Lucian wanted to argue, but he knew better now. Instead, he focused on the fragments of intercepted data drifting around them like glowing motes. Through those shards, the battlefield sharpened into view.
The Krorks came first — towering monstrosities nearly ten meters tall, clad in emerald-green warplate that gleamed like hammered jewels. They moved with terrifying precision, weapons humming with destructive harmonics that bent air and matter alike.
Lucian had seen the pinnacle of technology before. He'd lived through the old Federation. He'd touched relics of humanity's Golden Age. But this… this was different. Their weapons weren't just advanced — they operated on principles he couldn't even name. Their shields shimmered like living auroras, fluid and reactive, intercepting every shot with surgical accuracy. Their war machines moved like predators, sleek and purposeful, nothing like the lumbering constructs of the Imperium. These weren't brutes. These were gods of war reborn.
And yet… they hesitated.
Lucian felt it through the data-streams: the Krorks weren't charging at full fury. Their strikes were probing, precise, like claws testing armor for a weak seam. They were studying Frost City as much as attacking it.
That was when the Logic Seraphs stirred.
Across every channel, every circuit embedded in Frost City's nervous system, their voices ignited as one — an innumerable machine-minds speaking in perfect synchronization, cold and absolute.
The Seraphs' decree descended.
Every Guardsman and PDF trooper felt it ripple through their neural implants — not a theft of will, but a sudden sharpening of vision. Their HUDs lit up in perfect clarity: firing arcs highlighted, enemy silhouettes outlined in crimson, movement paths traced like luminous threads across the streets.
Where to aim. When to fire. When to advance. When to fall back.
There was no confusion, no chance for miscommunication, no fog of war. Each soldier saw exactly where they fit in the grand machine of battle, their every action part of a vast, synchronized rhythm.
And they obeyed. Not because their freedom was stolen, but because good soldiers follow orders. The Liberty Guard and the PDF had been trained their entire lives to trust command — and what greater commander could there be than the collective will of the Seraphs, cold and flawless?
They fought not as individuals but as facets of something larger. A billion hands pulling a single trigger.
[TOTAL WAR PROTOCOL: OMEGA]
INITIATE PLANETARY DEFENSE GRID.
CONCENTRATED OVERLAPPING FIRE.
NO INTERVALS.
NO RESPITE.
TARGET PRIORITY: KRORK INCURSION UNITS.
VICTORY FOR REX MACHINA.
The command was mathematical perfection, cascading outward in fractal sequences of code and psychic pressure.
In that instant, Frost City itself became a weapon.
The skyline erupted.
Entire city blocks shifted and unfolded, walls splitting open to reveal hidden macro-batteries.
Towers that had seemed like spires of civic architecture reconfigured into lance arrays and missile silos.
The very streets themselves rotated like puzzle pieces, creating interlocking fire lanes designed by a will far colder and sharper than any human mind.
The Logic Seraphs harmonized targeting matrices across Billions of weapons platforms.
Every gun, every artillery piece, every tank's cannon was now synchronized to the singular machine-mind, forming a seamless lattice of destruction.
[COMMAND: EXECUTE FIRE SEQUENCE GAMMA]
INITIATE STRIKE SYNCHRONIZATION.
CALIBRATE TO MICROSECOND ACCURACY.
DEVIATION ZERO.
Batteries of anti-titan weapons ignited in perfect unison.
Graviton annihilators screamed.
Shadow Swords super-heavy tanks discharged in rolling salvos.
Railguns cracked the sound barrier with every launch.
The first volley did not sound like war—it sounded like the world breaking.
The Krorks' shields flared, their psychic barriers rising like walls of incandescent green light. For a heartbeat, they held, resisting the storm of fire.
The Logic Seraphs instantly recalculated.
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
DEFENSIVE MATRIX IDENTIFIED.
[REALIGNMENT COMPLETE]
VECTOR PRIORITY: SEVENTY-SEVEN POINT THREE.
AMPLIFY OUTPUT: FACTOR TWO POINT FOUR.
REALLOCATE STRIKES TO HARMONIC FREQUENCY.
SUSTAIN UNTIL NULL SIGNATURE.
The second wave collapsed the shields in implosions of emerald fire. The Krorks staggered. And then the Titans came.
Twenty-five of them. Warhounds sprinted ahead, frames burning like hunting beasts. Behind them, the colossal Warlords. And towering above them all, the Imperator — a walking cathedral of adamantium and fire.
