At the exact same moment, deep within the neural network of the Hive Mind, Sarah's consciousness was sharing a full perception of the battlefield through the hybrid officers stationed within the garrison forces.
A continuous torrent of human emotions flooded her consciousness.
There was fear, tension, and a blank bewilderment toward the unknown.
Yet, anchored at the absolute bottom of it all was a heavy, almost stubborn determination.
They knew they were going to die.
They understood perfectly well that against a sorcerer legion of the Thousand Sons and a colossal flesh aberrant capable of devouring an orbital lance strike, a mere garrison force of tens of thousands would not last long.
Yet, not a single soul retreated.
Sarah quietly "watched" those busy figures across the defensive positions.
A young soldier, his hands trembling violently as he chambered a fresh cell into his lasgun, nevertheless stood firmly in the front row.
An elderly priest spat blood, yet still held his sacred staff high to chant his prayers.
Bishop Jansen leaned on his staff at the absolute vanguard of the position, his silhouette thin yet ramrod straight, like a solitary pillar standing between Chaos and the mortal realm.
She was suddenly reminded of the words Raynor had once spoken to her.
Back then, she still could not comprehend humans as a species.
They were weak, short-lived, riddled with emotions and flaws, and their individual combat capability was utterly negligible when stacked against the biological weapons of the Tyranids.
They possessed no shared neural network, had no unified will, consumed themselves in internal strife, harbored mutual suspicions, and were eternally locked in petty conflicts over meaningless scraps of interest.
But Raynor had told her that the most terrifying aspect of humanity had never been individual strength.
"They will willingly surrender everything, including their very lives, for things that are completely intangible—home, honor, their own kind, or even an ideal that can never possibly be realized."
At the time, Sarah had found it utterly absurd.
The individual sacrifices of Hive Fleet Tyranid were purely for the continuous consumption of the whole, satisfying a bottomless appetite.
It was an optimal solution etched into their genetic code, a matter of cold, survivalistic logic.
Human sacrifice, however, frequently possessed no "cost-effectiveness" whatsoever.
When they clearly could live by taking a step back, or secure a longer lifespan by surrendering, they chose instead to take the most brutal and tragic path.
It was entirely inefficient and thoroughly irrational.
Yet at this moment, as the collective resolve of tens of thousands of souls rushed into her consciousness via their shared perceptions, and as those figures who gripped their weapons despite knowing they were doomed manifested clearly before her eyes—
Sarah suddenly felt a strange, inexplicable stir.
This was not a genetic directive.
It was not a forced command issued by a Hive Mind.
They had chosen this themselves.
They chose to use their mortal flesh and blood to block the rushing torrent of the Warp.
Sarah could not genuinely empathize with human emotions, nor could she fully comprehend the underlying logic behind this brand of "nobility." But she knew these people were helping Raynor hold Brevis, and by extension, helping her preserve the unconsumed biomass and order of this planet.
The only thing she could do was to ensure that not a single second they bought with their lives was wasted.
"Issue orders to the Under-City priests: All Cleansing Plague armaments are to converge on the Mid-City sector immediately.
Establish defensive perimeters along the subterranean pipe network to intercept any Chaos units attempting underground infiltration."
"Deploy three reserve regiments of the Vanguard Army to the neighborhoods surrounding the Mid-City at once.
Establish in-depth defense utilizing the local architecture."
"Pivot all anti-aircraft fire toward the ground.
Prioritize total coverage on the zones surrounding the Warp domain."
A series of directives cut through the Hive network with blinding speed—precise, efficient, and entirely devoid of redundancy.
The cultist forces of the Under-City mobilized.
The Frost-Fiend Legion of the ice shelves stood ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
The Vanguard Army reserves directly under the Governor's Mansion moved out as well.
The entirety of Brevis's military assets was either converging toward the Mid-City or preparing to anchor the lines under Sarah's orchestration.
She did not comprehend human sacrifice, but she would catch that sacrifice in her own way.
---
Within the Warp domain, Attia stepped upon his levitating Disc of Tzeentch, slowly drifting away from the core of the flesh flower.
His ghostly blue power armor shimmered under the warped starlight, its surface densely carved with intricate runes of the Changer of Ways.
Golden trim meandered along the contours of the armor plates, outlining complex and devious patterns.
Within the eye-slits of his helmet burned no trace of the mindless savagery typical of ordinary Chaos Space Marines; there was only a near-detached intellectual curiosity, resembling a scholar observing a specimen pinned to an examination table.
