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[Toriko: Hunting With Legends!]
Fanes's crust shuddered.
It was a terrifying tremor unlike anything before, as if some colossal mass were rolling deep inside the planet's mantle.
One giant hive-spire after another shook beneath the geological catastrophe. In the quake zone, whole hive districts collapsed in vast swathes—some were outright annihilated.
Hundreds of millions of lives were buried without warning.
Even the primary hive—the largest of them all—rocked without pause, and its power grid took a direct hit.
In this underhive bazaar, the lights flickered between bright and dim. Cracks split open in nearby structures at a speed visible to the naked eye. A massive fissure tore upward along the stacked residential blocks, climbing several kilometers in a jagged line.
For the people in the market, the sudden change was the end of the world.
One moment, they were laughing and chatting—talking about their plans for Worship Day, talking about the good days that would come once Fanes returned to the Imperium.
Maybe, once the hive expanded again, they'd even move up to a higher tier.
Then the disaster came out of nowhere and crushed every expectation. Panic exploded. People screamed, not understanding why this was happening to them.
"Emperor, what's happening?!"
"The heretic xenos are attacking us!"
"It's collapsing—run!"
The residential tier above the market split apart. Fastcrete rubble, mixed with human bodies, rained down and burst into bloody blossoms on the ground.
More people were smashed into pulp beneath the falling debris.
"Mom…"
A filthy child stood frozen, staring at a spreading pool of blood, utterly lost.
Just moments ago, he'd taken a piece of coarse bread from his mother's hands—about to taste the rare sweetness of it.
This world held too many disasters. Even the smallest disturbance could become torment for the weak.
Even when they'd done nothing wrong—when they'd simply tried to live quietly.
"Emperor above, we beg for Your protection!"
In extreme terror, the faithful dropped to their knees, facing the Emperor's statue in the market and pleading for the Great One's safeguard.
Before a calamity like this, an individual had no power to resist. Prayer was all that remained.
Then the shattered stone of the statue swallowed them whole.
The penitents showed no fear at all.
They had known from the beginning that this catastrophe came from forbidden relic-engines. And more of those same nightmare machines would be activated, one after another, until this ugly, heretical planet was reduced to rubble.
"Praise the Emperor…
"He has delivered divine punishment. The heretic traitors of Fanes will fall into endless purgatory, their souls never granted absolution…"
Belinu watched the green-glowing heretical idol topple, and comfort flooded through him.
The disaster itself filled him with a sacred sense of mission fulfilled. He had no thought of fleeing.
In truth, this wasn't the first time. After the Great Rift, the Third Diocese had destroyed many worlds tainted by heretical creeds.
Whether those worlds had been corrupted by xenos and heretic invasion, or whether their own faith had strayed onto the wrong path, the end was always the same.
Divine punishment. Total ruin.
Belinu and the penitents stood their ground while people fled in every direction. Even as stones rained down at them, they remained calm.
Under the Emperor's guidance, they had destroyed ugly heretics. Whether the victims died in catastrophe or under the extreme torments of xenos—
It was all glory beyond measure.
They would be praised, and the archangels would guide them home to the Throne.
The penitents raised their hands high, chanting scripture with fervor.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Falling debris crushed penitent after penitent, until only the elderly one remained.
"Prayer cleanses the soul, pain cleanses the flesh. I hear the Emperor's praise!"
Belinu smiled in devotion, watching the shadow of collapsing masonry descend from above.
He slowly closed his eyes, trembling with exhilaration.
At last, he would return to the Throne.
That was every penitent's wish.
Boom—
When the debris shadow swallowed him, Belinu did not feel the expected pain or darkness.
Instead, he felt… light.
"So this is what it's like to return to the Throne," he murmured. "No suffering. No torment…"
He sensed warmth in front of him.
He opened his eyes slowly, expecting holy radiance and angels.
If he could even glimpse that sacred Presence—
That would be perfection.
But when he opened his eyes, he saw only an ugly alien.
A spider-shaped xenos lifeform had braced its back beneath the falling wreckage, shielding him tightly under its body.
The Canoptek Spyder heaved the debris aside. The beam from its eerie green mechanical compound eyes swept across the aged penitent.
"Executing protection protocol. Scanning… identity confirmed. Bzzzt… priest. High-tier protection protocol."
The Karlozasa Dynasty reacted with terrifying speed.
The instant the disaster hit, the Necrons arrived at the collapse zones, rescuing Imperial citizens.
