---

Lokmongor scanned the sprawlings lands of Kaspia from the balcony of his ruined province. The blasted plains stretched for thousands of miles with low hills, great holes where lakes once resided, and gaping crevasses where rivers once streamed. Enormous mountains flanked either side of his home, forming a ruinous bowl of pocketed earth. Sporadic bunches of mutated trees in green and crimson dotted the wealth of his lands, beautifying and uglying the domain all the same. His helmeted gaze observed several tiny silhouettes walk along the encircling bastion that was his citadel. Ruined walls, fortified thrice over with scrap and talismans, defended the pivotal entrance into Urshic territory from mountain edge to mountain edge. In his mind, it was the most well-defended pass across wartorn Terra, save only for Kalagann’s fortress-palace of Mosrovoth.

A fresh cry pierced the air drawing his attention away from the demesne. A group of his men, genewarriors each clad in Urshic fur and blessed powered armor, tortured a figure in front of the mutated trees. Vitae flowed like water into the ground that nurtured the aberrant flora. Their roots squirmed like agitated creatures, drinking deeply from the gift granted by his underlings. To his disappointment, the warriors fell to their knees and threw out prayers to the Primordials in fervent chants. Lokmongor understood the adulation to a lesser extent for those very flora were gifted by the powers-that-be. Nothing should’ve prospered in Ursh’s southern wasteland, yet the life that drank was evidence of their resilience.

His home - the great ruined fortress-hive of Kaspia - was the blaspemous opposite of such fruitful life. Each step of his greaves threatened to shatter the faltering citadel underfoot. Rust covered every inch of their sole settlement, save only for the areas that preserved and cultivated the blessed flora. Where once a hundred spires would rise up into Terra’s blasphemous sky, now only ten remain to accommodate their presence. Lokmongor had protected this place for thirty-six years, protected Ursh for twenty more, and swore allegiance to the Primordials for ten further. He, alone, knew that only the blessings of volkhv could uphold this place for eons to come.

A courtyard - his very own - opened several floors below as he ventured further down his demense. Tiny blades of crimson-hued grass spread out in a wide circle that rivaled the likes of ancient war zmaj. Thin aquaducts filled with flowing vitae funneled into an eight-pointed star at the center of the opening. Several pale men were hoisted up on long pikes with their innards dangling from their chests and their blood flowing into vast pots of bubbling ichor. A volkhv loudly sang in the forgotten tongue in the center of the star. Six warriors from his retinue kneeled around the blessed priest as servants dumped fresh blood onto their armor. Horns decorated their helmets, spikes upon their pauldrons, and brass chains upon their belts. The priest must’ve noticed him as the singing was momentarily halted to address his arrival.

“General Lokmongor, you honor us with your presence. By the Primordial Will, your vityaz are being blessed for their heroic deeds.” The volkhv spoke with a rhythmic chant upon his lips, each word uttered with a dramatic sway of his body. Although dark robes swathed his body, Lokmongor knew well that blessed armor lay beneath. He detested the way that their order danced, yet it was something that he was willing to put up with for the glory of Ursh. The vityaz around the priest picked themselves up with ichor dripping from their armor.

“As it was ordained, blessed Yorjolav, they will need the blessings. The Himalazians have been spotted marching into the Khaganate through the former territories of the Ethnarchy. We’re expecting a splinter assault to attempt a pass through Kaspia.” The news of the Himalazian invasion did little to dour the ritual. His knights grew fanatically excited, each gripping their weapon and trembling with the uncontained joy of a berserker. He understood their anticipation well for even he was ready to tear into actual warriors for once and not his own populace.

The volkhv, Yorjolav, spread an unnerving smile full of rotten, dagger-sharp teeth beneath his hood. “As it was foreseen, General! What would you ask of your humble servant?” Lokmongor watched the priest drop down to subservient kneel, unfolding his arms out to fully bow in the General’s presence.

“Set the blessed order to begin the Ritual of Krovdozhd, anoint every vityaz across the Kaspian clans with the Mark,” Lokmongor began to order with the affluence of a elder commander, unsheathing the great warblade from his back and settling the tip into the courtyard ground. His cloak of skin and chains wavered as the weapon was pulled from a scabbard of writhing flesh. The general continued without missing a beat. “And prepare our zmaj for combat. I will ride her into a war of fury and blood.”

Yorjolav jolted upward with uncontained ecstasy. His body writhed as if possessed by the things that he worshipped. Both of his hands reached for the sky, revealing the blackened gauntlets carefully hidden beneath his robe. A vomit of Old Tongue exploded from his lips in a reverent chant. Lokmongor knew well that the call for war was something that his volkhv craved, more so than any other province in Ursh. He didn’t wait for the priest to finish, gesturing for his vityaz to join him in preparation of the Himalazians.

---

The crimson-forested hills of Kaspia were silent. In the times before a battle, Lokmongor could appreciate the eerie silence leading up to a crescendo of unimaginable violence. Night had fallen as his warriors prepared to fight the forces of the Himalazian coward-leader. The war-migou, painted in brilliant shades of red, strained against their chained restraints anchored to the lower walls. Pyres as tall as striders and as wide as tanks were lit in even intervals across the ramparts. Volkhv of Yorjolav’s order spread their holy word with swaying censers of belching ash and ceremonial pots of boiling blood. His vityaz, and those of the other clans, patrolled throughout the hordes of twitching lesser warriors. Axes, chainweapons, lumbering guns, and more were equipped in vast quantities along the walls. The knights, however, bore blades akin to his own with weeping sigils, whispering secrets, tempting songs, and boiling runes.

He jostled lightly as the zmaj that he rode groaned with anticipation. The crimson-scaled thing was a magnificent warbeast unlike any other on wartorn Terra. Grown by the volkhv in secret hatcheries across Ursh, his zmaj was a nightmare creature of webbing, teeth, and wings. Every second spent sitting upon her would’ve burnt his skin to cinders were it not for the chief blessing of the Krovsozdatel. She bore no saddle upon her scales as chains and horns sufficed for ample handholds. Her fangs dripped with freshly consumed ichor, droplets splashing against a pile of carcasses beneath her maw.

In the distance, Lokmongor could make out Yorjolav on the wall with a group of volkhv surrounding him. Even from here, the singing was audible to his ears. Each of their eyes were glowing with ethereal power, blessings from the Primordial Sea. Blood flowed from beneath their robes, either from bloodletting or from the holy endeavor they took. No sooner had their singing stopped did the rain come. Great torrents of fresh ichor dripped from the black clouds encircling the whole of Kaspia. A smile grew on his charred lips as his warriors turned to the sky with a cacophony of prayers. The sea of blessed trees groaned with appreciation, leaning towards the sky in an unnatural inclination for their desired substance.

Thankfully, he thought, it would do little to halt the courage of true warriors. His desire for battle only grew as the first of the Emperor’s dogs revealed themselves. Wings of metal soared over the hills sailing from the territory of the Ethnarchy. Fat-bellied planes in yellow hues with emblems of the raptor and lightning descended towards the citadel. Lokmongor scoffed in disappointment as he raised an armored gauntlet to the sky, gesturing forward with a single wave to unseen onlookers. His citadel exploded into a flurry of action as the ten remaining spires unleashed torrents of deadly flak into the onrushing Imperials. Armaments, thrice-blessed and fortified for decades, spat piercing death through the hulls of their opponents. Great plumes of fire illuminated the crimson woods surrounding the province, revealing hordes of red-garbed soldiers rushing towards their walls.

“слава Уршу!” Lokmongor roared, unsheathing the greatblade from his back and hoisting it into the air like a battle-standard. His zmaj joined him in a nightmarish shriek, unhinging all three of its mouths to cry into the bloody sky. A kick from his greaves saw the zmaj leap into the air with unnatural ease. Pale red wings unfolded to either side of him as his divine creature propelled through the rain. Belching machines on metallic wings joined him in a tight formation of death.

The vityaz on the walls followed after him with battlecries of their own, ushering the warrior-hordes of the clans into a frenzy. A tidal wave of flesh, scalding skin, and armored fur flung itself off of the walls to join the battle. Each of the holy knights remained behind, wielding their wicked blades with barely contained bloodlust. Masses of servants erupted into action, manning turrets on the ramparts and supplying materials for the volkhv. Lokmongor exploded into laughter as his demesne fully lunged into the grooves of war. It would be a wonderful, bloody day for Ursh.

Lokmongor watched the two tides of rushing flesh collide in a great melee. Lances of brilliant red danced across the distance in controlled groups of volley fire, blades dug into carapaced-fur, and explosions from deadly munitions plumed along hill and crevasse alike. The crimson trees adapted to the violence, tearing the Imperials and Urshites in a blood fueled frenzy. The General knew well that the flora of his province was one of the key reasons for failed invasions. The hallowed earth would provide them victories ordained by the Primordials. Great machines on tracked treads drew his attention to the hills in the distance. Cannons vomited shells of thermonuclear devastation, bathing friend and foe in an inferno of promethic death. Imperial warriors in strange garb ignited vast fields of blood-grass with promethium-fueled flamethrowers. The Imperials, much to his chagrin, had been prepared for the assault; however, Lokmongor knew it was in vain. War migou, unchained from the walls, plunged into combat with reckless abandon. The few armored vehicles that could maneuver around the trees were decimated by behemoths of flesh sixfold blessed by the volkhv.

A war wasn’t an apt name for this, Lokmongor decided. An annihilation sat aptly in his mind as he willed the zmaj downward towards a flank of Imperials. A jet of reality-defying flames bathed a long line of red-garbed soldiers in unquenching fire. Their armor and skin melted in seconds, yet their screams could be heard for minutes at a time. His zmaj shrieked out into the blood rain with bloodthirsty joy for it had slain many. Blood bubbled at the edges of his lips as he drank in the sight of the carnage. Were he a lesser man, then he’d certainly have fallen into possession by the Primordials. A glorious fate, yet Kalagann desired something different from him.

As his zmaj swept around for another cascade of tormenting flame, Lokmongor witnessed giants clad in green-yellow suits charging through the treelines. As a servant of Kalagann, he knew them immediately for what they were.

“Thunder warriors…” He quietly stated as his zmaj descended towards the ground with new-found prey. His blood boiled with anticipation as the Emperor’s greatest knights plowed through the battlefield. Opponents worthy of sacrifice to the Primordials, Lokmongor knew their battle would be legendary. He knew them as insane warriors, berserking madmen, and hulking giants of carnage incarnate. In essence, they were similar to himself and his vityaz.

The zmaj slammed into the ground closest to the rushing tide of genewarriors, flattening a lone operator under its scaly talons. It unfurled all three of its mouths to scream a maddening roar into the waylaid genewarriors. To his joy, however, the thunder warriors counter-charged his zmaj with the insane bravery he had come to know. One leapt at him with the force of a deity, aiming downward with a powered axe. Lokmongor flicked out with his screaming greatsword, bisecting the knight in mere seconds of contact. The upper part of the cleaved Imperial landed on the zmaj, desperately attempting to murder him with callous disregard of his injuries. It brought a maddening smile to his bloodied lips.

“By the Four do I treasure fighting you and your Emperor!” Lokmongor roared out as he stabbed the wounded thunder warrior through the skull, bisecting the corpse once more to affirm his kill. He felt the draw of the Blood-Taker filter through his veins, empowering him with each fight and each kill.

The rest of the genewarriors had gathered around the zmaj in a spread-out formation, narrowly avoiding his mount’s vicious attacks. One had managed to slice a talon from the creature’s foot, earning a swift decapitation from it’s bladed tail in brutal retaliation. Another pair had leapt onto the side of his beast, cutting into scales with chainblades and chainaxes. He had killed one with a swift jab of his greatblade, yet the other had dismounted after hearing their comrade cry in agony. They dove beneath his zmaj with the intent to sink their weapon into tender flesh. He cackled madly as another mouth opened across the creature’s belly, swallowing the genewarrior whole.

Satisfied with his kills, General Lokmongor willed the zmaj away from the desecrated site of his slaughter towards the walls of Kaspia. The battle had been going well. The migou feasted, the warriors butchered, and the defenses were winning a hundredfold against the Imperials. None of his vityaz had been forced to move from their defending position. The Imperial attack would be countered in a matter of minutes. Despite everything that spelled the obvious doom for the Himalazian dogs' advance, Lokmongor felt an uneasy feeling within his gut.

“Where are the rest of the himalazian genedogs?” He spoke aloud, voicing his concern to the blood-rain. No sooner had he asked the question did a portion of Kaspia’s frontal wall explode into a plumming cloud of destruction. He winced at the closeness of the explosion, brightening the darkened sky and illuminating the haunting woodlands around him. It would be the first of many as separate portions of his fortress-hive went up in flame, forcing him backwards and up into the air.

As the zmaj flew through the sky, Lokmongor discovered the source of his worries. Down in the depths of the mutated woods, Imperial giants cleaved the very woodland that protected their advance. Teams of auxilia strapped incomprehensible amounts of explosives to the writhing trunks of the trees. He witnessed a single thunder warrior heft the abominate log and launch it into his beloved fortress. The device exploded the moment it contacted the rusting defenses of Kaspia, destroying the fortified home that he had made. Dozens of such teams were spread out in sporadic patterns around the hive, demolishing the entrance into the Urshic heartland with savage joy.

Anger boiled over as he cried out in defiance. The zmaj responded to his will, rushing down on pale wings of crimson towards the forests of Kaspia. Unearthly flames jettisoned from its maw, claiming several demolition teams in gouts of diabolical inferno. He yanked the chain sidewards, forcing the scaled creature to turn and unleash further destruction. Lokmongor the Bloodied would see the Imperial routed, gutted, and sacrificed to Kalagann and the Primordials.

“So be it, in their name-” The general began to shout aloud as he spun the zmaj around. To his surprise, not even he thought that one of those devices could be launched at him. A log, fastened with explosives and writhing with hungry tentacles, impacted with his zmaj. An explosion saw the torso of his mount disappear in a great cascade of gore, vitae vomiting outwards in an endless torrent. He fell through the sky as his mount died, desperately attempting to untangle from its chains.

The tainted ground of Kaspia met his gaze as the zmaj finally finished its dying descent.

---

The darkness that had overtaken him quickly faded as he began to clamber out from beneath the zmaj, cutting away at the pale red scales with his whispering warblade. His body ached beneath the blessed power armor, each movement threatening to tear servos and tendons. Each cut, push, and shove from beneath the dead creature was a lesson in pain - one that he was inclined to learn once more. A final slice of stinking meat from the beast was all that was needed for the light of the sky to once more bless his field of view. Ichor drenched his ruined form as he stalked out from the corpse with his greatblade raised.

Wait, light?

The polluted, blood-drenched skies of Kaspia no longer graced him with a torrent of vitae. The brilliance of Luna in full form shone down upon the crimson-stained lands of the Urshites. He desperately scanned the horizon of the battlefield with rage beginning to quell the pain spread throughout his body. To his dismay, he could physically see the bespoke horizon of Kaspia. The ancient guardians of his fortress-hive - the mutated forests - had been cleaved from their roots and his walls had been destroyed. Combat still rang out across the badlands, though his forces lay in ruins as red-garbed Imperials bayoneted lying Urshites to death.

Lokmongor suddenly drew his blade up as a group began to approach him. Though their ground-trembling footsteps revealed them, the General saw the thunder warriors walk towards him with their brutal weapons ready to slaughter. One stood a head above the rest, marching from the forefront of the genewarrior gaggle with a two-handed axe in one hand and a body in the other. He narrowed his eyes beneath his helmet as they came to ground halt some feet away from him, outside of his warblade’s cleaving range. To his surprise, he heard the one in front of the Imperial pack laughing as they came forward.

“Bit of a tough one, aren’t you General? Sigilite warned us about you, but you weren’t anything special. Nor was your witch.” The woman finally spoke, laughing loudly with the rest of the thunder warriors arrayed around her. She tossed the corpse before him, revealing the mauled form of the volkvh, Yorjolav. He realized now why the ritual had failed.

“I will cut the tongue from your weeping head, woman.” Lokmongor responded, lowering the blade in preparation for a final stand. He hadn’t expected this outcome, yet the General was ready to fight with everything that he had left. His response seemed to further bemuse the thunder warrior.

“Let us see if you can do so without legs, Urshite.” She responded before gesturing with her free hand to the other thunder warrior. Quicker than he had been prepared to react, the genewarriors leveled their bulky armaments and spat deadly projectiles at him. A pair of shells pierced his legs, exploding both into wet piles of bone shrapnel and gore. Even still, Lokmongor focused his anger into a fine-tuned red haze to ignore the pain. He began to foam from the mouth as Primordial blessings took over.

“Disappointing. You lot, go get a trunk for him to get mounted on,” The giantess spoke as she strode forward, her ichor-covered gauntlets hefting the two-handed axe. Lokmongor snarled out in a frenzy, foam-blood spilling out from his lips as he dragged himself forward. The whispering greatblade threatened to slash out at her as she neared. She easily evaded it with a quick sidestep, bating aside the outstretched blade with the shaft of her axe. “I want Kalagann to know that one of his greatest generals was decapitated by none other than Primarch Bodiciia of the Verdant Raiders. That’ll knock Aeternus down a peg.”

The Urshite looked up with rage in his eyes as the thunder warrior raised her axe. He barked out at her with a crazed frenzy, Urshic words spilling out like a tidal wave of filth. It lasted no longer than it had began. With a single downward cleave of her axe, Lokmongor passed knowing that the great citadel of Kaspia had fallen. Flames like living tendrils trailed into the sky as the last of the Urshite barbarians were wiped from Kaspian valley.

---

Great, towering mesas rose high into the sky as mighty bastions of Terra’s natural, remaining majesty. Tall, emerald growth dotted the base of these stony formations in sparse clumps, daring the corrosive nature of humanity to claim what little beauty remained. Small oases of wild water pooled upon rock ridgelines, trickling down from the busted remains of manmade pipelines. Immense, mutated avians encircled several areas with their multichromatic feathers beating against polluted wind. Where once fantastical creatures would roam golden flatland from mountain to sea, now haunting monsters stalk blasted wasteland in feral hunting packs. Inhospitable sun pounded against torturous sand through dark, rusty clouds, raining heat and toxic haze upon those that miraculously survived Abyssna’s deserts.

Worse yet was the monstrosities that humanity had raised up from Abyssna’s harsh soil. Monolithic spires of twisted metal rose sharply in the arid sky, complimented only by several hundred miles of rustic shacks and billowing factorums. The tallest of these overwhelming towers claimed the great mesas as their sanctuaries, grand communities of individuals that walled off their territory from the dredges of society. Tremendous maglev systems coiled from rocky peak to the ramshackle communities below in an infinite circuit of supply and demand. Divided territory could only be insinuated based on these gargantuan trains, repurposed to ensure the status quo of overseer and enslaved.

