Mid-Hive, Third Conscription Staging Ground.
This sector, originally a cluster of abandoned machining factories, had been temporarily retrofitted into an isolation camp for incoming conscript pools. Within the sprawling industrial structures, over a million military-aged youths were housed. Squads from the Vanguard garrison patrolled the perimeter day and night, and heavy stubbers were mounted at the main security gates. The security detail was far from lax.
The night had grown deep, and a heavy silence draped over the factory floors. The vast majority of the occupants had fallen into deep sleep, leaving only the rhythmic, echoing footsteps of the patrolling sentries to reverberate down the long corridors.
Then, without a shred of prior warning, the anomaly erupted.
In a barracks block situated at the northwest corner, a young conscript lying on his bunk snapped his eyes open. Deep within his pupils, a pinprick of ghostly blue light expanded at an extreme velocity, ultimately completely consuming his eye sockets.
He sat up soundlessly, the corners of his mouth curling into a twisted, alien smile.
Immediately following, one individual after another began to rise. Throughout the barracks, more and more conscripts "opened their eyes," every single one of them harboring the exact same flickering, chaotic blue luminescence within their gaze.
The phenomenon was not restricted to the quarantined personnel; even within the garrison forces, nearly half the sentries' expressions quietly shifted.
"Who's there?!" A guard at the far end of the corridor caught the rustling sound and spun around, lifting his lasgun, only to have his throat gripped in a vice-like hold by a cold, pale hand.
The "comrade" standing before him wore a bizarre, unhinged smile, driving a combat blade through his heart without a single microsecond of hesitation.
"Change is supreme."
Low, guttural incantations rippled through the darkness.
One sentry post after another was systematically dismantled in absolute silence. The corrupted guards and conscripts operated like a highly trained military apparatus, handling their weapons and methodically neutralizing the remaining pockets of resistance. A few individuals attempted to fight back, only to be swarmed and carved to pieces by sheer numbers of mutated turncoats.
The agonizing screams endured for barely a handful of minutes before being entirely stifled. The massive factory compound had fallen completely into the hands of Chaos cultists.
They did not pause to rest.
Dragging the corpses along the concrete, the cultists gathered the bodies of every slain guardsman, civilian, and rebel, stacking them directly onto the open ground at the center of the factory floor. They stripped, dismantled, and reconfigured the flesh in a unified process. Flesh, bone matrices, and viscera were layered systematically, rapidly forming a mounting pile of biological slurry.
Several leading sorcerers stepped to the margins of the corpse pile, slicing open their palms with daggers to smear warp-infused blood across every structural surface of the heap. Cryptic, rhythmic chants echoed through the rafters as ghostly blue runes slowly illuminated along the contours of the flesh heap.
A crude yet profoundly profane altar of flesh, fueled by the lifeforce of mortal sacrifices, was rapidly stabilizing into shape.
This exact sequence of events was playing out simultaneously across all nine conscription staging camps within the Mid-Hive.
It was bloody, dark, and utterly soundless.
Inside Factory Block 8 at the northwest corner, atop the innermost row of communal bunks, a young apprentice mechanic named Kyle snapped his eyes open. He should have been like the other million military-aged youths—sinking into heavy, exhausted sleep while waiting for the next day's physical evaluations and identity verifications.
Yet at this moment, there was no trace of drowsiness in his eyes. A speck of ghostly blue light surfaced from the depths of his pupils like a pair of dancing ghost-fires, quickly bleeding across his entire sclera.
Without emitting a single sound, he slid out of his bunk, his bare feet making contact with the icy concrete floor.
The youth sleeping on the bunk above Kyle was disturbed by the shift, rubbing his eyes as he poked his head over the frame.
"What the hell are you muttering about in the middle of the night? Let a guy get some—"
Mid-sentence, he froze entirely in place.
Aided by the dim light of the exterior streetlamps filtering through the high windows, he could clearly discern a dozen individuals encircling a mountain of stacked corpses in the center of the factory floor, chanting in lowRegisters.
