The Khan looked down at the boy, a faint smile forming on his lips as he slowly lowered himself to one knee.
His white-and-blue power armor groaned softly with the motion.
Even among the towering figures of the Primaris Space Marines, a Primarch stood apart—a giant in flesh and legend. To the two thin children before him, both the Primarch and his Astartes retinue were like living fortresses—impossibly tall, impossibly strong.
As he knelt, the Khan was struck by a memory—of Vulkan, his brother and the Lord of the Salamanders, once lowering himself like this before a mortal. It had been ten thousand years since then. Ten thousand years lost in the stars, and now even the White Scars' proud warlord found his heart softening.
He tried to lower his posture as much as possible, but even so, to the woman and child before him, he still loomed like a mountain. His shadow stretched long and dark, swallowing them whole.
"We are soldiers of the Imperium," the Khan said. "What's your name, little one?"
"Kemon," the boy replied, standing straighter. "I heard the men at the tavern say the Warmaster would save our world. My mother always told me his angels protect everyone. She said that once the Warmaster comes with his angels, no matter how terrible the enemy is, they'll be driven out. This land—it'll still be ours. No one can steal the city-states that belong to the Imperium from the Warmaster."
"You're the tallest and strongest man I've ever seen," the boy added, eyes shining. "You must be one of the Warmaster's angels. Will you help us take our home back? My elders are still there—soldiers in the Planetary Defense Forces. They didn't make it onto the evacuation ships."
Hope flickered in the boy's voice, trembling but persistent.
"Those metal skeletons are still invading. But I want to return home—after the Warmaster drives them away. My planet's called Vikia. It's a beautiful world. Gardens, grasslands, orchards… even rare mineral veins."
The Khan rested a hand gently on the boy's shoulder.
"It will take time for the Warmaster," he said. "Even for a hero like him, there are too many fronts, too many foes. But he will come. And just as you said—no enemy will take what belongs to humanity. I swear it."
Kemon nodded slowly, then summoned all his courage to ask one more question.
"Can I become a warrior like you someday? I want to fight too. Even if I die… I want to protect others."
"My aunt always cries where we can't see her. People say many from our city died. I think… my father, my brothers, my uncles—they died on the battlefield. I want to be strong enough to stop others from suffering like us. I don't want people to lose everything the way we have. I don't want to be powerless."
The boy's voice faltered, but his eyes burned with sorrow and resolve.
For a long moment, the Khan was silent. Still as a statue, the Wind's Primarch—swift as a hunting eagle—now frozen by a child's words.
Eventually, he spoke again.
"You'll be stronger than me, Kemon. A warrior's strength lies not in his sword-arm, but in his heart. When I first learned of my father's death, I was consumed by fear. But you… you already carry courage inside you."
"Your father… your brothers…?" Kemon asked, eyes widening. "They suffered too?"
He couldn't imagine a warrior like this—towering, invincible—knowing grief like his own.
But this time, the Khan didn't answer. He rose instead, armor whispering with the motion. His colossal form once more became a shield against the sky, a wall against the storm.
"Thank you for speaking with me, Kemon. I've carried too many words unspoken for far too long. But the enemy won't fall to words—they fall to blades."
He replaced his helmet with a hiss of seals and a hum of power. His voice now echoed through the speaker grille, touched with static.
"Take care of your loved ones, little warrior. To be a protector—you must first cherish what you protect."
Then the Khan and his White Scars continued their march toward the capital hive of the Geno Sector.
Behind him, Kemon stood taller. His face was still young, but in his eyes burned the will of a future warrior. He turned, walking with his sister and aunt toward the shattered refugee camp.
"Even a foal cries when torn from its mother," the Khan murmured, more to himself than anyone. "And yet here—look at what war has done to our people. A boy speaks of his dead kin with numb resolve."
His voice was low, laden with grief and anger.
Kuosaro, the White Scar Captain at his side, said nothing. He simply followed, silent and grim.
The Imperium's armies were mobilizing. Across Vigilus and beyond, sectors and war zones were forming. Worlds were being assigned. Regiments deployed.
The Khan had claimed the vanguard.
The Wind of Chogoris would sweep the stars clean of foes. The eagle of the steppes had sworn vengeance. Blood would answer for blood.
Meanwhile, deep in the Webway, Dukel advanced.