A status quo that was broken when the Master of the Lines came trudging through Abyssna’s winding valleys. The request for peaceful integration of the scattered Abyssynian spire-kings was met with violence, messengers sent back in body bags or worse. The Imperium took direct action as the overseers of the mesas laughed to themselves at the upstart Emperor’s feeble attempt at conquest. Armies of soldiers loyal to Unity drove a wedge into blasted wasteland from the Rub Al’Khali Desert, several kilometers of armored convoys and genewarrior legions marching into Abyssnan territory. In those moments, these would-be rulers grew fearful and desperate. Long-range ballistic missiles had been launched at the Imperials out of panic and distress. Despite the sheer loss of life, they continued their enduring march closer and closer through ramshackle huts and palatine walls alike.

The Raptor quickly flew over spire-cities within the first year of the Abyssnian invasion. Fortified borders were crushed to dust by leviathan battle tanks the size of two-story structures. Tracked vehicles carrying payloads of atomic ballistics rained hell upon especially stubborn cities, demolishing the last surviving bits of Terra’s natural wonder in Abyssna. Hell was unleashed from fat-bellied, sub-orbital aeronautical craft armed to the teeth with malevolent autocannons and maleficent bombs. Mortal men in yellow, reinforced carapace stormed areas unaffected by the maelstrom of destruction, while hulking genewarriors obliterated heavily entrenched positions unreachable by long ranged explosives. Shielded cities were breached by stationary artillery the size of hab-blocks, mammothine gouts of brilliant plasma exploding forth from colossal cannons. Victory closed in with each city that fell, either captured or reduced to smoldering ruins.

One metropolis of unified resistance remained to be slaughtered. Abbaba. The core and capital of the Abyssnian conglomerate. A monolithic tribute to Old Terra, such so that it would have rivaled a hive were it any larger in size. Five, spiky spires rose into the sky from the center of the city with an exceedingly thick central hub. Recently destroyed magrail lines trailed out of the walls, sabotaged by their own people in desperation. Curiously, not a single weapon rose out from within Abbaba’s fortified walls. It lacked surface-to-orbit weapons, city-based turrets, or even rows of blinking landmines to deter assaults. Instead, a shimmering shield of blossoming energy whirled around each bastion to envelope all of Abyssna’s final city.

---

Shells dropped from the sky, accelerated by promethium propellant and pure hatred, to shatter against Abbaba’s prismatic shield. The warhead hit and exploded sending plumes of wrathful inferno cascading in all directions. Flames savagely licked against the forcefield in vain as the void shield stood firm even against a single attack of such malevolent devastation. Several more fired from several kilometers away, threatening to break or pierce the Abyssnian aegis. Explosions ignited, plentiful enough to send a great plume of smoke upwards into Terra’s polluted skies. And Abbaba still stood.

Commander Markus Kaine watched from atop a great, multistoried tank with magnoculars pressing against his eye sockets. The magnified device confirmed the worst possible scenario for someone in his position. A rain of artillery from behind him had poured everything they had in their initial stockpile to glass several hundred kilometers of ground from here to Indoi. With that same thought, he noticed that sand around the void shield had turned brittle and crystalline. His forehead furrowed with frustration, sweat beading down from bare augmented scalp to scarred lip. To his immediate left, a vox operator had been squeamishly relaying new information gathered from other regiments in the area. To his right, another one of his officers was analyzing historical records on a dataslate, preciously given to his detachment from the Sigillites.

“... Foxblade reports failures in sectors one-delta and two-bravo. Nightsong has recouped in our previously conquered spire-city, they’re enroute at the current moment with another thousand men and a hundred tanks. Fallknight has received casualties in multitudes, all self-inflicted after attempting to charge through Abbaba’s void shield. Winterdog repeats his previous report that the Abyssnians haven’t taken any action against their battalion. There’s more, sir, we’ve gotten a message from the Abyssal Hierarch on a general voxcast.” The operator spoke, his voice far too young and far too quick for Kaine’s liking. The reports had all been the same: no attack could penetrate Abbaba and the Abyssnians wouldn’t fight back. He desperately wished to be drowning in amasec right at that moment, but Markus lowered his magnoculars at the operator’s final words. A nod of his head was all the gesticulation the young officer needed to switch nets.

“-Peace. Your munitions are useless against the might of Abbaba. You may have conquered all of our neighbors, but we have survived for millennia by Abyssna’s will. Lay down your arms, Master of the Line’s dogs, and we can conduct a cordial meeting on equal footing and fair grounds. We repeat the demands that we previously wished for: to live apart from your master’s domain and continue our independent existence. With this we can pursue peace-” A man with a deep voice and a throaty accent repeated over the general vox, the message repeating over and over again until the operator switched to their encrypted network. Markus gritted his teeth together in irritation, audibly enough that either of his officers recoiled from the sound.

“Unacceptable. How are they still able to function!? We’ve tried termite assault drills, sub-orbital bombardments, artillery strikes, magnetic dissonance cannons, and every atomic in our arsenal. Reggy, you better find me an answer or so help me you’ll be in the next wave charging at this thing.” Commander Kaine screamed in frustration, turning his attention to the officer on his right hand side. The confused officer, a young adult with tired eyes and an unshaven face, merely stared back with irritated, glossed over eyes. As if it were a testament of willpower, Reginald Shoth glared back with as much annoyance that he could muster.

“With all due respect, Commander,” Reginald began to speak with a tone as slow as a sloth and as deep as a hab block’s sewer network. His lips were cracked to the point of bleeding, eyes with enormous bags beneath them, and skin more ragged than a wasteland dog's underbelly. “We would either need several macrocannon shells launched from orbit, or a full Thunder Legion with disintegration cannons to make any progress into this thing. According to this slate, these shields could withstand several hours of direct combat in space before falling short to recharge. Now would be a good time to ask for assistance from the nearby warzones.”

Markus knew Reginald to be a cocky, slow, and depressing member of their brigade, but he never failed to grow on his ire. If Reggy had been holding a cup of recaff in one of his hands, then Kaine would’ve surely smacked it out of his sad mitts. The Commander of the Tenth Excertus Imperialis, Fourteenth Division simply settled for slapping the slate out of his hands. His officer slowly watching as the datapad fell onto their vehicle’s metallic plating. A pair of confused, tired eyes turned back to him.

“Shut up, Reggy,” Markus stated, a tone of disappointment and irritation blending together to showcase his dismay. Reginald shook his head in disbelief before picking up the dataslate and returning to analyzing their opponent’s defenses. One of the commander’s gloved hands gestured for the vox operator’s casting devices, another pair of uncomfortable eyes staring at him in confusion. “Don’t be like Reggy and give me the damn vox, Abe.”

Uncertainty filled the young operator's actions as he slowly adjusted his device closer and untethered it from a relay hook. Commander Markus removed one of the communication reels from the bulky voxcaster and brought it close to his lips. Kaine licked his lips in anticipation, hoping for some sort of martial salvation to grace his campaign. He needed something, anything, even just a single one of his liege’s black armored knights. Maybe even Aristagorus, the Slaughterer of Memphos, could assist them.

“This is Commander Markus Kaine of the Tenth Excertus Imperialis, Fourteenth Division, we are requesting dire, specialized assistance in the central Abyssnian region in the siege of Abbaba. These damn defenders are using a city-wide void shield. We will continue to assault the capital city, but we’re running out of options.” Markus stated into the voxcaster, eyeing Reginald who held a single approving thumb up. He made a mental note to drill more discipline into his cocky aide once the campaign was completed. Regardless, even with his pressing the voxreceiver, only static seemed to pour through on their encrypted voxnet. Commander Kaine already knew it was a long shot with most of their forces spread infinitely thin between the Midafrik Polity and the cities of Nabatae. All of the Thunder Legions in their immediate area had either been recalled or engaged in wanton slaughter at Spire Gondar.

Silence followed for several minutes, the sounds of booming artillery and ear-shattering cannons filling the void where a voice would normally be. Abe and Reggy listened with keen interest while simultaneously performing their duties. One of Markus’ hands idly scratched scarred, irritated flesh on his augmented scalp. Every moment that passed was another centimeter of raw skin scraped. Anxiety entered his body as if it were a spirit, nearly compelling him to rip off whatever flesh remained atop his head. Finally, thankfully so, something responded to the Fourteenth Commander. Noise crackled violently from the other end of the vox as if the speaker was traveling through a windtunnel.

“Your request has been answered. Prepare for the warriors of the Thirteenth and Fifteenth.” The speaker said with a voice deeper than any human he had ever met, akin to that of his liege’s personal knights. He felt a smile grow on his cracked lips. Exaltation filled his body with fresh vigor. Markus felt himself grow with giddiness as if he were ready to outperform any general under the Master’s command. The Fourteenth Commander swiftly replied with barely contained joy.

“Excellent! I’ll prepare a landing zone at coordinates alpha-thirty-nine through alpha-forty-three. My operative will encrypt and send geographical data. We eagerly await your arrival!” Markus had said, believing that whoever these ‘Thirteenth’ and ‘Fifteenth’ warriors were would secure his victory. Reggy shared the commander’s enthusiasm with a small, tired smile, while Abe grew a great grin upon his youthful features. The stalemate that Abbaba had forced on them would surely change after they arrived, this Kaine knew for certain.

As the voxcaster fell silent from their encrypted transmission, Commander Markus Kaine began preparations for their reinforcement’s arrival. One gesture of his right hand saw Reginald furiously ducking back into their command vehicle, while another gesture saw Abe voxcalling a clear order within their backlines. All around him the Fourteenth Division shifted, turned, and adjusted to account for incoming allies. Huge, tracked vehicles with enormous cannons lowered and moved further away in anticipation. Armored machines with quad barrels aimed towards the sky rolled back from their offensive lines. A myriad of ground troops in the veritable crimson and gray of their battalion mass migrated closer to Abbaba, holstering their weapons and carrying plentiful barricades for protection. A clear landing zone had been swiftly made available, marked by quad glowglobes with blinking, red lights. Kaine watched from atop his leviathan tank, magnoculars scanning the skies furthest away from their position.

No more than thirty minutes passed before dark shapes began to dot arid skies. Fat-bellied stormbirds and skylance gunships slowly descended with their prow weapons spraying volleys against Abbaba’s void shield. Bullets harmlessly bounced off in a hail of fire, sending cascading ripples of energy around the barrier. While vulcan cannons and anti-armor missiles flew loose, other transports in vastly different colorations rapidly approached the dropzone. Some flew in with bronze and black hues, others with silver and lavender. All of them were devoid of unique sigil other than that of the Raptor. The aerial assault concluded as soon as landing gear touched arid ground, the swarm quickly turning away to engage other threats in the immediate area.

The Fourteenth Commander had since egressed from his command vehicle, rapidly approaching the dropzone with both Reginald and Abe at his sides. A cluster of lesser officers and aides trailed behind him, dataslates in hand and voxbeads in ears. Markus hadn’t expected their arrival for hours to come, but he was pleasantly surprised that they arrived when they did. Kaine patted dust off his uniform, a thick trenchcoat with carapace and fatigues beneath it, in anticipation.

What he hadn’t expected was who came out of the arriving stormbirds. At first sight, Markus had suspected Thunder Warriors or the Master’s personal knights. As they grew closer, Commander Kaine realized he was cooperating with neither. Huge soldiers in powered armor ambled down their transport’s assault ramps, heavy footsteps reverberating off metallic plating. A variety of weapons filled their gauntlets from chugging chainswords, daunting power armaments, or hulking boltslingers. They were as silent as a corpse, perhaps speaking over private communication or disciplined to a fault. The Fourteeth Commander felt a sense of unease as they approached him.

A trio of bronze and black armored giants stood before Commander Markus, their raiments akin to that of the Thunder Warriors with several sophisticated exceptions. In comparison to the previously mentioned, they were several inches shorter and thinner. Knightly helmets with orange lenses glared down at him, one of their number wielding a metallic scorpion where a crest would normally attach. All three of them wore some variation of tabard in dark hues, one with additional leather straps and another with shaven skulls attached to silver hooks. Their left pauldrons held a single numeral, while paired scorpions arranged around a numeral of thirteen inscribed on their right shoulder. A number of their gauntlets were fashioned into sharp talons, while chains attached to their weapons rattled with each step. Kaine felt fear build up in his sternum as they watched his movements.

“Commander Kaine, I am Legion Master Zaid ibn N’dar, and you stand in the presence of the Bronze Scorpions of the Thirteenth. Refrain from discussing our plan of attack until the Sirens have arrived. I would prefer an equal playing field.” The first of their number, Zaid, spoke through his voxgrills with a voice that could rupture unaugmented ears. Markus felt himself flinch after the first word had been uttered, yet he didn’t mind the more tactical tone of the genewarrior. He barely had time to recover before the next group sauntered towards their position.

Following behind him, the second wave of armored dropships began to disgorge their cargo, stolid lines of silver and lavender warriors descending from the craft. Many adorned in symbols of the Achaemenid Empire and its peoples, some bearing the signs of noble houses etched upon their armor. All moved with a fluidity and grace that belied by the heavy armor and powerful weapons they carried. From their number, a select few separated themselves to approach Commander Kaine, and the Bronze Scorpions.

The lead of their number, the imperial raptor emblazoned in glimmering silver upon their pauldrons, drew level with Zaid, nodding to each in turn. A moment elapsed, and the lavender warrior raised their hands to their helmet, and with a hiss of pneumatic seals being released, removed the armor and tucked it under their - her arm. Long hair seeming to be woven from strands of pure silver cascaded from where it had been bunched up beneath the helmet, and her smile was that of a practiced, regal figure.

“There is no need to deafen the poor man, certainly the artillery has done enough.” She said, gently chastising her counterpart, before looking back to Commander Kaine. “I am Princess Pantea Haxamanisya, Master of the Fifteenth Legion, Sirens of Terra. I understand you require our aid. How may we serve the Emperor today?”

Where Markus had been drawn to fear by the presence of the Bronze Scorpions, a new emotion bubbled up from within himself at the sight of the Sirens. He awed at the sheer brilliance of their forms, admiring armor and weaponry alike in the same glance. Yet further still, he was awestruck by the bewitching looks of the Fifteenth’s Master. Never before had he seen such a warrior in equal parts beautiful and deadly, not even the blade dancers of Franc could compare. Before he could shake himself from a stupor, Master Zaid decided to speak first.

“Such confidence, Pantea. I wouldn’t recommend removing one’s helmet in an active warzone, lest you fall before me. ” Zaid scolded his legionnaire counterpart in a playful tone, crossing his arms as he watched the mortal commander become starstruck with her appearance. Noticed by the observant eyes of the Bronze Scorpion, Markus straightened himself out and mustered a nonplussed demeanor. A small smile broke out upon the Legion Master’s hidden lips, teeth flashing beneath the helmet. “Look, you’ve even broken the commander of this operation with your appearance. The Emperor would be displeased.”

“I am perfectly fine, Master Zaid! I was merely in awe of how different you appear to your fellow thunder warriors. I simply cannot fathom how our Master could make such starkly different genewarriors of the same genome, please forgive me.” Commander Kaine urgently replied, shaking off a blush that began to brighten his face. One of his gloved hands reached up to adjust the formal cap glued to his head. Finally free of his embarrassment, he gestured for Lieutenant Reginald to come forward from behind. Similarly stricken by the Sirens of Terra, Reggy awakened to reality and stepped forward with a pair of dataslates tucked beneath his arms. Both were offered to Zaid and Pantea in his outstretched hands.

Pantea smirked, “Confidence indeed, dearest Zaid. Do you not have confidence in fellow servants of the Emperor to secure a safe headquarters for briefing us?” She winked at Kaine, taking no small amusement in his flustered response, “I for one have the fullest confidence in the capabilities of Commander Kaine and his subordinates, he would not have requested our aid were he incompetent, after all.” She regarded him for a moment longer, “Temporary cessation of higher mental functions, however, is normal I find.” She said, chuckling. “Nevertheless, despite the circumstances they have performed admirably. I am honored to come to the aid of such noble warriors as yourselves.” She nodded to Commander Kaine and to Reginald, smiling.

“Now then, let us see what you’ve prepared your guests, hm?” She took the proffered dataslate, examining its contents with a raised eyebrow as she looked back up to him and to Zaid. “Formidable defenses indeed. I can see why you requested our aid.” She paused, her lip curling as she listened to a recording of one of the fortresses’ broadcasts, “They are rather insolent, aren’t they? I suppose we will need to teach them some manners. Have you identified any weak spots within the defenses? Something vulnerable to smaller strike teams. Attempting a frontal assault against such a fortress would end little better for ourselves than for you. However, if we can infiltrate the defenses we ought be able to destroy the void shield, or even cut the head off the snake entirely.”

“Flattery is unbecoming of a war machine like yourself, Pantea, yet I don’t dislike your habit of biting back.” Master Zaid chortled in a playful tone, grabbing one of the dataslates extended to him by Reginald. A quick scan of the information available to them made the situation clearer than he had expected. An impregnable fortress surrounded by a myriad of oversaturated defenses, yet the Abyssnans lacked in total offensive power. The Bronze Scorpion felt himself snarl at the thought of a drawn-out fight. A pair of orange lenses swerved to Commander Kaine as he spoke once more. “I find myself in agreement with the Sirens, Commander. All of your assaults have failed, including your previous subterranean incursion with assault drills. They will either need to be baited, infiltrated, or tricked into compliance.”

Markus felt another flood of embarrassment as the Siren spoke, yet he quickly recovered with a brush of his hand. He shared a glance with Reginald as the two genewarriors reviewed the data, a thought forming between them as Zaid finished speaking. “Firstly, to Master Pantea, no weak spots have been identified in the sixty-two hours of conflict we’ve engaged in. Ballistics, plasma, radiation, and short-range armor-mounted disintegration cannons have all been tested against the void shield in vain. Small teams of special operatives with meltaguns and charges have attempted to open a breach in several areas with no luck. Nothing short of orbital bombardment, if we had void ships, would cause Abbaba’s shield to falter.” A pang of humility entered his tone as Kaine painted the scene of their entire invasion. Realization had dawned on him that all of their work had been for naught, pointless grinding against a nigh invulnerable opponent.

“Secondly, to Master Zaid, you are correct in your assessment that all of our assaults have failed. Paradrops, termite assault drills, and frontal assaults have all garnished casualties. We’ve attempted to parlay, as you can hear from the recordings, but they refuse to even meet our transmissions unless it’s on their terms. We’ve even threatened to scorch all of Abyssna. No dice.” Commander Kaine crossed his arms as he recounted their attempts at diplomacy. He’d forever remember the way that Abbaba’s hierarch had laughed at each attempt. An injustice to the Master of the Lines for certain. Before Markus could begin speaking again, Zaid raised a bronze gauntlet up to halt him from talking.

