310.M36
Gathalamor - Segmentum Solar
Gathalamor, a Cardinal World within the Segmentum Solar, a normal world if not for what Cardinal Bucharis did. Thinking that he should carve himself an empire from the Imperium, which in turn starting the Plague of Unbelief which engulfed whole Imperium as many of the false prophets that already raise up before have able to gain much power which resulting multiple systems or worlds being conquer or seceded to them.
Atharion didn't plan to let them run uncheck like in the original timeline. The moment Camelarion enter a stable state of progressing, Atharion begin the preparation for the strike against all false prophets, mainly the important one.
Now, above Gathalamor, the fleet of the Dark Knights hung in orbit, joined by the warships of another Chapter—the Iron Seraphs. Little known to the wider Imperium, the Iron Seraphs were a young Chapter with an unusually vast armoury of vehicles. In truth, their origins lay with the Dark Knights themselves, born from the officers of the 9th Company and swelled with fresh recruits to form a successor Chapter under Atharion's design.
"Prepare the Dreadclaws." Atharion order as he looking at the holo-map. "5th Company will serve as the main force, burn all the traitor upon the world, none alive."
As his order echoed through the vox, hangar bays groaned open. From the belly of a heavily customized Lunar-class cruiser, wings of Thunderhawks roared into the void, plunging toward the world below. From the belly of Battle Barges and Strike Cruisers, Dreadclaws screamed forth, their descent like falling meteors, each carrying squads that will deliver the Emperor's wrath.
The Dreadclaws fell like a storm of burning stars, slamming into Gathalamor with earth-shaking force. Each impact cratered streets and plazas, the pods splitting open in gouts of fire and smoke. From within, Astartes poured forth in disciplined waves—armored giants wreathed in lightning and flame.
The first targets were struck without mercy. Military garrisons and administrative centers were reduced to ruin in the opening salvos, the Dreadclaws' impact blasts shattering defenses before the warriors within even stepped out. Barracks became tombs as heavy flamers swept through the wreckage. Command spires were toppled, vox arrays silenced, and bastions of false authority ground to rubble beneath thunder hammers and melta charges.
As the Dreadclaws fire up their thrusters, Thunderhawks also begin to land on plaza or the main road. When the ramps drop down, not Astartes that charge out, but Soraritas from the Bloody Rose with their chainswords, bolters and flamers killing everything they can see.
Three weeks later, Gathalamor was silent. No living soul remained upon the once-proud Cardinal World. Its cities lay in ruin, reduced to ashes, rubble, and rivers of dried blood. The bodies of the fallen were heaped and burned in vast piles, their smoke rising as an offering of judgment to the Emperor. The severed heads of Bucharis' officers, priests, and clerks were preserved in crystal boxes—trophies to be carried forth, displayed before the eyes of traitors and heretics yet to face the Emperor's wrath.
"Proceed to the next target." Atharion order as he sitting upon the command throne the moment all ground forces have return to their respective vessels.
"Your will." The Shipmaster reply before turning towards the rest of the bridge, organizing a fleet translation into the Warp.
As the fleet move towards the Mandeville Point, Fire Hawks and Angel of Wrath have also begin their own mission in hunting the false prophets. Fire Hawks set their gaze on Segmentum Obscurus, purging the heretics and traitors that moving ever closer to the Eye of Terror. While Angels of Wrath move towards Segmentum Pacificus, planning to defend Hydraphur from a pending invasion from Bucharis.
Atharion's strategy was merciless. He would systematically annihilate every world that fed Bucharis' rebellion—those that raised arms for him in the first wave, and worse, those that surrendered to his authority at the first sign of his arrival. None would be spared.
In a single month, twelve systems were purged. Cities, factories, and cathedral spires were left in smoldering ruin. With each strike, Bucharis' empire bled more heavily, his armies weakened, his supply lines severed, his recruits starved. Worse still for the false cardinal, uprisings began to flare across his conquests. Worlds that had bent the knee to him in desperation now rose in rebellion as his grip faltered, their people emboldened by the Emperor's retribution sweeping ever closer.
Among these voices of defiance, one rose higher than all others, Confessor Dolan Chirosius. A man of unshakable faith and silvered tongue, his sermons ignited the hearts of millions. With nothing more than his words, Chirosius rallied entire systems, casting down Bucharis' governors and priests of deceit. Within weeks, three systems had thrown off their chains, banners of the Aquila raised once more in defiance of the false prophet.
