Devastation of Baal - Great Rift Opens: It was at this dark hour that a fresh calamity was unleashed upon the Baal System. In a cataclysmic eruption of empyric energy, the galaxy-spanning Warp Storm known as the Great Rift tore open. The skies above Baal burned with aetheric fire, and within the roiling depths of the Immaterium, ancient, malevolent beings turned their dread gaze upon the material realm.Upon Baal Prime, the Chapters of the Sanguinary Brotherhood unleashed the full measure of their hatred against the Tyranid swarms. It was as the fighting upon the moon was at its most ferocious that reality tore open, and the scent of brimstone and burning blood filled the air. With a bellowed chorus of praises to the Blood God Khorne, daemonic legions boiled from the widening rift. At their head came a creature drawn from the blackest of nightmares, a bat-winged monstrosity wielding a rune-marked axe in one clawed fist, and a barbed whip in the other.This was Ka'Bandha, Bloodthirster of Khorne. No foe was more hated by the sons of Sanguinius, for thousands of Terran years before during the Signus Campaign Ka'Bandha had stoked in them the Red Thirst, the genetic curse which had so ravaged the Chapter in the millennia afterwards. Ka'Bandha sought the sole honour of slaughtering the Blood Angels, and had no intention of allowing the Tyranids to interfere before the time of his triumph was at hand.The Bloodthirster's daemon legions fell upon both Tyranids and the Astartes defenders of Baal, and xenos and transhuman blood was spilled in torrents. Tyranid Warriors hacked and tore at leering Bloodletters, while stampedes of Bloodcrushers swept across the gore-splattered earth, smashing Termagants beneath their brazen hooves. Ka'Bandha stalked through the madness of battle, reaping a devastating toll upon all in his path with great swipes of his dread weapons.The Space Marine defenders, led by Chapter Master Gabriel Seth of the Flesh Tearers, fell back, harried on all sides. Only the sacrifice of the Knights of Blood, an excommunicated Successor Chapter who had nonetheless been accepted as allies by Commander Dante, allowed the survivors to board their vessels and escape, as Baal Prime was overwhelmed by Warp-spawned monstrosities.As Seth's forces retreated, they caught one last glimpse of the Knights of Blood, hurling themselves into the thick of close combat with mindless ferocity, fully enveloped by the madness of the Black Rage.In Baal's orbit, thousands of Hive Fleet Leviathan's bio-ships were snatched into the Warp by coils of empyric energy or swallowed by rifts in space. Soon, only the burning remnants of gutted Hive Ships remained, drawn in by Baal's gravitic pull to rain down upon its ravaged surface.Below this raging inferno, Commander Dante led his few remaining warriors in a fighting retreat to the walls of the Blood Angels' fortress-monastery, the Arx Angelicum. Time itself was a victim of the surging empyric insanity -- it seemed as if the carnage stretched on for Terran years, as xenos and Space Marine fought and slew, racing towards a mutual annihilation.Perhaps it was only solar hours that passed, or days. Perhaps it was Terran years relative to the rest of the galaxy. Amidst the reality-bending energies of the Warp, Sanguinius' sons and the beasts of Hive Fleet Leviathan fought on towards mutual annihilation.The greatest Tyranid wave yet then slammed into the defences of the Arx Angelicum and finally breached them. Three Successor Chapter Masters fall in the battle of the Dome of Angels alone. Bodies pile high amidst the sundered defences. Still the defenders fight on, even throwing open the gates of the Tower of Amareo and letting the captive members of the Death Company loose. If the Blood Angels were to die, they intended to do so in battle and on their own terms.Forward strode the Swarmlord, entering the fray at this vital juncture, carving Space Marines apart with every slice of its jagged Boneswords. Exhausted and filled with sorrow, yet defiant as ever, Dante hacked his way through the press of xenos flesh with the Axe Mortalis, seeking the Swarmlord's head. Under the burning sky, the two duelled, until Dante, bleeding from a dozen mortal wounds, cut the creature down.As Dante collapsed, his anguished warriors straining to reach his prone body, the tortured skies finally cleared. The storm had passed, and where before the Tyranid armada had blotted the sky, not a single xenos vessel remained. In their place were majestic Imperial ships. The Primarch Roboute Guilliman, the resurrected Avenging Son, had arrived, at the head of the great Indomitus Crusade.