On the edge of the Orpheus Sector, on a desolate planet named "Vesalius," a hellish scene was unfolding. This had once been an Imperial mining world; now, it was draped in blood and despair.
Countless fallen mortals, their faces twisted and eyes glittering with a fanatical, morbid light, held rusted autoguns and crude melee weapons. They roared and lashed out, forcing more of their terrified compatriots toward a vast, bloody altar.
The altar was constructed from mountains of stacked corpses and recently severed heads. Blood flowed from it like small streams, gathering into a steaming pool of gore. The air was thick with the scent of iron rust, sweat, and fear, mixed with the desperate wails of mortals and the excited shrieks of the fallen—a macabre symphony.
Those pushed onto the altar reacted in different ways: some cried for mercy, some were numb with shock, and others resisted in vain, only to be ruthlessly cut down by the heretics. Their flesh and souls were to be fodder for Chaos.
Not far away, atop a massive mining tower pitted with corrosion, several Chaos Space Marines clad in twisted power armor looked down upon the scene. Their armor was covered in blasphemous runes and sharp barbs, appearing exceptionally sinister in the dim light.
"Look at these worms, how pitiful yet delicious," laughed a Chaos Space Marine holding a chainaxe, a pair of twisted demonic horns protruding from his helmet. His voice was a raspy growl.
"That fool Calgar... did he really think he could protect everyone on Amarah Prime?" another fallen marine said in a hollow tone. "When that sector suddenly went mad, mobilizing troops on a massive scale and leaving countless planets besides Amarah Prime in a state of anarchy, we knew it was an opportunity granted by our Master."
As it turned out, they were right. The planet originally had very few garrisons, and after the Governor's orders were issued, they were emptied out entirely. The Chaos Space Marines had easily crushed the non-existent resistance. Vesalius—the entire planet—was now under their control.
"We were nervous for a while, worried those loyalist lapdogs would interfere, which even delayed the progress of the ritual slightly," the marine mocked. "And the result? That old dog Calgar only dares to cower on Amarah Prime like a coward."
"Now, unless someone drops an Exterminatus on this planet immediately, no one can stop this ritual." The warband's Sorcerer and actual leader, Karak the Soul Reaper, stood at the very front of the tower. Clad in ornate yet eerie robes and clutching a staff, his voice carried a sense of malicious delight. His gaze swept over the bloody altar below; the wails, agony, flesh, and souls of billions of mortals would serve as his medium to commune with the Warp.
At that moment, Karak looked up at the sky.
The sky of Vesalius was no longer its usual murky grey. Because of the immense energy from the supernova explosion of the Twin Suns, the skies of every planet in the Orpheus Sector were covered in beautiful, shifting auroras of gold and silver. The light was unpredictable and dreamlike, yet it carried the destructive power of the deepest reaches of the cosmos. It danced across the heavens as if the veil of the Immaterium had been torn asunder, revealing the kaleidoscopic essence of Chaos behind it.
The Sorcerer Karak broke into a twisted, ecstatic grin—a smile more horrifying than the hellish landscape beneath him.
"These Twin Suns are so explosive! Even better than a Webway explosion!" His voice became shrill and excited, like a demon's whisper. "With such intense psychic fluctuations, the veil between the Immaterium and the material universe has been greatly weakened! Our ritual's success rate has skyrocketed!"
He raised his staff high. The crimson light emanating from the eyes of the skull mounted on the staff's head mirrored the auroras in the sky.
"When the time comes, we, blessed and protected by the Dark Gods, will become the masters of the entire Orpheus Sector—no, far more than that!" Ambition burned in Karak's eyes. He began to imagine himself sacrificing the entire sector to gain the favor of the Dark Gods, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Despoiler, Abaddon himself. In this moment, he felt as though he had touched the authority of a god; the entire galaxy would grovel at his feet.
Just as Karak was immersed in his endless fantasies of the future, the dreamlike gold and silver auroras in the sky suddenly dimmed and then vanished completely. The sky of Vesalius instantly returned to its original dead, grey silence, as if all the previous magnificence had been a false phantom.
Karak's heart sank. An inexplicable sense of unease coiled around his mind like a venomous snake. His twisted psyche instinctively sensed something was wrong, but he quickly suppressed the feeling.
"Hmph, pointless worry," he muttered to himself, trying to find comfort. "Calculating the time, it's been over thirty Terran days since the Twin Suns exploded. It's normal for the energy fluctuations to level off and the auroras to disappear."
However, no sooner had he comforted himself than the grey sky changed once more.
This time, green auroras began to appear. Unlike the majestic gold and silver that had covered the entire sky, these green auroras were far more precise. They didn't spread out; instead, they were several straight, narrow bands of light that sliced through the night sky like razors. They carried a heart-stopping coldness, as if a frigid will were staring down at the planet.
Karak's smile froze on his face. The more he looked, the more unsettled he became. Why did those green streaks of light look like they were heading straight for them? Their speed was unbelievable, and their trajectory seemed pointed directly at the largest gathering point on the planet—the very altar and tower where they stood!
He would never have the chance to figure it out.
Before Karak could let out a roar of warning, the green auroras reached the atmosphere. These were anti-matter bombs carried by Necron bombers. Under precise calculations, they fell from the heavens, shrieking as they tore through the air, plunging toward the Chaos-tainted planet.
BOOM!
A soul-shattering roar erupted over Vesalius. With absolute destructive power, the anti-matter bombs instantaneously vaporized everything they touched.
A blinding, white light swallowed the tower, the altar, and billions of lives—whether they were the fallen or the victims, Chaos Space Marines or their Sorcerer. The light was so pure, an ultimate destruction that no flesh could withstand and no metal could survive.
Following the light was a shockwave that swept across the entire planet. The earth trembled, mountains shattered, and magma spewed from deep underground. The air was sucked away, creating a vacuum before being refilled by ultra-high-temperature plasma.
When everything settled into silence, Vesalius—the planet once tainted by Chaos and filled with wails—was unrecognizable. The cursed mining tower was gone, the bloody altar was gone, and countless mortals and arrogant Chaos Space Marines had been reduced to nothingness.
The surface had been plowed over, leaving only molten rock, bottomless craters, and a silent, thoroughly purified wasteland. It had become "clean" again—so clean it was as if life and sin had never existed there.
As a price, this planet, thoroughly cleansed by anti-matter bombs, was permanently knocked three centimeters off its original orbital path by the terrifying force of the impact.