All at once, the flames of the Hellgate turned wild.
Then came a frenzy of bestial roars and a melody of pure destruction.
Those sound-elements, steeped in violence, slaughter, and ruin, wove themselves together into a Song of Hell.
It made a killing urge rise from the depths of the heart, a craving to tear the enemy apart.
"Lost lambs, we are about to witness a great descent…"
The blood-reaver priest felt the destructive malice straining at the threshold, and his voice grew ever more ragged.
They were about to receive Diablo's grace, to welcome the emissary of destruction the god had sent, and finally gain the strength they had longed for.
Thud, thud, thud!
Giant feet wreathed in dark-red flame stomped out of the Hellgate, each heavy step making the ground shudder.
Even the metal beneath those feet softened and began to melt.
It was a dark-red Chaos behemoth, or, more precisely, a heavily corrupted, heavily armoured Chaos Dreadnought.
"I will bring… destruction!!!"
He threw back his head and roared.
Dark-gold, esoteric runes crawled across his frame. His daemon-horns speared upward, his claws were cruelly hooked, and a pair of bony wings, blazing with dark-red fire, spread from his back.
He was like some great beast straight out of the Pit.
At a glance, anyone might mistake him for a full-blown Greater Daemon of the Warp.
His presence was crushing.
"Diablo's emissary has descended. Such irresistible destructive power… what a terrifying being!"
The blood-reaver priest gazed up at the seven- or eight-metre-tall infernal Chaos Dreadnought and felt how small and insignificant he was, and how overwhelmingly mighty the other was by comparison.
The infernal servant of the Terror Legion had arrived, and in the instant he appeared he cowed the entire ritual ground.
The cultists dropped to their knees in fanatic frenzy, offering their worship to Diablo and his emissary of destruction.
In truth, this infernal being had once been just a regular Chaos Dreadnought, no different from the engines of other Chaos forces.
He had even been missing a mechanical arm, half-crippled by any reasonable measure.
But after joining the Terror Legion, he had fought with savage courage, and he had borrowed like there was no tomorrow, taking out one blood-point loan after another.
In this way, he had secured vast quantities of warp-power on credit, and more equipment, slowly armouring himself piece by piece.
Everything from his armour plating and power systems to his warp-claws and blazing daemon-wings had basically been bought on credit.
He still had nearly a millennium of instalments to pay off.
But he had become mighty enough that he could stand on par with a mid-ranking Greater Daemon, somewhere around five-hundredth place among the myriad Chaos monstrosities.
A pure credit-fuelled, equipment-stacked, pay-to-win killing machine.
In the galaxy and the Warp, that was an astonishing rise.
From one perspective, these infernal engines were Diablo's equivalent of Greater Daemons, unit types that embodied his concept and his might.
They were the fully-enchanted, pay-to-win "Greater Daemon" line: all kinds of frames, all kinds of builds, all about being strong, brazen, and as flashy as possible.
Clank, clank, clank—
Once the emissary of destruction, the infernal Chaos behemoth, had stepped clear of the Hellgate, the cultists realised he was still wrapped in thick chains.
Chains as thick as a man's arm stretched back into the gate, pulled taut as if dragging something immensely heavy on the far side.
No one knew what.
The cultists maintained their poses of worship and stared in rapture at the gate, waiting for what was to come.
Behind the infernal engine, rank after rank of Terror warriors marched forth.
The runes, ornaments, and warpaint scrawled across their armour made each of them look more daemonic than the daemons themselves.
"What… is that?!"
With the screech of tearing metal, the cultists finally saw what the chains were hauling.
It was a long, rectangular mechanical construct wrapped in dark-red warp-power and faintly glowing.
They stared at it, confusion turning into wild joy.
That was the destructive might they had prayed for, the power that could make them strong.
The infernal engine was towing what was essentially a container-sized weapons rack, like hauling an entire Titan train behind him.
The rack was packed to bursting with weapons and wargear.
Those weapons were engraved with runes and shimmered with warp-light.
Whether or not they were actually strong, they looked incredibly chaotic and incredibly evil at first glance.
Yes. Everything they saw now was the power the cultists had summoned from Diablo.
Normally, mortals could at best call down some monstrosity or a daemonic war-host from the Chaos Gods. Diablo, however, played by different rules.
He not only sent a powerful Terror Legion contingent, he also had them drag out a whole Titan train of Chaos wargear, personally escorted by a Greater-Daemon-equivalent unit.
Guns, heavy artillery, crewed Chaos engines, you name it, all laid out for them to indulge in war.
