Chapter 533: Battle Between Brothers

There was no conversation.

There was no need for one.

Leman Russ intended only to carry out his mission.

Magnus, knowing Russ’s temperament—and knowing he could not justify the current catastrophe even if he tried—remained silent.

After a brief exchange of complicated gazes, the two Primarchs, once brothers, severed their bond without a word.

They moved simultaneously.

This was no sparring match.

This was a duel between two beings whose sons and people had been slaughtered.

Neither held back.

Magnus raised his hand, and psychic lightning—enough to blot out the sky—coalesced into a blazing sphere several meters across.

Even without touching anything, the heat and energy leaking from it vaporized the surrounding ground into dust.

Then—at near-light speed—the orb shot toward Leman Russ like a cannon shell.

A strike of such magnitude would have disintegrated a conventional starship.

Yet Russ did not flinch.

He didn’t even attempt to dodge.

He simply thrust forward with the Spear of the Allfather—a relic forged by Malcador for the Emperor Himself, using lost technologies of the Golden Age and materials that could no longer be replicated.

It was one of the most powerful personal weapons in the Imperium.

Only a Primarch with a special role—Leman Russ, executioner of his brothers—was worthy of wielding it.

The spear’s gleaming tip pierced the lightning sphere as easily as a knife slicing open a water-filled balloon.

Liquid arcs of psychic electricity burst outward in all directions.

They should have dissolved everything nearby.

But as the runes on the spear lit up, the lightning’s temperature and psychic potency plunged—like boiling water thrown into a freezing vault.

By the time the energy washed over Russ, its destructive power had dwindled to almost nothing.

His Primarch-forged armor didn’t even scorch.

Magnus showed no surprise.

This was exactly what he expected.

Russ’s weapon and Russ’s purpose made him uniquely dangerous.

But Magnus did not retreat.

He was past caring.

He only wanted, with his remaining strength, to avenge his sons and people.

The instant Russ shattered the lightning sphere, his form blurred and vanished.

He crossed several kilometers in less than a heartbeat.

In the blink of an eye, he was before Magnus.

The spear stabbed forward.

Only after the spearhead nearly reached Magnus did the air finally erupt with a belated sonic boom—his speed had defied the laws of physics.

But Magnus was not alarmed.

For all his reputation as a “sorcerer-Primarch,” his close-quarters combat ability was far beyond human comprehension.

With psychic energy flooding his cells, his entire body became a perfect biological weapon.

He twisted aside, avoiding the strike by a hair’s breadth.

But before he could counterattack, a crushing, unseen force pressed down upon him—Russ’s Primarch-slaying aura, the Emperor’s gift and the reason Russ and the Space Wolves were executioners of their own kind.

Magnus’s expression tightened.

Russ was fighting seriously now.

“Come, Magnus!” Russ roared.

“Show me everything you have!”

He swung the spear again—an impossible angle, an impossible trajectory.

Magnus warped the space around himself, bending reality to create a momentary opening—

And then, the two Primarchs vanished into a storm of afterimages.

Their duel tore the air, shattered stone, and pulverized the battlefield in bursts of superhuman speed.

None of the surrounding Space Wolves or Thousand Sons could follow their movements.

Inspired by their Primarch’s resistance, the surviving Thousand Sons let out a battle cry and charged once more.

Hours passed.

When the Thousand Sons had been reduced to barely a thousand warriors, the duel between Primarchs also neared its end.

And as expected—

Russ held the advantage.

Born to counter his brothers, armed with an unparalleled weapon, he fought with grim efficiency.

Magnus’s body bore several deep, piercing wounds—each one lethal to lesser beings.

Russ nodded once, flicking Magnus’s blood from the spear.

“I’ve won.”

He stepped forward to deliver the final blow—

“…That’s not certain.”

“?”

A burst of searing psychic plasma exploded in Russ’s hand.

The shock forced him to drop the Spear of the Allfather.

Before he could react, Magnus—who had seemed moments from collapse—lunged forward and locked his arms around Russ’s throat, trying to crush his neck.

The two Primarchs crashed to the ground, wrestling with raw fury like brawlers in a back-alley fight.

They rolled, struck, choked, tore, and grappled with primal brutality—stripped of refinement, relying only on sheer will and strength.

In the end, the less injured Primarch prevailed.

Russ lifted Magnus high into the air—

—and slammed him downward, driving the Crimson King’s spine against his armored knee.

A sickening crack echoed through the ruins.

Magnus’s psychic scream tore through the minds of every mortal present.

Many stumbled, dizzy and disoriented.

Russ had broken his brother’s back.

And the battle of Prospero neared its tragic conclusion.

…..

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