The drizzle continued its patient work, tiny droplets falling in endless succession, each one individually insignificant but collectively transforming the battlefield into something between a quagmire and a charnel house.
Fifty-six heavy combat servitors stood in near-perfect formation, occupying the center position of the defensive line. Their composite armor, thick enough to stop anti-material rounds, was scored and blackened from sustained fire but remained functionally intact. They looked less like soldiers and more like humanoid tanks, mobile weapons platforms that happened to possess vaguely human silhouettes.
Red laser beams erupted continuously from their modified arms and the weapon mounts integrated into their shoulder assemblies. The beams cut through the rain-filled air, creating visible lines of superheated atmosphere that made the water droplets sizzle and evaporate on contact. The combined fire created a storm of crimson light, a killing field that extended nearly a kilometer forward.
Thrall ran into that storm and simply ceased to exist. Bodies fell in waves, flesh cauterized by weapons designed to punch through armored vehicles. The smell of burned meat mixed with ozone, creating a stench that somehow managed to be both sweet and nauseating simultaneously.
In front of the combat servitors, automatic servo robots crouched in firing positions. Their heavy logging guns maintained continuous fire, barrels glowing cherry-red from the sustained rate of discharge. Physical bullets tore through the air in streams so dense they created visible distortions, thousands of rounds per minute shredding everything in their path.
Rain fell on those superheated barrels and immediately flashed into steam, creating dense white smoke that billowed up from each robot's position. The effect made the defensive line look like it was burning, wreathed in clouds that the rain couldn't quite disperse.
One by one, servo robots exhausted their ammunition reserves. Their guns clicked empty, mechanisms cycling uselessly. When no reserve ammunition existed within ten meters, the affected robots simply moved forward.
Mechanical tentacles extended from their chassis, whip-like appendages tipped with cutting edges or crushing grippers. The robots became a new kind of barrier, a steel defense line that met the Thrall in close combat. Metal limbs lashed out with hydraulic force, tearing corrupted flesh, crushing bones, dismembering bodies with mechanical efficiency.
And against this combination of heavy combat servitors and mechanical infantry, the Blood Coven's standard tactics failed completely.
The cannon fodder approach that had worked against organic defenders, the overwhelming tide of bodies that eventually exhausted human endurance and ammunition supplies, met an enemy that felt no fear, no fatigue, no psychological pressure whatsoever.
The Thrall's corpses piled up. First in scattered heaps, then in windrows, finally forming walls of mutilated flesh several meters high. The bodies created their own terrain features, obstacles that had to be climbed over or circumvented. Blood ran in streams across broken pavement, mixing with rain until the ground became slick and treacherous.
But the mechanical troops didn't retreat. Not even one step.
Fanatical believers launched rockets from positions deeper in the slum, the projectiles arcing through the rain-filled sky before plummeting toward the defensive line. Gunfire from corrupted humans with retained cognitive function poured down in concentrated bursts.
The heavy combat servitors simply shifted their firing positions, adjusting their stance to present fresh armor facings while maintaining their rate of fire. The composite plating absorbed rocket impacts that would have killed unarmored humans, suffering damage but not catastrophic failure.
The servo robots were more vulnerable. Their manufacturing materials, designed for industrial work rather than sustained combat, couldn't withstand direct hits from anti-armor weapons. When rockets connected, the robots exploded into clouds of shrapnel, metal fragments spinning through the air to embed themselves in nearby surfaces.
But even in death, they served a purpose.
Those servo robots tasked with destroying ammunition supplies and eliminating battlefield evidence received new orders through David's network. Self-destruct authorization. Override safety protocols. Maximum yield detonation.
The robots acknowledged the commands without protest or hesitation. They simply picked up Flamers whose promethium reserves hadn't been fully depleted, fuel tanks still sloshing with volatile liquid, and charged directly into the melee defense line.
The explosions were tremendous. Each robot became an improvised bomb, the Flamer fuel igniting in a massive fireball that expanded outward with devastating force. Thrall caught in the blast radius were incinerated instantly, reduced to ash and carbonized bone. Fanatical believers who'd been coordinating the assault found themselves engulfed in flames, their triumphant expressions frozen in the moment before immolation.
The fires shot upward into the rain-filled sky, columns of orange-white heat that defied the water falling around them. Smoke billowed in thick black clouds, creating a pall that spread across the battlefield.
Soon after, the main combat force completed its withdrawal from the slum district. The Gang Dogs and civilian volunteers, exhausted and bloodied but alive, moved in organized columns toward the extraction point. Their movements carried the mechanical efficiency of people operating on pure discipline, bodies pushed beyond the point where conscious thought directed each action.
The mechanical rear guard, having accomplished its mission of buying time, began its own withdrawal. The heavy combat servitors moved in coordinated teams, maintaining overlapping fields of fire as they retreated. The surviving servo robots followed, their movements still precise despite accumulated damage.
The retreat was orderly, professional, executed with the kind of precision that only machines could maintain under such conditions.
And from within the slum, a sound erupted.
Cheering. Shouting. A roar of voices rising in unified triumph.
