Destroying the altars was no simple feat. A steady stream of Nurgle's daemons surged from the rifts, and while the Plaguebearers and Poxwalkers weren't individually elite, their sheer numbers were overwhelming. The only bottleneck preventing the Swarm from being pushed back entirely was the physical diameter of the portals themselves. Had they been as wide as the sub-dimensional rifts above Holy Terra, the tide might have turned.
Despite the pressure, the Swarm held its ground, keeping the daemons suppressed at the threshold of reality.
"They are monsters!" one of the Plaguebearers gurgled in frustration. "There is no end to them!"
He had barely finished his complaint when a Mutalisk dove from the toxic clouds. Its massive tail-maw snatched the daemon's upper torso, dragging him screaming into the air. High above, other Mutalisks rained down Glave Wurms, slicing through the daemonic ranks with surgical precision.
"How can you lose when Mutalisks are riding on your face?" the Overmind mused. "I don't even know how to lose with an advantage like this."
However, the opposition was evolving. It wasn't just daemons anymore; veteran Chaos Space Marines from the Death Guard warbands began to emerge, bringing heavy fire support that put immense pressure on the Zerg front lines. The constant thud of bolt shells made it difficult for the Zerglings to breach the inner sanctum, forcing them to wait for the brief windows when the traitors had to reload.
Among them was a Death Guard Champion, a towering titan of rot over three meters tall. He wore ancient, pitted Power Armor from ten millennia ago, and he wielded a massive, rusted scythe that reaped the lives of the Swarm like wheat. His footsteps were so heavy that any Zergling caught beneath them was crushed instantly. Even a Roach's thick carapace only slowed his blade; the sickle tore through chitin and flesh by sheer, putrid force.
"I offer your pathetic souls as a sacrifice to the All-Loving Father, you wretched beasts!" the Champion bellowed.
The Overmind simply smiled in the dark of the hive mind.
"Offering up souls? Look at you, old man. You've been fighting for ten thousand years and you still haven't realized the Swarm has no soul to give."
After hacking through several dozen units, the Champion finally sensed the void. Usually, his sorcerous scythe would drink the essence of the slain to empower him, but here, he felt nothing but a cold, biological vacuum. Furthermore, the Warp energy in the vicinity wasn't rising with the slaughter; it was actually being dampened by the "Shadow in the Warp" cast by the Hive Mind.
"No... these creatures... they are empty," the Champion realized, his voice trailing off.
"That's right, dear," the Overmind mocked silently.
The Champion's rotting brain finally connected the dots. "I know these things. They are the xenos from the 'Zerg' reports. But why are they here? This system is a third of the galaxy away from their known reach!"
"The altar! Their target is the altar!" another daemon shrieked.
The Nurgle forces near the primary rift were being backed into a corner. They watched in horror as specialized Zerg units began to dissolve the stone foundations of the portal with concentrated acid.
"They want to sever the connection to the Immaterium! They are shutting the door!"
"Quickly! Inform Lord Rotigus! We need the Rainmaker's support!"
With physical strength alone, the daemons were being suppressed. But as they screamed for reinforcements, several Sorcerers of Nurgle emerged from the rift. Clad in tattered, filth-slicked cloaks and clutching staves of gnarled wood, they began a rhythmic, wet chanting.
Instantly, a dark, oppressive cloud of tiny flies swarmed above the battlefield. Even the Zerg felt a wave of nausea—not a psychological one, but a visceral reaction as their immune systems detected a localized breach of reality.
"The First Plague," the Sorcerers whispered.
Millions of plague flies burrowed into the Zerglings. They filled mouths, nostrils, and spiracles, beginning a parasitic war inside the Zerg organisms. The flies laid eggs that hatched in a matter of seconds.
Abathur watched with clinical interest. "Spiritual influence detected. Biological laws bypassed."
Indeed, this was no ordinary bacteria; it was Warp-plague. In a human, the larvae would have burst forth in seconds. The Zerg immune system fought back heroically, buying the Zerglings a few minutes of agonizing life, but eventually, the maggots would erupt from their skin, transforming into even more plague flies to infect the next wave.
"Trying to give me a hard time, are we? Hehehe... send in the Defilers!"
Several Defilers (Scorpions) were airdropped into the fray. As soon as they landed, they exhaled a thick, orange cloud of Dark Swarm and Plague-Mist. The plague flies that flew into the mist fell like rain, their tiny nervous systems fried instantly. From the Defiler's carapace, a swarm of nano-scale Zerg organisms emerged, engaging the flies in a microscopic dogfight.
When the Defilers ran low on energy, they simply leaned down, consumed a nearby Zergling for biomass, and resumed spraying the black fog. The fly threat was neutralized in minutes.
"You think that's enough to stop me?"
But Nurgle's gifts never come one at a time.
"The Second Plague," the Sorcerers croaked. "The Bone-Shaker Plague."
The Zerglings at the front lines suddenly began to mutate uncontrollably. Their own chitinous carapaces started proliferating into jagged, needle-like growths. Their skeletal structures expanded at a violent speed, piercing through their own skin and internal organs from the inside out. Thousands of Zerglings were impaled by their own bones, a tragic and grotesque display of biological betrayal.
The Overmind could hear the high-pitched, jarring giggles of the Nurglings surrounding the Sorcerers.
"Oh, you want to play with the skeleton? Pfft, you really want to mess with the master of evolution?!"