In his left hand, he held a sorcerous staff as tall as a man.
The twin-headed avian topper held a constantly spinning, multi-faceted crystal, each turning facet refracting a different hue of Warp fire.
A deep blue velvet cloak cascaded from his shoulders, stitched with nine eyes that blinked and rotated subtly with his movements, as if continuously peering into realspace.
As one of the nine Grand High Sorcerers serving under the supreme lord of the Cult of Knowledge, Attia rarely set foot in the material universe anymore.
Most of the time, he spent his centuries within the libraries of the Planet of the Sorcerers, translating ancient scrolls, unraveling the threads of destiny, and studying the fundamental nature of all things.
The Lord of Change had granted him wisdom, along with an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Anything in the cosmos that remained unknown, obscured, or deviated from the tracks of destiny could drive him to absolute madness.
And this time, the entity that had lured him to this remote, fringe world was a single person.
An individual whose destiny was thoroughly entangled by the tendrils of Hive Fleet Tyranid.
The initial clue had come from an artifact acquired entirely by chance—the Eye of Radicus.
It was a relic unearthed from a Necron tomb world which, after being modified by Thousand Sons sorcerers, could peer into the destiny tracks of most individuals with absolute precision.
It had never failed.
Yet three months ago, when he aligned his observations toward the Brevis system under the guidance of the Lord of Change, the Eye of Radicus went blind.
On that planet, there was a person whose line of destiny was a total, absolute blank.
There was no past, no future, and no observable trajectory whatsoever.
It was as though this individual did not exist within the river of fate at all, yet was tangibly manipulating the trajectory of an entire star system.
What was more fascinating was that within the faint residual images fed back by the artifact, that person's frame was completely wrapped in the organic tendrils of the Tyranids.
It was not a parasitic infection or a process of consumption; it was symbiosis.
A human being had established a deep, symbiotic relationship with Hive Fleet Tyranid, and could even influence the Hive Mind in reverse.
This discovery had instantly ignited the entirety of Attia's passion.
What were the Tyranids? They were the purest apex predators of the galaxy, a biological deluge driven solely by an instinct to consume.
They possessed no individual will and offered no possibilities of communication; no one had ever truly "harnessed" them.
If he could thoroughly dissect the nature of this symbiosis, and if he could master the methodology to control Hive Fleet Tyranid...
For the Cult of Knowledge, it would be a revolutionary breakthrough.
It might even advance his supreme master's grand designs by several millennia.
Thus, he had come.
Leading an elite Thousand Sons warband, he had followed the summons of the Chaos cultists and personally descended upon this remote world via the conduit established by the nine flesh altars.
Attia's gaze pierced the boundary of his domain, sweeping across the Imperial defenders waiting in battle arrays outside.
Tens of thousands of ordinary human soldiers, a few thousand low-tier clergy, and a few hundred crude armored vehicles.
It was laughably weak.
He could not even be bothered to personally deal with these ants.
To him, the warriors outside did not even qualify as "opponents"; at best, they were merely clutter that needed to be swept away before his experiment could begin.
His true objective was that singular human who could manipulate the Tyranids.
"Cleanse them."
Attia tilted his head slightly, his voice as flat as if he were speaking of an utterly trivial matter.
With a gentle wave of his staff, the crystal at its tip erupted into a ghostly blue aura, and the nine massive rifts at the boundary of the domain instantly flared to their absolute limit.
The first to stride out of the rifts were nine Thousand Sons Sorcerers clad in blue-and-gold power armor.
Their silhouettes were somewhat lean, and their helmets shared the same design lineage as Attia's, though the eye patterns on their cloaks were fewer in number, and the structure of their staves was far more streamlined.
The nine positioned themselves across nine separate coordinates, perfectly forming a complete sorcerous array.
Following closely behind them were ninety-nine Rubric Marines.
They stepped out of the rifts with a perfectly synchronized march, the overlapping clatter of their power armor forming a dull, heavy thud that beat like a drum against the human heart.
Unlike ordinary Chaos Space Marines, no mutated flesh spilled from the seams of their armor.
There was no rise and fall of breath, and even the most basic vital signs were completely non-existent.
Within the eye-slits of their helmets, only ghostly blue soul-fire burned in silence.
The curse of the Rubric had long since destroyed their physical bodies completely.
Their souls were permanently entombed within their power armor—devoid of self, devoid of perception, leaving behind nothing but the purest combat instincts and absolute obedience to the commands of the Sorcerers.
