Phelps' charging stride ground to a sudden, violent halt, his murky pupils contracting sharply.
Sisters of Silence.
Anathema Psykana.
In a single instant, every unanswered question found its resolution.
No wonder the enemy had dared to withdraw their priests, rely solely on mechanical forces for defense, drastically weaken the Rot-Rust Plague, suppress the spread of pestilent germs, and prevent even the mechanical units from rapidly corrupting and spiraling out of control.
The force-field of an Untouchable was, by its very nature, a natural counter to the powers of the Warp.
The Rot-Rust Plague had never been a matter of mere chemical corrosion; at its core, it was a Warp curse bestowed by Nurgle. So long as it remained within an Untouchable aura, any plague effect reliant on the Warp was suppressed—or outright neutralized.
"No wonder..." Phelps' voice beneath his visor deepened by a fraction as he felt true difficulty for the first time.
He feared neither formidable firepower nor rampart-like defense lines, nor did he fear mortal flesh and blood. However, an Untouchable represented a counter on the level of fundamental reality, directly disabling the plague powers the Death Guard relied upon most.
Without pestilence to assist them, twenty-two warriors directly taking on seven Terminators and seven Sisters of Silence—backed by the mechanical firepower from behind—saw their odds of victory plummet.
Dominic tightened his grip on his power sword, its blade humming softly. He did not speak, merely staring coldly at the crowd of decaying traitors before him, his eyes completely devoid of fear—filled only with bone-deep loathing and battle lust.
The Sisters of Silence stepped forward in unison, their pale-silver Pariah aura suddenly expanding to silently envelop all twenty-two Plague Marines.
"Ugh—aagh!"
Almost the second the force-field encompassed his body, one Plague Marine let out an agonized, muffled groan.
It was not pain inflicted by external force, but rather something rooted deep within his soul being forcibly ripped away.
The unceasing whispers of Nurgle that had lingered in his mind for ten thousand years suddenly vanished like a cut radio broadcast. The churning thermal currents of pestilence rapidly ebbed from every inch of his bone and muscle. The writhing decayed flesh, the bulging pustules, the pus leaking through the gaps of his armor—all ceased their activity.
Those rusted war-plates, fused seamlessly with his flesh, now felt like a set of heavy shackles, scraping against his bones with agonizing discomfort.
The first to react was a veteran standing on the flank.
He stiffly lowered his head, staring at his pair of arms covered in rotting meat, his exposed intestines dangling from his abdomen, and the pitted rust and mildew staining his armor. He smelled the thick, inescapable stench of decay emanating from his own body.
His murky, yellowed eyes slowly regained their original deep brown hue.
Lucidity returned to his gaze, bit by bit.
And along with it came memories sealed away for ten thousand years.
The perpetual toxic fogs of Barbarus, the cold stone steps of the Legion training camps, the golden light piercing the clouds on the day the Emperor descended, the battle cries of brothers fighting shoulder-to-shoulder during the Great Crusade...
As well as Horus's treachery, Typhus's sneering visage, and that endless, devastating plague that had swept across the entire Legion.
006.M31.
That was the year that had altered the fate of the Fourteenth Legion.
The Primarch Mortarion had raised the banner of rebellion, only to be betrayed and schemed against by Typhus, the First Captain he trusted most. That plague personally sent down by Nurgle had dragged the entire Legion into endless torment. The warriors' flesh rotted away in the plague, their armor growing directly into their bodies, forcing them to endure bone-eroding pain day and night.
Ultimately, Mortarion had bowed his head to the Plague God in sheer desperation, rendering the entire Legion servants of Nurgle from that day forth.
They had transformed from the Emperor's Death Guard into walking pestilence—into the very monsters they had once despised most.
Nurgle's blessing had twisted their perception, causing them to gradually accept their rotting bodies, even viewing their deformed corruption as the Grandfather's grace.
