After nearly thirty minutes of frantic, continuous firing, the barrels of the five heavy self-propelled artillery guns finally lowered slowly.
The tips of the barrels glowed cherry-red. Waves of heat radiated from the metal surfaces, and the air was thick with the pungent stench of cordite.
It was the distinct smell of plast-explosives mixed with the specialized psychic stabilizers burning off the 160mm high-explosive shells, courtesy of the Order of the Omnissian Mind.
Every single high-explosive shell carried a warhead laced with psychic-stabilizing agents and psy-suppressant dust.
The goal was to use the Imperium's fire of order to violently neutralize and suppress the foul disturbances of the Warp.
"Lord Kaspar, artillery data summary compiled."
Inside the command vehicle, the adjutant—whose face was half metal plating—spoke as a stream of data scrolled rapidly across his monocle display:
"Five Basilisk heavy self-propelled artillery guns fired approximately 250 standard-charge high-explosive shells, 30 cluster munitions, and 20 incendiary shells."
"Ammunition depletion rate: 87%."
"Barrel degradation: Average remaining lifespan is less than 200 rounds per barrel."
"Coverage area: The entirety of Redblaze Wasteland Industrial Sector No. 3 and a surrounding two-kilometer buffer zone."
"Theoretical lethality: Exceeds 99% against unarmored biological targets."
Kaspar Aru stood atop the roof of the vehicle. The red light of his cybernetic eye scanned the smoke-shrouded area ahead at a frequency of fifty times per second.
On the mechanical right half of his face, the metal muscles simulated the standard smile of a Consortium executive.
"Excellent."
His voice, processed through the synthesizer, carried the steady hum of precision machinery operating smoothly:
"To exterminate pests, one must use the most efficient disinfectant."
"Armored Squadrons 1 and 2, advance. Sentinel Walker Clades, guard the flanks."
"Infantry Battalions, move in and sweep the ashes."
"Before noon, I want to see the banners of the Consortium planted all over this land—planted directly into the corpses of those traitors and heretics."
The orders were given.
The river of steel surged forward once more.
Thirteen Leman Russ tanks formed a standard wedge formation. Their treads crushed the still-steaming earth that had just been plowed by artillery as they slowly advanced toward the core of the industrial zone.
Fourteen Sentinel walkers deployed on either flank of the tank cluster. Their sensor arrays operated at maximum capacity, scanning every suspicious shadow.
Over six thousand Aru infantrymen advanced in three-man skirmish lines. The muzzles of their lasguns pointed vigilantly at every corner that might conceal an enemy.
In the tactical helmet comms channels, soldiers conversed in low voices:
"Squad 3, west side ruins cleared. No signs of life."
"Squad 7, discovered rebel heavy bolter wreckage on the east side. Gunner's body... uh, mostly in pieces."
"Psyker Detachment reporting: Regional Warp readings remain anomalous. Recommending..."
"Recommending my ass."
Kaspar coldly cut off the Psyker's channel. "It is perfectly normal to have Warp disturbances after an artillery barrage. It's just residual energy."
He had absolute confidence in his forces' equipment.
What did the firepower of a Basilisk mean?
The lethal radius of a single standard high-explosive shell was fifty meters.
Over three hundred shells in a saturation bombardment.
Forget about flesh and blood; even steel vehicles should be pounded into scrap-metal pancakes right now.
Those rebels? Those Chaos cultists?
Those... bizarre weirdos?
Hmph.
Before the steel and fire of the Consortium, they were all just too weak.
–
The smoke and dust gradually cleared.
The first thing that came into view was the completely altered terrain.
The once-towering cooling towers of the refinery and the surrounding structures were gone.
In their place was a massive crater over a hundred meters in diameter. The bottom of the crater was piled with molten metal wreckage, still glowing with a dull red light.
The raw material warehouse sector had been turned into a charred pit.
The pre-processing assembly lines in the East Sector, the transport depot in the West Sector, the employee dormitories in the North Sector...
All gone.
Literally gone.
The artillery had leveled, shattered, and melted everything.
This was the aesthetic of Imperial heavy firepower.
If there was a problem that couldn't be solved by one round of artillery bombardment, then launch a second round.
If the problem was still there, it just meant your guns weren't big enough.
"Sweep progress?" Kaspar asked.
"Squadron 1 has reached the core area of the former refinery. No organized resistance encountered."
"Squadron 2 is clearing the East Sector. Discovered a small number of rebel stragglers; all have been eliminated."
"Sentinel Walker Clades report: Anomalous energy concentration detected in the West Sector. Proceeding to..."
A harsh burst of static suddenly screeched through the comms channel.
Then came shouts of alarm.
"What is that?!"
"Targets sighted! Central zone of the former refinery!"
"Emperor... they're still alive?!"
Kaspar's cybernetic eye rapidly zoomed in.
His vision pulled close, piercing through the lingering smoke and dust.
