The East Thoria Hive Sector was a labyrinthine sprawl of cyclopean iron architecture. Its staggering population density acted as a tinderbox for the Warp-spawned contagion brought by the Death Guard: the Gellerpox.
This malefic plague of the Immaterium did not merely rot flesh; it infected the very iron of the Hive, fusing metal and meat into a convulsing, twisted synthesis. The resulting monstrosities, half-daemonic puppets of Nurgle, proliferated like a tidal wave through the lower spires.
To stem the necrotizing tide, the Adepta Sororitas and the Astra Militarum cordoned off the entire district, their heavy flamers carving a perimeter of Promethium fire.
The Death Guard looked upon these primitive containment efforts with utter disdain. Yet, before they could launch a counter-assault, a new host of uninvited guests tore through the tumultuous skies.
Corrupted Drop Pods streaked downward like blackened meteors, slamming into the plazas of rusted iron and viscid fungal growths where the Nurgle-born horrors dwelled.
CLANG—!
A heavy, ceramite-clad boot kicked a hatch door flying. A massive hand, encased in scarred power armor, reached out to seize a Gellerpox mutant, a creature more nauseating than any common zombie. With a casual flex of transhuman strength, the warrior crushed the mutant's skull like a fragile bladder.
"Filth... must be... Purified!"
The voice was a low, guttural rasp, sounding as though ten thousand maggots were crawling through the speaker's larynx. The warriors emerging from the pods were undeniably Space Marines, but their moss-green plate was encrusted with necrotic polyps and swarmed by buzzing plague-flies. They bore no allegiance to the Golden Throne. These were the Purge, fellow scions of Grandfather Nurgle.
Yet, a bitter theological schism divided the two factions. While the Death Guard sought to share the Grandfather's "blessings" with the galaxy, hoping to see the Imperial populace embrace the cycle of rot and rebirth, the Purge desired only one thing: to cleanse the universe through total extinction.
To the Purge, these shambling Nurgle-wights were an affront. Upon planetfall, they unsheathed corrupted chainswords and barked fire from their bolters, systematically slaughtering their theoretical allies in a frenzy of genocidal hatred.
"No—stop them! These cursed heretics!"
A Chaos Champion of the Death Guard warband watched in apoplectic fury as the Gellerpox he had painstakingly cultivated was rapidly incinerated by his own 'allies.'
"Slay them all!"
Abandoning their assault on the Imperial lines, the Death Guard pivoted their rot-heavy heavy weapons to annihilate the Purge. To the Death Guard, watching the Purge burn their contagion was akin to a farmer watching a year's hard labor in the fields be put to the torch just before the harvest.
Thus, two warbands of Astartes devoted to the same Dark God fell upon one another in a spectacle of unrestrained, mutual slaughter.
For the Imperium, this infighting was a miraculous reprieve. Marneus Calgar issued the order to abandon the East Thoria Hive Sector entirely, using the chaos to burn a scorched-earth firebreak and consolidate defenses.
The sector became a sealed tomb of fire and rot. However, in the deepest sub-levels, beneath layers of fungal blooms and warp-mutilated flesh, something else was stirring in the lightless gutters.
From the reeking sewers crawled Xenos entities that seemed perfectly adapted to this hellscape. These rat-men, draped in filthy burlap, were covered in weeping pustules and parasites. Their fur had long since fallen out in patches due to chronic sickness, leaving skin as mottled and revolting as a toad's hide.
"Hehehe—YES-YES! Wondrous sickness! It shall be... a gift! A boon from the Great Horned Rat to Clan Pestilens!"
The rat-men of Clan Pestilens were all raving zealots. Unlike other clans, they lacked the rigid castes of Slave Rats or Stormvermin; they were organized by a dark religious hierarchy of Plague Monks, Censer Bearers, and Plague Lords. This fanaticism granted them a tenacity far beyond that of the common Skaven.
"Drag them away! All-all of them!"
The Gellerpox wights soon took notice of these creatures, beings that looked so similar to themselves, yet felt fundamentally different. The wights, sensing the mange and rot on the Skaven, initially mistook them for kin.
Clan Pestilens did not share the sentiment. The green-clad Plague Monks erupted in a manic, chattering shriek—"AYEEE-YEEEE!"—and fell upon the mutants with rusted plague-blades.
The severed limbs and twitching torsos of the Gellerpox infected were dragged back into the darkness of the sewers. Without doubt, these "specimens" would serve as cheap fodder for the horrific experiments of the lower-ranking Plague Priests.
Soon, the infected Imperial citizens of East Thoria began to coalesce into a massive, mindless horde, clashing with the swarms of fanatical Plague Monks in a war of filth against rot.
…
Simultaneously, the Imperium realized the Skaven Xenos had launched a massive offensive across multiple fronts.
Astra Militarum regiments and Battle Sisters stood like iron nails in their trenches, supported by the stoic warriors of the Imperial Fists, the masters of siegecraft.
"Fire!"
At the command, dozens of artillery batteries unleashed a symphony of death. Hundreds of Basilisks roared, their shells blooming into miniature mushroom clouds of fire within the churning "Skaven-tide." Each high-explosive impact reduced hundreds of rat-men to a red slurry.
Yet, the Skaven did not falter. They surged forward over the mounds of their own dead. As reports from other sectors arrived, the Imperial Fists Captain realized this was no isolated skirmish. The entire Dirge Mast sub-sector was being plagued by Skaven incursions.
"Are these Xenos suicidal?" the Captain mused, watching the mindless charge.
The Imperials could not have known that this was a grand diversion. While Clan Rictus drew their fire, Clan Pestilens was busy harvesting the Death Guard's viral strains in the heart of East Thoria.
"Yes-yes... slimy, rusty... wondrous pathological traits!"
A Plague Priest stepped into a clearing held by the Skaven. This creature, no less vile than a Champion of Nurgle, prodded a pulsating mass of warp-germs with his filthy claws. He poked and prodded the dying, diseased humans with a clinical, yet sickening, fascination.
However, amidst the density of the combat, the Skaven's blatant "theft" of the plagues was finally noticed by the two warring Astartes factions.
"Xenos—DIE!!"
A Death Guard Lord of Contagion, flanked by six Deathshroud Terminators and scores of Plague Marines, tore through the Skaven lines like a landslide, annihilating those who dared steal their "research."
The Lord of Contagion noticed something impossible: these Xenos possessed an unnatural resilience to their contagions. It wasn't that they resisted the viruses; rather, the viruses seemed to coexist instantly with their already-rotting physiologies.
"How? The Grandfather's gifts... why do they...?" The Lord of Contagion was perplexed, but his hatred for the Xenos outweighed his curiosity. He led his elite guard on a relentless path of slaughter toward the Skaven center.
Finally, he laid eyes on the master of this infestation. Surrounded by a circle of Plague Priests and Censer Bearers chanting to the Great Horned Rat, a hooded Skaven was meticulously vivisecting a captured Space Marine.
"Xenos! You shall perish!"
The Lord of Contagion roared, charging forward. But in the next heartbeat, the lead Skaven raised a withered paw. A massive Pestilent Breath, a tide of liquefied rot, vomit, and excrement, erupted forth, engulfing the Terminators in a foul, supernatural sludge.
Even the mighty Indomitus-pattern plate of the Terminators ground to a halt, the joints gummed by the sorcerous filth.
"Lord, we are... we are bound! Xenos sorcery!"
"Good-fine things! They belong to Skrolk now-now!" Skrolk, Arch-Plague Lord of Clan Pestilens, hissed with supreme satisfaction as he eyed his new, uninvited test subjects.
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