Yet now, as the Pariah aura severed their connection to the Warp—as the veil of Chaos was forcibly torn away—their sanity and memories, suppressed for ten thousand years, surged back like a bursting dam.
"No..."
"How could this... be..."
A raspy voice squeezed out from that warrior's throat, trembling with disbelief. He raised a hand, wanting to touch his own face, only for his fingertips to meet raw, exposed flesh and writhing maggots.
"NO! NO! NO!!!"
A bloodcurdling roar exploded through the corridor.
Like a chain reaction, one Plague Marine after another came to a halt.
The Warp presence upon them faded at breakneck speed as their sanity tore free from ten thousand years of Chaos-induced ignorance, reverting once more into those proud Fourteenth Legion warriors hailing from Barbarus.
Yet what met their eyes was their own unrecognizable, deformed bodies.
It was their own hands, stained with the blood of their kin over ten thousand years.
It was a life that had long fallen into the abyss, beyond any hope of redemption.
"Calm down."
Phelps' voice rang out, carrying a deliberately maintained composure.
He was the only one among the twenty-two who had not lost his head. As a senior member of the former First Company, he had never been forced into accepting the plague. He craved power, craved the recognition of superiors, and craved survival and higher standing in a chaotic galaxy.
To him, Nurgle's blessing was no curse; it was a gift—the price he paid for power. He accepted it, and relished it completely.
"This is the Grandfather's grace, the very source of our strength," he said in a heavy voice, attempting to appease his crumbling brothers. "Ten thousand years have passed; we are no longer who we were in the past. Accept reality, take this warship, and the Grandfather will grant us even more..."
"SHUT UP!"
A furious roar cut him off.
A towering Plague Marine whirled around, his deep-brown eyes bloodshot and brimming with agony and hatred. He had once been a Sergeant of the Seventh Company, boasting illustrious battle honors during the Great Crusade, and had hated xenos and Chaos traitors above all else.
"You traitor! You worm!" he screamed, his voice shaking from extreme rage. "It was you! It was Typhus! It was you bastards who dragged the Legion into the abyss!"
"We are the Emperor's Angels of Death! Not the lapdogs of a plague god!"
"LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE BECOME!!"
More and more warriors joined in the cursing.
Pain, despair, hatred, remorse... countless emotions exploded in a single instant, washing away ten thousand years of numbness.
Some fell to their knees, slamming their decayed fists violently against the metal deck, letting out suppressed sobs.
Some stared blankly at their hands, repeatedly muttering the names of fallen brothers.
Some looked up toward the ceiling as if wishing to gaze through layers of steel for one last look at their long-lost homeworld.
They would rather have died on the battlefields of the Great Crusade—rather have perished in the artillery fire of the Horus Heresy—than live on for ten thousand years in such a wretched state.
"The Grandfather's grace..." Phelps tried to say more.
Yet what answered him was a dull bolt detonation.
BOOM!
A warrior jammed a boltgun into his own mouth and pulled the trigger without a second's hesitation. The mass-reactive shell detonated inside his skull, utterly blasting his head and corrupted soul into fragments. His body collapsed to the deck with a heavy thud, finally freed from endless torment.
It was as if a switch had been flipped.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—
A succession of gunshots rang out.
One Death Guard warrior after another chose the most decisive method to end their own lives.
They obliterated their skulls with bolters, severed their necks with power axes, using the most tragic acts of self-erasure to seek forgiveness from the Emperor and bid farewell to their Legion. They would rather face total annihilation than remain Nurgle's puppets—than continue living within these rotting hulks of flesh.
Nineteen gunshots.
Nineteen veterans who had endured the Great Crusade, the Horus Heresy, and ten thousand years of Chaos Black Crusades fell perpetually silent.
Only three remained standing in the corridor.
Phelps, and two warriors staring dead at him with blood-red eyes.
"You misled us," the warrior on the left gripped his power axe, the blade trembling slightly from sheer rage. "You led us down this path."
