The Fortress of Doom was quiet, save for the rhythmic hum of its engines. At its heart, encased in the rune-bound sarcophagus, the Doom Slayer drifted into a restless slumber. His dreams were a battlefield—a chaotic tempest of fire and blood.
Within his mind, Hell surged toward him. Familiar forms materialized: Imps, Barons, and swarms of Lost Souls screaming through the void. He met them without hesitation, fists cracking bone, claws, and sinew as he tore through the horde. Yet, as each fell, their forms began to shift—alien, malformed, and wrong. The demonic tide grew unending, surrounding him in a shadowed expanse far removed from Hell's familiar depths. The Slayer loved every second of it, but then, a voice pierced the chaos.
"Slayer. It is time. Awaken."
The dream shattered. The sarcophagus trembled, its runes flickering erratically before extinguishing altogether. With a single, deliberate motion, the Doom Slayer pushed its lid free, casting it aside with a resounding crash.
The Slayer stood, his breaths measured and heavy as he surveyed his surroundings. The room mirrored the sterile austerity of the UAC's Mars facility—an illusion crafted by his mind. Screens flickered, machinery hummed, and faint alarms pulsed in the background.
But this illusion, like his dream, began to fracture. The walls shimmered, peeling away in cascades of golden light. The monitors crackled, exploding into static before vanishing altogether. What remained was the familiar, ancient steel of the Fortress of Doom.
In the centre of the room, his Praetor Suit awaited him, whole and gleaming. The sigils on its surface pulsed faintly as if calling to him. He approached without hesitation, the weight of the suit grounding him as it locked into place with a resounding clasp. The system roared to life, his HUD flickering to full functionality.
As the Slayer adjusted to the armour's familiar weight, a voice emerged, calm yet reverent.
"Awake at last. You have been asleep for so long."
He turned, his gaze cold and unyielding. Before him, a figure materialized: a humanoid construct of golden light and shifting geometry. Its voice was serene, but beneath it lingered a sorrowful weight.
"You do not know me," the figure continued, bowing slightly. "I am Sefirot of the Great Maykrs. Here to be your guide. Your keeper. Your companion."
The Slayer said nothing, his silence heavier than any weapon.
Sefirot inclined its head, undeterred. "The war is over. The demons are no more. Hell has been emptied, and the Dark Lord unmade. What you sought has been achieved."
The Slayer stepped past the projection, his fists tightening.
"You do not trust my words," Sefirot murmured, its tone softening. "You would see for yourself. So be it."
As he reached the chamber's threshold, the Fortress stirred. Its lights flared, its walls trembling as the vast machine prepared for his presence. Sefirot's voice followed him, quiet and measured.
"You will find this is not the world you left behind. The tides of war have shifted, but they will call to you all the same. I will remain by your side, to guide you if you allow it."
The Slayer paused briefly, his expression unreadable, before stepping into the labyrinthine corridors of the Fortress, and behind him, Sefirot's projection faded.
The Fortress of Doom hummed with quiet energy, its ancient machinery pulsing like a heartbeat. Sefirot's form once again shimmered faintly in the chamber ahead, observing as the Doom Slayer, clad in his newly repaired Praetor Suit, flexed his hands in silence.
The AI's voice broke the stillness, smooth and reverent.
"You are restless, Slayer. The Fortress remains at your disposal, yet you appear unsatisfied. What is it you seek?"
The Slayer turned his head slightly, casting a piercing gaze at the golden figure. His voice, gruff and low, rumbled for the first time since his awakening.
"Open the Gates."
Sefirot hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "As you wish. But I must caution you... beyond this vessel lies the immaterium—a place of chaos, of dreams made real. Even you may find its nature... unsettling."
The Slayer said nothing, his silence sharper than any command. Sefirot bowed its head and gestured with an ethereal hand. The Fortress groaned as massive doors ahead began to part, revealing a roiling, impossible expanse.
The Slayer stepped forward, the suffocating weight of the immaterium pressing against his form. The realm was unlike any he had seen—fractals of colour bled into infinite darkness, shifting between serene beauty and maddening chaos.
Sefirot's voice resonated softly in his helm. "Despite the resemblance, this place is neither Hell nor Earth. It is a realm of thought and emotion, a crucible of dreams and nightmares. It has no boundaries and no rules. Yet, you stand undeterred."
The Slayer moved further into the realm of the immaterium, his steps heavy but unyielding. He stopped abruptly, the strange energies of the realm coalescing before him. Slowly, he raised his gauntleted hands, the jagged lines of his armour glowing faintly.
"What is it you mean to do?" Sefirot asked, curiosity and concern threading its tone.
Without a word, the Slayer plunged his hands into the fabric of the immaterium itself. The realm reacted violently, rippling as though in pain. The colours fractured into jagged streaks of light and shadow, and a low, guttural groan reverberated across the expanse.