Hearing this, Atharion ordered the Iron Seraphs to move swiftly in defense of the Confessor and to advance alongside his cause. His command was clear, spare the worlds that rose in open rebellion, strike down and punish the leaders who resisted only to surrender later, and for those who defied to the bitter end—purge them.
The campaign ended within seven months. By then, Atharion had confirmed that the false Cardinal was attempting a desperate breakout toward the Eye of Terror, gathering what ships he could still muster. Reports from six Watch-Fortresses around the Eye corroborated his suspicions, warning of increased Word Bearers activity all along the Imperial defense line.
Atharion would not allow him to escape. He ordered a full pursuit of the Cardinal's fleeing fleet while dispatching a priority astropathic message to the Space Wolves, instructing them to seal the escape routes. The reply came swiftly, for the sons of Russ still bore a blood-debt to the traitor Cardinal—and they were eager to collect it.
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310.M36
KJI-074-A - Segmentum Solar
The system that Atharion and the Space Wolves chose for their trap was a dead place, little more than a scattering of barren worlds circling a dying sun. Once, long ago, miners had stripped its rocks of value and abandoned it. Now, it would serve as the grave of a false prophet.
Bucharis' ragged fleet broke into the system, its ships scarred and half-manned, fleeing like hunted prey. But already the jaws were closing. On the system's outer edge, the warships of the Dark Knights waited, their void shields burning bright as they advanced in tight, deliberate formation. From the opposite vector, the wolf-prows of the Vlka Fenryka cut through the void, engines howling like the beasts they bore the name of.
Caught between hammer and anvil, the Cardinal's ships had nowhere to run.
"Prepare the fleet for engagement," Admiral Sehalla barked, voice cracking with strain. Once a decorated commander of the Imperial Navy, now a turncoat in service to Bucharis, he had dragged a portion of the fleet into heresy with him. Many of those ships lay in ruin after the Siege of Fenris, but some had escaped the slaughter.
What remained was still formidable—an Emperor-class battleship bearing the blasphemous heraldry of the false cardinal, a Mars-class battlecruiser, three light cruisers, and four squadrons of Sword-class frigates. A fleet bloodied but not broken.
Yet the toll was plain. Months of defeats had stripped them of discipline, their hulls rattled and scorched, their crews exhausted and half-mad. Bucharis paced the command deck of the battleship like a caged beast, frothing prayers to his own vanity. Sehalla gripped the hololith with white-knuckled hands, sweat dripping beneath his collar.
Both knew the truth, though neither would speak it aloud. They had lost too much, too quickly. And now, with the Dark Knights and the Space Wolves closing from both sides, the abyss was waiting to claim them.
Bucharis paced across the command deck of the Gloria Invictus, his Emperor-class battleship, robes tattered and stained with sweat and incense smoke. His eyes darted madly, lips curling into snarls as he spat half-coherent litanies.
"They thought they could burn me… drive me from my throne… but I am chosen! I am the Voice! I am the hand that will tear the Imperium apart!" His words rose in shrieks, echoing against the vaulted walls of the bridge. The crew lowered their heads, too terrified to meet his gaze.
Admiral Sehalla swallowed hard. He had stood beside Bucharis since the beginning, since the promise of power and dominion had tempted him from the Emperor's light. But now, seeing the man he had once followed rant like a cornered beast, fear settled in his gut. The enemy fleet was closing, there was no hope of escape. Their only chance was order, discipline, a commander who still thought like a man.
"Cardinal," Sehalla said carefully, approaching with hands raised. "You must… compose yourself. The enemy surrounds us. If we do not coordinate our fleet—"
"Compose myself?" Bucharis' head snapped toward him, wild eyes burning green in the bridge's dim light. "It was your failures that brought us here, Sehalla. Your cowardice. Your weakness!"
Before the Admiral could speak again, the cardinal's hand flashed. A jagged ritual blade plunged into Sehalla's neck, hot blood spraying across the pulpit. The Admiral gurgled once, eyes wide in shock, before collapsing at Bucharis' feet.
"This is your fault, all of it!" Bucharis screamed, kicking the corpse aside. "But I—I—am eternal!"
As his voice rose to a crescendo, the air itself split. Warp-light bled through the walls of reality, emerald fire dripping from the ceiling like molten glass. The bridge crew screamed as their eyes blackened and their flesh twisted, madness searing into their minds. Vox-officers tore at their own faces, gunnery crews gibbered in tongues not meant for mortal throats.
