Chapter 1193 Xerxes' Choice

Trajan's tense face was reflected in the bridge observation window of the Vengeful Spirit.

The golden armor of the commander of the Custodians took on a blood-red hue in the red light of the alarm. His fingertips drew a track on the holographic projection, magnifying the front-line image of the Webway battlefield tenfold.

"Lord Waldo is ahead!"

His voice exploded in the communication channel, alarming everyone who was discussing matters in the strategy room.

In the projection screen, the figure of the commander of the imperial guards, Waldo, was like a golden lighthouse, appearing and disappearing in the scarlet waves of demons.

Around him, fallen Khornate Daemons piled up into a small mountain, but more brass armor was pouring out of the Warp rifts.

Horus Lupercal's boots made a heavy echo on the metal ground.

The Warmaster's Terminator armor was covered with fresh traces of battle, and the wolf-head emblem on his left shoulder was pierced by a groove left by a demon's claws.

His ice-blue eyes swept across the holographic sand table and he immediately understood the situation.

"We need a group of people to support Valdor." His voice was as deep as thunder, with unquestionable majesty, "Trajan, you take your team to support first." The Warmaster's finger drew an assault route on the star map, "I will let several companies from other legions take over your defensive positions."

Trajan breathed heavily under his visor. As the commander of the Imperial Guard, he knew the value of Valdor better than anyone else—not only in terms of tactics, but also in symbolic terms.

The figure fighting on the front line of the Webway represents the embodiment of the supreme will of the Emperor's Guards.

"Understood, Warmaster."

The joints of the golden armor made a pleasant humming sound, and Trajan's cloak rose in a perfect arc when he turned around.

As he walked through the corridor, more than a thousand imperial guards immediately broke away from their guard positions and formed a standard wedge-shaped assault formation.

Their power halberds activated simultaneously, and the blue light emitted by the molecular disruption field illuminated the corridor like midnight day.

Inside the strategic room, the air became thick due to the presence of the Primarchs.

Lorgar Aurelion's psychic cloak moved without wind, and the scriptures embroidered on it glowed with golden light as the energy flowed.

The Word Bearers' Primarch's fingers unconsciously stroked the metal cover of the Sacred Words, with a flame of piety burning in his eyes.

"So, who will stay to stop the demon?" Horus looked around at everyone, his gaze lingering on each brother's face for a moment.

"I."

Lorgar took a step forward, his voice as solemn as the bells of a cathedral.

Psychic runes flowed across his bronze skin, and every line recorded the epic of mankind’s faith for tens of thousands of years.

"The Webway is the foundation of humanity and the foundation of my father." His eyes penetrated the wall of the ship, as if he saw those blasphemous demons tarnishing the Emperor's great cause, "I will not let those filthy things desecrate this place."

Just as the Word Bearers Primarch was about to give an order, a hand wrapped in desert-style armor rested on his shoulder.

Xerxes' scimitar hummed softly in its scabbard, and the eyes of the Primarch of the Second Legion were like the clearest turquoise on the Persian Plateau.

"No, it's not time for you to go yet, brother." Xerxes' voice carried the melodious rhythm of the desert, but contained unquestionable determination. He turned to Horus and said, "Leave this to us. The yellow sands of the empire will swallow up those demons."

Horus's eyes moved between the two brothers. The Warmaster could see the religious fervor burning in Lorgar's eyes, and the confident curve at the corner of Xerxes' mouth.

Finally, he nodded, the joints of his armor plating grinding heavily.

"I leave it to you, Xerxes."

The Second Legion's Primarch smiled back, a smile that made him look like the desert prince from ancient Terra's legends.

When he turned, the gold threads inlaid on his white robes flowed in the light, like flowing sand dunes. "Nadir!" His call swept across the bridge like a desert wind, "First Company, assemble!"

The roar of the Thunderhawk gunship's engine responded to him. Through the observation window, he could see the warriors of the Lonely Warriors Corps boarding the plane quickly.

Their armor was painted like sandstone faded by the sun, and ancient Persian runes were etched into every plate.

First Captain Nadir stood in front of the hatch, his helmet decorated with ornate golden wings on both sides and a jackal totem etched on his visor.

Xerxes took one last look at the struggling figure of Waldor on the holographic projection, and stroked the "Silver Fang of the Desert" at his waist with his fingers.

The scabbard of this legendary scimitar is entwined with living sand snakes, which raise their heads and hiss as they sense their master's fighting spirit.

