902.M30.
On Viziole, under the cover of night, Keon, Captain of the Fourth Chapter's 5th Company, lightly tapped his right temple.
Black-green mist seeped from the "Gatekeeper's" brow, swirling with twisted or formless faces.
With a creak, a strange gate opened.
SWOOSH, SWOOSH, SWOOSH!
Xenos banshees, arms spread, glided on wing-like membranes, their heavy stubbers spitting dark green rounds.
With piercing shrieks, the semi-solid, semi-illusory rounds pierced the Hrud's jointed armor, striking their bodies.
The dying Hrud emitted unprecedented, terrifying screams.
The sound reminded him of the final tick of a clock, or the ultimate death of a star.
It was the death-shriek of time itself.
Amidst the terrible cries, the madness in the Hrud's large, black eyes momentarily receded. Glints of red hatred flickered. They momentarily looked away from the stasis device.
The Hrud roared, raising their plasma flintlocks, firing beams hotter than stars.
The plasma beams, constantly phasing between reality and the Warp, struck the banshees.
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK...
With a series of explosions, the banshees' bodies burst.
In the black-green spectral light, they re-formed.
Some missing an arm. Others with gaping holes in their abdomens...
The "Gatekeeper" watched his specters. The Hrud's plasma beams were not confined to reality; they had Warp-like properties, far more damaging to banshees than Imperial or Squat plasma weapons.
But the damage was limited to the point of impact. The spreading flame caused no further harm.
The banshees, re-formed, attacked immediately, as if they had lost nothing, though their cries grew more piercing.
Beast-like xenos banshees charged the Hrud, swinging their weapons.
Hammers struck the Hrud, passing through their jointed armor, crushing their pus-filled bodies.
Axes split their black eyes, smashing their heads to pulp.
...
The "Gatekeeper's" intuition stirred. He looked ahead, sensing over a dozen Hrud had suddenly appeared.
His eyes flickered with concern. The Hrud's distorted fields were beginning to function on a world saturated with a stasis field.
For the four months since the Black Emperor activated Lord Perturabo's device, the Hrud's distorted effects had never worked here.
Hundreds of Hrud city-ships, tens of thousands of fungus-wrapped migration ships, arriving in the system, had been ambushed by the six Chapters' fleets.
The Ramillies-class Starfort in the planet's orbit had been a meat grinder.
Fewer than one in ten thousand Hrud had reached the surface.
Though they still numbered nearly two hundred million, without the protection of their entropy fields, they were still manageable.
Now, the distorted effect was working. The stasis field was weakening.
As he thought, in orbit, thirty-four city-ships and one hundred fifty-eight migration ships, forming petal-shaped formations, pressed towards the Starfort.
In the central area, a section of cable from the power room's Punishment-class reactor suddenly decayed, crumbling to dust.
Isidor rushed forward with his attendants.
His armor was unpainted. On Sondheim VIII, he had failed to resist the influence, becoming the first to attack his battle-brothers. He had been stripped of his Techmarine rank and his paint.
When the war broke out, Isidor, the only Shadows of Order on the Starfort, had voluntarily gone to the power room to perform the most dangerous maintenance.
In the past fifteen solar days, he had made two hundred sixty-one repairs.
His armor, after countless repairs, was pitted and dull.
He no longer had the energy or time for maintenance.
The six servo-arms on his back moved like spider legs.
To atone, he had pushed himself, installing more mechandrites than he could handle.
To use them, he injected stimulants laced with Omnissiah's holy oil daily. The strain accelerated his aging.
He had aged two thousand nine hundred years in a short time. His black hair had fallen out. Age spots covered his neck. His skin was withered.
His right leg clicked loudly. The Techmarine knew it was from wear.
He remembered replacing it five hours ago. The manufacturing date on the part: 901764.M30.
Only four months ago.
Like the cable in his hand, it was decaying rapidly.
CRACKLE.
Sections of cable fell. Isidor let out a despairing sigh.
He had failed.
He looked at the power core. It flickered, then died.
The equipment in the room disintegrated. A rain of metal atoms drifted.
His six servo-arms retracted with a grinding screech.
One arm, riddled with holes, fell.
Another shattered, scattering into parts.
He lowered his head, staring at his chest. Four arms rapidly traced the Legion's emblem.
Dust poured from the cracks in his armor. The Punishment-class reactor's dying scream echoed in his ears. A pained smile crossed his face.
As the power core died, the fortress-grade void shields failed. The entire Starfort began to decay.
The Ramillies-class Starfort, designed to serve three millennia, had been built only eighteen years ago. It now became a rain of metal, falling onto Viziole's surface.
The stasis field covering the entire planet noticeably dimmed.
The planet heaved. Great fissures opened on the surface.
The crust shifted. Magma, accelerated by the Hrud's strange influence, then pulled by the conflicting stasis and entropy fields, burst through the crust, swallowing tens of thousands of black-armored warriors.
Hundreds of millions of Hrud were shrouded in a faint veil.
Bolts that had struck true, shattering enemies moments before, now detonated early from decay, or raced at incredible speeds, only to miss, deflected by distorted fields...
Black armor shattered. Dust poured out.
Shadows of Order turned grey. Their skin grew paper-thin.
Hrud city-ships, flickering in and out of sight, crashed down like mountains. Fungus-wrapped migration ships fell like spears.
In the accelerated temporal flow, strange light flashed. Hundreds of bizarre, spherical cannons emerged.
They rooted themselves, firing at the altar.
Blazing energy rings shattered the hive city and the remaining battlements, debris raining towards the stasis device.
At the altar, Nareth's wings beat.
Golden flames blazed, filling the sky.
A hail of beams flew into the golden sea, swallowed.
The "Mentor of Disorder" turned his hand. The 1.4-meter-long banner appeared. His spiritual energy surged.
"I, in the name of the 'Red Priest,' beseech the Kingdom of Disorder to grant me power. Amplify the stasis field to its utmost."
The thirty-three, eleven-meter-tall pillars of dual-numbered black gold shattered. Dense runes blazed.
The light shot skyward, a blazing star igniting over Viziole.
Black mist rose, enveloping the stasis device.
The dim stasis field suddenly blazed, expanding to cover a region 120,000 kilometers in diameter around the planet.
The veil of distortion was torn. The distorted effects on the ships crazily converging on Viziole vanished.
The sundered, disintegrating planet stabilized. The six Chapters' Shadows of Order launched their extermination.
They charged the xenos in fury. Bolts thundered, blasting the foul-smelling xenos, now visible, to pieces.
In the void, the black fleet emerged from celestial bodies around the system, encircling the exposed Hrud ships.
The long-silent macro-cannons loaded. Their machine-spirits roared in fury, hammering the xenos ships.
In silent explosions, hive-sized city-ships shattered. Flames, caught in the lingering temporal currents, blazed faster.
Fungus-wrapped wreckage rained down.
.....
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