High orbit of the Aurelian System, bridge of the Red Tear. Standard Terran Year 976.M30, Day 318, 11:57.
The shadow of Sanguinius's pristine white wings covered the tactical hololith.
Aurelian IV. The sector containing the City of the Holy Anthem had been thoroughly saturated by blinding blue-purple psychic signatures.
The Mu-class contamination reading was climbing toward the Nu-class threshold at a rate of 3.7% per hour.
Sanguinius spoke.
"Transmit orders to the fleet."
His voice echoed through the deathly silent air of the bridge, every single syllable carrying an unquestionable weight.
"Target: the City of the Holy Anthem hive."
"Eight strike cruisers: Crimson Oath, Wrath of Baal, Scream of Salvation..."
"Main batteries are to target the following coordinates."
Seventeen red markers instantly flared to life on the hololith.
"Upper Hive Sector: Defense batteries A-7 through A-12, void shield generator nodes, and the perimeter armor belt of the hive command nexus."
"Mid-Hive Sector: Main entry blast doors Seven, Nine, Thirteen, and Seventeen, along with the mid-hive structural armor and fortifications."
"Firing priority: Clear drop zones for the Astartes drop pods, and open assault corridors for the Solar Auxilia ground forces."
Sanguinius raised his head, pale golden psychic runes beginning to flow across every feather of his wings.
"I want seven drop windows no smaller than one thousand five hundred meters in diameter blasted into the Upper Hive. I want at least four assault corridors exceeding fifty meters in width carved into the Mid-Hive."
"Bombardment precision requirement: Impact deviation must not exceed plus or minus fifteen meters."
"Time on target: 12:00 hours standard."
Tobias slammed his right fist into his chest plate. "As you command, Father!"
The orders were transmitted across the fleet at the speed of light.
Eight strike cruisers, each exceeding five kilometers in length, began adjusting the elevation and azimuth of the multi-barreled quad-macro-cannon batteries mounted on their prows.
Macro-cannons. The primary ship-to-ship armaments of the Imperial Navy. They did not fire beams of energy, but physical, solid projectiles.
Each macro-cannon shell was twelve meters long and three point seven meters in diameter. The outer casing was cast from a composite of plasteel and ceramite, while the interior was packed with high-explosive melta charges and a secondary armor-piercing core.
Upon firing, the magnetic acceleration rails of the macro-cannon would propel the shell to 0.08 times the speed of light, granting it a kinetic energy equivalent to an asteroid impact with a three-megaton TNT yield.
At this moment, the muzzles of the multiple macro-cannons across the eight strike cruisers slowly irised open. Coolant vapor vented from the radiator fins along the barrels, freezing into clouds of ice crystals in the void.
"Target locks secured."
"Ballistic calculations complete. Compensations for planetary rotation and atmospheric disturbance applied."
"Countdown: Ten. Nine. Eight..."
--
The City of the Holy Anthem, somewhere in the Underhive.
Sacken Alar.
The two pairs of semi-transparent psychic wings on his back vibrated unconsciously, every beat leaving fine arcs of purple lightning dancing in the air.
He looked up at the sky, his formidable psychic senses piercing through the layers of the hive structure.
He could vaguely perceive the points of light flickering in orbit.
The Blood Angels fleet.
Sanguinius.
"Soon..."
Sacken murmured to himself. The fine blue tendrils writhing within the split scar on his left cheek squirmed with excitement.
"He will be here soon."
According to his design, the entire City of the Holy Anthem had been transformed into a hunting ground for Tzeentch.
In the streets everywhere, Changelings mimicked the appearances of the citizens' loved ones, using gentle whispers to lure them toward pre-prepared rituals of corruption.
Blue and Pink Horrors crawled across the surfaces of buildings like cockroaches.
And those completely fallen psykers—the former members of the Conmo Dynasty—were dispersed across critical nodes throughout the hive.
Using themselves as altars and their own souls as fuel, they continuously widened the scale of the Warp rift.
My Lord Aetaos, Sacken thought, his psychic energy traveling straight into the depths of the Warp along the conduit established by the Mark of Tzeentch. Will Sanguinius come?
A moment later, the response echoed within his soul, carrying the polyphonic, mocking tone unique to a Lord of Change.
"He will most certainly come, my dear Sacken."
Aetaos's voice sounded like countless pages of a book turning simultaneously.
"The Great Angel... he always believes that with enough power and resolve, any corruption can be purged, and any soul can be saved."
"Therefore, he will absolutely choose a ground assault over total orbital bombardment."