"You deserve to die."
The warrior on the right growled low as both activated their thrusters simultaneously—one from the left, one from the right—charging toward Phelps with sky-blazing hatred and absolute despair.
Power axe and power hammer cleaved through the air, bearing a momentum of mutual destruction aimed straight for Phelps' head and chest.
Yet the movements of the two Death Guard veterans were more than thirty percent slower than in their prime.
The Pariah aura acted like a cold sieve, stripping away every Warp-bound blessing. The power of Nurgle's pestilence had once been their sturdiest armor and sharpest weapon, but now that it was abruptly peeled away, their bodies—riddled with holes from plague-wrought mutations long ago—instantly laid bare their exhaustion.
The rusted power armor lost the reinforcement of rapidly swelling flesh, and the decaying meat packed inside the armor joints stopped writhing. The swollen tissue that originally absorbed impacts quickly shriveled away, leaving behind only a heavy metallic shell scraping painfully against long-dead bones.
The warrior on the left was named Ballow, a former assault marine of the Seventh Company who had hacked through Orkish defense lines with a power axe during the Great Crusade. Yet right now, the arm wielding his axe trembled slightly; his decayed tendons simply could not bear the recoil of a full-power strike, and his blade strayed off course by several millimeters, merely grazing past Phelps' shoulder plate to scatter a shower of fine sparks.
The warrior on the right was named Corren, a siege veteran who had taken part in countless raids against xenos. Yet the blow he struck with his power hammer lacked force, and his footing carried a visible stagger. His left leg had been blown apart back during the Horus Heresy, relying entirely on Nurgle's sprouting tissue to walk; now that the plague energy had ebbed away, his necrotic leg bones could not support the heavy power armor at all.
Phelps merely twisted his waist sideways, effortlessly evading the pincer attack of the two.
His rusted warhammer spun half a turn in the air, its haft slamming hard against Ballow's flank with a dull thud, sending the latter stumbling backward several paces before he barely managed to stabilize himself against the bulkhead.
"Calm down, Ballow, Corren," Phelps' voice remained raspy, yet carried an almost cruel serenity.
He raised his warhammer, the head pointing toward his two former comrades.
"Ten thousand years have passed; the Great Crusade ended long ago, and the False Emperor sits as a corpse upon the Golden Throne. There is no going back for us."
"Bullshit!" Corren roared, spitting out murky phlegm. "We are the Fourteenth Legion! We are the Emperor's Death Guard! Not some disgusting maggots of pestilence!"
"The Emperor's Death Guard?" Phelps chuckled low, the rot-fluid in his chest cavity gurgling softly. "Look down at yourselves! Look at this pus-oozing, rotten meat! Look at these rusted armor plates grown into your flesh!"
"Do you really think you still deserve to call yourselves the Death Guard?"
He took a step forward, his warhammer lightly tapping the deck plating with a dull clatter:
"Captain Typhus merely offered us a choice. Either rot away in agony within the plague and die alongside the entire Legion in the mud of Isstvan, or accept the Grandfather's grace to survive and grow stronger."
"We chose to live—was that a crime?"
"What went wrong was this Imperium that abandoned us, and that high-and-mighty Emperor who never looked us in the eye!"
"SHUT UP!" Ballow snapped his body upright and charged forward with his axe raised once more, the blade carving through the air with a shrill whistle. "You may be damned, but you will not defile the honor of the Legion!"
The two clashed together once again.
Shadows of axes and hammers intertwined, the sharp screeches of clashing metal echoing continuously down the empty corridor.
Yet any keen eye could see that Ballow and Corren were already at the end of their tether. Their combat skills remained, and their killer instincts carved into their bones over ten thousand years were still intact, yet their decaying bodies could no longer support that artistry. Every block made their bones groan under intolerable strain, and every lunging stride carried stumbles and openings.
Phelps, on the other hand, moved with ample leeway.
