The Black Legion fleet, spearheaded by Abaddon's flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, maintained a calculated engagement with the scattered remnants of the Imperial Navy within the Vigilus System. Abaddon's true objective remained the closure of the Nachmund Gauntlet; thus, the weight of his offensive was concentrated upon the planetary surface.
In response to the hive spires seized by Haarken Worldclaimer's Chaos Raptors, Marneus Calgar issued a decisive, cold-blooded decree: the fallen spires were to be purged by fire.
Within the hour, Adepta Sororitas Incinerator Squads, sanctioned by the Ecclesiarchy, unleashed blessed promethium upon the towering structures above. Roaring conflagrations erupted across the summits of the Dirge Mast and the neighboring East Thoria Hive Sector. This apocalyptic display would be recorded by Imperial Lexicanums as "Calgar's Flame."
Amidst this chaos, seizing a strategic window provided by the long dormancy of the Skaven and the bloody entanglement of the Chaos Legions with Genestealer Cults, Calgar deployed his peerless strategic mind. He marshaled an Imperial coalition consisting of the Deathwatch, the Iron Hands, the Salamanders, Battle Sisters of the Order of the Ebon Chalice, and hundreds of thousands of Astra Militarum to seize the Stygian Spires.
Though this maneuver drained the majority of his remaining strength, reinforcements from other Space Marine Chapters were en route. Furthermore, without water, no force could endure regardless of their numbers. Calgar chose to stake everything on this gambit.
"May the God-Emperor watch over you," Calgar said, his voice earnest and resolute as he addressed the commander of the vanguard: the Watch Master of the Deathwatch, a veteran who held Calgar's absolute confidence, Astoren Korr.
"The Emperor's will shall be done," the Watch Master replied, his tone as sharp and unyielding as a mono-molecular blade. Six golden service studs were embedded in his brow, and his face was a mosaic of battle-scars. He donned his black power-armoured helm and turned toward his brothers.
Astoren gazed upon his battle-brothers and the vast Imperial host before them. His heart was a void of emotion, his focus as mechanical as a logic-engine. He raised his power sword, adorned with the Imperial Eagle.
"To the heroes of the Imperium, and an Imperium of heroes… victory!" he cried, his voice a fusion of cold clinicality and burning zeal.
A thunderous roar shook the air in response.
The massive gates of the Dirge Mast ground open. Leading the charge were Land Speeders of the Iron Hands, their extreme velocity and overwhelming firepower catching the Orks surrounding the walls, who had grown idle in the stalemate, completely off-guard.
Before the Greenskins could mount a defense, Deathwatch Vanguard squads plunged into the fray via jump packs, decapitating the Ork Warbosses on the front lines. Supported by a rolling carpet-bombing from Basilisk artillery, the Imperial forces shattered the blockade and drove straight for the Stygian Spires in the Hyperia Sector.
The Orks that scrambled to reinforce were diverted by Calgar's masterful tactical feints, allowing the expeditionary force to bypass the main horde. Soon, the Imperial army linked up with the Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii of the Hyperia Sector and advanced toward their objective.
"By the Throne... these xenos…" Even Astoren, a Watch Master hardened by a lifetime of witnessing xenos profanity, felt a prickle of dread at the vista of ruin before them.
What had once been an industrial forest of manufactorums and standardized hab-blocks was now a shattered wasteland. Continental plates had been uprooted; factories and grand edifices had been torn asunder and dragged into the depths. Subterranean rock and grit had been churned to the surface, infested by sprawling outcroppings of jagged green crystals.
Ramshackle hovels, seemingly stitched together from refuse, clung to every surface without rhyme or reason. They rose tier upon tier, from the crushing darkness of the lightless pits to hundreds of meters above the ground.
Gnawed corpses and decommissioned servitors hung from various structures like cured meat or macabre signposts. The skittering signs of vermin were everywhere; even by the claustrophobic standards of a Hive World, the disorder here was absolute.
The armored regiments of the Astra Militarum ground to a halt. The terrain was impassable for Leman Russ Battle Tanks or Rhino APCs; even the articulated legs of Sentinel walkers found no purchase.
"Clear the ground," Astoren commanded after a brief silence.
He ordered the Astra Militarum infantry to venture into the horrific abyss. With grim faces and prayers to the Emperor on their lips, the Guardsmen shouldered their lasguns and began to scramble through the rat-infested wasteland.
Tens of thousands of Guardsmen used their own bodies to chart a path through the cursed terrain. Periodically, a scream would pierce the air as rats the size of hounds lunged to tear at flesh, or as a soldier stepped into thin air, plummeting into the green-glowing depths below.
Yet, the Astra Militarum did not falter. Commissars bellowed litanies of the God-Emperor, and the "Grave-Walkers" sacrificed their lives to mark a passage for the heavy elements. Finally, the first scouts emerged on the far side of the churning hellscape.
"By the Throne, I thought I was back in my home hive on Charon. But this... this is worse. At least my gods-forsaken home didn't have bottomless pits every ten steps."
The squad had already lost a third of its strength to non-combat casualties, yet the survivors felt a sense of relief as the abyss fell behind them. In that moment of respite, human curiosity proved fatal. They began to examine the glowing, viridian crystals.
"What is this? I've never heard of green gems on Vigilus," the squad leader muttered. Curiosity overriding caution, he snapped off a thumb-sized shard of Warpstone. He scrutinized the pure, emerald crystal, even testing its hardness with his teeth.
Suddenly, he felt light... impossibly light.
"Oh... I feel like I could fly. Will? You lot... why are you getting so short? Hahaha! This is incredible!"
His teammates watched in mounting horror, their lasguns rising instinctively.
"What... %$&#/&... what are you doing? Ugh—aaargh!" The Captain looked down. The hand gripping his lasgun had dissolved into dozens of writhing tentacles. A section of his skull had sloughed off, and a stray eye was carried before his face by a fleshy tendril.
That scar on the brow... it looks familiar. Is that my eye? the Captain wondered. Then, a dozen las-bolts, accompanied by the terrified screams of his squad, vaporized his torso and extinguished his consciousness.
The mass of tentacles and meat that had been the Captain detonated like a gore-filled firework, showering the nearby Guardsmen in Warp-tainted filth.
Seeing the sudden eruption of Chaotic corruption, Astoren acted instantly. Trusting his instincts, he voxed a command: "Do not approach the green crystals! Any soldier found in possession of them is to be executed on sight!"
At that moment, the pinpricks of green light in the abyss were joined by countless red, beady eyes. The air grew thick with a stench foul enough to render a mortal unconscious, followed by a deafening, cacophonous chittering.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Projectiles of green energy erupted from the ruins. Anything they struck withered and died instantly; even the reinforced ceramite of power armor struggled to withstand the corrosive impact.
"Xenos! Battle positions!" Astoren roared. He immediately rallied the Space Marine Assault squads and Adepta Sororitas Seraphim into aerial strike teams to seize the high ground. Behind them, the Imperial Engineers began to entrench, desperately fortifying the path the vanguard had bought with their lives.
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