The soldiers' dormitories were nestled deep within the heavy bulk of the ship. Designed for maximum capacity, they resembled honeycombs—cramped, dark, and suffocating.
Political Commissar Kane stood in a narrow corridor barely wide enough for one man to walk comfortably. From there, he could still glimpse the silhouettes of sweating servitors laboring in the heat-drenched engine room.
It was a familiar sight. Every Imperial voidship had its share of stifling air, choking fumes, and endless toil. Kane had long accepted it. After all, life aboard a warship was not meant to be comfortable. Still, he had heard whispers that the Administratum was working to improve such conditions.
Rumor had it that on some refurbished ships, the dormitories now boasted working air filtration and even rudimentary temperature control systems.
Kane didn't care about comfort for its own sake. He sought rest only so he could better serve the Emperor and Warmaster Dukel on the front lines. A clear head made for sharper discipline—and sharper discipline won wars.
He navigated the maze-like passageways between humming plasma reactors, quickening his pace through the labyrinth of pipes and conduits. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His quarters were close to the engine core, and the air reeked of burning promethium and unfiltered exhaust.
The temperature, the fumes, the confined quarters—no wonder he barely slept. Perhaps his insomnia wasn't just the product of anxiety after all.
Even so, his accommodations were far better than those of the common soldier. As a celebrated commissar—an Imperial hero—he at least had a room to himself. He didn't have to endure the pungent, ever-present stench of dozens of unwashed bodies crammed together in a single shared hold.
He was almost fond of the place now, having discovered a small secret tucked within its spartan walls.
Passing a tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Kane offered a respectful Imperial salute. The red-robed figure reeked of sacred oils, murmuring binharic prayers to the machine spirit, with rusted cables trailing from sockets grafted directly into his skull.
Despite the unease these Magos always inspired in him, Kane acknowledged their value. Without them, no ship would function for long. The Mechanicus were the keystones of any Imperial vessel.
Reaching his chamber, Kane stepped inside. It was small—just a thin iron cot and bare steel walls.
He locked the door with practiced care and knelt beside the bed, lifting a loose metal plate embedded in the wall. Beneath it was a small observation slit.
In a warship sheathed in meters of armor plating, such a viewport was beyond rare. He doubted even the engine crew knew of its existence. It was his secret alone.
When the ship was in realspace, Kane would gaze out and marvel at the stars. The sight of countless constellations—each one a possible battlefield, each shining light a world conquered or to be conquered—stirred something deep in him.
Even as a hardened commissar, he hadn't lost his awe for the void.
Naturally, when the ship transitioned into the Immaterium, he sealed the slit tightly. Staring into the Warp was one of the many spectacularly stupid ways to die in the galaxy—and Kane was determined not to die stupidly.
Now, however, the stars were visible and stable, and he drank in the sight. He didn't notice the faint ripples that began to disturb the edges of his shadow.
Hidden within that darkness, a Primarch watched.
Konrad Curze—the Night Haunter, the forgotten son of the Emperor—gazed silently upon the mortal man from the veil of shadow.
In an instant, the Primarch's cold intellect unraveled the entire rhythm of Kane's behavior, his thoughts laid bare through decades of honed intuition.
Curze's lip twitched. It was not anger. Nor was it pity.
It was... disbelief.
He had seen many things in his cursed existence, but this—this ridiculous, sentimental, star-gazing fool—was one of the Imperium's heroes? A renowned commissar, lauded by the Warmaster himself?
Kane wasn't done.
Still unaware of his ghostly observer, Kane finally pulled away from the viewport and sat on the bed. From beneath the thin mattress, he retrieved a thick, worn volume—The Word of the God-Emperor.
He opened it and began to read aloud:
"It is not the Emperor who needs us, but we who need the Emperor."
The shadows shivered.
Curze's eye twitched. If this had been the days of the Great Crusade, he would have flayed this man where he sat and pinned his skin to the nearest bulkhead.
He whispered, not aloud but in the dark recesses of his mind:
"Emperor... you cast me out, made me a wraith in the void... for this? To watch this imbecile?"
"Was this your plan? Another lesson?"
The shadows stilled, but inside, the Night Haunter's thoughts screamed.
