"Dammit, are we really here to suppress a rebellion?"
A sergeant from the Lucifer Black Guards grumbled. His black, full-coverage carapace armor glinted coldly in the dim interior of the transport. Wearing a metallic gas mask, his voice sounded muffled.
Beside him in the Taurox APC, his colleagues remained silent, calmly cradling their weapons, unmoving and offering no reply.
How terrifying could the Inquisition be once its initiative was sparked and it began to exert its full effort?
A vast number of Inquisitors had been deployed like a cast net, beginning a carpet search across the Imperial capital of Terra. Coupled with direct military support from the Adeptus Custodes, they worked with incredible fervor, adopting an attitude that such a rare opportunity must not be squandered.
Inquisitor Sybil, who had already entered the Eternal City, was no exception. After spending a little time piercing through Genestealer blockade lines under the protection of Tempestus Scions, the senior Ordo Malleus Inquisitor quickly detected large-scale Warp signatures through her psychic senses. Upon further investigation, she discovered numerous undeniable traces of Chaos cult activity.
Without a moment's hesitation, Sybil called for reinforcements. This was no ordinary heresy! It required a heavy hand.
Upon receiving the message, the Grand Master of the Inquisition, Lady Erls, reviewed the intelligence and immediately dispatched an ace unit considered elite even among the legendary Astra Militarum—the Lucifer Black Guards. As experienced palace guardians, their tactical proficiency and formidable strength were perfect for such suppression missions.
After a brief review, given that the targets were hidden deep in the underhive where heavy curved fire from Basilisks could not be utilized, the Lucifer Black Guards formed an armored strike force centered on Leman Russ Battle Tanks, Chimera armored transports, and Taurox APCs, charging into the dark labyrinths of the underhive with an unstoppable momentum.
They intended to use tanks to send every single heretic to the heavens. However, they soon discovered an embarrassing problem. The heretics' equipment didn't seem much worse than their own.
As several minutes passed, the convoy approached its destination. The sergeant took a deep breath, rested his hand near the vehicle window, and leaned in to look outside.
Boom!
The flare of an explosion suddenly illuminated his constricted pupils. A Hunter-Killer missile, trailing a long red flame like a hungry meteor, shrieked out from a hidden firing port above and to the side, striking a moving Chimera.
The roar of the blast echoed as flames erupted from the roof of the unfortunate victim. The relatively thin roof armor clearly didn't hold up for long against the missile's direct hit; the molten metal jet sprayed inside, unceremoniously shredding the crew and burning them to cinders. Debris splattered across the entire compartment. The high-temperature jet continued downward, eventually piercing the ammunition rack and the engine. A horrific secondary explosion occurred from the inside out, a pillar of fire surged upward, and the entire turret was blown high into the air.
Seeing this, the sergeant couldn't help but curse under his breath. Where did these cultists lurking in the underhive get such high-quality weapons? It wasn't as if they were sourcing their goods directly from the Departmento Munitorum, right?
Fortunately, the Leman Russ tanks in the flanking mobile units immediately began pouring suppressive fire toward the hostile positions, reducing the risk of being hit during the subsequent maneuver. After driving a bit further, the target location finally appeared in everyone's sight.
It was a specially modified fortress building, its volume appearing quite towering in the dark and cramped hive district. Clearly, it had undergone significant fortification; the exterior was surrounded by thick Aegis defense walls, and every window was reinforced with custom steel plates. Sharp-eyed scouts could even see gun muzzles protruding from them.
Undoubtedly, this was the objective of the Lucifer Black Guards. If they wanted to continue clearing the subsequent zones, they couldn't simply drive straight through; capturing a foothold to serve as a transit point was essential. Moreover, the Lucifer Black Guards could use this to test the strength of the heretics.
As if rehearsed countless times, the convoy quickly fanned out into a combat formation upon reaching a certain distance. Simultaneously, smoke grenades were spat out from the launchers on the armored vehicles. Amidst the suddenly spreading smoke, the Lucifer Black Guards leaped from the moving vehicles and deployed into formation on the spot, using the armored vehicles for mutual cover in standard combined-arms tactics.
The sergeant was no exception. After jumping down, he quickly blew his whistle to direct his men. As he observed his surroundings, his brow furrowed.
The boundary between the Warp and the material universe seemed to have blurred to some extent. Those Chaos cultists had used a vast amount of material harvested from humans to build various blasphemous symbols; graffiti formed from blood and bone was everywhere. Warp corruption seemed omnipresent; many buildings under its shroud were rotting at a visible rate, their original forms being completely altered.
"Throne above..."
After silently praying to the God-Emperor, the sergeant immediately issued orders. With the hot-shot beams spitting from Hellgun muzzles, the battle officially began.
It didn't take long for the sergeant to realize a fact. Indeed, the enemy's equipment was good almost beyond imagination. The normally rare Hellguns were practically everywhere here. Rocket launchers, which even many Astra Militarum units weren't equipped with, fired one shell after another. Plasma weapons fired frequently, while autocannons and heavy stubbers roared as they swept across the area, firmly holding the fortress windows and actually stalling the advance of the armored spearhead for a time.
And that wasn't all.
The sergeant suddenly dropped to the ground, his battle-hardened intuition saving his life once again. Lying on the ground, he rolled over and looked back, clearly seeing a spray of warm blood splash onto his face. A colleague standing behind him looked down blankly; his carapace armor had failed to provide any protection whatsoever before he collapsed backward.
The sergeant crawled to the corpse, did a quick check, and extracted a fragment. He examined it closely and recognized what it was.
It was a weapon from a xenos. A Shuriken Catapult.
The sergeant knew that this weapon could fire mono-molecular blades at incredible speeds, possessing enough power to easily sever limbs or even penetrate walls.
What was going on? The xenos and the heretics had joined forces?
The sergeant couldn't help but curse again. This terrifying thought made his heart turn cold, but the intense combat didn't allow him time to dwell on it. The shelling became denser, the explosions deafening. Both sides were locked in a meat grinder before the blasphemous fortress, and blood quickly soaked the filth-strewn ground.
On the other side.
The Imperial Palace, Terra.
Guilliman waved his hand, closing the holographic projection before him. He turned his gaze to Simotriene, the Master of the Administratum, who sat nearby with an unchanged expression, appearing perfectly calm.
"What do you think of this?"
Guilliman's voice was very steady, showing no ripples of emotion.