"Damnable Eldar whore!"
"I am a glorious warrior of the Blood God! Filthy cowards! Xenos, your heads are not even worthy to be stacked into a throne!"
"Come on then, mongrels!"
"Xenos! One day, the Emperor's holy flame will burn away your souls and this filthy, defiled city of yours!"
"You shrimp-brained, black bean sprout—get down here! Let's smash you flat! WAAAAAGH——!"
"By the Ether, by the supreme Way..."
Within the district boundaries of Commorragh—the Dark Eldar's multidimensional starport metropolis, seemingly drawn with runic precision—lay the core of their civilization, the oldest part of the city, the very foundation of Commorragh. In this dark forest of towering, horrifying thorn-spires that reached into the heavens, endless feasts of indulgence and depravity were unfolding, just as they always did.
It was a massive fortress of cruelty, utterly different from the amphitheaters of the Imperium. The tortured, scourged souls of the damned wailed in agony.
Clearly, this was a place for the countless Dark Eldar citizens to amuse themselves, to vent their violent instincts and gambling lusts.
Within the vast, enclosed, oval-shaped arena, the sounds of cracking whips, tearing flesh, gurgling blood, and laughter overpowering the slaves' dying moans echoed throughout.
"Ah yes, the grand melee between the corrupted apes who serve the Warp, the worshippers of the Blood God, the fools who pray to the corpse god upon the Throne, the brainless Ork warbosses, and the ever-so-somber Tau—has finally concluded! Now, let us see who the victor is..."
At the center of the arena, the host of the Conspiracy Arena—dressed in elegant black satin, holding an amplifying device decorated with skulls and barbed hooks that could double as a weapon—walked gracefully across a floor carpeted in corpses and flowing blood and entrails, his expression exaggerated yet mocking.
"How unfortunate—there is none! No victor at all! The battles of these uncivilized creatures remain ever so dull."
His smoke-smeared face bore an artificial smile as the Commorragh announcer gently pressed a hand to his chest, bowing slightly to the dissatisfied murmurs of the crowd. Barely half a second later, he straightened, and formally declared:
"And now, for our next performance—the arena's ruling Succubus shall present a dance titled 'The Flower of Bloodlust'! Will our Lady of the Arena add yet another glorious victory to her unbeaten record, or will some daring challenger rise to claim the peak?"
The host's pale lips curled into a cruel, expectant smile.
But make no mistake—this Succubus was no pleasure daemon of Slaanesh.
When a Dark Eldar gladiatrix proved herself fierce and dominant enough to reign over Commorragh's blood-soaked arenas, she earned the title of Succubus—the most skilled, elegant, alluring, and deadly female warrior within each of the Wych Cults.
A Succubus was far more than a mere star dancer of the arena. Within Drukhari society, she held a status akin to royalty—both the prized treasure and the enforcer of the ruling Archons' will.
When not participating in raids, they regularly fought in these arenas against valuable captives, beasts, or other Drukhari gladiators, turning blood and agony into art, pleasure, and profit.
"But before that," the host spread his arms with playful flourish, his voice dripping with teasing elegance, "please enjoy our appetizer. After all, our ruling Succubus must take her time to dress for the occasion."
With a sharp snap of his fingers—
Clatter—!
"Behold! The ultimate brawl between apes and greenskins!"
As his words fell, the twin slave gates on either side of the arena opened. From each, ten chained figures were driven out—humans and Orks alike—herded by Dark Eldar warriors clad in segmented armor and wielding shard pistols. Blunt swords, axes, and hammers were tossed before the slaves like trash.
Why blunt weapons? Naturally, to make the slaughter last longer—to make the screams endure.
"Place your bets! Place your bets!"
"I'm betting on the greenskins! After crushing this ring of apes, at least five will survive!"
In the audience, the lower and middle classes of Commorragh's residents—some poor, some with a bit of spare coin—crowded toward the betting panels that rose beside their seats, eager to make their picks.
The more specific and detailed the bet, the higher the payout.
Throughout history, it has always been the same—Eldar are no exception. This is the common nature of all intelligent races. The existence of gladiatorial combat inevitably gives birth to gambling; nothing could be more natural.
"No, no, I say look at the size and shape of those greenskins' teeth—longer and thicker than usual. Those are from the Evil Sunz Clan; they're not particularly good fighters. I'll bet on the humans. The ones who survived the Ape Wars must have some skill. Survivors... between four and one."
With the air of an expert, another Commorragh native—clearly a man of some wealth—quickly tapped his selections on the betting panel before him, then gazed toward the arena with smug satisfaction.
