With the relentless support of Imperial warriors, a gap in the enemy line was finally opened. Guilliman surged forward through the breach, his massive form illuminated by the hellish glow of the battlefield. Without hesitation, he brought his gauntleted fist down like a thunderbolt, crushing the skull of a bloated daemon that dared block his path.
He stepped over the twitching corpse, heading straight toward the tower of writhing flesh and bone—the portal through which the Great Unclean One had emerged.
"It's time we settled this, daemon," Guilliman growled, his voice carrying the authority of a demigod.
The Great Unclean One regarded the Primarch with amusement, its putrid body rippling with maggots and bile. "You are far more irritating than Mortarion," it rasped. "At least he obeys the will of our loving father. He accepts entropy—the great truth of the universe. He sees beauty in decay, in the withering and rebirth of life."
The daemon hefted its massive, rusted cleaver and began to advance.
Only it, a Greater Daemon of Nurgle, had the power to challenge a Primarch. The lesser daemons were merely fodder—sacrifices to slow down Guilliman's advance.
With a roar, the daemon struck first. Its foul weapon came crashing down, aimed directly at Guilliman's head. But the Primarch raised the Emperor's Sword, parrying the blow with a flash of psychic energy. Sparks of warp-fire erupted as the two weapons clashed, filling the air with ozone and the stench of rotting flesh.
"Mortarion is a fool," Guilliman sneered. "He was always the weakest of us—so dimwitted he bowed before a corpse-god like your 'father.' Look at yourself. It would've been ten thousand times wiser to join the Changer of Ways than that festering heap. Your so-called god is the most pathetic of the Four."
"You try to provoke me with words," the daemon snarled.
"And yet you don't deny it," Guilliman shot back, his eyes burning with fury. "Which means, deep down, even you think your master is weak. Mortarion was despised by Father, and the rest of us Primarchs barely tolerated him. He had no friends, no brilliance, no achievements—just the stench of failure. He wasn't even betrayed—he was taken and sold by his own men! Can you imagine any other Primarch falling to such a fate? And yet your 'father' welcomed him. That says more about Nurgle than it does Mortarion."
The daemon snarled louder, its rage boiling over.
"You dare insult Grandfather Nurgle?" it roared, swinging its weapon in a wide arc.
Guilliman leapt high into the air, twisting mid-flight. The Emperor's Sword came down in a vertical slash, searing a deep wound into the daemon's bloated arm. Corrupted ichor sprayed out, sizzling as it hit the ground. The daemon howled in pain, its body writhing with renewed fury.
"You're all the same—rot, stagnation, and death wrapped in delusions of 'rebirth,'" Guilliman said coldly. "You're nothing but animated filth, masquerading as philosophy."
The daemon launched a furious assault, but Guilliman met it with equal savagery. Each strike of his blade cleaved through diseased flesh and burst abscesses. Yet the Great Unclean One endured, its body regenerating even as it was mutilated. It fought with surprising speed for its immense size, ducking and weaving with unnatural agility granted by the warp.
"I'll kill you," the daemon growled, madness and hatred in its eyes.
"But you can't," Guilliman replied with a smirk. "You're already losing control. You daemons are so predictable—so easily baited. I could do this all day."
He slashed again, cutting deep into the daemon's side. The Great Unclean One screamed, losing its footing and crashing to the ground in a cascade of rotted meat and squirming vermin. Guilliman stood over the beast, sword raised.
"I'm not going to kill you," he said calmly. "There's no point. Daemons like you are never truly destroyed. You'll return to the Immaterium, fester, and then re-emerge when someone else is foolish enough to summon you again. Killing you is like trimming a weed without pulling the roots."
The daemon tried to rise, but Guilliman placed a foot on its chest, pinning it to the ground.
"So I've decided," Guilliman continued, his voice dripping with contempt. "Instead of ending you, I'll engrave a single word into your flesh. Trash. Then I'll banish you back to the warp—branded with your own failure. I'll even send a message with you... tell Mortarion I'm coming for him next."
"No!" the daemon shrieked, thrashing wildly. "You wouldn't dare!"
"Oh, but I would," Guilliman said with icy resolve.
Warp energy surged along the Emperor's Sword as he raised it high. With a roar, he plunged it down—not into the daemon's heart, but into the space beside it, releasing a shockwave of psychic force that tore open a rift back to the warp.
"Return to your festering cesspool," Guilliman spat, "and remember who banished you."
With a final bellow, the Great Unclean One was sucked back into the Immaterium, its body disintegrating as it was dragged through the dimensional tear. The warp portal slammed shut with a thunderous crack, the lingering corruption evaporating into nothingness.
The battlefield fell into a stunned silence. The remaining Chaos forces, robbed of their strongest asset, began to falter. Behind Guilliman, the warriors of the Imperium surged forward with renewed vigor.
The Primarch lowered his blade, his armor scorched and dripping with daemon ichor, his expression cold but resolute.
"This world will not fall," he said aloud. "Not while I still draw breath."
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