Disintegration beams lanced into the sky to break apart falling boulders. Living-metal bodies interposed themselves between civilians and lethal wreckage.
Saving lives.
Immortals arrived next, beginning the evacuation of the market crowds. They guided people toward safe sectors and carried away children sobbing in fear.
Then a massive phase-field rose, bracing the collapsing structures to prevent further disaster.
These living-metal beings obeyed the most fundamental layer of their logic: the protection protocol for Imperial citizens.
They delivered rescue at any cost.
"I… I was saved by heretic xenos?"
Belinu understood what had happened. His hoarse voice shook, and an indescribable humiliation surged into him.
These damned aliens had stopped him from returning to the Throne. Worse—they had desecrated the purity of his soul.
"Get away from me, you damned xenos!" Belinu snarled, snatching up a rock and hurling it at the Canoptek Spyder.
He wanted it to leave.
Or to kill him.
If it murdered him, he could still return to the Throne.
But the stones struck the Canoptek Spyder without effect. There was no response—no attack protocol triggered.
Because within Karlozasa's doctrine of logic, priests loyal to the Emperor held an elevated status, guarded by the highest protection protocols.
Unless a priest was judged to be corrupted by Chaos—and unless specific apprehension directives had been received—the Necrons were not authorized to lay hands on them.
"Priest. Bzzzt… you will be transported to a safe zone."
Immortals stepped in to take over Belinu's "protection," escorting him toward a shelter sector.
"Heretics! You're all heretics! Kill me! You can't stop me—can't stain my sacred mission!"
No matter how Belinu struggled, the living-metal soldiers continued to execute the deepest layer of their logic.
Soon, he was delivered to the shelter zone: a fortified manufactorum complex.
Inside were huge numbers of terrified civilians.
When they saw Belinu arrive, fear eased slightly from many faces.
They gathered around the penitent as if proximity to a preacher of the Emperor could grant protection.
"Father, can you tell us what happened?"
"Father, please pray for us!"
"May the Emperor protect us."
Clutching Necron-styled Emperor pendants at their chests, the civilians huddled together and began to pray. Belinu's arrival soothed the riot and panic.
They believed the Emperor would protect Fanes. They believed they would survive.
"I'm not a heretic priest! You're all ugly traitors—stay away from me!"
But as the crowd closed in, Belinu felt as if he'd been thrown into hell.
The heretical pendants. The prayers. The scripture.
Every second he remained here felt like further desecration, as if his soul were being scraped raw.
Worst of all was the way people looked at him with devotion—treating him as a priest of their heretical sect.
It was humiliation beyond endurance.
Belinu knew the truth: a penitent must never be accepted by Fanes's heretics.
If the faithful of the Third Diocese learned of this, they would spit on him without hesitation.
They would declare him one of the xenos-heretics.
Belinu wanted only to die immediately and return to the Throne—
Before the archangels rejected his soul and barred him from that sacred realm.
"To die for the Emperor. Not to seek safety. To die for the Emperor…"
Shaking, Belinu seized a jagged strip of metal and dragged it toward his throat.
He felt smothered by the stench of heretical faith, as though he were burning alive. He wanted to die as proof of his purity.
The civilians recoiled in horror.
"Father's been terrified!"
"It must be Chaos influence! Those damned heretic xenos are trying to defile our faith—defile our priest!"
But as they watched Belinu scream and thrash, their expressions softened into even greater concern.
They rushed forward, pinned the elderly penitent down, and tore the sharp metal from his hands.
Then they began hanging their Necron-styled Emperor pendants over him, one after another, hoping the sacred tokens would drive away evil.
Layer after layer.
Belinu tried to rip the heretical charms off his body, but he couldn't.
He had already exhausted himself in the struggle. In the end, he could only lie on the floor, panting weakly.
Hummm—
The special communicator on Belinu's body lit up. It was a relic device capable of transmitting across a star system. A tiny holographic projection of a bishop rose into the air.
The bishop needed confirmation that the plan had been executed successfully.
"Belinu, devout faithful of the Third Diocese. Have you completed the sacred mission?"
"Bishop of the Imperium—will the Imperial fleet truly come?"
The civilians fell silent. Excitement flared across several faces.
They recognized the Ecclesiarchy sigil, the Aquila on the bishop's staff, and the relief of a Living Saint behind him.
"Bishop… we—"
Belinu struggled upright, clutching the device, desperate to report.
But the heretical tokens hanging all over his body drew the bishop's gaze—and ignited pure disgust.