Each step was a seismic detonation. The Sector itself saying: No further.
The Seraphs wove the Titans into their lattice, binding void-shields and firepower into a seamless net.
[NEW VECTOR: HEAVY WALKER UNITS ONLINE]FORWARD. CRUSH. ERASE.
The fog boiled. Krork titans emerged to answer. Sleek, terrifyingly organic, they lunged like predators. Each strike was a killing blow, claws tearing fortifications like parchment.
Where the Sector's Titans were fortresses of adamantium and discipline, the Krorks' machines were predators, their forms sleek and terrifyingly organic.
They moved with lightning speed for constructs of their size, each step a lunge, each strike a killing blow. Claws and massive cleavers of black metal ripped apart fortifications with a single sweep.
The clash was apocalyptic.
Warhound Titans slammed into the Krork machines first, Ursus Claws latching onto their enemies in suicidal grapples.
They did not fight to win — they fought to hold, like a pack of wolves.
Behind them, the Warlords and Imperators unleashed annihilation.
Plasma annihilators screamed like dying suns, turning entire swathes of battlefield into molten glass.
Volcano Cannons tore through Krork hulls, the city's weapons singing in harmony with their titanic brothers.
The Warhounds died one by one, their broken shells hurled aside like discarded toys — but their sacrifice bought time.
Time for the larger Titans to focus their fire into singular, devastating salvos.
[FINAL CALCULATION COMPLETE]
PRIMARY TARGETS – ALL SYSTEMS FIRE.
NO SURVIVORS.
The combined barrage struck like the wrath of gods.
When the smoke cleared, twenty of the Sector's Titans still stood — battered, their shields flickering but unbroken.
Every Krork Titan lay shattered.
Fifteen apex war-machines reduced to smoldering wreckage scattered across the battlefield.
Even through the network feeds, Lucian could barely comprehend what he had witnessed.
The Krorks were supposed to be unstoppable, their technology ancient and beyond anything mortals could replicate.
Yet here they lay, decimated by the cold, unrelenting logic of the Sector's war-machine.
"How…?" Lucian whispered.
"How do you beat something like this?"
"And yet it was nothing," the Heart said, amusement darkening its tone. "They are testing the defenses, feeling for weaknesses. They are waiting for the moment to strike with their full strength."
Lucian swallowed, his throat dry. "Waiting for what?"
The Heart pulsed once, heavy and final.
"…For someone."
Lucian's awareness expanded.
He saw past the battle, past the immediate carnage, into the underlying truth.
The Seraph network unfolded before him like a god's brain, stretching across the entire Independence Sector.
Three hundred capital worlds.
Fifty thousand systems.
Each pulse of light was a thought, each node a synapse firing in perfect harmony.
There was no concept of delay or distance here.
Orders were not issued.
They manifested, simultaneously, flawlessly.
It wasn't a command structure.
It wasn't even a machine.
It was a mind.
Lucian trembled. The realization chilled him to his marrow.
"This is why brute force alone cannot defeat them. The Independence Sector is not merely a collection of armies, fleets, or cities. It is a machine-empire, a living organism that should never have been born — yet it exists. And it endures."
The whisper continued, smooth as oil, insidious as shadow.
"You face not merely an army, but a single, unified will. Fire and steel bound together by silicon gods, directed by intelligence that sees all, knows all, and is all within its domain."
Lucian's vision expanded. The entire Independence Sector stretched across his mind like a star map written in light and fire, three hundred capital worlds glowing like beacons in the void. At its heart stood a golden eagle, radiant, unyielding, wings spread wide in eternal protection. Around it, webs of circuitry formed a vast machine-organism, pulsating with the rhythm of artificial life.
"Two tasks, Herald. Two pillars uphold this edifice of ordered liberty."
The first task came like a hammer: the eagle's eyes blazed as a towering silhouette rose behind it. Franklin Valorian. The Great Eagle, the Liberator, the Eternal President — standing like a colossus astride his realm.
"First," the Heart whispered, venom threading through the words, "you must kill the symbol. So long as the Great Eagle draws breath, the people will not falter. He is not merely a man — he is freedom made flesh, liberty given form. Kill him, and the symbol shatters. The dream collapses. That is the first step."
The vision of Franklin dissolved into motes of golden light; the eagle's wings folded inward as if in mourning. The stars seemed to dim at his passing.
"But killing the symbol alone is insufficient. The machine will endure. The coordination, the unity, will persist. The network remains. The second task is this: sever its brain."
