The hour for the assault on the Abyssal Hatchery was at hand.
Cassius sat within the gut of the Land Raider, his power armor's magnetic locks engaging with a sharp hydraulic hiss. Through the reinforced view-ports, he watched the landscape of District 8's lower levels—the sector now designated as a "Maximum-Threat Zone."
A massive, duct-like opening, resembling the throat of some subterranean titan, was visible in the distance. It was choked with pulsating organic growths; purple mucus flowed across its surface like stagnant blood in a network of veins.
As the deep rumble of the engine vibrated through the cabin, Cassius felt a momentary, uncharacteristic disorientation. For three hundred years, the Iron Creed had functioned as a "thought-stamp," forging his mind into a singular instrument of logic and cold iron. But lately, those seals had begun to loosen.
Memories—fragments that should have been crushed, purged, and forgotten—were rising like air bubbles from a scuttled ship, defying the crushing pressure of his mental discipline.
The images unfolded with unsettling clarity.
He remembered the Trusburg Monastery, a sanctuary carved from an abandoned mining cluster. It served as a primary recruitment pool for the Sons of Medusa. Like many born to the deep hives, Cassius's parents had been claimed by a mining accident. By the age of nine, he was an inmate of the local orphanage.
Though possessed of a frame and reaction speed that dwarfed his peers, Cassius had been a dull, taciturn child, lacking the predatory spark needed to fight for scraps. He was on the verge of starvation when Alyssa appeared.
She took him in—or rather, Cassius simply followed in her wake. Alyssa was two years his senior and declared that Cassius would be her "younger brother." He had simply nodded. Alyssa was not tall, but she possessed a fierce, burning determination that allowed her to claw the best rations from the stronger children. She shared her spoils generously with her "followers," Cassius chief among them.
The mineral-worm paste had been wretched, yet Cassius remembered enjoying it then.
"Sergeant, we have arrived!"
A battle-brother's voice through the vox-channel snapped Cassius back to the present. His tactical display flickered with external camera feeds. The Land Raider had breached the core of the Hatchery.
The air outside was thick with a cloying, fishy sweetness and the sharp tang of bio-acid, scents that managed to seep even through the vehicle's high-grade filtration systems. In the gloom, massive, writhing shadows shifted, accompanied by the dry, rhythmic clicking of chitinous plates.
The hive had sensed the intruders.
"Very good," Cassius replied, his voice a brief rasp.
He wore his modified Terminator plate, a hulking silhouette of emerald and steel. As the assault ramp hissed open, he was the first to step onto the floor. The ground was carpeted in a fungal mat of slime and spores—warm and yielding, like the interior of a living lung.
The moment his boots struck the biomass, the silence broke.
"Hiss!!!"
The darkness erupted. Countless scarlet compound eyes ignited in the shadows like embers in a gale. A tide of chitin and blade-limbs—Hormagaunts, Termagants, and scuttling rippers—burst from every pipe, crack, and cyst. They surged toward the steel-clad squad like a flood of teeth.
The battle reached its zenith in a single heartbeat.
While Cassius engaged the swarm, Raynor was miles away in a derelict industrial plant in District 7.
Raynor kicked open a rusted iron door, his chainsword revving in a low, hungry snarl. Behind him stood five hundred fully armed members of the Enforcers. Most were veterans of the Iron Anvil Society, now outfitted in uniform guard gear that lent them a formidable, professional air. Further back was a ragged mass of five hundred hive-dregs, armed with homemade scrap-shunts and clubs, their eyes wide with a cocktail of fanaticism and fear.
"For the Emperor!" Raynor roared.
His voice echoed through the vaulted factory. It was a habit he had cultivated carefully; in the Warhammer universe, it paid to shout the right slogans. If the "Golden Bastard" on the Throne happened to glance toward Necromunda, Raynor wanted to be heard on the right side of the war.
The shout triggered a thunderous response.
"For Lord Raynor!"
The fervor in the crowd's reply nearly drowned out the disciplined response of the Enforcers. Raynor's lip twitched at the unintended worship, but he quickly steeled his features into a mask of grim resolve.
In the center of the factory, the floor had been cleared. Fifty cultists, dressed in rags but painted with blasphemous red runes, surrounded a makeshift altar of scrap and human bone. Dark, twisting energy coalesced above the sacrifice, accompanied by a chorus of whispers that promised nothing but hunger and rage.
The ritual was at its climax.
Before the altar stood a towering figure. His skin was an abnormal, bruised red; muscles and veins writhed beneath the surface like trapped worms. He wore the iconic "rabbit-ear" headgear of a Khorne Berzerker and wielded twin blood-stained logging axes.
Raynor recognized him instantly. He was a pure devotee of the Blood God—the very same Guard Captain who had been presented as a choice by the System alongside the "Mechanic Nun" and the "Insect Unit."
The System tags flashed in Raynor's memory: #Hot-Blooded Idiot#, #Muscle Worship#, #Irritable#.
What a coincidence, Raynor thought, a sense of absurdity washing over him. He had chosen the Tyranids when the system offered the three options; he hadn't expected to cross paths with the runner-up so soon.
The Khorne follower spotted Raynor, his simple mind ignited by the singular desire for slaughter.
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!" he roared, clashing his axes together in a shower of sparks before charging. He saw Raynor not as a man, but as "Glorious Prey."
"Charge! Destroy the altar!" Raynor commanded, throwing himself into the fray.
Chainsword met logging axe with a violent, ear-piercing scream of metal. The impact sent a numb shock up Raynor's arm; the cultist's strength was far beyond human limits. However, Raynor's own physique had been bolstered by his recent trials.
The two locked in a frantic duel. The cultist fought with a wild, berserk fury, ignoring all defense in favor of relentless, heavy strikes intended to cleave through armor and bone alike. Raynor, more flexible, used his chainsword to parry and deflect, circling his opponent to find a gap in the frenzied assault.
He noticed the cultist's style was painfully predictable.
"Is that all you've got, you heretical filth?" Raynor taunted, deliberately stoking the heretic's rage. "Is this how the Blood God teaches you to hack and slash? Like a madman in a kitchen?"