Ulysses looked up the sky, the sun was blinding, a shimmering heat haze began to block his view. The air shed out its last lingering coolness from the day before.
He then muttered, "It's only just late-morning? We sure do have a long day ahead of us."
"Data is limited," Philos responded. "Relying on visual input—calculating. You are correct."
Amidst the chaos, two bodies and three heads moved steadily across the battlefield. They kept a careful rhythm—pausing every few paces so Philos could collect new geometry data.
Ulysses led the way, his heavy boots crunching on scorched earth, the cylindrical tank containing Philos bobbed slightly on his back.
Sister Aurora moved silently behind him, her gaze sweeping their surroundings, her hand instinctively resting on the hilt of her chainsword, even as her medicae kit jostled gently against her side.
Coincidentally, they ran into Renoir, commanding a detachment of Guardsmen mid-firefight.
"What are you three doing here?" Renoir asked after catching his breath—
—BANG BANG BANG!
He shot three horrors in quick succession, their bodies dissolving into plumes of blue smoke. He then turned back to Ulysses, his face grim with sweat and dust, he asked again,
"And what's up with the vox channel name? 'Machine-Priest's Head or something'?
And I though I was the only one with any sense of humor."
"That was....communication error," Philos answered through the vox grills of the tank, his voice flat and mechanical.
"Just call it MPHoS. We have more concerning matters," Ulysses brushed them off.
Then he explained.
"As you can see, these fiends finally changed their game. They are now tunneling. The three of us are trying to determine where the gate's end."
"You, Commissar, have another important job. While we are gathering new data, I want you to expose their tunnels. Promethium, Flak, Krak. I don't care, just disrupt them."
Renoir opened his mouth to reply, but Ulysses had already turned and moved on, Aurora falling into step beside him.
Philos in the tank had a long... long gaze with Renoir before they finally disappeared from Renoir's sight.
—
Renoir whispered to himself "I can't even get close, so how?"
Then he realized something. The heat haze.
"Get me a promethium drum." He ordered a guardsman.
"Yes, Commissar!" a Guardsman instantly snapped, his obedience absolute. He didn't hesitate, breaking into a sprint towards a fallen servitor not far off, its multi-limbed chassis splayed on the scorched earth, a bulky promethium drum still strapped securely to its back.
The Guardsman worked with a practiced urgency, carefully unbuckling the straps, the drum's metallic skin dull under the harsh sun.
He then strained, rolling the heavy cylinder across the uneven ground, its sluggish rotation kicking up dust and grit.
Renoir, observing his efficiency, merely extended a boot, bringing the drum to a firm halt beside him.
Renoir's gaze swept over the noxious blue miasma still clinging to the nearest fissures, a chilling reminder of the Warp's insidious touch.
Physical barriers alone wouldn't deter entities of pure chaos.
A grim resolve set in his features.
He whispered to himself, "I'll be damned, but I hope this works."
Then shouted a new order.
"Every purity seal you carry, sanctified oil, holy water. Give them to me."
Confused but unquestioning, the Guardsmen rummaged through their packs. Small, often worn, vials of sanctified water and oil, painstakingly blessed by Imperial priests, were produced.
Renoir took all of it and poured them into a fallen Guardsman's helm, his hands clumsy with haste, as he mixed the precious holy liquid with sand from the ground, creating a thick, gritty paste.
With this makeshift ink, Renoir muttered a verse that he knew off, then began to scrawl crude, yet potent, anti-daemon verses onto the drum's metallic surface – litanies of hatred against the Daemon and the Heretic, prayers for deliverance, defiant declarations of the Emperor's might.
Simultaneously, other Guardsmen, their brows furrowed in concentration, pressed every available purity seal onto the drum, securing them with wax, their whispered prayers adding to the drum's spiritual warding.
As the last seal was pressed, Renoir knelt, his movements precise amidst the grim preparations. He produced a coil of salvaged comms wire, tapping it against the drum's lid.
A quick, practiced motion, and the wire's stripped ends were securely attached to the drum's surface, rigged to a crude igniter of his own design.
He then connected the other end of the wire to a lasgun's battery, holding it ready.
The drum, now a grim vessel of both volatile fuel and unwavering faith, awaited its grim purpose. With a curt nod to his squad, Renoir readied himself to send it into the abyss.
"Roll it down that hole!" Renoir's voice, raw and strained, cut through the battlefield's distant roar and the closer hiss of the miasma.
The sanctified drum, now plastered with purity seals and emblazoned with the hastily scrawled anti-daemon verse, groaned under the Guardsmen's combined effort.
