Aboard the Bucephelus, the Emperor returned from Nostramo. The yield of this expedition had considerably exceeded his projections; the value of the 'Saint Egg' technological paradigm was, in his assessment, nearly commensurate with the Webway Projectenshrined within his strategic cogitations.
"You appear to be in favourable humour, Your Majesty."
Malcador, arrayed in his characteristic sable vestments, his grasp secured upon the venerated Aquila sceptre, observed the Emperor's re-entry into the vessel's augustprecincts.
"Is this disposition so readily apprehensible?"
The Emperor's manual extremity involuntarilytraversed his own maxillofacial configuration.
He registered, with unaccustomedintrospective clarity, that the faculty of authentic human affect — which he had, over protracted existential trajectory, assiduouslysuppressed — appeared to be undergoingspontaneous remediation.
"Those two juvenile specimens appear to have occasioned in you considerable paternalgratification."
"Gratification?" The Emperor entertained this proposition with deliberative investment.
"Curze has elected the existential trajectory I had projected for him."
"As for Nyx..."
The Emperor's enunciation hesitated at the threshold of articulation.
This particular offspring persisted in assailinghis hypertensive threshold with an inexhaustible repertoire of 'surprises'.
"Malcador. I am constrained to undertake... a certain commission."
"I am cognisant of this imperative, Your Majesty."
"Are you, however... prepared to consummateit?"
Malcador's regard was saturated with apprehension.
The existential cost of an authentic divineconflict with a Dark God of the Warp was incalculable.
"He is worthy of my strategic investment. Furthermore — this is not our inauguralcollaborative gambit, is it, my ancientassociate?"
The Emperor's tonal modulation was saturated with nostalgic affect.
"Are you, accordingly, prepared to gamblewith me once more?"
"As always, Your Majesty."
The sovereign and his regent exchangedregards.
It was, in its essential configuration, a replication of that primordial chronologicalinstant — when a silver-haired juvenile had inaugurated his acquaintance with an entity of commensurate immaturity.
Simultaneously —
The perpetual darkness of Nostramo was progressively saturated with the chromaticregister of haemorrhagic effluence — the customary herald of martial convocation.
The impulse towards violence and derangement propagated through the planetary populace with the virulence of pestilential contagion. The demographicindices of this already transgressive world underwent catastrophic attrition.
"What is our current enumeration of combat-capable personnel?"
"Estimated at two hundred thousand."Techmarine Bryce's regard was fixed upon his data-slate.
This enumeration occasioned in Nyx pronounced cephalic discomfort.
Inadequate. Wholly inadequate.
Confronted with the imminent existentialmenace, this modest martial complement was insufficient by several orders of magnitude.
"Ordnance disposition?"
"Current** industrial capacity has furnishedus with ten thousand lascarbines, fifty thousand autoguns, and one hundred thousand standard-issue combat blades."**
This ordnance deficit occasioned in Nyx additional cephalic distress.
Though they had liberated numerous manufacturing facilities, these acquisitionscould not, within this constructed temporalinterval, satisfy the Resistance's comprehensive equipment requirements.
Armoured vehicles — gunships, battle tanks — these remained unattainable luxuries.
Nyx was acutely cognisant that this engagement would necessitate considerableexistential expenditure.
The magnitude of this expenditure would be sufficient to transfigure this world into a planetary ossuary.
DING——!
Bryce's data-slate registered an incomingintelligence transmission.
His maxillofacial configuration underwentcatastrophic recalibration.
"Father. Your immediate scrutiny of this intelligence is imperative!"
Nyx acquired the data-slate.
The intelligence inscribed upon its displayperforated his affective equilibrium.
Mass slaughter. Organised sacrificialimmolation.
Every demographic sector beyond the Resistance's territorial perimeter had succumbed to this pandemic violence.
All evidentiary indices converged upon a singular provenance:
The Blood God Cult — which had, it now transpired, achieved comprehensiveorganisational consolidation within the upperhive.
Catastrophic engagement was ineluctable.
Nyx's manual extremity compressed his glabellar prominence with considerableinvestment.
His injunction to Bryce was immediate, absolute:
"TRANSMIT** my command to the entireResistance complement. COMPREHENSIVEMOBILISATION. Our objective — the upperhive!"**
Whatever eschatological ritual the Blood God Cult was orchestrating, Nyx was determinedto interdict its consummation.
He registered, with visceral certitude, that his adversaries were accumulating sacrificialofferings on an unprecedented scale.
A sufficient magnitude of haemorrhagiceffluence would rupture the membranebetween the material cosmos and the Warp.
His injunctions were transmitted with immediate alacrity. The colossal mechanismof the Resistance commenced its terminalaccelerative trajectory.
The final engagement was imminent.
Within the upper hive , a magnificent altar was progressively elevated from the substratum — its constituent masonry composedexclusively of innumerable human cranialacquisitions.