The corruption spread beyond the flagship. Across the fleet, astropaths shrieked in unison as the warp flooded their minds. On the Mars-class cruiser, crewmen began murdering one another with bare hands, chanting Bucharis' name. Sword frigates lost cohesion, drifting as daemons begin to clawed their way into reality within their holds.
As both the Dark Knights and Space Wolves advanced on intercept vectors, a sudden, suffocating weight pressed against the minds of their psykers.
On the Obsidian Vow, Librarian Seraphael staggered, gauntlets gripping the armrests of his throne as the voices of the damned poured into his skull. "They are screaming… every soul on those ships screams as one." His eyes flared pale blue as he forced back the tide of madness, wards and sigils of protection sparking across his armor.
Aboard the Wolf flagship Hrafnkel's Wrath, Rune Priest Skjoldr the Grey snarled, fangs bared as he braced against the same torrent. "The veil grows thin. The warp has its claws in them already." He spat onto the deck, muttering runes of banishment beneath his breath. "The coward cardinal has opened the way."
On every loyalist vessel, the Navigators writhed in their thrones, third eyes forced open against their will. Some babbled incoherently, their voices warped by what they beheld beyond the veil. Others screamed, clutching their faces as blood poured from sockets burned out by impossible visions. Only the strongest held their composure, gasping as they sent reports to their captains.
Seeing this, both Atharion and the Great Wolf acted without hesitation. Their fleets were ordered to halt and form a hardened perimeter, locking down the system to ensure no vessel could escape or reinforce the Cardinal's corrupted host.
But two warships did not hold back.
From the front, the Eternal Vigilance, Atharion's flagship, advanced like a spear thrust at the Cardinal's heart. Its lances burned bright as it carved through the void, macrocannon fire pounding into enemy formations with unrelenting fury. Frigates shattered under the onslaught, their hulls rupturing in blossoms of fire and twisted metal.
From the rear, the Allfather's Honour—a venerable battleship of the Space Wolves—plowed forward like a beast of Fenris unleashed. Its prow rammed through a squadron of escort frigates, splitting one clean in half as its torpedoes gutted another. Its macro-batteries roared, tearing a path toward the enemy battlecruiser's engines, leaving burning wrecks in its wake.
Even the battlecruiser could not endure the fury. As it reeled, Atharion's Eternal Vigilance drove in from the side, engines burning white-hot. With a bone-shaking impact, the flagship rammed straight through the vessel's midsection, tearing open its spine. A heartbeat later, lances and macrocannons fired point-blank into the breach, detonating fuel reserves and reactor conduits. The battlecruiser split in half, its carcass engulfed in a chain of explosions that lit the void like a newborn star.
Wreckage scattered in every direction, fragments of twisted hull plating spiraling across the black. Those few crew who had survived the blast were dragged screaming into the warp by the daemons that now prowled the burning debris.
At the center of it all remained the Emperor-class battleship Terra's Dawn—Bucharis' flagship, his floating cathedral. Warp-lightning licked its titanic hull, shrieking faces forming and dissolving in its adamantium armor. Vox-chant carried on the system's frequencies, the Cardinal's sermons now distorted into inhuman gibberish that battered at the minds of all who heard it.
"Prepare the Claws." Atharion ordered, rising from the command throne, his cloak sweeping behind him as he strode toward the strategium doors. His voice carried with iron weight, brooking no hesitation. "I will lead the Wardens and the 1st Company to board the heretic's vessel. The 2nd will hold the Vigilance, maintain discipline, and ensure none of the crew falter under the witch-songs of the Cardinal."
Before, thirty Dreadclaws launch towards the Terra's Dawn while multiple Caestus launch from Allfather's Honour, carrying the Great Company of the Great Wolf.
The Space Wolves struck first. Their Caestus slammed into the corrupted battleship's flanks with thunderous impact, ramming deep and locking in place. Explosive charges tore rents through adamantium bulkheads, and within moments the sons of Russ were inside—bolters roaring, frostblades flashing, their howls echoing through daemon-haunted corridors as they began their bloody hunt.
Then came the Dark Knights. The Dreadclaws shrieked as their melta-cutters bit into the warped hull, circles of glowing metal peeling away before explosive bolts wrenched the breaches wide. Smoke and fire spilled outward as the assault pods unfolded, and from within, Atharion's Wardens emerged—Terminators clad in black and silver, storm bolters barking, thunder hammers crackling with caged lightning. Behind them, the full might of the 1st Company followed, advancing step by step into the screaming madness of the heretic's ship.
