"Apologies for the interruption, my lord. Have you concluded your discourse with the gladiator? He is scheduled for redeployment in the arena."
As the two brothers finalized their decision, the cybernetically enhanced guide stepped into the chamber, her glowing ocular implants scanning the room. Her servo-jointed movements were near-silent, save for the faint hiss of pressurized hydraulics and the soft whir of internal servos compensating for age and wear.
She barely finished speaking before Grot raised his gauntleted hand.
A pinpoint blast of scatter-laser fire erupted from his wrist.
A superheated lance of crimson energy punched clean through the center of her torso.
The attendant convulsed as flesh, ceramite plating, and augmetic ribwork vaporized, collapsing in on themselves. The air filled with the acrid stench of scorched meat and synthetic polymers, as her body slumped in a twitching heap, nothing more than a pile of charred ruin.
Without a word, Grot reached back, unseating his grav-hammer. With a casual, almost dismissive flick, he hurled it toward Heavy Hammer.
Heavy Hammer caught it in his servo-clamped pincer with an audible metallic clank, his mechanical grip tightening around the haft. His plated armor groaned as he shifted his massive weight, the weapon barely registering against his immense frame.
Grot stepped forward, his power armor humming with murderous energy.
Behind him, Heavy Hammer followed, the dull glow of his optics fixed ahead, his every motion the embodiment of pent-up fury, violence waiting to be unleashed.
....
Outside, the ferrocrete walls shuddered with the sound of approaching boots.
The arena enforcers had already registered the weapon discharge.
They were ready.
Dozens of enforcers stood in formation, las-carbines raised and primed to fire.
Their armor bore the sigils of the Coliseum Watch, and their visors flickered with targeting data.
A commanding voice broke the tension like glass.
"OPEN FIRE!"
The hallway detonated in a maelstrom of las-bolts and muzzle flashes.
Searing beams of concentrated energy sliced through the corridor, carving blackened craters into the walls. The very air buzzed with the scent of ozone and burning metal.
But Grot did not slow down.
He marched forward, his shoulder-mounted cannon glowing white-hot, ready to unleash death.
With a roar of discharge, the weapon opened fire.
The narrow corridor became a slaughterhouse.
Enforcers were atomized, their flak armor offering no protection. Bolts of burning energy tore through bone, flesh, and hope alike, reducing men to heaps of liquefied gore and scorched armor fragments.
Some barely managed to scream before they were reduced to smoking shadows of themselves, limbs twitching in death.
The metallic tang of scorched blood and burning fat filled the air.
The guards' final screams were lost in the roar of weapons fire and death.
....
A new wave of enforcers surged forth from an adjacent corridor.
Only for Heavy Hammer to charge forward, roaring.
"FOR THE CHAMPION OF BLOOD!"
His servo-driven pincer spun, twirling the grav-hammer into a cyclone of carnage.
The first wave didn't stand a chance.
They were obliterated; skulls caved in, torsos turned to pulp, armor shredded like paper beneath the hammer's crushing force.
Some were hurled like ragdolls into the walls, bones shattering audibly on impact, while others were simply reduced to unrecognizable chunks of ruined flesh, a spray of arterial blood painting the ferrocrete in chaotic arcs.
Grot lifted his armored gauntlet toward his brother.
"You want to use this?" he asked, offering to detach a modular weapon mount embedded in his gauntlet.
Heavy Hammer scoffed, shaking his head. "I do not need weapons for the weak."
With a disdainful grunt, he dropped the grav-hammer, letting it clatter to the blood-slick ferrocrete floor.
Instead, he searched among the corpses, his pincer arm dragging through the ruined flesh.
Finally, he found it.
A massive, two-handed war axe, its steel edge dented and rusted from years of slaughter.
A weapon favored by Underhive pit-fighters, brutal and uncaring.
He hefted it, rolling his shoulders as he tested the weight.
Then he grinned, feral and mad, teeth flashing beneath a face smeared with blood.
"Perfect."
....
More guards arrived, but this time, one of them towered over the rest.
A slab of gene-bulked muscle, over 2.3 meters tall, with shoulders like riot shields and fists the size of servo-skulls.
An Ogryn.
A genetically divergent offshoot of humanity, Ogryn are the descendants of those abandoned to the crushing gravity and harsh conditions of high-G worlds.
Their ancestors, once normal humans, evolved into massive, muscle-bound warriors through generations of adaptation. Their bones became denser, their skin rougher, and their intellects, well, simpler.
The Ogryn scratched his scar-pocked, oversized skull, lips twitching as primitive neurons struggled to form words.
"Ogryn... gonna... gonna... SMASH!"
And he charged.
The colossal brute barreled forward, his gargantuan fists raised.
A moving wall of raw, unstoppable destruction.
