Orario, the Seven Days of Blood. Day Three.
Aftermath of the western skirmishes and the destruction of the supply depots.
Chaos Threat: 6%
---
"It's all wrong, it's all pointless!" Asfi shoved the map before her away in a burst of rage. She could feel the defeat pressing against her chest, suffocating her with every breath.
"So many deaths!" Her voice cracked. Because of her naivety and hesitation, the Evils had completely thrown them out of the storehouse complex in District Six. A crucial line of supplies was now a fortified enemy foothold, a dagger aimed directly at their already fragile defenses.
Orders had come from Finn: hold the lines, prepare for any development. But Asfi could no longer trust herself not to fail again. The shame was a heavier weight than the mantle of leadership she held over her assigned force.
"Calm down, girl. The worst mistake a leader can make is to appear vulnerable to their troops." Gareth's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. The veteran dwarf of Loki Familia leaned casually against the tent's central post, arms crossed, his tone carrying a hint of amusement that only deepened the sting.
Asfi turned to him with a shaky expression. "You think this is easy, Elgarm!? Lives depend on my orders—me! The freshly appointed captain of Hermes Familia!"
Her voice and hands trembled. She met the dwarf's gaze, then faltered, eyes drifting to the tent flap, beyond which their war camp stirred with the uneasy restlessness of adventurers awaiting their next bloody confrontation.
The makeshift encampment lay dangerously close to the Evils' new stronghold, placed there per Finn's instructions. The pallum commander was likely foreseeing something she could not. Either her nerves had blinded her, or else it was one of Finn's infamously questionable yet unnervingly accurate intuitions.
"I can never fit in these shoes so suddenly… I'm going to screw up badly," Asfi whispered, the truth spilling from her lips before she could stop it. The sudden death of Lidith had already broken her footing. Now, with the weight of leading the entire familia in a war-torn city pressing down on her, the so-called prodigy felt herself fracturing.
Gareth studied her, his expression softened by a shadow of sympathy yet hardened by pragmatism. He knew what unchecked inexperience could do. A misstep here could cost hundreds, perhaps even thousands. Leadership born on the spot did not always yield the results people imagined.
"Then… go," he said simply.
Asfi blinked, baffled. "Go?... Where!?" Was Elgarm truly suggesting she desert her post?
Gareth let out a long sigh, as though she had asked the most foolish question in the world. "I've fully healed. I'm taking command of this force." He thumped his chest with a fist, standing tall, voice steady as bedrock. "You go and hunt down our real enemies: the Silent Witch of Hera, and the Gluttony of Zeus."
He reached for his axe, the familiar weight settling across his shoulder as he strode toward the exit. "Take whom you need from your familia and report to the Guild. Do what Hermes Familia has always excelled at—information gathering."
He stopped at the flap of the tent, glancing back over his shoulder. A smirk tugged at his beard. "We've got unfinished business with them, and with the patron God of the Evils Erebus. We're counting on you, Perseus."
And then he was gone, striding into the camp with the easy certainty of a man who already knew the path before him.
Asfi stood frozen for a long moment, the dwarf's words echoing inside her. Then, despite herself, she smiled softly. "That dwarf really has a way…"
At least she wasn't actively ruining everything anymore.
Time to return to their core strengths.
---
The sun began its descent, painting the city in hues of fading gold, but the rioters in District One showed no signs of surrender.
Men and women alike had taken up arms, their anger boiling into pure aggression. The Guild, hoping to avoid further bloodshed, first tried diplomacy by sending their employees instead of adventurers, fearing that the direct involvement of adventurers would only inflame tensions.
None of those employees ever returned.
By the third disappearance, the Guild abandoned diplomacy altogether.
Their new method came in the form of ten adventurers stationed on rooftops, far enough to avoid the paranoid gazes of the mob. They were all women, hunters by trade—the Artemis Familia.
Although specialized in tracking and killing monsters, not quelling riots, the huntresses had been forced to commit nearly half their numbers to this assignment. Refusing the Guild's demands wasn't an option, not when even their own goddess had insisted they comply with the summons.
A high-ranking Guild informant had uncovered Evilus cultists embedded in the camp, corrupting the civilians, capitalizing on their desperation. The informant reported sacrificial rituals; the Hermes Familia scouts confirmed it.
Their orders were clear: eliminate the cultist leaders. Then, and only then, attempt to negotiate with the remaining rioters to lay down their arms.
Rethusa, captain of Artemis Familia and their only Level 3, crouched low, her sharp eyes scanning the rioter camp.
