A Horde of Monsters Far From Grace By Joazzz2 Watch

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The skies of the Throneworld were ablaze.



Debris fell as meteors high from orbit, fragments of slain spacecraft burning up and trailing long streaks of flame as they entered the atmosphere. We could see them from the Palace walls, bright streaks of finality plummeting down over the horizon. Some of it was sure to be turncoat wreckage, but the sheer number of these funeral pyres in the sky left no doubt of the reality: The Warmaster had come - his fleet had made it past the guns of Luna, and now the defender flotilla was lost. Nothing stood between the armies of Horus and the soil of Terra itself.



Vast landers descended through the heavens, their void shields and magnetic fields working in tandem with the orbital bombardment to wreak havoc on the weather. Storms of lightning broke out of the darkened clouds and rain, cold and bitter as if in recognition of the events to take place, came to fall. Stormbirds, Thunderhawks and smaller gunships raced down like raptors in for the kill. The landing lights of the invading craft turned the night into day. Anti-aircraft fire swatted many from the skies, yet many more made it through the hellstorm of flak and missiles, coming to land a relatively safe distance away from the Eternity Wall. In the dark we could make out only glimpses of the ships' heraldry, though we all should've known who would be the first ones into the fray.



Rushing out of their transports came the XII Legion, the traitors of the "World Eaters". Many of them were as we had been told, charging forward like rabid dogs in warpaint of indigo and snow, yet it was clear that what little nobility had once remained in their savage hearts had been swept away by something darker. Spikes adorned their armor and vehicles, trophy racks impaling the skulls of slain foes. Red was the rising dominant color in their heraldry, a great many of them having decorated their battle-plate entirely with crimson and brass, and many more having replaced the blue of their armor with the color of spilled blood. Their helms were horned with crude metallic pinions and the seemingly natural horns of some terrible beasts. In the night they came, a horde of monsters fallen far from their grace. One could not find a single shred of pretense of organisation in their assault - they charged as a pack across the muddy plain, each maddened Astartes scrambling over his comrades in a contest to get the first, second and third kill.



Though I am in some ways grateful for having survived the apocalyptic war that followed, the images of this night are forever imprinted into the mists of my mind, and the dreams of my later days are haunted by the never-ending chanting born of the blood lust that finally took the World Eaters Legion beyond the edge of redemption:



BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

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