Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 546 Hatred and Kindness

A terrifying roar, like the explosion of a planet's core, erupted! The entire Silent Furnace shook violently!

The azure disintegration field compressed to its extreme by the "Worldbreaker" and the pale, vibrating field entwined by the "Forge Hammer" collided violently less than a meter in front of Felus's chest! The two violent energy fields annihilated and erupted fiercely!
A blinding flash of light engulfed everything! The immense impact was transmitted to Feralas without reservation!
"puff--!"

Felus's heavily armored chest visibly caved in! The sturdy breastplate groaned as the metal twisted!
As if struck by an ancient Titan, her massive, mountain-like body went completely out of control, flying backward!

"BOOM—!!!!!!!!! Crack—!"

Feralus crashed violently into a giant adamantite pillar supporting the dome!
The terrifying impact caused the giant pillar to groan, bending and deforming instantly, covered with huge, spiderweb-like cracks!

Felus was embedded in the sunken pillar, his power backpack emitting black smoke, his left arm hanging limply, his chest armor shattered, revealing torn muscles and broken bones, and crimson blood mixed with silver-gray gushed out, staining the armor and the cold adamantite pillar.

She struggled, each breath bringing a tearing pain to her chest. Her silver-grey eyes were filled with frustration, pain, but even more so with a burning rage as she stared intently at Hathor as he approached.

Hathor strode across the wrecked battlefield, riddled with cracks and molten metal, his boots sizzling as they stepped on the burning debris.

She stood before Felus, who was deeply embedded in the pillar, looking down at her former brother, whose power had been lost but whose spirit remained unyielding.

The ivory-white Terminator armor was covered in scars, and the wolf-skin cloak swayed in the turbulent energy flow.

“Horus…traitor…” Feralus’s voice was hoarse and broken, filled with the metallic clatter of blood and foam, “Kill me…or…one day…I will personally…completely melt you down…”

Every word seemed to be squeezed out from the depths of his chest.

Hathor ignored the roar.

She slowly raised her right hand, the cold, adamantite fingertips of "Claws of Horus" gleaming with a chilling light, precisely gripping Feralus's throat, which was covered by shattered breastplate.

The cold metal pressed against the throbbing throat and warm blood.

The entire testing area fell into a deathly silence, and the spectators held their breath.

All eyes were focused on the sharp claw gripping the throat.

Hathor stared into those silver-grey eyes filled with resentment and eternal hatred, his voice low and clear, piercing through the smoke of battle and millennia of blood feud: "Death cannot undo mistakes, Felus Manus."

The claws gripping the throat did not exert any fatal force.

“Ten thousand years ago, a being named Horus Lupecal committed an unforgivable sin.” Her voice was heavy and sorrowful. “He betrayed his father’s trust, betrayed the expectations of the human empire, and betrayed all the brothers who entrusted their lives and loyalty to him. That sin can never be washed away.”

Feralus's struggling movements seemed to have an extremely slight pause.

"But I've returned." Hathor's voice suddenly rose, his molten gold eyes shining brightly. "Not the warmaster bewitched by chaos! Not the puppet of the four gods! I am Hathor Lupeka!"

I carry that heavy memory not to wallow in the past, but to... make amends!

As the words were spoken, the clenched claws tightened their grip on the throat almost imperceptibly.

“Look at this galaxy, Feralas!” Her gaze seemed to pierce through the dome of the furnace. “It decays, struggles, and gasps for breath on the edge of despair! Chaos laughs wildly! Aliens ravage! Humanity sinks into darkness! And our father… on the golden throne, burned for this shattered empire for ten thousand years! This is the consequence of betrayal! This is reality!”

“Now,” Hathor’s voice boomed like a hammer, “a chance for redemption is before us! Not mutual destruction! But to use our remaining strength to protect! To rebuild! To salvage… everything we destroyed with our own hands!”

Her gaze refocused on Feralas' face, filled with determination.

Hathor slowly and resolutely withdrew the "Claw of Horus," his cold fingertips leaving the bloodied throat.

She took a step back, the fighting spirit in her eyes fading, leaving only a heavy sense of responsibility and determination.

"Keep your life for yourself! Use it to forge a blade to protect the future, not to point it at the hatred of the past." Her voice regained its calmness, but carried a final ultimatum. "Remember, this is the last time! If you again raise a weapon against me or against the Governor's cause because of the ghosts of the past... I will not show mercy this time!"

Having said that, Hathor stopped looking at Feralus, whose eyes were swirling wildly within the pillar.

She turned abruptly, her battle-scarred Terminator armor standing solemnly in the cold light, her wolf-skin cloak tracing an arc as she strode steadily toward the silently activated defensive force field barrier.

The barrier closed silently behind her.

Feralus Manus was deeply embedded in the twisted adamantite pillar, crimson and silver-gray blood dripping from his shattered breastplate and hissing on the floor.

His silver-gray eyes were fixed on the exit where Hathor had left, as if he wanted to imprint it into the depths of his soul.

His intact right hand was clenched tightly, his knuckles making a grating metallic scraping sound, and a piece of metal fragment was deeply embedded in his palm.

A blood feud spanning millennia roared and churned within him, and the urge to destroy almost reignited.

But Hathor's final words, about the state of the empire, about her father's burning, about "making amends," were like the hardest rivets, driven into the core of her boiling rage.

“Make amends… for a mistake?” Felus’s voice was hoarse and broken.

She abruptly closed her eyes, her metal-clad chest heaving violently, the movement aggravating her wounds and causing excruciating pain.

When he opened his eyes again, the surging killing intent had not disappeared, but was covered and suppressed by a thicker, colder, and harder layer of steely will.

With great difficulty, bit by bit, she pulled her broken body out of the sunken support pillar.

As fragments of broken armor fell, she ignored the flowing blood and pain, her silver-gray gaze finally settling on the cold passageway where Hathor had disappeared.

There, only the smoke of gunpowder filled the air.

Felus didn't look at anyone—not at Chen Xi, not at Oregana or Kaul, not even at the "Forge Hammer" lying quietly at the edge of the crater in the distance.

She dragged her broken body, taking heavy, unsteady steps, each step leaving a footprint mixed with blood and metal fragments on the adamantite floor, as she walked toward the maintenance passage in the opposite direction from where Hathor had left.

The lonely, heavy footsteps echoed hollowly beneath the deathly silent dome, eventually disappearing completely into the shadows of the passageway.

(End of this chapter)