He recognized those bodies. Some were guardsmen who had been patrolling the corridors barely half an hour ago; others were companions who had stood in line with him during the day to receive nutritional paste. Their chest cavities had been pried open, their ribs split outward like pairs of malformed wings. Dark crimson blood snaked through the seams of the floor plates, tracing twisted, unholy sigils.
Several figures draped in deep blue robes stood near the flesh mountain, blood still dripping from their daggers, the crystals atop their staves radiating a sickening, pulse-quickening glow.
"What... what are you doing?!"
The youth felt his blood turn completely cold with terror. He scrambled and tumbled off the bunk frame, his voice warping into a cracked shriek from sheer fright.
His screaming jarred more individuals awake—some rubbing their eyes, some cursing loudly, others sitting up in absolute bewilderment.
Hundreds of pairs of eyes simultaneously locked onto the flesh altar dominating the center of the factory floor.
Yet the moment they looked, the nightmare truly descended.
There were no roars, no immediate physical charges, and the cultists did not even bother to glance back at the waking crowd. The profane energy of the Immaterium was already fundamentally reshaping everything within the vicinity as the ritual progressed.
The front row of youths—those bolder or closer to the center—exhibited the earliest reactions.
They initially clutched their heads, letting loose agonized, muffled groans as blackish-red blood leaked from their seven facial orifices. Beneath their skin, bulges snaked and rippled erratically, as if rats were burrowing through their flesh. For those with the lowest spiritual resilience, their skulls detonated on the spot with a sharp POP.
There was no spray of standard gore; instead, grey-white brain matter interwove with thrashing tentacles as they burst from the neck cavities. A dozen finger-thick white tendrils flailed blindly through the air, and blood-soaked bone fragments clattered against the floor. The physical frame wobbled, yet instead of collapsing, more suction-cupped tentacles sprouted from the severed neck. Fleshy, suction-capped appendages manifested beneath its torso, and it lunged unsteadily toward the nearest cluster of people.
"Monsters! Monsters!" Shrieks erupted instantaneously.
Yet the panic endured for barely a few seconds before being eclipsed by an even more horrifying wave of mutations.
More individuals began to warp and distort. One man's arms elongated violently, his skin tearing open to expose hyper-extended bone spurs underneath. Another's frame ballooned into a bloated, shifting mass of flesh, his epidermis erupting with oozing pustules as he let loose non-human growls.
A few who had completely lost their sanity sprinted directly into the pile of corpses on the ground, their bones cracking and popping as their flesh fused maniacally with the remains. Within a dozen seconds, they expanded into three-to-four-meter-tall Chaos Spawns.
Slick tentacles, twisted mandibles, and frantically flailing talons of raw muscle manifested across their frames. These newborn abominations tore into the dense crowds, their talons shearing through flesh in fountains of gore, their tentacles pinning targets and ripping them cleanly in two.
The factory block dissolved into absolute chaos.
Some ran frantically toward the exits; others curled up beneath the bunk frames, trembling violently; a few hoisted metal pipes and stools in an attempt to fight back, only to have half their skulls sheared off by a lunging Chaos Spawn a split-second later.
However, a vastly larger portion of the populace was systematically losing their sense of self under the corrosive whispers of the warp. They crouched on the floor, clutching their heads, repeating unintelligible syllables over and over as their eyes grew progressively hollow and their skin assumed an unnatural, greenish-blue tint. No one could predict whether they would regain their faculties or completely mutate into new horrors in the next second.
Yet what proved far more despair-inducing than the monsters themselves was the absolute isolation of the space.
The exact millisecond the ritual hit its stride, a layer of pale blue sorcerous warding rippled along the factory walls, ceilings, and floors. The already reinforced alloy blast-doors grew exponentially more resilient, twisted runes bleeding across their surfaces. A few youths who slammed their bodies against the exits managed only to fracture their arms; the doors merely vibrated slightly, leaving not even a microscopic dent. The walls assumed a structural density akin to solid auramite, and standard steel crowbars struck against them left nothing but faint white scratches.
Comms, signal transmitters, and emergency distress beacons failed completely, their displays reduced to dense matrices of static and snow.
Sound, too, was flawlessly sealed inside the structure. Even if those within screamed until their throats ruptured, the guards patrolling the exterior routes would fail to catch the slightest vibration.
