The Primarch observed the Ork battlefield through Du Ge's perspective. A mere glance almost brought him to tears—not out of sorrow, but sheer exasperation at the idiocy of the greenskins.
The conflict between the Ork hordes and the Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan spanned multiple worlds across different sectors. The battlefield Du Ge currently focused on was not where the warboss Bonecrusher was located but rather a Death World on the fringes of the sector.
Here, the Orks outnumbered the Tyranids significantly.
Early in the war, the greenskins had successfully dragged the Tyranids into a brutal slugfest on the open plains—precisely the type of warfare Orks thrived in. They crushed the initial Tyranid assault, forcing the xenos to retreat underground or burrow deep into caves to regroup.
Dukel assumed that, after such a decisive victory, the Orks would press their advantage, rooting out the remaining Tyranids and purging them from the planet entirely.
What he did not expect, however, was that after a few triumphant shouts of "Waaagh!", the victorious Orks would proceed to start a concert.
A concert.
Dukel's eye twitched involuntarily.
It was as if they were celebrating halftime in some ridiculous blood sport.
Still, he had to admit—Orks were, without a doubt, the happiest species in the galaxy. Even amidst a battlefield littered with corpses, they found a reason to celebrate.
This was a Death Rock concert—one of the many bizarre Ork traditions.
Orks weren't merely braggarts and brawlers; they had a crude sense of entertainment. During these concerts, they would drink, sing, and sometimes engage in "games"—such as seeing who could bite a Tyranid Ripper the hardest.
Inevitably, all such activities degenerated into mass brawls and boasts of martial prowess.
As the concert reached its fever pitch, chaos erupted. Millions of Orks turned on each other in sheer excitement, turning the world into a frenzied battlefield of their own making.
They were too distracted to notice the growing threat beneath them.
Hidden within caverns and subterranean tunnels, the Tyranids had not been idle. They had waited patiently, consolidating their forces. Now, under the will of the Hive Mind, the xenos surged forth in a surprise assault, emerging in an unrelenting tide under the cover of night.
The Orks, too engrossed in their revelry, were completely unprepared. Within moments, their lines were shattered. The greenskins' crude fortifications fell, their towering war machines were brought down by bio-titans, and even the mighty warlords found themselves swallowed whole by tunneling Mawlocs.
"What a pack of brainless gits!" Dukel cursed under his breath.
"WAAAAGH!!!"
Du Ge's enraged bellow thundered through the warp, resonating in the minds of every Ork present.
Countless Ork Boyz staggered, momentarily dazed. Even the more psychically attuned Weirdboyz nearly fried their own brains from the sheer force of the transmission.
The Orks, confused and alarmed, did not understand why Du Ge was so furious. But their primitive minds instinctively linked his wrath to the Tyranids before them.
"Waaagh! Boss is angry!"
"Kill da bugs!"
"Must be 'cuz they're too ugly!"
Spurred by their warlord's fury, the Orks—who had been on the verge of defeat—redoubled their efforts. Their bodies swelled with renewed strength, driven by sheer aggression. What had seemed a disastrous rout stabilized into an all-out counterattack.
Dukel exhaled slowly, withdrawing his gaze, though irritation still simmered in his mind. Watching the Orks fight was enough to give him a headache.
They outnumbered the Tyranids. They had powerful force fields, a fully operational battlemoon, and even utilized their bizarre color-based technology—red for speed, blue for luck, and so on. With all these advantages, they still somehow managed to fight the Hive Fleet to a standstill.
As the leader of this particular campaign, Dukel felt his patience fray with each wasted Ork life.
It shouldn't be wasted like this! Are the lives of the Orks not lives?
Every Ork is a resource, a currency that Duke cannot afford to squander. He would use them to secure the survival of the Imperium.
Although the campaign to safeguard Baal had been successful, the cost was exorbitant—far too advantageous for others at his expense.
"It seems necessary to meet with the Bone Crusher."
Dukel had initially intended to avoid contact with Saraka. As a Primarch, a sacred son of the Emperor, he had to maintain an image of authority and purity. Too much association with xenos could compromise that. He was not the Regent; his path was different.
