monstrous beast, watching them with greedy appetite.
As genetic Primarchs, fear was alien to them. The group strode boldly into the open maw of the beast, venturing deep inside to explore. They wanted to witness for themselves what lay beyond the glittering, golden spires of Terra's Palace.
---
The conduits sloped downward, plunging from the surface connections diagonally into the subterranean depths of the hive, entering the true underhive.
As the brothers slid down along the massive pipes, everything they saw and felt shattered their prior understanding.
Air in the underhive was stagnant; every breath felt like swallowing a mixture of rusted iron and rotting meat, causing even Russ, with his hyper-acute sense of smell, to cough a few times.
No one paid any mind to the noise on the conduits.
The power lines groaned endlessly, pumping the energy that sustained the hive above. Leaking industrial fluids dripped from the seams, pooling into luminescent, toxic sloughs.
In such a hostile environment, Dorn actually saw people.
They gathered around the toxic pools, using crude filtration devices to extract water, scanning their surroundings cautiously before gulping it down the moment they were sure no one would steal it.
Dorn's face turned iron-gray, a profound turmoil shaking the depths of his golden eyes.
The bodies of those water-seeking mortals were severely mutated, covered in grotesque tumors and festering sores. To avoid dying of thirst, they drank water riddled with heavy radiation. They knew the luminescent liquid was poison, yet they knew even better: radiation water was a slow suicide, but drinking nothing meant dying today.
Dorn turned his head away stiffly, unable to look at those mortals any longer.
He forced his gaze over to Perturabo, only to find him staring up at a pipe above, his resolute features twitching in distress.
Following his gaze, Dorn felt a sudden tightness in his chest.
The conduit overhead shook unsteadily. Whenever a seam ruptured, what burst forth was not steam, but a thick, oily black liquid that trickled slowly down the sloped pathway.
Between the gaps of the conduit hung pieces of scrap metal and torn cloth. People lay perched on them, licking the black liquid spewed from the pipes.
Dorn swallowed hard. Less than a foot directly above his head, a pair of hollow, lifeless eyes stared down at him. He could not even tell if the "person" before him was dead or alive.
A Primarch's senses told Dorn that the life force of this individual was faint to the point of nonexistence. Yet the mortal's tongue still twitched subtly, instinctively lapping up the black fluid to lick parched, cracked lips.
Under the luxurious dimness of the flickering light, a look of fleeting pleasure washed over the mortal's face, before settling into ultimate, eternal quiet...
"Can't bear it already?"
A heavy voice snapped the stunned Primarchs out of their daze. Blazkowicz stood impassive, pointing deeper into the dark residential sector of the underhive: "This is merely the appetizer."
No one answered. The atmosphere grew even more oppressive.
The three brothers moved their stiff legs like automata, silently following Blazkowicz as he led the way.
Inside the residential sector, the air was saturated with the stench of sweat, excrement, and the sour rot of cheap synthetic protein. Each hovel was mere feet wide, entire families huddled inside, using scavenged rags to insulate themselves from the damp, freezing floor. Rusted walls were crawling with unknown mutant bioluminescent fungi, harvested as faint illumination for the night.
The inhabitants were ash-pale, their eye sockets deeply sunken, dragging mutated bodies as they shuffled silently through narrow, cramped alleys. No one spoke aloud here; endless whispers echoed through the dark, everyone clutching their most precious belongings tightly to their chests.
Murder, robbery, and violence played out countless times within the sensing range of the Primarchs, only to sink back into deathly silence. Killers cared nothing for life, carving healthy organs from living victims to sell to waiting buyers for a handsome sum.
Countless atrocities unfolded quietly in the dark. In this place, there was neither order nor sunlight.
"How is it?"
The question echoed in the dark alleyway, and once again, no one answered.
BANG—!
A heavy crash shattered the quiet, startling the underhive residents who were huddled in the dark to conserve precious calories. They buried their heads in silence, terrified of drawing unwanted trouble—after all, screaming consumed energy too.
In the dark corner, where the gloom posed no hindrance to a Primarch's vision, the ash-gray pallor on Perturabo's face had vanished, replaced by an iron-gray rage with teeth clenched tight.
In sheer fury, his fist shattered an entire wall. Behind it, the residents covered their mouths, daring neither to make a sound nor to weep.
"This," Blazkowicz said softly, "is how the vast majority of people live across the colossal Imperium of Man."