Beside her, Rue, a Level 2 archer, kept her eyes fixed on the camp. Her voice was calm. "Captain, should we move out?"
"…Yes," Rethusa replied. It was time to end this madness once and for all.
"AHHH!"
"PLEASE, NO!"
The night air was suddenly split with screams. Dozens of voices of men and women, howling in torment from deep within the camp. The pain in their cries was so unmistakable that it rattled even the hardened Artemis warriors.
"Then let's go now—they're hurting people!" one of the younger girls exclaimed, drawing her sword and preparing to leap across the rooftops.
Rethusa's eyes narrowed. Her instincts screamed for her to act, to deliver justice, but she crushed the urge beneath iron discipline.
"Stay low. We aren't waltzing in like amateurs," she commanded, her voice allowing no argument.
"B-but—!"
"No buts. Girls, arm up and slowly take positions inside that camp—we are hunting today," Rethusa ordered without hesitation. It wouldn't do to doubt.
The girls obeyed their captain without question. These were dark and dangerous times, and the only thing keeping them from faltering was listening to the highest authority.
Ahead in the camp, the last of the screaming people was being held captive on a cross-like construct. Symbols were carved into his flesh, his cries carrying across the entire district.
"Oh gods, please make it stop!" Beneath him, a stream of blood flowed—his own mingled with that of the others who had been slaughtered.
The stream coursed through carved grooves in the earth, circling back upon itself until it formed a perfect sigil: a circular shape ending in eight pointed edges, symbolizing the reign of Chaos.
The symbol glowed faintly under the dark skies. Alien scriptures, drawn in jagged strokes, sprawled across each spear, radiating unsettling light.
The people who supplied this construct with their precious lives—whether willingly or by force—were bound in the center. Their life essence was siphoned away.
"AHHH!" The terrified man was not one of the willing ones. He could feel his own flesh frying in invisible fire, searing pain wracking his body. Forces beyond his comprehension clawed at his soul, trying to wrench it free.
The rioters stood transfixed. They watched the ritual—the promise of freedom, the power to save themselves.
This man marked the 191st sacrifice they had offered to the voices. Many had been given secretly in the sewers to avoid attention, just as the whispers instructed.
That number was nearly seventy percent of the camp's total population, surrendered to the ruinous powers.
The daemons whispered in glee at the sight, their shrieking happiness echoing like chimes in the minds of mortals. The joy of the creatures of the Warp bled into the hearts of the weak, feeding their excitement, deepening their corruption.
Their minds were clouded, their morality stripped. Their free will, while technically still present, was twisted beyond recognition by the daemons' whispers.
"My friends…"
The voice belonged to Wisla—or rather, the husk of him that still remained. His hand tightened around the staff the daemon had instructed him to forge. His voice was hollow and soulless, yet it cut into the hearts of the people like a blade.
Their ragged movements halted. Heads twisted unnaturally, snapping toward their leader as though tethered. Like a flock of sheep, they turned to their shepherd.
"This… is a grand offering to the gods. Your husbands' flesh and your wives' bones are the foundation for your gifts." Wisla's steps carried him closer to the writhing sacrifice, his staff gleaming faintly in the crimson light.
"Your children's blood…" His soulless gaze lingered on the tiny piles of skulls stacked beside the ring, "…is the ink with which your salvation is written."
At the end of his staff, a sharpened, raw, warp-touched fragment of human bone had been fixed—a crude spear steeped in malice, cursed with every drop of blood it had drunk.
"You are all insane! Insane!" the dying man cried, tears mixing with the blood soaking his body. His scream weakened as his strength drained away.
"With this sacrifice, a new age will begin!" Wisla thundered, and with a sickening thrust he drove the staff down, piercing the man's skull cleanly. "With this ritual, the age of the true gods will dawn!"
The body convulsed once and fell still. The blood and soul were sucked dry in an instant. The circle blazed with unnatural crimson, glowing bright enough to paint the camp in red light.
"Praise be the Visioner!"
"Glory to the true gods!"
"Down with the false ones!"
The rioters cheered with zeal. They did not hesitate. They did not question. They committed atrocity without a blink. Husbands and wives sacrificed their partners, parents surrendered children—even themselves.
These were not loyal Imperial citizens, shielded by unyielding faith in the one true God-Emperor. They could not resist temptation. They could not strangle their desires. Even the faintest murmur of the Warp had managed to twist them wholly.
Most concerningly, these people had never been exposed to the Immaterium before—nor had their ancestors. That lack of contact left their bodies and souls utterly defenseless against psychic intrusion.
Some might wonder: if they were so vulnerable, why had they not all gone entirely mad already?