Its metal shell scraped against the ravaged earth, then plunged with a sickening THUD into the weeping maw of the nearest Warp tunnel.
The drum's bulk, surprisingly well-fitted, jammed itself into the fissure, and instantly, the swirling, sickly-blue miasma recoiled, momentarily thinning in front of them as if pushed back by the sheer, faith-imbued will of the Imperium.
A gasp of cleaner, though still hot and dusty, air filled their lungs for a precious second.
"Now, seal it with anything you can find." Renoir roared, his voice laced with desperate urgency, gesturing wildly with a lasgun in hand.
Without a moment's hesitation, the Guardsmen, their faces grimed with sweat and dust, scrambled.
They seized what scant cover and debris lay scattered in the immediate, blasted vicinity.
A mangled sheet of corrugated plasteel, likely used as cover from the sun in the trenches, was heaved forward and slammed against the opening.
Empty ration crates, splintered supply boxes, and chunks of vitrified rock – anything they could tear loose or lay hands on – were turned haphazardly into makeshift barrier.
Hands worked with frantic speed, their flesh prickling where the residual miasma still swirled, depositing their hastily gathered bulwark to contain the coming blast.
Out of carelessness, one of the Guardsmen's arms accidentally got exposed to the deadly miasma, he groaned as his arm was beginning to mutate.
Then—
BRRRVVVV!
a sound of revving chainsword, Renoir kicked the man down, knocked him unconscious with the pommel of his sword, stepped on the mutating arm, and with a quick, swift motion cut the arm before the mutation could spread any further.
He then looked coldly to the other Guardsmen then said,
"Get this man to the medical tent, now!"
Two of them nodded then carried their injured comrade away,
the remaining Guardsmen shoved anything they could find to fill the hole, swiftly and carefully.
Through the gaps, the wire, attached to the drum's crude ignition mechanism, stretched taut and vital, leading back to Renoir's position.
He held the other end, the salvaged lasgun battery warm in his palm, his gaze fixed on the crude, trembling barricade, the air thrumming with silent anticipation.
He inserted the magazine into the lasgun, them pulled the trigger.
—PEW!
A single, defiant burst of energy flew into the blinding sky. The lasgun's battery heated up, sending a jolt of electricity to the tapped wires on the lid of the promethium drum.
BOOM!
The ground beneath Renoir's boots reared up with a concussive shockwave that knocked the remaining Guardsmen off their feet, sending dust and debris momentarily airborne.
A deafening roar erupted from the earth, not the sharp crack of a krak grenade, but the deep, guttural thump of a contained explosion, followed immediately by a blinding geyser of orange and yellow fire that momentarily tore through the improvised barricade.
The sheet of plasteel buckled and warped, flung backward by the immense force, while the crates and rocks disintegrated into shrapnel.
A wave of searing heat washed over them, forcing Renoir and his men to instinctively shield their faces. More impressively, the sickly-blue Warp miasma that had clung to the opening was not merely pushed back;
it was violently consumed, flaring briefly with impossible blues and purples before being utterly incinerated by the purifying promethium blaze.
From the now-gaping, smoking hole in the earth, a deep, rumbling groan emanated – the sound of stressed rock and unholy reality buckling under the immense, contained inferno.
The ground around the rupture began to crackle and fissure, fresh cracks spiderwebbing outwards as the hidden tunnel system groaned in agony.
The air that was hazed by the artinian's heat, now mixed with the haze from the promethium, making the air visually thicker, overlaid with the lingering, almost sweet smell of vanquished Warp energy.
Renoir, back on his feet before his Guardsmen, looked at the chaos he had wrought.
His face was grim, but a flicker of satisfaction, cold and hard as adamantium, passed through his eyes.
The tunnel was burning, the fiends within were being purged. For now, the threat from this particular maw was dealt with.
This marked the first hole he conquered...many was yet to come in this very day.
—
A few hours later, Noon
BOOM!
A sound of muffled explosion far away, smoke could be seen up high.
"I think that was the seventh from Renoir, Seneschal,"
Sister Aurora spoke, her voice calm despite the ongoing violence, her gaze fixed on the rising plume.
"One more tunnel purified, how many did they manage to disrupt so far, Enginseer?" Ulysses asked, his pace never breaking.
"Thessia's reports say fourteen smaller tunnels sealed," Philos replied.
"As for Renoir, despite no direct vox contact, the scale of detonations suggests seven major breaches neutralized, as Sister Medicae said."
What had been little more than static-riddled geometry now filled with stark clarity—subterranean passages, burrowed corridors, and collapsed vents etched themselves across the holo-display inside Philos's tank.
"The pattern is emerging," Philos reported.
