Chapter 309: The Burning of the Perfect City
A dry unease hung over Cyrene. On her dark and beautiful face, her long, curled eyelashes trembled slightly.
The radiance of the seventh morning shone upon her. She blinked in confusion and found herself leaning against the wall of her balcony. Slowly rising to her feet, she was startled to see that the entire residential district had been evacuated—doors and windows tightly shut, streets utterly deserted.
From the distance came the faint wail of sirens. The blue-armored giants were issuing their final warnings—today was the last day.
Cyrene felt an overwhelming sense of unreality. Her memory was still stuck on the first day, when she had cursed at the giants—but reality now pressed upon her with brutal clarity: today was the final day. If she did not leave now, flame and divine punishment would fall upon her together.
She stumbled to her feet, too panicked to gather her belongings. Grabbing a gray cloak, she rushed out the door. She ran past piles of consecrated candles, past shattered idols, past a plaza in ruins. The wind howled in her ears. She remembered—
She remembered that she had dreamed of the God-Emperor!
He had sighed and spoken to her of something—was He grieving the fall of the Perfect City? Then why did He choose to burn it? And then Cyrene recalled that in her dream, it had not been only one god who appeared.
Her memory was hazy, but she remembered a voice in the darkness, utterly different from the God-Emperor's. The Punisher from the void had kindly shown her the stain in their faith—the reason they were doomed to destruction: their worship was impure.
The thought made Cyrene's heart lurch violently.
As if forewarned, she instinctively turned back—and saw that atop the city's highest statue, a mass of darkness shrouded it. But when she blinked, the shadow was gone.
He was watching them. He always had been.
Heavens… by the Emperor above! By the Lord of the Underworld!
At last, gasping for breath, Cyrene reached the rear of the evacuation column. The blue-armored giants looked at her in puzzlement as she struggled to breathe—but Cyrene already understood. She knew the truth now, and she knew what she must do.
The gods had shown her the path in her dreams.
She followed the last of the crowd out of the city. Soldiers were directing refugees to board the ships that would take them away from the soon-to-be-burned land. But she refused. She felt the soldiers' confused and pitying gazes—and now she knew: they too were angels. They too were His angels.
After resting briefly outside the city, Cyrene set off with renewed strength, striding resolutely toward the slopes of Mount Galah, near the Perfect City. As one who knew the truth, she needed to witness it all… she needed… she needed to face it—face the divine punishment together with the Perfect City.
Mankind bears witness to history.
History shapes civilization.
If their civilization was to be saved, someone had to witness this judgment.
Upon the mountainside, the rough wind whipped her gray cloak, its hem fluttering. Cyrene took a deep breath and stood firm, gazing at the Perfect City. The golden metropolis had grown dim beneath the shroud of clouds; the thick, heavy gray clouds blanketed the sky like an impenetrable heap of stones.
. . .
A fragment of rock drifted through the void and struck against a viewport.
Guilliman stood in silence before the observation window, watching the fragment drift away. Beyond, in the deep black of space, the Ultramarines' fleet formed a flawless attack formation, encircling the airspace above the Perfect City, awaiting Guilliman's command.
The death knell was about to sound.
The entire command chamber was deathly silent.
Not a single soul dared to speak; even the warriors seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.
Guilliman lowered his gaze imperceptibly. The display on the command console showed a new report—at the nearby Mandeville Point, a transmission had been received from the Word Bearers. They were coming, and at a speed beyond comprehension.
Guilliman thought of Lorgar—his brother who could never speak without invoking the divine. Guilliman had never agreed with Lorgar's views, but… disagreement was all it had ever been.
'This is—'
He cut the thought short before it could take root. Dangerous thoughts. Instead, he forced his mind to focus on Lorgar himself, not on the tangled web that connected all of this. Lorgar was the smallest of them, and though a man of faith, beyond matters of religion he was kind, tolerant—often the one to mediate when brothers quarreled.
'But now…'
The final grain of sand fell in the hourglass. On the command console, Lorgar's request for communication lit up.
Guilliman did nothing.
He did not sigh.
He did not pause.
He did not feel tension, nor fear, nor sorrow—none of it.
He simply said,
"Fire."
Guilliman watched the distant beam of light. His ship drifted in silence through the starfield, unmoved. At his feet, a faint arc of light shimmered across the floor. It was as if nothing had happened—everything remained still, calm, and silent.
A shard of rock floated past the viewport, then drifted away. Nothing happened.
. . . .
The earth was shaking!
Cyrene screamed uncontrollably. She saw blinding white light tear through the heavens, spearing down upon the Perfect City. Countless flaming meteors followed, raining destruction. Her eyes burned—they were melting! The gale unleashed by the lances of light struck her like a solid wall, hurling her helplessly into the air. She clutched at her gray cloak, screaming like a dead leaf caught in a storm.
In that final instant, she saw the Perfect City in flames—and her own burning retinas.
Cyrene no longer knew—was it she who was burning, or the Perfect City, or both together?
. . .
On the second day after the burning of the Perfect City, the first of the Word Bearers' ships arrived at Khur.
As symbol, as omen, as ritual—the first to set foot upon that scorched earth was a Word Bearer named Argel Tal.
After him, the rest of the Word Bearers' fleet began landing upon the ruins of the Perfect City under the orders of the Ultramarines.
The ruins still burned, glowing with the embers of apocalypse. Gray-armored warriors stood upon the charred ground, at once lost and furious beyond measure.
And the gods watched in silence.
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