He was someone who had actively embraced Nurgle, and the power of the plague had long since bound itself deeply to his soul. While an Untouchable field could suppress the spread of pestilence and fleshly growth, it could not erase the combat experience etched into his genes, nor could it strip away his force-exertion techniques refined over millennia of inhabiting a corrupted body.
He did not even need to draw upon plague abilities; relying solely on his master-level martial skill, he firmly suppressed his two comrades.
As he parried, he continued his unhurried persuasion, like someone luring lost lambs:
"Accept reality, Ballow."
"So what if you have regained your sanity now? Your body rotted through long ago—your intestines stink inside your belly, and your lungs are packed with the Grandfather's spores."
"Without the plague's power sustaining you, you cannot even stand firm."
"Return with me. Once we deal with these mortals, I will pray to the Grandfather to erase this unpleasant memory of yours."
"We will still be brothers, still the Grandfather's mortal apostles. Come, let us turn this entire warship into the Grandfather's garden together."
"Garden?" Corren coughed up a mouthful of black blood, his laughter tragic and bitter. "Turning living men into rotting walking dead, turning steel into maggot-ridden flesh—that is what you call a garden?"
"Phelps, you lost your mind long ago."
On the other side of the passage, Dominic quietly observed this abrupt internal strife, his fingers tightening slightly around his sword hilt.
Initially, he had been utterly bewildered.
When twenty-two ferocious Death Guard had first charged over, he had been prepared to fight to the death. Yet the moment the enemy stepped into the Sisters of Silence's Pariah aura, they first froze collectively, then nineteen committed suicide on the spot, and the remaining three began slaughtering one another.
This turn of events was something he had never seen—or even heard of—before.
Yet he was a battle-hardened Rear Admiral after all; after a few brief seconds of astonishment, he immediately grasped the key to the situation.
It was the Sisters of Silence.
It was the anti-Warp field of the Untouchables that had stripped away the Chaos blessings upon these traitors, allowing their sanity—blinded by pestilence for ten thousand years—to briefly regain clarity.
Dominic's heart pounded violently in his chest.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
This is an absolute once-in-a-lifetime opening!
Had all twenty-two Death Guard charged over in their prime, even leading his Celestial Lion Squad would have barely allowed them to maneuver, and holding the Mechanicus Shrine would have been uncertain at best. Yet now, nineteen had committed suicide, the remaining three were locked in internal strife—two in abysmal condition—and only a single Phelps retained his combat effectiveness.
This was a tactical window bestowed straight by the God-Emperor!
Without a shred of hesitation, he tilted his head and instructed the Sisters of Silence captain beside him in an extremely low voice:
"Remain where you are and maintain the force-field. Do not give up a single step."
The seven Sisters nodded slightly, their expressions hidden beneath their lower face-guards, while the pale-silver field around them remained as solid as a mountain. Like a reservoir of frozen water, it firmly anchored the Warp energy within tens of meters.
Dominic took a deep breath, the force-field hum of his power sword abruptly spiking higher.
He signaled a tactical hand gesture, and the six Celestial Lion Terminators instantly understood, fanning out in a semi-circle and stepping forward with heavy, rhythmic strides to flank the enemy.
Seven suits of pristine white, master-crafted Terminator armor made the metal deck plating vibrate with dull thuds at every step. The muzzles of their twin-linked bolters lit up with muzzle flashes simultaneously—not in sweeping bursts, but in precise single shots aimed entirely at Phelps' weak spots: his joints, optical viewports, and power conduits.
The instant the gunshots thundered, Phelps' movements jerked to a halt.
He had been entirely focused on dealing with his two former comrades, never taking the mortals behind him seriously. In his eyes, mortals clad in Terminator suits were merely slightly sturdier ants; once he finished off the two traitors, he could take his time dealing with them.
Yet he had forgotten that inside a Pariah field, he possessed no plague shields, no flesh regeneration, and no Warp enhancements.
