Crack!
The scale drove itself deeper into the ground, its surface burning blue as concentrated force lightning bled down from the hammer.
Mira rasped and shouted,
"Damn it!"
She swung again—sideways this time—
BOOM!
The hammer never landed.
Negative force coiled first, snapping outward in a concussive surge that caught her mid-motion and hurled her back.
She tried to rise through the shock, her golden form crackling with residual charge—
then froze.
Her eyes locked on the scale.
She rolled.
BOOM!
BOOM!
The charge tore away from the first scale and raced the circle of blood, leaping node to node.
From one charged scale to three.
Three became five then seven.
Eight was the total.
Each answered in turn, disgorging its backlash outward.
Mira staggered, slid, twisted away—always a half-beat behind the surge.
Her gaze snapped across the battlefield—
then found Bergelmir.
She clenched her teeth and ran, throwing herself against the shelter of his motionless bulk.
For a moment, she just stayed there, breathing hard.
"Might as well be my cover," she muttered.
"You ancient."
—
From the sky, the circuit resolved into something unmistakable.
A ritual circle.
Blood solidified beneath the passing current, eight luminous nodes forming a sealed ring that drove dust and storm back by brute insistence.
And each one connected to three more within the storm.
At one of the storm bound nodes, a darkened—iridescent Kroot stood untouched.
Ruk'Tan.
His quills stood on end, faintly aglow in answer to the charge.
"Here it comes," he said flatly.
"Brace."
—
A nearby Felinid nodded and shouted,
"Brace! Get behind cover!"
He dropped hard behind a corpse pile, paws clamping around his rifle as if letting go would mean death.
Ruk'Tan didn't move.
His eyes tracked the blood line leading outward—back toward the breach.
BOOM!
A distant scale answered, its discharge muffled by intervening bodies and ash.
No one else saw it, but the tension raised fur and quills alike.
BOOM!
Closer.
The air along the line warped, particle biting inward as the surge curved toward them.
Ruk'Tan's gaze followed the line.
The current was almost there.
A beastman was sitting too close to the center.
Ruk'Tan shoved him aside, clearing the space just as—
BOOM!
Their node fired.
Bodies tumbled clear as the corpses anchoring the scale heaved and burst, spraying blood, bone, and ruin in every direction.
"Th—thank you," the beastman gasped, voice ragged.
—
Ruk'Tan didn't look at him.
Something struck his arm.
He pulled a shard of bone free and tossed it aside.
"How do you intend to save the world," he muttered, gaze shifting outward,
"if you cannot even preserve your own life?"
—
The ground trembled for a long beat, sending knees buckling and forcing bodies down.
Then it went silent.
Then the nodes answered together, their glow intensifying.
Within the ring, twenty-four negative zones bloomed, each one repelling the maelstrom's current.
Along the perimeter, eight more locked into place, sealing the geometry shut.
The storm struck the boundaries and found no release.
BOOM—
A muffled implosion as the current recoiled, only to collide with another limit.
And another.
The blood lines held, dull and rigid, forcing the energy that once bled outward to fold back in on itself.
Inside the circle, the air tore sideways.
Wind slammed into itself, surges colliding head-on and exploding into violent eddies.
Lightning bent inward, snapped short, and guttered out before it could finish its path.
The light drained from the center first.
Pressure surged with nowhere to go.
Sound twisted, stretched—then collapsed into a shrill, suffocating ring that clawed at the ears.
"Ahhhh!"
A felinid screamed as his ears rang, blood spilling between his claws as he clutched them in agony.
Troops staggered as balance failed, muscles misfiring under crawling static.
What had once been a single structure fractured into opposing flows, each denying the others stability.
The nodes did not suppress it.
They forced it to turn against itself.
The maelstrom folded inward—
once—
then collapsed completely.
Wind shredded itself.
Light bled from the air.
And just like that—
the storm was gone.
All that left was the after effect.
"Belch—"
A beastman clutched his horn and vomited onto the ash, retching until his knees gave out.
Groans and choking cries spread through the formation.
"Make it stop!" someone screamed.
Felinids hissed and shrieked, claws raking at bleeding ears as they collapsed to their knees.
Rouar ground his teeth until his gums split, one paw locked hard against his knee to keep himself upright.
Some beastmen slammed their heads against metal and stone, desperate to drown out the ringing tearing through their skulls.
"I can't hear, I can't hear." someone sobbed.
—
"Yeah, and all I can hear is you groaning." Kochav shouted.
He felt his skin burn as his vision narrowed to a tunnel, bracing himself against a corpse wall until the world steadied again.