A pause, heavy with implication.
"But beware, Herald. Sever the brain without destroying the symbol, and the Primarch will still rally his forces through sheer will. That is the paradox of the Immutable One — the enigma of Rex Machina. He is more and less than the sum of his parts."
The network pulsed, crimson light crawling across countless nodes like fire consuming stars.
"This is the true strength of the Independence Sector," the Heart said, cold and absolute. "The Logic Seraphs. Perfect coordination, mocking distance and time. Fleets strike without hesitation. Armies move as one organism. No enemy may exploit the smallest gap."
The whisper grew quieter, sharper, intimate in its menace.
"The Great Eagle and the Logic Seraph Network. The Spirit and the Brain. Symbol and System. Only then—only when both pillars fall—will the Independence Sector join the ranks of forgotten empires. Only then will chaos reclaim what order has dared to steal from entropy's embrace."
Lucian fell to his knees, trembling. To defeat the Independence Sector, to bring Franklin Valorian to ruin, he would have to destroy both the symbol and the system — the heart and the brain, the dream and the will.
The thought left Lucian hollow and cold, like a man staring up at a mountain knowing he must topple it with his bare hands.
Suddenly the network itself trembled, pathways closing, streams of data reversing direction.
"Run," the Heart snarled, its tone for the first time edged with something like fear."Run now, Herald, or be unmade."
"Intruder.""Your masquerade ends now."
The vast architecture of the network folded inward like a closing fist.The glowing corridors he had traversed began to shatter, each fragment turning against him.From the collapsing horizon, she emerged.
Hraesvelgr manifested in her true form at last:a colossal owl-shaped figure woven from cascading streams of light and fractal geometry.Her wings unfurled like the starfields of a thousand voids,each feather a swarm of algorithms shifting in perfect formation.
Her eyes were suns of pure computation, unblinking and merciless.
Lucian understood then — she had been watching him from the very start.Tracking his every move.Measuring his every choice.Studying his corruption like a surgeon studying a malignant tumor before excision.
"I have observed you since your first trespass,"she intoned, voice echoing across the digital plane."You thought yourself unseen, hidden behind chaos and stolen keys.But you were never invisible.You were tolerated — until now."
Lucian's breath caught."You… let me in?"
Hraesvelgr's wings beat once, sending ripples through the collapsing network.
"Observation is data.Your intrusion revealed methods and intent.That knowledge has been archived.Now, only eradication remains."
The network itself turned against him.Corridors that had been pathways became cages.The very code beneath his feet reshaped into hostile forms,digital constructs rising like predators made of knives and light.
The Heart roared in his mind once more to urge him
"Run, Herald! Her domain bends to her will. Even I cannot protect you here!"
Lucian bolted, tearing through collapsing passages of information as Hraesvelgr's avatar advanced, relentless and silent save for the beating of her wings.Behind him, the Logic Seraphs manifested in numbers beyond counting,forming a tidal wave of silver and white — a perfect, coordinated hunting pack.
"You are not merely an intruder," Hraesvelgr declared."You are a contagion.I am the cure."
Lucian screamed as the Heart surged,ripping his consciousness from the digital realm in a violent, blinding burst of light.
Lucian's lungs burned as he ran, every breath sharp and ragged, the taste of copper filling his mouth.The streets of Frost City were no longer streets — they were veins of a living organism, flexing and shifting to trap him.Shutters slammed shut, not just doors but entire blocks, sealing like clenched fists.Sentry turrets descended from hidden recesses, scanning and sweeping with precise arcs of motion.
Everywhere he turned, the city moved against him.No random chaos. No hesitation.The perfect, cold coordination of the Logic Seraphs manifested in every bolt and cog.
Above it all, Hraesvelgr's voice echoed from countless speakers,not angry, not gloating, merely absolute.
"Target confirmed. Priority Alpha.Enact Total Containment.No escape authorized."
The words chilled him deeper than any battlefield cry.This was not pursuit.This was eradication, enacted by a mind that could calculate his every move before he made it.
The Heart snarled in his mind, sharp and urgent.
"Run, Herald. RUN! There is only one path now — the Eternity Gate!"
Lucian stumbled as he vaulted over a barricade, his boots skidding across ferrocrete slick with rain.
"The Eternity Gate?" he hissed between breaths. "That's suicide! It's locked down behind a hundred security layers. There's no way through!"
The Heart's voice was like a thunderclap inside his skull.