The answer was simple. Another force stood as a bulwark: the Heavens themselves.
This realm's gods had established power that bound and restrained the Immaterium from claiming mortal souls outright.
That, Wisla was told by the voice, would be the first obstacle to sever.
"The first seal will start the reckoning, loyal servants…" Wisla raised his bloodied staff toward the heavens. His eyes gleamed with madness, the circle beneath him thrumming with growing psychic energy.
FWOOSH!
An arrow ripped through the night sky, aimed straight for his skull.
The rioters screamed in alarm. Their salvation, their Visioner, was about to be ended before the ritual could be fulfilled.
Wisla did not flinch. He smiled. His warp-gifted vision slowed the world around him, tracing the arrow's path and its source in a fraction of a second. His lips curled in gratitude. This was adventurer-grade ammunition.
Adamantite-tipped. Strong enough to kill even deep-floor monsters.
He closed his eyes, welcoming it. At last, an escape. Release from this prison of despair.
'I'm sorry, Rein…'
…
'Not yet.'
The daemon's cold voice coiled from the depths of his broken mind. It seized control, drowning Wisla's surrender. With guttural chants in the black tongue, it drew upon the Warp, amplified through the cursed staff. Energy surged, forming a protective empyric shield around his head.
The arrow shattered inches from his skull.
"Dammit!" Rue spat from her vantage point, jaw tight at the wasted ammunition. How could he deflect that?
"Leave it. Girls, attack from a distance! Eliminate the target!" Rethusa barked. Her order cut across the rooftops and alleys, summoning Artemis Familia's hidden blades into action.
The huntresses emerged, bows raised, arrows drawn, swords gleaming in the crimson haze. Every eye fixed on Wisla.
"It's the cursed adventurers!" a rioter screamed. Panic swept the mob. In desperation, they surged forward, forming a crude human barricade around the Visioner.
"Protect the magus!"
The most corrupted among them locked arms and crude shields, their bodies trembling but resolute. The daemon wearing Wisla's body like a robe grinned at the sight of his zealots.
"Stay away, disbelievers!"
Rethusa's eyes widened at their reactions. This was outright fanaticism. What could have made them like that?
"Captain, what should we do?" Rue's voice cracked with nerves, cold sweat trickling down her temple.
Rethusa grit her teeth and dropped from the rooftop, landing effortlessly. Rue followed, as did a few others, though many of the huntresses hesitated above, waiting for an opening.
Eighty civilians at least, their eyes wild, bodies shaking—yet still they shielded the circle. The camp should have held hundreds more. Where were they? The thought disturbed Rethusa, her eyes flicking to the grotesque sight of bones near the glowing blood-symbol.
That answered her question.
"Citizens!" she shouted, her voice commanding, calm but iron. "The Guild urges you to lay down your arms. You will be forgiven. You will be given food, medicine, protection. Move away from that man—now!"
For a moment, some faltered. Weapons lowered. The promise of returning to what they had lost wasn't so bad…
Then the whispers surged again.
A psychic pressure rolled across the camp, suffocating the atmosphere.
Lies. Deceivers. They will bind you again. Kill them before they kill you!
One man convulsed violently. His eyes rolled back, then snapped open, glowing crimson red. His distorted, booming voice carried across the crowd.
"DO NOT LISTEN! They serve the false heavens! They come to butcher us in our salvation! See how they hide their blades!? See how they aim their arrows!?"
The mob erupted. Rage drowned hesitation. Eighty civilians slammed shoulder-to-shoulder into a living wall. Their mouths moved in broken unison.
"Down with your lies! Down with your chains!"
Several cut their own arms and smeared blood onto the glowing circle. The sigil pulsed brighter, the air warping with heat.
"Stop! Hands down!" Rethusa barked, eyes wide at the sight, but her voice was swallowed in the storm of madness.
"Captain, your orders!?" Rue snapped, her nerves fraying at the hostility.
Before Rethusa could muster one, a voice interrupted the rising chaos.
"Friends… there is no need for this hostility."
The crowd froze. As if a switch had been flipped, every head snapped back toward Wisla. His daemon-tinged, hollow voice carried like gospel.
The possessed husk strode forward, his steps deliberate, unshaken by the huntresses closing in.
"Magus, let us serve!" one zealot cried, desperate.
The daemon dismissed them with a wave, then spread its hands wide in proclamation. "My servants, so far I have only given you the words of the gods. Now… I shall show you their gifts!"
Rethusa's instincts hardened. She didn't wait to find out why. "Attack!"