“All of your efforts have failed, Commander, yet you intentionally avoid degrading yourself with other options. In this, the Bronze Scorpions will succeed where you had failed. We will wage a terror campaign on their city until their spirits have broken. A physical shield is nothing to the shattered spirits of a man. We will round up every Abyssnian in the local area and broadcast their cries to goad Abbaba into an attack. Failing that, Abbaba will be stalked until the day a breach occurs, however,” The Master of the Bronze Scorpions began to speak, witnessing the eyes of Markus Kaine widen at the suggested plan. A small part of Zaid found morbid amusement in the reaction of mortals, yet he was more than happy to propagate any amount of slaughter in His name. One of the Commander’s staff turned stark white after a moment of consideration. His lips curled upwards as he spoke again, orange lenses swiveling to the unhelmeted genewarrior beside him. “I’m certain that the Sirens have a more lucrative way of blasting apart Abbaba’s shields.”

“Flattery? Why you wound me, Master Zaid. Flattery would be to imply your skills with a volkite gun are legendary rather than exceptional.” She smiled, “Nevertheless, my assessment is that the assaults have failed not due to the ineptitude of the attackers themselves, and I salute their courage in service to our Emperor. Rather, assaulting the fortress is itself where the folly lies.” She gestured at the dataslate. “This fortress is a work of art, each aspect flowing into the next. It stands like a wall of steel, sentinels standing guard to cast aside any foolish enough to attack it head on. I would be surprised if there were weaknesses in its defenses - weaknesses we could exploit, at any rate.”

She looked up to Zaid as he laid out his plans, a single eyebrow raised over an emerald eye. She caught sight of Commander Kaine’s increasingly alarmed expression, but waited her turn to speak. When it came, she simply chuckled. “Why blast them apart? This is a fortress that would serve the Emperor well. I certainly have no intention of handing over to him an unusable pile of rubble.” She smiled, “I believe the situation can be resolved with the… personal touch. You say you have attempted negotiations? I’d like to try my own hand at it, if you wouldn’t mind. The gentler touch can find a way past armor that will stop even the greatest blows.”

“Dagger and Blade, is it?” The bronze scorpion intoned, fresh energy forming in his voice at the proposal of a previously orchestrated plan. Thoughts, plans, and actions of another immediately filtered through his brain without a second thought. One of his blackened gauntlets gestured for either of the genewarriors behind him to approach. A deafened click echoed out of his crested helmet, an audible cue registering private communication between Zaid and the other scorpions. The legion master was responded to with a nod by the bronze warrior, turning around and marching away to engage the rest of their clade. Another click registered outward communication through his voxgrills. “Then it shall be done. The Thirteenth will support you as always. What do you propose?”

Commander Kaine, previously shaken by Zaid’s terror campaign proposal, felt relief physically pass throughout his body. It was echoed by Reginald, who shared a thankful look with Markus. The rest of the staff seemed more content with the Siren’s renewed attempt at diplomacy, a collection of emotions fading away from their previous tension. The bronze scorpion’s master, keenly aware of their distaste for his proposal, audibly clicked his tongue in distaste.

“Yes, yes! Absolutely! The Emperor would be most thankful to own Abbaba without its people slaughtered and its walls broken. One member of my staff, Abraham, can certainly connect you to the Abyssal Hierarch’s transmissions. If you’re lucky, then we could interrupt his voxloop long enough for a parlay proposal to go through. How can we assist, Princess Pantea?” Commander Kaine said, invigorated by a proposal that didn’t end in butchery. Euphoria won out over suspicion in this regard, he was simply happy that even a thunder warrior was capable of choosing a more diplomatic route than repeatedly headbutting the enemy to death. He waved Abe over with urgency in his gesticulation, the young voxcaster hurriedly running over with the vox strapped to his back. As he awaited, Markus felt a pang of worry that it was a vein operation. They had already attempted this route, yet something about the Sirens filled him with new courage and faith- no, with hope.

“As I said before, a dagger is a blade, but you are correct.” She said, nodding, and glancing back toward her own soldiers. Though she said nothing, after a moment, they began to move as well, speaking quietly amongst themselves and reorganizing their formation in response to some inaudible command. Pantea herself, however, turned her attention back to Zaid and to Commander Kaine. “Simple, really.” She said, beaming, “I’ll ask them to have a nice little chat. If they want to stay independent, there are deals that need to be negotiated, trade matters, passage of civilian and military personnel, airspace ordnances.” She grinned, “I can hardly have that conversation outside screaming through a vox-hailer, can I?”

She raised a finger to silence any objection, “And, perhaps when face to face with me and my wonderful irresistible charms, this Hierarch may find he likes the idea of being under Imperial rule. There are many wonderful benefits - but it is difficult to explain these from behind an artillery piece. Not that I fault you or any of your men of course, Commander Kaine, you have followed your orders splendidly.” She extended a hand, patting the man on the head as one might congratulate a child who had accomplished something small. Pantea then added, almost as if an afterthought, “And, if they prove resistant to such persuasion, I will be inside their walls and there will be no void shield between me and them.”

She turned to the voxcaster, beaming at him, “Ah, thank you young man. If you don’t mind?” She did not wait for him to say anything, merely extending her hand to take the hailer and raise it to her lips, speaking into it. “My dearest Hierarch of Abyssna, please accept my sincere apologies for the rude treatment you have received at the hands of my compatriots. I am Princess Pantea Haxamanisya of the Achaemenid Empire, and a loyal servant of the Emperor of Mankind. Please, accept my personal apology as well for the harshness and rude treatment your noble people have suffered! The Emperor does not wish such devastation upon Terra, least of all such a wondrous people as your own! If I may, I and my honor guard beg an audience with you within your beautiful home, to discuss the details of your relation to the Imperium. Would you grant me this boon?”

Silence greeted Pantea as the open vox crackled, influenced only by the occasional barrage locations further from their own. The loop that had been routinely cycling through the network had momentarily halted as her words echoed across the invisible battlefield. Markus eyed the hailer with anticipation, his studious voxcaster standing statue still as the dusken deity awaited a response. Legion Master Zaid appeared idly watched with his orange lenses, yet slight movements of his head confirmed that his true thoughts lie elsewhere at that moment. The pregnant moment finally broke as the receiver began to violently thunder to life with the familiar voice of Abbaba’s Hierarch. Lieutenant Reginald quickly retrieved his personal dataslate, recording each and every syllable uttered with insane precision.

“Pantea of the Achaemenid Empire? Another great nation of dogs bowing their heads for even a single sip of water from their master’s bowl. Your people know no honor, Princess Haxamanisya, as they decided to lean on a Himalazian warlord to handle their problems. Your arrival has only announced the defeat of your ‘Emperor’s’ forces, yet I am no fool to simply agree to parlay. No, I shall hear the terms half-way from your position to Abbaba. In approximately three hours, you will meet with my representatives and I shall hear your words through them. Reel back all of your forces exactly thirteen kilometers in conjunction with our agreement. Should you run with your tail beneath your legs, dog, then I won’t fault you. You’ll return to the ‘Emperor’ knowing that Ephrem Abimelech Abay forced you to.” The Abyssal Hierarch, Ephrem, spoke with a deep voice full of conviction and overwhelming confidence. Each mention of the Imperial title was met with a sound that resembled one spitting against tile. No sooner had the Abyssnan ruler responded did he cut the vox completely, returning the general network to the previous looping transmission. As the Imperials began to react with a mixture of emotions, the vox began to crackle to life once more. “Oh, and bring the coward that had screamed for help over the network. I would see the face of one who could not crack Abbaba’s superior defenses.” It cut once more as Abbaba’s citadel-lord guffawed.

“I’ll murder the entirety of his dynasty and hang their flayed bodies across Abbaba.” Legion Master Zaid plainly stated before the rest of the gathered Imperials had recovered from their stupor. There was a silent fury to the Scorpion’s voice, one accompanied by the telltale signs of one’s mouth curled into a snarl. His controlled rage was felt by the officers gathered around Abraham. Commander Kaine, however, appeared briefly stricken with white skin at the thought of personally dealing with Abbaba’s ruler. The genewarrior continued to speak in a louder tone than previously spoken. “Dagger and Blade would not suit this, Pantea. I suggest Siege and Slaughter. We could still keep the casualty margin below forty percent, like in the Nordafrik Conclaves.”

Markus furrowed his brows at the sound of a rather distasteful plan, yet he certainly felt compelled to lean into such fury. He shook himself free of fear and bloodlust, raising a hand to offer his own advice between the two genewarriors. “His words were damnably concerning, but Master Pantea has at least managed to bait out a party of the Abbabans. Something that we’ve failed to do in the many hours we’ve been shelling their position. Are you certain about this agreement? It’s definitely a trap.” His voice was full of concern for even thunder warriors were known to have problems with particularly entrenched opponents. Commander Kaine would rather see both of the genewarriors alive and victorious. Reginald’s incessant tapping against his dataslate momentarily halted as the gathered Imperials hung on Pantea’s next words.

Pantea looked harshly to Zaid, her expression having remained an impassive, utterly serene one throughout the Hierarch’s entire tirade. But now she scowled at Zaid, the first time she had shown even the slightest hint of displeasure. “You will do no such thing.” She hissed, narrowing her eyes. “Do that, and we destroy a fortress that can serve us for centuries to come and send a signal that we, and you are naught but the barbarian brutes of a distant master they claim we are. I will not see this scene become an abattoir of ten million of the Emperor’s servants just to sate your ego.”

A long, heavy sigh followed her words as she examined the fortress, before finally turning back to Commander Kaine. “Well, Commander Kaine, how do you fancy meeting the Hierarch?”

Before Markus was able to respond to the inquiry, Legion Master Zaid took a menacing step forward to Princess Pantea. He raised a single, bronze talon-tipped digit to the Siren. In close proximity to the Scorpion, she could hear the genewarrior fuming beneath his voxgrills. The other bronze knight that had accompanied him clapped a gauntlet on Zaid’s pauldron, forcing the orange lenses to momentarily swivel to his subordinate. A shallow, calming breath eased through the dusken entity’s lips as he regarded Pantea once more.

“You would be wise to remember that you are not some bastion of purity amongst our number. Your warriors are the most deplorable of them all for I have seen what they can do. I swear upon a thousand and one grains of sand that you will end up proving your monstrous side once again. We may be different, Pantea, but the Emperor’s work all originated from a specific type of warrior. I wish you luck, Fifteenth Master. The Scorpions will pursue their own slaughter.” Zaid rattled off in a calm, collected frenzy of criticisms and assurances. One particular phrase was spoken in a language unfamiliar to Pantea, yet he made no motion to correct himself. Immediately after speaking, the Bronze Scorpion turned away and slowly approached the rest of his cohort. The knight that had calmed the Legion Master gave a polite bow of his head before joining his commander. Imperial officers were rendered fearfully speechless once more, casting worrisome gazes between Zaid and Pantea.

Markus cleared his throat to draw his gaggle of officers and Pantea’s attention. He clasped his arms behind his back and perked up to raise an air of confidence about his form. “To answer your question, I do not fancy meeting the Hierarch. Fear be damned though. The Emperor wants Abbaba and we will certainly give it to him wrapped tightly in gift wrap. I will order a ceasefire effective immediately, pull our forces back to the requested distance, and then meet you at the directed coordinates. Almost like a date, except I’ve never dated before in my entire life. For that you’ll have to forgive me, Lady Pantea.” He awkwardly chuckled, earning a groan from Lieutenant Reginald.

Pantea showed not a hint of emotion through the Scorpion master’s tirade, her face remaining as impassive and neutral as it had through the Hierarch’s own rantings. Only as she turned did a ghost of emotion cross her features - exasperation, more than anything else. Exasperation with the brutish ways of her comrades, and the ease with which they were roused to acts of massacre. Perhaps it was simply the difference in their stations, the difference in how they had been raised. What she remembered of mortal life was careful training in both blade and the courtly arts of the Achaemenid Empire. How never to commit the deadly sin of lying, for to do such was to usher in the same darkness into her heart that had helped bring about the time of strife they lived in now. How to spare just as much with her mind and her words as with a blade. How to use the gifts - or perhaps a curse - she had been born with, now only strengthened by the geneseed she had been enhanced by. How to hold herself when speaking. How to keep her anger in check when those beneath her insulted her and her station. An upbringing fraught with danger, every gilded lily hiding an equally gilded blade.

Zaid had never had that, she forced herself to remember. He had never been trained in that. His was a wholly different upbringing. A harsher one than hers, for sure. And perhaps the geneseed that had crafted him and his brothers into the warriors they now were played a role, too. To her sensibilities, violence was the last resort of Emperors - and of princesses. The Emperor’s vision for humanity was a beautiful one, one she shared in wholly. She despaired to see it brought about in so much fire and blood - humanity was beautiful, in her eyes, and she wanted as little human blood spilt in pursuit of its perfection as possible.

That, and her Legion was small. Unlike those other creations of the Emperor, they could not count on easy reinforcements. Every one of them was trained to a level even beyond that of the norm, for every one of them that died was a blow felt as harshly as five or ten in another legion. Finding suitable candidates was a maddening task, and one made all the harder every time one of their number fell in battle. Were she honest with herself, moreso than her desire to avoid human blood spilt she desired not to see her forces ground down by attrition in fighting every battle. And of her stated monstrous side… well. That would remain to be seen.

All of this and more flashed through her mind in an instant as she watched Zaid storm off, before turning to Commander Markus, an eyebrow raised at his words and a thin smile on her lips, “You are bold and fearless, Commander. I admire that in a man. Now come, I have a city to win us. You will ride with me.”

---

Artoris of the Black Blade Clade, Thirteenth Legion, waited beneath the sands feeling naked, deprived of his powered garments bar a thin veil of tan wrapped around his body. He could feel the grains around him shift, confirming the presence of his three other fellow warriors. One of his fists tightly clenched a combat knife as long as a mortal man’s torso, while the other sprawled out through the badland warmth. They had waited there for hours, staring out beneath the pale dunes at the Abyssnan stronghold. His clade was not alone in this ordeal. Tens of groups crawled at inhumanly slow rates towards Abbaba, awaiting the moment to spring their collective trap; however, it was their task alone that victory’s laurels rested upon.

His skin prickled as the sands shifted once more. None of his warriors had dared to move in such a precarious way, thus meaning that their target was arriving. A black transport as bulky as a gunship and as long as a maglev skimmed across the badlands on invisible wings. He noted the particular use of grav-tech that the Abyssnans used from previous campaigns against their people for future use. Regardless, it closed the distance from the mile-high gates of Abbaba to the diligent host of the Fifteenth. Artoris pondered the necessity of the show of force by their cousin cohort. Perhaps their Legion Master had a different plan than their own?

He refocused as the transport crawled to a halt half a kilometer away from the Fifteenth’s grand host. A frail figure in gold-and-black robes emerged with a squadron of warriors as tall as the Thirteenth’s knights with armor as bulky as their predecessors. Great spears with fearsome barrels on the end hummed dangerously in the hands of the Abbysian cohort. Artoris was reminded of the Emperor’s own protectors and their similar armaments. His eyes flitted between the two as select representatives marched across the badlands to begin their negotiations. Mistress Pantea, lord of the Fifteenth, was amongst their number with the short, squat form of Markus Kaine, Commander of the Fourteenth Division. A pair of lilac genewarriors and mortal attendants followed their masters. Even from here, he could tell that the Abyssnan delegate was stunned by their Liege’s genemastery.

It would have to suffice for a distraction. Artoris and his other three warriors silently slipped from the sands with their bodies crouched into an inhuman contortion. They flitted across the cracked grounds as daytime phantoms, their lithe forms and tan garments masquerading their approach to the Abyssnan transport. As they approached the great obsidian leviathan, the Black Blades slid across the pale grains beneath the vehicle. Knives, fists, and feet clung to the bottom of the hovering transport with fierce tension. They knew one mistake could end up their carcasses being flattened to atomic pulps; however, the Thirteenth were built for this. It was coded into their enhanced genealogy, yet Artoris couldn’t help but feel that he had been detected. After ruling out discovery by the Abyssnans, he decided that it had been the Mistress of the Fifteenth - or, more unlikely, the stout mortal man that commanded the Fourteenth Division.

Preposterous. He elected to rule out that possibility as the delegates finished their business with the Mistress and the Commander. Unsurprisingly, only the representatives for the Imperium were marshaled towards the transport. The vast host that the Fifteenth had brought were left behind, their emotions cloaked by frowning and knightly helmets alike. His Legion Master would certainly pride himself on their failure. He had even foreseen that their convoy would be attacked once they reached inside of the hive. Artoris wondered if Mistress Pantea had known this as well, thus gathered her cohort for combat in such large numbers - or perhaps he pondered on too many things.

The obsidian transport rumbled as directional hover-boosters turned to adjust the vehicle’s course. Small whorls of sand twisted beneath them as the Abyssnans began their short journey back into the grace of Abbaba. He spent the short trip checking over the additional wargear that the Legion Master had allowed him. Three explosives and five throwing knives had been added to his kit as requested. Artoris had similarly kitted out his clade with likewise armaments. He felt no need to steel himself for the coming battle for it was already skewed in favor of His Imperium.

Abbaba passed overhead, a veritable bastion of stone as old as humanity. Ramparts were manned by the Abyssnans, yet their parapets weren’t crewed by field guns or titanic cannons from the darkest ages. The portcullis, reinforced thricefold by precise metal and ancient shielding technology, opened mile-high doors to the oncoming transport. Artoris prepared for a biometric scan of the vehicle, yet none came as they hovered to a slow creep further into the aged walls. He could only assume that they acted in arrogance, knowing that they held enemies in their cargo, clueless of potential infiltrators. That thought, however, would prove his undoing.

Five minutes passed as the black hovercraft slowly crept through the dense hiveways of Abbaba. None dared pay attention to the vehicle, crewed only by the Hierarch’s enforcers, thus turning a blind eye to the infiltrators if they ever witnessed them. No maglev or ascender awaited them in their short journey as Abbaba’s dense city was wide and expansive compared to other hives of greater elevation or depth. All the same, Artoris saw them first before the drivers would. A crowd of warriors in uniquely patterned power armor, parts of their ebony skin exposed to the wind adorned with a plethora of cultural markings. Heavy spears with vapor-cannons, great blades with plasma-tubes, and great axes with boltslingers were held at the ready. It seems the delegation had broken down, yet it did not dismay Artoris in the slightest. The transport halted in the path of the Hierarch’s enforcers, the Abyssnan delegate stepping out with Mistress Pantea and Commander Kaine.

