William knew that Jansen was telling the truth.
The true terror of Chaos had never been those powerful demons and various monstrosities, but its corruption of the soul.
Once these "sources of infection" escaped into the streets, slipping into ventilation ducts and underground pipe networks, it would only take a few days for the entire Mid-City to become a nest of monsters.
Yet, at the thought of the millions of civilians inside who, like him, had come from the Under-City, his heart felt as heavy as a lead weight.
"...Then what do you suggest we do?" After a long silence, William asked in a low voice, handing over the token of command. "I will follow your lead."
Bishop Jansen took the token without a single word of nonsense and began deploying the forces on the spot.
"Have the elite personnel integrated and divided into nine purification squads, one hundred men per squad."
"Each squad will be allocated five Battle Priests, twenty Battle Sisters, thirty Exorcist Acolytes, and the remaining spots will be filled by the elite infantry of the Iron Guard Regiment."
"All units are to be equipped with promethium flame weapons and purifying ammunition."
"The priests will chant purifying prayers throughout the operation, the Sisters will head the frontal assaults, the acolytes will break sorcerous traps, and the Iron Guard soldiers will provide suppressive fire."
His voice was not loud, but it carried a reassuring weight. Each command was clear and decisive, showing he was already deeply familiar with such purging operations.
"Sergeant William," he looked toward William. "History has proven to us countless times that temporary mercy is often the source of a far greater disaster."
"I hope you understand."
To have climbed to his position, William naturally understood. He nodded, offering no further reply.
Soon, the nine fully formed purification squads took their positions simultaneously outside the nine factories.
Standing at the highest point of the temporary command post, Bishop Jansen struck his staff heavily against the ground. Golden light of faith flowed down the shaft of the staff:
"The Emperor's gaze is with us."
"Remember, the monsters inside were once our fellow humans, victims misled by Chaos."
"Our duty is to end their suffering, incinerate the filth of Chaos, and protect the billions of souls behind us."
"Find the altar and destroy it. That is the only way to break this deadlock."
"Move out!"
Boom!! The concentrated fire of the multi-meltas instantly burned through the side wall of Conscription Camp C. Scalding, molten metal flowed down the breach, making a sizzling sound.
The leader of the First Purification Squad, Battle Sister Cecilia, was the first to charge inside. The boltgun in her hands spat fire instantly, knocking two lunging Chaos Poxwalkers backward.
"Maintain formation! Priests in the center, watch the flanks!"
The squad filed in. The moment they stepped into the factory, everyone instinctively knit their brows.
The air was thick with the stench of blood and rot, smelling like ruined fruit mixed with viscera, assaulting their nostrils.
Even more troublesome was the omnipresent Warp whispering, sounding like countless insects burrowing into their ears, repeatedly coaxing the deepest desires and fears of their hearts.
"The Emperor on high, His light dispels the dark, His holy fire burns away the filth..."
The Battle Priest in the center of the squad immediately began chanting purifying prayers. The low, solemn voice acted like a warm protective barrier, drowning out the fragmented whispers.
A faint golden glow radiated from the holy relic held by the priest, enveloping the entire squad, and the buzzing in everyone's ears was instantly halved.
The interior of the factory was far more ominous than it appeared from the outside.
The lighting system had long since failed, leaving only the searchlights on the soldiers' helmets to pierce the darkness.
Wherever the beams swept, there were nothing but corpses slumped in pools of blood, twisted limbs of flesh, and dense Chaos runes covering the walls.
On the ground, on the bunks, and inside the corridors, wandering Chaos Poxwalkers were everywhere.
Some still retained most of their human form, save for their skin turning a greenish-blue and their claws growing razor-sharp. Others had completely warped, sprouting multiple limbs and ferocious mouthparts, snarling and lunging forward the moment they caught the scent of the living.
"Fire!"
The roar of boltguns echoed one after another in the enclosed factory space. Dense salvos of purifying rounds accurately struck the heads of the walkers, bursting them into clouds of blood mist tinged with holy light.
