"FIGHT!"
Heavy Hammer roared, his war axe slamming into the ground, sending shockwaves through the blood-slick stone, spiderweb cracks radiating from the impact point like a shattered mirror.
"FOR THE CHAMPION OF BLOOD!"
"FOR THE CHAMPION OF BLOOD!"
His heretic mob howled in unison, their twisted, grotesquely mutated bodies glistening under the hive's flickering crimson lights, coated in a reeking mix of sweat, grime, and corrupted warp-ichor.
Their war cries echoed through rusted hab-units, reverberating like the howls of daemons, as they charged the Thunderborns with maddened fervor.
But Heavy Hammer ignored them.
He knew, instinctively and with unwavering certainty, only he could kill Grey, the leader of the Thunderborns.
His half-destroyed cybernetic torso should have rendered him crippled, a walking corpse held together by wires, heresy, and sheer rage.
But an unseen force filled the gaps in his broken flesh with pulsing, warp-born energy.
His movements grew sharper, faster and his body surged with unnatural strength.
He felt stronger than ever before. Unstoppable. Invincible.
A thousand battle plans flashed through his mind like mad whispers.
〈...Slide under Grey's guard. Cleave his knee. Cripple him… Smash his chest, knock him off balance, then go for the decapitation...〉
But ultimately, there was only one goal for him.
Grey's severed head, mounted on his banner.
Heavy Hammer lunged, his war axe howling through the air, aimed straight for Grey's helmet.
But just as the blade neared its mark, a shimmer of distortion bent the air, Grey activated his personal gravity shield.
A split second later, Heavy Hammer and his war axe were instantly crushed into a grotesque smear: bone, metal, and armor flattened into a molten, twitching paste.
A single red smear was all that remained.
Grey didn't even flinch.
Over the vox, he spoke: "Why can't we activate the gravity shield a second earlier, right after teleportation? I could've squashed him the moment I arrived."
Qin Mo's voice crackled in response.
"Do you even understand the interference levels teleportation causes? Be grateful your armor didn't shut down completely."
"Understood."
Grey turned away from the remains, stepping over them without a glance, his boots crunching bone and ceramite.
And joined the others in the slaughter.
....
The remaining cultists, only thirty survivors, knew they would die.
But they charged anyway.
"FOR THE CHAMPION!"
The four Thunderborns stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall of gleaming gold and matte black ceramite, their silhouettes haloed in flickering plasma glare.
Their arm-mounted scatter-lasers and shoulder-mounted plasma cannons hummed to life, targeting systems locking on with surgical precision.
Then they fired.
A hailstorm of destruction, fifty shells per second, tore through the cultists.
Plasma bolts vaporized flesh and scrap armor alike, detonating mutated torsos in bursts of gore and fire.
The slums themselves were reshaped into molten wreckage and cratered ruin.
By the time the barrage ceased, nothing living remained.
Grey let out a quiet chuckle.
"Perhaps they should have worshipped the Champion of Firepower instead."
Anruida scoffed.
"Hah∼! No kidding. For a 'god of war,' the Champion of Blood sure is stingy. Didn't even give them proper weapons!"
As they laughed, in a half-collapsed ruin, a trembling man clutched a second, smaller idol of the Champion of Blood.
His lips moved in frantic whispers, his eyes rolled back in ecstasy.
Grey's voice turned cold.
"Standard sweep protocol."
Without hesitation, Anruida scanned the area.
His sensors locked onto the cultist's heat signature.
His plasma cannon swiveled.
A beam of searing energy lanced through the rubble, erasing both the cultist and his idol in a flash of white-blue light.
Ash drifted where he once knelt.
"Target eliminated. Mission complete."
....
Meanwhile…
Qin Mo turned away from the carnage in the slums, shifting his focus to the Grand Cathedral of Tyrone Hive.
Through his drone network, he observed Yoan's approach.
The Pariah had teleported outside the structure, his form almost indistinguishable from the soot-stained ruins around him, blending into the gloom of the Lower Hive's smog-choked skyline.
"Find the breach point. Enter undetected." Qin Mo instructed.
Yoan's eyes scanned the towering cathedral walls, and he found it.
A cracked section of stone, left by millennia of neglect, glowed in his retinal display.
"Breach point confirmed."
Qin Mo's voice remained steady.
"Good. Proceed. Quietly."
Qin Mo activated the pendant he had gifted to Yoan.
Through it, he twisted reality.
The ancient wall liquefied, its structure bending like molten wax.
Yoan stepped through the shifting stone and into the shadows of the confessional booth.
Behind him, the wall solidified seamlessly, as if nothing had ever changed.
For a moment, he knelt.
Yoan whispered a silent prayer, praising the divine power that had just altered reality before his eyes.
Then, he broke off a fragment of the wall and placed it in his pack.
"For my wife."
Qin Mo's voice cut in.
"Wait. Now is not the time to strike."
....
Through his cloaked drones, Qin Mo observed the congregation inside the cathedral.
Deacon-Primaris David stood before hundreds of faithful worshippers, delivering his sermon.
"The God-Emperor is the Master of Humanity! Deny His light, and you deny salvation!"
The congregation erupted in applause.
Then David raised his arms, his voice twisting into something… unnatural.
"The God-Emperor is not only the Master of Humanity. He is the Lord of Knowledge and Wisdom! The Keeper of Secrets!"
For a moment, the congregation fell silent.
Even the mind-wiped servitors stuttered and froze mid-routine.
Something about those words...
Felt wrong. Ancient. Alien.
A title not of the Imperial Creed.
Even the most fanatical zealots hesitated.
Qin Mo grinned, recording the sermon for future use.
"Well, that confirms it. David is definitely a pawn of Tzeentch."
An entity of the Warp, a creature of lies made flesh, worshipped by seekers of forbidden knowledge, destiny, and damnation.
The guard captain flinched, stepping forward immediately.
"Cease your speech, Deacon."
David staggered, suddenly dazed.
"I-I've been feeling unwell… I wasn't thinking clearly…"
"That is no excuse."
The guard captain leaned in close, voice low.
"Talon I is not yet ours. Choose your words carefully."
David nodded weakly, but his unease only worsened.
Even his personal bodyguard stiffened, as if sensing an unseen force.
Then his Jarlcat suddenly bolted toward him, leaping into his arms, its fur bristling.
The creature trembled violently, eyes wide with primal terror.
David's blood ran cold.
Something was very, very wrong.
He turned.
And ran.
He barely managed two steps before his legs gave out.
He collapsed onto the stone floor.
His Jarlcat shrieked as it was crushed beneath him.
"M-My Lord of Wisdom… Save me…"
David clutched his chest, his body writhing in spasm.
His pupils dilated grotesquely, until no white remained.
His Jarlcat let out a final, choked cry.
And fell still.
....
"...Should I strike now?"
Yoan asked, hidden among the rafters above the confessional's shadows.
Qin Mo smirked.
"No need. Your job is done."
David had died on his own.
Or rather, David had died because of Yoan's presence.
As a Pariah, Yoan's null-aura severed Tzeentch's hold, unraveling the warp-thread coiled through David's soul.
David was old, likely kept alive only through Archotech implants and the dark gifts of the Changer of Ways.
Yoan's mere presence snuffing the warp-flame in David's soul like a Culexus Assassin's gaze.
"Did I just… kill him?"
Yoan breathed, clutching his pendant.
"Yes. Now return."
With a single button press, Yoan vanished.
The Imperium's judgment was complete.
"Another mission, completed today," Qin Mo mused.
"I truly am blessed by the Machine Spirits."