"He will lead from the front, bringing his proudest sons down in drop pods, personally stepping onto the... stage we have prepared for him."
The corners of Sacken's mouth stretched open, curving into an inhuman, grotesque grin.
"Then, should we allow him to land smoothly?"
"No."
Aetaos's laughter reverberated through the Warp.
"We must make him believe he is fighting back. That he is breaking through our defenses. That he is achieving victory after paying a heavy price."
"That is the most perfect trap. To make the prey believe they are struggling for survival, when in truth, every single step leads them deeper into the net."
Sacken understood.
He turned and looked down at the three hundred fallen psykers prostrating themselves below him.
These former elites of the Conmo Dynasty now had skin completely transmuted to purple. Their eyeballs had transformed into constantly spinning geometric patterns, and they continuously chanted endless prayers to Tzeentch.
Their psychic energies were linked together, constructing a massive psychic array above the hive that blanketed the entire Upper Sector.
"Prepare the deflection array."
Sacken's voice carried psychically to all the fallen.
"The orbital bombardment is imminent. I want you... to deflect one-third of the shells out into the wastelands beyond the city."
"Let the remaining two-thirds hit exactly what they are supposed to hit."
One of the fallen psykers raised his head, purple drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. "A two-thirds hit rate... won't that make Sanguinius suspicious?"
"No," Sacken chuckled softly. "Because the two-thirds that hit will strike the most heavily fortified defense emplacements in the Upper Hive. Areas we abandoned long ago, manned only by a smattering of degraded cannon fodder. The one-third that deflects will make Sanguinius believe our resistance is genuine, just... imperfect."
He spread his arms wide, his psychic wings extending completely.
"We want him to think he has won the first round. Only then will he confidently and boldly... step into the second round."
"All is according to plan," the fallen psykers chanted in unison, their psychic output surging drastically.
Three hundred pillars of purple light erupted from their bodies, weaving together into a massive array above the hive.
At the center of the array, thirteen even more terrifying psychic signatures began to glow.
They were thirteen Daemon Princes of Tzeentch who had stepped through the Warp rift. Their appearances varied wildly: one resembled a colossal bird constructed from countless books; another was a geometric polyhedron covered in blinking eyes; yet another was simply a constantly shifting cloud of iridescent mist.
But they all shared one commonality: they were wreathed in psychic power potent enough to warp reality itself.
"The array is fully primed," the lead Daemon Prince—an entity possessing three raven heads, each chanting a different incantation—spoke in a discordant, triphonic chorus. "Orbital strike countdown: Three. Two. One."
12:00:00 Standard.
Twenty-four macro-cannons fired simultaneously.
Even from high orbit, the twenty-four blinding lances of fire were visible. The plasma trails generated by the shells' friction against the atmosphere looked like the spears of judgment hurled down by the gods, stabbing straight toward the planet's surface.
From firing to impact, the travel time was 4.7 seconds.
During those 4.7 seconds, the Tzeentchian psychic deflection field above the City of the Holy Anthem operated at maximum capacity.
"Deflect!" the thirteen Daemon Princes shrieked in unison. The psychic energy of the three hundred fallen poured into the array like a bursting dam.
When the first macro-cannon shell was three kilometers away from the Upper Hive's armor belt, its trajectory suddenly shifted a fraction of a degree.
That microscopic deflection caused the twelve-meter-long, multi-thousand-ton metal behemoth to miss its designated target—Defense Battery A-7 in the Upper Sector.
It scraped past the edge of the hive and ultimately slammed into the wastelands two hundred kilometers away.
BOOM!!!
A mushroom cloud over a kilometer in diameter erupted over the wasteland, the shockwave instantly melting the surface rock into glass.
Next came the second shell, the third, the fourth...
A total of eight macro-cannon shells were psychically deflected, plunging into the wastelands beyond the city or the distant mountain ranges, blowing open eight craters that resembled meteorite impacts.
But the remaining sixteen...
They hit.
Upper Hive Sector, Defense Battery A-9.
This emplacement consisted of twelve twin-linked anti-air lascannons, four missile silos, and heavy ceramite plating. It had originally been one of the hive's core defense lines against orbital threats.
At this moment, two macro-cannon shells struck the roof of the battery at a near-vertical angle.
The first shell punched straight through five meters of composite armor before detonating inside. The energy cores of the twelve lascannons were ignited, the chain reaction blowing half the battery sky-high.
Forty thousand tons of metal structure, thousands of garrisoned fallen PDF soldiers, and dozens of Horrors conducting corruption rituals inside were instantly vaporized into metal steam laced with Warp energy.