Promethium heavy flamers spat long tongues of fire, turning hordes of mutants into charred ash, the smell of burning flesh and smoke filling the air.
The advance seemed smooth, but the alarm bells in Cecilia's mind grew tighter.
It was too quiet.
Aside from the snarling of the beasts, there was almost no sound of living humans.
It was not until the squad reached the corner of the second corridor that a sudden change occurred.
A young man sitting against the wall was curled up, holding his head and trembling, looking like a survivor who had been frightened out of his wits.
Seeing this, an Iron Guard soldier paused to look for just half a second, but the man suddenly snapped his head up.
His face was already half-melted, one eye turned into a ghostly blue slit pupil while the other still retained its human shape. The corners of his mouth split all the way to his ears, revealing a grotesque smile.
"Hehehe, welcome to the playground of the Lord of Change!"
Before his voice even faded, his body swelled abruptly. His ribs tore through his skin and flared outward, turning into two rows of razor-sharp bone blades.
The entire man split open on the spot, transforming into a monster whose upper body resembled a Venus flytrap, snarling as it lunged at the nearest soldier.
Caught off guard, the soldier had the breastplate of his power armor slashed open by the bone blades, and blood instantly welled out.
"Damn it!"
Cecilia flicked her wrist, her chainsword revving to life with a loud hum. She charged forward and sliced the beast into two racks of ribs with a single strike.
But this was only the beginning.
In the rooms flanking the corridor, in the ventilation ducts, and on the steel girders of the ceiling—within these more concealed corners, "survivors" continuously erupted into violence.
Some could still speak complete human words, crying out and screaming "help me," only to strike suddenly once you drew near.
Others lay on the ground groaning in agony, their bodies subtly mutating, lunging violently the moment you let down your guard.
Worse still, the Tzeentch cultists in the shadows were continuously fueling their sorcery.
Those civilians who had not yet fully warped, who still possessed a shred of sanity, were driven like manipulated marionettes, screaming as they rushed toward the purification squad.
They held steel pipes, wrenches, and even broken glass in their hands. Their eyes were filled with tears, but their bodies charged forward uncontrollably, like a tragic crowd of puppets.
"No, don't come over..." A young Iron Guard soldier hesitated, his hand holding the boltgun trembling slightly.
Charging at him was a child who looked barely in his teens, his face still bearing childish innocence, yet manipulated by sorcery to lunge with a piece of broken glass.
"Do not hesitate!" Cecilia barked sharply, stepping forward and taking the child's head off with an elbow strike.
"Their souls have already been defiled by Chaos. Ending their pain is the greatest mercy we can offer them!"
While everyone understood the logic, actually pulling the trigger against familiar human faces was a form of torture for every soldier's psyche.
The Warp whispers continued to tunnel into their ears, magnifying their internal wavering and guilt.
At the edges of the squad, some soldiers were already beginning to hallucinate. The hands gripping their weapons shook uncontrollably, and their eyes grew unfocused.
To make matters worse, the Tzeentch sorcerers in the dark were continuously summoning new demons.
Pink Horrors flickered in and out of the shadows, occasionally throwing an arcane missile that exploded into scorched patches on the power armor.
This had never been a simple physical assault.
This was a dual trial of flesh, will, and faith.
And the Tzeentch cultists hidden in the deepest depths were sneering as they watched them step deeper and deeper into the quagmire.
In the darkness at the end of the corridor, a purestrain Genestealer clung silently to the ceiling, its purple pupils quietly watching the squad below.
In the next second, a flood of information quietly integrated into the neural network of one of the Iron Guard soldiers.
A route slowly unfolded within the soldier's mind.
These Genestealers lurking in the depths of the conscription camps were the true hidden trumps Raynor had deployed to watch over these ten million "reserve resources."
