Governor Beowulf's body had grown increasingly wasted since contracting the plague. Endless agony radiated through his frame; his once-robust physique was now little more than a layer of skin draped over a skeleton. He knew the enemy was waiting for him to yield—waiting for him to lose the will to live.
But he would never surrender to the Dark Gods of Chaos!
Using skeletal hands, Beowulf pushed himself up from the bed. His constantly ulcerating skin had stained the sheets and blankets a sickly yellow-green, and a lingering stench of decay filled the room.
Despite his condition, he still needed to know the status of the battle for the city. They were the final hope; there could be no further retreat.
A high-ranking official wearing a basic filtration mask entered the room clutching a piece of parchment. After offering a salute, he looked at the Governor—whose bulging eyes were fixed deathly upon him—and began to report the current situation.
As time passed, the official's voice began to tremble, followed by a violent shaking of his entire body. Suddenly, he slammed the parchment onto the floor, covered his face tightly with his hands, and let out a series of muffled sobs. "We have failed... we have already failed..."
His bloodshot eyes glared through the gaps in his fingers, fixed venomously on Beowulf. "It's all because of you... if it weren't for you, we would have already embraced His gifts. It's all because of you..."
His voice spiraled into madness. He drew a dagger from his waist and lunged at the defenseless Governor. Beowulf's eyes showed no panic. In the next heartbeat, the man's head abruptly exploded. His body was flung to the foot of the bed by a powerful inertia, his corpse twitching rhythmically.
A translucent figure shimmered into existence in the corner of the room. "Oh boy, pal, you look like hell." Kyder, wearing a tactical mask, looked at the near-corpse on the bed and sighed. "How did you spot me? Honestly, you're the first baseline human to notice me while cloaked."
He pulled out a white needleless injector and walked toward Beowulf. "Lucky for you, your timing is good. Bear with it; this will only take a moment."
Kyder pressed the injector against the Governor's neck. Beowulf did not resist; he could tell this strangely equipped man bore no ill will. A sharp sting followed, and almost immediately, the agony racking his body began to subside slightly.
"What... is... this?" he managed to say in a voice so raspy it was barely audible.
"A stabilized treatment. Our Governor says it can resist these plagues," Kyder said, stopping Beowulf as he tried to ask more. "I know what you want to ask, so I'll just give it to you straight: We are reinforcements from Aiur. Our entire fleet has reached Grevan's orbit, and the first wave of landing forces is already on the ground."
He gently patted the wasted shoulder of the Governor. "You've done your best. Leave the rest to the Aiur Guard."
Beowulf looked deeply at the man before lying back on the bed, staring hollowly at the ceiling. Perhaps there was a chance to save everything after all.
Beside him, Kyder vanished into his cloak again, leaving only a final sentence echoing in the room: "By the way, our military is taking over your command structure—hope you don't mind. A Medic will be in here shortly; just get some more sleep."
"Can this planet still be saved?" Alexei frowned as he looked through the massive viewport at the clouds shimmering with an eerie green light. The first wave of landing troops had successfully reached the final fortress. According to the reports, there were even Chaos Space Marines present on the surface.
Alexei didn't care. Astartes? I have those too. I hope your numbers can match ours.
On the dark side of the planet, where no survivors remained, the Zerg Leviathans had reached low orbit. Countless Swarm units were streaming onto the land via drop pods. Even in the face of tens of thousands of strains of bacteria, the Zerg did not falter.
Abathur was currently with the fleet. Within a few rounds of adaptation, the new Swarm would be completely immune to these viruses. As for biomass, the vast hordes of plague zombies on the surface were nothing more than appetizers for the current Swarm. With several Zerg worlds as their foundation, a steady stream of biomass was being funneled into the expansion.
Alexei turned back to the holographic projector. Without Brand, Cawl, or Creed by his side, he felt a bit of an adjustment period was needed. As the fleet continued to grow, it was time to train a new generation of fleet commanders.
While he pondered, victory reports from the ground forces continued to pour in. Ordinary plague zombies were powerless to stop the well-equipped Aiur Guard. Even when the enemy ranks contained Plague Marines, their numbers were at most that of a single Chaos warband. The Aiur Astartes far outnumbered them—not to mention that the Astartes modified by Abathur were slightly superior in performance to these Warp-blessed heretics.
"Have all ships stand by. In 30 minutes, the entire fleet enters the atmosphere," Alexei summoned the adjutant. "Excluding the target fortress, begin sequential bombardment of all other major population centers!"
Engaging in air-to-ground combat against a target with no anti-air, no void shields, and no friendlies was refreshing. At the very least, Yamato Cannons could glass the surface indiscriminately.
As the countdown ended, dozens of Battlecruisers plunged through the thick, dark-green clouds. Massive orange flares ignited within the mists as mushroom cloud after mushroom cloud rose from the surface. Those inside the mountain fortress felt the ground trembling incessantly; a thunderous roar drifted in from the distance.
Only the soldiers still guarding the high walls could see the "divine punishment" falling from the heavens. Violent explosions filled their vision as the terrifying warships fanned out from the fortress. "Throne on high... where did this fleet come from?" a local Astra Militarum commander murmured.
Meanwhile, on the dark side of the planet handled by the Zerg, the purple tide of Creep was spreading toward the horizon, hungrily consuming every plague pathogen it encountered.
Suddenly, countless bolts of psionic lightning struck down, halting the Creep's advance. A large number of rogue psykers stepped forward to block the Swarm, their brilliant psionic attacks flashing like fireworks through the ranks of the Zerg.
These were psykers who had long ago defected to the Great Enemy. They hated the Imperium; they hated those who viewed them as cattle to be slaughtered at will. They intended to repay the suffering they had endured a hundredfold upon the people of the Imperium.
Psionic energy washed over the Swarm, turning countless corpses and patches of Creep to ash. The raw power of their psychic assault seemed unstoppable—until a cold snort echoed across half the planet.
As one psyker's body abruptly exploded into a red mist, a voice rang out inside the minds of every heretic present:
"Who gave you permission to hurt them?"