---o---
The atmosphere inside the Planetary Governor's palace on Aestia had become oppressive to a truly alarming degree.
Because in the wake of the Thousand Sons sorcerer's escape, a full-scale rebellion had erupted from the Lower Hive.
The source was obvious — every one of them a creature already corrupted by Chaos. The Governor felt his sanity fraying around the edges. He found himself nostalgic for the days when he'd been a simple officer, cutting across battlefields with nothing to think about but the fight directly in front of him.
Those days had been so uncomplicated. A soldier only had to die on the front line. The rear echelon was a different kind of hell entirely.
"Our troops have mutinied. We need time to deal with the internal revolt."
The Planetary General's vox-array shook with a continuous stream of worsening reports. The relentless preaching of the Ecclesiarchy had left the Lower Hive saturated with corrupted inhabitants, and now those same people were hammering against the defensive lines.
Worse still, large numbers within the Planetary Defence Force had been unwittingly corrupted as well, and had begun turning on their own comrades in a frenzy. Organizing any coherent front line was impossible for now — they were effectively locked out of the Lower Hive.
The Upper Hive, at least, remained stable. The Angels were handling it there, clearing out anything that raised its head with ruthless efficiency.
Both the Governor and the General were by now drenched in cold sweat. Their forces below were in genuine disarray.
"If we lose the Middle Hive, we're finished."
The words came from the man handling the planet's internal affairs — one of the few who had escaped both infection and corruption — his face glistening as he said it. His own situation was grim: he had just realized that virtually all of his most capable staff had apparently been corrupted at some point.
"Where is the Inquisitor? Where is the Mechanicus Magos?"
The Planetary General couldn't hold the words back. All of this had been stirred up by those two.
"They're currently at the Navigator's Court. Something seems to have gone wrong there as well."
Every approach to the hive city had descended into chaos. PDF troopers were shooting each other on one side while trying to hold back the Tzeentchian insurgents on the other.
And then, cutting through the noise, a thunderous war cry rang out.
"FOR THE EMPEROR! FOR THE FOUR-ARMED EMPEROR!!!"
Accompanied by a surge of rising noise, a mass of wildly misshapen figures came charging in — some of them sporting four arms — joining the line alongside those fighting back against the Tzeentchian corrupted forces.
The breathing room this bought for the PDF was immediate and real. Units near the Genestealers rapidly cleared out the surrounding corruption and consolidated.
And at the same time —
"The Genestealers are holding the line. The Middle Hive is secure. Wait — they're pushing the rebels back with total disregard for their own casualties. We have time to reorganize."
"...Thank the Throne."
The Governor's expression finally eased when the report came through. With the Genestealers now on the line, the pressure on him had dropped significantly.
"So xenos hold the gate while Genestealers die for the state?"
This particular sentence was heard with perfect clarity by Zhou Ye, who had just stepped through the entrance with his Kastelan Robot squad in tow. The expression behind his faceplate became extraordinarily complicated.
The Inquisitor had already taken the Astartes and rushed to the front lines, which was why Zhou Ye had come here to assess the Planetary General's situation.
He hadn't even made it through the door before walking into something he genuinely struggled to keep a straight face about.
This galaxy was just too surreal.
"Magos! Thank the Omnissiah!"
The room erupted in relief at Zhou Ye's arrival — and the sight of three Kastelan Robots at his back turned the relief into outright reverence.
This was beyond any doubt a Tech-Priest Magos of considerable standing. Common people knew only the nobility of the Angels. But these machines outclassed a standard Angel in a straight fight — and little Aestia, it turned out, truly had hidden depths.
"The situation appears to be quite bad."
Zhou Ye glanced at the White Scars who had already assumed partial wartime command authority, and felt the full weight of the absurdity. Stop looking at him like that. Did they really want him to solve the entire situation by putting a round through the planet?
"The Inquisitor is dealing with the heretics. What's the current status?"
"Not good. The heretics are barely holding against the xenos."
The White Scars Astartes delivered that assessment without any optimism at all, which made Zhou Ye's brow furrow. The local Tzeentchians weren't performing well, apparently. He had no idea what that sorcerer had actually been doing with his time.
"One more thing, Magos. We discovered a rather unusual ruin not long ago. The original Tech-Priests assigned here couldn't breach the entrance, and no one dared force it open. Then the revolt broke out, so it's remained sealed."
"A ruin. Where?"
Zhou Ye's interest was immediate at the Planetary General's hesitant lead-in.
So Aestia still had more to offer. Genuinely interesting.
"On the snowfields north of the hive city. If the Magos could assist us in resolving this, we would be willing to —"
"Leave it to me. I'll go drag those Iron Warriors tin cans over here first."
The moment Zhou Ye heard that, his interest locked in completely. He had already caught a glimpse of what the General was thinking — and by extension, the ruin's precise location. According to what he'd just read from the man's mind, the site appeared to be a Necron tomb.
There would absolutely be something worth taking in there.
But first things first — he would go and temporarily relieve the pressure on the front line, buying them time to consolidate internally. With that decided, Zhou Ye turned and walked out.
"What did he just say — tin cans?"
The White Scars Astartes muttered this with genuine puzzlement the moment Zhou Ye was out the door.
Every single person remaining in the hall chose, at that precise moment, to say absolutely nothing. Not one of them was willing to touch that particular thread.
As for Zhou Ye, he mounted his motorcycle, circled around the hive city's defensive perimeter with minimal effort, and covered the distance to the Iron Warriors, Khorne cultists, and Dark Mechanicum camp in under ten minutes flat.
Based on the White Scars' intelligence: roughly thirty Iron Warriors in the camp, one Dark Mechanicum contingent, and their Warhound Titan. The likely arrangement — the Dark Mechanicum had hired the Iron Warriors to excavate some kind of ruin.
As for the Khorne cultists, they were a local product of the surrounding badlands, currently operating as allied contractors.
"I was going to move on them later, but I'll take that Warhound Titan first. It's on the weaker end of the Titan spectrum, but that's still no reason to let them use it."
Zhou Ye thought through it rapidly after landing. Then he shed the Mechanicus exterior entirely, tucked all three Kastelan Robots back into storage, grabbed a Khorne cultist who was standing watch, and put the man down with a single punch.
A moment later, he strolled into the camp without the slightest air of urgency.