They were living revenants, war machines bound by sorcery.
As long as the Sorcerer directing them lived, even if their armor was blown to pieces, their souls could be recalled and poured into a fresh suit to be thrown right back into the fray.
Remorseless, tireless, never to stop until death.
Behind the ranks of the Rubric Marines, nine more colossal figures slowly emerged.
Scarab Occult Terminators.
Their heavy Terminator plate was densely carved with scarab motifs, their pauldrons were broad, and their arms were outfitted with devastating sorcerous weaponry.
They were the elite close-combat assets of the Thousand Sons Legion, and entombed within each suit of Terminator armor was the soul of a veteran of the ancient Legion.
Compared to ordinary Rubric Marines, they were stronger, far more durable, and infinitely more lethal.
Ninety-nine Rubric Marines, nine Scarab Occult Terminators, and nine leading Sorcerers.
This force alone was enough to crush an entire Imperial Guard regiment.
Yet, this was still not all.
From deep within the nine rifts came an overlapping chorus of screeches and roars.
Flocks of Pink Horrors drifted out in droves, cackling and gibbering as arcane fire danced upon their fingertips.
Flamers of Tzeentch darted through the air, leaving burning trails behind them that warped and distorted the atmosphere.
Screamers of Tzeentch howled forth astride disc-like skimmers, their bizarre, piercing shrieks causing human eardrums to throb with agony.
On the ground, a dense mass of Chaos cultists swarmed out from the rifts.
They wore clothes of every variety, their faces painted with the runes of the Changer of Ways, their eyes flashing with fanatic light, and their hands gripping weapons that ranged from lasguns to rusted daggers.
They were the thrall armies that the Thousand Sons had enslaved from the Warp or from corrupted planets.
Daemons and cultists mingled together like two differently colored tides, continuously pouring from the nine rifts without end.
Their numbers grew larger by the second, quickly filling over half of the Warp domain until they stretched past the horizon.
This was Attia's Supreme Thrall Band.
It was the entirety of the forces he had brought this time to "sweep away the clutter."
Outside the domain, Colonel William watched the enemy forces pouring endlessly from the rifts, the veins on his forehead bulging.
He had faced Ork Waaaghs! and Nurgle's plague zombies before, but he had never witnessed a Chaos army so dense and so seamlessly layered.
The front ranks consisted of fearless cultist meat-shields and Chaos Spawns; the mid-row held the unyielding Rubric Marines; the back row housed the unpredictable Sorcerers; and circulating overhead were the swooping daemonic units.
This was a war.
A war that, if handled with a single misstep, would be more than enough to bury the entire hive city.
"All units," Colonel William took a deep breath and pressed his vox-comms key, his voice as steady as if he were conducting a routine training exercise.
"Free fire once the targets enter optimal range.
For the Emperor!
For Brevis!"
Across the defensive line, every soldier tightened their grip on their weapons simultaneously.
Heavy artillery barrels slowly elevated, bolts were chambered, and holy fire was ignited.
No one spoke, but the eyes of every man and woman conveyed the exact same message:
Fight to the death, and never retreat.
---
The edges of the Warp domain continuously rippled and churned, slowly gnawing away at the boundaries of the real world.
The nine rifts spewed multicolored chaotic energies, casting a pungent stench of sulfur and sorcery across the industrial blocks of the Mid-City.
Colonel William kept his eyes locked on the shifting silhouettes deep within the domain, only truly discerning the true face of this thrall band when the first wave of the charging enemy stepped out from the shadows of the rifts.
Rushing at the absolute front row were not ragged Under-City zealots, but a horde of savage warriors clad in thick beast-hide armor, wielding runic greataxes and two-handed warhammers.
They averaged well over two meters in height, their exposed skin a deathly pale white, and their muscles knotted like solid rock.
Their faces were carved with dense Chaos tattoos, and pale blue sorcerous fire flickered inside their eye sockets.
"Norscans..." Bishop Jansen breathed the name in a low whisper, his heart sinking heavily.
He had seen records of this savage race within the archives of the Departmento Munitorum.
It was a highly obscure piece of lore, yet the detail had stayed with him.
The planet Norsca was a feral world at the fringes of the Segmentum Obscurus, where humans had evolved physiques and a level of ferocity far exceeding ordinary men due to the extreme environment.
Unlike the majority of human worlds that worshiped the Emperor, the Norscans had worshiped the four Chaos Gods for generations, and the slaughter between their tribes never ceased.