This project—this impossibly vast matrix of tunnels between reality and the Immaterium—was among the greatest legacies of the Old Ones. Even Dukel, a being of immense power and knowledge, could not help but admire it.
The Eldar called it the Labyrinth Dimension. But it was no true dimension. It was a network.
A lattice of passageways both vast and delicate.
There were great highways of golden light, but also narrow, twisting conduits that defied logic. It was like the nervous system of the universe—tubes and paths threaded between the Materium and the Warp.
Untold eons had passed without maintenance, and now the Webway was fraying at its edges, like ancient silk worn thin.
Its nature defied description.
Faster-than-light travel was merely a minor feature.
Once, the Webway had allowed the Old Ones to craft an empire nestled between reality and unreality. Ships traversed star systems without entering the Warp—no Gellar fields, no daemons, no storms.
Even the gaze of the Four Ruinous Powers could not pierce it.
Its potential was limitless—waiting to be rediscovered, repurposed.
Dukel pressed on.
To truly comprehend this labyrinth, perhaps only the long-vanished Ancients could hope to do so.
Dukel had that very thought as his senses began to blur within the shimmering corridors of the Webway.
Despite the guidance of the Eldar Goddess of Life, his fleet could not always rely on her cryptic directions. The Webway was fickle and vast—and even divine aid did not guarantee safety.
Thankfully, Dukel depended on more than unreliable xenos divinity. His own preternatural instincts—honed through endless war and trial—guided him forward. That sixth sense, as much as strategy, allowed him to press through the chaos of this interdimensional passage.
Soon, beyond the glimmering veils and echoing tunnels of the labyrinth, a new structure came into view—another city-state buried in the Webway's folds, rising like a dark bloom.
Dukel quickly learned its name.
Long ago, a powerful sect of the Eldar—those who had survived the Fall and the birth of Slaanesh—found sanctuary in a place so deeply hidden within the Webway that even the Ruinous Powers could not touch it.
There, they built a city steeped in darkness, suffering, and cruelty: Commorragh.
A name spoken in fearful whispers. Many across the galaxy refused to utter it, instead calling it the City of Shadows, or more ominously, the Dark City.
But Commorragh was no mere city. It was an empire—a web of interconnected districts and fiefdoms, far surpassing the scope of any capital in the Imperium. Floating in the void between dimensions, it was like a nightmarish termite hive, endlessly expanding, endlessly devouring.
Once, Commorragh had been the central node of the ancient Eldar Webway network. A place from which the Old Empire had dispatched its vast starfleets and accessed the distant corners of the galaxy with ease.
Now, it was something far more twisted.
While the Drukhari—commonly called the Dark Eldar—were its rulers, Commorragh was no racial monolith. It teemed with beings from every edge of the galaxy: xenos of unknown origin, rogue traders, slavers, bounty hunters, and pirates. Traitors to the Imperium and fugitives of every kind called it home.
As long as you brought wealth—and the power to defend it—you were welcome.
There were no laws. No morals. No limits.
Everything was for sale, and everyone had a price. The most grotesque pleasures and heinous crimes imaginable were not only permitted—they were commodified. Suffering was a currency.
It is said that even the Emperor Himself once walked within this place, long before the rise of the Imperium. If so, it spoke volumes about Commorragh's historical—and darkly seductive—power.
The Dark City was riddled with webway gates, each one a hidden aperture to the Materium. Every day, thousands of vessels ignited their drives, departing or arriving—bringing new captives, plunder, and sin into its maw.
Over the millennia, Commorragh had become a grotesque monstrosity. Its original form had long since mutated into a chaotic sprawl of clashing architectures and twisted growth. Its raiding parties scoured the Webway and hidden realms, ever seeking new pocket dimensions to annex and expand.
Its starports pulsed with ceaseless activity—choked with ships laden with slaves, harvested resources, and stolen technology.
War, rebellion, and perverse indulgence were the lifeblood of this city.
Above Commorragh hung several primary thoroughfares—massive, radiant arteries of the Webway, each vast enough for an entire battlefleet to sail through. These routes were under the absolute control of the major Drukhari Kabals, who regulated the traffic of pain, terror, and contraband brought in from all across the galaxy.
And it was through one of these dread arteries that Dukel, Warmarshal of the Imperium, arrived.