He lingered there, watching, seething. He could easily end the man's life, erase his absurdity with a thought. But he did not.
Not out of mercy.
But because even a soul like his could still feel—if only barely—a kind of cosmic speechlessness.
And that, perhaps, was worse.
In the end, he resisted the urge to dismember the so-called Imperial hero.
Konrad Curze had come to view death as a rebirth. Freed from prophecy's shadow, his mind had steadied, his soul less tormented.
If he had the choice, he would've preferred remaining alone before the Golden Throne for eternity—unseen, unheard, untouched by the Imperium's folly.
But fate—or the Emperor—had other plans.
He had been cast out again. Twice.
Each time, the Emperor had expelled him from the Throne Room without a word, forcing him to act on instinct. The last time had ended in bloodshed on Terra, when Curze became a nightmare made manifest.
This time, he was flung from the sanctum again—and the first thing he saw was the so-called Imperial hero, Commissar Kane, preparing for deployment.
And so Curze slipped into Kane's shadow and joined this campaign as an unseen observer.
At first, he'd been mildly curious about this rising figure of legend.
But after observing him for some time, he saw only a cowardly, boastful, weak-willed fool—easily pleased and bafflingly hailed as a hero of the Imperium.
Thirteen times, he had restrained himself from killing the man.
Thirteen.
Next time, he wasn't sure he'd bother restraining the blade.
Elsewhere, far from this absurdity—
On Belia IV, the front lines had reignited.
After a few days of uneasy rest, the defenders found themselves under renewed assault. Horus had ordered another offensive against the Imperial fleet stationed there. The attack was not full force—it was more a test, a probe.
The true target was Dukel.
Horus had begun gathering every force at his disposal to destroy him. No matter the cost.
Even xenos vessels long lost to reason—ships twisted by the Warp and now governed by dark sentience—had been unleashed upon the battlefield. These alien craft often attacked friend and foe alike, driven by corrupted machine spirits that had long abandoned loyalty or logic.
The galaxy teems with forgotten races. Though they may lack the numbers to rival the Imperium, their technological relics remain formidable.
The Pharos Lighthouse, the Desa Star Gate, sentient worlds—these were the echoes of ancient empires. Glorious in their prime. Dangerous still.
Horus had raided all such ruins for artifacts of war, bolstering his ranks with stolen, alien power.
And then came worse.
Seven massive Plague Arks of the Death Guard emerged from the Warp, riding the storms as if they were calm seas. The warp squalls that could rip apart entire Imperial battlegroups did not faze them.
Their formation took the shape of the sacred Seven—the number of Father Nurgle.
These grotesque behemoths were once void whales, now corrupted and refashioned into floating pestilential sanctuaries. Their mournful wails echoed across space, as if the beasts still felt the agony of their desecration.
Their flesh was cracked and bleeding, wrapped in a veil of billions of white worms, crawling in a perpetual frenzy.
Then the blood comets came.
Eight of them.
Warp-tainted meteors, each heralding the arrival of Khorne's legions.
From their crimson wake emerged a demon world sculpted entirely from the skulls of the slain. Its surface bore a gaping maw filled with bronze fangs, forever screaming its hunger for more war.
It was Khorne's finest offering—built through endless slaughter and consecrated with oceans of blood.
The comets carried the howls of damned souls who had died in battle and refused to rest. They did not lament their deaths—only that the war was not yet over.
And from the Sea of Souls, six titanic gluttons emerged.
Obese beyond belief, they waddled through the Warp with an insatiable hunger, driven by a need to consume. Once mortal, they had fallen into depravity, surrendering to Slaanesh, the Dark Prince of Excess.
What began as indulgence in fine cuisine became obsession. From gourmet to grotesque, they devoured everything: food, flesh, and finally, sanity.
Their stomachs mutated into massive, organic fortresses—homes to degenerate Noise Marines and Slaaneshi daemons, writhing in acid and euphoria.
Many misunderstand Slaanesh's domain as mere carnal lust, but that is a shallow view. True followers seek extreme sensation—be it pain, pleasure, sight, or sound—until their very souls cry out in ecstasy or agony.
In Slaanesh's realm, desires are amplified to madness. Gluttons grow to planetary size, yet remain ever-starving. Artists commit crimes of creation in search of the perfect note, the perfect scream.
