Hive Tempestora was no longer a city. It was a corpse—a cathedral of slaughter, a ruin of shrieking metal and weeping stone, sinking into the tides of war and worship.
The streets ran slick with oceans of blood, pooling in the shattered husks of manufactorums and collapsed hab-blocks. The walls breathed—muscle and sinew stretched across ruined ferrocrete, flesh-warped by the madness of the Warp. Smoke thick with the stench of burning flesh and sacred oils turned profane rolled across the skyline, hiding the shattered spires that still stood, blackened with soot and desecrated sigils carved into their steel bones. The air boiled with corruption, thickening reality like half-clotted gore.
And everywhere, the slaughter continued.
Mutants and heretics roamed the ruins in endless packs, their bodies twisted by devotion, their minds lost in eternal frenzy. They fought in the streets, in the rubble, on the cracked walkways and collapsed spires—feral, mindless, lost to the frenzy. No battle was meaningless. No duel lacked purpose. Every kill was a sacrifice. Every wound was an offering.
Above, the sky itself was a wound.
Clouds of burning ash swirled across the heavens, crimson lightning bursting from the roiling chaos, illuminating the towering Chaos Titans that strode through the wreckage. Their immense silhouettes—monoliths of war, engines of bloodshed—cast shadows across the hive, their steps like the drumbeats of an unstoppable apocalypse.
And among them, greater things moved.
Bloodthirsters.
Mighty as gods, their bat-winged forms darkened the ruined skyline, each as vast as the great spires they demolished with every sweep of their weapons. They roared hymns of slaughter, their voices cracking the air, shattering glass and steel as they called for more blood, more skulls, more war.
And beyond even them—in the distance, at the heart of the apocalypse, stood the Red Angel.
Angron.
A colossus of carnage, an immortal storm of flesh, metal, and raw fury. His sword drenched in the lifeblood of more than a million souls, his body a maelstrom of rage given form. Even the daemons bowed in his wake.
The hive was a world drowning in his wrath.
They built monuments to madness.
Great pyres of bone and iron, blazing with hellfire, stood as high as hive spires—temples to destruction where screaming captives were thrown alive into the flames, their agony a hymn to Khorne. Skull-pyramids the size of manufactorums littered the ruined districts, gleaming wet with blood. From their peaks, priests clad in flayed flesh and brass masks bellowed Khorne's praises, their voices unnatural, their throats ripped raw from endless chanting.
And the Daemons came in hordes from gore piles.
And yet—at the base of one of the skull-pyramids, something rare was happening. Silence.
Around two hundred berserkers knelt in the blood-slicked dirt, heads bowed, weapons laid at their sides. They were the survivors of the Lord Skchalick's Elite due to arriving late at the Slayer's massacre of their brothers, the warband of Chaos Lord Skchalick, and they had come bearing tribute.
Before them stood two legends.
Chaos Lord Hans Kho'ren of the Skull Takers, his armor a monument of scarred brass, his helm adorned with the countless skulls of champions slain by his own hand. His daemon-axe smoldered, its edge still dripping from its last execution.
Beside him loomed Kossolax the Foresworn, Chaos Lord of the Foresworn Warband, clad in armor as dark as cooled blood, the spikes of his trophy racks rising like a funeral pyre. His reputation was whispered with reverence and dread—a warlord as brilliant as he was brutal, his foresight into the tides of battle almost supernatural.
Between them, a mountain of geneseed—a harvest ripped from the bodies of Skchalick's fallen warriors—lay piled, glistening, steaming, still fresh from the carnage.
One of the kneeling berserkers, his voice hoarse from battle-lust, spoke.
"Our lord is dead."
Hans Kho'ren remained silent.
The berserker swallowed, his throat raw. Even among Khornate champions, bringing news of failure was dangerous.
"We do not know how," he continued carefully. "We came too late. There was nothing left. No survivors, no corpses beyond what we retrieved. Nothing but ruin."
Kossolax's head turned slightly, the dim red glow of his helmet-lenses unreadable.
"Nothing?" his voice was slow, deliberate.
The berserker tensed but nodded. "Only… Blood and Bones."
The words hung heavy in the air.
Hans Kho'ren grunted, stepping forward to examine the mountain of geneseed. He picked one up, rolling the bloody organ between his fingers.
"Then he was weak." His voice was disdainful. "That Skchalick always was."
The berserker tensed, but he did not dare to contradict.
Kossolax gave a short, rasping chuckle. "Yes. He was never one of us. Not truly." He turned his gaze to the kneeling warriors. "It is a simple thing, then. He overreached, as all weaklings do. He found something that was greater than him, and he died screaming. The strong take, the weak perish. That is the way of things."
Hans Kho'ren exhaled, irritated. "A warband lost. And for what?" He turned his burning gaze back to the berserkers. "Who struck him down?"
