The Black File arrives at Graia-Theta-9. The forge world is collapsing under its own weight: manufactoria failing, priests divided, people starving.
Elias doesn't just see ruin — he sees opportunity. Desperation makes followers. Kairon begins whispering prophecy, and Elias doesn't silence him. For the first time, Elias starts to plan ahead.
-----
Graia-Theta-9 greeted them with silence.
The shuttle descended into smog so thick it seemed alive, crawling across the viewport in greasy folds. Towers of manufactoria stabbed upward through the haze, some alight with distant fires, most long dead. Prayer-engines hung broken on their chains. Vox-horns stuttered static instead of hymns.
The world was choking on its own rust.
Volst briefed as they descended. Her voice was clipped, precise.
"Rustbound activity confirmed across sectors three through seven. Loyalist Tech-Priests are barely holding manufactoria nine. Supplies are critical. If production doesn't resume within a month, this world collapses."
Her jaw tightened.
"And with it, half the subsector's supply lines."
Malk leaned against the bulkhead, arms folded. "World looks dead already."
"It isn't," Lirae said softly. Her augmetic eye whirred as she scanned the surface below. "It's desperate. That's worse."
Elias stayed quiet, watching the ruins draw closer.
The System pulsed, silent to all but him.
> Mission Active: Purge Rustbound
>Rank: B
He thought: Desperate people don't need proof. They need something to believe in.
His eyes flickered faint orange against the viewport glass.
And I just gave them something.
The shuttle touched down in a manufactoria hangar.
The doors groaned open, spilling them into a sea of soot and silence.
Dozens of forge-serfs stood waiting, faces hollow from hunger, augmetics rusted from neglect. A handful of priests waited with them, robes patched, mechadendrites twitching in broken rhythm.
They weren't soldiers. They weren't ready for war.
But they were watching.
Kairon stepped forward from their ranks. He had returned back ahead of Elise. His voice carried through the hangar, steady, amplified by vox-chorus.
"Brothers. Sisters. Look! The Flame walks!"
Elias's hood was up. Still, the glow of his eyes cut through the shadows.
A ripple of whispers passed through the crowd. Some fell to their knees. Others made the sign of the cog over their chests.
Volst's jaw locked. "Kairon—stop this."
But Kairon spread his arms.
"You told us to endure. To keep praying while the Rustbound consumed us. We did. And now the Omnissiah has answered."
He turned, gesturing toward Elias with reverence.
"His fire shall burn the false code. His eyes shall remember what we have lost."
The forge-serfs murmured louder. Hope, raw and frantic, twisted into chant.
"The Flame. The Flame."
Volst seized Elias's arm, hard. Her voice was a blade against his ear.
"You shut this down right now. One word and it dies here."
Elias met her eyes.
And thought: One word could end it. One word could silence Kairon, scatter the crowd, remind them I'm just another soldier. But what then? We fight alone. We bleed. We bury another Bit.
He let his eyes burn brighter.
And said nothing.
He thought: If they need hope, let them take it. If I need soldiers, let them become it. The Imperium will make me a weapon. But here? I can build something of my own.
His gaze swept across the kneeling priests and serfs.
This shall be The Ashen Circle. Not just followers. A shield. A blade. My blade.
Lirae's voice broke the silence.
"You've already decided, haven't you?"
Elias didn't answer.
But he didn't need to.
[END OF PART 2: Sparks in Ash]