The Slayer snarled, pulling with all his might. The space before him ripped apart, tearing like flesh as a blinding rift opened in the chaos. Through it, a swirling vortex of light and matter could be glimpsed.
"You have... torn the veil with nothing but sheer power, unlike the Fortress' Angelrium-engine," Sefirot whispered, its tone laced with awe and dread. "This place bends to no one, not of its own, yet you impose your will upon it. Remarkable... and dangerous."
The Slayer stepped through the rift without hesitation, the immaterium's dissonant energies howling behind him. Sefirot's form flickered, reappearing within his HUD as the portal collapsed.
"Wherever this path leads, it is not of my making," the AI murmured, its golden light dimming slightly. "But I will follow, for it is clear that no force—mortal or divine—may bar your way."
The Slayer strode forward, his purpose unknowable, his rage unyielding. Behind him, the immaterium shuddered, its formless tides left scarred by his defiance.
**********************
- Planet Armageddon
- Armageddon Sector, Segmentum Solar
The air was thick with the acrid stench of burning promethium and the metallic tang of blood. Smoke rose in twisting columns from wreckage scattered across the shattered plain, a grim reminder of the retreating hive city's fate. The 12th Armageddon Steel Legion regiment had fortified their position around a decayed supply house, its rusting structure a meagre shield against the chaos outside.
Lasgun fire cracked sharply through the air, the desperate line of Guardsmen exchanging fire with an oncoming tide of mad heretics. Among them was Trooper Vek Tavrin, his young face streaked with soot and grime. He crouched behind a low barricade of sandbags, his trembling hands clutching his lasgun tightly.
Vek's world had been small once—a hab-block in Hive Tempestora, the rhythmic life of work shifts and prayer to the Emperor. Now that world was gone, consumed by war. He pressed himself lower as a volley of improvised projectiles slammed into the barricade, showering him with dirt and debris.
The roar of approaching engines grew louder. Makeshift bikes and ramshackle vehicles screamed toward their position, mounted with jagged spikes and crude weaponry. Mad cultists in rags wielding cleaver, chains and spears swung from the front, their mouths foaming as they howled blasphemies.
The commissar's orders echoed in Vek's mind, sharp and unyielding.
'You want to serve the Emperor, boy? Prove it. Bring those supplies back to our lines or die trying.'
It had seemed a straightforward task then: raid a disused supply house hidden within the ash wastes, retrieve the caches, and return. But they hadn't been the only ones who found it. The heretic horde had swarmed toward the supply house like vultures, forcing the regiment into a brutal defence.
Vek gritted his teeth, pressing his back to the barricade. His lasgun felt heavy in his hands, his muscles screaming after hours of crouching and firing. The noise of the battle was deafening, but his thoughts were louder still. "I should've stayed. I should've fought to hold the hive. At least it was home."
The Guardsman to his left, a grizzled veteran, barked at him.
"Keep your head down, kid! Do you think the Emperor cares about regrets? You fight, or you're dead!"
Suddenly a rattling drove of javelins passed through the regiment and guardsmen tottered and dropped from their position. The vehicles were rearing and plunging, and the heretic horde swung along their flanks, turned, and drove full upon them with spikes. The regiment had then came to a halt, and another round of lasgun shots were fired, and dust rolled through the ground and mad riders breached their ranks.
Vek sank down with a long pneumatic sigh, he had already exhausted his one charge pack, and now he sat hidden and fumbled with his supply bag. The veteran guardsman beside him sat with long metal sticking out of his neck. He was bent slightly as if in prayer to the God-Emperor, Vet would have reached for the bloody metal but then he saw that the veteran wore another javelin in his breast to the fletching and he was dead. Everywhere there were men down or scrambling.
Then Vet saw a fellow gaurdsman charging his lasgun while blood ran from his ear, and he saw a gaurdsmen with lasgun disassembled trying to fit together the charged pack they carried. And he saw guardsmen tilted and kneeling trying to clasp their shadows on the ground. And he saw guardsmen lanced and caught up by the helmet, then beheaded standing. And he saw the vehicles of war trample down the fallen. And pale thin heretic with one eye leaned out of the murk and snapped at him like an ork from the stories.
Among the wounded some seemed dumb, and without understanding, and some had fouled themselves, and some tottered brokenly onto the spears of the madmen. The heretics surged closer, a wild, disorganized wave of fury. Vek by this time had reloaded his charge pack, he raised his lasgun, sighting down the iron barrel, and squeezed the trigger. Red beams of light shot out, striking a biker square in the chest. The man tumbled off his ramshackle ride, but the others kept coming.
A guttural roar broke through the din as one of the vehicles—a monstrous unfinished tank bristling with spikes—crashed through the Guardsmen's outer line. Heretics leapt from their beds, swinging chains and clubs. The barricades buckled under the weight of the assault.