Only the most brutal warriors from each tribe possessed the right to be conscripted by a passing Thousand Sons warband, becoming the personal retinue of the sorcerers.
These men were not deluded civilians; they were natural-born butchers, war machines raised inside the very energies of Chaos.
Among them, a dozen or so warriors wearing black-feathered cloaks and bone helmets carried a particularly terrifying aura, their axe blades enveloped in pale blue arcane flames.
Those were Norscan Champions—Chaos Champions of Tzeentch fully capable of confronting a Space Marine head-on.
Marching alongside them were twisted, mutating Chaos Spawns.
These mindless abominations should have been the epitome of disorder, yet under the influence of thrall-brands and the manipulation of the Sorcerers at the rear, they marched steadily at the absolute vanguard of the line.
Their massive forms acted like moving walls of flesh, perfectly shielding the Norscan warriors behind them.
Their bodies continuously shifted and deformed—at times bulging with thick keratinous plates, at others sprouting extra appendages—as they closed the distance with heavy, pounding strides.
Even more disheartening was the ghostly blue aura draping over the entirety of the advancing army.
It was a deflection domain woven from Tzeentchian sorcery.
The formless energy enveloped every single unit like flowing water, causing long-range ballistic trajectories to veer off in bizarre directions.
"All units, full salvo!" William slammed his arm down, and every artillery piece across the defensive line roared in unison.
High-explosive shells left trailing fires as they plunged into the charging ranks, melta rays tore through the air, and purifying bolter rounds poured out like a rainstorm.
Yet the expected scene of tearing flesh and flying limbs did not manifest; the vast majority of the shells veered off course the moment they touched that layer of ghostly blue light, either grazing past the bodies of the Chaos Spawns or detonating prematurely in mid-air.
The few shells that did connect slammed into the bloated masses of the Chaos Spawns, blowing apart patches of flesh to reveal the twisted bones and organs beneath.
However, before the wounds could widen, several Norscan shamans at the rear of the horde raised their bone staves.
Intoning obscure incantations, beams of pale green healing light landed consecutively upon the injured Spawns.
Those craters of flesh—wounds substantial enough to tear an ordinary human into paste—actually closed and healed at a visible rate.
Newly sprouted flesh buds rolled over to cover the trauma, and even severed limbs grew back entirely.
"Damn it! They have psykers among them too!" an artilleryman in the front line roared as he reloaded, though cold sweat was already dripping from his brow.
Their superiority in firepower had vanished.
The garrison forces were already at an absolute numerical disadvantage, relying entirely on heavy weaponry and entrenched terrain to hold their ground.
Now, their ranged damage was heavily mitigated by the domain, and the only meat-shields they could actually hit were being continuously healed.
As these factors compounded, the pressure bearing down on the defensive lines multiplied instantly.
The soldiers' breathing grew shallower and more rapid, their hands trembling slightly as they gripped their rifles.
The approaching Chaos horde in the distance loomed like an ever-rising wall of flesh, compressing the air in their lungs.
Morale plummeted rapidly, receding like a low tide.
"Hold the line!" William barked, drawing the chainsword at his waist.
The high-speed revving of the teeth roared to life, shattering the tense paralysis of the troops.
"The Emperor is with us! Prepare the mine arrays!"
The enemy vanguard quickly breached the pre-designated kill zone.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A chain of detonations rippled across the sector, the flames merging along the streets to form a twisting, writhing dragon of fire.
The buried military-grade mines and melta charges detonated simultaneously.
The resulting high temperatures and kinetic shockwaves instantly tore apart hundreds of the front-line Norscan warriors.
Two of the leading Chaos Spawns were blasted into unrecognizable heaps of charred flesh, their severed upper torsos thrown high into the air.
The momentum of the enemy charge shuddered to a violent halt.
Yet, before the soldiers could even draw a breath of relief, the Sorcerers at the rear waved their staves once more.
Additional Chaos Spawns waded through the residual shockwaves of the explosions, treading over the mangled remains of their kin to maintain the advance.
Severed limbs squirmed across the concrete, pulled back toward their hosts by threads of sorcerous energy.
Within mere heartbeats, the mangled beasts stood right back up, their movements only slightly slowed.
Standing atop the elevated observation platform at the center of the defensive perimeter, Bishop Jansen slammed his silver staff heavily against the floor.
His white beard whipped backward in the wind, but his eyes held no desire for retreat—only the cold glare of absolute resolve.