"Warp interference declining. Geometry projection: 73% complete. Tunnels align with a spiraling architecture. Intentional. Constructed, not random."
"So the daemon Thessia encountered in the house,"
Ulysses muttered, his gaze still fixed forward,
"it must be the mastermind then."
"How long do we need to walk, until the data is complete?" Ulysses asked.
Philos began, his flat, mechanical voice unwavering.
"We have mapped three quarters within 180 minutes, Calculating..., without any interference. We need around 70 more minutes to complete the new geometry dat—"
Before the Enginseer could finish, the ground beneath them bucked violently. This tremor was unlike the others, not a sharp jolt, but a deep, rolling convulsion that stretched on, longest than any tremors before.
Ulysses instinctively braced, his body swaying with the ground's tormented shudder, Aurora quickly supported Ulysses from behind, the direction he would fall and potentially damage the Enginseer.
Philos nodded in gratitude once the violent shaking subsided. The three of them let out a collective sigh, the tension easing.
"What now?" Ulysses muttered, the question more a statement of weary frustration than genuine inquiry.
Behind them, a massive silhouette appeared, showering all of them.
—
At the same time, near the medical tent.
The same thunderous tremor tore through the ground, sending vibrations up the frame of the Samaritan. Perched atop the vehicle, Sister Meredith felt the shift instantly.
This one was different.
Then—
Tentacles burst from the earth.
One struck a nearby servitor with terrifying speed, smashing it into scrap before it could react.
Meredith's eyes widened. No hesitation. She shouted,
"Servitors, attach yourselves to the frame of this vehicle—NOW!"
With a sharp motion, she slammed her fist against the Samaritan's hull.
—THUNK! THUNK!—
"Driver! Get us out—move!"
The engine roared to life, and the treads churned dirt into a storm behind them as the vehicle jolted forward.
The remaining servitors clamped their mechanical limbs to the Samaritan's armored sides.
Inside, Cilicia gripped a bulkhead, bracing herself against the jolt. Kochav lay still, sedated—unaware of the growing nightmare outside.
As the Samaritan sped away, tentacles continued to erupt from the ground, slicing upward, stabbing the air, phasing through terrain like projections of madness.
Meredith fired her bolter at one—
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—
The rounds punched clean through.
No effect.
The tentacles rippled in and out of being, each movement fracturing the air like heat mirage—but wrong.
Their very presence made the Samaritan's hull groan in protest, as though reality itself strained against the intrusion
Orange light flooded the interior of the Samaritan—sharp and blinding—as one of the phasing tentacles lunged for the hull, aiming to pierce straight through.
But—
THUMP!
A sudden pulse of force threw the tendril back, as if it had struck an invisible wall. The air inside the cabin hummed with psychic pressure, resonating deep in the bones.
A faint shimmer lingered where the tentacle had struck, and in the center of it—Kochav remained motionless on the stretcher, but now his body glowed faintly with that same orange light.
His eyes were still closed. He didn't move. But the barrier was his.
Instinctive and Protective.
Cilicia turned, staring in wide-eyed shock at the boy—
"Emperor preserve us…" she whispered.
Cilicia gripped the stretcher's edge, her eyes locked on the faintly glowing child. Her voice trembled—not with fear, but hope.
"Sister Meredith," she called over the roar of the engine and screeching treads,
"It's Ko. His power—it's active. I think he's trying to protect us."
Meredith's eyes fixed on the flickering tentacles outside, but she heard every word.
A pause.
"He could be the key to stopping whatever this is." Meredith whispered.
Behind them, the tendrils coiled in unnatural silence, tracking.
Whizz..
A crackling sound of incoming Vox-comms–
"What is going on over there, Meredith?" Thessia's voice came through, piercing Meredith's ears sharper than any weapons.
"We are being pursued by something, Sister Legatine" Meredith answered, unsteady.
"Unknown warp-entities resembling tentacles, physical weapons seemed to be doing no damage."
"However, Psychic is effective at warding the attacks." She finished speaking, before holding on to the vehicle's frame which was speeding.
"Psychic, Are you saying Ko is awake?, there is a greater risk than daemon if the boy is awake, Sister—"
Thessia got interrupted by Cilicia.
"No, Thessia. He's unconscious, the power is active, albeit passively."
There was a brief silence over the vox—just static and the low growl of the Samaritan's engine.
Then Thessia's voice returned, colder now, calculating.
"Affirmative."
"We are coming to you. Tell the driver to redirect westward—now." Thessia ordered.
Meredith tapped the side of the vehicle twice.
"Driver, adjust heading—west, immediately. Legatine's orders."
