As the fleet carrying Zhang Ge and his companions gradually descended from the skies, the Daemons began to stir with unprecedented frenzy.
Though the aura of Perveti, strongest among them, was nearly imperceptible, the Oathbreakers had no intention of concealing themselves in the absence of orders.
The clash of their presence against the stench of Warp Energies directly agitated the Chaos Forces nearby, rousing them a thousandfold. Out of fear, urgency, or excitement, they either fled in chaos or doubled down in their assaults upon the besieged fortresses.
For most of the line, the situation had not deteriorated drastically due to the wide front. But for the noble who possessed the Deathstrike Missiles, calamity struck.
Relying on those missiles for far too long, his private soldiers had grown slack. With Warp corruption saturating the outer defenses, even clinging to the fortress walls for suppressive fire was a risk of slow contamination. If there was no need to fight for their lives, who would willingly soak in such filth?
At first, with Officers present, the men had at least pretended at discipline. But as more and more officers joined in the noble's hedonistic revels, and it became clear their master would never check on them, even that pretense collapsed.
What's a handful of Thrones a month, to die for some lordling? For all they knew, the scraps they ate yesterday might still contain the eyes of their wives and daughters.
In such an atmosphere of rot, with vigilance utterly degraded, the sudden combined assault of Daemons, Cultists, and Chaos Space Marines had only one possible outcome.
Leading the assault was a Veteran of Slaanesh. He had served a warband since the days of the Great Crusade. Not willingly, of course—merely because he could never best his superiors. His masters knew it well, yet still entrusted him with critical missions. Experience had its value.
Now he stood atop the shattered ruins of a building, looking down upon the bunker entrance.
1118, 1119, 1120.
His silent count ended. Two minutes had passed.
By now, the Terminator teleported into the Deathstrike Storage Chamber should have secured the room and completed its corruption, preventing the missiles from being remotely detonated or self-destructed.
That fool, sneaking a Daemonette in with his men as if no one would notice. The entire bunker—from its structure to its coordinates—was already known. They had merely been waiting for the moment to kill. With Abaddon the Despoiler now fled, it was time to leave this world a gift of fire before departing.
With such thoughts, the veteran reached the bunker entrance. What should have been a heavily fortified position was utterly deserted. The Autocannon Turrets had long since fallen silent.
A hollow shell… disgusting. It didn't even give him the chance to display his perfect craft.
Around the Auramite-gilded, ceramite-heavy gate, Melta Bombs were swiftly affixed.
Normally, a Chaos warband would never waste so many. But with the nobles having abandoned their PDF, countless defenses lay unguarded. Before their destruction, much of the equipment and ammunition had already been seized by Chaos raiders. For once, the warbands could indulge in excess, even now still flush with supplies.
"Do it."
Boom.
At the instant the Melta Bombs erupted, heat and shrapnel cascaded through the air, and the Daemons of Slaanesh surged eagerly into the breach.
They reveled in the sensation of flesh searing under heat, and in the raw terror etched across their victims' faces in that moment of explosion.
As for those Daemons who died by charging too soon, consumed in the blast? Such things were common, unworthy of note.
At the tip of the spear, the Veteran of Slaanesh plunged forward, crushing the first skull in his path.
With superhuman reflexes and processing speed, he luxuriated in replaying that look of horror in his foe's eyes as he shattered the man's head.
He had slowed himself deliberately. Otherwise, the mortal would never have even seen him.
But mortals were not particularly tasty.
He tossed the broken corpse aside like refuse. Already, the infantry platoon that had manned the gate had been reduced beneath the Daemonic onslaught to nothing more than bloody decorations smeared across the walls.
Deeper into the bunker, the private soldiers' resistance was almost laughable. Though noble retainers, they lacked even enough lasguns to go around. Their autoguns poured out streams of fire, but the bullets could not even scrape the paint from his Power Armour.
Bored, he considered returning to the surface—until, in the supposedly cleared path, he sensed a presence more loathsome than any shrieking Sororitas he had ever faced.
Last time he'd met those women, he'd taken the heads of twin sisters, hung them from his belt, and kept them alive with sorcery to sing endless praises to the Dark Gods.
What game to play this time?
Victory was not a question. For him, such things were never a question.
He slowed his pace deliberately, each heavy step echoing through the narrow corridors, weaving a predator's rhythm. Cat and mouse.
But instead of terror, what met him was a voice: low, rasping, steady.
A prayer. A litany.
Prayers? Litanies? Ha. If that corpse-god had power enough to shield them, would this realm be such a ruin?
The clash of his footsteps and the whispered invocations filled the corridor, tangled together.
At last, rounding a corner, the source came into view.
A Space Marine?
But not quite—why was the armour in such tatters?
No matter. He hadn't sensed the warrior before, but now that he had, he would take it seriously.
He moved to strike an elegant pose, to draw his blade. But his instincts screamed like needles in his mind, wrenching him into a desperate block.
Bang.
The force of the blow drove him back several steps. With his armour's magnetic seals long since failed, he could not hold his footing.
Too fast. Far too fast.
He had slain Primaris before. Yet this decayed warrior, this relic in ruined ceramite, had suppressed him utterly with a single stroke.
Blades flashed at such speed they became afterimages, carving the corridor walls into rubble, severed pipes erupting with bursts of gas and thunder.
There was no escape from the rhythm. Defending demanded his full strength, and even retreat was impossible. The slightest distraction would cost him his head.
Such power… such mastery…
But just as he sought to praise his foe, something flickered—and he found he could no longer speak.
The body falling before him… was his own.
He stared with dying eyes at the Space Marine. Strong, yes, but not impossibly so. The countless Daemons he had unleashed would drag this warrior down with him.
And yet, as the Veteran of Slaanesh formed that thought…
Outside, the heavens were aflame with falling fire.
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