"Zealot Battalion, advance," the command echoed across the vox-network.
From behind the ruined walls flanking the perimeter, three thousand Ecclesiarchy zealots clad in coarse gray robes slowly rose.
They were predominantly devout believers drawn from the Under-City, lacking standard-issue flak armor or refined weaponry.
In their hands, they held nothing but short daggers dipped in holy oils and crude demolition devices.
Yet within the eyes of every man and woman burned a fanatical light, like thousands of embers eager to consume themselves for the cause.
The priests stepped out before them, raising their holy relics high to chant their litanies.
A golden light of faith, resembling the first rays of dawn, washed over the three thousand faithful, coalescing into a thin membrane of light across their bodies.
This protective shroud could ward off the insidious whispers of the Warp and mitigate the arcane missiles hurled by the Pink Horrors—
But it could not deflect greataxes or tearing claws, nor could it withstand the blunt momentum of a heavy physical impact.
"For the Emperor!" someone roared at the top of their lungs, and three thousand voices joined in a deafening cry.
They surged forward like two golden torrents from both flanks of the perimeter, driving straight toward the sides of the advancing Chaos army.
The opposing Norscan warriors erupted into mocking laughter.
Facing a fully armed Chaos host tens of thousands strong, three thousand unarmored mortals charging blindly ahead was nothing short of a suicidal farce.
Several Norscan Champions even halted their stride, crossing their arms to watch the approaching zealots like a circus show, the arcane flames on their axe blades flickering lazily.
The Pink Horrors gibbered and cackled, flinging barrages of arcane missiles.
Yet when those bolts struck the golden membranes of faith, they merely rippled into harmless sparks, causing negligible casualties.
This only bored the Chaos forces further.
To them, this was simply a swarm of ants sustained by blind faith; once the distance was closed, a single sweep of an axe would harvest them by the dozens.
The zealots quickly closed within a hundred meters of the enemy line.
The front-row Norscan warriors raised their greataxes, bracing for what they assumed would be a one-sided slaughter.
Right then, Bishop Jansen closed his eyes, traced a sacred sigil across his chest, and softly uttered a single word: "Detonate."
Boom!!!
The first explosion ripped through the air, followed immediately by an overlapping, relentless sequence of detonations—until the three thousandth blast.
Three thousand spheres of golden holy fire erupted simultaneously across the flanks of the Chaos army, resembling thousands of cascading miniature suns that illuminated the dim industrial blocks as bright as day.
This was Bishop Jansen's hidden trump card.
Upon learning of the Vanguard Army's practice of blending the ashes of holy relics into incendiary munitions, he had not chosen to condemn the act as heresy like Bishop Venca had.
Instead, he had immediately recognized its tactical utility.
He had worked through the night, ordering his subordinates to grind down every accumulated scrap of holy relics, martyr ashes, and sacred oils stored within the Mid-City Diocese over the centuries.
These were packed into crude demolition harnesses and distributed to his most devout zealots.
Every single device was packed with saintly remains and blessed promethium gel.
The holy fire generated by the blasts carried an inherent purifying attribute, possessing a devastating, necrotic efficacy against Warp-tainted flesh.
The soaring waves of golden flame rolled through the enemy flanks.
The Norscan warriors caught in the immediate radius were instantly wrapped in holy fire; their Chaos-tainted armor melted like snow, and their skin sizzled and popped beneath the sacred flames, drawing agonizing shrieks from their throats.
Dozens of Chaos Spawns were blasted apart, their exposed flesh buds withering into black smoke the moment they contacted the holy fire, completely halting their ability to regenerate.
Chaos rippled through the ranks of the thrall band like a contagion.
The flank units were shattered into disorganized remnants, and a massive breach was instantly torn into the front-row vanguard.
"Charge!" Colonel William seized the fleeting tactical window.
Pointing his chainsword forward, he roared his command.
The Iron Guard Assault Battalion, which had been waiting in reserve, leaped from their bunkers.
Gripping entrenching shovels and bayonets, over ten thousand heavily armored troops charged directly into the breach through the trailing smoke of the explosions.
The Battle Sisters flanked them on both sides, utilizing their chainswords and purifying bolter fire like twin needles driven deep into the disoriented enemy ranks.
Behind the lines, the engines of the armored personnel carriers and tanks roared to life, their heavy treads grinding over shattered stone and rubble.