The bishop's voice turned colder still.
"So you, too, have been tainted by heretical faith, Belinu? The heresy of Fanes is so dark that even penitents cannot resist it.
"The Archbishop's judgment was correct. We must destroy this place to preserve holy purity."
Belinu realized the danger and panicked, babbling explanations.
"Emperor preserve me—that's a mistake! I-I'm still pure, still faithful to the Third Diocese!
"My… my soul has not been defiled!"
"I spit on you, Belinu." The bishop's voice was sharp as glass. "Look at what's on your body. You defile my eyes. You defile the Third Diocese.
"You are stripped of your name. You are no longer a holy penitent. You will not be granted the Emperor's mercy."
The bishop was devout—and merciless. He tolerated not even a grain of sand.
"The Third Diocese fleet and the holy crusade forces will arrive soon.
"You are cursed. Under the Emperor's divine punishment, you will fall into the Avici hell with Fanes itself.
"And you—ignorant traitors who believe in heretical doctrine—none of you deserve mercy. You will be burned to ash in the flames of the curse!"
The bishop's projection swept its gaze over the civilians, contempt leaking through his every word.
Bzzzt!
The relic device's psycho-reactive coils flared violently, smoke curling upward as the system strained.
After delivering his pronouncement, the bishop ordered the Astropaths to cut the relic signal.
"No!"
Belinu collapsed to the floor, seized by regret and despair.
He had been branded a heretic and cast out—denied mercy, denied absolution.
He could no longer return to the Throne.
No forgiveness awaited him.
Only eternal agony.
More than a century of day-and-night penance, wiped out in a breath.
"My soul has lost its shelter… daemons… daemons will devour my soul—no, I'm still loyal, I'm not a heretic…"
Belinu curled into a corner, trembling, muttering nonsense. He no longer had the courage to kill himself.
In the penitent creed, a soul without shelter would be consumed by Chaos and trapped in endless torment.
That was the ultimate horror.
Any penitent who lost protection could only spend the rest of their life in fear and despair—terrified of death, just like Belinu now.
"We're heretics?"
"That Imperial bishop called us heretics… why?"
The civilians finally began to process what they'd heard. Confusion swallowed them whole.
From birth, they had lived under the Emperor's blessing.
The Imperial citizens of Fanes worked every day, bearing the sacred Eleventh Tithe in their hearts without ever slackening, never missing a single Worship Day.
They were devout.
How could they be heretics?
And why would an Imperial fleet come to destroy them?
No one could understand it. Confusion curdled into fear.
The Emperor was their only pillar.
And now that pillar seemed ready to abandon them.
A chill seeped into countless hearts.
A crack formed in what had once been unbreakable faith—and where faith fractured, the Warp's shadow inevitably pressed in.
As the shelter zone's civilians stood in that bewilderment, the planetary tremors triggered more disasters across Fanes.
…
At the bottom of the hive, within the sewers.
This junction of tunnels opened into a vast chamber where Genestealers gathered in numbers.
The corpse of the Genestealer Patriarch lay sprawled beneath the Rust-Iron Throne.
A new, larger Patriarch sat upon it now, one foot planted on the dead body below.
Intelligence glimmered in its gaze. Rage thundered in the depths of its mind.
Rage that came from the Great Four-Armed Emperor.
Not long ago, Eden had controlled a high-tier Genestealer bred from the Bladewing Norn-Queen, slain the Patriarch of this world, and seized command of every Genestealer brood.
For Eden—the one who carried the Tyranid hive-mind's authority—this was not difficult.
He simply crushed it through superiority of rank.
A gestalt species like the Tyranids was easy to force into obedience under a higher existence.
Afterward, Eden used the Genestealers as eyes and ears to observe Fanes.
He drove them to hunt down the Nachmund Gauntlet Third Diocese's secret detachment, and he destroyed multiple relic-machines from the Dark Age of Technology.
But he was still too late.
At least one-third of the relic-engines had already been activated, triggering catastrophic geological disaster.
Worse, mass death drew in the Warp. The smell of blood lured wave after wave of Flayed Ones.
Outside the hive, Orks were jolted awake by the quake and surged outward in a green tide.
A Tyranid hive fleet—drawn by something unknown—was turning toward this planet as well, hungry beyond restraint.
Fanes had plunged into a crisis unlike anything before.
It was hanging by a thread.
And Eden's fleet still hadn't arrived.
Fanes would have to withstand the first wave on its own.