The kneeling berserkers hesitated.
"We… do not know."
Kho'ren's grip tightened on his axe. "No trace of his slayer?"
The berserker shook his head. "None."
"Ridiculous." Kossolax's tone was one of mild amusement. "What Power was foolish enough to challenge us here?"
The berserker hesitated again. "…We found no enemy astarte corpses, either. Just ill-equipped mortal guardsman who couldn't have possibly done this."
The words hung in the air.
Kho'ren's helmeted gaze bore down on the warrior. "You mean to tell me an entire warband was slaughtered, and no one knows who did it?"
The berserker clenched his fists. "That is what we saw."
Kho'ren growled. "A lie. Or cowardice."
Kossolax hummed. "It matters little. If the warband fell, then they were too weak to hold their own against whatever they encountered. If no corpses remain, then their foes were stronger." His tone was amused. "It is a simple equation."
Kho'ren gave a short, contemptuous laugh. "Perhaps the False Emperor's lapdogs." He turned his gaze toward the ruined hive, toward the battle still raging beyond. "Or some wretched, crawling filth of a xenos species, stumbling onto something they should not have."
Kossolax tilted his head slightly. "Perhaps."
The kneeling berserkers remained silent.
Kho'ren shook his head, stepping away from the pile of geneseed. "It does not matter. The weak is dead. His Warnband is broken. This is all they are worth." He motioned toward the pile of harvested geneseed. "Their only worth is to strengthen those who remain."
He turned his gaze back to the kneeling warriors.
"You fight for me now. You will kill, and you will die, and perhaps, if you are worthy, your skull will be taken by one strong enough to matter."
The berserkers bowed their heads. "Blood for the Blood God."
Kho'ren scoffed. "As if you could give Him anything else."
Then—the Khornate Cultists priests screamed. They collapsed mid-prayer, their bodies seizing, their eyes rolling into the backs of their heads as their minds were dragged into the Warp.
They screamed—not in pain, not in terror, but in fury, pure and absolute, as their souls burned with Khorne's wrath.
They saw it.
A great foreign wrath. A power not of Khorne's making, but of its own.
They saw souls stolen—ripped away—denied to the Blood God's throne. They saw daemons unmade, their very essence erased, their deaths true and final.
And they saw the source.
A figure clad in green armor, a presence like a storm of blades, a force that moved with hatred, pure and undiluted.
A being of war beyond war.
Khorne wants it.
The priests awoke with a howl, their bodies convulsing with renewed madness. They rose to their feet, blood dripping from their eyes, their mouths, their torn-open throats.
"FIND IT! BRING IT TO THE BLOOD GOD! OR DIE IN FAILURE!"
The berserkers heard.
The daemons listened.
Across the ruined hive, the war-machine of Khorne shifted its course.
The entire Primus region trembled.
The Blood God had set His gaze upon a single warrior.
And nothing in creation would stop them from claiming him.
Meanwhile far away from all that, the Mole transport's drill screeched as it tore through the last layers of rock and dirt. Dust and debris blasted outward, and with a final, shuddering collapse, the blockade at the tunnel's end gave way. Sunlight—fading, golden, and harsh—spilled in through the breach, cutting through the darkness of the underground.
Engines rumbled as the convoy of vehicles surged forward onto the open plains. The landscape stretched wide and barren before them, scarred by war. The skeletal remains of ruined hab-blocks and manufactorums clawed at the horizon, smoke curling into the bruised sky. War still raged in the distance, unseen but ever-present.
In his driving seat, Vek tried to steady his breathing.
Then, the voice came.
"What power do you serve?"
Vek stiffened. His hands gripped the controls so hard his knuckles turned white.
It wasn't a casual question.
It felt like a test.
One wrong answer and he knew—he knew—this Astarte would execute him where he sat. He could see it in his mind's eye: his helmet ripped away, his skull crushed in an iron grip, his body discarded like trash.
He swallowed hard.
"I—I serve the Imperium," he said cautiously, his voice tight.
Silence.
No reaction.
He forced himself to keep going.
"The Imperium is everything." His voice steadied, though his throat still felt dry. "It is the shield of mankind, the only thing standing between us and the horrors of the galaxy."
Still nothing.
Vek inhaled shakily.
"The Emperor—He sits upon the Golden Throne on Terra, guiding us. He is our god, our protector, and our master. Without Him, humanity is nothing. The Imperium is His will, and we are His soldiers, His workers, His servants. We fight because He commands it. We live because He allows it."
He hesitated, but only for a moment.
"We are the chosen people. Humanity alone is worthy of ruling the stars, and the Imperium is the proof of that destiny. We have held this galaxy for ten thousand years against the xenos, against the heretic, against the mutant." His voice gained strength. "A million worlds. Trillions of souls. All standing under one banner, under one faith, under one law."
