Purge of the Contqual Sub-sector - Fulgrim's Son: Telach felt his hearts sink. He knew he had enough power to seal the Warp rift. He might have had enough power, acting in concert with his acolytes, to fight the Daemon-creature, though that was uncertain. He could not do both. Even as he prepared to meet the onslaught he could sense the Warp rift weakening further. Every heartbeat brought it closer to rupture.The Libarians struck as one. The Daemon rocked back on its cloven hooves, thrashing its arms through the deluge and hurling gouts of the silvery matter in all directions. The creature was wounded, as the backwash of the Librarians' combined psychic power streamed away behind it.But the Daemon was too powerful and it made short work of the three Codiciers, using its formidable strength to rend and tear the Iron Hands Astartes into bloody flairs of gore and broken ceramite. The power of the Aether rushed to their aid, enveloping them in curtains of consuming fire, flaring out with each staff-strike and raging against the unholy aegis surrounding the Daemon.Yet it was not enough. For all their speed, the creature of Chaos was faster. For all their strength, it was stronger. For all their Warp-mastery, the Daemon was far, far more steeped in the sorcery of the Immaterium.Only the Chief Librarian remained, though he was horribly wounded by the Daemon-creature. The Daemon thing taunted the Chief Librarian about the death of the Iron Hands' Primarch Ferrus Manus, claiming that it had been present when Ferrus had died on the bloody fields of Isstvan V.The abomination, a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, claimed to be none other than Julius Kaesoron, once the first captain of the Emperor's Children Legion during the Horus Heresy. It was Kaesoron who had killed Gabriel Santar, the first captain of the Iron Hands. The sons of Ferrus Manus that now faced him were but mere shadows of their ancient predecessors. Kaesoron claimed that there was no sport in fighting such diminished creatures.As the Daemon Prince continued to taunt Telach, more of his Iron Hands battle-brothers emerged from the spire below, but Telach knew they would be able to do nothing against such an arcane threat. He dragged himself away from where his brother warriors charged into battle against the Daemon Prince, hauling his broken body one-handed across the knife-sharp detritus of the plateau towards the widening Warp rift.With little time remaining, and his Force Staff broken, summoning the rituals of banishment were beyond him. All he had was himself, his own soul, pregnant with psychic power even as his body collapsed into oblivion.Telach valiantly sacrificed himself, throwing himself forwards, plunging into the vortex of Empyrean energies in an almighty blaze of light. The Warp rift was finally sealed. The winds of Shardenus howled and raced in the absence of the portal into the Immaterium.With the sacrifice of the Chief Librarian, Arven Rauth faced the Daemon Prince personally, swinging his blade wildly, bludgeoning the Daemon's back. The creature staggered away from him, barely meeting each incoming thrust. Rauth hacked and parried with abandon, moving with terrible speed. The creature hung low over him.It had been wounded badly by the sudden withdrawal of its ethereal support. It was coming apart. Soon it would be hurled back from the mortal plane and into temporary oblivion, but it clung on, persisting in the world even as its physical shell collapsed around it.The Daemon Prince lamented the loss of the opportunity to transform the world of Shardenus into a "paradise." Kaesoron struck out at Rauth, plunging a taloned hand into the Iron Hand's chest in an attempt to burst his twin-hearts. The lord commander's own blade shot upwards, plunging deep into the Daemon's neck. The Daemon screamed, trying to withdraw, but Rauth would not let it.He surged to his feet, keeping his Power Sword extended, pushing it deeper into the creature's unholy flesh. Kaesoron's claws broke off as it wrenched away, torn free of the gauntlets while they remained lodged in Rauth's chest.The Iron Hand fought on regardless, ignoring the metal protruding from his torso and working his own weapon again with heavy, crushing strokes. The Daemon lost its footing, crashing down hard against the serrated plateau. Rauth pursued it mercilessly, hacking at its flailing limbs, carving into the juddering flesh and smashing apart the remnants of its ancient armour.Finally, Rauth stood over its heaving chest, gazing down at the obscene scrawls on its crushed battle-plate. The Daemon Prince looked up at him, surprise and hatred written across its otherworldly face. Rauth taunted the Daemon, telling the creature that it had forgotten who it was fighting, for it had been a long time since he had hearts.Then Rauth plunged his blade down, severing the Daemon Prince's head from its neck in a single, terrible blow. The Daemon's face shrunk away, dissolving like flesh in acid. The sutures came loose, freeing up flaps of skin and exposing firmer, older flesh beneath. For a moment, before the last of the gaudy, rouged-streaked embellishments fluttered away, something like elegance was revealed -- a taut, aristocratic visage, cruel and intelligent.There were some in the Imperium who might have recognised that face. Some lords of the Ordo Malleus might have identified the features of Julius Kaesoron, who had once been first captain of the IIIrd Legion, and who had fought alongside gods in the age of wonder when the Imperium was first forged, who had strode across the bloodied plains of Laeran, of Isstvan V, of Terra, and who, after the ruin of a Traitor's hopes, had been slowly changed by the wearing horror of the Eye of Terror.They might have known what hopes had once been placed in him, how admired and feared he had been, and just how far into madness he had fallen at the end.But Arven Rauth knew none of that. He watched his enemy disintegrate, taking neither pleasure nor pity from the spectacle. Then the face was gone, collapsed into blood and muscle as its animating spirit dissipated.Rauth looked over to where the Warp rift had been. Its guardians were destroyed. Those mutants that remained would be hunted down, chamber by chamber, before the entire Capitolis was purged with flame.After that would come the punishment, when the populace of Shardenus Prime would be held in judgement for their sins, for allowing malice and heresy to root itself amongst them and for failing to resist when the time of testing came.Judgement would come to them; when it did, it would be swift, austere and complete. Shardenus has been saved for the Imperium. Rauth looked out beyond the steaming outline of the Daemon-corpse and across the burning wasteland.The Melamar spires to the south smouldered amid the boiling mists of toxic fug. Above them dark clouds raced still, underlit with sporadic bursts of lightning.When the Iron Hands' remaining work was done, the loyalty of the world of Shardenus to the Emperor would be unmatched. The Iron Hands would remake it. They would refashion Shardenus as an exemplar of the price of treachery and heresy.