"Bring me the spear."
Standing resolute on the bridge, Guilliman remained unmoved, unfazed by the stray projectiles ricocheting around him. Unlike others who sought cover, he stood his ground.
The Living Saint Celestine and Greyfax readied themselves to confront Vengarl, but Guilliman stopped them with a single glance.
"The one I discovered in the alien tomb?" Cawl asked, though his tone betrayed hesitation rather than inquiry. The thought of the Primarch wielding xenos technology unsettled him. Moreover, the weapon in question was not only difficult to retrieve but also ill-suited for the current battle.
Yet Guilliman's unwavering gaze left no room for debate. Cawl immediately retrieved a rectangular weapon case from his robes and placed it on the deck.
The case hissed open, releasing a plume of white mist. When the lid fully rose, a spear was revealed within.
Its shaft was intricately engraved with strange patterns, and its tip shimmered green, pulsing with a near-imperceptible flicker. Guilliman's keen eyes discerned that the spearhead oscillated rapidly, as though shifting between this reality and another in nanosecond bursts.
"A phase weapon?" Greyfax murmured, recognizing the design—a phasic melee weapon of the Necron xenos, renowned for its ability to bypass almost any material.
Cawl extended his mechadendrites, lifting the spear from its case and presenting it to Guilliman. The Primarch grasped it firmly with his right hand, adopting a stance akin to throwing a javelin.
Vengarl, engaged in combat, caught sight of this act. A foreboding chill gripped him, but before he could react, Guilliman hurled the phase spear with all his might.
Propelled by the strength of a Primarch, the spear didn't arc but streaked straight like a bullet. It weaved through the gaps between Ultramarines locked in battle, pierced through a Red Corsair who had strayed into its path, and embedded itself into the right eye of Vengarl's MK1 terminator armor.
The spearhead emerged cleanly from the back of Vengarl's skull, as effortlessly as slicing through soft clay. The shaft wedged itself in his cranial remains.
Vengarl's body stiffened and fell backward, lifeless.
"That's one of my brother's Tactical Dreadnought suits. Strip it off," Guilliman commanded, casting a dispassionate glance at Vengarl's corpse and the scattered bodies of his defeated followers. He then turned his focus back to coordinating the ship's defense against the boarding parties.
The task of removing the MK1 armor fell to the Adeptus Mechanicus. Cawl directed one of his assistants to recover the armor, transmitting a binary directive: **Retrieve the spear first.**
By the time Cawl's assistant arrived, Vengarl's boarding team had been completely eradicated. Examining the torpedo that had delivered them so deep into the ship, the assistant noted the faint traces of a Talon Navy insignia, worn almost entirely away.
"No wonder," the assistant muttered before securing the spear and beginning the task of dismantling the MK1 armor.
Returning to the bridge, the assistant reported the details of the boarding torpedo.
"Why would Talon technology be here?" Greyfax exclaimed, striding to Guilliman's side and voicing her suspicions. "They must be aiding the enemy!"
Guilliman contemplated her words but ultimately shook his head. "If they were truly aiding the foe, there would have been an entire swarm of torpedoes breaching the bridge by now."
He recalled records he had reviewed in the Talon sector—logs of a vessel named *Glory's Path*, which had disappeared into the Warp alongside the *Vengeance of the Soul*. It seemed likely that the ship had emerged from the Maelstrom only to fall into Huron's hands, its crew enslaved and its arsenal plundered.
"Scan the enemy fleet," Guilliman ordered. "List every class of ship present."
The augur arrays scanned the Red Corsair fleet, cataloging its vessels. Guilliman's eyes skimmed the list. Finding no Talon cruiser among them, he dismissed further thoughts of the *Glory's Path*, refocusing on the immediate battle.
"The warp engine's casing was punctured by that torpedo. Repairs will take ten minutes," Cawl relayed, passing along a message from the engine room.
Guilliman nodded, deep in thought. Yet even as he strategized, he heard them again—the voices. The same relentless murmurs that had haunted him earlier.
The voices probed at his psyche, questioning his choices. They accused him of neglecting his sons, the Astartes, leaving them to their fate while he penned the Codex Astartes and established the High Lords of Terra.
Each word struck deep, as though echoing his own innermost doubts. He countered these accusations in his mind, but their persistence momentarily stalled his strategic calculations.
Finally, unable to endure them any longer, Guilliman roared aloud, "SILENCE!"
The sudden outburst startled everyone on the bridge. All eyes turned to the Primarch in shock.
"Apologies. Return to your duties," he muttered, exhaling heavily.
Guilliman's logical mind insisted these voices were the machinations of Warp entities—lies born of Huron's vile rituals within the Maelstrom. Yet the voices retaliated with new accusations, suggesting he sought to shift blame to others merely to escape his own guilt.
Despite this inner turmoil, Guilliman continued issuing commands with precision.
The first wave of boarding parties had been eliminated, but not without cost. Their signal beacons had remained, allowing the second wave to bypass traditional defenses via Warp teleportation.
The enemy's teleportation was disturbingly accurate and swift, enabling some to appear mere moments before the first wave was fully repelled.
The situation was spiraling.
Two minutes later, dire news arrived.
"We've lost the central corridor to the bridge."
Guilliman turned to the monitor, where a live feed from the corridor appeared. A monstrous avian figure with wings and a staff wreaked havoc in the chamber, a cathedral-like expanse. At its gesture, non-Astartes soldiers collapsed to their knees in reverence, shrieking in guttural tongues, self-mutilating in ecstatic frenzy.
"Carlos must die," Guilliman muttered.
"Kill that bird-man. His sorcery and rituals must be stopped!"
A rare unity of thought coalesced within Guilliman. The maddening voices fell silent, leaving his mind clear and resolute.