The Blade of Antwyr tried to turn. Its immense, corrupted mass was too slow. The plasma wave washed over it. For an instant, its warp-field fought the raw physics of a dying star. Reality won. The Despoiler-class battleship’s hull buckled, its daemon-forged spine snapping with a psychic scream that killed every astropath within a hundred thousand kilometers.

Then the teleportarium struck.

A Chronicle of Battlefleet Scarus, 999.M41

The gas giant, Praxis VI, had been ruptured, its core venting plasma that ignited into a permanent, hellish nebula. Within that crimson fog, daemon-ships prowled. Caspian ordered silent running. Engines to minimum, vox-beacons off. The fleet became ghosts, drifting through the asteroid debris of what used to be Periphery’s defense platform.

From the bridge of the Dominus Bellorum , Caspian watched the holographic plot. Red runes for enemy contacts flickered like a plague. At least eight escorts, two Idolator-class raiders, and the monstrous shadow of the Blade of Antwyr —a vessel whose prow was a screaming, brass-ribbed maw.

“Fire.”

“All ahead flank. Form Line of Battle. Gunnery: load void-shield-penetrator shells. Launch fighters,” Caspian ordered, his voice a flat, iron monotone. The silent hunt was over. Now came the slaughter.

The remaining Chaos ships, leaderless, scattered into the warp.

The Valiant and the surviving frigates poured fire not at the Chaos ships, but at the unstable plasma eddies orbiting the dead planet. The chain reaction was immediate. A sheath of stellar fire erupted from the gas giant’s corpse, expanding outward at a million kilometers an hour.

The lieutenant saluted and fled.

And that, he decided, was the only prayer worth answering.

But the Blade of Antwyr was the true terror. It did not fire lances. It vomited a cascade of warp-lightning that boiled through void shields like tissue paper. The Stalwart took a glancing blow. Her shields collapsed, and her dorsal battery was fused into a single, glowing scar of molten ceramite.

The Dominus Bellorum swung its vast, cathedral-like prow. The Nova Cannon—a weapon that fired a projectile at near-light speed—cycled its final charge. The aim was not at the Blade of Antwyr . It was at the drifting Righteous Wrath .

The plan was heresy incarnate. He would not fight Abaddon’s flagship. He would drown it in a star.

The Dominus Bellorum limped into Port Maw’s dry-docks, her hull scarred, her crew count reduced by a third. Lord Admiral Caspian walked the main hangar deck, stepping past medicae shuttles and the burned-out husks of fighter craft.