Even Helsin staggered—
and Shadowgaze hissed sharply, one hand flying to her temples.
"Tch," she breathed.
"Brute."
—
And just as the ringing began to fade, a felinid pushed himself upright, breathing slow and deliberate—
"Get down!" Chi'vak shouted.
His hand snapped out, shoving Kochav hard beneath the corpse wall—
WOOOMMM—
Too late for the felinid.
Fire erupted from the Spire, fanning outward in all directions.
The felinid screamed once—high, raw—then vanished into the wash of flame.
Silence followed where he'd stood.
The corpse walls took the brunt of it, igniting, collapsing, bodies bursting apart under the sudden wash of heat.
Kochav stayed low, one arm over his face, breathing through cloth.
"Smells like jerky."
—
Chi'vak didn't look at him.
"What are they using?"
—
Kochav glanced toward the small opening above the bulkheads, eyes narrowed.
"Siege flamer," he said.
He gritted his teeth.
"We need to destroy the vents."
He focused his divination.
The glow in his eyes deepened to a hard orange as he peered through gaps in the corpse wall, sight slipping past smoke and heat.
"There," he said, pointing sharply at one section of the Spire's flank.
—
"Our weapons can't reach that far," Chi'vak said.
—
"My gun can—"
Kochav's hand dropped to his holster.
Empty.
"Fuck."
He exhaled through his teeth.
"…Can you get closer?" he asked.
—
Chi'vak didn't look at him.
"I'm not fireproof—"
Before he could finish, someone interrupted them.
BOOM!
They both snapped their heads toward the sound.
Something detonated on the far side of the Spire.
—
Shadowgaze's long rifle found its mark—
the flamer on her flank vanished in a bloom of fire and ruptured metal.
For a heartbeat, it looked like a solution.
Then heavy plating slammed down, locking into place around the ruined vent.
A reinforced bulkhead sealed the breach.
"How annoying," Shadowgaze muttered,
her rifle settling atop the piled corpses as she swept the Spire's surface.
POP. POP. POP. POP.
Four mortar shells arced free, climbing high before tipping toward her position.
"Crude," she whispered, irritation threading her voice.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Her rifle cracked four times in rapid succession, each shot catching a shell mid-air and tearing it apart in fire and shrapnel.
For a moment—
then more launch flares bloomed across the Spire.
Shadowgaze pulled her eye from the scope and looked down at the troops below.
They were frozen. Scattered. Staring skyward in shock, indecision written across their faces.
Disgust tightened her brow.
"Damn it," she muttered—then raised her voice.
"If you have time to stand there, move forward!"
No one listened.
Fear had broken formation where discipline should have been.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
She killed the next volley.
And another followed.
Her gaze dropped briefly to her rifle—ancient, scarred, familiar.
"How many times have I done this?
How many battles, how many wars?"
She thought.
This battle would not end her.
But them—
She looked up again.
The next volley was closer.
She did not fire.
Instead,
Shadowgaze climbed the corpse pile, rising into full view.
She leveled the rifle skyward and fired once.
BANG—
Every head turned.
"You quelled infighting," Shadowgaze said, voice cutting clean through the chaos.
"You united to face your invaders."
Her snarl snapped sharp.
"Rise, you useless gnats!"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Her rifle spoke again, shells detonating mid-air as their fire cast her silhouette in violent flashes.
"If you die—Thrysa dies."
Another shot. Another explosion.
"Worse," she continued, eyes locked on them, unblinking.
"You will be forgotten."
Smoke rolled around her feet.
"So fight for remembrance—"
BOOM!
"—or die forgotten as cowards."
Silence fell as she finished speaking.
Shadowgaze didn't bother to look back.
She simply turned and kept firing, rifle snapping upward as she intercepted the next volley.
Behind her, they rose.
One by one at first—then together.
Eyes met, slid away, returned again, wounded pride hardening into resolve.
Then they turned as one.
Toward the Spire.
A beastman slammed his fists against his chest and bellowed,
"Death to the invaders!"
A Kroot moved past them without pause, slipping forward to scout the fire-choked field beyond.
More followed.
War cries. Command shouts.
Supply crates were dragged forward. Barricades took shape.
Trenches were carved into ash and ruin.
The line began to move.
Past Shadowgaze, braced on one knee as she fired. Her gaze dropped to the advancing troops.
"Good."
"Let the fallen mark my ascent."
"Your bodies will pave my road to vengeance."
—
From the sky, the circuit was coming apart unevenly—
One side of the board began to move.
The other three were still scoured by fire.
No signals passed.
No orders held.
Whatever cohesion remained was coincidence.