They abandoned their long-range artillery roles, aligning their frontal rams directly toward the Chaos lines to execute a primal, physical charge reminiscent of ancient heavy cavalry.
The Iron Dragon flame-tanks spearheaded the vehicular assault, their forward-mounted heavy flamers drenching the area in promethium holy fire, plowing burning corridors through the Chaos horde.
The treads of Leman Russ Battle Tanks flattened the Chaos Spawns obstructing their path, their hull-mounted heavy bolters sweeping across the ground to cut down waves of charging Norscans.
The moment the lines collided, blood splattered across the streets.
An Iron Guard soldier's entrenching tool split open a Norscan's skull, even as the opponent's runic greataxe sheared through plasteel armor plates.
A Battle Sister's chainsword severed the writhing tentacles of a Chaos Spawn, though she had to pivot instantly to avoid the creature's spraying acidic fluids.
There were no elegant maneuvers—only raw, visceral melee attrition where lives were snuffed out by the second and every step forward was taken over a fresh corpse.
Yet the disparity in numbers and raw power was not something that sheer zeal could entirely bridge.
The ferocity of the Norscan warriors exceeded all expectations.
The more severe their wounds, the more ferocious their assaults became; men who were completely disemboweled continued to swing their axes while dragging their own entrails.
Even when a Chaos Spawn was blown in half, it would roll frantically toward the nearest human, using its corrosive bodily fluids to secure a mutual kill.
Compounding the slaughter was the continuous sorcerous support provided by the Norscan shamans.
The Rubric Marines at the rear had not even committed to the engagement yet, but the sheer volume of the front-line cultists and abominations had already completely bogged down the garrison forces' counter-charge.
Five minutes.
A mere five minutes passed.
Over half of the charging Iron Guard soldiers had been cut down.
The Battle Sisters' formation was systematically fragmented by the endless swarms of daemons, and over a hundred armored vehicles lay overturned by the monstrous strength of the Chaos Spawns.
The treads of the tanks were melted through by acidic fluids, leaving them immobilized inside the spreading inferno.
The golden holy fire gradually grew dim, and the residual smoke of the detonations slowly began to clear.
The Chaos army paused only briefly before stepping over the mountains of corpses, resuming their slow, crushing advance toward the core sectors of the Mid-City.
Standing atop his platform, Bishop Jansen watched the encroaching ghostly blue aura.
He let go of his silver staff, drawing an officer-grade chainsword instead.
He issued no order to retreat.
Instead, he stepped down to join the final, desperate counter-charge.
At the exact same moment, on the bottom deck of the battleship Gemstone, within the H4 residential sector.
Bang!
The heavy blast-door was violently blown open by melta charges, sending rusted metal fragments flying in all directions as a foul, putrid wind instantly erupted from the breach.
Captain Keller was the first to stride into the compartment, his boltgun raised.
The filtration system of his power armor immediately blared a sharp warning: the concentration of Warp contamination in the air had already exceeded the safety threshold by sevenfold.
A pungent stench hit him full-face—a sickening mixture of decaying flesh, rancid grease, and mold.
It smelled like a corpse pit that had festered for months, combined with a sewer line blocked for a century, so thick it nearly bypassed the armor's filters.
The metal grating beneath his boots was slick and greasy, coated in a layer of dark green bodily fluids that squelched with a sticky splat with every step, clinging to the soles of his tactical boots.
The beams of their flashlights swept across the surroundings, revealing layers upon layers of corpses wherever the light landed.
Men, women, the elderly, children...
The civilians of the lower deck lay scattered across both sides of the corridor, some slumped against the bulkheads, others face-down on the deck, their bodies twisted in agonizing death states.
Their skin had long since blackened and bloated, their bodies covered in dense clusters of pustules.
The abdominal cavities of several corpses had ruptured, spilling out turbid pus and fragments of internal organs.
"Blurgh—"
Near the rear of the squad, several young Arbitrators immediately bent over, dry-heaving violently behind their visors.
It wasn't that they had never seen a battlefield or purged a cultist cell before; they had simply never encountered a scene of death so dense and thoroughly revolting.
Keller's expression grew exceptionally grim.
He knelt down, using the muzzle of his weapon to nudge the shoulder of a corpse beside his foot.
The skin and flesh had already fused with the metal deck plating; the slight nudge tore away a large patch of decayed, sludgy tissue.
Judging by the state of decomposition, these people had been dead for at least three to five days.
Three to five days.