The Samaritan groaned as its treads ground against the scorched terrain, turning with a hard lurch that threw the attached servitors off balance for a moment.
Outside, the gleaming tentacles phased and twisted, weaving through the earth like spectral roots, relentlessly following.
BANG! BANG BANG BANG—
The sharp hammer of a bolter cut through the din. It was Thessia, moving eastward, laying down suppressive fire. Mutants and horrors dissolved into mist as her rounds tore through them.
"Reloading!" she shouted, her voice tight, before swinging her bolter sideways. The spent magazine clattered to the ground, and a fresh one slapped home in quick succession.
She scanned her surroundings, quickly assessing her remaining forces: Six Sisters of Battle, around twenty Guardsmen, and five Ogryns.
Her tactical mind immediately formulated a new directive.
"Lance, Willow. You stay here," she ordered, her voice cutting through the chaos.
"Help the Guardsmen fight off these fiends and destroy any ruptures sighted."
"Everyone else, come with me. I also need two Ogryns. You," she pointed decisively at a burly Ogryn whose slab-like shield was splattered with ichor,
"and you," her finger then jabbed towards another, equally formidable brute.
In moments, four Sisters of Battle and two Ogryns were chosen to accompany her.
"Yes, Sister Legatine!" Willow and Lance answered in unison, their faces grim but determined.
They nodded crisply to the remaining Guardsmen and Ogryns, then moved forward in the different direction, immediately engaging a fresh wave of chittering horrors that boiled from a newly opened fissure.
BANG. BANG!
Thessia's bolter roared as she advanced, each shot tearing into the twisted flesh of daemons surging through the cracks. Mists of blue ichor exploded with every hit, yet she didn't slow. Her boots pounded the ground, stride unbroken, squad at her back.
—THUMP. THUMP...
A pulsing psychic shockwave echoed in the Samaritan's cabin. Another tentacle struck—then recoiled, repelled by Kochav's barrier. The air rippled orange again. Still unconscious, the child didn't stir, but his presence burned like a second sun inside the transport.
BANG. BANG. BANG!
Thessia slammed a fresh magazine into place.
"Ogryns, with me!" she barked.
The ground cracked beneath their charge as two lumbering brutes flanked her, shields raised high, cleaving a path through the warped swarm.
—THUMP! THUMP!
Outside the Samaritan, three spectral tentacles lashed forward in unison, only to strike the unseen psychic field and ripple harmlessly aside. Sparks of warp-light cascaded off the invisible shield, dancing along the hull like will-o'-wisps.
Inside, Cilicia stared—torn between terror and worry.
"He's still protecting us..."
—BANG! CLICK.
Thessia's bolter emptied. No time to reload. She drew her chainsword.
—CRACK!
Another tentacle collided with the psychic shield—this time harder. The Samaritan rocked with the impact, metal groaning under unseen pressure.
Kochav's glow flared—briefly, brilliantly—then dimmed,stabilizing again.
But the shimmer in the air was thinner now. The barrier's pulse had lost its earlier strength.
Outside, the tentacles regrouped, twitching erratically—then split, multiplying. What were once individual lashes of warp-energy began weaving together, forming thicker limbs, more intricate patterns of unreality.
They phased in and out, like half-remembered nightmares trying to take form.
Inside the Samaritan, orange light flickered again—less steady, more frantic.
Cilicia shouted to Meredith, urgent now.
"He can't hold forever!"
And Meredith knew she was right.
It was only a matter of time before the daemons overwhelmed him.
THUD... THUD...
Each tentacle slammed harder than the last. One collided with the psychic barrier so forcefully that the Samaritan rocked sideways, treads skidding across scorched ground.
Kochav's glow surged—bright, searing, almost molten—and then dimmed again.
It was working. But only barely. Each strike chipped away at the shield's unseen edge.
Cilicia clutched the stretcher tighter.
Meredith raised her bolter again, though she knew it was futile.
And still the tentacles kept coming.
Then—
A voice.
"We're here!"
But it wasn't from the vox. It was in front of them.
The dust ahead parted in streaks of gold and flame.
There she stood—Sister Thessia, flanked by two towering Ogryns with slab-like shields, each covered in promethium.
Behind her, four Sisters of Battle advanced in a wedge formation, flamers primed and spitting small warning bursts toward the looming silhouettes beyond the haze.
In Thessia's left hand: the Hallowed Brazier, ancient and etched with sacred litanies, pulsing faintly like a beacon of divine wrath.
In her right: a flamer, pilot light licking at the air.
Without a word, she raised the nozzle—
—FWOOSH!—
and ignited the Brazier in a burst of holy flame.