The fanatical believers, seeing the enemy forces withdraw, interpreting the retreat as victory, burst into celebration. Their voices carried across the devastated battlefield, echoing off broken buildings, amplifying through the rain-soaked air.
They praised the Blood Totem's blessing. They proclaimed the Blood Coven's eternal glory, predicting a thousand years of dominance. After all, they'd faced a terrifying force of unknown origin, had endured sustained assault from weapons they couldn't match, and had survived. More than survived. They'd won!
The ancient Blood Coven had not only endured but had achieved final victory!
The praise from the believers reached deafening levels, a cacophony of voices that seemed to make the very air vibrate. The sound rolled across the slum like thunder, persistent and overwhelming.
Even the gentle rain seemed disrupted by the noise, droplets scattered by sound waves, dispersing to fall elsewhere.
But none of the celebrating fanatics noticed something important. None of them paid attention to a critical detail visible in the Thrall surrounding them.
The corrupted thralls, those mindless drones with dull and numb expressions, were crying. From the corners of their vacant eyes, tears of blood mixed with rainwater tracked down hollow cheeks. Silent weeping from people who'd lost everything, including the capacity to understand what they'd lost.
The blood tears fell unnoticed, ignored, meaningless to those celebrating victory.
Outside the slum's perimeter, in an area that had become the final rally point, Nolan stood atop the Land Raider's massive hull.
His power armor was no longer blue. Blood had transformed it into something else entirely, a patchwork of crimson shades that ranged from bright arterial red to dark oxidized brown. Rain fell on the ceramite plating, creating tiny streams that cut clean channels through the accumulated gore, but there was too much blood to wash away quickly. He looked like he'd been dipped in a vat of paint and only partially dried.
He turned his neck slightly, positioning his ear toward the distant slum. The faint sounds of celebration reached even here, muffled by distance but unmistakable in their tone.
His expression remained completely neutral, giving nothing away.
His gaze shifted downward, tracking across the area surrounding the Land Raider. Gang dogs sprawled in loose groups, too exhausted to maintain proper formation but still conscious enough to keep their weapons close. Male civilians who'd volunteered for combat sat or lay among them, bodies marked by the same mixture of fatigue and trauma that came from sustained warfare.
All of them were covered in blood. The stench of it hung in the air, thick enough to taste. Their faces carried that particular numbness that comes from seeing too much death in too short a time, the psychological equivalent of shock.
Nolan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He seemed uncertain how to begin, wrestling with words that wouldn't come. The silence stretched.
Finally, he drew a deep breath, filling his lungs completely before releasing it in a controlled exhale.
"Now," he said, his voice cutting through the ambient noise of rain and distant celebration, drawing every eye toward him. "Approximately thirty hours have passed since the evacuation operation began."
The numbers came out flat, clinical, stripped of emotion through deliberate effort. "Four hundred and forty-four Gang Dogs participated in this operation. Forty-eight sustained injuries ranging from minor to critical. Thirteen were killed in action."
He paused, letting those numbers settle. "Aaron… Jack… Jerry… Alex…Joshua… " The names emerged slowly, each one pronounced with careful precision. "Every Gang Dog who died is a human hero who sacrificed their life to save others. Their achievements may never be widely known. Their names will never appear in history books. But they will live forever in our memory."
His hands clenched at his sides, the power armor's gauntlets creaking softly. "The civilians who fought to defend their homes, who stood their ground when they could have fled, deserve the same recognition and respect."
The clinical recitation continued. "Total civilian volunteers: more than thirteen hundred. Three hundred eighty-seven were wounded. Seven hundred twenty-six were killed in action."
His voice nearly broke on that last number but held steady through force of will. "Each of them was a father, a husband, a son. Each one has family waiting. Mothers. Wives. Children. People who will wait for them to come home." He swallowed hard. "They will wait forever. Because those men are staying on the battlefield. On the difficult road they chose when they decided defending their homeland was worth dying for."
Nolan's posture straightened, his voice gaining strength. "We humans exist in a false peace. We work very hard to maintain that illusion, to convince ourselves the world is safe."
His tone hardened. "But the truth is that war against xenos and heretics has never stopped. Not for a single moment. It erupts constantly in corners we refuse to see, in shadows we pretend don't exist. Silent but raging. Hidden but deadly."
"And the stupidest part?" His voice rose slightly. "Most humans don't want to know the truth. Don't want to stand up and expose the illusion. They're content to continue their comfortable lives within the false peace, allowing silent wars to be fought above their heads. They'll only wake up when they feel the flames of destruction burning their own skin. Only then will they realize the war never ended."
Nolan's voice had been gradually increasing in volume throughout the speech, each word carrying more weight, more intensity. Now he drew another deep breath, chest expanding visibly even within the power armor's bulk.
His arm rose suddenly, one sturdy limb encased in blood-stained metal lifting to point directly at the distant slum. His fingertips trembled slightly, a small tell of the emotion beneath the controlled exterior.
"Listen!" The word came out as nearly a shout. "Do you hear them? They're celebrating their victory!"
His voice carried absolute contempt now, disgust barely contained. "A group of heretics who dared to betray the human race! Who regard transformation into xenos as the ultimate glory! Who trample on mortal lives as casually as stepping on insects! They're celebrating their victory!"
