SethWolf

Vistario watched the viral fire spread over the Dreadnought's carapace, slipping inside his buckled plates of armour. Rylanor did not care whether he lived or died, only that Fulgrim went with him.

'Do. Not. Do. This!' barked the Dreadnought.

'Why not? I am your your master - - I can do whatever I like. I can can crush you or or I  can raise you up. Return to the Legion. Accept the gifts of the Dark Prince and and you will walk at my side, clad once again in in flesh.  You can be anything, old friend! I will sculpt you into something beautiful - a god to these mortals!'

'Never! All we have left between us is that we will die together!' roared the Dreadnought, the upper portion of his carapace burning with blue flames. 'I am Rylanor of the Emperor's Children. Ancient of Rites, Venerable of the Palatine Host, and proud servant of the Emperor of Mankind, Beloved by all. I reject you now and always!'

Fulgrim laughed and said, 'I'm sorry, did it sound like I was offering you a choice?' The primarch wrenched his hand from Rylanor's sarcophagus, dragging a sopping mass of fluid and matter with him. Glutinous ropes dripped from his fingers; he was like a midwife holding a mewling newborn. Ruptured cables spilled amniotic fluid so stagnant it must surely have been poisoning Rylanor with every passing second.

'I will remake you, brother,' said Fulgrim. 'You will be my crowning achievement.'

Though his body was little more than rags of wet meat, Vistario sensed Rylanor's horror at this last violation. An inescapable destiny where he would become that which he hated most.

+What do we do?+

The question was Murshid's, and the connection between the Thousand Sons was so strong that the Athanaean's perception for emotion spread to all three of them. Vistario felt Fulgrim's infinite malice, his cruel enjoyment of Rylanor's anguish and the helplessness of the Thousand Sons. The primarch of the Emperor's Children revelled in his over-weening pride, a trait Magnus had more than once told Vistario had been present long before his fall. But more than anything, stronger even than Fulgrim's spite, Vistario felt Rylanor's pride and honour, the unbending core of greatness that had set him against his brothers and seen him descend into obsessive madness beneath the surface of a dead world.

Vistario took the measure of Fulgrim, seeing nothing worthy in him. His warriors felt the moment his decision was made.

+ Primarch Fulgrim! + sent Vistario. + Rylanor deserves better than you. +

The primarch looked up, his once bright eyes now black and filled with the darkest poison.

+ He deserves better than all of us. +

He raised his bolter and fired a mass-reactive into the back of Akhtar's skull. The Raptora's head exploded and with his death, the psychic force holding back the warhead's detonation ended. Vistario saw fire.

And once more, all life burned.

It took much less time for the Life Eater to burn out on Isstvan III's second death. Its first ending had claimed eight billion lives, snuffed out in a matter of hours when Horus launched his bombardment from the Vengeful Spirit. With such plentiful mortal flesh to fuel the bio-killer's fury, the psychic scream was said to have eclipsed the Astronomican itself. A shadow emerged from the undercity, a serpentine outline of cinders, held together by a web of neverborn energy. Not even the viral toxins wrought by ancient science could unmake that which the darkest powers of the warp had raised up.

The Phoenician's form was already weaving itself anew, but his soul was broken. For no pain, no hurt and no injury could wound such a being as much as denial of its magnificence.

That was Ancient Rylanor's final victory.