He saw them.
On the edge of the massive crater, space was writhing. It was regenerating.
Like an image reflecting on rippling water, a silhouette gradually solidified from a blur into reality.
The Herald of Tzeentch. The creation of the Changer of Ways.
A small chunk of one of its heads was noticeably missing, but the gap flowed with shimmering stardust instead of blood.
The countless eyes on its second head were dimmed and shattered, oozing fluorescent blue pus.
Only the third head remained intact.
It was covered in wounds, yet the psychic pressure it emitted—a pressure that crushed reality and warped logic—had expanded to several times its pre-bombardment intensity!
Along the edges of its wounds, the fabric of space was folding and repairing itself autonomously.
The coalescing of the second figure was even more violent.
The Bloodletter. The incarnate fury of Khorne.
Its left arm was missing from the shoulder down. There was no blood at the stump, only boiling, magma-like crimson energy spewing forth.
A horrific, gaping hole had been blown clean through its chest. The edges burned with blood-red flames, and the scorching organs pulsing inside were clearly visible.
Yet it stood as steady as a mountain.
The single eye burning in its skull no longer held just the desire to slaughter, but a kind of frenzied satisfaction.
It violently threw back its mangled head. Pointing its flesh-and-bone axe toward the smoke-obscured sky, a battle roar composed entirely of psychic shockwaves and tearing air crushed across the battlefield:
"BLOOD—FOR THE—BLOOD GOD—!!"
"SKULLS—FOR THE—SKULL THRONE—!!!"
With its roar, the corpses scattered and buried beneath the steel all over the battlefield—rebels, Aru soldiers, overseers, workers—suddenly began to twitch.
The blood that hadn't yet been vaporized surged from their wounds, transforming into crimson threads drawn by an invisible force, flying straight toward the Bloodletter's body!
With every thread of blood absorbed, its wounds healed a fraction, and its aura grew a fraction stronger!
Kaspar's smile completely froze.
The red light of his cybernetic eye flashed frantically, the processor running at maximum capacity to analyze the scene before him that completely violated the laws of physics.
"Impossible... The artillery data... The psychic-neutralizing agents..."
"The artillery data... Theoretical lethality 99.97%..."
"A psychic shield couldn't possibly withstand a saturation bombardment of that magnitude..."
The adjutant's voice trembled: "Lord Kaspar, their Warp readings... are growing exponentially!"
"Underground! There's something underground feeding them energy!"
Kaspar snapped his head down.
On the tactical panel, the curve of the subterranean psychic readings was skyrocketing like it was on combat stimms!
It wasn't a gradual climb; it was a vertical spike!
The values instantly shattered three times, five times, ten times the previously recorded peaks, and they were still climbing!
"Underground..."
Within Kaspar's mechanical brain, archival data from eighty years ago was instantly retrieved.
Sector 7.
The Aral Family.
Psychic Focal Point.
Chaos Ritual.
"Fuck."
For the first time in his life, the Consortium General—renowned for his cold, absolute rationality—used the flesh-and-blood half of his mouth to spit out a purely emotional curse.
He understood.
He understood everything.
Rayne's rebellion, the Siclaeman uprising, even those weird workers who suddenly appeared...
They were all bait.
It was all for today, for this moment, to orchestrate an event massive enough, tragic enough, and filled with enough despair and death on this land buried over ancient Chaos ruins.
A sacrifice.
The artillery fire had killed thousands of people.
The energy generated by those deaths—the emotional fluctuations of terror, agony, and despair—triggered a tsunami in the Warp.
And this tsunami just happened to wash away the seal placed by Imperial Psykers eighty years ago over the ruins of Sector 7 beneath their feet.
Now, the sealed Chaos energy underground was pouring out like a broken dam.
And those two daemons stood right in the center of the flood, their mouths wide open, drinking deeply.
"ALL UNITS!!!"
Kaspar's voice blared over the all-frequencies broadcast. For the first time, it carried a shrill panic that even the metallic synthesizer couldn't mask:
"Maximum threat targets! Focus fire on those two Warp entities at the crater edge! At all costs! Right now! Immediately!"
"Psyker Detachment!"
"Abandon all other tasks!"
"Put everything you have into suppressing and disrupting the subterranean energy leak nodes! Attempt to establish an anti-psychic barrier!"
"We cannot let this continue!"
It was too late.
The three heads of the Herald of Tzeentch turned simultaneously.
All nine arms raised at once.
The scepter, codex, dagger, hourglass, quill, mirror, and the other artifacts erupted with a blue light that blinded everything!
Its intact head opened its mouth, its voice echoing in a triple-layered chorus brimming with infinite mockery and delight:
"Knowledge... grants foresight."
"Your artillery... your slaughter... your victory..."
"Were all part of the calculation."
"The winds of change have risen."
"In this moment, the gears of the Great Wheel interlock, and the Book of Destiny turns to a new page!"
--
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