In the Hive World Tunnels
Julius's column, a blade of steel and energy cutting through the darkness, advanced inexorably. The smoldering remains of sacrificed hordes marked their passage. Suddenly, a Ghost materialized silently beside Julius's command anti-grav vehicle, its silhouette blurred by its cloaking field.
"Lord Commander, we have located a group of refugees. Civilians and some local security guards. They are attempting to break through to the tunnels and seem intent on surrendering to us."
Julius turned his head beneath his helmet, a glint of interest in his eyes. "Really? It seems they prefer the invader to servitude under Chaos. Good, very good. We will reach the exit of the main tunnel in a few minutes. I hope they can lend us a hand, or at least not hinder us."
In the Underhive
Boris and his meager makeshift battalion—a handful of exhausted guards and about thirty haggard civilians—ran forward, weaving between the charred carcasses of the industrial outskirts. The city was a conflagration, lit by fires and impossible-colored lightning tearing through the low sky.
"Damn it, we need to find more men!" Boris panted, shoving aside a collapsed beam.
"Sir... we've been walking for hours and found no one else," replied a guard, his face blackened with soot. "Most have deserted, or resisted as best they could... They were sacrificed. And for several hours now, many of us... we hear whispers. In our heads. We have to leave. Fast."
Boris clenched his fists. He heard them too. Insidious whispers urging him to abandon the civilians, to join the blood festival, to seek forbidden pleasures in the pain of others. He clung to his mission, to every terrified face he protected. It was his anchor.
"We are all heading to Tunnel B, it's the closest. And... the invader, the real one, is coming from that direction."
The guards stared at him, incredulous. "How do you know?"
"Because the explosions are more frequent from that side," Boris explained, his ear straining towards the distant, rhythmic rumble of heavy detonations. "It means his creatures, the ones of Chaos, are trying to stop them. Moreover, we'll have to force our way through. Make sure everyone has something to fight with, even a knife."
They nodded, resigned but determined, and moved off as scouts. Boris remained alone for a moment, his eyes fixed on the dark entrance of Tunnel B, a gaping maw in the hive wall. A faint hope, thin as a thread, persisted within him. The hope that on the other side, there might be something other than certain death.
In the Ex-Governor's Secret Chamber
The alliance of convenience between the two daemonic powers had given birth to a frenzied horror. Be'lakor's clone and Mother, now in her Daemonette form, oversaw the carnage.
"More blood!" roared Mother's ethereal yet perverse voice, as a Slaaneshi cultist finished off a prisoner with artistic slowness. "Each drop refines the passage, embellishes it!"
"Violence! Pure fury!" thundered Be'lakor's clone, urging Khorne berserkers to slaughter each other, their rage feeding the rift with raw, destructive energy.
The sacrifices accelerated, becoming a methodical butchery. Waves of prisoners, captured rival cultists, hunted innocents were driven towards the epicenter of the ritual, where their vital essence was devoured to widen the Warp gate.
Outside, above the underhive, the sky had taken on a sinister and definitive hue. It was no longer a mere veil of colors, but a gaping tear, a cataract eye opening onto an infinity of madness and pain. The air vibrated with a deep sound, inaudible yet perceived in the soul of every being present: the heartbeat of a god being born from malice. The arrival of the end was no longer a threat, but a reality stretching out, avid, towards the material world.