Chapter 76 The Return of the Khan and the Wolf King

Under Guilliman’s command, the Imperial crusade force split into multiple armadas. They aggressively blockaded Commorragh’s primary arterial routes, ensuring they could entirely wipe out the vast majority of the Drukhari forces without them slipping away.

In the outer districts of Commorragh, the primary Imperial assault fleet executed wave after wave of merciless, saturation orbital bombardment against key Drukhari installations. Apocalyptic explosions reduced the dark, twisted spires to smoldering rubble, completely transforming the entire outer rim into a raging sea of fire.

Once the Drukhari anti-air batteries and aerial squadrons were neutralized, the Imperium deployed its ground forces to purge the survivors and secure total control of the beachheads.

Towering, 140-meter-tall Imperator-class Titans lumbered forward like heavily armored gods of war. Their massive, blocky footfalls crushed the ruins of the outer districts. Acting as the vanguard spearhead, they absorbed the brunt of the Drukhari’s frantic, concentrated counter-fire, violently carving a bloody path straight into the heart of the Dark City. Violet void shields rippled and flared wildly under the relentless barrage.

On the ground, vast formations of Astartes and mechanized armor clusters advanced in the Titans’ wake, systematically crushing whatever enemies remained in their path.

“Time for a good old-fashioned slaughter!”

Vane threw himself straight into the thick of the fighting. Wielding Bloodletter [Carnage], he hacked and slashed his way through the chaos without even blinking.

Slice. Cleave. Hack. Slash.

Everywhere he went, severed limbs and mangled torsos painted the ground red.

This feels amazing!

Vane was having so much fun he practically wanted to groan in satisfaction. This kind of zero-brain-cell hack-and-slash gameplay was just the absolute best.

The more he killed, the deeper the crimson hue of Bloodletter [Carnage] became. Faint, rhythmic chanting could almost be heard emanating from the blade itself—a bloody, visceral symphony sounding as if it were echoing straight out of the deepest pits of the Nether. This was the blade leveling up; the more lives it consumed, the stronger its base stats became.

Even the Reaper of Souls Suit he was wearing was actively leveling up through the sheer volume of slaughter, consecutively unlocking two new passive abilities: ‘Endless Nightmare’ and ‘Brutal Slaughter’.

The un-upgraded Reaper of Souls Suit was just a baseline armor set. But as the wearer racked up kills and absorbed the essence of fallen enemies, the suit’s attributes would continuously scale, increasing its base defense, damage reflection, critical hit rate, and critical hit damage.

Upon reaching Enhancement Level 10, the suit unlocked the ‘Endless Nightmare’ trait. Every single kill granted a chance to trigger the ‘Nightmare’ state. Each stack of Nightmare provided a flat 0.5% multiplier to total damage output.

Upon reaching Enhancement Level 20, the suit unlocked the ‘Brutal Slaughter’ trait, permanently increasing base damage by 7% and critical hit damage by 7%. But the real kicker was that every time the trait procced, both damage types increased by another 7%.

As long as there were enough enemies to keep him in a state of continuous combat, Vane could stack these buffs infinitely to reach genuinely terrifying levels of DPS. If the buffs stacked high enough, even a baseline mortal with a combat power of 5 could literally kill a god.

This was exactly why Vane had chosen to grind out the Reaper of Souls Suit. In the Warhammer universe, this armor set’s mechanics could be pushed to their absolute maximum limit. This was especially true once it hit Enhancement Level 30 and unlocked the ‘Domain of Death’. The Domain would blanket the entire battlefield, and every single death within that zone—friend or foe—would instantly grant the suit another stack of buffs.

As long as he maxed out the Reaper of Souls Suit, Vane was completely confident he could arm-wrestle the Chaos Gods and clear this universe even if he never managed to craft the Sword of the Cosmos. After all, the one thing the Warp absolutely did not lack was an endless supply of enemies to stack his buffs on.

“Huh? Did I seriously kill them all already?”

After dropping yet another Kabalite Warrior with a casual swing, Vane looked around only to realize he was completely out of targets. There was nothing left but a massive field of corpses. Off in the distance, the Lion and Sanguinius were still butchering massive hordes of Drukhari.

Vane popped open his mini-map, trying to locate the highest concentration of enemies so he could go back to farming.