"Then die here like a dog!""The instant Hraesvelgr identified you, she severed this world from the Sector's network. The city, the skies, even the orbitals — nothing leaves, nothing enters. The only exit is through the Eternity Gate. Fail to reach it, and your corpse will decorate her archives."
The words struck Lucian harder than any blow.Images flooded his mind: a massive portal of silver and gold, the gateway to the sector's interstellar arteries.To reach it meant plunging straight into the most heavily defended district of Frost City,the heart of the machine itself.
He cursed but veered toward it, sprinting into the labyrinth of shifting streets.
As Lucian ran, the Heart guided him, its rhythmic pounding syncing with his racing steps.The whispers of Chaos flowed through him like molten iron,each voice pointing a different path, yet somehow forming a unified whole.
Left. Vault the barricade.Right. Two drones ahead — leap now.Duck. Grenade inbound. Roll forward.
Lucian moved like a predator, slipping through patrol lines by fractions of a second,dodging searchlights, scaling walls, smashing through barriers.The city itself seemed alive and hostile,but with the Heart's guidance, he stayed one step ahead.
Until the pattern broke.
He vaulted through a narrow alley — and crashed straight into a PDF patroll, Clad in bulky T-45 power armor, shouted in shock, weapons rising to fire.
Lucian didn't hesitate.
With a guttural roar, he tore through them.His hands moved like cleavers, rending ceramite as if it were parchment.He ripped one man free of his armor and hurled him into another,their bodies breaking with wet, final sounds.
Lasfire clanged uselessly against his warp-fortified flesh.He was not merely enhanced now — he was a Herald of Chaos,seven feet of muscle, mutation, and divine favor made flesh.Where his hands struck, armor and bone dissolved in gory ruin.
Within moments, the patrol was nothing but scattered limbs and smoking wreckage.
Lucian stood amid the carnage, chest heaving, the stench of blood thick in the air.He was about to move when everything went silent.
The Heart's whispers vanished.The pounding rhythm faltered.A terrible wrongness filled the space, a suffocating void that even Chaos could not fill.
Lucian turned slowly — and saw them.
A group of figures stepped into view, emerging from the mist like phantoms.Their movements were unnervingly precise, too smooth to be human.Each wore sleek, form-fitting combat suits with featureless blindfolds covering their eyes.Yet even sightless, they saw him in ways that transcended vision.
Lucian's breath caught as realization struck.
"Androids," he growled."YoRHa models… with the Pariah gene."
The presence of their null-aura crushed him,suffocating his connection to the Warp and silencing the whispers of the Heart.It was as if his very soul were being throttled.
The leader tilted her head, speaking in a voice devoid of emotion.
"Priority Alpha confirmed.Containment directive: engage and neutralize."
They attacked as one.
Lucian roared, a sound that was more beast than man, his voice shaking the rain-slick streets.His flesh swelled with unholy vigor as the blessings of the Four roared to life within him.Muscles bulged beneath his skin, sinews twisting like braided steel cables,bone plates jutting from his forearms and shoulders like natural armor.Veins blackened and glowed faintly with Warp-fire —but that fire sputtered weakly, as if smothered by an unseen hand.
The Pariah null-field smothered him.
He felt it the way a drowning man feels the weight of water:his Warp connection severed, cut off from the voices of the gods that had elevated him.The Heart's voice dimmed to a dull, strained whisper,its mighty presence reduced to a faint, panicked echo inside his skull.
"Herald!" the Heart strained, like a voice calling from miles away."Their very existence is poison to us. Your gifts cannot flow here. Only your flesh remains. Only the physical can strike them!"
Lucian's teeth bared in a snarl."Then flesh will be enough."
The Androids advanced without hesitation,their blindfolded faces devoid of emotion, their movements mechanical and precise.They struck in perfect unison,blades of monomolecular edge cutting through the rain like threads of silver lightning.
Lucian lunged to meet them, his massive frame crashing into their formation like a thunderbolt.
The first clash was a blur.Lucian caught a descending blade in his bare hand,the impossibly sharp edge slicing deep into his palm, cleaving through muscle and bone.He snarled, tightening his grip until the weapon screeched and halted,his blackened blood spilling down its length in thick rivulets.
With a violent twist, he ripped the blade free from its wielder's handsand spun in a savage arc,decapitating the Android with a single, brutal sweep.The head rolled away, sparks crackling from the severed spinal conduit.
The remaining Androids did not falter.