"Haha... I'll wager those filthy things will kill each other off entirely."
Amid the rising clamor, laughter and cheers filled the air.
Of course, if one were to examine closely—or if the arena displayed their bets publicly—one would quickly discover the hypocrisy: their shouted predictions rarely matched the choices actually made on the panels.
"Pathetic fools... ignorance may indeed be a blessing."
From within the higher VIP chambers that rose in layered tiers above the vast, hive-like amphitheater—housing tens of thousands of Commorragh citizens—several nightmare-shrouded figures stood silently by the windows.
Special refractive fields ensured that no matter where one sat, every spurt of blood, every trembling vein of the slaves below could be clearly seen.
Unlike the carefree, hedonistic kin below, these high-ranking members of the Cabal wore expressions of varying gravity.
"Heh, come now. Since when have you grown so sentimental? If you were truly concerned with such grave matters, why come to this den of vice and indulgence? To play bodyguard?"
His cabal associate let out a derisive chuckle. The upward-curved barbs on his pauldrons quivered as he raised his hand delicately, contrasting sharply with his deathly pale complexion, swirling the crimson liquid in his goblet like blood.
"Are you teaching me how to conduct myself?"
"I wouldn't dare." The other drained his cup in a single motion and bowed slightly in mock humility.
"Hmph."
At that, the other cabal elites returned to their feasting and drinking without a care.
In Dark Eldar society, one's status could only rise through assassination of superiors or suppression of rivals. As long as open street duels were avoided, such behavior was considered acceptable.
"The Archon has already received the summons from the King of the Dark City and has gone to the Kabal of the Black Heart's tower. The newborn one has set sights on our kind. It's said their minions have entered the Webway. Several satellite districts, border ether-fortresses, and even Webway nodes connecting to Commorragh have been destroyed or sealed."
"Nearly a thousand slaver bands, along with their satellite lords and Cabals stationed in the ether-fortresses, have all been wiped out—none survived. The King of the Dark City is frantically mobilizing forces, seemingly preparing for a decisive confrontation."
"Hmph. Didn't that one desire something of ours? Then give it to them. Why make it so complicated? That one isn't the She Who Thirsts, and the galactic war they've stirred up only benefits us, does it not?"
(Note: 'She Who Thirsts' is how the Eldar refer to Slaanesh. Generally, no sentient being in the 40k universe dares utter the true names of the Chaos Gods. 'Blood God,' 'Changer of Ways,' 'Prince of Pleasure,' and 'Father of Plagues' are all indirect titles—or simply, 'That One,' or 'That Being.')
"It's not that simple. Rumor has it that the object in question is contested not only by the King of the Dark City, but also by the Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue and the Haemonculi..."
"Tsk, tsk. Now that's interesting. So we're forced to stand our ground, are we?"
For the Drukhari, the prospect of bloody conflict with the servants of Chaos inspired not dread, but ecstatic anticipation.
Excitement. A war? Death? Splendid!
So what if their own kind perished? Commorragh was never short of conspirators eager to stab their peers in the back.
If the entrenched elites and obstructive overlords didn't die, how else could those below ever rise to power?
In short—rebels everywhere, none seem like honest folk.
One could say that when that psychic roar tore through the fabric of realspace and the Warp alike, the only Eldar who truly feared for their race were the Craftworld and Exodite kin.
As for the Drukhari—after their initial shock faded, their response was simple:
No response at all.
Aside from the various Cabal leaders tightening their security forces, everything else in Commorragh remained business as usual—music played, dancers danced, and the festivities continued.
Did they think the Drukhari of Commorragh would be frightened so easily?
Wasn't She Who Thirsts once just as ferocious, declaring that all Eldar were her delicacies? And yet, they still thrived today, didn't they?
Oh, and that little wretch named Yvraine, who founded the Ynnari—she'd surely join the chaos as well.
That woman was a dangerous one, second only to the undefeated Queen of the Arena. After ruining the King of the Dark City's game, she survived a series of deadly hunts by the trueborn warriors of the Kabal of the Black Heart, humiliating the King and shaking his authority.
Now she had founded a faction known as the Reaper Corps, quickly expanding under the banner of salvation and survival, gathering many Cabals and Eldar factions dissatisfied with the King of the Dark City. No one knew where she had gone lately.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk... I wonder if this time, Vect can still keep his throne of the Dark City."
Some even spoke his name directly—there was respect, yes, but not much of it.
"And his consort from the Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue—whether she'll survive this storm is anyone's guess. That thing was stolen by her, wasn't it? She was quite proud of it for a time. The claws of That One will surely come for her."
Laughter rippled through the room, filled with schadenfreude.