Tens of thousands of cephalic extremities had been consigned to this grotesque edifice. They constituted its foundation, its superstructure, its ornamental friezes.
An incalculable volumetric quantum of haemorrhagic effluence cascaded through the substratal interstices, inscribing a sanguinary geometric configuration of subcontinental proportions upon the planetary surface.
"Soon... Only the terminal iteration of the sacrificial protocol remains unconsummated!"
"A martial convocation of sufficientmagnitude shall effect the terrestrialmanifestation of the Blood God!"
Bishop Soth's regard, transfixed upon the ascendant altar, traversed to his aristocraticcollaborator.
"Lord Corset. I presume you are prepared for the consummation of our collaborativeenterprise?"
Under that deranged regard, Corset's corporeal configuration involuntarilyregistered pronounced trepidation.
He had not anticipated that the ritualimmolation of an entire planetary populationwould manifest such... terrifying grandeur.
"When... When the instant arrives, I am, of course, prepared!"
At this chronological juncture, however, contrition was futile.
Nostramo's aristocratic cohort had been comprehensively exterminated. Their cephalic extremities now constituted the masonry of the sacrificial altar.
Corset yet retained the vivid recollection of their incredulous regards — their incomprehension that their august existentialtrajectories should terminate in such ignominious circumstances.
The syndicate operatives had been forciblyconscripted into the Cult. Those who had demurred had been immediately reclassifiedas decapitated corpses.
Conscription, however, was not synonymouswith existential security.
Within the Blood God Cult, homicidalderangement was perpetual, universal. Only the most formidable could sustain their existential continuity within this cannibalisticecosystem.
The Cult's complement had, accordingly, undergone catastrophic attrition.
Fifty thousand specimens remained.
Each was a monster — having survivedinnumerable sanguinary eliminationprotocols. Each was born exclusively for slaughter.
"COMMENCE** the inaugural iteration of the sacrificial protocol!"**
Bishop Soth's enunciation was amplified to universal audibility.
"Upon the consummation of the eighthsacrificial iteration, the Blood God shall personally rupture Nostramo's perpetualdarkness and establish His eternal dominionover this world!"
His exhortation occasioned in the assembled faithful a frenetic cacophony of assent.
They disgorged additional volumetric quantaof haemorrhagic effluence into the sanguinary geometric configuration. Certain extreme specimens directly lacerated their own carpal vasculature, permitting their vitalessence to coalesce with the ritual substrate. Others decapitated their cult associates and contributed these fresh acquisitions to the accumulating cranial repository.
The atmosphere was saturated with haemorrhagic effluence to such a degree that it approached material substantiation.
Time accelerated within this freneticsacrificial environment.
Within half a diurnal cycle, the seventhsacrificial iteration had been consummated.
BOOM——!
BOOM——!
BOOM——!
Ponderous footfalls, propagating from the periphery.
Nyx, at the vanguard of two hundred thousand Resistance combatants, had, at last, attained the upper hive.
The atmosphere was saturated with the cloying, ferruginous effluvium of haemorrhagic effluence — which was, itself, saturated with Warp effluence.
It was simultaneously nauseating — and insidiously stimulative of the most primordialhomicidal impulses within every sentientobserver.
"At last — the Revolutionary Sovereigncondescends to present himself!"
Bishop Soth, enthroned upon the apogee of the sacrificial altar, directed his regard downward upon Nyx.
"You have, from the chronological instant of your manifestation, enjoyed our Lord's exceptional favour. CONSECRATE yourself to His service!"
"These diadems — my Lord has preparedthem for your coronation ceremony!"
His enunciation concluded, he discharged an ornamental projectile in Nyx's direction.
WHOOSH——!
A fulgurative configration erupted from Nyx's palmar extremity.
Before any spectator could register this event, the projectile had attained Bishop Soth's cephalic extremity with surgical precision.
The Bishop's cranium detonated into an atomised suspension of particulate organicresiduum.
His decapitated corporeal configurationcollapsed into the altar's substratum with a sonorous percussive event.
Universal astonishment.
Was this entity not Khorne's pre-eminentterrestrial champion?!
This cogitation had barely coalesced in the collective sensorium of the spectators when the haemorrhagic effluence accumulatedwithin the altar's substratum erupted with catastrophic velocity.
A completely novel cephalic extremity coalesced from the sanguinary reservoir with appalling celerity.
The resurrected Bishop Soth registered no affective investment whatsoever in his own recent existential termination.
He discarded his vestmental adornments, exposing a corporeal configuration of formidable muscular development, comprehensively inscribed with the proscribed iconography of Khorne.
His ocular organs were incandescent with derangement.
He had, through his own existentialexpenditure, demonstrated the Blood God'sexceptional favour.
He was no longer constrained to suppress his comprehensive homicidal investment.
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! "
Soth's superior extremities were elevated in a gesture of supplication — and command.
He depressed the actuation mechanism that would initiate the comprehensiveextermination protocol for every Khornatecultist present.