That was what you called extravagant.
A Diablo summoning ritual was buy-one-get-one-free: you got an army, and the equipment delivery on top.
Unlike the other stingy Chaos Gods, he did not plug the warp-power gaps with the lives of the summoners.
When the other gods' Greater Daemons and daemon armies came through, they usually butchered the very mortals who had provided the power.
That neatly avoided having to pay out any "remaining blessing balance" to their worshippers.
Look at how petty they were.
Eden could not stand that.
As far as he was concerned, a Warp god ought to provide proper service. Only then could you build a good reputation and poach more believers.
Once the Terror Legion force and the Chaos wargear had rolled out, that still wasn't the end of it.
The Hellgate then projected a final surge of power that further reinforced the cultists' flesh and wills.
They were made stronger, more capable of handling Chaos wargear, and ready to unleash greater devastation.
This was Eden's special blessing through his dark aspect, Diablo: a full, satisfying warp-bonus, an unprecedented final payout of warp "tail money."
If the blood-points granted to Chaos warriors were big loans, like mortgages and car loans, then the blessings given to mortal cultists were microloans and consumer credit.
It pushed the utilisation rate of dark-side warp-power even higher.
The cultists gained warp-strength; in return, they offered yet more loyalty and returns.
The infernal engine tore free the thick chains from his frame and beat his blazing daemon-wings, whipping up a gale as he surged into the air.
A supposedly lumbering, heavy Chaos Dreadnought just took off and flew, agile as could be.
If other Chaos Dreadnoughts or Imperial Dreadnoughts ever saw this, they might weep tears of envy.
The infernal engine slammed down atop a chapel roof.
His massive weight made the ceiling groan and collapse section by section, while his sharp bone-blades sliced through the dome like paper.
"Arm yourselves!"
The infernal monster looked down at the sea of cultists stretching to the horizon and roared his order.
They were to arm themselves to the teeth and shed blood in the name of Diablo the Destroyer, the Lord of Terror.
He had paid heavily for the chance to join this war, and he had to pile up enough destruction to earn more blood-point warp-credit.
The cultists surged toward the Titan-train weapons rack, cheering as they pulled down weapons and armour forged of steel, bone, and concentrated warp-power.
These were products of the Black Mechanicus' forge worlds under the Terror Legion, mass-produced Chaos wargear specifically meant for mortal cultists.
High performance, high value.
After this series of moves, Eden's dark aspect, Diablo, had assembled an army made up of Greater-Daemon-tier engines, Terror warriors, and hordes of Chaos cultists.
It was nearly on par with the Chaos legions the Chaos Gods themselves had paid dearly to send, and it was much better stocked with wargear.
They were itching for a war.
"Emperor, we're done for.
This world is going to be trampled into nothing by Chaos, and we have no way to save it!"
In the upper hive's planetary palace, the planetary governor sat on his throne, increasingly anxious.
He had just received intelligence from his subordinates: the cultists inside the hive had summoned a Chaos army, complete with what appeared to be a Greater Daemon-class monstrosity.
"My lord, the cultists have conjured up a Chaos abomination, and they have acquired a vast amount of wargear.
If they launch a full assault on the upper hive, our current defensive lines cannot possibly hold.
Without Imperial reinforcements, we will not last even three days.
Everyone will be ground to dust beneath the iron hooves of the Chaos host!"
The court chamberlain's voice grew sharper with fear.
He watched the governor hopefully, wishing for good news, especially any news about Imperial troop movements.
The governor was from a noble house of Terra, and possessed special channels for contacting the Imperium's forces.
The chamberlain firmly believed that neither the governor's family, nor the Imperial military, nor the Emperor's Angels would lightly abandon a scion of ancient Terran blood.
The reality, however, was disappointing. From the governor's eyes, he saw helplessness and despair.
Could it be…?
"I'm afraid there will be no reinforcements.
None of my pleas for aid have received any reply.
There is no sign of an Imperial fleet inbound.
Which means we must face all of this alone."
The governor slowly shook his head.
His voice grew more heated, and even his usual poise slipped.
"Those people are overwhelmed with their own problems.
They've abandoned us outright, and pulled the army away to other fronts!"
It was a terrifying revelation.
In the pecking order of the Vostonia Pan-Sector, and in the eyes of those who ruled it, this world had clearly been marked as expendable, something that could be sacrificed.
In other words, they had been thrown away.
They had lost any real hope of Imperial support, and all that remained for them was destruction.
The chamberlain stumbled and nearly collapsed.
"By the Throne… have we no way at all to preserve even the last spark of life on this planet?"