Even Grot, clad in Thunderborn power armor, felt a rare instinctive unease.
But Heavy Hammer did not yield.
He bellowed his own war cry, lifted his axe, and sprinted forward.
They collided like siege engines, the impact shaking the corridor. Flesh, augmetics, and armor slammed together in an earth-shattering impact.
The Ogryn's sheer weight sent Heavy Hammer hurtling backward, his armored frame slamming into the steel wall with a sickening crunch.
His newly installed augmetic arm was torn clean from its socket, sparks and dark arterial blood spraying in all directions.
But Heavy Hammer only laughed.
His face twisted into an ecstatic snarl.
"FOR THE CHAMPION OF BLOOD!"
....
Grot raised his cannon, lining up a killing shot.
But his brother rushed back into the fight, blocking the firing angle.
"Damn it!" Grot cursed, then charged in himself.
The Ogryn swung, his fist like a wrecking ball, crashing into Heavy Hammer's metal-plated skull.
Bone cracked. Armor dented.
And yet, Heavy Hammer grinned as he took the blow head-on.
He hacked into the Ogryn's arm, his axe biting deep.
The Ogryn howled, but retaliated.
A second punch connected.
Another rib shattered.
Still, Heavy Hammer kept swinging.
Blow after blow landed.
Until the Ogryn made a fatal mistake.
He raised both fists, preparing to bring them down like a sledgehammer.
At that moment, Grot struck.
His grav-hammer smashed into the Ogryn's knee, sending shockwaves of kinetic force through its mutant frame.
The Ogryn stumbled.
And Heavy Hammer seized the opportunity.
He leapt high, raising his axe.
And buried it in the Ogryn's skull.
The blow split bone like timber, and the Ogryn's massive corpse crumpled.
Its head separated from its body, rolling across the blood-slicked floor.
Heavy Hammer lifted it high, his face streaked with crimson, roaring:
"GLORY TO THE CHAMPION OF BLOOD!"
The remaining enforcers hesitated, their nerve breaking.
Then they broke ranks and ran.
Heavy Hammer sprinted after them, his metallic limbs clanking.
Though he was slower than the fleeing enforcers, his rage never waned.
Some shoved their comrades down, hoping to slow their own deaths.
Heavy Hammer gladly obliged.
Every fallen body was hacked apart before he resumed pursuit.
....
The chase led them out of the tunnels, straight into the open coliseum.
The guards scattered.
But Heavy Hammer no longer cared.
Instead he turned toward the center of the arena, where two gladiators fought.
They had been locked in a fierce duel, but neither was prepared for what happened next.
Heavy Hammer charged into them, his war axe flashing.
They barely had time to react, before their heads were severed in a single brutal swing.
The audience fell silent.
Hundreds of wealthy nobles, gang lords, and corrupt officials sat in stunned horror.
Then Heavy Hammer raised his axe, drenched in fresh blood, and shouted.
〈"PRAISE BE TO THE CHAMPION OF BLOOD!"〉
His voice was like the roar of a predator in the deep void, raw and deafening. As he lifted his gore-drenched weapon high, something small and unassuming slipped from his belt.
It tumbled through the blood-slicked air and landed upright in the widening crimson pool at his feet.
A tiny brass effigy of the Champion of Blood himself.
The assembled crowd, men and women who had gorged themselves on excess, who had thought themselves untouchable, stared, transfixed by the unholy idol.
A few gasped, clutching at their pendants of the Imperial Creed or whispering hurried prayers to the God-Emperor.
To some, the statue's mouth appeared to curl into a grin.
To others, the fresh blood of the slain seemed to flow unnaturally, creeping toward its feet as if drawn by some unseen force.
Seconds later, a shriek split the silence.
The spell was broken. Panic spread like wildfire.
....
Nobles shoved past each other, trampling the weak.
A woman in an embroidered dress of gold and lapis screamed as she was thrown to the ground, her silken garb torn and soiled beneath the trampling mob.
A merchant-lord, bloated with years of excess, was crushed under the weight of panicked bodies, his pleas lost in the chaos.
And in the eye of this chaos, Heavy Hammer grinned.
His massive frame heaved with exhilaration. He turned his gaze toward the stands, toward the fleeing cattle, his mind consumed with but a single thought: more blood.
He lunged forward, eager to continue his bloody worship.
But before he could ascend the steps, a new line of enforcers poured into the arena.
"Enough."
Grot stepped forward, trying to stop the madness.
"Let me handle this."
But Heavy Hammer no longer listened.
He rammed into Grot, forcing him back.
His eyes burned with madness.
His axe gleamed in the crimson light.
And with a feral snarl, he declared his intent:
"IN THE NAME OF THE CHAMPION OF BLOOD, I PROCLAIM YOUR DEATH!"