From the very first day the vacant factories in the Mid-City were designated as temporary quarantine points, highly mimetic third-generation hybrids had been mixed into every incoming batch of conscripts. They appeared no different from ordinary youths, eating and sleeping like anyone else, and could pass the most rigorous identity checks. Only the extremely faint psychic fluctuations deep within their brains marked their identity as part of the Hive Fleet.
On regular days, they remained completely still, following the daily routines and training like the most compliant draftees. Secretly, however, they acted like mobile sensory networks, synchronizing every single movement within the quarantine zones back to the Hive Mind in real time.
The infiltration and sacrifice plans that the Chaos cultists thought were flawless had actually fallen entirely under the gaze of these hidden moles from the moment the very first traitors sneaked into the conscription camps. The hybrids didn't startle the prey; they merely watched with cold detachment as the cultists quietly networked, hid sorcerous implements, and carved blasphemous runes in the corners of the factories. Like patient hunters, they waited for the moment the prey fully bared its fangs.
The exact same second Bishop Jansen's purification squads breached the walls and stepped into the factory sectors, the Genestealers scattered throughout began mapping the terrain of the entire area. Where sorcerous traps were hidden, which sectors had the densest concentrations of mutants, and the precise coordinates of the flesh altars—all of this information was laid bare like an open map, vividly reflected across the Hive Mind network.
In the next second, a complete route manifested inside the mind of an Iron Guard soldier mixed into the First Purification Squad.
The soldier was named Holt, a young corporal in his early thirties who still carried a hint of youthful greenness on his face. He paused his footsteps for a fraction of a second before resuming his pace as normal, his eyes sweeping across the crisscrossing corridors ahead. Looking at Sister Cecilia at the front of the formation, who was holding her chainsword and preparing to order a scouting probe, he bit his lip. Feigning a tense restraint, he quickly stepped forward to catch up.
"Sister!" He lowered his voice, drawing close to Cecilia's side amidst the roaring gunfire and snarling monsters. "Please wait. I—I'm familiar with the layout here."
Cecilia snapped her head around, her silver-gray eyes sweeping over his young face with the characteristic sharpness of a Battle Sister. "What did you say?"
"I was born in this factory." Holt panted, pointing at the rusted ventilation ducts overhead, then toward the fork at the end of the corridor. "My grandfather was a molder here, my dad was a mechanic, and I ran around these workshops every day when I was a kid. I can find my way to the hidden passages and the core storehouses with my eyes closed."
He spoke earnestly, his voice trembling slightly as if nervous about his sudden volunteering. "A place for holding that kind of... evil ritual would definitely have to be somewhere spacious yet secluded. I have a rough idea of where it would be."
In the factories of a hive city, it was all too common for a working-class family to spend generations tending to the same workshop and the same machine tools. Sons succeeding fathers, rooting themselves across generations, nailed tight like rivets into the massive industrial apparatus—this was the life trajectory for countless hive dwellers of the middle and lower strata.
Cecilia looked at him for two seconds. Her gaze flicked past the emblem of the Iron Guard Regiment on his chest, then scanned the urgency he couldn't quite hide in his eyes, understanding instantly.
This was no coincidental "local." He was clearly a guide arranged by the upper echelons long ago. The Governor's Mansion had its hands in things far deeper than she had imagined.
She didn't expose him, merely nodding slightly as the revving hum of her chainsword dipped a fraction lower. "Lead the way. If you make one wrong turn, I will hold you personally accountable."
"Yes, ma'am!" Holt's eyes lit up, and he immediately stepped to the very front of the squad.
With precise route guidance, the purification squad bypassed several heavily guarded clusters of mutants and skirted around countless concealed sorcerous traps. The sporadic Chaos Poxwalkers that lunged out along the way were entirely unable to withstand the crossfire of the Battle Sisters and the Iron Guard elites; promethium fire swept past, leaving behind nothing but charred remains.
Occasionally, Tzeentch cultists hidden deep inside the ductwork intending to launch ambushes were found with their necks snapped by silently approaching Genestealers before they could even bare their claws. The corpses slid down the pipes and fell into the shadows of the corners without making the slightest sound. These hunters lurking in the dark were the most competent sweepers, smoothing out many hidden lethally dangerous factors for the purification squad.