“Be calm, wendim, I bring a great diplomat from the Imperium. The Hierarch must witness this woman of intense genemancy. It is astound-” The delegate pleaded before a booming voice resounded throughout the thoroughfares of Abbaba. It was a voice as deep and throaty as the howling mountains of Himalazia. More than enraged, it sounded disappointed.

“You are a fool, Ajani nak’Alem. I had taken you for a wiser man than you are, but you were bound by the spells of the wyrd and the witch. Can you not smell their disgust on your nose or have you forgotten the raids of Wak’Ta on Abbaba?” The voice, Artoris understood, was the Abyssal Hierarch himself. As he focused his senses, he could tell that the voice was projecting from nearby vox-emitters and drone-wardens nearby. It was preordained that they would be the first targets. The Abyssnan warlord continued with harsh disgust on his lips, “you were supposed to kill them, wedaj, not ally them. Worry not, you’ve been officially relieved of your duties. Slaughter these dog-worshipping Himalazians.”

Before the delegate, Pantea, or Kaine could react, Artoris detached himself from the bottom of the transport. One hand had cradled an explosive orb on their journey, which was now thrown with perfect delay into the midst of the Abyssnan warriors. His fellow clade members followed his example, unfurling into the sandy streets of the hive to deliver explosive death. They phantom flitted across the limestone tile in a synchronized dance of death. As the explosives detonated, so too were the throwing weapons ignited with plasmic edges and pierced their would-be attackers. The clade leader felt joy at a task successfully executed, yet his joy would be triumphed by the Fifteenth’s bewildering powers.

If Artoris had considered himself fast or strong, then he had not realized that those that led their myriad cohort of fellow genewarriors could be greater. Mistress Pantea had already erected a field of shimmering energy similar to that of Abbaba’s shining void shield, halting a flurry of unrelenting rays and bullets. Her escorts, warrior-leaders in their own right, had flashed streaks of purple lightning across the thoroughfare. Abbysnan geneknights disappeared into hulks of meat as the Thirteenth’s explosives detonated. He felt awe for a second longer than he would’ve liked, then returned to his duties. Abbaba must fall and it was unto him that duty was paramount.

As one, the four of them separated with predesignated targets strategically remembered through the combing of the Fourteenth Division’s blueprints. Fury, fire, and sorcery erupted behind him as the Fifteenth enveloped their enemies in a storm of wyrd. Artoris found himself thankful for their presence, yet equally repulsed by their malign abilities; however, he inherently knew that anything is a weapon. A phrase that had spread through the wider cladehost- or Legion, as they had begun to call themselves. Knives flew from his robe-tattered hands, piercing vox-emitters and drones alike with high precision. Abyssnan civilians scattered away from the genegiants as they rampaged to unknown destinations.

He soon found the goal of his mission through the thronging crowds of dispersing civilians and ill-prepared militia. The great portal into the badlands of Abyssna soared up before him, flanked by tall bastions of archaic majesty. Each spread out to the wider battlements that stretched the length of Abbaba. Ascenders, visible from the bottom of the towers, awaited a fresh cohort of patrolmen ready to crest the walls. They would not meet their assignments as Artoris appeared amongst them with a combat knife as long as their mortal bodies. From there, it was short work to the top with the hive in full alert and saboteurs running freely amongst their numbers.

He smiled, another city had fallen to his knife and another victory that crowned the laurels of their helmets. Artoris flicked the blade in grim anticipation. Perhaps the Clademaster would reward him with new armaments from Abbaba’s treasury?

---

Abbaba was shattered. The unbreakable city had been penetrated, infiltrated, and broken open by the Imperium in a singular strike. The portal into the city, those mile-high indestructible gates, had opened for the first time in sixty-two hours. There was no feasible way to stop the rapid approach of the Excertus Imperialis as they marched on the hive. Auxilia, enraged by five days of unrelenting assault, screamed the victory of the Raptor as they charged. A great cloud of black rose as warmachines roared to life with renewed effort. To them, the battle was already won.

Yet to the Thirteenth, the battle had only begun. Emerging from the sands, rapidly disembarking from carrier vehicles, or dropped from air by stormbirds, the Bronze Scorpions were the first into the gap. Not to be outdone by their cousin cohort, the Sirens of Terra were next through the breach after their commander had left them. A storm of lilac and bronze power armor broke through the ramshackle inner defenses of Abbaba. The lavender tide, splitting off into coordinated groups, rushed towards the last known position of their commander; however, the burnished-black daggers dispersed as revenants of death into the depths of Abbaba.

The mortals followed in afterwards with their lasguns, autoweapons, and bulletejectors firing in waves of human flesh. The repressed frustration and rage of a prolonged siege was vented upon the bystanders and citizenry of the Abyssnan people in indiscriminate quantities. Vehicles demolished smaller buildings into rubble, while great cannons toppled towers and monuments of an unknowable past. They were the harbingers of the Emperor and they would know His will.

---

Master Zaid tore through one of the mortal militia with his chainaxe, clenching the paddle of the weapon with malevolent force. It shredded through the carapace of the Abyssnan with ease, monofilament teeth the size of a human fist churning the flesh of the man in sickening clumps. A kick to the lower half of the defender delivered a finality to the gorey display, his legs disappearing into a pink mist that painted the Scorpion’s boot. He turned with purpose, his plated fist meeting the unprotected skull of another. Similarly, it disappeared under his speed and strength.

Something approached from behind him at rapid speed. He would not allow it to live. The propulsion-tubes on his back ignited as their fans began to superheat with combustive fluids. An inferno erupted from his jetpack, cooking the Abyssnan gene-enforcer that attempted to take him by surprise. As their armor and skin began to melt, Zaid’s chainaxe whipped around in a flurry to cleave into rapidly deteriorating powered armor. The teeth chugged through flesh, bone, and metal alike in a gore torrent. His assailant died in seconds under such an assault. A muzzle flash to his right briefly caught his attention as one of his clade members appeared.

“Satisfied, Zaid?” The warrior asked beneath his snarling helmet, his bronze plating decorated with fresh pockmarks and gore. Zaid was certain that Artoris smiled wickedly beneath his helmet, bathing in the pride of another high-level infiltration achieved under his name. The warrior’s armor was embellished with a thousand and one different campaign treasures. A bullet casing from Midafrik, a necklace of teeth from Nabatae, and countless others from obscure skirmishes. A laurel graced his helmet, echoing his righteousness as a ranking member of their Legion.

“Never, Artoris, not until the last of His enemies cease to breathe. Take the Black Blades into the heart and prepare to pluck it out with your daggers.” The Legion Master responded in a snarling tone, a mixture of disgust and frustration dripping from his lip. His grim demeanor was reinforced only by the occasional flash of lilac armored genewarriors. Small teams led by a senior member in a decorated tabard sheltered citizenry and evaporated enemies with wyrd abilities.

“Perhaps some time amongst their number would enhance your humors, Legion Master,” Artoris responded with an oddly humorous tone, his clade members joining him with their armor donned and their tanned robes fluttering in the humid wind. His demeanor straightened as the retinue prepared behind him. “But your will be done. Gloria Scorpis!”

Zaid watched as the Black Blades, one of the many clades in his host, disappeared into the labyrinthine streets of Abbaba. Though he held his own thoughts on the cocky Astartes, the Legion Master was more than aware of how keenly their operation hinged on their success. Such arrogance was allowable, yet he wouldn’t allow it to fester for much longer. His attention swiveled to the Bronze Scorpions gathering around him. None of them were his namesake companions or consuls, but they were veterans of their earliest deployments. He spared them of any dialogue, igniting the rugged jumppack attached to his bronze-and-black armor to streak through the skies of Abyssna.

The battle laid out before him as he sailed through the air on promethium wings. Five spiraling towers stood in a star-shaped formation outward from the center of the city, where most of their mortal forces converged to assail the defenders. Explosions plumed up from countless districts, clogging the air with soot and depleted ozone. The wyrd licked out in separate hive thoroughfares, ripping time and space with maleficent energy from the gauntlets of lilac juggernauts. Scouring packs of black-bronze giants hunted the causeways and alleys of select targets, vivisecting the inhabitants of Abbaba as they spread out. He knew well that the city would fall within the hour. Only the Abyssal Hierarch would prove the final penultimate piece to their invasive puzzle.

Limestone rubble met his greaves as Zaid slammed against the ground on his descent. His boots rolled him forward into a sprint, ignoring the warning klaxons in his helmet of aerial debris and impending counterattacks. He deftly leapt once more as waylaid defenders began to coalesce around him, scorching their rudimentary carapace with superheated wind. As his armored form flew through the sky, the Legion Master heard the sharp bark of bolters and the thrumming swing of powered weaponry. His trusted warriors had dispatched their would-be pursuers in their following ascent. It never failed to surprise him at the deftness of their geneseed, how quick their bodies could move unlike others of their Master’s work. The thought eluded him as the vox began to crackle with a familiar voice. An irritating one at the best of times, and a truly frustrating one at the worst of times.

+’Dear Zaid, I can only assume this breach was your work,’+ The Mistress of the Fifteenth echoed against his ears. Her voice was smooth and sweet, yet he could hear the sardonic tinge ringed around her dialogue. Zaid grit his teeth in annoyance for he was certain of her next words. +’we had the situation well under control, thank you, but it seems the Hierarch isn’t keen to comply with our Emperor’s wishes.’+

+’I warned you, Princess. Insects like the Hierarch and his kin aren’t worth His time. We were well beyond the point of conversation.’+ The Master of the Thirteenth responded, easing the rising blood in his veins as he landed once more on a long stretch of concrete road. Mortals in the drab fatigues of the Fourteenth Division were forcing citizenry back into their homes, while others executed dismembered and dismayed defenders. They offered a single look in his direction before continuing their duties. He offered no such glance, ascending back into the sky once more to cross the great lengths of the hive. +’What is the status of the Fourteenth Commander? Has that man perished?’+

A short, sweet laugh responded to him as he crept closer to the center of the hive. He hated her. He despised working with her. He wished that the Emperor had stapled his nerves further than they had already been dampened to assist in his duties. Her response came shortly after as he soared through a cloud of black smoke.

+’Do you take me for an incompetent commander, my friend? He is alive and well, though perhaps scarred from the events. One of my adjutants is escorting him back to the frontline. Now, if I know you, you’ll want to take the glory of the Hierarch’s head.’+ Her response came in a tone that implied that she wore a soft smile beneath her helmet. Zaid could tell what and where she was planning to do. Unconsciously, he felt his legs pick up pace with the conversation. +’Shall we dance at the foot of the Hierarch’s door? Or will I find myself without a partner to engage diplomacy with?’+

He cut the vox. They had known each other from their inception as a pair of legions and she had never changed, not even once in their long service together. His blood boiled at the thought of her defiling all their hard work in the Emperor’s name this day. He refused to allow her victory in this regard. Those warriors that accompanied him, sensing the shift in their commander’s aura, began to quicken their step to their genetic utmost to keep pace. Little and less began to interfere with their assault as the enemy was pulled in six directions away from their palace, offering a boon in speed towards their ultimate objective. Zaid, despite his anger, was thankful that his genewarriors were built for urban sabotage.

The Abyssal Palace grew close now with each successful descent from his jumppack. A great, circular structure of obsidian stone with a domed roof and a plethora of monolithic pillars. Neither turret nor defensive warmachines defended the palace for they had never anticipated an assault this far into the impenetrable Abbaba. An area as wide as a Himalazian mountain had been cleared around the palace, sizable enough to muster an army or rally the populace of a hive city in a single district. A scattering of gene-enforcers in lumbering warsuits, accompanied by groups of mortal auxilia, readied themselves on the wide steps leading into the palace proper. Perhaps due to the shimmering shield of their city did they deprive themselves of situational awareness. Or perhaps they had never thought that the enemy would fall upon them like raptors upon vulnerable prey. It would be their undoing.

Legion Master Zaid crashed into the first gene-enforcer with a great halberd, crushing their chest in with his reinforced greaves. His chainaxe tore into the exposed neck of the fallen warrior, spraying viscera across the steps of the palace. The mortals, shocked by the sudden assault, were disposed of in quick succession by his clade members. Post-reactive shells detonated their frail bodies into quivering messes of flying organs. Eye-watering rays of volatile energy disintegrated bystanding gene-sentries into howling piles of ash. Few were the unfortunate Abyssnan that were cut down by the blades of his subordinates, or torn to pieces by his chainweapon.

He had anticipated reinforcements from the moment they had landed amongst their scattered number. From different areas around the palace they came, gene-enforcers reinforced by mortals equipped with miniature variants of their halberd weaponry. The Bronze Scorpions prepared to dive into their foes; however, Zaid soon realized that it would be pointless to engage such foes from that distance. Streaks of lilac lightning tore across the great plaza in quick succession. Every Abyssnan smote was a charred corpse or body incinerated by the power of the wyrd. The elder genewarrior instinctively knew, even before they had arrived, that Pantea was here.

“Awfully rude to begin the dance without me, even after our short spate!” The Mistress of the Fifteenth cheerily said as her lilac gauntlets weaved webs of crackling lightning. No weapons adorned her form save the armor on her body. A lavender tabard snapped in the wind generated by her psionic abilities, while purple ferning patterns painted her vambraces. Several more of her genewarrior cohort accompanied the wyrd assault. Cobalt flames spewed forth from their gauntlets to engulf mortals in wreaths of haunting fire. They broke before they were defeated, fleeing into separating alcoves and arterial thoroughfares of the hive.

“You insult my abilities, Princess. Your assistance was unneeded and unwanted.” Zaid scowled beneath his slanted helmet. The two forces approached each other in a mix-matched tide of bronze, black and lavender. Both of their commanders closed the distance, casually beginning to ascend the grand stairs towards the palace.

“I would never insult - unless it was warranted. It would do you well to remember that we could’ve taken them with less than you would’ve required.” She jabbed at him with her words. A two-fold comment, he frustratingly realized, for the Fifteenth boasted less than half of their legion’s present numbers. A side-effect of their geneseed or due process for their sorcerous origins? He cared little for her demeanor stuck at the forefront of his anguish.

Zaid N’dar refused to respond as he stepped onto a stony plateau reaching out towards the great portal of the palace. A pair of ornate doors engraved with the history of the city awaited them as speechless sentinels. The Legion Master would not suffer more of their faux invulnerability by pressing his boot against the gate and breaking in the final defenses of the Abyssnan sanctuary. He could hear the Lady of the Fifteenth tutting behind him for his apparent barbarism. He failed to find reason to regard her behavior.

The inside of Abbaba’s central leviathan structure was a beauty to behold. A wealth of culture, technology, and history that spanned the longest eras of humanity bedecked the wide halls of the citadel. Pillars, carefully engraved with the long history of Abyssna, held the domed roof of the palace, while lithe stasis chambers carried ornaments and baubles of indescribable age. A single, circular chamber made up the floor with a throne as tall as an artillery gun at it’s center. A warlord’s proof of office, the seat of power was an instrument of ancient technology in of itself. Cables snaked across the floor to concealed conduits leading up to the central seat of the city. Upon it’s metallic seat, ringed by a host of ornate warriors in powered plating, was an equally enormous juggernaut of leviathan proportion. That said gargantuan rose now, clambering down his seat with a spear as large as a Thunder Warrior.

“It is impressive, is it not? Abbaba, the Indestructible City of Abyssna. For generations this city was a bastion against impurity, depravity, and degeneration. My ancestors fought endlessly against hordes of maniacs, herds of mutants, and ancient cabals of witches. Here I stand as proof of their duty to Abbaba,” the man began to say with a voice as deep as the Himalazian mountains were tall. He bore no helmet, freely displaying his scarred and aged face to the interlopers. Dark skin with golden hued irises peered at them in defiance, while indiscernible tattoos of myriad colors perforated the darkness. “And here I, Ephrem Abimelech Abay, stand against your Emperor. Crawl back to your Master, dogs, or suffer death.”

“You and your people are stalwart, ingenious wards of humanity! Will you not consider the possibility of working in the name of Unity, Ephrem? Not even for the betterment of mankind? Would you ancestors smile upon you, knowing that you could be assisting the Emperor in reclaiming our species birthright?” Pantea asked. Her voice was outwardly pleading, yet Zaid knew that this was her final attempt to halt an outright slaughter. He knew that she wanted more for Unity than any of their number, a stalwart and judicious knight of humanity; however, the Lord of the Thirteenth knew better of her true nature than she herself did. It disgusted him.

“Your Unity would crumble as soon as it was achieved. Your Emperor’s plans are faulty. Men, greater than Him, have tried long before and failed. My ancestors have known that men such as Him would be our species undoing. No, I will not suffer His hubris, even at the cost of my life.” The Abyssal Hierarch responded with mocking laughter, his ideals as sturdy as the walls of his great city. There were no cracks in his fundamentals to break, no shifted stones to collapse, or weak links to be broken. He was as stalwart in his foundations as the group of Astartes before him.

Before the Mistress of the Fifteenth could waste more of their precious invasion time, Zaid raised his plasmic sidearm and shot the closest of the genewarriors around the Abyssal Hierarch. The time for speech was over. He could physically see the aura of frustration building around Pantea as a crackling maelstrom of energy. His reflexes had been quicker than their haphazard, gene-enhanced reaction times. The first casualty turned into a mess of sinking plasma, boiling plating and flesh in seconds upon delivery.

Chaos erupted from within the palace as combat began. Guardians of the Hierarch split in different directions, aiming to flank and feint into the invaders. Ephrem would use no such underhanded tactic, charging directly at the Lord of the Thirteenth with his spear lowered. The mixed bronze, black, and lilac tide broke apart in synchronized movements. Sirens split to the left with their wyrd conjuring shimmering barrier, but Scorpions tore up into the air with the jumppacks to rain hellfire below. Archeotech armaments rang out across the palace as the gene-sentinels unleashed their wicked devices. Rays, bullets, and shells crossed the distance between the two forces.

Crashing through either side of the palace were the Black Blades of the Thirteenth. The one at their forefront, Artoris, tumbled into one of the gene-sentinels with a curved power sword. He pierced the protective exoskeleton, forcing the Abyssnan to the ground before pulling upward to engage another foe. Four other Scorpions descended upon the vulnerable flanks of the defenders with their close combat weapons stabbing and slashing. Not to be outdone, the lilac knights of the Fifteenth pushed further into the left flank with lavender lightning and cobalt fire. In due time, those last juggernauts of the palace would be eliminated, save for the Hierarch himself.

The Titan of Abyssna proved more fast, robust, and aggressive than his bodyguards had been. His spear was a lance of obsidian underslung by a cannon made of lightning and death. His armor was Abbaba taken mortal form, every edifice engraved with victories and glories from eons before him. He was the size of an Albian deathmachine, his fingers like colossal claws and his feet like gargantuan treads; however, Ephrem had never met the Astartes before.