Mortal bolter rounds could pierce his power armor all the same.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Several bolt rounds struck his knee joints and shoulder plate seams with precision, shattering the rusted war-plate into several jagged fissures. While they failed to penetrate the inner armor layers, they forced a brief stiffness into his movements.
That single instant was all it took.
A sharp gleam flashed in the eyes of Ballow and Corren; both exerted their power simultaneously, an axe and a hammer sealing off Phelps' space to dodge to either side.
Meanwhile, Dominic seized upon this brief window, his jump-thrusters abruptly spewing out jets of pale blue flame.
His entire form transformed into a streak of white lightning, hurtling straight toward Phelps' front.
The force-field radiance of his power sword surged to its absolute limit, blue-white arcs of electricity leaping along the blade and emitting an ear-splitting hum.
"Traitor! Die!"
Phelps' pupils contracted sharply.
He wanted to swing his hammer to block, yet his flanks were pinned down by Ballow and Corren, and two bolt rounds had just struck his waist, slowing his movements by half a beat. He could only desperately tilt his head, attempting to take the sword blow with his shoulder plate.
Yet this strike from Dominic had been gathering power for a long time, backed by every ounce of his strength.
SCHWING!
The razor-sharp power sword sliced through the rusted shoulder plate like paper, tearing open the swollen, rotten meat beneath, and plunged savagely down through the seam along the side of his neck.
The crisp crunch of shattering bone mingled with the spray of rot-fluid, sounding extraordinarily clear inside the narrow corridor.
A head covered in rust and pus-filled sores flew high into the air, spinning several times before crashing heavily onto the metal deck plating and rolling meters away.
Phelps' headless body froze in place, the warhammer in his hand clattering to the deck.
Immediately after, a chilling sound of swelling resonance echoed from inside his chest cavity.
"Watch out! He's going to blow!"
Dominic's expression shifted drastically. He pulled back instantly while raising his arm to guard his face with his shoulder plate. The six Celestial Lion Terminators synchronized their energy shields into a solid barrier of light.
BOOM!!
A muffled detonation rang out.
Phelps' body exploded completely from within like a balloon filled to bursting with rot-fluid.
Dark green pus, rusted armor fragments, and chunks of decaying flesh sprayed in all directions, surging over everything with a suffocating, pungent stench.
Under normal circumstances, a single touch from this Nurgle-infected flesh would cause a mortal to rot to death in minutes, corroding even power armor at breakneck speed.
But this time was different.
The second the flying flesh and pus touched the edge of the pale-silver Pariah aura, the Warp plague energy contained within melted away like snow under a harsh sun.
The lethal curse vanished; the active corruption extinguished.
All that remained was ordinary, filthy, rotting meat and foul blood.
They splattered harmlessly against the Terminators' shield force-fields, scattering dark green stains without a shred of erosive power left. Even that sickening stench lost the vile quality that usually pierced straight into one's soul.
Silence gradually returned to the corridor.
Only the faint sound of pus trickling slowly down the seams of the deck plating remained, alongside the heavy breathing of the survivors.
Dominic lowered his arm guards and looked at Phelps' mutilated corpse, then at the nineteen self-terminated Death Guard fallen around him. For a moment, he felt utterly dazed.
A Chaos invasion that had nearly doomed the entire Gemstone—one he had been fully prepared to die fighting—had ended in such an absurd, dramatic fashion?
It felt almost surreal.
Yet in the very next second, his nerves tightened once more.
There were still two left on the field.
Ballow and Corren.
Two Death Guard who were still clear-headed.
Dominic did not lower his power sword, nor did the six Celestial Lion Terminators break formation, their muzzles remaining trained on the pair. The Pariah aura of the Sisters of Silence held firm across the entire zone without the slightest lapse.
No one knew what these two traitors would do next.
Ballow leaned heavily on his power axe, gasping for air in deep, ragged gulps. Every breath carried the heavy stench of rust and decayed meat.