Over the past few months, as the darkness advanced, mining sites and cities had fallen one after another.
It had taken enormous effort to pull the last of the population back into the world's lone hive, then use its fortifications to hold off the Chaos onslaught while they awaited Imperial relief.
Now, it seemed, that had been no more than a delusion.
"Prepare for battle.
I'm going to the front lines. I will fight alongside our soldiers."
At some point, the governor had risen from his throne and straightened his shoulders.
His expression was resolute.
There was no room for argument.
Beneath his ornate robes, the outlines of muscles could just be made out.
Over the years, he had not allowed himself to sink entirely into power and pleasure, neglecting his own body.
At least, not completely.
Facing life and death, this noble of Terra's blood finally remembered his family's oath.
Everything his house possessed had been won on battlefields, and their lives, too, ought to be given back to the battlefield, repaying the Emperor's grace.
The governor and his kin had once sworn, following ancient tradition, that they would not shirk any responsibility, that they would, when necessary, die on the field of battle instead of turning their backs and perishing in some decadent palace.
If they broke that oath, their souls would be denied shelter, and their house would lose the honour and credit it had accumulated over ten thousand years.
Soon, the governor donned armour inlaid with the bones of his forebears and found it just a little too tight.
He had put on quite a bit of weight, it seemed, but at least he still managed to squeeze into it.
Once he was armoured, the governor headed for the upper hive's defensive walls under the escort of his bodyguard.
This was the most heavily fortified part of the hive and the key chokepoint leading into the upper hive. If it fell, everything would be over.
No one on the world would survive the butcher's work of the heretics and abominations.
As soon as he reached the battlements, the governor smelled a thick reek of blood and burning.
His heart lurched.
Something was very wrong.
When he clambered down from the shuttle and actually looked, however, he saw that the defensive line itself was intact, and there were no bodies of Imperial soldiers piled around.
"How is the line? What's happened?"
He was completely at a loss and demanded an explanation from the nearest commander.
The man seemed to be in a state of profound shock.
It took him a few seconds to come back to himself, then he snapped to attention.
"Governor, sir, you… you had better see for yourself."
The commander's voice trembled slightly as he pointed beyond the walls, toward the area where the Chaos host had been massing and attacking.
"By the Emperor… what in the world…"
The governor and his retinue of guards looked where he pointed and saw only corpses, piled into mountains.
They were the bodies of Chaos monstrosities and cultists, all mangled beyond belief, as if they had been slaughtered with deliberate, vicious cruelty.
More importantly, there was no way their own forces could have done this.
Some other power had slaughtered the Chaos host that had been besieging them.
"My lord, it was the followers of another god who did it.
Di… Diablo. They call that being the Lord of Terror."
The commander finally found his words and reported what had happened earlier.
At the time, they had been locked in a desperate defence against the cultists and the Chaos hordes.
The line was on the brink.
Several trenchlines had already been overrun, and some Chaos monstrosities had reached the walls.
Then the worshippers of that other god, the Lord of Terror, had suddenly appeared.
Their firepower and armoured engines were so terrifying that the defenders' hearts sank on the spot.
But to their astonishment, these followers of the Lord of Terror had not attacked the walls at all.
Instead, they had hurled themselves straight at the other cultists' host.
With a horrifying offensive, they had shredded the Chaos abominations.
"The Lord of Terror's followers were unbelievable.
Especially that monstrous giant wreathed in dark-red flame.
He stomped a Chaos spawn to death in a single step!"
The commander shivered visibly at the memory.
"I swear, my lord, if that thing had charged our walls, we would never have stopped it.
The strange part is… they never made a move on us.
After they wiped out the Chaos host, they pulled back toward the outer districts…"
Soon after, scouts brought back the latest reports.
The Lord of Terror's army seemed to have annihilated the Chaos beasts and cultists on the upper hive's far side as well.
They were now moving further out, drawing farther and farther away from the hive's core.
The commander offered a suggestion:
"Perhaps we should send out a crack team to shadow and monitor those abominations.
They're too dangerous to ignore."
"No.
No tracking. No monitoring of any kind."
The governor shook his head.
He rejected the proposal outright.
"That is a power of evil far beyond what we can match.
We must not collide with it in any way, nor try to touch it.
We cannot risk provoking them.
Any attempt to grasp, manipulate, or surveil a power and an existence beyond our own limits is sheer folly.
In our situation, we must not try to track or watch them.
We must instead conceal ourselves as much as possible, avoid attracting attention,
and keep them from taking an interest in us."