The city that had defied death itself now welcomed its most unwelcome guest—a bringer of apocalyptic retribution.
The Drukhari reveled in torture, spectacle, and slaughter. They craved novelty to numb the eternal hunger gnawing at their souls. After the birth of Slaanesh shattered their pantheon, the Eldar species became bound to death and damnation, and none feared the fate of soul-annihilation more than the Drukhari.
They fed their emptiness with the screams of others.
But now, into their nest of shadows strode something colder than death, something not made for their games. Dukel had come to Commorragh.
And he had not come to trade.
He had come to burn.
Some among the Eldar no longer possess spirit stones, soul-vaults, or the favor of the Laughing God, Cegorach.
For them, death is a sentence far worse than oblivion—when they perish, their souls are drawn into the talons of Slaanesh, the Great Enemy born from their own species' excess.
To escape this damnation, these forsaken Eldar—the Drukhari, or Dark Eldar—do not worship Slaanesh. Instead, they feed it. Through the endless torture of others, they siphon agony and prolong their own cursed existence. Pain is their tithe. Suffering is their shield.
This is the genesis of Commorragh's cruelty: a race damned to eternal torment, surviving by inflicting horror far beyond the limits of mortal imagination.
To them, humanity is a crop. A source of agony. A resource to be bled dry.
The scale of this blood feud defies accounting. The Dark City's slave pits are teeming with Imperial citizens—billions, perhaps—reaped from raids across the stars. Even captured Adeptus Astartes, taken alive, are sometimes seen fighting to the death in their arenas.
Monsters bred for nothing but mutilation prowl the pens of Commorragh. Every scream is a ward against the thirsting dark.
And yet, the Drukhari sleep soundly. They fear no reprisal.
Why would they? Commorragh lies nestled within the deepest reaches of the Webway, protected by countless traps, illusions, and sealed paths. Even the Adeptus Mechanicus struggle to chart its depths, let alone invade them.
But arrogance is always the prelude to annihilation.
The Dark Eldar could not imagine that one day, the Imperium of Man would knock at their very gates.
Victor, Archon of the Kabal of the Dying Sun and de facto overlord of Commorragh, stood before a hololith display of the city's outer defenses.
Each luminous node represented orbital turrets, starports, defense platforms, and minefields—the vast, interlinked web of destruction surrounding the Dark City.
Since seizing power, Victor had relied on this defense matrix to keep rivals and outside threats alike at bay. Its deterrent had never failed.
Until now.
Until today.
Without warning, Imperial forces had erupted from the very arteries of the Webway the Drukhari relied upon for survival. No prophecy from the Haemonculi, no whispers from the Sslyth, no premonition from their twisted oracles had seen this coming.
One moment, Commorragh's vassal guards patrolled the tunnels as usual. The next, they were gone—slaughtered in silence. Not even a signal of distress had been transmitted.
None of the Drukhari defenses detected the breach. None had time to react.
And then came Dukel.
The Warmarshal of the Imperium stood upon the command deck of a golden warship, stationed at the edge of the Commorragh gate. His cloak drifted in the stale void wind. His fingers traced the edge of his ancient blade—one that sang for war.
"Sword," he murmured, voice like cracked stone, "come with me to this brief and bloody banquet."
The weapon thrummed with life in response, eager.
With no preamble, Dukel raised his hand.
"Open fire."
There was no mercy in his tone. No sympathy for this debased city of predators.
At that command, the Aquila fell like a judgment from the void.
Tens of thousands of shells descended in a storm of fire—massed artillery barrages, macro-shells, orbital spears, lance strikes—every payload calibrated for destruction.
There was no warning.
The Drukhari manning Commorragh's outer spires had not yet grasped what was happening when the sky split apart.
Where did these humans come from?
The thought barely had time to form before their bastions erupted in fire. Orbital turrets melted under searing beam lances. Spaceports—still bustling with slave transports and raiding skiffs—were torn open by precision bombardment.
Missiles the size of hab-blocks slammed into Commorragh's outer ring fortresses. Each detonation hurled city-sized debris into the surrounding void, tearing apart grotesque towers and monolithic alien structures.
The defense alarms shrieked at last, echoing through the endless city of shadows.
But it was already too late.
Dukel had arrived.
And annihilation had followed.
...
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