The second shell struck the base of the battery.
The armor-piercing core penetrated sixty meters underground before detonating at a pre-set depth. The shockwave propagated along the subterranean structures, utterly pulverizing the battery's foundation.
The entire defensive structure, weighing hundreds of thousands of tons, began to list, collapse, and finally sink into the Upper Hive's architecture within thirty seconds, crushing seven auxiliary buildings beneath it.
Similar scenes played out simultaneously across the seventeen designated targets.
A void shield generator node took a direct hit to its core reactor from a macro shell. The resulting electromagnetic pulse paralyzed all electronic equipment across three surrounding city blocks, including the artifacts being used in ongoing corruption rituals.
The perimeter armor belt of the hive command nexus suffered consecutive hits, blasting open a breach one hundred and seventy meters wide and forty meters deep.
And the entryways into the Mid-Hive...
Main Entry Blast Door Seven.
This was an eighty-meter-diameter entrance sealed by four massive alloy blast doors, their surfaces etched with the Imperial Aquila and warnings strictly prohibiting unauthorized access.
At this moment, a macro-cannon shell struck the dead center of the doors at a forty-five-degree angle.
The armor-piercing core melted through 3.2 meters of alloy in a millisecond, then detonated inside the doors. The explosion blew the entire gate into thousands of fragments. The furthest piece flew three kilometers away, smashing through the outer wall of a residential hab-block in the Mid-Hive.
The entryway was blown wide open.
It exposed the darkness within—a darkness filled with the roaring of the fallen and the shrieking of Tzeentchian daemons.
Entryways Nine, Thirteen, and Seventeen met identical fates.
Four assault corridors had been forcefully blown open, every single one exceeding Sanguinius's requirement of fifty meters. The widest, Entryway Seventeen, was a staggering one hundred and twenty meters across.
"Bombardment assessment complete," the tactical officer's voice rang out on the bridge of the Red Tear. "Twenty-four-gun volley. Eight rounds deviated from designated targets. Sixteen rounds struck true. Seven drop windows have been opened in the Upper Sector. Maximum diameter is one thousand two hundred and forty meters; minimum is three hundred and eighty meters. All meet requirements. Four assault corridors have been opened in the Mid-Hive Sector, with widths of sixty-four meters, sixty-seven meters, eighty-nine meters, and one hundred and twenty meters, respectively. Upper-level nodes of the hive defense grid: 71% destroyed. Projected reduction in resistance for subsequent ground assault: 43%."
Sanguinius nodded, his gaze locked onto the deflected trajectories on the hololith.
"Eight rounds deviated..."
His psychic senses had captured the sudden, explosive surge of psychic power over the City of the Holy Anthem at the moment of bombardment—a power overflowing with mutation and calculated intent.
"Organized, premeditated resistance," he murmured softly, before shaking his head. "But it is imperfect. Compared to the xenos we have faced before, this level of resistance feels more like... a performance."
Tobias stepped forward. "Father, what do you mean?"
"I mean, they are allowing us to believe this is the extent of their resistance."
Sanguinius turned around, his pristine white wings unfurling beneath the blood-red illumination of the bridge.
"But it matters not. If they wish to play act, we will oblige them by delivering absolute purification."
Sanguinius raised his voice, transmitting his command to the entire fleet.
"First wave drop spearhead: deploy. Captain Tobias, you will lead the main force of the Second Company to purge the heretics in the Upper Hive. The two thousand two hundred warriors drawn from the Fifth Company will be under the command of Captain Amit; you are to purge the heretics in the Mid-Hive. I will personally lead the Sanguinary Guard and the remaining warriors in a drop assault on the Central Sector, to locate and execute the heretic leader."
His gaze swept over every officer on the bridge.
"Remember our objectives: Purge the contamination. Close the rift. Execute or banish all Warp entities. As for the hive citizens: so long as they retain a recognizable human form, have not undergone irreversible mutation, and do not initiate hostile action, they are to be temporarily classified as potentially redeemable. However..." Sanguinius paused, a flash of icy light glinting in his amber-gold slit pupils. "If you encounter large-scale, organized resistance, and the sector has completely fallen to corruption such that the cost of salvation far outweighs the benefit... I authorize you to utilize all necessary means. This includes melta-charge saturation, orbital bombardment, plasma scouring, and psychic storm barrages. Is that understood?"
Every officer roared in unison, slamming their fists against their breastplates.
"For the Emperor!!"