His fist clenched, the gesture violent despite its restraint. "I will never accept this! No human should accept this! Are you willing to accept it?"
The response was immediate and visceral.
Gang dogs surged to their feet, weapons gripped in white-knuckled hands, their entire bodies trembling with emotions too powerful to contain. Civilian volunteers rose alongside them, faces transformed by fury into masks of rage.
They raised clenched fists toward Nolan, toward the sky, toward the distant slum where celebration continued. Eyes blazed with anger so intense it seemed to generate its own heat. Necks bulged with strain, veins standing out in stark relief as voices tore from throats raw from shouting.
"Blood debt must be paid with blood!"
"Give the order! Even if we die, we'll kill them all!"
"For my family! Revenge!"
"Blood debt must be paid with blood!"
The roar was deafening, hundreds of voices unified in rage and grief and determination. The sound rolled across the landscape like physical force, drowning out even the distant celebration.
Nolan's eyes widened, his expression transforming into something fierce and terrible. The careful control he'd maintained throughout the speech shattered. His lips pulled back, revealing the snow-white fangs that marked his inhuman nature, teeth that had no place in a human mouth.
He spun abruptly, the power armor moving with him, and looked down at David standing beside the Land Raider.
"David!" His voice cut through the ongoing roar. "How long until the feast we've prepared for the enemy arrives?"
David's metal head tilted upward, optical sensors focusing on Nolan's position. Blue light pulsed in its eye sockets. "My lord, three minutes remain. Additionally, Mr. Tony Stark has chosen to deliver the weapon personally."
"Notify Stark: launch immediately upon entering the designated area. The slum is beyond saving. There's no reason to hesitate."
Nolan paused, then added: "David, how long can you maintain global broadcast hijacking? All channels?"
The question seemed to catch David off-guard. Its head shifted slightly, the equivalent of a human double-take. When it responded, the synthesized voice carried a note of caution.
"My lord, I can maintain the hijack for as long as you require. However, I must kindly remind you of the consequences."
David's optical sensors brightened, the blue light intensifying. "If you proceed with this action, you will create countless additional enemies. Every national government on Terra will mark you as a threat. Every official organization will move against you. Every superhero will regard you as a villain to be eliminated. From a pure cost-benefit analysis, this action is inadvisable."
The Man of Iron fell silent, having delivered its warning, waiting for Nolan's decision.
Nolan turned slowly, his expression settling back into neutral calm. He didn't look at David as he responded, his gaze fixed on some distant point.
"Look at the bright side," he said, his tone almost conversational. "We'll finally know who our real friends are. And Raditus will absolutely love me for this." A pause. "David, time is short. Begin immediately."
"Understood, my lord."
David's voice shifted, becoming more mechanical, more formal. "Global broadcast hijacking initiating. Countdown: three... two... one..."
A series of harsh electromagnetic interference sounds erupted from every electronic device across the planet. Television screens flickered, computer monitors went dark for a heartbeat, radio speakers crackled with static.
Then, uniformly across all channels, a symbol appeared.
A golden double-headed eagle overlapped with a human skull, rendered in brilliant detail against a black background. The Imperial Aquila, that ancient symbol of authority and power, dominated every screen on Earth.
Radio channels across all frequencies carried nothing but that electromagnetic hum, punctuated by the static of a commandeered signal.
Europe. Asia. North and South America. Australia. Even the isolated research stations in the Arctic and Antarctic.
Every human near an active electronic device stopped what they were doing. Men and women, young and old, all paused mid-action. Expressions ranged from surprise to confusion to dawning alarm.
They stared at screens. They listened to speakers. Waiting to understand what was happening.
Then a voice emerged from the static. Clear. Authoritative. Carrying the weight of absolute conviction.
"This transmission originates from the North American continent, specifically from the large slum district of Chimahuacan in central Mexico."
Nolan's voice carried across the entire planet, transmitted through hijacked satellites, amplified through commandeered broadcast systems, reaching billions of ears simultaneously.
"An operation to eliminate and evacuate the evil heretical organization known as the Blood Coven has concluded in failure."
A pause, brief but weighted with meaning.
"We now arrive at the final moment to fulfill our mission. With loyalty to all humanity and the Immortal Emperor, in the name of grace bestowed by the glorious Golden Throne, I hereby pronounce judgment upon this slum district: a regional extermination order is declared and executed!"
The words hung in the air, their implications slowly penetrating the minds of listeners worldwide.
"In the Emperor's name, we will not allow a single tainted xenos's flesh or a single impure heretic's dust to escape the extermination and purification of justice's flames!"
Nolan's voice rose, gaining intensity, carrying the formal cadence of a death sentence pronounced by divine authority.
"I, in the name of the Twenty-Two Primarch, personally affix my signature to this slum's death certificate! Let hundreds of thousands of human souls be completely forgotten by the world!"
A final pause, then words that carried the weight of prayer and eulogy combined:
"May our judgment bring balance to humanity. May the Emperor guard the innocent in His light. May those denied peace in life find it at last in death."
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