"Secure the engine room and the armoury." Atharion order as multiple squads of 1st Company begin to move from the group, advancing towards their target.
The vessel shuddered once more, groaning like a wounded beast. Behind Atharion, the tortured hull began to glow as another set of Dreadclaws bored their way through. Molten metal hissed, plates split, and with a thunderous crack the breach blew wide.
From the smoke stepped Thothrax, his armor haloed in the flare of his psychic hood, flanked by two more Masters of the Librarium. Their force staves pulsed faintly, warding back the Warp's creeping touch.
"The veil is thinning with every passing second." Thothrax warned, his voice low but edged with urgency. He and the other psykers stretched out their hands, threads of warp-light coiling between their fingers as they tested the air, probing the madness saturating the ship. Their faces darkened with grim recognition.
"We must end this quickly." Thothrax said, his gaze fixed down the corridor where lead to the Cardinal. "If the veil shatters, this vessel will become a gate."
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"Blood of the Blood God! Skull for th-!"
The heretic's scream was cut short in a thunderous roar of storm bolters. Explosive shells tore him apart mid-chant, his body reduced to a ragged smear across the corrupted bulkhead. More crew lurched into view, eyes glowing with warp-fire, blades of scrap and ritual iron clutched in their hands. They charged, shrieking praises to their false gods.
The Terminators of the Argent Wardens and the 1st Company advanced without a single glance at the fallen, their pace steady, unstoppable. Storm bolters barked in precise rhythm, each burst another heretic reduced to shreds of bone and ash. Those few who survived the barrage met only the crushing weight of thunder hammers or the merciless bite of chainfists, their screams drowned beneath the grind of ceramite boots.
Warp-spawned flames licked along the walls, faces screaming within the steel as if the ship itself shared in the madness. Daemon-things slithered from rents in reality, clawing forward with gibbering hunger—only to be torn apart as the Librarians' psychic wards flared, ripping their forms back into the immaterium.
Atharion strode at the head of his warriors, hammer sparking, cloak stirring in the acrid wind. Every step forward was inexorable, every fallen foe left behind without pause.
"We're close now." Thothrax said as he banish a daemon into the Warp with his psychic power.
Indeed. From the Warp's thickened stench, Atharion could already feel their quarry was near. And with grim certainty, he knew the Cardinal had already found new allies in the Warp—after casting aside the old.
"For Russ and the Allfather!"
The warcry of the Space Wolves echoed through the maddened hallways, rolling like thunder. It was joined by the brutal cadence of bolter-fire, the staccato bursts punctuated with the wet concussions of exploding bodies.
When Atharion reached the chamber where the Cardinal and his new allies should be, he paused for a heartbeat. To the left of the great, warp-warped doors, the Great Wolf and his Wolf Guard were locked in a storm of battle.
Hundreds of Ogryn Brutes, their flesh twisted by the Warp, surged forward in waves. Their frames, already monstrous, had swollen grotesquely with daemonic resilience—bones like iron girders, muscles knotted with cords of warp-flesh, and eyes blazing with unholy fire. Where bolter shells should have torn them apart, they only staggered, bellowing with rage before crashing down upon the Wolves once more.
At their head fought the Great Wolf Sigvarr, his double frost axes a blur of killing arcs. Each swing carved brutes open from shoulder to hip, spraying gore in sheets across the corrupted chamber. Frost-rimed edges bit through warp-tainted flesh, leaving steaming wounds that hissed as if reality itself rejected the mutants' existence.
Around him, the Wolf Guard fought with the fury of Fenris unleashed. Storm shields clashed against crude iron mauls, chainblades tore through warped bone, and frost claws raked glowing trails across the brutes' ranks. For every Wolf that stood, a dozen Ogryns fell—but still, the tide pressed in, an endless flood of muscle and madness.
Before Atharion could order the 1st Company to reinforce the Wolves, a fresh cacophony split the air—a guttural roar that rattled the bulkheads. From the opposing hall surged another tide of foes, warped Ogryns bellowing like beasts, their crude maces and iron-studded clubs raised high, driven on by shrieking traitor crewmen who spat curses and fired lasguns in wild, undisciplined volleys.
Without hesitation, a Lord Sergeant of the 1st Company strode forward, vox-grille crackling. "Form ranks! Kill-zone pattern!"
The Terminators moved with mechanical precision, their heavy steps echoing through the corridor. In moments they had formed a great V-shaped bulwark at the entrance, overlapping arcs of fire locking down the passage.
"Fire."