The barrier functioned like an airtight, massive sarcophagus, locking over ten million conscripts together with the expanding viral corruption of Chaos inside nine isolated factories.
No one would be coming to save them—at least not for the next two hours. The previous security sweep had just concluded, and the subsequent patrol rotation was scheduled precisely two hours later.
But not all "people" would be affected by the Chaos ritual.
Inside the factory's ventilation ducts, a Genestealer hidden in the shadows twitched its nose slightly.
Before this, the interference from the Nine-Boundaries Soul-Sealing Barrier had hung like a dense, heavy shroud, severing the network connection of the entire Sarah Hive Fleet. The low-level units could only act on pure instinct, and information transmission had lagged to the point of near-paralysis.
Yet, the very instant the barrier on the third basement floor shattered, the unimpeded Hive Mind will immediately surged back through the nodes, like a dammed river bursting forth once more.
In the next second, scenes of the sudden mutations exploding across all nine conscription factories simultaneously were transmitted at lightning speed through the Genestealer nodes spread throughout the city, heading straight for the Upper City Governor's Mansion.
In the top-floor office of the Governor's Mansion, Isude—who had been slumping over her desk like a soulless doll—suddenly twitched her fingers.
A purple light flickered back to life in her pupils, and her scattered consciousness snapped instantly back into place.
She propped herself up against the desk, standing up and shaking her head slightly to clear the lingering grogginess.
The information flooding back from the Hive Network surged into her mind like a tidal wave.
Chaos rituals had erupted simultaneously across nine conscription camps. Sorcerous barriers had sealed off the factory sectors, and Warp corruption was spreading at a terrifying speed. A massive number of civilians inside had already mutated, and the conscription garrison forces had suffered catastrophic losses.
"Notify the Mid-City Garrison Command. Tell the Sixth Iron Guard Infantry Regiment to deploy in full immediately. Seal off all blocks surrounding the conscription camps. No one enters or leaves."
"Pass the word to all Purge Sect outposts in the Mid-City. Set up a perimeter, intercept any mutating entities fleeing outward, and do not allow a single corrupted unit to escape the quarantine zone."
"Connect me to the Ecclesiarchy Arch-Cathedral. Get me Archbishop Goodwin."
Isude's voice was calm as she efficiently rattled off one command after another. The entire administrative apparatus of the Governor's Mansion instantly kicked into high gear.
She knew that against a Chaos ritual of this magnitude, throwing the Vanguard and the Iron Guard Regiment into a head-on assault would only result in heavy casualties and risk spreading the corruption further. The purifying power of the Ecclesiarchy had to intervene to sever this plague-like mutation at its root.
The moment the vox-link connected, Archbishop Goodwin's old yet steady voice rang through:
"Madame Isude, I am already aware of the situation."
"Bishop Jansen of the Mid-City Diocese is currently inspecting the nearby area. He has extensive experience in purging cults. I have ordered him to take his team and head over immediately to take full charge of the purification operation."
"I will synchronize the relevant secret orders to the Governor's Mansion. Your forces just need to cooperate with him."
"Thank you, Archbishop," Isude nodded slightly. "The Governor is currently directing combat operations within Castle St. Gallus, so I am temporarily overseeing surface affairs. The Iron Guard Regiment will comply with all of Bishop Jansen's directives."
As the transmission cut out, she looked out the window toward the Mid-City.
Luna's move could not be described as anything less than devious.
Drawing Raynor's attention underground while striking covertly on the surface. If the shattering of the barrier hadn't restored the Hive Network, by the time the patrol teams noticed anything amiss, the entire Mid-City would likely have turned into a playground for Chaos.
Three blocks away from the Third Conscription Camp, the heavy roar of engines tore through the dead of night.
A convoy of dozens of Chimera armored vehicles sped along the wide industrial avenue, their tracks grinding over the gravel and kicking up stray sparks. The emblem of a hammer and gear was stamped onto the hulls—the mark of the Iron Guard Regiment, the local armed forces of the Brivis Mid-City.
