The massacre began with the first drop of blood falling from the Butcher's palm.
That drop of blood fell with him.
Amid the deafening cheers, the guest from beyond the stars leapt from the grandstand, carving a perfect arc through the air.
His figure landed heavily on the ground, sending up clouds of crimson sand.
The crowd turned to this uninvited guest, and amidst the roar of the nails, Angron gave a twisted sneer, blood streaming down his face.
"What do you want, slave master?"
However, his opponent ignored the taunt.
Khârn slammed his chainaxe into the ground, gripping its handle with one hand.
Bam!
He knelt.
The polished surface of his power armor sank into the mud, splashing blood everywhere.
The cheers from the grandstand came to an abrupt halt. The spectators, bewildered and unable to comprehend the scene before them, fell into utter silence.
"I apologize. We are late."
"Father."
Khârn spoke softly. His blood surged, his heart pounded violently, and his soul trembled.
Yet, in this moment, he remained as still as a corpse.
Angron froze, his high-arched nose twitching unnaturally. He seemed to struggle to make sense of what was happening, but the constant hum of the nails disrupted his thoughts.
Still, the inexplicable bond—the connection forged by genes and soul, the immense sorrow and rage emanating from the figure opposite him—anchored the last thread of Angron's sanity.
The Primarch spoke, his voice like the icy wind howling across a high mountain:
"I'll give you one chance. Who are you?"
Khârn felt himself boiling, suffocating, convulsing.
Finally, he opened his mouth and uttered the words every War Hound had once dreamed of saying:
"We are the War Hounds, who bring you glory."
But there was no glory. Lowering his head heavily, he resembled a sinner awaiting judgment.
Bitterness bloomed in his mouth.
He was the fortunate one among the War Hounds, and yet—
There was no glory.
Angron's smile was uglier than a cry, his face, adorned with the Butcher's Nails, a fractured visage of a demigod.
"Then help me kill them."
The answer came in the roar of Khârn's chainaxe revving to life.
On the grandstand, the aristocratic swine, sensing doom but still clinging to disbelief, stammered:
"What is... what is happening, my lord?"
Their response came in the sound of heads hitting the ground.
The slaughter began.
<+>
No one knew how long the massacre lasted. The furious Butcher forgot all about trivialities like time.
Thousands of drop pods tore through the blood-red sky, their descent marked by the blaze of lascannons and macro-cannons igniting the heavens. The air quivered, thick with the stench of blood.
Axes spun, spraying blood in all directions. Furious roars gave way to deathly silence as crimson enveloped everything.
Angron was like a god of war, charging through legions of enemies. His sinewy muscles sculpted the body of an angered deity, his rough leather garb declaring his status as a slave. His massive battleaxe cleaved through lives, spilling blood like rain.
Countless War Hounds ran rampant, emerging from drop pods with weapons in hand, cutting down their enemies as they converged on their father.
Dreadnoughts loomed among the War Hounds' frenzied advance, their melta and heavy bolters providing rare ranged devastation amidst the carnage.
Tall cities burned. Ornate banners were torn asunder. Heads were severed with reckless abandon as the maddened War Hounds howled and surged forward.
Discipline was clearly unnecessary.
The overwhelming disparity in power turned them into hurricanes, tsunamis, obliterating everything before them with ease.
City after city fell. Head after head rolled.
Slave cages were torn open, and the liberated were swept into the tide of slaughter.
Blood and carnage followed in their wake.
<+>
As the fires began to die down and smoke drifted across the blood-red sky, the tattered banners drooped, and unseeing corpses were impaled on flagpoles.
The last sizable group of survivors had fled to a cave in the wilderness—men, women, but mostly the old and weak.
They were the impoverished, the farmers living beyond the city limits.
Only their familiarity with the wilds had allowed them to survive thus far.
The hum of chainaxes reached their ears. At the forefront, Khârn raised his weapon skillfully—
"Enough."
The battleaxe poised above his head came to a halt.
"Enough. I said, enough."
The Primarch's raspy voice echoed in the cave, sounding like heavenly music to the terrified civilians.
Even as the Nails hummed.
Khârn didn't understand, but he stopped.
The ragged mortals before him trembled.
Turning back, Khârn seemed to awaken from a nightmare.
Angron's towering silhouette stood at the cave's entrance, bathed in the dim light, leaving only a shadow behind.
"Yes, Father," Khârn replied softly.
He turned and followed his Primarch, each step leaving a bloody print in the soft earth.