Mistress Pantea reached out through the ether and raked lilac lightning across the palace pillars into Ephrem’s protected form. Buckling under the stress of sorcerous manifestation, Ephrem raised a single arm to ward off the ruinous flurry. Zaid came in as a phantom from the dark, circling around the desolated pillar and flung himself into the defending Abyssal Hierarch. At point-blank range, the Master of the Thirteenth overcharged his plasma pistol and unleashed it directly into the Titan’s thigh. Fast enough to evade death, the Scorpion rolled away as the armament exploded into a gout of plasma. The Hierarch roared out in anguish, falling to his knee as the Master of the Fifteenth advanced. Before the Abyssnan could react, the lilac warlord forced his gaze downward with a wyrd-infused punch to the cranium.

The Hierarch’s skull bounced off the floor with a resounding crack. For a normal mortal, that would be enough to result in their cranium exploding; however, the Titan of Abyssna was no simple man. His robustness was a miracle given form. Blood cascaded out of the man from cracks in his face, yet his gray matter failed to spill out. In a feat of strength, the Hierarch pushed himself back up to one knee to raise his gaze back up to Pantea. His eyes, dark and deep, remained firmly on the Mistress of the Fifteenth. He appeared as if he were to speak once more were it not for the towering form of Zaid to fall upon him. The Master of the Thirteenth cleaved Ephrem’s head from his shoulders with his wicked chainaxe. A torrent of viscera sprayed out of his neck onto the Princess’ lilac armor, sealing the fate of Abbaba once and for all.

“The Hierarch is dead! Kill the rest and be done with this city! Gloria Raptoris Imperialis!” Zaid N’dar roared out as his boot kicked over the corpse of Abbaba’s Titan. His lifeforce drained out onto the decorated tiles of the palace while the rest of his gene-sentinels were butchered by the assailing Astartes. Pantea bent down and narrowed her eyes at the carcass, an inconceivable emotion bubbling up from within. Around her, more death propagated by the Bronze Scorpions continued unchecked. Soon, the city would follow in their bloodwake.

---

The banner of the Raptor unfurled from the top of Abbaba’s battlements. A thousand and one cheers rose up from the supposed liberators of the invasion. The day had long since fallen into darkness, filtered only by the lights of the Abyssnan hivecity. Silence would’ve taken hold of the area were it not for the oncoming stars falling upon the city. Transports, bulky and heavy, dropped from the sky on squat engines with sigils of the Raptor. Gunships in the colors of the Astartes cohorts aided them, patrolling the air around the citadel before touching down within the great walls. Grand vehicles of leviathan proportion, reinforcements from far afield, rumbled loudly outside of the gargantuan curtain.

Every thoroughfare, alcove, alleyway, and hiveway was congested by the victorious invaders. Mortal men and women garbed in red-black fatigues with lasguns strapped to their chests. The defeated defenders marched in chains, sequestered to makeshift prisons in different parts of the hive. Abyssnan citizens hid when they could or otherwise were forced to open their doors to their liberators. None of the towering gene-enforcers survived to see the light of a new day, each slaughtered to the last by the Astartes of the Fifteenth and Thirteenth. Their armaments were secured by the agents of the Sigilite, spirited away for later use in an unspoken campaign.

Commander Markus Kaine had felt a sense of triumph unlike ever before. He felt as if it were his achievement that had led to Abbaba’s unification efforts; or so he told himself with a bottle of amasec in one hand and a lho-stick in the other. While the reinforcements from the broad portions of Abyssna dealt with the city’s aftermath, he allowed the Fourteenth Division to recuperate in the hive-cities refitted barracks. His first order had been to make the closest spire to the gates their personal haven. It hadn’t occurred to him that this particular structure had been the pleasure palace of the city.

“We did it, Reggy, we actually did it.” Kaine said with a smile on his scarred lips, his eyes falling over the sights of Abbaba. Their suite - and the rest of the officers of the Fourteenth - was located on the higher portions of the southern spire. The rest of the enlisted were granted accommodations further below them. Reginald, similarly sitting with beverage, quietly nodded his head after some seconds of rumination.

“It was actually Mistress Pantea and Master Zaid that had led to the city's downfall, Commander.” The sorrowful tone of the officer responded, earning him a groan and an agitated glare from Markus. Before the man could continue, Reginald rose from his seat to walk out onto the balcony overlooking Abbaba. “But I will give you that you were the first to send out a distress call. If you had failed, I imagine Lord-Commander Crucias would strip you of your title as the Fourteenth Division’s leader.”

That comment had reeled in his ego. A puff of the lho-stick and a forlorn look was all that Reginald needed to know that he had pushed Markus too far. He clapped a reassuring hand on his Commander’s shoulder, his best attempt at comforting the whimsical leader of the Fourteenth. Kaine brushed off the hand with his amasec-held hand.

“At least you’ll be able to make a passable attempt at courting Mistress Pantea after everything you’ve achieved.” Reginald said with a sad, slow smile, choosing to ignore Markus’ attempt to bat him away.

“Unfortunately not, Reggy,” Commander Kaine said, raising his glass at a far-off field of gathering transports and fluttering lights. A mess of lilac, bronze, and black stood in a tight group around the dark hull of gunships. Even from this distance, the gargantuan shapes of the Thirteenth and Fifteenth could be seen from their vantage point. “They’ve already set sail for their next battlefield. Honoring the wish of the Emperor and pursuing Unity in the vast reaches of Terra.”

“Then you, at least, managed to say goodbye to the Mistress, correct?” Reginald asked, hoping to inspire some level of happiness in his commanding officer. To his surprise, Markus chuckled with a smile lingering on his lips. He sipped gently from the glass of amasec, set it down on the balcony ledge, and clutched something beneath his trenchcoat.

“You could say that.” He responded, his hand clutching a lock of silver hair in a silver chain with a Raptor Imperialis locket. Markus clipped close the amulet with a press of his fingers, trapping the treasure within before turning around to Reginald with reinvigorated confidence. “Now, I hope you’re prepared for a journey further east. We’ve gotta make our way to the palace for our next assignment. Lord Crucias’ll have our heads if we kept the amasec purely to ourselves.”

The Commander of the Fourteenth Division ambled onward towards the other end of the room, his lho-stick extinguished and his spirits as high as the very spire they resided in. Reginald, ever the loyal frontline officer, dutifully kept pace with him towards the ascender.

Further afield away from the spire of the officer’ ward, the stormbirds of the growing Fifteenth and Thirteenth whined with anticipation. Assault ramps laid bare for the embarking genewarriors to remain within. The Sirens of Terra, lilac and silver juggernauts, ambled into their respective transports, while the Bronze Scorpions, black and bronze knights, marched into their own with fresh treasures hanging from their pauldrons. Their movements were stiff, some fresh from their inoculation into the ranks of the legion. Others swaggered with freshly found confidence as campaign veterans. More still were eerily silent and dutiful, bland as their days of slate-gray pattern powered armor.

“Your actions confuse me.” Master Zaid N’dar spoke out as he walked closer to the gathering throng of genewarriors. To his left, Mistress Pantea walked with a small smile on her lips. He knew that a storm brewed deep within her from the desolation of Abbaba, yet the laurels of victory and unity brought faith to her spirit. Ever the hawk for details, he had spied her departing words with the mortal commander of their operation.

“There’s nothing to be confused about,” Mistress Pantea replied proudly, fully aware of her actions and what commotion they could cause. “Markus is a valiant, fearless man. No other had dared to confront me such as him, nor had any accompanied me into the depths of Abbaba. Such as yourself, my dear Zaid.”

His blood boiled with every second she spent speaking. Years could pass between their meetings and he would still feel the same way. For the sake of victory, he allowed her frustrating comments without rebuke. It hadn’t stopped him from gritting his teeth in anguish. “You will confuse him with your meddling, Pantea, be more aware of your actions.” The Master of the Thirteenth seethed, releasing a jet of relieved frustration from his gritted teeth. He spied a mocking smile on her lips, something that he would not allow for much longer.

“Where do the winds of war take you, Princess?” Zaid asked, changing the subject before she could rattle off another veiled insult towards him. As he suspected, her smile softened to a thin line on her perfect features. He made assumptions to the likelihood of her next campaign, yet deigned to let her speak before assuming.

“Nordyc. Frozen, blasted, and freezing. Would that I could remain in the warmer climates of Terra, battling afield sand and dune.” She replied, longing in her voice for the homeland that she had been born to. The only thing that they shared between them. The deserts and steppes of the Achaemenid Empire were their homes. The Mistress of the Fifteenth continued without missing a beat, “we will prevail and the hag-queens of the snow will be decimated. Where will you reave next, my friend?”

“Indoi,” He scoffed. They were no closer to friends than they were rivals. Compatriots that could synchronize perfectly in all motions except emotional. Often, Zaid refused to believe that she held the same level of tactical competence as him, yet Pantea always proved him wrong in that regard. “Then unto the Yndonseic Bloc. Then unto the Pan-Pacific Empire. Then unto Unity in His name.”

It was an answer that seemed to sate her curiosity. She nodded in approval, walking over and placing a gauntlet on his pauldron. He blocked the overwhelming desire to knock aside her lilac hand with his chained fist. Zaid knew that her serious composure was something to take into account. The Master of the Thirteenth prepared himself for her next words, perhaps some form of psionic premonition for his next war?

“Then until next time, Zaid, try not to die before me.” Her tone was as sweet as it was mocking. She grinned, clapping his pauldron before reaching down and planting a snarling helmet over her head. The silver hair of her progenitor disappeared into the armor. Pantea turned away from the nigh frothing form of Zaid with a kick in her step.

“I despise you!” The sloped helmet of Zaid roared out at the retreating lilac-armored genewarrior. Laughter, haughty and boastful, echoed out from the Mistress of the Fifteenth as she disappeared into the dark hulls of a stormbird. The transport’s engine began to hum with renewed vigor as the assault ramp closed behind the warrior. Seconds passed as a host of lilac gunships rose into the night sky of Abyssna. Flames erupted from fancases as the transports disappeared from his sight.

The Master of the Thirteenth Legion remained a moment longer to watch the last of the Fifteenth depart for the roaring mountains of Nordyc. He turned away as the last of their lavender hulls become starshaped crosses in the darkness of night. The prized spear of the Abyssal Hierarch rested against his right pauldron as he turned away. Zaid refocused himself on the palace of Abbaba, where the plans for the Unification of Indoi awaited him.

---

Credit: @MarshalSolgriev (Bronze Scorpions/Master of the Thirteenth Zaid/Abyssnans/Markus Caine/Fourteenth Division), @Antediluvixen (Sirens of Terra/Mistress of the Fifteenth Pantea)

//Hive-City Ovill, Terrawatt Clan

Grek Dorji let out a huff as he stomped along the precipice of his loft home in the spires, looking over the daily production schedules as decreed by the Theologiteks. The short, and admittedly chubby, man was disappointed that they had not managed to increase the efficiency of the forges. He had been working many standard days trying to implement new methods and schedules down to the microsecond all in effort to meet the new Emperor’s needs for the war effort. He grumbled, missing the days in which all he had to worry about was smaller orders for smaller warlords - older and rarer trade deals or even simply just replacing old tech of the Clans. It had been a logistical hell for him to switch to full war production for this new warlord’s needs nor did he truly understand why.

The administrator never believed in the grand vision of a unified Terra, merely wanting to make his pay that was so generously given by the Theologiteks - but ever since the Emperor came around and more eyes looked upon the inefficiencies of the forges under his view, payment had been cut. Grek was bitter, grumbling more and more until a fortunate deal had come across his desk on a most unfortunate day. The day that Sanctii had fallen, he had received a deal that would see him owning, perhaps, the most productive forges on all of Terra with production technologies that not even his immediate lords held. That said, those technologies were morally dubious at best, ashewing the traditions of the Theologiteks and their strange ways.

One of his personal guards stepped onto the cold balcony, a distorted voice breaking his grumbling, “A message from her has come for you, sir.”

“Thank you, Andson,” Grek said in an almost giddy voice, his mood swinging quickly as he stepped back into the spire home. He moved through his grandiose loft, filled with large rooms and even larger decor that was most certainly all in his own vain. There were many guards in his own loft, a home the size of a small town, as if a barracks had moved in rather than servants of a petty noble. Many of them had shown up the same day that she had arrived with her own technomats to maintain her cold logics. He knew their loyalties, but he could not truly care for what he was being paid was worth more than what he could truly be worried about. That said, it was odd how he had never had been able to meet his dealer - only communicating through screens.

Nevertheless, he arrived at his desk and sat down to open a datapad and a smile crept across his face.

---

The guards on the balcony had been attentive, rotating every half-hour on that balcony and always down to the nanosecond. Yet, that had not been enough as three blackened hands descended upon them from above in near silence. They had slammed upon them with lances, reducing them into nothing more than a pile of gore - blackened and oily gore that mocked the human form. Those were not the concern of the three talons, however, as one silently moved towards the doorway. She proceeded to force the mag-locked doors open and the three custodians entered, quickly dispatching of the interior guards in bounding leaps.

The Black Hawk had noticed that the guards reacted faster as if they were moving in response to the exterior guards being destroyed - a mindlock. Amalasuntha cast a silent glare to one of her companions and began to sprint down the hall before more could begin to swarm them.

That was when the automated defenses began. Melta and volkite turrets revealed themselves, spitting out death from all directions, yet these were not the defenses of a city-state like Sanctii, far from it. The three custodians moved in dance, leaping from turret to turret destroying them with ease even as they fell upon guards who moved to intercept. Her Stygian Talons were each an army in their own right as any of His vaunted custodians were - this was nothing but a delaying tactic and one far more desperate than when they had sieged that city.

Amalasuntha grasped a horrid automata’s head and crushed it as it turned a corner - those that did not seem to stop the form from trying to raise its weapon. A swift strike with her Misericordia cut the abomination in half. They covered a vast distance in less than a minute, they were slow and the delaying tactic was effective enough for the shield-captain to know that Deep Winter had likely already vacated this portion of the spire, if she were even here in the first place. Her blackened hand grasped the muzzle of a rifle and swiftly pointed it towards its wielder, forcing the automata to fire on itself before it could calculate what was happening.

The three of them fell upon a solitary room, breaching with nothing more than a shoulder charge brought to speed by their jump backs, sending the door clattering far into the small office. Four automations shot from prepared positions, their rounds turning away at the last moment due to their alchemical aegis. The custodians made short work of them as Amalasuntha marched up to the desk of Grek Dorji who was already slumped over on his desk. He had been executed with a data-pad in his hand, merciless and calculated just as she knew Deep Winter to be.

A silent stare to one of her venatarii sent him to move out of the room and deeper into the complex - they had to make this seem like nothing more than a terrorist attack by dissidents of the Emperor. Amalasuntha grasped at the data-slate and brought up to her mask, reading it in seconds for anything that may pertain to a lead. Deep Winter had been honest with Grek, telling him that Amalsuntha had been coming and that she needed to tie up loose ends - even going on to feign an emotion as pity for Grek’s predetermined fate.

Yet, Deep Winter had not been thorough enough in wiping previous messages on the slate. There had been diverted shipments to the Sud Afrik cities, likely vehicles to multiple safe-houses for the Abominable Intelligence’s followers. The shield-captain set the slate back onto the desk, being sure to wipe anything that would tip the Theologitek’s to the presence of the Custodians and Deep Winter. They needed utmost secrecy for this hunt and an unwarranted raid even on an inefficient administrator would be inspected with scrutiny. Amalasuntha turned and began to swiftly exit the location; they needed to move fast before Deep Winter could move further again.

As they activated their jump packs and leapt off the balcony, multiple explosions rocked the hive, vaporizing the loft and much of the surrounding area of that section of the spire - acceptable collateral.

All in His name.

---

The vast lands of the Indoi spread out in great, leviathan chunks of sickly green and rotten brown. Valleys, flanked by black-topped mountains, rose as stalwart giants over the urban sprawl of humanity’s overpopulated hives. Rivers of poisonous green slithered through the ravines, disgustingly poured from the top of the tallest hive as a venomous waterfall. Clumps of flora still lingered in the former jungles of Eurasia as horrible fragments of their former beauty. Putrid vines hung from megaflora trees with deadly spikes and oozing pustules of mutated flesh. Abominable monstrosities stalked the wastelands, hunting on six legs and tearing sinew with three maws. Far and few entered the urban sprawl of the Indoi, loomed over by great towers of their oldest faith. The ruins of gargantuan maglevs fell apart in the acrid drip of the hazardous runoff, formerly used to travel the many cities of the continent. In the absence of such architecture, large hordes patrol the Indoi cityscapes with bestial-genewarriors and chained mutants. Psyker-monks of the disparate overlords watch, cleanse, and purify where they can with little success to restore their once beautiful lands. Clouds gathered endlessly and ominously over the Indoi, raining acid and mutating byproduct into the land once more. The cycle repeated itself every day in the burgeoning lands, mutating over and over while the inhabitants tame what can be tamed. A dull stalemate with nature that persisted for eons.

The monotony was broken only in the northern plains of the Indoi, where great banners bearing the raptor and thunderbolt unfurled from bastions of brutal rockrete. Agents of the Imperium, an empire of the Himalazians, worked tirelessly to cleanse the areas with handheld flamethrowers and roiling juggernauts that belched horrendously black smoke. Warriors as tall as the monsters they slaughtered walked in conjunction with these machines, butchering everything in their path. It was thankless work that contributed little and worse, yet it was a portion of the bargain between Indoi and the Imperium. A fire that consumed the untamed lands, ravaged by dogmatic fanatics and mutants alike, was key to easy movement from the Himalazia. So it was that His soldiers worked in blissful ignorance to the chaos that ignited in the southern jungles.

In the southeastern lands of the Indoi, the drums of war beat against instruments forged from the flesh and bone of men. The slaves of the Indoi ran for their lives, choicedly fleeing into the mutated jungles of their land to evade a worse fate. People that they had once callied allies chased them with grim determination, tearing apart those that they caught. Their bodies were dragged back from the plains, jungles, and ravines of their homes into the poisonous basins close to the Yndonesic Bloc’s territory. Where the old, frail, and ailing were slaughtered for fresh meat in their warmachine, the young were left to a crueller fate in mind. Each of the adolescents were pumped with the mutagenic runoff of the spires, filled with the invasive augmentation of the psyker-monks, and fused together with the endless hordes of mutants in their jungles. Fierce, berzerking beast-genewarriors were secretly forged in the wicked labs of the southern lands. No sooner had they been born anew into the world were they sent out into the wastelands for new components. Either succeeding where the last failed, or dying to the malevolent horrors of their continent.