It was every one for themselves.
Phewwww—
BOOM!
A single round tore through the air with unmatched speed.
The scale carved through reinforced metal like butter, ripping cleanly through clustered artillery assemblies in its path.
"Cough—cough!"
Mira swatted dust from her face as the backwash from Furris Serpens rolled over her position.
"That's the Eldar side," she muttered, already reloading.
Clack.
Slide.
Lock.
"I need a vacation after this—"
BANG!
Another 30mm round punched out of the barrel, struck the waiting scale, and vanished down the improvised electromagnetic rail.
BOOM!
It detonated against the wall near Helsin's flank.
The structure collapsed inward, debris choking the corridor and breaking the flame into ragged tongues—opening a brief, smoke-filled path forward.
"March!" Helsin shouted.
He surged forward, bracing his shoulder against the burned-out hulk of a turretless Rogal Dorn and shoving it ahead as mobile cover.
The troops moved in his wake.
More hollowed tanks were dragged alongside it, metal hulks grinding together to form a crawling barricade against the flame—
BOOM!
One of them detonated on the far side.
The blast tore men in half.
Others were swallowed by fire as they scattered for cover.
Debris and shrapnel screamed outward, cutting down more troops where they ran.
Thunk!
A slab of metal slammed into the plating in front of Helsin, sparks bursting past his eyes.
He smelled burned promethium and burned flesh.
"Idiots!" he shouted, jerking his hands back from the scorched hull, palms seared raw.
"I told you to empty the tanks!"
—
The Rogal Dorn lurched into place as a Hydra and a Leman Russ were hauled in beside it, their hulks slamming together to close the gaps.
"Move! No time to rest!" Someone shouted right after.
They followed.
Helsin closed his eyes for a brief second and exhaled through his nose—then turned and waved them back.
"Bring more."
Troops broke away at once, sprinting through smoke and fire to drag in additional wrecks.
Wheeez—
Then came the whistling of the artillery.
"Get in cover!" Helsin shouted.
He bolted from the open ground and slammed into the side of a ruined tank, hauling at the hatch as heat burned through his gauntlets.
It didn't budge.
A beastman and a Kroot crashed in beside him.
Together they tore at the hatch—metal shrieking as it finally ripped free.
They dove inside just as the first impacts landed.
The beastman reached back, trying to drag someone in—
BOOM!
The blast hurled him against the interior wall.
All he came back with was an arm.
Helsin lunged for the hatch and slammed it shut.
He turned away, chest heaving.
"You can't save everyone," he rasped.
Some tanks vanished in fire and flying fragments.
Others held.
Men were torn apart in the open—
Others stood untouched amid the falling ruin, blinking in shock.
There was no pattern to it.
Only chance—
BOOM!
The artillery assemblies erupted into flame as Mira erased them with a single shell.
"Tch—" she clicked her tongue, eyes dropping to the remaining rounds.
One, two, three, four—
Five bullets left.
Then she counted the flashes.
Each thunderclap etched a brief silhouette into the smoke—muzzle flare, recoil, fading heat.
Two. Three. Five. Six—
She breathed through gritted teeth and stopped after ten.
Too many.
One by one wasn't an option.
The scope zoomed out.
Muzzle flares crowned the Spire, stacked in at least three tiers.
The base was too wide to take—felling it like a tree was a fantasy.
The rail cannon demanded precision.
Her crosshairs drifted higher—into the clouds.
Visibility collapsed.
—
She was about to lower the scope—
A red dot blinked into existence, then vanished—
Her brows drew tight.
She held the scope steady, eyes locked on the empty patch of cloud.
Again.
A glowing red point flared for a heartbeat before disappearing.
Her eyes widened.
The crosshairs settled.
Her finger rested on the trigger—
Then a glint cut through the haze.
She tracked it instinctively.
—
Below the crown—a balcony.
The glint came from a monocular lens.
The user wore black.
A Commissar prefectorate hat.
A commander—
Bang!
Furris Serpens fired.
She snapped her scope back to the balcony.
He was still there.
Unflinching.
Their eyes locked.
Kreeeekk—
THOOM!
The antenna atop the Spire sheared free and came crashing down, vanishing into smoke and fire.
He didn't look away.
Even as the structure screamed and collapsed, his gaze remained fixed on her.
Clack!
The breach popped open.
She discarded the spent casing and slid a fresh round home.
Four rounds left.
And annoyingly, she didn't have the luxury to spend one on an individual.
Her scope shifted back to the crown.
The trigger pulled—
Bang!
At the last moment, the railing vanished.