Still, silence.
Vek licked his lips.
"There is no room for weakness. No room for doubt. That's why we march. That's why we die." He swallowed again. "A Guardsman's life is war. There is only war. And we serve. We must serve."
The air inside the transport felt suffocating.
Then, the voice came again.
"Standard doctrine. Your belief is… functional."
Vek exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
That was it?
He wasn't sure if that was approval, indifference, or some mix of both.
Either way, he was still alive.
The Mole rumbled forward, leaving the ruined tunnel behind as the convoy spread out across the war-torn plains. The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows across the wasteland. Behind, in the distance, in Primus region, the enemies laid waiting.
For the later half of the journey, the Slayer retreated his mind inwards. The space within the Praetor Suit's mindscape was surreal—an ethereal domain where memory, instinct, and fragmented thoughts twisted together.
Sefirot took shape, his form a shifting humanoid figure of ghostly light, his face an ever-spiraling void. He stepped forward, finding himself in a chamber unlike any battlefield.
Posters of metal bands, splattered with faded bloodstains, covered the walls. A throne of skulls sat in the corner. Guitars, both real and broken, were scattered across the floor alongside ammunition crates and weapon racks overflowing with firearms, blades, and artifacts of war.
And in the center, seated at a crude stone table, was the Slayer.
Before him lay a battlefield of miniatures—two opposing forces locked in eternal war. On one side, a twisted horde of enemies: towering berserkers, horned monstrosities, blood-soaked heretics, and smaller, scuttling horrors. The miniatures of his new enemies. They moved on their own, directed by the will of the mindscape.
On the other side stood a single figure. A Doom Slayer miniature, rough but unyielding.
The Slayer's gauntleted fingers moved pieces with precision, shifting his lone warrior across the battlefield. Each move sent dozens of enemies toppling, their forms dissipating into nothing.
Sefirot observed for a moment before speaking.
["Has my performance met your expectations?"]
The Slayer didn't respond with words. He never did.
Instead, he tilted his head slightly, considering the question. His hand hovered over the miniature battlefield, fingers tapping once against the table's edge. Then, a slow nod.
Approval.
Sefirot's spiral face shifted in subtle acknowledgment.
["Noted."]
The Slayer reached forward, flicking over a berserker figurine. It crumbled into dust before it even hit the ground.
["Do you have any… requests?"]
A pause.
The Slayer drummed his fingers against the table before raising one hand. A slow, deliberate thumbs-up.
Continue.
Sefirot's ethereal form pulsed.
["Understood. The mission proceeds."]
The mindscape remained unchanged—the endless battlefield of miniatures, the twisted enemy hordes, and the lone Slayer figure cutting them down.
Sefirot stood beside the table, his ethereal form watching as Doom Slayer flicked over a figurine shaped like a horned berserker. The tiny model crumbled to dust, joining the scattered remains of its kin.
A moment passed before Sefirot spoke.
["You have no personal stake in this war. No duty, no oath, no obligation. So why do you fight?"]
The Slayer did not look up. He reached forward, grasping another enemy piece, a monstrous brute with a cleaver the size of a man. With the same effortless motion, he toppled it, ending its existence.
["These creatures do not threaten your world. They have not harmed anyone you love. They are not your demons. Yet you destroy them all the same."]
Still, no verbal answer. Only the continued play of war.
Sefirot's spiral face shifted, contemplating.
["Do you see them as evil?"]
A pause.
Then, the Slayer gave a slow shake of his head.
Not evil.
["Then what?"]
The Slayer moved another miniature forward—his own likeness. It stood unshaken in the center of the battlefield, facing the oncoming wave.
Sefirot understood.
["You reject them because they submit. Because they surrender their wrath to an external power."]
A nod.
["Because they seek strength not from within, but from a force beyond themselves."]
Another nod.
Sefirot watched as the Slayer wiped out another row of enemy figures.
["You believe power must be self-derived. That it must come from struggle—internal, relentless, and without submission."]
A sharp, decisive nod.
["Then to serve—to give one's will over to these entities—is not power."]
The Slayer raised his gauntleted hand and made a fist.
["It is weakness."]
A slow thumbs-up.
Sefirot's form pulsed with understanding.
["To rely on an external force is to evade the responsibility of self-overcoming. To forfeit personal struggle is to forfeit true power."]
The Slayer slammed his fist onto the battlefield, crushing a cluster of enemy miniatures beneath his palm. When he lifted it, nothing remained but dust.
Sefirot watched the display, his voice a whisper in the mindscape.
["They call themselves strong, yet they bow. They call themselves mighty, yet they are ruled. They pledge themselves to a wrath not of their own making, and for that, they have already lost."]
The Slayer remained motionless for a moment. Then, he picked up his lone figurine and placed it forward, standing before the next wave.
["Understood."]
The game continued.