An endless tide of refugees fled from the southern lands of Indoi, fleeing away from the things that hunted within the jungles. Those that pledged protection had turned away from their vows and slaughtered wholesale with new purpose. Ravines were filled with the unwanted dead of the hunters, jungle-flesh was chopped for infernal warmachines, and surrounding hive-villages were dismantled for new wargear. Enormous waves of spire runoff flooded the lands, choking the life from outskirting civilization with religious fury. Mutants were emboldened, ruinous jungle mutation thrived, and the zealots that poured across the lands did so with reinvigorated enthusiasm. Few were able to comprehend the destruction that surged through Indoi, many firmly believing that it was a prophetic occurrence that humanity’s time was finished. Those that understood, however, noticed a particular detail on the raging zealots. They wore nothing save for ragged attire seen in the Pan-Pacific Empire. These tales were spun, woven, and threaded to the ears of the northern plains. A defense was mustered to halt the unstoppable tide. Only their defiance would survive to sing the events to their warlord…

Akash Tigerheart leaned on all four of his claws from the ruins of a toppled spire. He could smell the myriad stink of the southern zealots. A growl bubbled up from within his throat, emerging from his toothy maw as a muted groan. He ushered his body forward, rustling the powered plating that pressed against his furred body. As his burgeoning form stalked down the spine of the toppled tower, those that accompanied him fearfully parted away. Rightfully so, they were part of the lower caste, never meant to rise above their station beyond wayward service to the Padshah. His claws met the end of the spire as the lower caste began to regroup, every scent painting a new scene about the village-hive’s destruction.

Ethereal phantoms painted themselves around him, coalescing around the squalid forms of his lower caste grunts. Although they were invisible to those beneath him, Akash could keenly watch their erratic movements and twisted actions. His body perked upright as he witnessed the events playing out on a phantom stage. Ghastly zealots in scrap armor akin to the lesser caste fought against similar warriors. His brotherly genewarriors, righteous half-beasts as tall as armored personnel transports, fought in violent duels against other of their kin. Revered monks, donned in flowing robes and heavy beads, shot out strings of lightning at those they had called brethren. To his dismay, the zealots were winning beyond a doubt. Other vestiges moved through the shadows, something foreign and disgusting was woven into the scents. It paled in comparison to the stink of the Imperials.

The Imperials. A long growl vented out of his mouth, stirring the ethereal shadows and rippling fear throughout the lower caste. He twisted his maw in wounded defeat, spitting out the bones that he sucked upon. The fight with the Himalazians had left the Padshah in a bad position, perhaps leading to the current situation. Akash smelled the grimes, oils, and fabrications of their equipment on the non-zealots. Despite the fact that the Imperial wargear was present, those that defended the hive-village were dying as swiftly as they were appearing. It was a grim phantasm, one that he had finished experiencing. With one swipe of his armored claw, the shadows of the past disappeared from his refined senses. The lower caste watched on in a mixture of fear as his rending talons tore through the air. A small amount of joy bubbled up as he watched their formation topple from the shockwave.

The formation stumbled back, tripping over the corpses of their fellow servants. Lower caste warriors that had fought to defend the village-hive with everything that had. Their corpses were maimed, dismembered, and butchered beyond recognition, yet they still remained in the wreckage. Regardless of their standing, Akash’s entourage didn’t scream for their lives or vomit their lungs out in disgust. His maw split in a wicked smile as he pounced off the last stretch of spire. His men pulled away from him as they regained their composure. He had gained enough information from this battlefield to properly address the Padshah. As he began to turn away, one of the Padshah’s royal caste marched over to him. They stank of hypocrisy, delicateness, and a life spent in perfumed quarters. It revolted him, yet he was expected to serve regardless.

“By the Padshah’s grace.” Akash growled out in a tone thinly veiling his disgust. His enormous form bowed down to the member of the royal caste, who sauntered forward on strange shoes that lifted him above the ground. He despised their presence with every fiber of his being, donned in robes longer than their person and with gear that made them impervious to his claws. An aura of superiority radiated from the royal, pushing his disgust further in.

“Tigerheart. The most holy Padshah has allowed your investigation into this… little insurrection. Be thankful that a meager, artificial being like yourself was granted the grace of His blessing. Now, without wasting more of my time, tell me what has happened.” The man was pompous and regal, yet thin and tall regardless of his position. His tone, by all the Gods, was the most infuriating out of everything. The royal spoke as if he was a personal gift from the Cycle, born from the fruits of the Eternal Vine. It angered him to such a point that he actively suppressed a snarl. He reminded himself that not all royals were like that, especially not the Padshah.

“It’s grim. The scents are vague but distinct. The southerners seem to have risen up against the Padshah. They’ve got bestials, monks, and something foreign mixed with them. Scents that stink of the Pacific. Imperial equipment was used against the insurrectionists,” Akash began to reply, raising his head enough to speak but not enough to stare directly at the royal. Despite his prowess in combat, he wasn’t allowed to gaze at the upper class. A right that was reserved for the most exalted of His court. He continued with a snarl growing on his tongue. “But our warriors lost badly. If it happened here, then it’s already happened across the Holy Land. This isn’t a typical rebellion.”

The royal ruminated over what Akash said with a disapproving sneer. His body shook with disgust, ruffling like an avian in uncomfortable conditions. Both of his prismatic orbs closed to the world, allowing two additional sets of eyes to open up further on his head. They observed in several directions, consuming the sights of the destroyed village in seconds. It appeared as if the royal was looking beyond what the Tigerheart could see even with his own unique senses. A minute passed before the spheres disappeared into the folds of his skin.

“I’ve deemed your words as truthful and holy, bestial. Your senses, despite repulsive and fake, were correct in their appraisal of the situation. The southerners are in rebellion. Worse of all, they’ve accepted the most unholy and foul of foreigners into their forces. This is an unprecedented situation,” He responded in a defeated tone, defiant enough to be haughty but yielding enough to be humble. The royal gestured with one hand for Akash to look upon him and follow. Tigerheart rose wordlessly to his full height that towered even over the aristocrat. A grunt of disgust spurted out of their lips before continuing to speak. “His Holy Benevolence, High Padshah Siddharth must be informed.”

No sooner had the royal made the statement did the sounds of battle ring out in the background. A reinvigorated assault by the zealots had erupted in the nearby area. The horrific sound of butchery mixed effortlessly with the screaming of a mutant horde. The royal rolled his eyes once more and turned to the gargantuan form of Akash Tigerheart. A simple wave from his elegant hand was enough to unleash the bestial and his cohort. A wicked smile split the tiger maw of the genewarrior. The warlord raised his head to the sky and released a tiger roar into the fetid jungles. Their hunt was on once more.

---

Nolus Dolhai. The pinnacle of Indoi, holy summit of the High Padshah and grand temple dedicated to the Millennium Gods. It sprawled across all of the northern lands as the grandest hive of Eurasia. Spires rose as towering epitomes of Indoi culture, each topped with shrine-like mandapa. Brilliant gardens of cultivated mutant flora blossomed in beautiful squares in the hive, while fountains of diluted poison waterfalled from the tallest towers into ancient aquaducts. The hive was alive with activity from the bioluminiscent underhives to the tips of the holiest shrines. Transports of archaic design glided between the many towers to deliver unknowable materials. Functioning maglevs ferried an unquantifiable amount of men and women to different portions of Dolhai. Parades of well-groomed warriors marched the streets in reinforced carapace and carrying magnificent weapons, courtesy of the Imperial Himalazians. Beast-like genewarriors stood sentinel over the sacred sites, each designed with a different type of Terran animal in mind. The psyker-monks of the Cycle vigorously trained in specially designed plazas in attempts to achieve equilibrium.

And above it all, High Padshah Siddharth Enue watched with a troubled expression on his gold-tinged face. Typically, his twelve eyes would be alight with the joys of life and better spent divining the way forward for their culture; however, the words of his followers troubled him with each passing moment. One of the member from the royal caste, Raja Nayak, had further elaborated on the quickly progressing insurrection in his kingdom. He steepled his six hands in a fervent prayer to the Cycle, hoping that Indoi would return to blessed righteousness. Enue knew, though, that it wouldn’t come to be. Even Akash Tigerheart, one of his Divine Companions, had confirmed the events playing out across the land. Siddharth shook his head in defiance of fate, the myriad of ochre earrings shaking against his gargantuan golden body.

As he began to build himself up into a long prayer, one of his companions barged into his sanctum of worship. He turned to address the bestial as they prostrated themselves before his golden might. A crocodilian woman bowed to him, lowering her head in a majestic gesticulation. Unlike Akash’s defiant desire for armor, she wore an elegant robe over her lumbering form. It paled in comparison to his own, a mantle as long as the stars were bright and flowed with the smoothness of a snake’s scales. Regardless of her approval to gaze upon him, she remained impassive before his twelve-eyed observation. He spread his six arms wide in an accepting gesture of the crocodilian woman.

“Sadhika Scaleheart! O’ companion of mine! I pray that you bring me news that will radiate my day! Please, speak with my blessing!” The golden form of the High Padshah gestured with all six of his open palms turned towards Sadhika. Nervously, she raised her eyes to behold the holy monarch of Indoi. A look of sadness passed her reptilian orbs.

“Most blessed Padshah, I deliver news that will despoil your divine ears,” She began to speak in a tongue that defied logic, one crossed between a soothing song and a crocodilian growl. To him, it was beyond pleasant to listen to, yet her news brought a frown to his illustrious facial features. “Akash Tigerheart, your divine companion, has eliminated the next wave of insurgents; however, several other hordes of zealots have torched the farm-hives around the defended area. Despite the losses, we’ve managed to divine the name of their leader and backers. They are-”

“Thakur Vimal Sura, Diviner of the Cycle and Tender of the Fruit. They are backed by the Yndonesic Bloc and the Pan-Pacific Empire.” The High Padshah replied in a disheartened voice, his radiant aura dying down to a low dim as he delivered the truth. His companion looked confused, yet surrendered to his divine commandment. He had skeined the fates and learned what had befallen his kingdom moments before her arrival, yet he rejected the destiny laid out across reality. Siddharth simply wished to hear it directly from one of his most trusted servants first.

“Akash was certain of betrayal in the south, yet I refused to listen. I had hoped that the Tigerheart had been wrong in this one instance, but I was a fool not to adhere to the whims of the Gods. They had sent a songbird and I set it free without listening.” Siddharth turned away to step out onto the shrine’s balcony. Nolus Dolhai sprawled out before him in all of it’s beauty, complimented only by the cascading poisonfalls. He dipped his head in distress, golden tears beginning to build at the edge of his twelve eyes. “I know the answer to the issue, but speak the words that I need to hear, o’ companion of mine. Let me hear your song of revelation, dear Scaleheart!”

The crocidilian genwarrior was bothered but unsurprised about what had just occurred. She expected that a certain amount of information had already been passed to the High Padshah, but Sadhika hadn’t expected the precise details to be revealed. The words he demanded, though, were ones she was prepared to speak. Once more, her head was lowered to a humiliating bow as she spoke.

“We cannot hope to win without external support. We once failed to beat back the Himalazian Emperor with our combined strength and relented to their demands. Their support has born plenty of fruit. Now, more than ever, we must bow our heads and request the Imperium to intervene. Kalagann would butcher us and Narthan Dume would execute your most holiness.” Her words were wrought with a mixture of reason and desperation. Each syllable was spoken with the most humility she could muster in her geneforged being. She was heard, however, as the High Padshah placed a golden hand on her scaled skull.

“Thank you, o’ companion. Go now and reach out to the Imperials. Let the Himalazian Emperor know that we have reconsidered Unity and wish for their full support.” He said with a pitiful smile, pulling his golden hand back to steeple it with the rest of his digits. His head was bowed in a reverent prayer as he uttered the next words. “Let us pray that it is the correct path and that the Cycle may be allowed to continue.”

---

Aethys clicked the talons of his gauntlet together impatiently as the stormbird rattled around him. Unlike the typical glove that covered his digits, an oversized fist with long claws occupied both of his hands. He had grown accustomed to them after the Unification of Nabatae, shed blood with them in Abyssna, and planned to master them in Indoi. The warriors of the thirtieth clade, the Sanguine Claws, prepared in a similar manner to their clademaster. Their role to play in the skirmishes of southern Indoi were as they always had been - instigating chaos and sowing fear. New armaments, their powered claws in specific, had proven their tactics worthwhile during the rebellions following Abbaba’s defeat. Such was their glory that Legion Master Zaid had given him command over an entire clade.

Their transport violently staggered as chaff was jettisoned beneath their greaves, no doubt to deter anti-air solutions from the ground forces. The hull suddenly darkened as klaxons began to whir and whine with their approaching vector. As one, Aethys and his clade automatically unbuckled from their restraints to stand at the ready. Jump packs, those utilized in the assault of Abbaba, were mounted to their backs. Each of their fists were covered by man-sized gauntlets with elongated claws wreathed in arcing electricity. The clademaster stood at the forefront with his slopped helmet, topped with bronze laurel, looking outward. As the alarms began to dim, the assault ramp quickly dropped to reveal the dense, mutated jungles of southern Indoi.

Poison banks filled with saline snaked between fast canopies of sickly green jungle. Black-topped mountains smaller than the Himalazians rose up in the background beyond their sight. The chaos of war was raging below them in the form of erratic gunfire, swarming projectiles, and manifold explosions that threatened to wipe the flora from existence. Teeming around the flying form of the stormbird were other transports, each emblazoned with the Raptor and hued in black-bronze colors. Satisfied with their position, Aethys ignited the jump pack and leapt out into the toxic winds of Indoi. His clade followed swiftly after him with their armaments roaring to life on wings of promethium.

The clademaster of the Sanguine Claws and his clade were not alone in this ordeal. Other Astartes leapt from their stormbirds with jump packs screaming into the toxic winds. Their numbers were innumerable, all of them released from a flock of roaring transports that drew the attention of the insurrectionists. Their attention quickly swiveled over to the rapidly descending forms of the genewarriors. Small arms fire rattled against their reinforced plating to no avail, yet heavier munitions on long-legged machines plucked them from the sky in dense storms of shells. Many of them died on the descent into the jungles below, but many more survived the fall to begin the slaughter anew.

Aethys and his clade were amongst the lucky to survive the southern Indoi response. Their jump packs threatened to shudder into nothingness as they reverse-fired their variable thrusters to achieve landfall. One of his number suffered such a fate that their jetpack clogged on final descent, crashing from the sky in a plume of fire. Their sacrifice would be remembered for a time, but their death would be overshadowed by the slaughter to come.

And so it did as Aethys dived into the four-barreled, long-legged machine manned by a crew of fifteen individuals. His claws flashed left, decimating four in a brutal cut of electricity, while his clade members purposefully crashed into other automata such as he did. Their taloned instruments raked through flesh and machine alike in a catastrophic dance of nightmares. Men screamed as they were torn apart by arcing powerfields, hunted by being larger than their own genetic monstrosities. No sooner had the chaos began did it end in an explosion of gore and metal.

+’Instrument Site Epsilon-One-Five-Seven-Beta has been incapacitated. Beginning advance to Instrument Site Fennec-One-One-Three-Alpha.’+ Aethys spoke in a stiff, somber tone through the vox. His helmet, like many of their number, had been modified this campaign for wide-range transmission as part of an experiment. Though only available to the clademasters, he was certain that all of their consuls and the Master of the Legion were the first to receive this new equipment. Static followed his transmission until a voice pierced through the technological fog.

+’No. Reinforce Battle Site Concord-Five-Three-Five-Zulu. Our predecessors require assistance dispatching an ambush.’+ A voice as familiar as his warplate, Master Zaid N’dar had commanded him away from the precious duty of decapitating strikes. More importantly, he referenced those stunning, barbaric warriors that came before them. Thunder Warriors, the Legio Cataegis, their gene-ancestors and havoc dispensers of Terra. He alighted at the thought of working alongside them once more.

+'Orders received.'+ He responded in a curt voice, though Aethys could do little to hide his excitement. His talons clicked together in anticipation, a motion that he had attempted to rid himself of many times before. Although many clade members would relay their orders to their cohort, Aethys felt no need to do so. Wordlessly, the Astartes leapt into the air on burning turbines. They followed him in a great blast of pyroclastic energy.

The battlefield, closer than it had been previously, laid out before them as they leapt to their next destination. An entire swathe of the mutated dark green flora had been burned away towards Nolus Dolhai. A swarm of human flesh bearing the red-black of the Imperium trudged in violent protest to the southern Indoi insurgents. Behemoth vehicles akin to castles on treads flattened hills, trees, and trenches beneath their wake. Others swam between the human waves as augmented mercenaries with their own plethora of disastrous weaponry. Where the wall walked, tidal waves of trenches were left behind and used by thunderous cannons pointed into the sky. Be it anti-air or roaring artillery machines, the Imperium reinforced and reaved like an Nordyc axman with a shield.

All of this paled in comparison to the brutal genewarriors mixed amongst them. Clad in fully encased suits of gray power armor, the Third Legion marched as a bulwark of violent repression. Aethys had always admired their stalwart, cynical attitudes as they systematically neutralized their targets. Upon his next descent, he had watched a squad of the gray giants precisely tear apart one of the Indoi warwalkers and suffer no casualties.

His boots planted across the soft jungle floor, threatening to sink his armor in the mutated mire of Indoi. The Astartes refused this, pushing forward with the might of a demigod through the dense flora. His warriors chased after him with their claws at the ready. Their destination began to unfold in a wide opening of the tall, fungal vegetation. Giants, akin to themselves, brutally fought in close combat with bestial monstrosities. Bedecked in yellow-orange powered armor, a warrior with a standard raised an insignia of a Raptor Imperialis backed by a radiant sun and paired sabers. Aethys knew them immediately, hypno-trained and forced to memorize, as the IX Legio Cataegis - the Dawnhunters.

He awaited no alliance hail from the Dawnhunters, descending into the fray with his clade and claws. Genewarriors - if they could be called that - with myriad faces of Terran fauna fought back. Larger than the Astartes and armed with a variety of powerfielded weapons, Aethys could understand why the Cataegis were finding issues with the enemy. His claws tore through the ramshackle powered armor of the first bestial, pulling the warrior apart in a display of brutal viscera. Those behind him managed the same, decapitating and tearing their prey with relative ease. Despite their losses, the Dawnhunters held their own with roaring chainsabers and powerswords akin to equine-choppers.

The source of their call for reinforcement appeared before they could hunt it out. A smaller, lither bestial emerged from the woods with a plethora of arms weaving in apparent chant. Words, such that he had not heard before, began to spill forth from their maw as unnatural lightning arced off their apparel.

"Witch!" Aethys roared out as he pulverized the next bestial attempting to intercept him. Though he had not screamed it into the vox, his warriors had heard the call all the same. They moved in sync, weaving around the battlefield against the crushing wave of animal genewarriors and mutated hounds. Before the mutant could finish their chant, the Astartes were already upon them with claws descending.

