Chapter 84: Kree Empire 5

Perspective: Vulkan

Xel’Zhar, a volcanic Kree forge world, woke to fire, not from its own foundries, but from the heavens.

No warning. No defense. The sky cracked open as the Tesseract Gate tore through space, and from it descended burning drop-pods and cyclopean warcraft. The ground itself split under the weight of fury.

At the front marched Vulkan. Massive. Unstoppable. A walking inferno clad in ceramite black and ember gold. His warhammer Dawnbringer pulsed with power, its haft gripped in iron hands that had shaped empires and shattered them alike.

“Cleanse the forge,” he ordered.

The Salamanders needed no more.

The Kree defenders, still disoriented from the sudden incursion, scrambled to organize, but their signals were cut, their leadership severed. Across the empire, Primarch-led assaults shattered their networks in synchrony. They had no idea Vulkan was here until the flames engulfed their gates.

Automated defenses turned sluggishly. Some fired, most didn’t. The Salamanders pushed through them like magma through ice.

Flame met steel. Melta cut through armor. Promethium roared into bunkers. Even the towering Kree war constructs, ten-limbed mechs laced with plasma conduits—melted under the focused wrath of Vulkan’s sons.

Vulkan led every charge. One strike from his warhammer caved in a tank's hull, sending molten slag flying. He advanced through the blaze, black smoke clinging to his armor, glowing like a god of fire.

The Kree tried to regroup in their subterranean core, using their mining labyrinths as refuge.

Vulkan followed.

Deep into the bowels of Xel’Zhar he walked, his steps shaking the tunnels. Alien civilians fled screaming. Some begged. Others tried to hide. Vulkan’s face was stone.

“No mercy for those who rise against Mankind,” he said. Then silence fell, broken only by fire and screams.

He pressed deeper, where plasma cores pulsed in blue and violet. There, Kree engineers scrambled to overload reactors to deny them to the Imperium.

Too slow.

Vulkan hurled Dawnbringer. The hammer struck a reactor support pillar and shattered it like glass. The collapse tore through the chamber. Heat and power surged into the air.

As fire licked across his armor, Vulkan stepped through it unscathed. Around him, his warriors planted demolition charges. In every corridor, alien life was cleansed.

This was no campaign of conquest. It was extermination.

And the Kree learned what it meant to awaken the fury of Humanity.

When the charges blew, Xel’Zhar’s core detonated. Rivers of magma surged to the surface, consuming structures and defenders alike. The world cracked.

From orbit, the Pyrelight watched the collapse.

Vulkan stood on its bridge, arms crossed, watching the molten fissures split the surface of the world.

“It is done,” he said.

Another transmission was sent to the Emperor.

Another Kree world burned.

The assault was not over. The fires had only begun.


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End of Chapter 84