However, after witnessing the inexplicable discipline within the Ork ranks, he reconsidered.
It was imperative to make things clear to the Bone Crusher—Du Ge was furious, and the consequences would be severe.
He was not like the silent custodians of the past, Guilliman or Lion El'Jonson. He would not stand idly by while the Orks roamed unchecked.
The expedition fleet cut through the Immaterium, emerging into the physical realm over a system infested with Orks.
Dukel stood on the deck of the Inner Fire, flanked by the Doom Slayers, preparing for deployment.
Dante and Mephiston felt uneasy. To them, this was a dangerous gambit.
Ork-occupied war zones, especially those contested by Tyranids, were cauldrons of destruction. Any Imperial fleet appearing in such space would typically be subjected to immediate, overwhelming xenos fire.
Yet, as the Soul Fire translated into realspace, bearing the proud Aquila of the Imperium, a peculiar silence followed.
The Orks and Tyranids detected the fleet's arrival, but no attack came.
The teeming Tyranid swarms recoiled first. The massive, chitinous bio-ships released clouds of thick spores and fell back, retreating into the void like a wounded predator avoiding a superior foe.
That was expected. The Primarch carried technology and power even the Hive Mind feared.
But the true anomaly was the Ork fleet. They did not fire. Instead, they drifted away from their defensive positions, ceding the outer orbital layer as if welcoming the Imperial Navy.
Dante, ever the pragmatic warrior, found it impossible to comprehend. The crude and savage Orks were now behaving like disciplined auxiliaries.
"How is this possible?" he muttered.
Yet deep down, he knew Orks would never be true subjects of the Imperium. It was an accepted truth that even those few Ork clans that seemingly fought alongside humanity were nothing more than mercenaries, bound by self-serving contracts.
"Perhaps some kind of arrangement was made," Dante speculated as he followed Dukel's forces in their atmospheric drop.
The battlefield they descended upon was one Dukel had previously observed from orbit—a world locked in endless slaughter.
The Orks and Tyranids clashed, their unrelenting tides of green and chitinous monstrosities surging against one another.
As Dante and the warriors of the Second Legion made landfall, an eerie phenomenon unfolded before them.
The moment the Primarch stepped onto the planet's surface, the Tyranids reacted violently. Waves of bioforms detonated in sync, bursting apart as if struck by an unseen force.
The xenos tide vanished—driven into panicked retreat, as if recoiling from an overwhelming predator.
"It's as I suspected," Dante mused. "The weapon in the Primarch's grasp terrifies the Hive Mind."
Yet the next sight truly defied reason.
Hundreds of millions of Orks, covering the land in an endless green tide, dropped to their knees.
The greenskins knelt—prostrating themselves before Dukel, trembling as though acknowledging a warlord greater than any they had ever known.
"The Orks… are bowing?!" Dante's mind reeled. The scene shattered everything he believed to be true about the xenos. The idea of an Ork submitting was an impossibility.
But to the Orks, Dukel radiated a force so immense, so similar to the raw psychic will of Gork and Mork, that it was unmistakable.
If he wished, he could wipe them out with a mere glance.
Had any true warboss remained among them, perhaps they would have rallied. But in their previous battles with the Tyranids, their leader had been devoured by a Mawloc.
"For the Emperor!"
The Imperial war cry shook Dante and Mephiston from their stunned silence.
Before they could process the implications, Dukel led his warriors into the fray.
Black power swords cleaved through Tyranid flesh, each strike sending waves of xenos howling into oblivion.
The Hive Mind screeched in agony.
A storm erupted, a deluge of biomass raining down, nourishing the wounded world beneath.
The fleet moved forward, purging world after world. Victory upon victory. Imperial warriors smiled, for their campaign had exceeded all expectations.
Even the Leviathan tendril showed signs of retreating, its tendrils retracting from the contested systems.
The Hive Mind feared. Had it been the main synaptic consciousness of the Tyranids, it might have endured. But Leviathan was merely an offshoot. The sheer psychic malice forced upon it now was overwhelming.