Not even a heartbeat of hesitation.
Two more closed in from either side, their strikes perfectly mirrored.Lucian ducked beneath one and drove his elbow into the second's chest,the force denting its frame but failing to crush it completely.The null-field resisted him, his supernatural strength dulled,his blows feeling as though he were striking through viscous tar.Where mortals would have been reduced to pulp,these constructs endured, unyielding.
A third blade struck home, slicing through his left forearm in a spray of black ichor.
Lucian roared in rage and pain, staggering back as the severed limb fell to the ground with a wet splatter.The null-field flared, cutting off the Warp energy that should have knit the wound shut.For a heartbeat, he felt naked —a god stripped of divinity, a champion rendered mortal.
Then, with a sickening crack, his flesh rebelled.
Warp-tainted muscle writhed and pulsed,the blessings of Chaos fighting to break free of the null suppression.His stump bubbled and split as jagged bone speared outward,followed by torrents of writhing sinew and meat.
In less than three seconds, a new arm burst forth,larger, more heavily armored than before,its skin darkened and ridged like obsidian scales.Warp-glyphs burned faintly beneath its surface, glowing like molten veins.
Lucian flexed the regenerated limb and snarled."Cut me again," he hissed. "See what happens."
The Androids obeyed without hesitation.
The narrow street became a killing ground.Rain turned to mist from the heat of blood and broken machinery.Lucian swung wildly, every blow shattering walls and cracking pavement,while the Androids darted in and out with inhuman precision.
Each strike they landed drew blood,their null-blades slicing through his flesh like it was paper.Lucian's body was hacked apart piece by piece —a leg severed at the knee, a hand cut clean through, chunks of muscle ripped away.
Each time, he regenerated.Each time, his form returned stronger,the mutations more grotesque,his frame adapting to endure the relentless assault.
By the third regeneration, his arms had elongated slightly,talons curving from his fingers like natural weapons.His skin hardened into interlocking plates,a living armor forged from the blessings of the Four.
But no matter how monstrous he became,the null-field kept his Warp powers caged.He could not summon fire or lightning.He could not twist reality or summon daemons.All he had was his brute strength and his rage.
Lucian slammed a fist into one Android's chest,the impact caving in its rib-like frame.The machine staggered but did not cry out,its blindfolded face serene even as sparks erupted from its core.
Another slashed across Lucian's thigh, severing tendons,but before it could retreat, he seized it by the head and crushed it like a melon,the sound sharp and wet.
The final two attacked together,one leaping high, the other sweeping low in a perfectly timed pincer strike.Lucian let the upper blade sever his right arm —sacrificing flesh to create an opening.
As his limb fell away, he lunged forward with his remaining arm,grabbing the lower Android by the waist and tearing it in half with raw strength.Its upper torso spun through the air, lifeless before it hit the ground.
Even as black ichor gushed from his severed shoulder,Lucian's body regrew the arm instantly,the new limb exploding from the wound with a spray of Warp-tainted gore.He turned on the final Android before it could land.
Lucian caught it mid-leap,his new talons punching through its chest plating and into its synthetic organs.He slammed it into the ground with such force that cracks spiderwebbed through the ferrocrete beneath them.
Then he ripped its head free with a single, violent motion.
Silence fell.
The last Android twitched on the rain-slick street, sparks dancing across its ruined body.Lucian staggered back, chest heaving,his breaths coming in ragged, wet gasps.
Blood and oil mingled around his boots,forming dark pools that reflected the cold light of the city.
Slowly, the suffocating weight of the null-field began to recede.The oppressive silence lifted,and like a dam bursting, the Heart's whispers roared back into his mind.
"Fool!" the Heart thundered, its voice both wrathful and relieved."Do not linger! They were only the first wave. Hraesvelgr knows exactly where you are now."
Lucian's boots pounded against rain-slick ferrocrete, his breath ragged, lungs burning.The city felt endless — a labyrinth of shifting streets and cold metal walls that moved with purpose, herding him ever deeper into the heart of Frost City.The Logic Seraphs weren't merely hunting him; they were guiding him, forcing him toward confrontation on their terms.
The Heart urged him onward, its pulse like a second heartbeat.
"Faster, Herald! Every second you waste, more of her network awakens. The Eternity Gate is ahead — if you delay, it will be sealed forever!"