The relic caught instantly, its flame burning not orange or red, but white-gold, dancing with purity. Warp-mist curled away from it, screaming.
Thessia nodded once to the driver, eyes unblinking.
The Samaritan pressed forward.
Then—
screeching brakes—the vehicle halted just before impact.
Thessia vaulted onto the roof, cape flaring, then dropped beside Meredith with a warrior's precision.
The Brazier rose. A burst of light flared outward.
The tentacles shrieked—a sound without a voice, without breath—recoiling, searing at the edges, their forms destabilizing under the radiance.
They lashed wide, trying to flank—
—but were met by the Ogryns, shields ablaze with Emperor's fire.
Around them, the Sisters spread out, their promethium streams weaving a sacred perimeter, cutting off every route of advance.
Meredith exhaled sharply, relief cracking through tension.
The tentacles writhed, shuddered, and finally—vanished.
Drawn back into the broken ground from which they came.
Retreating.
Only smoke remained—tinged violet, edged with gold. And silence.
The tentacles were gone. For now.
Thessia stood tall, the Hallowed Brazier still raised, flame dancing like a quiet hymn in the wind. She didn't lower it. Not yet.
Without looking, she spoke—her voice low, even, but firm with earned respect.
"Good work, Sister."
Meredith exhaled—sharp at first, then softer, like the tension had finally bled from her bones. She gave a faint, breathless laugh, somewhere between relief and exhaustion.
Then she eased down onto the Samaritan's roof, arms splayed, eyes skyward.
"Emperor… grant me a quick nap."
Before Meredith could close her eyes, Thessia's boot nudged—no, kicked—her shoulder with sharp precision.
"Your work is not yet done," she said flatly. "Order, Sister."
Meredith groaned, dragging one arm over her eyes like a petulant child.
"Remind me again why I didn't take a post on a shrine world…"
The sky above her shimmered. The angle of the sun had shifted—its harsh light now cast longer shadows.
It was finally afternoon.
—
Back to Ulysses's side.
They turned—slowly, instinctively—drawn by the weight of presence of the silhouette behind them.
There, towering over the broken terrain, stood a figure draped in shimmering sorcery and ruinous power.
Blue and gold. Armor impossibly ancient. Trimmed in arrogance.
A helm shaped like a jackal's snarl. Runes glowed across his warplate. Reality frayed at his edges. A walking paradox of silence and psychic malice.
"A Thousand Son…" Ulysses muttered. His voice barely more than breath.
"One of Magnus's traitorous spawn."
Even Aurora took a step back—hand tightening on her chainsword, not out of courage, but ritual defiance. And Philos, still bolted into the tank's armored case, said nothing.
The psychic bleed around the figure answered all questions.
Aurora's fingers moved in blur—one, two, three, no—four frag grenades unpinned and hurled with a shout of holy defiance.
"Ave Imperator!"
The explosives arced through the air, clattering at the Astartes' feet. The Thousand Son didn't flinch.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
The detonations were deafening—dirt and stone shredded, a wash of smoke clouded the world in gray.
And then—
CRACK.
The ground beneath them buckled.
Warp-touched earth, already undermined by the gnawing of daemonic tunnels, gave way with a groan of shattering rock and snapping rebar.
Ulysses and Aurora plunged into the darkness—cut off mid-breath, swallowed by the collapsing crust.
As the world inverted, Ulysses twisted mid-air.
With practiced reflex, he reached over his shoulder and unlatched the straps securing Philos's tank. The heavy cylinder came loose—and he pulled it against his chest, curling around it.
Debris rained past him. A chunk of rebar whistled close. Wind roared in his ears.
BOOM!
A jagged beam slammed into the cavern floor below.
THUD—
Ulysses landed hard, skidding through shattered earth and warped steel. Pain shot through his ribs like lightning—but the tank, gripped tight in his arms, remained intact.
He coughed through the choking dust, vision swimming.
Nearby, Aurora crashed into a slope of collapsed plasteel, her shoulder taking the brunt. She hissed in pain but rose, blood trailing from one cheek.
Overhead, dim light filtered through the ruined ceiling—warped and flickering.
Twisted vines, thick with warp-born luminescence, hung from the shattered dome above. Leaves shimmered in iridescent hues—green laced with veins of gold, pulsing faintly like breathing skin. The air stank of ozone, rot, and chemical decay.
They had landed in the greenhouse.
The subterranean sanctuary Cilicia had built—once a refuge of life. Now, overgrown with unnatural flora. Twisted. Claimed.
And above them, the sorcerer descended—like prophecy made flesh.