Most members of this regiment were descendants of Mid-City industrial workers. Raised across generations in munitions factories and smelting foundries, they carried the resilience of machinery and steel in their bones. Though not particularly large in number, every single one of them was clad in excellent power armor and equipped with heavy firepower, boasting a combat capability that rivaled the elites of the Astra Militarum.
Screeech!
The armored vehicles slammed to a halt outside the walls of the conscription camp.
The hatches threw open, and fully armed Iron Guard soldiers poured out in single file. They moved rapidly to establish a defensive line, setting up heavy bolters and multi-meltas, completely encircling the factory.
Colonel William of the Sixth Iron Guard Infantry Regiment jumped down from the command vehicle. He was a heavily built, middle-aged man. His brown power armor was covered in scuffs and dents, radiating the fierce aura of a veteran who had survived countless battlefields.
He looked up at the faint blue membrane of light shimmering over the walls, his brow furrowing into a tight knot.
"Colonel, the sensor results are in," a vox-operator ran over quickly. "The psychic intensity is incredibly high. It's a sorcerous Chaos barrier. Normal demolitions will have a hard time breaching it. Internal signals are completely jammed, we can't hear a thing from inside, and there's no telling how many people are left alive."
"If we can't hear them, we blow it open," William said decisively, pointing toward the factory's main gates. "Set up the three siege cannons. Aim at the main gate and blast it. Deploy two more demolition teams to plant charges on the side walls. There are nearly ten million conscripts waiting inside. We need to open a breach as fast as possible and evacuate the living. If we drag this out, God knows what kind of hellhole it will become."
The soldiers moved into action immediately. The heavy siege cannons were pushed to the frontline, their barrels slowly elevating to align with the rusted factory gates. The weapon arrays began calibration; in just two minutes, they would be ready to fire.
Just as the barrels were finishing calibration, a high-priority transmission forcibly overrode the channel, and an old voice boomed:
"Hold your fire! Do not shoot!"
William snapped his head around to see a squad of Battle Sisters clad in black power armor escorting a black armored transport vehicle as it sped toward them.
The vehicle stopped, and a middle-aged man dressed in the red robes of a Bishop stepped out, striding over with a silver staff in hand. His hair was graying, deep wrinkles lined his face, a golden holy symbol hung across his chest, and the edges of his robes were embroidered with the patterns of fire and holy swords. It was Bishop Jansen of the Mid-City Diocese.
Behind him followed a full two thousand Ecclesiarchy combat personnel. There were Battle Priests wielding bolt pistols and chainswords, Battle Sisters clad in Order armor holding bolters, and Exorcist Acolytes specifically tasked with breaking sorcery. Every single one of them radiated a faint aura of faith, utterly at odds with the foul Warp energy permeating the surroundings.
"Bishop Jansen?" William frowned, taking a step forward. "What brings you here? It's dangerous. You should..."
"If I hadn't come, you would have unleashed this Chaos catastrophe across the entire Mid-City." Bishop Jansen's tone was grim. He raised his hand, presenting a secret order stamped with the dual seals of the Governor's Mansion and the Ecclesiarchy. "This is a temporary authorization from the Governor's Mansion. From this moment on, command of this battlefield is temporarily transferred to me."
William took the secret order and scanned it. The seals and signatures were authentic.
His expression darkened, but he didn't hand over command immediately. "My Lord Bishop, there are still over ten million civilians inside. The longer we delay, the fewer survivors there will be. We must breach the gates and rescue them immediately."
"Rescue them?" Bishop Jansen shook his head, his gaze shifting to the faint blue barrier shimmering behind the walls. He let out a soft sigh. "Colonel William, look at this place. Even separated by a wall and a barrier, the stench of corruption is thick enough to choke you. How many people inside do you honestly think can still be considered 'ordinary civilians'?"
"The blasphemous ritual has already begun, and the sorcerous barrier has sealed the entire sector. The Warp energy inside is steadily thickening. A normal human wouldn't last a minute before being completely corrupted. Even if they don't turn into monsters, they will become mindless madmen who know nothing but incoherent babbling. If we rashly blow a breach now, the Chaos enemies inside and the corrupted civilians will pour out, dragging the entire Mid-City down with them."
William fell silent.