Consequently, despite the vast acreage of the factory and the millions of mutants and fanatics scattered across the various workshops, the purification squad didn't end up running around like headless chickens as initially expected, despite the continuous roars of lunging aberrants. They moved like a precise scalpel, piercing straight into the core along the path of least resistance. It took them a mere hour to arrive outside the doors of the central main workshop.
Throughout the entire advance, the only casualty suffered was an Iron Guard soldier whose arm was scratched by an aberrant's claw.
"This is it," Holt pointed at the heavy, tightly sealed alloy doors ahead, his voice kept very low. "The center is the molding workshop. It has the largest space, is located in a very secluded spot, and has been left idle for years. Usually, rarely anyone even goes in for maintenance."
Cecilia didn't waste words, raising her hand in a tactical gesture. Two Iron Guard soldiers immediately stepped forward, planting melta charges onto the door locks.
Boom!
Following the muffled detonation, the alloy doors crashed down.
In the center of the workshop, the flesh altar constructed from stacked corpses came into full view. Over a dozen Tzeentch cultists clad in deep blue cloaks were surrounding the altar, chanting incantations. The crystals atop their staffs glowed with a ghostly blue malevolent light, and the runes on the ground writhed slowly like living things.
As the purification squad suddenly breached the doors, the leading cultist was visibly stunned, his eyes filled with absolute, unbelievable bewilderment.
Impossible! The barrier outside is still up, and mutants cover the entire corridor. Furthermore, the route to get here is incredibly convoluted—how could these people possibly find this place so fast?!
Before that single thought could even fully process in his mind, Cecilia's chainsword came cleaving through the air with a howling wind.
"For the Emperor!"
The roar of the Battle Sister echoed through the workshop as purifying bolt shells poured out like a torrential downpour.
There was no daemon army, no heavy firepower, and not even a decent Chaos sorcerer to speak of. These cultists were originally sleeper agents hidden among the conscripts, relying entirely on the element of surprise to slowly complete the ritual under the cover of the barrier. But with their advantage of concealment completely shattered, facing a purification squad composed of Battle Sisters, Battle Priests, and Iron Guard elites, their fragile psychic and melee capabilities were utterly defenseless.
The moment Pink Horrors were summoned, they were incinerated into green smoke by the priests' holy fire. The cultists' sorcerous rays struck the power armor bolstered by the power of faith, leaving behind nothing more than faint scorch marks.
The battle lasted a mere two minutes.
As the last cultist was sliced diagonally from shoulder to waist by the chainsword, the flesh altar in the center of the workshop lost its energy supply, and the ghostly blue runes instantly dimmed. The sorcerous barrier enveloping the entire factory shattered and dissipated like broken glass. Sunlight poured down through the shattered skylights, illuminating the charred remains covering the ground.
The first conscription camp was declared purified.
The exact same scene played out one after another across the other seven factories. Precise route guidance, assistance in clearing obstacles from the shadows, combined with the formidable combat prowess of the purification squads themselves, turned what should have been a devastatingly brutal assault campaign into an exceptionally smooth operation.
The traps meticulously laid out by the cultists became mere decorations, and the mutant army they had spent massive efforts creating served as nothing more than background scenery along the way. Frequently, before the mutants could even gather into hordes, the purification squads had already bypassed them to strike directly at the core, destroying the altars in one fell swoop.
Eight factories, eight clean and decisive raids.
When the news made its way back to the temporary command post, Colonel William was somewhat dumbfounded. He had originally prepared himself for casualties exceeding half their strength, but he hadn't expected the combined losses to amount to less than a single platoon.
"The people from the Governor's Mansion certainly did their homework thoroughly." Bishop Jansen leaned on his staff, gazing toward the direction of the eighth factory, though his brow was slightly furrowed.
"Only Camp 8 is left..."