Wilson left the blood-soaked chapel of the Emperor's Death Cult with a head full of absurdity and a newly sharpened sense of caution. The ship's interior passages twisted like a maze, with uneven lighting casting alternating stretches of brightness and shadow that created an oppressive atmosphere.
He adjusted his approach. Instead of simply looking for behavior that "seemed insane," he would try to understand the peculiar set of "rules" governing this twisted world.
He hadn't gone far when a burst of commotion and anguished cries, distinctly different from prayer, came from an intersection ahead. Wilson softened his footsteps, approached the corner, and cautiously peered around it.
He saw groups of figures dressed in identical black robes, their heads covered by hoods and their faces hidden in shadow. They carried crude but sturdy metal clubs, shock batons, and thick ropes as they violently searched the living quarters and secluded corners on either side of the corridor.
Their targets were unmistakable: the "voidborn" whose bodies showed obvious deformities or abnormalities.
On a starship that had been traveling for decades, perhaps even centuries, several generations of "children of the void" had naturally been born and raised in zero-gravity or low-gravity environments, reproducing within a closed gene pool.
Most of them did not conform to the standard human form. Some had abnormally enlarged skulls, others had short or disproportionate limbs. Some had curved spines, pale skin webbed with visible veins, or extra, vestigial joints and organs. Within the ship's ecosystem, they occupied the lowest positions, working as maintenance laborers, cleaners, pipe workers, and similar menial jobs, quietly living in the darkest corners of the vessel.
Now, these usually silent people were being dragged from their hiding places by the black-robed men like livestock. Anyone who resisted was beaten with clubs or shocked with electric batons. Shrill screams, pleas for mercy, and despairing groans echoed through the corridors.
The black-robed men worked efficiently and without mercy. Before long, more than a thousand voidborn with varying degrees of deformity had been tied together with ropes and driven forward beneath shouted orders and blows.
Wilson narrowed his eyes.
What was this supposed to be?
Persecution of a particular group? Some kind of purification ritual? Or... another form of "permitted madness"?
He followed silently.
Once again, his black Inquisitorial attire served as the perfect pass and disguise. Whether they were busy black-robed enforcers or terrified voidborn, everyone instinctively looked away or showed even greater fear when they saw him and the insignia on his chest.
No one dared stop him or ask questions.
The procession passed through several broad corridors and cargo elevators before finally arriving at a massive domed plaza in the middle section of the ship. Normally, it was used for large shipwide gatherings or religious celebrations.
Now, however, it had been transformed into a stage straight out of hell.
Hundreds of crudely welded metal crosses stood in the center of the plaza like a forest of death.
The crosses were not bare. They were wrapped in grease-soaked strips of cloth, and pale, scorching flames burned across them, producing almost no smoke but giving off an acrid chemical stench.
White phosphorus.
Once ignited, it was extremely difficult to extinguish and would continue burning until whatever it clung to had been completely consumed.
More horrifying still, many of the crosses already had people "bound" to them.
They were the deformed voidborn who had been captured earlier.
Crude chains and wire held them against the crosses while the white phosphorus flames licked across their bodies. Burning flesh hissed, and rendered fat crackled in the heat.
The air was thick with a nauseatingly sweet stench, a mixture of roasted meat and burning chemicals.
Most of the victims had already fallen silent, reduced to blackened remains, but a few were still twisting uselessly in the flames, letting out screams that no longer sounded human.
Meanwhile, the black-robed men were taking the newest batch of crying, struggling voidborn and throwing them onto the burning or freshly lit crosses one after another, as casually as if they were disposing of garbage.
Screams, roaring flames, the emotionless shouts of the black-robed men, and the solemn chanting of priests dressed in elaborate Ecclesiarchy vestments from raised platforms around the plaza all blended together into a scene of unimaginable cruelty and madness, yet one carried out with horrifying order and precision.
Wilson stood in the shadows at the edge of the plaza and watched quietly.
That familiar sense of absurdity rose within him again, but this time it was mixed with a cold, probing curiosity.
This clearly wasn't a Chaos ritual.
But if they were systematically burning people alive on this scale...
Why?
He walked toward the nearest group of black-robed men, who were dragging another voidborn toward the fires. One of them was impatiently kicking and beating an elderly man whose malformed legs made it difficult for him to walk, trying to haul him toward the pyres.