They left the cramped, dark cave behind. Beneath the crimson sky, black smoke drifted, and everywhere the eye could see, there was blood and severed heads. The furious War Hounds still ransacked the ruins of the city, hunting down the last survivors.
Angron stood atop a high slope, gazing at the scene—a scene that had haunted his dreams countless times.
The slave masters had been beheaded. The tyrants had been overthrown. Their lackeys, blind in their servitude, had paid the ultimate price.
And yet.
A shadow passed through his eyes as he saw the terrified slaves and panicked peasants.
His father's words, spoken long ago, resonated in his mind as reason clawed its way back:
"Those people are not monsters. Don't take your anger out on them. There are far greater monsters out there, and they should be the ones to face your wrath."
Some lives should not pay the price.
His rage was for monsters alone.
Not for the innocent.
Angron stretched out his arms, then released his grip.
Bang!
His battleaxe crashed against the rocky ground, leaving a permanent mark.
Blood from his enemies dripped down his arms.
He looked at the warriors who called themselves his sons, those who pledged unwavering loyalty to him.
"Enough!"
Angron roared. "Enough!!!"
The War Hounds stopped. Like awakening from a dream, they stared at the aftermath.
The raging torrent halted abruptly. Slowly, they began to converge from all directions.
Countless figures in white armor emerged from the crimson-black ruins. Their armor, dented, dusted, and smeared with blood, bore silent witness to the carnage they had endured. Silently, they made their way toward their father.
The battles across the land had long since ceased. Most of the War Hounds had converged on their Primarch during the fighting, and now, apart from a few lumbering Dreadnoughts lagging behind, nearly all were present.
Following the flow of water, a peculiar group was the last to arrive.
This group, led by Legion Master Lork, consisted of Techmarines and Apothecaries. Among the War Hounds, those who found themselves unwilling to partake in the slaughter often chose these paths.
At the center of their formation were Angron's brothers and sisters from the gladiatorial pits.
Realizing the arrival of the War Hounds presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Angron's kin had adamantly demanded that he lead the War Hounds into battle.
"Leave us, Angron. Kill the slave masters."
"Angron, we know you're not like us, but they're more like you."
"Angron, hurry and kill them. We can't keep up, but we'll follow."
"Strike before the slave masters can react, Angron. Don't let them escape."
At the time, Angron had turned to the War Hounds with a second request:
"Help me... Please let them fight too."
He wanted to protect them, but he also wanted to stand beside them in battle. Yet the chasm of strength between them was insurmountable.
Burdened with their expectations, Angron had left for a bloodier battlefield.
He hoped they had survived, but he did not wish for them to be cowards coddled by protection.
The nails shattered his hesitation, and with his siblings' hopeful words echoing in his mind, he turned to the slaughter awaiting him.
And now, they stood here.
His siblings were all present, some stunned into silence, others overcome with exhilaration.
This unfolding scene was beyond even the wildest dreams of their tormented existence.
Angron scanned their faces. They were all here. Some unfamiliar ones were mixed in, likely family or others who had joined his siblings.
His gaze moved to the warriors who had safeguarded them—figures bearing strange devices affixed to their armor.
He silently committed their faces to memory.
Angron turned his eyes toward the War Hounds who had descended from the heavens.
Their armor was far from pristine, thickly encrusted with blood and grime. From snippets of conversation, Angron had pieced together fragments of these warriors' stories and his own origins.
Were they slave masters?
No, slave masters didn't fight alongside their slaves.
Were they slaves?
No, slaves didn't wield such masterfully crafted equipment.
No, they were neither.
They were weapons.
They were the instruments of annihilation, capable of consuming entire worlds, bound to madness and bloodlust.
But now, the weapon's reins had been handed to him. The hounds willingly offered their collars.
Angron surveyed the scene as though trapped in a dream.
The first to kneel woke him from it.
Khârn dropped to one knee.
It was as though a signal had been given. Across the field, the sound of power armor striking the ground echoed as others followed suit.
Dust and dried blood mixed and scattered in the sunlight, glinting off their battered armor.
Angron's gladiatorial sister, Klarest, cast him a sly, encouraging smile before joining the giants in kneeling.
His brothers and sisters knelt.
In that silence, Angron stood as the only figure upright. Slowly, he began to speak, his voice the rumble of boulders crashing down a mountain:
"I do not know where you come from. I do not know why you offer me your loyalty."
"But you have marched with me to seize Nuceria. You have severed the heads of the slave masters."
"You have shown me your hearts."