Yet, the residential sector's patrol units had submitted daily check-ins reporting all clear, and the surveillance data had consistently shown normal parameters.
It wasn't until seven minutes ago that the signal had suddenly cut out.
"We have an inside traitor," Keller said, rising to his feet, his voice ice-cold.
"And a high-ranking one at that, capable of doctoring patrol logs and cloaking surveillance data."
To coordinate a plot of this scale on the lower decks of the Gemstone and quietly corrupt an entire residential sector without drawing notice was not something a mere handful of Chaos cultists could pull off.
The enemy's tentacles had likely woven deep into the ship's command hierarchy long ago.
He was just about to raise his hand to signal his team to advance in a tactical wedge when a movement caught the corner of his eye—the mountain of bodies deep within the corridor turn had shifted.
It was no illusion.
The pile of corpses stacked at the intersection was slowly rising, as if coming alive.
Innumerable severed limbs and decayed torsos squirmed and spliced together beneath the sticky layer of fluids, generating a wet, grating sound of grinding bones and tearing flesh.
"Stay alert!" Keller growled sharply, instantly snapping his boltgun toward the pile.
"Prepare to open fire!"
Before the words fully left his mouth, the heap of corpses violently erupted.
A colossus standing nearly four meters tall rose from the rot, turbid pus cascading down its frame.
This was no ordinary plague zombie.
Its body was stitched together from dozens of corpses, with multiple arms of varying thickness protruding from the sides of its torso.
Some gripped shattered steel pipes, others sprouted razor-sharp bone claws, and a few terminated in bloated sacs that continuously dripped highly corrosive venom.
Its head was a fused amalgamation of three or four civilian skulls, with over a dozen turbid eyeballs rolling simultaneously as it let loose a wet, throated rasp.
A Plague Sewn-Abomination.
One of the favorite creations of Nurgle's faithful, a monster forged by blending countless corpses with the raw essence of pestilence.
Thick-skinned, extraordinarily durable, and carrying lethal toxins, every swing of its limbs could broadcast an absolute deluge of virulent pathogens.
And there was more than one such monster.
Along both sides of the corridor, every pile of corpses was squirming and merging.
One after another, the sewn-abominations swayed to their feet, completely choking off all routes of retreat and advance.
Shaking their bloated frames, they let loose dull roars and slowly closed in on the three hundred Arbitrators.
"Free fire! Aim for the joints connecting their torsos!" Keller made a split-second decision and squeezed the trigger.
The thunderous roar of bolter fire instantly erupted within the narrow corridor, the searing muzzle flashes illuminating faces that were either hardened with resolve or pale with terror.
---
The moment Captain Keller pulled his trigger, the combined firepower of the entire Arbitrator detachment unleashed in perfect synchronization.
The soldiers' magazines were packed to the brim with purifying bolt-shells personally hallowed by the ship's Tech-Priests.
The casings, coated in the residue of sacred oils, burst into faint blue particles of light upon impact.
Simultaneously, the flamer squads on both flanks compressed their triggers, unleashing a torrential spray of promethium gel laced with holy water and the powdered remains of sacred relics.
Tongues of gold-and-red fire rolled down the length of the corridor, instantly wrapping the oncoming plague abominations in a roaring inferno.
The relentless sizzling of holy flame cooking corrupt flesh filled the air, intermingled with the muffled, agonizing bellows of the beasts.
These monsters, stitched together from dozens of corpses, were built to rely on their bloated mass and virulent toxins to bulldoze through lines.
Yet in the face of promethium flame blessed with holy water, their proud, decaying flesh burned as rapidly as grease thrown onto a hearth.
The dark green pus boiled instantly upon contact with the fire, and the vaporized plague bacteria were reduced to ash the moment they drifted into the air, causing the tangled neural paths and muscle tissues of the abominations to blacken and char.
The three abominations at the absolute front row had barely covered two steps before being riddled with holes by the dense volley of purifying bolts.
Immediately following, the flames licked across their entire forms; they swayed unsteadily before collapsing with a resounding crash, dissolving into several heaps of smoldering, blackened debris.
"Good shooting! Keep advancing!" a squad leader roared, his voice carrying the hyper-adrenaline of surviving a brush with death.
When the corpse piles had first risen into those abominations, many of the younger Arbitrators had turned pale with tension.
But seeing these terrifying monsters prove so vulnerable to their sanctified firepower, their taut nerves loosened significantly.
Someone even began chanting the Emperor's name in a low cadence.