Suddenly, the ambient temperature in his immediate vicinity plummeted. Faint, eerie sounds of frost cracking echoed through the dark corridor. Thick, viscous shadows rapidly slithered across the ground, converging aggressively on his position. Once they were within striking distance, multiple Drukhari burst from the shadows. They had snow-white hair, and their pitch-black skin was entirely covered in glowing, forbidden runes.

“Mandrake?”

Vane recognized the xenos immediately. Mandrakes were nightmarish entities that fed entirely on the pain and terror of their prey. Possessing the ability to literally merge with shadows and phase through solid matter, they were considered some of the most terrifying, unpredictable assassins in all of Commorragh.

Several Mandrakes lunged at Vane simultaneously, moving with such horrifying speed that they left blurry afterimages in the air.

Vane casually raised Bloodletter [Carnage] to parry their descending blades. But capitalizing on the split-second opening, one of the Mandrakes hooked a massive, razor-sharp claw directly toward Vane’s stomach, fully intending to disembowel him.

The glowing runes etched into a Mandrake’s skin weren’t just for show. When they struck, the runes flared, hyper-densifying their claws and granting them enough sheer cutting power to effortlessly shred through adamantium plating.

The claw violently raked across Vane’s stomach… and was dead-stopped by his armor. A massive shower of sparks erupted from the impact, but when the sparks cleared, there wasn’t even a microscopic scratch on the suit.

A Level 30 Reaper of Souls Suit offered genuinely incomprehensible defense stats. Forget a Mandrake’s claw—Vane could probably face-tank a direct hit from a battleship’s macro-cannon and shrug it off with zero actual HP loss.

“You can try again if you want,” Vane offered casually, staring down at the utterly baffled Mandrake.

The assassin was staring at its claw in sheer disbelief. I can literally rip open an armored personnel carrier with this. Why can’t I pierce this mon-keigh’s armor?! This defies all logic!

The Mandrake let out a low, guttural hiss and raised its claw, genuinely preparing to try again.

“Oh wow, I told you to try again and you actually went for it.”

Vane flicked his wrist. With a single, effortless swing of Bloodletter [Carnage], he cleaved the Mandrake cleanly in half at the waist.

The bisected Mandrake stared up from the floor, entirely speechless.

Didn’t you literally just tell me to try again?! Human, you are absolutely despicable!

Seeing their kin slaughtered, the remaining Mandrakes didn’t retreat. Instead, they exchanged a quick look, raised their weapons, and swarmed Vane, attempting to overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

Suddenly, the Great Angel dropped from the sky, wielding his legendary Spear of Telesto and the Blade Encarmine.

“If you wish to outnumber him, you’ll have to answer to my spear and blade first.”

“Forefather, I am here!” The Lion roared, bursting from a nearby corridor and plunging straight into the mob of assassins. His massive greatsword moved in a dizzying flurry of strikes, instantly painting the floor red.

The Mandrakes of Commorragh were infamous across the galaxy for their blinding speed and utterly erratic, shadow-stepping mobility. But against Primarchs—beings possessing absolute, god-like speed and strength—the Mandrakes’ abilities were about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

They were effortlessly torn to shreds by the Primarchs’ weapons, reduced to nothing more than mangled corpses beneath their boots. Before Vane even had a chance to swing his sword, the entire ambush of Mandrakes had been completely, utterly eradicated by the two Primarchs.

Sanguinius impaled the final, twitching Mandrake on his spear and violently hurled it across the room. The corpse slammed against the wall with a sickening crunch of shattering bone, immediately going limp.

Scanning the area to ensure there were no remaining hostiles, the Great Angel walked over to Vane and delivered a report.

“Forefather, Guilliman just transmitted an urgent priority message.”

“What did he say?” Vane asked, tilting his head.

“The fleet elements dispatched to blockade the arterial Webway spars have just intercepted Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan. They claim they were personally guided by the Emperor to come and reinforce you.”

Vane was completely speechless.

That damn old man on the Throne! He saw the Lion get a massive power-up and instantly rushed the Wolf King and the Khan over here so they could get a piece of the pie too!

And damn that blue space-chicken! I don’t even know why I’m cursing Tzeentch right now, but it’s definitely his fault too!

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