Mid-Hive District 12, "Ironbone" Prosthetic Processing Plant.
It was 3:00 AM, the peak of the busiest night shift.
Three hundred gaunt, sallow-faced workers stood before the assembly line, numbly piecing together unpolished metal joints. Above their heads, a drive shaft that had been in use for over fifty years emitted a rhythmic grinding sound.
Without warning.
"BOOM—"
A dull, thunderous roar surged from deep beneath their feet, a sound so immense it drowned out all mechanical noise.
Immediately following, the concrete floor of the factory bulged upward before instantly shattering. A massive fissure tore through the entire workshop in a tenth of a second.
Multi-ton lathes and stamping presses, along with the half-finished products bolted to them, lost their support and plunged into the darkness below.
The workers didn't even have time to scream.
The ground tilted, and gravity ripped them from their workstations, sliding them toward the widening abyss. Some grabbed onto broken rebar, trying to climb out, but then the ceiling collapsed.
Hundreds of tons of concrete beams, along with the architectural remains of several floors above, dropped vertically.
Every life sign dropped to zero in that instant. There were no survivors.
When millions of tons of geological strata shift, mortal flesh is more fragile than a piece of wet tissue paper.
The architectural structures of a Hive City are undoubtedly resilient, yet they are also fragile—like a tower of building blocks made from scrap and trash. The load-bearing pillars at the bottom have often been in use for millennia, riddled with cracks and metal fatigue.
Andy's collision didn't just punch a hole; it removed a key piece of the tower. The resulting structural collapse was a chain reaction, irreversible and absolute.
The disaster was not limited to District 12.
With the original District D as the epicenter, the ground within a thirty-kilometer radius was sinking.
Districts 11 and 13 were the most densely populated slums of the Mid-Hive. They were packed with "coffin apartments" (though workers often squeezed their entire families into these single-occupancy spaces). These illegal buildings, stacked hundreds of floors high and teetering on the edge of stability, had zero seismic resistance.
They began to lean, crushing one another. Steel frames twisted with ear-piercing shrieks, and glass curtain walls shattered en masse, shards falling like rain.
Then, the first skyscraper fell. It slammed heavily into the neighboring building, triggering a domino effect. One after another, entire swaths of high-rises collapsed into clouds of dust. Countless people were flattened in their sleep or trapped within the mangled ruins.
"Sss—BOOM!!!"
Secondary disasters followed. A main natural gas pipeline buried underground was torn apart by the violent tectonic shift. High-pressure gas geysered out, meeting sparks from severed power cables.
Immense fireballs surged from the ruins, instantly swallowing several blocks. The flames spread wildly through ventilation ducts and elevator shafts, turning the entire collapse zone into a giant incinerator.
The cries, the explosions, and the roar of collapsing buildings mixed together into a symphony of hell. But from high above, one could only see billowing smoke and soaring flames; the insignificant wails were inaudible.
The death toll from this collapse was conservatively estimated at over 300,000. This didn't include those trapped deep in the ruins who would slowly suffocate, die of thirst, or be eaten by mutants in the coming days.
Upper Hive, Administrative Spire, Governor's Mansion Emergency Command Center.
The holographic sand table, once used to display the city's prosperity, had turned a shocking, blood-red color. Countless red pop-ups representing "structural damage" and "fire alarms" were refreshing frantically, threatening to crash the processor's memory.
"Report! Main load-bearing structures in District 11 have snapped!"
"Report! The substation in District 13 has exploded; the fire is out of control!"
"Report! Shockwaves have reached the Upper Hive base; cracks have appeared between floors 45 and 50!"
Administrator Peren slumped in his leather command chair, his expensive silk uniform drenched in cold sweat. His entire body was trembling.
"Orks—have the Orks fought their way back?" Peren stammered to his adjutant. "Or is it the Tyranids? Did they burrow up from underground?"
The adjutant looked at the expanding sinkhole on the screen and swallowed hard. "No... milord, it's not an invasion. It... it blew up from the inside. Monitoring data shows an ultra-high energy source burst out from thousands of meters underground, punching straight through the crust."
"What could punch through the crust?!" Peren shrieked. "That's the crust! Not cheese!"
BANG!
The doors to the command center were violently shoved open. A group of richly dressed, furious nobles and corporate representatives burst in, followed by heavily armed private guards.