He lowered his head to look at Phelps' decapitated corpse, then at the remains of his nineteen fallen brothers, before suddenly letting out a low chuckle.
The laughter grew louder, more desolate, until it turned into a tragic rasping cough that brought up black blood.
"Ten thousand years... ten whole thousand years..." He shook his head, his voice dripping with self-deprecation. "After all these turns, it actually took Untouchables for us to finally regain our senses."
Corren slowly lowered his power hammer as well.
His left leg could no longer support him; he dropped to one knee, propping himself up with the handle of his hammer on the deck plating just to keep from collapsing entirely.
He raised his head, his eyes beneath his cowl looking toward Dominic. Within his murky, deep-brown pupils lay no killing intent—only endless exhaustion and vicarious weariness.
"Don't be nervous, kid," his voice was terribly raspy. "If we wanted to fight, we wouldn't have helped you pin him down just now."
With that, he released his grip, letting the power hammer drop onto the deck with a loud clatter.
Ballow followed suit, slanting his power axe against his shoulder without taking an offensive stance.
"We... never wanted to betray the Emperor," Ballow's voice dropped low, as if speaking to Dominic, or perhaps to himself. "During the Great Crusade, our Fourteenth Legion was always on the frontlines. The most toxic worlds, the most dangerous battlefields—we never uttered a single complaint."
"We weren't afraid of dying, nor suffering, nor the toxic fumes that could melt war-gear."
"Because we knew we were fighting for the Emperor—fighting for humanity."
Corren took over, a trace of dazed recollection in his tone:
"Back then, the entire Legion took pride in the name 'Death Guard'."
"We thought we would keep fighting like that forever, until we died on some nameless planet and were buried beneath alien soil."
"Until... that plague."
He spoke no further.
Typhus's treachery, the Primarch's fall, the Legion's damnation...
All the suffering and struggle dissolved into a single, heavy sigh.
"Swept along in the currents of time, many things were never ours to choose," Ballow said, looking at Dominic with a calm gaze. "Had that tragedy not happened, perhaps... we could have fought side by side."
Dominic remained silent.
He looked at the two stooped, rust-covered veterans before him—at the clarity and weariness in their eyes once madness had receded—and felt a complex tangle of emotions.
Hatred? Of course he hated them.
They were Chaos traitors, enemies of the Imperium, their hands drenched in the blood of countless humans.
Yet looking at them now, hearing them speak of the glory of the Great Crusade, he found himself unable to hurl righteous condemnation at them.
Ten thousand years.
From humanity's most glorious era of the Great Crusade to this dark, desperate Forty-First Millennium.
They were once the Emperor's Angels, but had become monsters that everyone sought to destroy.
This in itself was a tragedy.
He lowered the point of his power sword, though he did not sheath it entirely. Behind him, the six Celestial Lion Terminators maintained their combat readiness without loosening their guard in the slightest.
Vigilance was a soldier's instinct.
"What was your objective coming to Brevis this time?" Dominic asked, his voice steady and unreadable.
Ballow and Corren exchanged a glance.
"You think we traveled all this way from the depths of the Warp just to corrupt a single battleship?" Corren pulled the corners of his mouth into a grim, unsightly smile. "Phelps brought us here for two reasons."
"First, to corrupt the Knight House San Gallus on Brevis."
"The Rot-Rust Plague excels at corrupting warmachines and machine spirits. An intact Knight House could provide the Plague God with a very useful Rust Hound warband."
Dominic's heart sank.
House San Gallus.
It matched what was happening on the surface after all.
"The second matter," Ballow took over, his tone growing heavier, "a artifact that drifted out from the Warp is hidden on the planet Brevis."
"He was very interested in it. The divine decree Phelps received was to retrieve it at all costs."
"What artifact?" Dominic pressed immediately.
"It should be a spell fragment of the Great Conspirator."