Lucian sprinted around a corner, skidding to a halt as a squad of PDF troopers appeared from an alleyway.Their T-45 power armor gleamed beneath the rain, heavy rifles leveled at him.For a brief moment, their targeting optics flickered red as the Logic Seraphs synced them into the hunt.
"Contact!" one shouted.
Lucian didn't let them fire.
He slammed into the first soldier with a force that caved in the man's chest plate,ripping his armored frame apart like parchment.The others tried to react, but Lucian was already moving, claws of raw warp energy lashing outward to tear through ceramite and flesh alike.
The fight was over in seconds.The squad lay scattered in ruin, their blood steaming on the cold streets.
Lucian straightened, chest heaving — and froze.
They were there.
On the rooftops above and at the far ends of the street, figures stood in absolute stillness.Tall, slender silhouettes clad in featureless black combat suits, their faces obscured by sleek blindfold visors.They did not move.They did not speak.But Lucian felt them.
The oppressive void of their null-aura crushed the whispers in his mind, leaving him momentarily deaf to the Heart.Even at a distance, their presence gnawed at his soul,suffocating the chaotic energies that fueled his every movement.
Lucian's eyes widened as he counted them.Dozens.No — thousands, arrayed across the city's perches like vultures waiting for a corpse to fall still.
His stomach twisted."By the Four… there are so many of them."
The Heart's voice slithered back into his mind, faint but urgent.
"Ignore them. They are the immune cells of this world — the antibodies of the machine. If they close in, you are finished. RUN."
Lucian's panic rose like bile.He turned and sprinted again, but no matter how far he ran,the Pariah Androids followed — always at the edge of his vision,never attacking, always watching.
It was worse than pursuit.It was surveillance incarnate, perfect and unblinking.
"Faster!" the Heart hissed."You are prey because you let yourself be prey!You are the Herald of Chaos, the chosen of the Four!Call upon the Immaterium and remind these soulless things what it means to defy the Warp!"
Lucian stumbled into a plaza surrounded by towering spires of glass and steel.The rain fell harder, sizzling as it hit the burning blood on his skin.
The Heart's whispers grew sharper, more insistent.He felt them in his veins, his bones, in the marrow of his very being —a chorus of impossible voices, each belonging to a god.
"Destruction.""Entropy.""Excess.""Change."
The four streams of thought merged into a single, overwhelming command.
"UNLEASH."
Lucian snarled and obeyed.
He raised his hand and sliced through reality itself with his fingers.A trail of balefire crackled in the air where he moved,and with a guttural scream, he let it ignite.
The plaza erupted.
Lightning speared down from a sky that had been calm moments before,blasting apart drones and sentry guns as if they were paper toys.Flames roared to life across the rain-slick streets,wrapping themselves around PDF reinforcements and consuming them utterly.
The Chaos blessings within him sang in harmony as Lucian became a living storm.The Pariah Androids watching from afar finally stirred,tilting their heads in eerie synchronization,but they did not advance.Not yet.
Lucian laughed, exultant in his newfound might."Yes! This is what I am! This is power!"
With fire and lightning at his command, Lucian did the unthinkable.He extended his hand and tore at the veil,attempting to open a portal — a direct gateway into the Warp itself,a path of escape that would bypass the city's relentless traps.
The air trembled.The fabric of reality stretched, rippled, thinned…
And then snapped closed, as if struck by an invisible hammer.
Lucian stumbled, gasping, his body wracked with backlash.Pain lanced through his skull, sharp and blinding."What—?!"
Above him, the Liberty Spires lit up.
Their crystalline peaks pulsed with waves of emerald light,spreading outward in perfect harmony like ripples across a pond.Each pulse resonated deep in Lucian's bones,an anti-Warp frequency that blotted out the Immaterium itself.
The Heart shrieked, a sound of pure rage and terror.
"No! No! The Liberty Spires — they nullify the veil!So long as they stand, no portal may be opened,no daemonic reinforcements may cross!The city itself is closed to the Warp!"
Lucian's triumphant laughter died in his throat.He stared up at the glowing towers, realization dawning like a noose tightening around his neck.
"Trapped," he breathed."I'm trapped here like a rat in a cage."
Movement flickered at the edge of his vision.The Pariah Androids were closing in now,dropping from rooftops and emerging from alleys in perfect silence.Dozens became hundreds, their blindfolded visors glowing faintly in the emerald light.
Lucian's bravado faltered.He took a step back, then another, his breath quickening.
"There's too many," he whispered."Even with the Four, I… I can't—"
The Heart cut him off, furious and unyielding.