"No!" One of the Dawnhunters screamed out as he kicked one of Indoi genewarriors in the chest, crushing their entire torso into a deep cavity. "It is not their witches we falter against!"

The trap had already been sprung. It was too late to respond before the first of the Astartes had fallen to the blades that crashed upon them. Robed figures in lithe power armor flitted into existence around them. Each wore a helmet with a howling skull, their gauntlets carrying a single-edged sword in one hand and a strange bundle of beads in the other. Edged with plasma, their swords pierced easily through the Astartes armor. Aethys had been lucky enough to avoid a decapitating strike, but he paid for that periless dodge with his helmet and one side of his face. Two of his clade perished to their ambush, decapitated and sundered. The last two managed to flit away on their jump packs with minor wounds.

Now, Aethys understood, why the Cataegis had been forced into this position. He reached up and tore the remainder of his helmet from his skull. The Scorpion had been lucky that the plasma had seared his wounds closed, elsewise he'd have to worry about the bleeding. The entire right side of his face was a mixture of devastatingly scorched and horrifically maimed. If the blade had striked an inch close, then his brain would certainly leak from his head. His tanned skin kissed the sun for the first time in Indoi, drinking deeply of the poisonous air. Brown hair descended the back of his head to his neck, cut abruptly on the right side by the wound. He lunged into the fray once more, their tricks unveiled and thwarted. It would prove to be his first of many mistakes against the eastern menace.

One of the Dawnhunters rushed into him, shouldering him away from a blast of pyrokinetic, unearthly energy. The Thunder Warrior disintegrated under the wave of wyrd, leaving nothing behind besides the charred air. It had been a warning. One that Aethys wouldn't forget or forgive. Every ounce of his training as an Astartes kicked in, words whispering into his ears from an unknown language in an unknown time. Sunder the black sands with obsidian talons. It had told him and he answered with violence.

Beams of wyrd were called forth from the unknown warriors. His preternatural senses allowed him the ability to dodge, even as they came as close as a carcharadon's tooth. Aethys focus heightened to a razor's edge, his body and claws lowered into a hunting jaunt. The black-bronze phantom, aided by the swiftness of his jets, pounced upon the warriors. They had been swift in the initial strike. They were not Astartes. His claws mauled the first, carving through ancient power armor and shredding mystic robe in single slashes. The second came upon him, cleaving through his right pauldron before being eviscerated by his talons. The next sliced through the powerfield of his left claw, rendering the weapon useless.

Anything is a weapon. The words came upon him as his unpowered, hulking fist caved the assassin's torso in. A flicker of movement saw his foot kick up one of his fallen ally's helmets, then punched down onto the aforementioned victim's skull. The last of the enemies sliced through the last of his talons, their plasma-edged sword easily carving through the humming powerfield. Aethys acknowledged his opponent, retreating backwards before charging forward with his jumppack. He was swiftly met with lightning quick stab from the sword. The Astartes caught the blade in his right fist, quickly melting through his oversized gauntlet. Their surprise was enough for the Scorpion to smash his left fist into the warrior, ending their life in a satisfying crunch. It came at the cost of his right gauntlet and part of his now-exposed hand. To him, it had been worth the price.

With their superior allies defeated, the insurgents quickly faltered. The Dawnhunters rallied after Aethys, murdering and butchering the last of the bestial warriors. Those that attempted to escape were intercepted by the last two Astartes aside from the clademaster. No sooner had the slaughter been finished did a rush of black-red mortals begin to filter through the opening. Reinforcements, smaller and expendable, filled the gaps with the rumble of heavy armaments following closely behind.

Aethys breathed heavily, his battle focus wearing off and his dual hearts rapidly thumping in rhythm. He wanted to curse his frailty, a burden of his geneseed, but remained standing solemnly. The Dawnhunters, those few that remained, approached him with similarly harrowed conditions. Both of his surviving Astartes came to his side.

"You fought like a demigod, fresh out of the anvil!" One of them said, the one that had initially warned him of the impending assassins, "I am Centurion Aralles of the Ninth Legio Cataegis, though we could hardly be called a Legion anymore." The warrior guffawed as loudly as the artillery in the background. Many of his kind would find this attitude annoying, but Aethys found it surprisingly charming.

"You have my thanks and more, Centurion," Aethys responded, pressing his wounded fist against the Raptor Imperialis across his breastplate, "I am Sergeant Aethys of the Thirteenth Legio Astartes." The title felt alien on his tongue. He had fought against Terra's earliest threats as a clademaster or cohort centurion. Now, however, the Legion's structure was rapidly changing and so too were the Cataegis.

"We had expected some of the Grey Third from the frontline, but not quite the heroism from the Thirteenth." Aralles spoke, removing his helmet to display the giantism that plagued his imperfect features. Deep bronze skin, darker than Aethys' own, and black hair with a single stripe of smoldering orange. No doubt, amongst the number of the Cataegis, this one was better looking than others.

"The Lightnings of the Third Legio Astartes," Aethys corrected him without missing a beat, "They're dour and melancholy, but they are inexperienced and raw. Their duties are the frontline to veteran themselves within a campaign. Ours is the blood of our enemy's backs upon our daggers and claws."

The response appeared to have caused some amount of approval in the eyes of the Cataegis. He beamed with delight, a great smile breaking up the scars and marks that plastered his face. An unnatural feeling filled his chest. Had they bonded in such a short time?

"A warrior after my own heart. Proper descendants. If you are an example of what comes after us, then Unity will come sooner than we expected. Raptor Imperialis, Astartes!" Aralles said, smashing his fist against the Raptor on his chestplate. The Thunder Warriors departed for the next objective, all five of them leaving three behind to fester in the Indoi jungles. Their corpses reminded him of his next duty.

"Bring the fallen to the apothecarium. Their geneseed must be recovered." Aethys stated, watching as his subordinates began to move away to the dead Astartes. With a grunt of effort, the black-bronze giant shuffled off the talon-severed fists from his arms. His right gauntlet was a maimed mess, severed and singed just as his face now was. His left was remarkably fine.

As the fallen Astartes were removed from the battlefield, lifted aloft on the jetpacks of his squad, Aethys moved towards the eviscerated corpses of the assassins. Kneeling down, he plunged the claws of his left fist into the skulls of the warriors. Tearing out clumps of grey matter, the Astartes shoveled them into his mouth. Already the augmentation began to filter images, names, words, and places into his mind. A part of him wanted to snarl at the things that he witnessed.

"The Pan-Pacific Empire." Aethys spoke aloud to none but himself. His voice bordered on a deep growl. Their involvement had been reported yet unfounded by Nolus Dolhai. His commander, Legion Master Zaid, had assumed much and more. He would need to report this to Consul Zameel. Something stirred within his person as he stood up once more. His eyes lingered on the single-sided plasma-blades of his foes. Anything is a weapon. The words, foreign and unusual, came to him once more.

He reached down and lifted the weapon into his left gauntlet. It was a sword that would normally have to be used two-handed effectively by mortals. To him, it was a weapon fit for his palm. Aethys justified that he would need a new weapon to fight with. Similarly, he thought, he would need a new helmet. Strapping the blade to his waist, the Astartes picked up one of the skull-faced helmets of the assassins. Some fitting would be required, no doubt.

With one hand he pressed the helmet over his skull. He strangely felt at peace behind the skull-faced mask. He felt as if he could walk over a thousand and one grains of black sand untouched.

---

Zameel flicked the new blade in his hand clean of enemy blood - or whatever remained that hadn't evaporated on the plasma field. His sergeant had brought him one of the enemy's weapons as proof of his kills. Though, he thought, it was odd that Aethys had decided to keep one of their skull-faced helmets to himself. Despite the grimness of the apparel, the Astartes found himself enjoying the contrast of bone-white on bronze-black. No doubt his Legion Master would agree, were it not for their current predicament.

Like a titan born of blood and fury, Zameel witnessed Zaid cleave through the rank-and-file Indoi like a reaper to their harvest. In one hand, his chainaxe was a crimson phantom of gore and viscera. In his other taloned gauntlet was the Lance of Abbaba, easily slicing through armor with an archeotech powerfield. It was impressive that any black or bronze remained to be seen with the sheer amount of shed life splashed against his warplate. Nothing remained of the Legion Master's tabard, tore or burnt asunder by his own weapons or those of his opponents. With a grunt of effort, the Astartes pierced a bestial genewarrior in the chest to lift him up into the air. The barrel on the lance vibrated to superspeed before expunging volatile energy into the sternum of the warrior. Nothing remained behind save for a pink mist.

The battlefield around him was filled with similar feats of abominable strength. The loyalist bestial genewarriors carved through their lesser cousins with religious ferocity. Astartes of the Third walked in straight lines, annihilating in waves of volkite rays and heavy bolt drills. Cataegis of the Ninth and the Eleventh marauded as they had centuries ago with crackling claw and reaving chainweapons. Zameel had even noted that the 10th Excertus Imperialis - the Black Wolves - hadn't fallen behind with their cannons ablaze and their infantry roaming in raiding squads. In truth, he loved this war more than anything at the moment. A true testament of mankinds dedication to brutal violence.

He flicked his gauntlet out, decapitating one of the multi-limbed witches with a lightning fast strike from his blade. It's carcass slumped to ground, regurgitating vile black blood out onto the jungle floor. His helmeted gaze scanned the horizon for fresh opponents as the battle continued. Delightfully, Zameel observed them as they marched from the depths of the jungle. Gargantuan suits of bolted metal and billowing engines emerged from into their trenchline with greatblades and towering shields. Both of their armaments were stacked with a plethora of ranged devices, their sword with fat-barreled rifles and their bulwarks with heavy cannons. Monstrous machines on oversized treads crunched through the foliage in support of their advance, a great mouth with a belly of plasma atop the lumbering vehicle.

"It seems the true enemy has revealed themselves. Just as you had said, Zaid." Zameel called out to the Lord of the Thirteenth, who bisected another mortal with a casual slash of his chainaxe. His helmet turned towards the new arrivals. The praetor was certain that the elder Astartes had begun to form a snarl on his lips.

“It matters little. It is the Emperor’s will to see their greatest warriors defeated.” Zaid finally responded. Zameel never believed in coincidences, yet he couldn’t deny the timing on the part of their Legion Master. Perhaps he had anticipated when, how, and why their true enemy would deploy from the depths of the jungles. Nevertheless, the praetor watched as warriors clad in the golden warplate of the Custodes strode the battlefield at lightning speed. The Astartes had always considered himself fast but never as fast as the personal vanguard of their Master. They shredded through the freshly arrived bulwarks with disgusting ease, dancing around their mighty shields as if they weren’t wearing the heaviest armor known to man. Their spears punctured thick, multilayered plating where powerswords and chainweapons would struggle to pierce. Where their legionnaires operated as a cohesive team built on genetics, they were in sync on a metaphysical level with twinned feints and assisted reloading. He admired them as much as he admired the Cataegis for their violent brutality.

+’Continue the purge, Thirteenth, our Master demands Indoi.’+ The voice of one of their warriors, Gjallahar, spoke while slaying the intruders in vast swathes. His voice was as calm as untouched water and deep as the oceans of Old Terra. No doubt he was respected amongst their golden number, but not nearly as much as their famed commander.

+’And Lord Aristagoras?’ Legion Master Zaid asked, pulling the Lance of Abbaba free from the disintegrating corpse of a bestial genewarrior. Free of enemies, he strode the battlefield with reinvigorated purpose. Zameel had wondered how his mind worked in time such as this. Similar to his own, he wagered, yet instinctually built for an entirely different purpose.

+’Worry not for the Axe of the Emperor, Astartes, he fights his own battles. When he is required, Captain Aristagoras will arrive with axe and laugh.’+ Gjallahar frankly responded, cutting the vox communication with the abrupt rudeness expected of their lineage. If it had offended the Legion Master, then Zaid hid it well beneath the knightly visage that was his helmet. Locking the chainaxe to his belt, the elder genewarrior rose up onto one of the vehicle wrecks with the Lance of Abbaba raised high. To some, mortals mainly, it was a sign to charge and advance onto the enemy. To his legion, it was a call to splinter and begin sowing operations. Such was the way of their number.

A flurry of their number, either on jetpack or on foot, spread out in all different directions to handle different tasks. His own number were amongst those soaring through the skies on burning wings; however, he was assigned a different task compared to those of his rank like Raamiz or Alim. His duty was to the Legion Master, trusted as a vaunted second-in-command should the old man ever perish on the battlefield as was his want. He thought of his duties as the Legion Master stepped from the wreckage of an Indoi warwalker.

“You’ve grown, Zaid, I didn’t hear a single snarl over the command vox.” Zameel said with a tinge of sarcasm seeping from his lips. It nearly earned him some form of backlash from the vaunted commander of the Thirteenth were it not for their current situation.

“Lord Aristagoras’ Host will handle the Yndonesic interlopers,” Zaid responded, ignoring his praetor’s sardonic attempts, “the Thirteenth has been charged with intercepting the infiltrators from the Pan-Pacific Empire. As was the plan from the beginning.” He knew what the Legion Master spoke of. Both their commander and the Emperor’s Axe had rightfully assumed that the southern Indoi separatists were backed by greater powers. They spent thirty minutes bitterly fighting over the honors of which force to fight.

“Excellent! More of Narthan Dume’s legendary blades to add to our collection.” Zameel responded, having known from the start that his comment would be disregarded and his thoughts refocused by the Legion Master. Several of their number had gathered around them in preparation for the next phase. Hunters that he and Zaid had personally selected for the mission. Seven in total, all with their preferred weapons in a mix-match of veterancy. Those that had survived the first tests of the Thirteenth. He had jokingly called them immortals. Their commander had grown accustomed to referring to them as such: the Immortals – command squad of the Bronze Scorpions.

Legion Master Zaid thrust himself into a dead sprint, his fabled lance lowered and his body propelling him forward in a wild hunt. He was never one for words as it was. Zameel chased after him with the plasma blade drawn low and activated in preparation for combat. The Immortals followed behind him in a v-shaped formation, their wide array of weapons ready for the kill. Each of them passed the conflict between the Yndonesic Bloc and the Custodes, the former quickly losing to the sheer might of the latter. Behind them, the great tide of red-black and slate gray marched in an unending wave of war. All around them, their fellow genewarriors fought for their objectives with the decisive callousness that made them Astartes. He never doubted that they would find their Pan-Pacific infiltrators.

And so it was that the first of many appeared before them, their shrouds uncovered and their objectives laid bare to the Imperium. A group of five, skulking through the underbrush, raised their weapons and minds to fight off the Astartes. It was foolish to think they could deal with them as they had the Cataegis. Zaid N’Dar, the greatest of their number, lanced through the first with a speed that surprised many but never ceased to amaze Zameel. The infiltrator was hoisted into the air and vaporized by the archeotech’s internal cannon. The praetor fell upon the next, stunned by the sudden arrival of the Lord of the Thirteenth. He had expected to fight warriors on the same level as him. He was sorely mistaken as his opponent fumbled to deal with transhuman dread. The one-sided plasmic sword cut through the robed carapace of the interloper with definite ease. His Immortals echoed the slaughter, vaporizing and churning the Pacific menace with arms of incalculable violence.

The slaughter ended as soon as it had begun. Until the jungles began to shift, sigh, sway, whisper, and moan in a ritualistic dance. The air grew dank with a sour scent, reinforced only by an acrid tinge of sulphur and ozone. Zameel understood what was happening, yet he couldn’t pinpoint the direction. Their Legion Master was the same, staring down in one direction to observe maps hidden from the praetors view. Perhaps that was their folly. The jungles of Indoi were never their hunting grounds. The sands of the blistering deserts were their home. It was foolish to think they could rapidly adapt to geological changes on a whim. Scattered across the repugnant, mutated trees of Indoi, the Empyrean spilled into the acid rivers like a torrent of toxic waste from a manufactorum. Cries and screams rose up from a thousand voices as those in attendance were slaughtered by unspeakable things. Only the voices of the Custodes broke through the chaos.

+’Retreat.’+

A damnable word. An understandable word. This situation was beyond what they were capable of, especially for the Astartes of the Third. The Excertus Imperials, aided by the Third, could fend for themselves; however, the Northern Indoi battalions were another story. They broke. Entire sections of the advancing tide buckled, their psyches shattered and bodies sundered by daemonic threat. Multilimbed priests of the Golden Padshah burst into multichromatic fragments, bestial genewarriors mutated into great horrors of apocalyptic proportion, and trained beast-mutants transformed into throbbing masses of meat and teeth. Those that survived were forced back by the brutalization of their ranks. The Imperials remained, their slaughter continued, and their protectors pressed forward with renewed vigor.

---

Lord-Commander Crucias of the Tenth Excertus Imperialis – the Black Wolves – observed the end of the psychic cataclysm with his one remaining eye. Red-black soldiers in trench coats and reinforced carapace stabbed pulsating flesh masses in squads of five with bayonet and blade. The stoic giants of the Third – the Lightnings – walked with them, conflagrating those mutants that still thrived with their volkite cannons. None of the Northern Indoi militants remained to cull their deteriorated brethren. He didn’t blame them for their cowardice. A smattering of the Emperor’s greatest tanks, one of his included, idled nearby while the tides of war were stalled. His ear buzzed with tens of different reports as he watched them continue their gruesome work. The last of the abominations were being swept aside by the vaunted knights of the Emperor’s personal retinue. The Bronze Scorpions – Astartes of the Thirteenth – assisted them in their culling. The Legio Cataegis, in staunch disregard for orders, continued their mayhem in the jungles. They would be successful, no matter their casualty margins.

“Commander,” one of the robed initiates of the Sigilite’s order approached. Three of their number had always travelled with him from Europa to Jermani to Abyssna to here. This one in particular, a relatively young man by the name of Sharaid, presented him with a dataslate. He ranked the lowest amongst the gaggle of intendents, perhaps as a show of faith by the Sigilite or as a test to see if Crucias would remain loyal. Malcador never failed to draw amusement from Wolfgang Crucias’ endless calculations and deliberations. The lad continued to speak as he mused. “I bring tidings from our Master and word from Lord Aristagoras.”

“Speak it then.” His voice was as sharp as a shot from a lasgun. There was no softness left in his voice from his youth. It had been tempered in the fire of Terra’s greatest battles. The same could be said about his scars. To Sharaid, he probably appeared as the most ancient commander outside of Malcador. He would assume correctly, rounding the corner of his fifty-fifth year. The Sigilite’s dataslate was as expected, no surprise there. Stay away from the psykers and pull back from quadrants Alpha through Victor. The manifestations in those zones had grown incomprehensibly. No doubt they would lose their Cataegis and Custodes support; however, the Astartes remained with them for the siege. Crucias raised his eye back up to the intendent.