"A spell fragment?" Dominic's brows furrowed tightly.
"It's normal if you've never heard of it," Ballow explained slowly. "Legend has it that in ancient times, the Great Conspirator was severely wounded by a joint strike from the other three Dark Gods."
"His body shattered into tens of thousands of pieces, scattered across every corner of time and space."
"Every single one of those fragments contains a portion of His essence and power, capable of manifesting as all manner of incomprehensible incantations, artifacts, or even knowledge."
"Whoever claims one gains a portion of the Architect of Fate's authority."
Corren added: "Phelps had never seen the actual item either. He only knew the fragment fell onto Brevis and was guarded generation after generation by a certain family."
"As for its exact form or where it's hidden, he didn't know either."
Dominic's heart skipped a violent beat.
House San Gallus.
Guarded generation after generation.
A fragment.
A single name instantly exploded in his mind—STC.
That mysterious STC template guarded by House San Gallus for over a millennium!
When he had previously browsed through the Brevis archives, he had read related records. It stated that House San Gallus, as a wandering Knight house, had settled on Brevis precisely because they unearthed an STC. It offered a significant enhancement to Knight armors, with effects far exceeding those of ordinary standard templates.
At the time, he had merely taken it as a legend invented by noble houses to puff themselves up, paying it little mind.
Yet now, combining it with the words of the two Death Guard...
That so-called STC was not a product of pure human technology at all!
It was a spell fragment of Tzeentch!
No wonder the Knight armors of House San Gallus could always unleash performance far exceeding conventional parameters. This was the true source!
Dominic felt a cold chill run down his spine.
A single planet harboring Genestealers, Chaos Sorcerers, the Thousand Sons Legion, the Death Guard, and even traces of the Tyranid hive fleet.
The waters of Brevis were far deeper than he had imagined.
"Thank you for the warning," he composed himself and looked at the two veterans. "Is there anything else you need to tell me?"
Ballow shook his head, then as if recalling something, his expression shifted slightly:
"Wait, there is one thing you must watch out for."
"Phelps did not board this ship blindly; he has an insider on planet Brevis."
"An insider?" Dominic's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Someone of very high standing who turned to the Grandfather long ago."
"It was him who helped spread the plague in the Underhive, him who placed the sickness inside the Tithe Fleet's supply cache, and even the coordinates for our arrival at Brevis were provided by him," Corren said in a heavy voice.
"Phelps didn't mention a name, but we could feel that the person sits right within Brevis's core of power."
"Furthermore, Phelps has always been cautious; he couldn't possibly have left no fallback plan."
"His true form might be more than one, or there may be other plague vessels hidden in some corner of this ship."
"You had better conduct a thorough search. Do not be careless."
Having spoken these words, Ballow let out a long breath, as if laying down every burden he carried.
He and Corren exchanged a look, both seeing relief in each other's eyes.
It was enough.
To regain clarity before death, to strike down a fallen comrade with their own hands, and to warn these mortals still fighting for the Imperium.
"Kid, remember our words."
Ballow picked up his power axe once more—not pointing it at Dominic, but reversing the blade to align it straight with his own neck.
"Trust no one. In this damned era, betrayal is always hidden where you cannot see it."
Corren gripped his power hammer again, pressing its head firmly against his own chest.
"To die as a human is better than living a whole life as a maggot."
The two shared a smile.
Within that smile lay regret, relief, and a final thread of pride belonging to the Fourteenth Legion.
THUD!
THUD!
Two dull impacts rang out almost simultaneously.
The power axe severed the neck, and the power hammer crushed the heart.
Two veterans who had endured the Great Crusade, the Horus Heresy, and ten thousand years of Chaos Black Crusades simply remained in their seated postures, falling perpetually silent.
No wailing, no struggling.
They departed calmly and with dignity.
Silence descended completely upon the passage.
All that remained were the twenty-one corpses of the Death Guard, alongside a floor drenched in rot-fluid and rust.
