The dread drum-beat of shuddering stone echoed from beneath the library's foundations. Aurelius lowered his spear, his footsteps echoing in the chamber like hammers striking cold bronze.
He faced the warband leader—a massive Chaos Space Marine armor-streaked with glowing runes, his warhammer crackling in his grasp. Behind him, the fanglike maw of the excavation yawned, and ancient script writ in blood darkened the chamber walls. Whatever lay below was already stirring—not yet risen, but waiting.
Observation hummed at the edges of Aurelius's reverie, like a million whispers just past hearing. He had never pushed it this far—mapping hostile intent, reading the echoes of purpose in the broken veins of the stone itself. He could feel the thing beyond the dig, crawling out of its slumber. Its want was simple. It wanted to wake.
He inhaled, lungs cold. Beneath his armor, enhanced sinew and distended ligaments promised more time, more endurance than any mortal. He could run this body far beyond what men could sustain.
But this would stretch him like never before.
The warhammer came down. Metal shrieked.
Aurelius ducked inside the arc, guiding the blow into his auramite shoulder plate, where Armament offered more than ceramite ever could. Sparks flowered, and he rocked forward, shoulder-first into the Marine's midsection. The blackness under his fist bloomed, and the warrior's helm snapped back.
Still, the Marine didn't fall. He spun and let loose a bellow that shook the shards of masonry from the ceiling—but the Conqueror's Haki that burned out of Aurelius's chest was not a roar. It was a gravity that bent the soldier's certainty, knocking at his mind like a stone on a door. The Marine staggered. Just enough.
Aurelius leapt forward, opened his Observation, and saw everything at once: strobing drill-motors far below, the first cell of awakened enemy intent cracking, the warband's honor guard poised in the tunnels behind.
He forced the world into a narrowing shot: the hammer, the gap in the Marine's guard, his own breathing, the spear's edge, the blade's angle. He stepped in to that gap, letting Armament bloom outwards from his fist.
The blow struck the Marine's shoulder. A hollow crack sounded. The helm spasmed.
Aurelius followed with a thrust—the spear driving out from below, carving a crimson line through ceramite and sinew.
More footsteps thundered from the deeper tunnels. The far-off rumbling dripped down into the chamber. The something beneath had heard the sparks of metal and mind collision—heard the threat.
Aurelius felt it. In the red-burning radius of his Haki, he felt denial of warp-touch, a voiceeroding silence where daemonic echoes broke.
He took a breath too fast and let his Conqueror's Haki tighten again—not like a push, but a shield that pressed outward, denying the pulsating Rift-light in the air around him. The warband's honor guard lunged into the chamber—terror in their eyes, only one word unspoken: stop it.
Even they could feel it: the anchor in gold.
Aurelius pivoted, opening his Obs outward in a thin wave—hope, not fear, trailing behind it. The honor guard went to their knees. One of them crumpled, another dropped his bolter, unresisting.
The rumbling ceased. The pit beyond that had hinted at unspeakable things went silent. The cables that snaked down into it uncoiled, lifeless.
Aurelius staggered, chest tight. His vision tunneled. He felt exhaustion buoyed by something older than the body: the vows carved in auramite, the hammer of the Emperor's will.
Varian and Malcor stumbled in behind him, weapons braced, breath ragged. They looked at the warband leader's corpse, and then at their Shield-Brother—gold dulled by dust, dark lines under the visor—alive, standing in the stillness.
No one spoke. They did not need to. The enemy had been driven back. The city beneath them would not die today.
Aurelius braced with one gauntleted hand against the chamber wall, tasting copper on his tongue. The world felt too close, too bright—as if the warp had responded and recoiled from him in the same heartbeat.
He steadied himself.
"This ends now," he said, voice low. "Shut the pit. Seal it."
Varian nodded.
Malcor stared at Aurelius in a way that said, we followed your will, not the Throne's, but somehow that had mattered just as much.