Chapter 360: The Tyrant Star Descends
Guilliman and Lucan looked at each other simultaneously.
At that moment, they both sensed a vast, unknown psychic power beginning to fill the surrounding space. Lucan quickly calmed his mind and connected to his Warp Projection. He discovered that this warp power was not just in their immediate vicinity. In the psychic vision of his Xel'naga form, this unknown energy had abruptly appeared throughout the entire Scintilla system.
A warp storm had, without any warning, swept through the entire system, enveloping it completely. And the place most severely affected by this storm was Scintilla itself.
"Lucan... what in the warp is this power?!"
"I don't know... but it's definitely not a good thing. A sudden, large-scale warp storm... could it be related to the daemon invasions happening on the other worlds in the Imperium?!"
The scene before them was very similar to what Guilliman had described earlier, but even more exaggerated. The sheer magnitude and scope of this warp energy was perhaps only comparable to that of a full-fledged daemon world. But this was Scintilla.
As an important transit hub, and after his own purges, there were very few cultists left on Scintilla. The cult activities in the underhives had also been suppressed to the extreme. The cultists should not have had the ability to complete a blasphemous ritual of this scale.
If the Chaos Gods could so casually infiltrate the physical world in this manner, without the need for a ritual by mortal followers, then no conventional world could possibly resist the corrosion of this warp power. Humanity might as well just wait to die. The Chaos Gods could corrupt any planet they wished, and summon daemons wherever they pleased. Under such a dense concentration of warp energy, a mortal could be forcibly corrupted in a matter of days, and the entire world would be completely transformed into a daemon world.
Just then, Lucan's gaze fell upon the wine glass in front of him. The golden liquid had turned pitch black. And in the reflection of the glass, a black star had suddenly appeared. Lucan looked at the nearby windows, mirrors, and other wine glasses; all reflected the same image. They were indoors. How could the wine possibly reflect such a bizarre celestial body?
But that was not the only problem Scintilla was facing. At this moment, everyone on the planet felt the anomaly. Even those with no psychic talent could feel their souls tremble from the negative emotions caused by the warp energy. In the upper hive, the spires, and the mobile cities in the wastelands, all who could see the sky looked up.
In the sky, the light of the star that provided warmth to humanity was being suppressed. A black celestial body was suspended in the air. And this star was visibly growing larger; it was continuously approaching Scintilla.
Komus, the Tyrant Star, under the guidance of House D'Kaeth, had torn through the veil of reality and had returned to the material universe from the warp, and was now heading for Scintilla. It seemed to be devouring the light of the sun, converting its energy into warp power and scattering it across this world.
It was clearly broad daylight, and the sun was still high in the sky, but the entire world had grown dark. The black star continuously radiated energy, and with it came a wave of mutations that spread across the world. Anyone could tell that such a celestial phenomenon was definitely not a good thing.
At that moment, in the Spire Palace, the headquarters of the Inquisition on Scintilla, the entire senior staff of the Holy Ordos had run outside.
"Emperor preserve us... it's the Tyrant Star! How could the Tyrant Star be here...?" one of the few Inquisitors who knew the lore said in a voice of disbelief.
The appearance of the Tyrant Star this time was completely different from the patterns they knew. They had not even detected any of the usual omens beforehand.
"Quick! Something terrible is about to happen to Scintilla! Notify all Imperial departments! Lord Lucan and Lord Guilliman are on the planet! Find a way to contact them!"
The only good news for this planet and the people of the Inquisition was that Lucan and Guilliman were also here. They used the quantum communication system to send a distress signal to the nearby star systems at the first opportunity. But although the signal got through, a warp storm of this magnitude was not something that a conventional Imperial fleet could traverse.
This Tyrant Star was different from all its previous appearances. Having absorbed a massive amount of divine power from the Four Gods, the disaster it could bring had far exceeded any of its past manifestations.
On the wastelands of Scintilla, the dense warp energy began to condense into a tangible, pitch-black toxic fog. This fog appeared out of thin air and began to spread across the planet's surface. And now, this fog was also mixed with the virulent plagues of the Chaos God Nurgle.
The first victim was the mobile city of Ambulon, which was constantly moving across the wastelands. Nearly ten million humans lived on the massive crawler. This mobile city, which was constantly collecting various minerals and resources, had already pushed its mysterious archeotech engine to its maximum, but it still could not escape the approaching toxic fog.
"Dammit, faster! Faster! The Mark of Purity from the Mongorte Dynasty! Placate the Machine Spirit!"
"My Lord! We've already done it! The engine is already running on overload! Emperor preserve us, we're about to be surrounded by this fog! We can't escape!"
"Quick! Send a distress call to the hive city! Have them send someone to support us!"
"The hive... they're not responding to our distress signal! The hive is also in chaos! What in the warp is going on?!"
As the toxic fog surrounded them from all sides, only a small number of the informed nobility managed to escape the mobile city in aerospace vehicles at the last moment. The rest could only remain in the city and accept their fate. The workers toiling in the depths of Ambulon didn't even know what was happening outside.
The pitch-black fog completely swallowed Ambulon. Watching their compatriots struggling and dying horribly in the fog, the remaining humans tried to put on their respirators, but they could not resist the Nurgle plague that was mixed in with the toxins. In less than half an hour, almost all of the Imperial civilians on Ambulon were dead.
In the darkness, only the cathedral dedicated to the Emperor on Ambulon protected a small number of survivors. But the people who had been killed by the fog slowly began to be reanimated as walking corpses. And, using the power of the warp, Nurgle tore open a portal directly. A Great Unclean One and his Plague Marines appeared in this world, and countless Nurglings swarmed out, beginning to occupy every inch of Ambulon.
The power of the Emperor's faith had held back the fog and Nurgle's plague, but it could not hold back the physical attacks of the Plague Marines. They began to seize control of the giant mobile city, turning its own cannons toward the main hive of Scintilla, Sibellus. The daemons of Nurgle on Ambulon then began to guide the toxic fog, sending it surging directly toward the hive world.