The No. 4 Forge Zone.
Since the death of the Dominus Sage, more and more enemy forces had flooded into the Engine Forge and its surrounding zones, ultimately seizing control of the region. Civilians had perished in waves — first during the outbreak of war, and then again amid the ensuing plunder. The few survivors hid within various industrial structures throughout the forge, either taking refuge in presumed safe havens or picking up arms in fierce resistance.
The resistance was most intense in the No. 4 Forge Zone. Three Oathbreaker Chaos Space Marines, along with an adjutant named K'vien, were pulled from the front lines, commanding an army of 100,000 mortal servants to eradicate all opposition in the area.
But when the Oathbreaker Warband's forces, led by K'vien, entered the zone, prepared to spill rivers of blood, they found only desolate ruins of industrial facilities. To both Chaos Marines and their twisted mortal servants, the notion of any living souls hiding here seemed absurd, as the air quality was noticeably better than in surrounding zones.
Yet Solax's lieutenant, the Dark Apostle K'vien, saw things differently. As a messenger of dark faith, K'vien received ominous revelations and acted upon these unholy insights.
At the forge's entrance, K'vien raised a staff marked with the symbol of Khorne and ordered a nearby Oathbreaker to "bring forth the prisoner." Although the Space Marine detested following K'vien's commands, the sight of the staff spurred him to comply. He soon returned with the prisoner K'vien had requested.
K'vien approached and examined the man. The prisoner's head was gripped in the Space Marine's enormous hand, while his mech-enhanced legs hung weakly. Mechanical modifications covered the prisoner's body—an iron lung, a pincered hand engineered for industrial work—all of subpar quality, apparent even to K'vien.
"Look at you," K'vien sneered, his deep voice reverberating. "The Imperial lapdogs I've seen were pitiful enough, but you Mechanicus zealots? You're nothing more than slaves."
"Less than slaves," the prisoner spat. "And I know that if I fall into your hands, I'd most likely be tortured to death, without even a shot at being one of your 'hounds.'" He cast a contemptuous glance at the mortal servants of the Oathbreaker Warband, knowing these were the highest-ranking among traitors, while weaker ones usually ended up as flayed bodies on crucibles.
"And you know what?" K'vien scoffed, sizing him up as if inviting him to join, "You could become a servant of the Blood God and tear down the tyrannical priests that oppress you. Wouldn't that be glorious?"
The prisoner spat, his spit—a slick of lubricant used for his mechanical airways—gleamed with an eerie glow in the darkness as it landed on K'vien's face, burning into his eye.
"Give me an honorable death, coward," the prisoner taunted. "For the Omnissiah! For the Machine God!"
K'vien wiped his face, muttering with a blend of resignation and irritation, "I truly didn't want to waste my energy on a ritual here."
"If only you'd been smarter, I might have given you a swift death." The prisoner watched, increasingly nervous, as K'vien waved the staff, preparing something unspeakable. Within moments, he felt his body lift as torrents of blood streamed from his pores, and his skin, like molten wax, began to slough away. Agony overtook him, but when he opened his mouth to scream, no sound emerged, as visions of horror and despair tormented his mind.
Blood from the prisoner's body hung in the air, woven into filaments that stretched and anchored to different points across the No. 4 Forge Zone. The Oathbreakers needed no further orders; they divided into small squads, following the bloodlines throughout the facility.
The first soldier reaching the end of a bloodline discovered a movable metal floor tile. Others stumbled upon the interconnecting pipes between industrial structures, conduits for molten iron.
Such findings held little meaning for K'vien—he knew full well that the Forge World was a labyrinth of pipes and subterranean structures. The question was where these jumbled paths would ultimately lead.
The bloodlines illuminated the way forward, and K'vien ordered his forces to press on. The corridors were a maze within a maze, some wide enough for tanks, others so narrow they had to crawl, the cramped conditions breeding frustration. But the progress was not in vain. When K'vien led his faction into a subterranean cavern, he found clusters of people resting and training. Among them were a handful of the Ecclesiarchal soldiers, though most were civilians.
K'vien grinned, raising his staff and commanding, "Kill the Ecclesiarchal soldiers and the heavily augmented. Take the rest."
With brutal efficiency, the Chaos Marines and their mortal servants fell upon the unprepared survivors, swiftly dispatching the Ecclesiarchal soldiers and lesser mech-thralls, with only minor collateral damage among the lightly modified civilians.
"Pile the heads of the fallen!" K'vien ordered. His servants immediately obeyed, removing heads and stacking them into a grisly mound.
This pile was not an arbitrary arrangement; it required precise conditions to achieve its desired effect. If the number or form fell short, the enslaved civilians would be forced to "volunteer" to complete the grisly structure.
The result was a mound that filled the Oathbreakers with a fiery battle spirit, while any uninitiated gazing upon it felt only terror, unable even to breathe without caution.
Those who were stirred to frenzied rage were swiftly slaughtered. K'vien addressed the rest, who knelt subserviently by the mound, utterly devoid of the will to resist. "Do not move. Wait for our return."
These people, all of whom had once defied their occupiers, now trembled like beaten slaves, their minds numb to thoughts of rebellion.
K'vien nodded in satisfaction, then turned to lead his men onward, following the bloodline trail deeper into the Forge Zone.