As the Cabal highborn in their private box speculated over which factions would suffer most—and how much profit they themselves could wring from the chaos—
Thud, thud—
"Lord Sybarite, Lord Dominus, the situation at the outer starport... I believe you should come see it personally."
...
At the border starport No. 2355 of Commorragh, a cluster of massive, silent Tantalus-class raiding barges drifted into the docks. Almost immediately, the stationed Cabal fleet encircled them, weapons primed—their attempts to communicate had met with nothing but dead silence.
"Fire!"
At the command of the Cabal officer, the splinter cannons opened fire, tearing through the lower decks of one of the barges. The detonation of its munitions bay obliterated what was once a pristine vessel. Shrapnel burst across the docks in a violent storm.
Only when a dozen "lucky" survivors—bodies riddled with crystal shards—crashed to the ground in broken heaps did the Cabal warriors realize the horror of it.
This was no mistake. It was a message.
And as they investigated further, their fears were confirmed.
The ships were empty—devoid of enemies—but filled with their own kind. The corpses of their Drukhari kin hung from the ceilings of the raider holds, their collarbones pierced and chained like slaves.
Their limbs had been hollowed out, their bodies limp and flayed.
The unknown assailants had carefully peeled their skin from the scalp downward, exposing dense muscle fibers and torn sinew. Their abdomens were opened, organs methodically removed, leaving only bloated stomachs.
There was no need to guess. The Drukhari knew all too well—their own organs had been stuffed back inside those stomachs.
Upon further inspection, their eyes had been plucked, tongues severed, and even their teeth shattered one by one...
"Damn those degenerate vermin."
Even among the Drukhari, whose kinship was colder than void-ice, such a sight provoked fury.
Not from compassion—but from insult. And beneath that, something deeper: fear.
The Blood Harlequins confirmed the worst. The victims' souls had been shredded, and some unknown contagion had corrupted their genetic material at the DNA level. They could no longer serve as raw material for clone-broods.
In other words, even to the Haemonculi, these bodies were useless—waste.
"My lord, look—another wave!" came the alarm from the observation decks.
Down the starport's approach lanes, more raiding vessels emerged—riddled with holes, drifting in eerie silence.
Fueled by anger and caution, Cabal warriors boarded them one by one.
Just as expected—every ship contained more of the same horrific carnage. The corpses were mutilated with surgical precision, the methods increasingly refined—as though the killers understood Eldar anatomy intimately.
And each body displayed a new, more horrifying death—some using the very torture techniques invented by the Drukhari themselves.
Then they saw it—words, written in blood and shredded flesh of their kin:
—SCREAM. WE COME FOR THEE.—
It was a form of deadly mockery.
In the darkness, it was as though a phantom of midnight itself was slowly driving its claws deep into the heart of Commorragh. Suffocation, madness, and fear surged like a crashing tide.
"Report, my lord... the third wave—no, the fourth—has arrived... Shall we inspect them?"
"Destroy them!"
At the furious command of the port's overseer, the thunder of splinter cannons roared without pause.
The explosions' flames tore apart what had once been admired by the Drukhari as art. The violent chain detonations briefly illuminated a corner of that endless nightmare city.
"To be treated so... I suppose they too shall go mad."
"The proud, 'trueborn' Aeldari."
A hoarse chuckle echoed amidst the rumbling.
"So this is the heart of Commorragh?"
"What a nightmarish city indeed."
The shadows flowed. Midnight blue light shimmered faintly like scattered stars across the black spires of thorns. Pairs of crimson goggles flickered—glowing with a hungry red gleam—only to vanish an instant later, as if nothing had been there at all.
"Reporting in, Legion Commander. Infiltration successful."
"Yes. Understood. Proceed to the residence of that xeno woman known as Malys. Secure the STC of the Panacea—at all costs. Prevent them from acting in desperation and destroying it. The relic Her Majesty desires must not suffer even the slightest damage. Even if we must slaughter every last Eldar in existence, it would not atone for its loss."
"For Selene."
The transmission ended, and silence reclaimed the shadows.
No one knew how much time had passed before a voice finally broke the stillness.
"Grand Commander, when do we move? According to the memories of the captured tongue..." The sound of flesh being shredded echoed. "...the headquarters of the Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue has been confirmed."
"No rush. We'll strike from multiple fronts... we need a suitable external trigger. Ah, and here it comes."
Rolling thunder reverberated through the fortress walls, echoing within the hollowed veil above.
It was the sound of artillery fire.
"Commence the operation."
"For Selene!" ×N
...
"So this is your trick, then?! No... you will not prevail—! Finality!"
—
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