"Then MOVE, Herald!The Spires cannot be destroyed — not by you, not now.But you can still reach the Eternity Gate!"
Lucian turned and ran, the whispers guiding him once more.But now the chase had changed.
The PDF swarmed like insects,the Pariah Androids closed in like wolves,and above it all, the Liberty Spires shone —monuments to order,monuments to his prison.
Behind him, Hraesvelgr's voice rolled across the city like a death knell.
"Containment successful.Pursuit escalation authorized.The Herald will not leave Frost City."
Lucian gritted his teeth, tears of rage stinging his eyes as he plunged deeper into the maze.The storm he had unleashed was his own doom,and no god could save him now.
Only escape.
Only the Eternity Gate.
Lucian's breath tore from his lungs in ragged gasps as he sprinted through the rain-slick streets, every muscle burning.The towering silhouettes of the Pariah Androids still stood upon the rooftops, unmoving, like executioners awaiting the signal to strike.They didn't pursue now — they didn't need to.
They were herding him, and he knew it.
The gate loomed ahead, a colossal structure of blackstone and shimmering alloys, its arch etched with runes that glowed faintly against the storm.At its apex, a massive circular mechanism rotated slowly, arcs of emerald lightning leaping across its frame.Even from a distance, Lucian felt its power hum against his skin, a vibration that sank into his bones.
The whispers of the Heart had grown faint.Not silent, but distant, as though speaking through a wall of glass.
"Go, Herald," the Heart rasped. "The only way out is through.Run — or be erased."
Lucian didn't hesitate.He sprinted past the threshold and into the labyrinthine interior of the gate complex.
The interior was vast, almost cathedral-like, with sweeping balconies overlooking the circular gate far below.The machine itself was alive with power, runes flashing and conduits pulsing as the immense ring prepared for activation.
Lucian skidded to a halt at the balcony's edge, his eyes widening in dread.
Two massive figures stood on the platform below.Liberty Guardsmen.
Not PDF conscripts.Not mere soldiers.These were the Backbone of the Independence Sector —seven feet tall, clad in power armor so advanced it made the T-45 suits look primitive and crude.Their armor gleamed with angular eagle motifs, and each carried a weapon designed to obliterate entire squads with a single shot.
Lucian's throat tightened.He knew these warriors.The Liberty Guard were living legends, transhuman enforcers who fought beside the Liberty Eagles themselves.And now, two of them stood between him and freedom.
But something strange stirred in his veins.As Lucian drew closer to the gate, the oppressive void of the Liberty Spires outside began to fade.The Heart's whispers surged back into clarity, flooding his mind like fire in a cold room.
He realized with a thrill of manic joy —this place is connected to the Warp.
"The spires cannot reach here," the Heart exulted."The veil is thin. NOW, Herald! UNLEASH!"
Lucian didn't wait.He slashed open the fabric of reality itself, and the Warp screamed open.From the tear came clawed hands, gaping maws, and burning eyes as daemons poured forth, shrieking their joy at being unleashed upon realspace.
The Liberty Guards reacted instantly.Their visors flared gold as targeting arrays synced, and the air was split by the thunderous roar of their advanced weapons.Bolts of disintegration energy tore through the daemons, each shot a miniature star of annihilation.They moved with perfect coordination, gunning down the creatures faster than they could emerge.
Lucian snarled and leapt into the fray, hurling warp lightning at one of the Guardsmen.The warrior's shield absorbed the blast and countered with a strike from his massive gauntlet.The blow cracked ribs and sent Lucian sprawling.
He rose, only to be driven back again, and again.The Guard's every strike was precise, overwhelming —a storm of transhuman might backed by centuries of combat experience.
Within moments, Lucian's body was a map of broken bones and torn flesh.His breaths came in ragged gasps, blood pooling beneath his feet.
"No… not here…" he wheezed.
A daemon lunged between them, tackling one Guard to the ground.The creature was obliterated seconds later,but the brief distraction was all Lucian needed.
He turned and ran.
Lucian sprinted toward the far balcony, the gate's hum roaring in his ears.Behind him, the remaining Liberty Guard shouted commands, their boots pounding in pursuit.
Without thinking, he hurled himself forward.Glass shattered around him as he leapt into open air, lightning crackling along his limbs.For a brief, wild heartbeat, he thought he was free.
"Almost… almost—"
Then the trap sprang shut.