"Peren! What are you doing?!" A bloated mining tycoon rushed forward, grabbing Peren by the collar and spitting in his face. "My refinery has collapsed! Three entire factory zones fell into the pit! Do you know how much money that is? That's my lifeblood!"
"Where is my private guard? Why haven't you sent people to put out the fire? Why aren't you salvaging my equipment?!"
An arms dealer crowded in as well, slamming a loss manifest into Peren's face. "My armory was right under District 12—it's all gone now! Peren, you must give me an explanation! The Administration must compensate my losses!"
These people didn't care about the dead civilians or the hundreds of thousands of broken families. They only cared about their balance sheets, the machines, and the raw materials that had fallen into the pit. In their eyes, the dregs of the Underhive were expendable, but if this damn tremor reached the Upper Hive and cracked their mansions in the clouds, that was a true catastrophe.
"I... I don't know..." Peren wailed, his head spinning. "The Defense Force has been deployed, but the roads are destroyed—the vehicles can't get in!"
"Then send airships! Send shuttles!" The tycoon roared. "Even if you have to fill that hole with bodies, fill it! Don't let the fire reach us!"
The entire command center was a mess of greedy roars and incompetent finger-pointing. No one organized a rescue; no one cared for the victims. All orders revolved around "loss mitigation" and "maintaining stability."
"Maintaining stability" meant sending the army to blockade the routes to the Upper Hive, setting up heavy bolters to prevent refugees crawling out of the ruins from "polluting" the Upper Hive's air.
It was like history repeating itself. In the Age of Apostasy, even more absurd cases were common. This was simply the daily life of the Imperium.
The rot and greed of the upper class were bone-deep. When disaster struck, their first thought was always to cut ties and save themselves. This extreme class divide was the perfect breeding ground for Chaos cults and Genestealer Cults.
Truthfully, sometimes it was hard to tell if heresy destroyed the world, or if the world forced heresy into existence.
Meanwhile, a high-level terrace in the Upper Hive.
Inquisitor Orion stood alone, the gale whipping his black trench coat. He didn't look at the brawling nobles; instead, he tilted his head back, staring intently at the sky.
The wake left by the Unity, a massive black pillar of smoke reaching into the heavens, still lingered in the air. For the first time, an expression appeared on Orion's pale, rigid face—a mix of shock, anger, and a sliver of fear.
As a member of the Inquisition, he had seen plenty of destruction. He had seen planets burned into glass by Exterminatus and cities torn apart by Daemon Engines. But he had never seen a sight like this.
A starship kilometers long had literally tunneled out of the ground, right under his nose!
What did this mean? It meant there was an incredibly massive power—or an individual with god-like means—operating in this Hive. Someone who, amidst the gaps between the Helios Group, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the gang wars, had completed an impossible super-engineering project.
Repairing a starship, igniting the engines, and breaking the blockade. The manpower, resources, technical skill, strategic decision-making, and logistical coordination required for this were beyond Orion's imagination.
He recalled the previous report regarding a "mysterious technical organization in the Underhive." He hadn't paid much attention then, thinking it was just a slightly more sophisticated heretical workshop. Now he saw he was wrong.
Dead wrong!
This organization didn't just have technology; it was led by a mastermind whose personal capabilities were off the charts!
"I actually... missed it." Orion's fingers gripped the terrace railing so hard he left fingerprints in the metal.
This wasn't just a failure of duty; it was a disgrace. Someone had repaired a warship on a planet under his watch and flown it away!
Orion took a deep breath and pulled a communicator bearing the Inquisitorial Rosette from his coat. He no longer hesitated. Pressing the red emergency button, he spoke.
"This is Planetary Inquisitor Orion, reporting to Inquisitorial Sector Headquarters."
"A major heretical incident has occurred on Forge VII, Scalus Sector."
"An unknown force with suspected ultra-high technical capabilities has hijacked and activated a Rogue Trader-class armed transport."
"The target has forcibly breached the surface and is currently in near-planetary orbit."
"Requesting... requesting Navy fleet interception."
"Repeat, requesting interception."
Orion lowered the communicator and looked at the massive, burning void in the ground. He knew the Navy's interception would likely be too late. If that ship could fly, it was undoubtedly ready to jump.
But he had to do something. This wasn't over.
Anyone who dared to make such a move on his turf—no matter who they were or where they fled—the Inquisition would find them.
Even if they had to chase them to the ends of the galaxy!