The antenna struck where it had been, punching into the sudden gap, then rolled—violent, uncontrolled—tearing through supports as it fell.
Metal screamed.
Debris cascaded down the Spire's face, crushing platforms and burying guns beneath its wake.
Smoke and fire followed.
And again—just as the antenna began to settle—
The gun cycled.
BANG!
Another round spent.
Three rounds left.
The next railing vanished beneath the antenna.
It tipped, hesitated for a breath, then rolled into the opening—tearing free and crashing down into the level below.
Two rounds left.
Clack.
Reload.
Bang!
This time the shot punched into the top tier, blowing the space out from beneath the antenna's tail.
The structure twisted—
then failed.
The antenna roll as it shattered—
split along stress lines, and tore itself apart as gravity took hold.
Upper sections ground forward, still carrying momentum.
Lower segments snapped loose and dropped early, wedging into torn floors.
Through the scope, despite the distance, she could almost feel the impacts—
not a single blow, but a chain of them.
Fragments swept along the Spire's crown like broken rollers dragged across a tiered cake.
Each level buckled in turn.
Some assemblies were crushed outright—
flattened, ignited, smeared into fire beneath grinding metal.
Others vanished as shattered segments punched through, dragging debris and flame down with them.
One tier failed—
then the next—
choking, collapsing, catching and giving way, as the Spire chewed on the wreckage lodged inside it.
—
Clank!
Pop!
The spent casing tossed away as Mira held the last round in her hand.
Reload—
She swung the scope back to the balcony.
Empty.
Her pulse spiked. She wrenched the rifle close and threw herself sideways—
WHUMM!
A beam slammed into the space she'd just vacated.
She dropped to one knee, bracing the rifle, sweeping the scope.
Nothing.
No smoke.
No flare.
No glint or glow to betray a source—
WHUMM!
The beam struck again.
She rolled hard, gravel biting into her armor.
She came up on one knee, brought the scope up, and squeezed the trigger.
BANG!
The last round tore through a wall and vanished beyond.
No explosion.
No smoke.
No reaction.
"Did I get it—"
WHUMM!
Another strike.
It moved after firing.
The last bullet was a waste..
The realization hit harder than the beam.
"Damn it," she hissed, swinging the rifle over her shoulder and breaking into a run.
WHUMM!
Missed.
WHUMM!
She dodged, boots skidding on rubble.
WHUMM!
The beam grazed her leg—pain flashing white as it clipped armor and flesh alike, sending her tumbling forward.
She hit hard, rolled—
and kept moving.
WHUMM!
—THIKK!
The beam shattered against an unseen barrier.
Her hand tightened on the dial set into her gorget.
The inhibitor hummed, pressure building as it strangled her Null field into silence.
The air changed.
She rose, steady despite the burn, and stepped forward.
Then turned her head to the right.
Bergelmir.
Even unconscious, the Aegis still held.
THIKK!
THIKK!
THIKK!
The beams struck again and again.
And again they came apart against the psychic field, shedding force without ever reaching him.
Then—
silence.
Either the shooter had withdrawn…
or the weapon was cycling.
—
"So they have something like that," Kochav muttered,
eyes fixed on the point where the beam had last torn free—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Artillery detonated to his right.
He snapped his hand sideways and the shock front folded, fragments and pressure skidding past him instead of through.
Heat surged from the front—
WHOOM!
His hand whipped forward, force slamming into place just as the flame hit, the shield flaring under the impact.
It held.
Barely.
Kochav exhaled through clenched teeth and stepped forward anyway, hand raised, fingers trembling under fatigue.
"What a pain," he hissed.
—
"Now!" Chi'vak shouted from behind him.
The troops surged.
They moved in his wake, dragging slabs of Vraskariin scale and slamming them into the ground as makeshift shields.
Flame washed over the barricades, licking and curling aside as the heat broke against the alien hide.
For a few precious seconds—
they had cover.
Then more shells came.
Kochav wrenched the flame aside and dragged another scale from behind him, driving it into the ground to block the fire head-on—
SHRIEKKK!
He dropped behind the slab and split the incoming trajectories with a brutal twist of force.
Thud—thud.
Boom—boom!
The shells punched deep into the earth before detonating, throwing up twin craters instead of bodies.
Chi'vak's finger snapped out—one crater, then the other.
The troops flowed into them at once, staying low as fire washed overhead.
Behind the scale, an amber glow licked through Kochav's hair as the edge began to burn.
He didn't move.
"Sit comfortably inside that stupid fortress of yours,"
he muttered, irritation bleeding through the calm.
His eyes stayed fixed on the Spire.
"I'm coming to kill you."