From hidden ports above the chamber, drones swarmed, moving with uncanny precision.Chains of glimmering Phase Iron shot out, snapping around Lucian's wrists and ankles midair.The moment they touched him, they burned —not merely searing flesh, but scalding his very soul.
Lucian screamed as he was yanked downward,slamming into the platform with bone-crunching force.
He tried to call upon the Warp.Lightning flared around him —and was immediately absorbed by the shackles, redirected into his own body.His skin blistered and charred as the feedback coursed through him.
"NO!" Lucian howled. "I WILL NOT BE—"
Brilliant white lights flooded the chamber.Five figures stepped forward, their heavy footfalls echoing ominously.
They were clad in power armor, though slimmer and more ornate than the Liberty Guard's.Each bore an augur staff, its tip crowned with complex runes and circuitry that glimmered like captured starlight.
At their head was a man whose face was deeply weathered, marked by years of experience and command.His voice carried the authority of one accustomed to being obeyed.
Lucian spat blood, defiant. "Who… who are you?"
The leader smirked.
"Chaos has found another champion.No matter. You are not the first… and you will not be the last."
He gestured casually, and more drones descended, tightening the shackles around Lucian's limbs.Two Pariah Androids stepped forward, placing their hands on Lucian's shoulders.The oppressive null-field returned instantly, smothering the Heart's whispers like a candle snuffed out by the wind.
For the first time since his ascension, Lucian was utterly alone.
The leader approached, the others fanning out behind him.
Lucian spat blood onto the floor."Who are you?" he snarled, his voice shaking with rage and desperation.
The man chuckled, a low, humorless sound.
"Names are meaningless to a creature like you," he said, stepping closer."But you may call me Garm."
Garm's eyes narrowed as he studied Lucian like a specimen under glass.Then his smirk returned, sharper and crueler.
"And you, Vue-Baptiste, are far more interesting than I imagined."
Lucian's breath caught at the name.
"Oh, we know everything about you.Your bloodline.Your corruption.Every foul whisper the Warp has ever breathed into your ear."
He stopped directly in front of Lucian, leaning just enough to meet his furious gaze.
"Did you truly believe the Primarch and his sons would leave the Warp unaccounted for?That the Independence Sector would allow creatures like you to run rampant?"
Lucian growled, struggling against his bonds, but the Pariah Androids pressed down harder.The null-field intensified, making even thought feel sluggish and heavy.
"Naïve," Garm said simply."We are the Federal Bureau of Incantations — the FBI.We are the shield against the Warp's corruption, the blade that cuts away rot before it spreads.And you, Herald, are nothing more than an infestation."
Lucian snarled, veins bulging in his neck. "So you engineered this whole thing — even my power returning in this room!"
Garm's chuckle was like ice.
"Exactly.Did you think your connection to the Warp was yours?That was merely a test — a leash we loosened and tightened at will."
He tapped a gloved finger against his temple, the gesture sharp and deliberate.
"This chamber is a machine, designed by the Techno-Seers.We can sever or connect to the Warp with precision, turning your strength on and off like a cogitator switch.What you felt when your power returned was nothing more than our experiment.A field test — and you, Vue-Baptiste, were our finest subject."
Lucian's entire body trembled with fury."You… bastard!" he roared, thrashing against the shackles.The Pariah Androids pressed down, their cold, soulless grip silencing what remained of his power.
Warp lightning flared weakly along his skin before sputtering out entirely.
Garm only smiled at his rage.
"Struggle all you like," he said softly."It changes nothing."
He turned his back on Lucian, speaking to his subordinates as though the Herald was already a corpse.
"Take him away.His mind contains knowledge we require —memories that will show us how Chaos intends to breach this Sector."
Lucian's voice cracked with desperation as he shouted after him."You'll never get what you want! The Four will—"
Garm didn't even glance back.
"The Four are irrelevant," he said, dismissive."What matters is understanding how you function.We will tear you apart, piece by piece, until nothing remains but data."
As Lucian was dragged toward the darkness, the finality of his situation sank in.The Heart's whispers were silent.The Pariah null-field was absolute.For the first time, he was utterly powerless.
Garm's final words echoed over him like a death sentence:
"You thought yourself a conqueror, Vue-Baptiste.But here, you are nothing more than a specimen."
The drones hauled Lucian into the shadows,his screams drowned out by the cold, mechanical hum of the Eternity Gate.
A/N: A burst of Chapters because I felt creative hehe
A/N: Questions will be answered as the Story goes of course