It recoiled from Dukel's presence, repulsed even by the sight of his obsidian blade.
"Keep pursuing them!" Dukel commanded.
At first, Dante had thought the pursuit was strategic. But now he realized the Primarch had no intention of stopping.
"We can't keep chasing them forever. They will soon be beyond this galaxy's reach." Dante and Mephiston exchanged worried glances before approaching Dukel.
"Your Highness, do you intend to pursue Leviathan to the very end?"
"Of course. Why would I stop?" Dukel's gaze was unwavering.
"Your Highness, I believe this pursuit has already yielded the greatest results possible," Mephiston interjected.
Victory did not require extermination. A prolonged chase risked the Imperium's forces overextending. They could be ambushed by the Tyranids at any moment.
With the current size of the Expeditionary Corps, the sheer magnitude of Leviathan was still an existential threat. And though different Tyranid tendrils rarely coordinated, pushing them too far could force them into an alliance.
"Your Highness Dukel," Mephiston said in a hushed tone, "if the Hive Mind retaliates, or worse, if it unites other tendrils against us, we may be in grave peril."
Dukel smiled. "Is that not exactly what I desire?"
Mephiston was taken aback. "What?"
"If the Tyranids turn to fight, does that not prove our pursuit was successful?"
Just as Mephiston and Dante sought to protest, Dukel gestured toward the storming skies.
"Dante, Mephiston, do you see this rain?"
Dante frowned. "Yes, Your Highness. But—"
"This is pure biomass—the essence the Tyranids have stolen." Dukel's voice was unreadable. "With this, the Adeptus Mechanicus will terraform these dead worlds in less than a century. Baal and the surrounding systems will flourish. These ruins will become garden worlds, agri-worlds, sustaining billions of Imperial citizens."
Realization dawned on Dante and Mephiston.
This meant that when their Holy Father, Sanguinius, awoke, he would see his children had transformed the ashes of Baal into a paradise worthy of angels.
Dante and Mephiston were left speechless.
Meanwhile, back on Baal Prime, Guilliman observed the casualty reports with solemnity.
"Even in victory, the cost is steep," he muttered, surveying the war-torn landscape.
Even though they had arrived in time, the casualties were severe. Guilliman's gaze carried a trace of sorrow.
Not only had the battle taken a heavy toll, but Baal itself lay in ruins, ravaged by war.
Baal Secundus was a dead world. Long ago, its ecosystem had been annihilated in an ancient conflict.
The sparse vineyards that once grew there bore grapes so bitter they were barely fit for wine. Were it not for the legacy of Sanguinius, the Imperium would have abandoned this world long ago.
"Dukel is leading the expeditionary corps in pursuit of the Tyranid swarm." A sudden thought struck Guilliman, and he turned to Evelyne, a trace of concern in his voice. "They've been gone too long. I hope nothing has gone wrong."
"It shouldn't have," Evelyne replied after a moment of thought. "Leviathan's primary force is vast. His Highness Dukel is likely conducting a symbolic pursuit."
"The campaign against the Tyranids has already yielded significant victories," she continued. "Now is the time to return home."
Her reasoning was sound, yet Guilliman could not entirely shake his concern. He knew well the extremes Dukel was capable of.
"Don't worry, Regent." Evelyne seemed to sense his unease and offered a reassuring smile. "Dante and Mephiston are with the expedition. If nothing else, their devotion to Sanguinius will ensure they convince His Highness not to act recklessly."
Guilliman pondered this and eventually nodded. "You're right. Perhaps they are already on their way back."
A hint of relief softened his features.
Meanwhile, the expeditionary fleet pressed on, still in pursuit of Leviathan's main force.
When the torrential rains fell upon the war-torn planet, the Tyranid swarms retreated once more.
"Damn xenos! Face me!" Dante roared, his weapon raised high.
"Cowards! Stand and fight!" Mephiston's psychic aura flared, his crimson eyes burning with fury.
Dukel stood motionless amid the deluge, the force field surrounding him repelling the rain. The corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly.
"Dante, Mephiston, you are being a bit dramatic."
…
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