The moment the blade was unsheathed, the temperature of the entire bridge seemed to rise by several degrees - that was the Warp Demon imprisoned in the blade awakening.

"For the Emperor! For the Dream of Mankind!"

"Let the yellow sands of the empire swallow up the heretics!"

Following Xerxes' battle cry, tens of thousands of warships of the Second Legion simultaneously broke away from the main fleet.

Their thrusters spewed out golden-red tail flames, drawing countless brilliant tracks in the void, like a meteor shower suddenly appearing in the desert night sky.

The Webway battlefield has now turned into a meat grinder.

Waldo fell to one knee, his breathing heavy as a broken bellows.

The golden armor of the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guards was covered with dents and cracks, and in some of the wounds one could even see the wriggling muscle tissue underneath.

Around him, the last twenty Custodes formed a circle with their backs to each other. Their bolters had long since overheated and were scrapped, and now they had to rely on power weapons to support them.

"Hold on..." Waldo stood up with difficulty, his voice hoarse due to the blood in his lungs, "Reinforcements...will be here soon..."

His words were interrupted by the roar of a Khorne Daemon. Skarbrand's second-in-command, Bloodmaw Karndar, was leading a new wave of daemons.

This six-armed demon held a different blasphemous weapon in each hand, and hundreds of helmets of different styles were inlaid on the brass armor.

Just when the golden defense line was about to collapse, the entire network suddenly shook.

It was not the vibration of war, but the awakening of some more primitive and ancient power.

The demons paused uneasily, their sulfurous blood suddenly becoming thick.

"What is that?" a guard asked hoarsely.

The answer was quickly revealed.

Behind the demon army, the void suddenly twisted and rotated, forming a small sandstorm.

But this was no natural phenomenon - the sands were gleaming with blue psychic light, and every grain of sand was singing, a hymn to death in ancient Persian.

"boom!"

A figure exploded in the center of the sandstorm.

Xerxes landed as gracefully as a desert cheetah, his scimitar drawing a perfect arc.

The thousands of bloodthirsty demons that first came into contact with the blades didn't even have time to scream. Their brass armor and flesh and blood turned into sand in an instant, turning into a pile of lifeless golden particles.

"Wake up, buddy." Xerxes called softly, and the runes on the blade lit up one by one.

The Warp Demon imprisoned in the knife awakened. It was a desert cobra made of pure energy. It swam out from the tip of the knife and instantly expanded to a hundred meters in length. Ancient spells were jumping on its golden scales.

The arrival of Gao Moda, the Legion's chief think tank, was even more spectacular.

The psychic wearing a snake-shaped crown was suspended in mid-air, with the scepter "Eternal Sand" in his hand pointing to the area with the highest concentration of demons.

Following an ancient spell, the sapphire on top of the scepter exploded, releasing spiritual energy that had been accumulated for thousands of years.

"Baptism of Sand!"

Gao Moda's voice was like thunder under the amplification of psychic energy. A real sandstorm descended - not ordinary sand, but demon-killing sand blessed by psychic energy.

Every grain of sand spun like a miniature decomposition force field, and the brass armor that the Khorne demons were so proud of was as fragile as rice paper under this attack.

The bloodletters swung their axes in vain, but could only watch their arms disappear bit by bit in the sandstorm.

"First Company! Land and fire!"

Nadir's voice came from the communication channel.

Thirty Thunderhawk gunships flew across the battlefield in perfect formation. With their hatches wide open, the most elite warriors of the Desert Warriors unleashed fire with specially modified "Sandstorm"-type grenade launchers.

These ammunitions are filled with the same psychic sand as the Xerxes Scimitar, and upon hitting a target they will turn the demon into sand from the inside.

Waldo stood up with the help of his spear, his pupils fixed on the sudden desert storm.

Even the most stubborn of Khorne Daemons began to retreat before this force.

Waldo half-knelt on the hill of demon debris, his respirator made a hoarse suction sound, and the crack on his golden breastplate that ran diagonally from the right shoulder to the left abdomen oozed out bright blue life-sustaining fluid.

The commander of the imperial guards raised his blood-stained visor, and the white figure walking on the sand was reflected in his one eye.

"The Lord of the Second Legion?"

His voice sounded like it was squeezed out of a broken resonator, with electronic noise and the gurgling of blood.