The corridor erupted in thunder. Storm bolters spat mass-reactive shells in disciplined bursts, tearing ragged holes through the first ranks of traitors. Limbs and torsos burst apart under the relentless barrage, the survivors tripping over heaps of their own dead. From the flanks, assault cannons unleashed blistering streams of high-caliber rounds, cutting swathes through the oncoming Ogryns, their massive bodies ripped open in fountains of gore.
Yet the brutes did not fall cleanly. Warp-twisted flesh writhed obscenely, sealing wounds that should have been mortal. They roared through the firestorm, staggering into the kill zone, only to be met by the crushing counterblows of thunder hammers and power fists. Each swing and punch detonated bodies into sprays of blood and bone, shockwaves rattling the very deck plates.
Still they came. More bodies hurled into the corridor, heedless of death, driven by a malignant will that pulsed from the chamber beyond.
Atharion know the only way to deal with Warp incursion or infestation is to destroy the source of it. And the source for this is the traitor Bucharis.
With a gesture of his gauntleted hand and a surge of will, Atharion unleashed a psychic blast. The massive chamber doors buckled inward, hinges shrieking before they tore free, the adamantium slabs hurled like missiles across the chamber.
The air inside was thick with madness. Incense burners belched black smoke that writhed like living serpents. Stained glass icons of the Emperor had been defiled, their faces clawed into leering daemons. And at the center of it all stood Bucharis, draped in tattered vestments that glowed with sickly warp-light, his arms raised as if conducting a choir only he could hear.
Around him, the last of his bodyguards—corrupted priests and malformed zealots—chanted in broken tongues, their voices layering into a discordant litany that made the air shiver.
""Huuuuh… the hope that I hear about." The Cardinal spoke—or rather, something spoke through him. His mouth never moved, his lips frozen in a grotesque smile, yet the words slithered across the chamber, echoing in tones both shrill and guttural.
The zealots around him screamed louder, their chants rising into a frenzy as warp-fire burst from their eyes and mouths, consuming them in ecstatic flame. Their ashes swirled into the smoke, feeding the black haze that writhed above.
Atharion's brow twitched. 'Ahhh, looks like I'm a semi famous person now, but in the wrong circle.'
The Librarians immediately raise a pyshic shield, lowering the Warp influence on them.
"My Lord, we need to deal with him now." Thothrax said with a strain voice. "The corruption are increasing on an incredible speed. If we didn't stop him now, he might explode and become a gate if this continue."
Atharion's gauntlet tightened around the haft of his hammer. Warp-light bled from the runes etched into its head, mingling with the pulsing energy of its power field until the weapon glowed like a star barely held in check. Sparks of empyric fire hissed along the length of his armor, as though reality itself recoiled from him.
He stepped forward, the deck groaning under his armored tread.
"Then we cut the root before it flowers."
Bucharis laughed—a hollow, layered sound that reverberated from the walls and the air itself—as Atharion and the Argent Wardens surged forward, smashing into the corrupted zealots.
Bolter fire thundered point-blank, explosive shells tearing apart the closest cultists in geysers of blood and ash. Storm shields rammed forward, sending twisted priests sprawling, bones snapping under the sheer force. Power fists and chainblades chewed through bodies as the zealots, burning with warp-fed fervor, hurled themselves at the Terminators without thought of survival.
Atharion waded through the press like a storm given form, his hammer rising and falling in arcs of ruin. Each strike cracked the air like thunder, reducing zealots into pulp and fragments, their screams drowned beneath the crash of ceramite against corrupted flesh.
Yet even as they fell, the zealots' deaths were not the end. Their bodies burst into vaporous flame, their essence torn screaming into the haze above, which thickened, twisting into half-formed daemon-shapes. The chamber itself moaned, as though the ship resented their very presence.
'This is bad.' Atharion thought, smashing a cultist into the deck with a sweep of his hammer. He could feel it now—the fabric of reality thinning, the warp pressing closer with each heartbeat. The air reeked of copper and ash, each breath carrying whispers that clawed at the mind.
Then it came.
A shriek split the chamber, guttural and inhuman, rattling the steel like it would shatter. The haze tore open like a wound, bleeding lightless flame, and from it clawed something vast and wrong. A daemon, horned and hulking, forced its way through the breach, its flesh an ever-shifting mockery of muscle and iron. Eyes like molten pits locked on Atharion as it roared, the sound a chorus of rage and hunger.
'Well, isn't this going to be fun.' Atharion mused with bitter sarcasm as he swing his hammer on the daemon charged at him.