Each moment is lived to the limit—and then beyond.
And beneath it all, in the veiled corners of reality, nine crystalline towers rose.
The towers opened gateways into the material world, and from them spilled forth daemons of Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate. Their number was uncountable, a tide of change incarnate.
But even this legion was merely a sliver of the god's power.
The main daemon hosts remained locked in battle with the Emperor's Cursed Legion and the Void Priests, holding the Warp from spilling into the greater galaxy.
Still, those who had gathered here surged toward Belia IV in endless waves.
This was no longer just another campaign.
The Emperor holds the gods in check—but in doing so, they hold Him in place as well.
The Chaos Lords knew this.
And they knew that if Dukel were to fall here… nothing would remain to stop them from consuming reality
The entire galaxy would become their playground of carnage. From the Eye of Terror, the raw power of the gods would pour forth.
And when the Imperium's last defenders clung to hope—only to be crushed—despair would erupt. That eruption of suffering would become the finest delicacy for the Warp.
Countless daemons howled with anticipation. A grand feast was about to begin, and the table was set with the corpses of the Imperium of Man.
But all of this hinged on one outcome.
They had to kill Dukel.
Upon the bridge of a massive warship, Horus stood in obsidian-black warplate, the cursed blade Drachnyen resting at his side. Around him, dark-robed cultists and corrupted Tech-Adepts scurried like vermin, manipulating arcane machinery and sacrificial consoles.
He could hear the Warp howling with manic joy—and he understood why.
These daemons believed victory was assured. That this war would end in a glorious, orgiastic crescendo of slaughter and madness.
Horus sneered.
Let them celebrate. Once their use had run its course, he would discard them—just as he had discarded so many others. And in the final revel, he would feed them to the fires of his ambition.
He turned to the hololithic display before him. The battle for Belia IV blazed across the tactical display—icons flickering, vessels engaging, titanic barrages shattering void shields.
The firepower of the Imperium was brutal. Even with outdated warships, the Loyalists' coordinated defenses had decimated wave after wave of Chaos fleets.
Their might surpassed what Horus had anticipated.
Yet, he felt no fear.
He had amassed legions of daemons—fodder without number. His forces outstripped the size of Dukel's expeditionary fleet by an order of magnitude. And more importantly, he had unearthed a relic from a forgotten world—an artifact of power potent enough to tilt the balance decisively.
This war would be his to win.
And he was not alone.
A second Primarch stood beside him in this grand assault. The fleet of the Word Bearers had arrived—led by Lorgar Aurelian himself.
"May the Golden Throne protect us," whispered a bloodied Ecclesiarch aboard a captured ship. "May He return us to the Kingdom of the Lord, the soul's final sanctuary."
The prayer earned only scorn.
"Enough, wretch," snarled one of the Word Bearers, stepping forward with contempt curling his lips. "You speak of a God you do not understand."
The Astartes's crimson armor bore the twisted iconography of the Dark Pantheon, and his voice held the weight of zealotry forged in fire.
"You preach faith," the warrior continued, "yet you have never known truth. You chant verses stolen from us."
He wasn't wrong.
The Word Bearers were the architects of faith within the Imperium. It was they who had sown the seeds of the Imperial Creed, who had penned the original tomes of veneration. The Ecclesiarchy had merely inherited their legacy—and twisted it.
To the Word Bearers, these priests were usurpers. Apostates blind to the true divine.
But the captured priest didn't flinch. He simply raised his eyes to the heretic Astartes, then lowered them again, continuing his litany.
The slight was unbearable.
The Word Bearer raised his bolter, its muzzle inches from the old man's face.
"The Emperor is not a god," the Astartes hissed. "You are a lost child clinging to a corpse."
But then—he stopped.
A presence entered the chamber.
The warrior stepped back, bowing his head.
A giant clad not in armor, but adorned in flowing robes and golden-scripted runes across his bare skin, walked in.
Lorgar.
The Arch-Heretic. The Prophet of Chaos. The first to kneel.
His eyes met the priest's, and though his face bore a serene expression, it radiated madness.
"Faith," Lorgar said softly, "is a beautiful thing. Even when misplaced."
...
TN:
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