Xerxes' platinum boots stepped on the pool of solidified blood, and his desert-style armor shone with a mother-of-pearl-like luster in the dim light of the web.

The scimitar "Desert Silver Fang" hummed in his hand, and the living sand snake wrapped around the scabbard was spitting at the devil.

"It looks like you remember me, Waldo."

Xerxes' smile makes him look like the sun god in the frescoes of ancient Terra.

As he knelt on one knee, his white cape embroidered with gold tassels spread out behind him like a crescent of sand dunes in the desert.

The Primarch's slender fingers gently clasped the seams of the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guards' shoulder armor. Nano-repairing agent seeped out from his fingertips, temporarily sealing the most fatal wound.

"Your aesthetic is still so... weird." Waldo coughed out a mouthful of blood foam with electric arcs, but let the other party help him up.

The two men's gold and platinum armor formed a strange picture against the backdrop of the mountain of demon corpses.

"a ha ha ha!"

The laughter cut through the silence like a rusty chainsaw.

Three hundred meters away, Skarbrand stood up from a pool of blood, with corrosive blood still dripping from his new blood-red wings.

Most of the demon's brass armor had been peeled off in the sandstorm just now, revealing the constantly wriggling muscle tissue underneath - there were tens of thousands of heads embedded on it.

"Descendants of the Cursed?" Skarbrand's eyes were focused on Xerxes at the same time, and his tongue licked over the jagged fangs. "I was just about to find you! Since you are here! Then offer your head to the Blood God!"

The demon's charge set off a bloody storm.

Its arms held blasphemous weapons from different eras, and each weapon was entangled with tens of thousands of resentful souls.

Eighty Greater Daemons of Khorne followed closely behind, trampling over the corpses of their own kind as they advanced, their brazen hooves crushing skulls to powder.

Xerxes did not move. His turquoise pupils shrank slightly, reflecting the approaching death storm. When the charging demon was still thirty steps away from him, the Primarch of the Second Legion suddenly plunged his scimitar into the ground.

"Hey, man." He whispered the name of the one imprisoned in the knife. "It's time for dinner."

The golden inscription on the blade instantly shone as bright as the sun.

A giant golden snake made of pure psychic energy burst out from the tip of the knife, and as it stretched its body in the air, the scales it scattered turned into a deadly sandstorm.

The first three demons to be touched by the snake's kiss suddenly froze, and their brass armor burst from the inside, spraying out not blood but dry sand.

Xerxes formed an ancient psychic seal with his fingers on his chest, "From dust to dust."

As the spell was chanted, the charging demons seemed to hit an invisible wall.

The twelve Khorne Daemons in the front row remained frozen in a charging posture, and then began to turn into sand from the feet.

The process was slow and cruel. The demons could only watch their bodies decompose powerlessly, and their howls gradually became weaker as their throats became sandy.

Skarbrand barely managed to stop, and its six weapons crossed to block, but it was still overturned by the aftermath of the psychic energy.

The great demon's massive body plowed a ravine of flesh and blood through the horde of demons, smashing millions of blood-letting demons before stopping.

When it struggled to get up, its brass visor was already covered with spider-web-like cracks.

“I guess my head doesn’t belong to anyone yet.”

Xerxes drew out his scimitar, and the sand flowing on the blade made a crisp sound like wind chimes.

As he slowly walked forward, ancient patterns appeared on the webpath beneath his feet, and every step he took rewrote the laws of reality.

The Primarch's platinum hair fluttered in the psychic storm, and every strand of hair flashed with demon-killing runes.

Waldo stood up with the broken spear, and the commander of the imperial guards' breathing had become much calmer.

He noticed that the desertified demon corpses were undergoing a wonderful change. Every grain of sand here was absorbing the surrounding warp energy and transforming into more deadly psychic mines.

"You're still the same." Waldo's comment was filled with rare admiration.

He stretched his stiff body, and the hum of his weapon's decomposition field and the whisper of the Desert Fang formed a wonderful harmony.

Skarbrand finally broke free from the sandstorm. He broke his two arms on the left side and used the broken bones to draw a bloody sigil on his chest.

"Blood sacrifice to the Blood God!" The roar of the great demon made black stone fragments fall from the dome of the Webway, "Skull sacrifice to the Skull Throne!"

In response, two rays of death light attacked at the same time, and then Skarbrand's huge body was shattered in an instant. Under the huge psychic power, Skarbrand's blood-red skin was swept by the psychic power and then turned into blood mist.