“Zones Warlord through Zulu have been cleared for the assault on Protosia Agras. The Thirteenth have established a clearance corridor for a funneled siege. However,” Junior Scribe-Intendent Sharaid relayed with the carefulness of an adolescent, yet remained reluctant to part with the last piece of information. Wolfgang had already surmised what he would say, yet allowed him the time to spill it out. “Lord Aristagoras and his host will be reassigned to dealing with the incursion. The Ninth and Eleventh Cataegis are being dispatched as reinforcements as well. Squad Gjallahar will remain for the final push to settle the insurrection.”

He blinked. An entire squad of the golden plated knights were remaining with their siege. They lost nearly five-hundred Thunder Warriors to the incursion, yet gained five of the Emperor’s greatest warriors. Despite how he felt about the Cataegis, Crucias felt it was a good trade. Either Aristagoras had felt pity for the Black Wolves or the Emperor’s Axe had anticipated a greater menace in Protosia Agras. It mattered little to him.

“Relay to Lord Aristogras that we’re humbled by his willingness to allow five of his knights to remain. Dispatch a hundred of our non-mercenary Wolves to act as intermediaries and bolt-loaders. Use your guile to ascertain their inherent resistance to the wyrd. Dismissed.” He hadn’t planned to levy some of his personal troops to the Custodes, as they operated better as a cohesive unit without external support, but Crucias knew that his more veteran infantry would suffice for suppressive fire and reloading operations. Sharaid bowed his head in respect, claiming the dataslate offered by the Lord-Commander before disappearing into the hulking hull of his command tank. He had grown thirsty in the dry period of the incursion. His thirst would be quenched by the fall of Protosia Agras’ walls. His hand touched the vox-bead attached to his left ear.

+’All gathered forces. Proceed to coordinates as instructed. Ignore obstacles in the specified zones. Begin phase one of the staging operations at points Warlord-One-Seven-Nine and Yankee-Nine-One-Three. Protosia Agras will fall by night fall. Raptor Imperialis.’+ His commands were sent out across a thousand vox-beads and vox-speakers. His words were taken on immediately as the red-black mass, joined by the Gray Third, shifted towards the incursion exclusion corridors for the final assault. His voice left no question about their chances of success. To Lord-Commander Crucias, Protosia Agras had already fallen as soon as the Emperor had commanded it felled. It was simply a matter of adhering to His will.

---

Protosia Agras. Where Nolus Dolhai was a spectacle of the Old Night, a golden city of ingenuity, the seat of the Diviner was the core of the Cycle’s divinity. Great trees that towered as large as spires twisted in a dance around soaring temples. Incense permanently blanketed the air in a thin miasmic fog, while basins of purified acid floated amidst pools of cultivated sap. At the center of the city was the pyramidic temple of the Diviner, rising as the greatest structure even amongst the leviathan flora. Surrounding the spiritual hive was the Millenium Wall, formed by statues of their deities and reinforced by undefinable energies.

Where some had seen it as the culmination of their spiritual journey, it would forever now be the tomb of the Cycle’s infinite divinity. If anything, Zaid would be sure to torch every single one of their decrepit temples with his own talons. He regrets having to establish the incursion corridor. Protosia Agras was burning, shattered by the wail of a thousand cannons by the time the last of the Tenth Excertus Imperialis had been escorted through. The Legion Master knew he would have to share words with Wolfgang, stealing the glory of the siege for himself and intentionally separating the Astartes away from the action. Or perhaps his praetor was affecting his thoughts more than he had expected. Those thoughts vanished from his mind as his warriors approached the hive. Those walls that he had observed from a distance were demolished, a hundred breaches formed for them to enter.

+’Good of you to come to the battlefield, old friend,’+ The Lord-Commander spoke with what could be considered a smug tone over private vox. It confirmed some of his theories, yet he swallowed his pride and fought back a snarl. Patience is the weapon of the serpent. He heard them as they came, words from the ether that he had quickly accepted for his own. Before he could respond, Crucias continued. +’The Black Wolves will handle the separatists. Lord Gjallahar and four of his knights have begun a lightning assault on Diviner Thakur’s temple. Take your bravest and convene with the Custodes.’+

Few had the capacity or authority to command the recently risen Astartes besides the Emperor, Malcador, and the vaunted members of the Custodes. Neither were they puppets to be strung up by unseen hands to be meekly controlled. Lord-Commander Crucias, veteran general of the Excertus Imperialis, was one who he offered no bite back. He had refused orders from those that threatened to usurp the Emperor’s authority, those that challenged the legitimacy of the Sigilite’s operations, and those of whom shared the same office as him. His legion, once slate grey as the Third, attained an identity because of the Black Wolves. He would, and will, never dismiss the orders of Wolfgang Crucias. Zaid N’dar embraced them.

+’Then it shall be so. Raptor Imperialis, old friend.’+ The Legion Master responded as his lips parted in a toothy sneer-grin. The old man had always known how to strike at the warsong in his beating hearts. He beat the shaft of the Lance of Abbaba against the stone beneath his feet. Zaid ibn N’dar raised his other taloned hand to Protosia Agras and pointed out for the genewarriors of the Thirteenth.

“We’ve been given a grand honor, Bronze Scorpions! We strike at the core of the enemy to rip out their entrails and scatter their bones in His name! Pour into their wounds and poison their veins! Blood of the sand! Gloria Scorpii!” Zaid N’dar roared out through his knightly helmet. The Astartes of the Thirteenth cheered in ways that they knew best – by completing their objective. As a tide of insects into the open cuts of a fallen prey, the bronze-black giants descended upon the great city of Protosia Agras. It was here that the Legion Master truly felt as his title implied – the Lord of a Legion. Their numbers were infinite as they rushed through the canopy of the jungle. On burning wings, they rose and sank into the roaring flames of the hive city. They fell from soaring transports that screamed munitions into the ranks of the separatists. They were thousands. They were legion.

His blood boiled with the anticipation he had come to enjoy as being an Astartes. Both of his hearts beat to the hammers of war. He could no longer hold back the excitement that he felt warring for the Emperor of Mankind. Legion Master Zaid flung himself forward at the head of his hunting pack. Zameel followed in close pursuit, a pair of Pacific mono-edge plasma swords unsheathed to the wind. No doubt if his vox-grills were active, then he was certain to be laughing aloud. The Immortals were close behind him, their weapons powered and their barrels smoking. Each hunted forth with black tabards and chains rattling. Each was a veteran of a hundred skirmishes with talon-tipped gauntlets and laurel-crested helmets. Each of these Astartes was the very pinnacle of genemancy and heralds of their farflung progenitor. Each heard the songs of the umbral world, bowed to them, and used them in their lessons of war. They were a single drop in an ocean of thousands of bronze-black knights that scaled over the separatist walls.

And they were unstoppable. As Zaid sprinted over the crumbling ruins of shattered buildings, he observed the situations as they passed by. Where the inexperienced Third and the Black Wolves fought to a stalemate, the Bronze Scorpions descended with a renewed fury that broke the tide with numbers and violence. When the lumbering titan-mutants of the Diviner’s menagerie shuddered out of their pits, the Thirteenth were already carving into their fat flesh with talon and blade. They were innumerable. The actions of his legion proved worthy enough to draw attention away from the great pyramid of the Diviner. In real-time, the Legion Master witnessed the shambling warrior-slaves march enmasse to disruptions across the city. Vehicles were rerouted to handle an outbreak of bronze-black giants desecrating their shrines. Mutant-masters were forced to change their prey-targetting modules to focus on the Thirteenth. He could smell the astonishment, fear, and adulation from the mortals of the Black Wolves. Transhuman dread, the likes of which they had never seen before, was apparent in their body language. They rejoiced at sudden, unprovoked reinforcements and rose the Thirteenth up on internal pillars of glory.

Their glory, their sacrifices, would not be in vain. The golden aura of the Custodes grew closer as they crossed the fractured courtyard towards the Diviner’s grand temple. Their hulking forms were the very essence of lightning, cleaving their way through the thickest plate and densest crowd. To the surprise of Zaid, more than the Custodes awaited their strikeforce. A squad of Cataegis mulched through the temple sentinels, each as ornate as their Custodes counterparts. One bore claws with plasma-wreathed talons, while another pierced a defender with a shimmering spear of licking flames. He knew them before they could introduce themselves.

Primarch Napoleos and Primarch Vladorios. Both were unhelmed, their brazen and bruised faces open to the toxicity of Thakur’s despoiled temple. They were different in strange ways, but they were equally brutish and malformed. The Primarch of the Dawnhunters, Napoleos, bore the spear with his long hair flowing from a tight knot. His armor was orange-yellow with golden accents, decorated with a myriad of trophies from across Terra. The Primarch of the Raptor’s Claws, Vladorios, was a sullen warrior with a shaved head armed with a pair of deathly talons. His white-yellow armor stood stark amongst their assemblage. Two Dawnhunters and two Raptor’s Claws escorted their respective commanders with similarly brazen weapons of humming power.

Further, still, was the peculiar attendance of the Padshah’s Companions - bestial genewarriors of particularly old Terran animals that had long gone extinct. Unlike the Cataegis, Astartes, or Custodes, the Companions wore pseudo-power armor as their hide was enough to withstand several direct hits from explosives. One in particular, a man with intense feline features, led from the front with rending claws and a blood-covered maw.

“Perform your duties, Astartes.” The Custodes at the head of their group, Gjallahar. A crimson plume scurried out of his pointed helmet, slick with Indoi blood. A unique axe was held in his golden gauntlets, double-headed with a conflagrator at the shaft’s end. Despite the gore that decorated his armor, the genewarrior’s voice gave no inkling of fatigue or tiredness.

Zaid ibn’ Ndar and his Immortals acquiesced without verbal or physical confirmation. They bypassed the melee at the bottom of the temple’s long stairway, beginning their long winded ascent to the top. The temple itself was a steep pyramid of rustic metal and reinforced stone, centered directly at the apex of the hive-city to loom over all that reside within. Perhaps, once, it would’ve had automated guardians to defend it. Now, however, it was crewed by mutants and beast-creatures made from the toxic jungles and dank laboratories of the Indoi. Those said sentinels dared to bar their path were alike the Padshah’s Companions - bestial warriors heavily corrupted by the whimsical insurrection of the Diviner.

If they had thought they would be enough to stop the Thirteenth, then they had been sorely mistaken. The Immortals tore into them with all manners of fury. Zameel, with both of his single-edged blades, leapt into a decapitating strike on one of the defenders. Rhaehal, an Immortal, bisected another with a power glaive claimed from Abyssna. Another pair, Aghoris and Martarias, assisted each other in a deadly dance with volkite disintegrators and Jermani-pattern heavy blades. The last two, Hakam and Ghaalib, scythed through the weaker of the bestial warriors with venerable chainswords and thumping bolters. Zaid, himself, pierced through their lead opponent and tossed him from the side of the temple; yet, it was never these juggernauts that truly blocked their path.

Slinking down from the top of the pyramid, exiting from the dark depths of the Diviner’s temple, five figures began to approach them. Zaid could taste their association even before they fully materialized before them. Pan-Pacific knights, bedecked with swords of writhing plasma and power armor with skull-faced masks, squared off against them. Before the Bronze Scorpions could initiate their attack, a flash of three golden figures burst through their scattered rank. Gjallahar’s brethren leapt into combat with the straight-edged menace expected of their pristine genealogy. All at once, the Pacific knights were locked in mortal combat with the veteran genewarriors of the Emperor’s retinue.

“Zaid. Napoleos. Vladorios. With me.” The command hadn’t needed to be said over vox. Gjallahar was clear enough to be heard even through the filtered grills on his helmet. Four of them, in his mind, would be plenty. Zameel, understanding the situation as it passed, turned around and prepared his blades to fight against a gathering throng of insurrections below. The Immortals, and eventually the veteran Cataegis, followed suit with their ranged weapons ready. As the squad of four rushed past the Pacific knights, the harsh scream of volley fire echoed behind them.

While the war waged behind and below them, the four threw themselves into the upper echelons of the temple. Great braziers of strange, everburning fire were held aloft by metallic statues with unusual properties. Large murals, carved into the hallways of the pyramid, spoke of the long, religious history of Indoi and all of their predecessors. None dared pay any mind to the dreams of bygone tyrants - only one ruler mattered to them. Despite the resistance on the way up, the warriors found none to bar their journey to the Diviner; however, they began to smell the familiar scent of depleted ozone and stinking sulphur. Zaid could audibly hear the two Primarchs behind him begin to growl in response. Of their number, he agreed that the Cataegis were the ones most adequately built for handling the wyrd.

The disgusting scent finally presented before them at the top of the open-roofed pyramid. Standing at the center of a great Indoi cohort, a single figure was hovering in the midst of the air. Like the Padshah, this figure had many arms sprouting from their back in an enlightening gesture. A myriad of eyes were closed on the bald head of the stranger, yet many more were open on the plethora of limbs they held. They easily dwarfed the largest of their number, Gjallahar, and wore nothing save for a flowing robe of yellow silk. All of the attendants had perished, their skin melted and their throats slit to spill into an eight-pointed circle beneath the floating being. Reality threatened to rip apart where they stood as they closed the distance.

Gjallahar failed to hesitate. He sprinted with all of his gene-might, hipfiring the conflagrator from his axe. Similarly, the Primarchs waited for no word to begin their assault. Both split to the left and right, aiming to sync their attacks with the Custodes at the forefront. Zaid, utilizing those perks of his geneseed, flitted across the open-air chamber to the rear of the figure. Each of the veteran warriors dived in for an overhead attack, only to be interrupted by the plethora of arms sprouting from the figure.

“Vile mongrels of the Himalazian Mountains! I’ve heard the Truth! From the depths of Ursh’s nightmare citadel to the jade palace of the Pacific Empire have I seen where our beloved world is heading!” As he spoke, Zaid felt as if his skin would rip straight from the meat. If he hadn’t been certain that the creature was the Diviner, then the Astartes was well aware now that Thakur Vimal Sura was some form of abomination. The Lance of Abbaba was held in place by at least ten of his extremities, even while the disintegrator in the shaft was venting death into the air. The Diviner continued without interruption, “The Padshah - our great eminence of the Cycle - was wrong! We have followed the path set before us wrong! He - and your tyrant liege - will know what the Primordial Truth is!”

Perhaps it was due to their latent ability to resist properties of the wyrd, or perhaps it was the sheer brutality that they displayed. Both of the Primarchs wrenched their weapons free of the abomination’s grip, carving into the soft flesh with fist and tooth as if they were animals. The creature that was the Diviner screamed in agony, releasing their weapons as he was assailed. Gjallahar emptied the volatile reserves of his conflagrator into the right leg of the being, while Zaid pierced through the upper right shoulder. With a wail enhanced by sorcerous energies, Thakur unleashed a shockwave of witchcraft that sent all four flying back. Luckily, the Vladorios and Napoleos recovered quicker than the others.

“You are unable to kill me! I am the Cycle made manifest! I am the Tender, bearer of the Fruits! I am the Render, spiller of the Waters! I am the Diviner, willer of the manifold paths! I am the Enlightener, bringer of Nirvana!” The thing screamed out. It’s voice had never had a human tinge to it, yet in this moment it lost all of it’s humanity. The Diviner lashed out with chromatic rays of fire, beams of stinking acid, torrents of boiling fruit-flesh, and razor-sharp feathers of long-extinct fauna. Gjallahar and Zaid were nimble, crafted from the brightest minds, and able to dodge or parry what the Diviner gifted them. The Primarchs, however, were bulk from a different stock. They trudged forward into every assault, losing skin and armor in droves as they pressed further towards Thakur.

“Submit to the Cycle!” The being said as it focused all of it’s energy into one of the Primarchs, threatened by their insane level-headedness. Zaid watched in awe as Vladorios’ withstood all of the Diviner’s attacks without flinching. His armor had long been ruptured, scattered, and disintegrated in their fight. His flesh threatened to peel, blister, bleed, scab, and more as the wyrd attempted to turn him inside out; however, he marched on with one of his shattered talons in one of his hands. The awe faded as quickly as it had set as both himself and Gjallahar descended upon the shocked abomination.

All at once, the battle ended as Vladorios pierced it’s heart with a destroyed talon. Zaid pierced the throat of the being with the Lance of Abbaba. Gjallahar bisected the creature at the waist with his double-edged axe. Napoleos cleaved the skull from the Diviner with his flaming glaive. The floating priest dismantled like a child’s toy as it spun from the air. Blood erupted from the pierced, cleaved, and cut portions of it’s body. The sigil on the ground faded into the stone. The scent of ozone and sulphur disappeared into nothingness. The sound of fighting outside of the pyramid was dying down in a strange change of tune. Their siege was coming to a close.

Vladorios dropped to his knees, gurgling from the sheer amount of injuries he sustained. Despite his best attempt to remain upright, Zaid knew the Cataegis was not long for this world. All of his front-facing armor was destroyed, nothing remained of the skin on his skull, and his tendons were bare on many of his extremities. To his surprise, it was not Napoleos that made the first move, but Gjallahar that rushed to his side. Before the shattered form of the Primarch could collapse, the Custodes held aloft the warrior in his golden arms. The one remaining eye on the warrior stared up blankly at the ornate knight.

“Unity…” Came the hoarse words of the broken Primarch. It was as silent as the still air that remained after the Diviner’s demise. It brought both of his hearts to a beat. He was witnessing the end of one of their longest-lived Terran conquerors. There would be no Unity without their efforts. He doubt there would be Astartes without the Cataegis.

“Raptor Imperialis.” Gjallahar responded, unsheathing his misericordia - a short blade of diamantine - and plunging the weapon into the exposed breast of the Primarch. An audible gasp exhaled from Vladorios before the warrior fell limp into the arms of the Custodes. Until the day that his duty ended, Zaid internally vowed to commit this scene to memory for all eternity. The body was carefully given to Napoleos, who blanketed his body with what remained of his cloak. The golden warrior then turned to the Astartes with a swift change of demeanor. He did not understand why he did it, but Zaid dropped to his knee before the Himalazian knight.

“What is your will?” Zaid asked. Whatever pride he had before was banished after the loss of the Primarch. He couldn’t help but feel respect for the Custodes before him. Perhaps all of Aristagoras’ warriors were like this - honorable, fierce, and proud.

“There can be only one Emperor of Terra and He sits the Himalazian Throne.” Gjallahar said, reaching down and pulling the Astartes up from his kneeling position. The Lance of Abbaba was gifted back to him by the oversized gauntlets of the Custodes. He bore it with pride, despite his ever increasing lack of emotions. The golden knight began to march from the temple, turning back once more to affirm his command. “We will depose the False Emperor of Indoi - Siddharth Enue.”

And so they marched down the temple on a new warpath for Nolus Dolhai, to burn the great city and tear the High Padshah from his treasonous throne. By His will.