Vek scrambled to his feet, firing blindly into the mass of bodies. He could barely hear the screams of his comrades over the cacophony. A towering cultist, his face obscured by a grotesque mask, lunged toward him with a jagged blade.
Vek raised his lasgun as a shield, the blade sparking against the weapon's casing. The cultist shoved him back, and he fell hard, his vision blurring as pain radiated through his skull. He closed his eyes involuntarily and kept them close voluntarily.
'This is it... I am going to die.'
The thought echoed in his mind as the chaos of the battlefield dimmed. The jeers of heretics, the crackling fire, the desperate shouts of his comrades—all muffled as though the universe itself had decided to end in silence.
And then, a crack like a thunderclap.
Vek's lasgun was torn from his trembling hands, wrenched away by an unseen force. The sharp sound of lasgun fire rang out, a rapid rhythm of death. Each shot reverberated like a hammer striking an anvil, and he felt the air around him shift, charged with something more than just violence.
Tentatively, Vek opened his eyes. The sight before him was like something out of the Emperor's legends.
The cultist who had nearly claimed his life lay crumpled at his feet, his neck twisted at an impossible angle. Standing over the body was a towering figure, encased in green armour that gleamed with an otherworldly light even through the grime and soot. The figure moved like a force of nature, each step shaking the ground, each motion imbued with purpose.
The warrior wielded two lasguns—one of them unmistakably Vek's—and they roared in his hands. Beam after beam shot from their barrels, finding their mark with impossible precision. Heretics fell all around, their skulls bursting in showers of gore, their charges faltering as panic rippled through their ranks.
The chaos around Vek shifted. No longer a battle, but a slaughter.
When the last body fell and the battlefield went still, the figure lowered the weapons, the barrels glowing faintly in the dim light. The corpses of the heretics lay scattered, each felled with a single, perfectly placed shot to the head.
Vek stared, slack-jawed, unable to move. The figure turned slightly, the glowing visor of its helmet fixed on him. In its presence, Vek felt small, insignificant, as though the Emperor Himself were staring into his soul.
Vek scrambled to his feet, his body trembling. The figure's towering form loomed over him, impossibly vast, impossibly real.
"Wh-who... what are you?" Vek stammered, his voice barely above a whisper.
The figure didn't answer. It simply dropped Vek's lasgun at his feet, turned, and began walking toward the ruined supply house, its boots crunching over the debris.
The boy hesitated for a moment before bending down to pick up his weapon. Around him, the battlefield seemed impossibly quiet, as though the planet itself had paused to take in what had just happened. He tightened his grip on the lasgun and followed, his heart pounding in his chest.
Vek's eyes were wide with shock as the towering figure in green armour stood amidst the chaos. The battle had fallen silent; the cultists lay dead in heaps, their bodies punctured with precise, lethal shots. The strange warrior lowered the lasguns, the barrels still faintly smoking, and surveyed the aftermath with an air of cold finality.
The Steel Legion guardsmen exchanged glances, the rumble of distant explosions still echoing through the ruins. Vek, shaken but clutching a fallen lasgun of a dead, watched as senior legionaire stepped forward as the towering figure in green armor loomed before them. His youthful face, now smeared with dirt and sweat, betrayed his uncertainty.
The sergeant who had initially spoken stepped closer, removing his gasmask, revealing a rugged face hardened by years of war. "Are you an Astarte, sir?" His voice was low and steady, yet tinged with awe. "From the Emperor's Angels? If you are one of them, then thank the God-Emperor you're here."
The figure didn't answer immediately. He merely stood, eyes locked on the horizon, before finally turning slightly, the green glow of his armor flickering faintly. A calm, measured voice issued from the suit itself.
"Who are you? And who were these damed... undergoing possession?"
The sergeant hesitated, glancing at his squad. "We are Guardsmen of Armageddon Steel Legion, and these heretics came from Hives, as we did. We were on mission by our Commissar's ordered to secure supplies from a hidden stash—away from the city. The heretics came. The corrupted. They slaughtered any who resisted. Turned our own people into... into something else. They became crazed, consumed by madness, sir."
Vek swallowed hard, as he got back on his feet. "We are only fresh recruits," he murmured, clutching his lasgun tightly. "Commissar's orders were clear. Secure the supplies, and bring it to Secendus. They butchered everyone in Primus—friends, family. We ran. We didn't stand a chance."
Sefirot spoke to Slayer within the suit.
[I sense no lie. Their souls were forfeit, to consumed by the gods of this place but now you have consumed them in their stead. The stench of their corruption lingers still.]
"What supplies were you ordered to retrieve, guardsman?"
The sergeant clenched his jaw, tightening his grip on his weapon. "Fuel, and ammunition, as the Commissar insisted. He thought we could hold this position, fight back from here, but..." His voice trailed off, lost in the void of devastation.
The figure finally moved forward, stepping past them without hesitation. "Then make haste with your duty guardsman. Bigger and stronger damned are approaching us at a quickening pace."