"If you still wish to follow me, then I, Angron, will not betray you!"
Drawing a deep breath, Angron roared, his powerful voice splitting the heavens:
"In Nucerian history, armies that conquered unyieldingly were called the 'Eaters of Cities,' devouring one city after another."
"But you—you!"
"You are mightier still. You can devour this world!"
"You are the axe with which I strike down the slave masters. You are the machine of war that consumes entire worlds!"
"You are the World Eaters!"
"You are the World Eaters!!!"
The XII Legion, the World Eaters, was born that day.
<+>
"I am guilty."
In the wreckage of the First Arena, two figures lingered in the shadow of the viewing stands.
8th Company Captain Khârn sat distractedly, his head lowered, his gaze distant.
"You were the first to find our father, the Primarch. You've done the best you could."
Legion Master Lork stood with arms crossed, his stance upright despite the weariness etched on his face.
"We've all done our best..." he murmured.
No one spoke.
The expectations placed upon the War Hounds earlier now felt like sharp and venomous daggers, piercing the hearts of the World Eaters.
They were too proud.
They were too vain.
Arrogance.
The return of their Primarch delivered them a resounding slap of reality.
"I once looked down on—"
"Shh, Khârn. Don't say it."
Lork glanced at him, his gaze dark and somber.
"We're all well aware of it."
"When I stood on that platform, looking down on him..."
This would forever haunt him as his worst nightmare.
Lork patted him on the shoulder.
"We're all powerless against it."
"What matters now is ensuring our Primarch recovers."
"I've already contacted the Imperium—"
The sound of the gladiatorial horn interrupted their conversation.
They exchanged glances before stepping out of the shadows and into the light of the arena.
There, led by Angron, countless World Eaters stood upon the red sand.
Today, they would inscribe their first Triumph Rope.
The Triumph Rope was a tradition of Nuceria.
Khârn stood among the warriors.
They removed their armor, revealing scarred and muscular upper bodies.
At the front was Angron, with a crimson line winding up his spine from the base of his tailbone.
Every extension of that red line represented a victorious battle, a glory worth remembering.
Without hesitation, the Primarch pressed a dagger to the foremost part of the red line, and scarlet blood began to drip.
Following their father, the World Eaters also cut their flesh with blades, the tips penetrating down to the innermost black carapace.
Angron scooped up a handful of red sand and poured it into the wound, the coarse grains embedding into his flesh and blood.
To ensure the glory was permanently remembered, Angron reached into the freshly cut wound and tore it open, preventing it from healing quickly.
Blood dripped down his fingers.
Blood dripped down their fingers.
Khârn used his fingers to hold open his wound, his fingertips brushing against the slick, black carapace. The pain burned like fire.
He took a deep breath but didn't pick up the fiery red sand.
Instead, he picked up the pitch-black sand.
The black sand, a symbol of shame and failure.
Shame would mark the beginning of the World Eaters.
The black crept upward, numbing the pain in his heart.
His vision blurred, and the black and red intermingled before his eyes.
Angron was overjoyed.
He had gained a new band of brothers who had joined him in inscribing the red lines of glory.
What he didn't know was that not all within the World Eaters had chosen the red sand.
Black lines began to wind their way through the legion.
<+>
Later, Imperator Somnium
"Report, my lord. The 12th Legion has found their Primarch."
With the messenger's words, Angron's information was transmitted.
The Emperor glanced at it casually.
"Oh."
"Inform the 12th Legion that I will arrange a surgery for Number Twelve."
The front-line battle reports came in again, and the Emperor's thoughts wandered for only a moment before returning to other matters.
Though his twelfth weapon was damaged, it could still be used.
<+>
A Quirky Scene:
"Why didn't you stop them, Number Eight?"
Number Seven mumbled, giving Number Eight a push.
"His anchor point isn't here anymore."
Number Eight burst into laughter.
"Besides, I don't fuss over these things. I cares not from where the blood flows!"
Number Seven muttered darkly about destiny, perseverance, and compassion—words incomprehensible to those around him.
<+>
An: The point of contention here is the Emperor's attitude. In the original lore, the Emperor was extremely indifferent toward Angron, which gave rise to the notion that "the Emperor deliberately abandoned the Primarchs he disliked."
However, in the latest books, the Emperor is portrayed as valuing his Primarchs and hoping they could eventually retire in peace, which contrasts with the accounts in Angron's chronicles.
In this book, regarding Angron, the portrayal of the Emperor will align more closely with Angron's Chronicles.
<+>
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