"That Ecclesiarchy vermin—this is how they treat a world that's been trying to pay the Eleventh Tithe?" Eden's brow knotted, anger boiling.
During these days of probing, he had located multiple massive storehouses built across Fanes.
Every one of them was packed full of Eleventh Tithe material.
That meant something startling.
For nearly two hundred years of isolation—cut off from the Imperium—Fanes had never once intended to refuse the tithe.
No evasion. No "forgetting."
They had stockpiled every year's levy, waiting for the day the Imperium returned to collect it.
Aside from the small matter of being ruled by xenos, how many worlds in explaining Imperial space could claim loyalty like that?
Eden himself couldn't have done it back then. The moment a world lost contact, he'd happily pocket the Eleventh Tithe to fund development.
But the tithe in those vast warehouses?
That was the Karlozasa Dynasty and Fanes's Imperial citizens tightening their belts year after year, saving it bit by bit.
They treated it as sacred duty.
They dreamed of returning to the Imperium.
And now the people of Fanes were being treated like this by the Ecclesiarchy.
From their point of view, it would look like the Imperium itself was exterminating its loyal citizens.
Eden drew a slow breath, teeth grinding.
"Aren't they destroying my reputation?!"
After all, the Savior—the Emperor—represented the Imperium.
And the Third Diocese was using the names of the Imperium and the Emperor to execute an extermination order.
Through the eyes of the missionary saints and Genestealers, Eden watched hive districts collapse and heard the people of Fanes wailing in the ruins.
It hurt.
That was the cruelty of this galaxy.
Destruction came without warning. One shockwave was enough to shatter an ordinary life in an instant.
No chance to fight back.
No chance to run.
At least the Karlozasa Dynasty didn't sit idle.
Nearly all Necron forces had shifted into rescue operations, stabilizing collapsing structures with force fields.
Eden had also sent Genestealer broods out, saving as many lives as they could.
"I destroyed most of the dark relic-machines," Eden assessed, forcing himself to calm, "and the Karlozasa Dynasty responded fast.
"At the very least, they won't collapse completely under the next wave of heretic-xenos attacks."
He exhaled, tension easing by a fraction.
"If they can hold until I arrive, we can still salvage this.
"Most of Fanes's people will live, return to the New Imperium, and gain a better life.
"And I'll gain the Karlozasa Dynasty's forces and inheritance."
From that angle, things hadn't yet reached absolute worst-case.
Then, the next moment, Eden saw the Third Diocese fleet in orbit.
The Necrons appeared utterly unprepared—more like they were welcoming them.
Welcoming the Imperium's arrival.
But the Ecclesiarchy fleet's massive broadcast arrays began projecting the Archbishop's ice-cold proclamation down into the hives.
In the name of the Imperium and the Emperor, he declared that Fanes were heretic traitors and must be destroyed.
It triggered unrest on a scale Fanes had never seen.
Eden nearly choked on his own breath. He felt numb.
"The Third Diocese vermin are raising my difficulty settings.
"If they shake the Karlozasa Dynasty's faith and force them into rebellion… how many troops am I going to have to feed into this to put it down?!"
Worse, Eden's high-tier Genestealers extracted memories directly from the penitents' minds.
This wasn't new.
The Third Diocese had done it before, destroying multiple Ecclesiarchy worlds in the name of "heresy" simply because they followed different doctrinal sects.
"This is outright heresy and rebellion," Eden growled, inner fury roaring.
Before, you could call it misunderstanding.
This was different.
This was extremism—treason, carved into doctrine.
The problem was simple: Eden had no immediate military force on Fanes capable of stopping the Ecclesiarchy fleet quickly.
Maybe only the Emperor's Legion of the Damned could ignore the barriers of space, manifest here, halt that Ecclesiarchy fleet, and help the local defenders repel the incoming heretic-xenos tides.
Eden hesitated.
The Emperor's condition had been unstable lately. The Golden Throne itself had been… moving, from time to time.
Enough to put the Adeptus Custodes and the Grey Knights on edge.
To draw on that power recklessly might invite further risk—further "blackening."
But when Eden thought of the priceless xenos inheritance buried beneath Fanes's crust—and the broader situation in the Vigilus region—he clenched his jaw and made the call anyway.
He reported Fanes's situation in full to the Emperor.
And he urged, bluntly:
"The Third Diocese isn't ordinary heresy anymore. Please—send more people here, and hit them with everything you've got!"
(End of Chapter)
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