Her body blurred, moving with Level 3 speed. The ground shuddered beneath her step as she closed the distance, leg snapping up in a devastating strike.
"Witness power made form!"
A blue barrier of raw Warp energy exploded around Wisla, absorbing the blow with impossible force. The energy twisted, redirecting the strike back into Rethusa's body.
"Gh—!" She flew backward, crashing into Rue and the others, the impact rattling her bones.
"Captain!" they cried, catching her before she hit the cobblestone.
"Fire!"
The archers loosed six shots at once, their arrows streaking through the air. All were destined for Wisla's heart.
Lightning flared. Wisla's pupils shifted colors rapidly. The arrows froze mid-air, suspended in a pocket of warped time.
The Artemis Familia froze in shock.
"Look out!" The girls barely avoided their own arrows as they returned with even greater speed.
Forced out of position, their swords rang out as the huntresses descended, closing the distance.
"You know your training, girls!" Rue barked, charging with the others.
The daemon's hands burst lightning. Warp energy surged onward toward one of the girls.
"AHHH!" The huntress collapsed, her body wracked with unnatural convulsions.
"Lira!" another cried, rushing to her aid.
"Ghup!" Her neck erupted in blood—the blade buried in it belonged to Lira herself.
"No…" Lira's eyes widened in horror at what her hands had done without her will.
She was being possessed by the daemon. She fought desperately, screaming, until her mind melted under the strain. Her body crumpled to the ground.
"No!" The girls were terrified at the sight, but they couldn't counter attacks they couldn't see.
"Impressive," the daemon crooned through Wisla, voice mockingly amused. "You beat back my influence… but at what cost?"
"Hya!" Rue appeared behind him, her blade poised to cleave him in two.
The daemon smiled. "Die!"
Wisla's own deep hatred against the daemon itself was drawn forth, manifesting raw psychic fire that burned away Wisla's arms. It engulfed Rue.
"AAHHHHH!" Her scream split the night as her body and soul burned away to ash, not a trace left.
"Rue!!!" Rethusa screamed, frozen as the ashes scattered in the crimson wind.
A Level 2, erased in seconds.
"Three sacrifices… seven left." The daemon's lips curled into a sadistic grin. His eyes glowed, his sharpened teeth gleamed in the crimson light.
Rethusa's hands trembled, her teeth grit until they cracked. They had underestimated their enemy severely. Their information had been wrong.
"Now come," the daemon roared, arms wide. "THE FIRST SEAL WILL BE BROKEN WITH YOUR BLOOD!"
The zealots screamed in ecstasy. The circle flared, flooding the camp with living scarlet light.
Rethusa's body shook. Her heart ached for the girls still beside her. For Artemis, their goddess.
If more fell here, it would shatter her.
Rethusa tightened her grip.
She would not let that happen.
Unfortunately for her… they were already dead. For anyone who stepped into this ritual's ground was bound to be corrupted when it was done.
---
"No..." the goddess muttered, her eyes widening as the sensation tore through her.
"What was that, my lady?" asked the guild employee who had been keeping her company within the Pantheon, the Guild headquarters. His curious stare lingered, unaware of the dread that had just clawed into Artemis's soul.
"Agh..." Her heart ached as another string was cut. She rose suddenly, catching the employee by surprise.
"Is everything alright!?" he pressed, worried. His task was simple: keep the goddess of the hunt occupied while half her Familia carried out their mission against the rioters and their Evilus leaders.
Another string was severed—another of her precious girls lost forever.
"I need to go!" Artemis hissed, already striding past him. She exited the private booth, ignoring his desperate cries to return.
The people in the hallways turned, confused, as the goddess of the hunt made her way to the exit.
With each step, a thread snapped. Another life ended. Another girl gone.
She could feel it. And it was wrong. Artemis had endured the loss of many of her children in the long centuries she had walked among mortals. Each time, she felt a severing, the sudden void where a soul once burned bright, her blessing vanishing from their body as their souls returned to the heavens.
But this… this was not that.
There were no souls returning. No final ascension. Only cold silence.
String after string, life after life disappeared, until she counted exactly nine. Nine of her beloved girls gone. Their blessings erased, their souls stolen into some void she could not even feel.
"I need to—!" She shoved the Guild's doors open, stepping into the night sky of the bleeding city. Orario was cloaked in darkness, the heavens themselves dimmed.
And then, she felt the tenth and final girl die.
SKREEE—EEEAAAHHH!!!
A violent spear of blue and purple light shot into the sky, tearing the night apart. Reality itself screamed as the spear pierced the fabric of space, forming a literal tear that covered the city.