Their footsteps pressed steadily forward, weapons dropping precise shots into the squirming flesh fragments deep within the corridor, accelerating their advance to nearly twice their projected speed.
The corpses flanking the corridor curled into charred, crackling clumps as the flames swept over them.
The filth coating the metal deck was burned away entirely, exposing the mottled steel plating beneath.
The soldiers advanced, stepping over the brittle, blackened bone fragments, their confidence swelling with every meter gained.
It felt as though as long as they maintained this volume of fire, flattening the entirety of Sector H4 would be nothing more than a matter of time.
Yet Keller, marching at the absolute vanguard of the column, did not look relieved in the slightest.
He kicked aside a charred, severed arm near his boot, his brow furrowing into a tight knot behind his visor.
Fifty years of service as an Arbitrator and the experience of seventeen cult-purging operations continuously reminded him of one thing: this was going far too smoothly.
Sector H4 was home to nearly twenty thousand low-deck civilians.
Judging by the scale of the warp contamination, there should have been at least ten thousand plague zombies and hundreds of abominations choking the corridors.
Yet from the entryway to their current position, they had encountered only a scattered handful of monsters.
The vast majority of the bodies along the path remained static, showing absolutely no signs of large-scale reanimation.
Did the enemy truly go to such lengths to doctor the patrol logs, cloak the surveillance signals, and quietly corrupt an entire residential sector just to prepare this meager "welcoming gift"?
Keller knelt down, his gloved finger wiping at a patch of rust on the deck plating.
A slight, sticky sensation transferred to his fingertips.
The dark brown rust was creeping along the metal grain like a living entity—slow, yet exceptionally stubborn.
This was no ordinary electrochemical corrosion; it was the Rot-Rust Plague, carrying a distinct Warp curse.
The entity capable of broadcasting a plague of this nature could never be a mere handful of low-deck cultists.
"Increase the pace.
Target is the core dormitory compartment," Keller said, rising as his voice carried through the vox-comms into the ears of every soldier.
"All units maintain maximum vigilance.
Focus your sweep on the ventilation shafts and maintenance wells.
The enemy's main force is not on the frontline."
The soldiers' excitement receded slightly as they retightened their grip on their weapons.
---
Ten minutes later, the detachment finally advanced into the heart of Sector H4.
Directly ahead stood a massive, ten-meter-tall blast-gate—the main entrance to the largest collective dormitory compartment within the sector.
The entire dormitory was built to house a thousand personnel simultaneously; it was an open, densely populated space.
Once utilized to conduct a large-scale sacrificial ritual, the overflowing Warp energies would be more than enough to corrupt half of the entire deck.
The gate had long since lost its original silver-gray metallic sheen, replaced by dark brown rust stains that crawled across the entire surface like a spider's web.
A thick, pale-green pus continuously seeped from the seams, running down the gate to pool into foul-smelling puddles on the deck.
At the center of the door, a distorted three-skulled Mark of Nurgle had been painted with dried, blackened blood.
Even from a distance, a dense aura of profanity radiated from it.
"This is it," Keller nodded, gesturing with his chin.
"Combat engineers, front and center.
Plant the melta charges and execute a targeted breach on the locking mechanisms.
Make it quick."
Two young engineers immediately stepped out from the ranks, unslung the melta charge packs from their backs, and half-knelt at the base of the gate to secure the detonation devices.
Their movements were smooth and efficient—a standard procedure practiced thousands of times—their fingers deftly calibrating the detonation delays.
Everyone's attention was locked onto the gate and the two engineers.
No one noticed that from the inner side of the gate, heavy, rapid footsteps were fast approaching.
Thud.
A dull impact echoed from behind the door, sounding like a massive sledgehammer striking sheet metal.
The two engineers froze mid-motion, instinctively looking up at the gate.
Thud!!!
A second impact followed immediately, causing the entire blast-gate to shudder violently.
Keller's expression changed instantly.
Just as he was about to yell "Fall back!", the third impact erupted with a deafening crash—
CRASH!!!
The blast-gate, over ten centimeters thick, was violently kicked outward from the inside by sheer brute force!
The multi-ton metal door flew toward the crowd carried by a howling wind.
The two engineers at the absolute front didn't even have time to scream before they were thoroughly pinned beneath the falling slab of metal.
The crisp snapping of plasteel chestplates and breaking bones was completely drowned out by the metallic roar.
Dark red blood spilled from the edges of the door, mingling with the putrid fluids on the deck.