Wilson reached out and grabbed the leader by the shoulder.
He didn't use much force, but the gesture carried unquestionable authority.
The black-robed man spun around, his hooded face twisted with irritation at being interrupted. But the moment he saw Wilson's clothes and insignia, every trace of annoyance vanished, replaced by awe and fear.
He immediately released the old man, straightened up, and lowered his head.
"M-My lord... what are your orders?"
"Why are you burning them?" Wilson asked calmly.
There was no emotion in his voice. He was simply asking a question as he gestured toward the figures writhing in the flames and the crowds tied together, awaiting "purification."
The black-robed man seemed slightly surprised by the question, but quickly answered in a tone of complete certainty, even tinged with pious fanaticism.
"Today is the Emperor's Ascension Festival, my lord! On such a sacred day, naturally we must... purify some heretics. Through their suffering and destruction, we exalt the Emperor's glory and demonstrate the purity of the Imperium!"
"Heretics?" Wilson repeated.
His gaze passed over the terrified voidborn. Their bodies were deformed, certainly, but they were obviously nothing more than low-ranking laborers.
"What heretical acts have they committed?"
At that moment, a middle-aged man tied up nearby struggled to raise his head. Asymmetrical bony growths covered part of his face.
He screamed with all the strength he had left.
"I am a legally recognized human citizen of the Imperium! A voidborn! My physical characteristics fully meet the definition in the Imperial Codex for the Identification of Humans and Abhuman Strains for 'physiological variations caused by prolonged exposure to void environments, with no indication of psychic corruption or mutational instability'! I am a lawful Imperial citizen! You have no right to..."
He never finished.
One of the black-robed men struck him across the back with a club, and he collapsed with a muffled groan.
Wilson raised an eyebrow and looked at the man who had hit him.
The black-robed man was completely unmoved by the prisoner's protest. He even gave a dismissive snort before explaining to Wilson.
"My lord, don't listen to this heretic's nonsense. The law? The law exists to serve the Emperor's will. Their twisted, unclean bodies are themselves an insult to the sacred human form!"
"Let them burn in the Emperor's holy fire and cleanse away the impurity of their flesh. If their souls are devout enough, perhaps the flames will purify them, allowing them to return to the Throne in a purer form..."
"This is the best way for them to prove their loyalty, and the greatest contribution they can make to the Emperor's Ascension Festival!"
His reasoning was internally consistent, filled with twisted religious fanaticism and absolute faith in the idea of "purification."
As far as he was concerned, burning these living people alive wasn't murder.
It was granting them an honorable chance at salvation.
Wilson fell silent.
He stared at the white flames raging across the plaza and listened to the screams mingling with sacred hymns.
Then he thought back to the fanatical self-sacrifice of the Emperor's Death Cult.
He was beginning to understand.
In this universe, within the Imperium of Man, the boundaries between "loyalty" and "madness," between "faith" and "atrocity," between "purification" and "slaughter," could become blurred to an almost obscene degree.
A self-consistent ideology built upon extreme devotion to the Emperor could be used to justify almost any inhuman act.
The Emperor's Death Cult expressed its devotion through self-destruction.
These black-robed priests, meanwhile, "purified" a holy day and pleased the Emperor by destroying the "unclean."
Both were insane.
Both could cause enormous loss of life.
Yet within this twisted system, both might be "permitted," perhaps even encouraged, forms of religious expression.
An Inquisitor's duty was not to decide which form of faith was more "reasonable" or more "humane."
It was to identify the part that had truly been corrupted by Chaos, the part that sought to undermine the Imperium and threaten the collective survival of humanity.
This "Emperor's Holy Flame" purification ritual was unimaginably cruel, but judging from the black-robed man's explanation and the complete lack of any obvious signs of Warp corruption, it probably belonged to yet another "gray area."
Extreme. Brutal.
But consistent with the doctrines of certain radical factions within the Imperial faith, and not explicitly forbidden.
Wilson released the black-robed man's shoulder.
The man looked as though he had just been granted a reprieve. He hurriedly bowed, then resumed ordering his subordinates to drag the old man toward the burning crosses.
Wilson did not stop them.
He simply stood there and watched for a little longer.
Then he turned away and disappeared once more into the shadows of the ship's corridors.