The goddess staggered. The sheer wrongness radiating from that alien wound froze her legs in place.
The night sky was bright, and the people felt the change.
...
'JOIN US.'
The voices were everywhere. Shrill. Seductive. Inescapable. Every mortal being in Orario heard it—tempting, cajoling, promising.
The Boaz warrior striving to prove himself worthy of facing the glutton once again felt his chest swell with pride as his greatsword triumphed over his Familia members.
His Familia members felt the same sensation.
The blonde elf who fled her Familia, running away from her crumbling world, suddenly burned with an obsessive desire to understand justice—to grasp it, to define it, to wield it until the last ounce of knowledge regarding it was learned.
The blonde-haired sword princess felt the blood-god's call thrumming through her veins, a sharpened thirst for slaughter singing in her tiny hands, demanding the monsters' blood.
The rampaging werewolf's boots dug deeper into his own flesh. A frenzy overtook him, joy rising at the thought of breaking cultists beneath his heels.
The high elf scholar's gaze glazed over. A strange sensation overtook her body, a new energy entering her that was not the regular magical kind.
She felt curious about it.
In Orario's red-light district, untouched by Evilus raids, the prostitutes sat restless, menless, joyless. Their empty gazes shifted as laughter spilled into their ears, sweet and poisonous.
Two elven maniacs, hiding in their Evilus base, the Dis sisters, long incapable of normal love or tenderness—felt their eyes burst wide with ecstasy. The Dark Prince called for them easily.
Elsewhere, the power-hungry and cunning Olivas, alongside the atheist and deranged Basram, felt the lure of change. They did not resist it entirely; instead, they let it free to continue voicing its promises.
And across the camps, the sick, the wounded, and the forgotten felt sores open, flesh boil, bones swell. They smiled through agony. The Lord of Plagues' gifts were easy to bestow upon them.
These were only fragments. Hundreds, even thousands more were experiencing similar feelings.
The strong mortals resisted. The blessed falna-holders stood their ground, fighting the mental invasion. But the weak, the lost, the foolish—they embraced it.
In a distant alley, a lone son of Krieg sat among the corpses of cultists. His helmet rested beside him as he caught his breath. He looked up at the sky, his dark eyes watching the tear in reality, understanding what had just occurred.
Zald, from his perch, lifted his head just long enough to acknowledge the shift. His dull eyes half-opened, then closed again as he slumped back into his rest.
"Irritating…" Alfia muttered. Her head pounded, faltering her steps.
Beside her, Erebus's eyes narrowed at the spectacle that had just occurred. "It looks like we have… company," he murmured. This was no part of his plan.
"I need my potions. We're stopping at the church," Alfia said calmly, her tone more annoyed than pained. Mental attacks were always a nuisance, and she hated nuisances.
Erebus sighed. His hunt for Ryuu would have to wait.
Perhaps he would need to take things more seriously if he wanted his ultimate goal to be fulfilled.
Above Orario, the night was anything but calm. The tear was visible for all to see, a declaration of "something is happening."
This was chaos sorcery. A cage that fed on mortal souls, empowering the Warp with every death.
The heavens themselves were cut away from this part of the world. The Immaterium now had a foothold.
From this moment onward, any mortal who died within Orario all the way to Port Melen would not return to heaven. Their souls would not reincarnate. Instead, they would be devoured by the endless hunger of Chaos.
The Great Game had begun. Gods would gamble with mortal souls as though they were dice.
And in Orario, the board had been set.
May the Emperor be with them.
---
The End
---
What a fucked up situation
I was planning something big, then was like "fuck no" and decided to make the plot more linear and simple
Anyway, sorry for the wait and for the short chapter, I wasn't exactly in the best financial situation
Things were rough, and instead of coping by writing the story, I coped by replaying some of the old games I used to play as a kid—like the absolute classics Metal Gear Solid and God Hand (God Hand is fucking amazing)
Anyway, what a week, huh?
Seeing three governments collapse (France, Japan, and Nepal) then having the youth of Nepal decide the fate of their government in a Discord chat call with anime profile pics lmao
Then there were the Russian drones in Polish airspace—pretty hot
Then the murder of that poor Ukrainian girl…
Then Charlie Kirk getting his throat sliced open with a bullet in the middle of a speech—live—and me seeing it uncensored?
(No political sides are encouraged, I'm just saying)
Yeah, pretty fucking interesting week
Sorry readers, I tend to cope in these notes a lot, and I'm facing difficulties IRL bruh
Anyway, good read. Stick around for more if you're interested.