He clapped the commander on the shoulder.
"We'll pour everything into reinforcing these walls.
After that, we leave the rest to fate.
Pray those things never take an interest in us."
His meaning could not have been clearer.
They would minimise their presence and cling on as long as they could.
"Heh. Maybe we could even try praying to that Lord of Terror from who-knows-where.
Ask that bastard to spare us a little."
The governor shrugged, squeezing out a dry joke under the pressure, and the surroundings fell silent.
He immediately realised how heretical that sounded and shut his mouth.
If the Imperial Cult's priests and their churches had not already been wiped out in the Chaos invasion, he would have landed himself in serious trouble.
Even with the wall secure for the moment, the governor and his people were still pale.
Destruction might descend at any time, and they had no means to stop it.
All they could do was pray that it did not.
What they did not know was that the Terror Legion had no interest in purely human targets.
Humans were fragile and corrupting to kill; deliberately butchering them would lower their god's favour.
Vmm—
A broad energy beam swept along the ground.
"Destruction.
Come, try my newest toy!"
The infernal engine fired a beam of molten energy from his chest.
It carved a searing scar across the earth and burned away all life in its path.
This was a relic-class melta weapon he had installed, with a blood-point loan term of two hundred and fifty years.
The infernal heavy Dreadnought was like a walking fortress, the perfect union of flesh, warp, and machinery.
After that, the infernal engine melted a gap in the steel curtain-wall around the hive's outer ring, then led the Terror warriors and cultists through and out.
The fog beyond was filled with white-hot blood-points, and not a single one could be wasted.
They would scour the entire world of its enemies and revel in a feast of destruction.
And not just this one mining world.
Similar scenes were playing out on many other planets across the Vostonia Pan-Sector.
"This run really is perfect…"
Eden tallied up his haul of Chaos cultists and grew bolder still.
By using Diablo's dark authority to steal worshippers, then guiding them to butcher the Chaos forces of other gods, he was upsetting the Chaos Gods' deployments.
At the same time, he was strengthening his own faith-base and influence in this pan-sector.
Gradually, Eden realised Diablo's god-shadow was beginning to appear in the void deep within Vostonia, looming over the region just like the Chaos Gods did.
By sheer weight of belief, he had truly joined the game.
—
Kaliste Prime, royal capital, the final fortress.
Blazing beams and artillery-fire filled almost every inch of sky and ground.
Smoke had thickened into a wall.
Roars and explosions drowned out all other sounds.
The land beyond the fortress was cratered and shattered, vast swathes of earth caved in, and tides of daemons crashed against the defences like an endless tsunami.
A brutal defence was underway.
The Dark Angels, the Imperial Guard, and the Extinction Engines were all fighting to hold back more and more Chaos foes.
Daemon packs had smashed through the walls and toppled Extinction Engines whose guns had been pouring out lethal beams just moments earlier.
That section of the line had fallen completely.
"Defence failure.
Initiate self-destruct protocol…"
The Extinction Engine's optical lenses flashed red.
A second later, there was a blinding white flash and a huge explosion.
A towering mushroom cloud rose over the position.
The hateful machine died together with the daemons around it.
"Damn it, another position lost!"
The Primarch of the First Legion, the Lion, watched the mushroom cloud rise at the edge of his vision and felt his heart twist.
Those hated machines were such precious relics.
Every one destroyed was one fewer to fight with, and it meant the line would have to shrink yet again.
His situation was growing worse by the moment.
The Lion's high-grade golden armour, modelled after the Savior's, was battered and scarred.
A savage claw-mark now ran across his chest.
Earlier, while executing a Greater Daemon, he had been ambushed and struck.
Fortunately, the wound had not gone too deep.
The Lion hesitated, then looked toward the Librarian beside him.
Quietly, he asked, "Librarian, have your visions shown you when the Savior and the Imperial host will arrive?"
With their communications cut off, the only way they could glean any information was by divination.
The plan to use the forest gates for travel had already failed.
The daemons had burned every plant they could find.
He did not even have a tree left to duck into.
If the Imperium's reinforcements did not arrive soon, he and the Dark Angels would simply be beaten to death under the daemonic tide.
Then, the next moment, the Lion heard the Librarian's trembling voice.
"By the Emperor… what terrible power.
I see utter destruction.
The end of all things…"
The Librarian stared into the void, as if he had seen something unspeakable.
"A fifth shadow in the Warp.
Could that be… the fifth Chaos God foretold in the prophecies?"
"The fifth Chaos God?!"
The Lion's heart clenched at the words.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 500 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]