Dominic stood in place, quietly gazing at the remains of the two for a long time without uttering a word.
The wind swept through the ventilation ducts with metallic coldness, kicking up fine dust.
A catastrophe capable of dooming an entire battleship had drawn its curtain in such an absurd, tragic, and desolate manner.
Yet the tension in his mind grew even tighter.
An insider.
A Tzeentch fragment.
Phelps' contingency.
And that bottomless mess down on the surface.
The crisis was far from over.
"Issue orders," Dominic spoke after a long silence.
"A vessel-wide sweep. Every compartment, every conduit—not a single spot is to be missed."
"Focus searches around the Mechanicus Shrine and lower cargo bays to locate all possible hiding spots."
"Begin full-zone decontamination across all compartments immediately."
"Seal off all areas that came into contact with Chaos corruption. Concentrate the corpses for incineration and hand the ashes to the chaplaincy for sanctification."
"Also, transmit a message to the planetary Governor's Palace on the surface."
He paused, his gaze drifting toward the planet churning with undercurrents.
"Tell Kaelen Von that there is an insider on Brevis."
"And that House San Gallus's STC has a problem."
His voice carried a post-battle rasp.
"Understood, General!" the adjutant responded, his voice trembling slightly with the relief of surviving a near-death ordeal.
The six Celestial Lion Terminators dispersed to set up a perimeter, while the seven Sisters of Silence slowly retracted their Pariah aura.
The pale-silver radiance receded inward like an ebbing tide, and the embers of the Warp, previously suppressed to a standstill, began to drift slowly in the air.
No one noticed that within the pool of rot-fluid and shattered flesh left by Phelps' explosion, a tiny white sprout of flesh was gently writhing.
It was too small.
So small it resembled an ordinary fly maggot—even finer, entirely translucent, its surface coated in a layer of Warp membrane.
Phelps had compressed his core consciousness and the purest essence of the Rot-Rust Plague into this "seed" no larger than a grain of rice.
The shockwave of the explosion had served as its best cover, and the retreat of the Pariah field granted it a window to breathe.
While a Sister of Silence's perception could easily root out daemons and sorcerers, it was extraordinarily difficult to catch such an intensely compressed parasite whose soul signature was nearly zero.
It drifted like a genuine particle of dust, riding the air currents kicked up by marching soldiers to fall lightly onto the lower hem of an Tech-Priest's robes as he arrived to inspect the contamination.
The hem of the red robe was stained with oil and holy unguents; its fabric seams were a perfect hiding spot.
The maggot burrowed smoothly inside, embedding itself deep into the weave like a speck of dust, completely cloaking every trace of its presence.
This priest was merely a low-level acolyte priest responsible for pollution-level testing and initial assessments of mechanical damage.
He lowered his head to log the rust data on the deck, his brows furrowed, completely unaware that he had become a Trojan horse for the plague.
The massive doors of the Mechanicus Shrine hissed open under heavy hydraulic pressure.
The brass-cast dome towered dozens of meters high, where countless thick energy conduits extended like blood vessels from the surrounding rock walls, densely converging toward the very center of the shrine.
Suspended there was a pure steel throne over two meters tall, its surface densely engraved with Omnissian holy sigils and machine-spirit litanies.
Blue-white electrical arcs leaped wildly around the throne with sharp crackles, their violent energy surges forming visible ripples in the force-field.
This was the heart of the Gemstone—the Machine Spirit Throne.
Over a millennium of void-farings and war-fires had long forged the machine spirit of this Retribution-class Battleship into something fiercely untamed. It was like a caged iron beast, barely subdued day after day through the prayers, holy oil offerings, and ritual appeasements of the Tech-Priests.
Once it sensed desecration or offense, its rage was enough to instantly paralyze half the warship's systems.
"Machine spirit fluctuations abnormal; energy levels elevated by twenty-seven percent compared to pre-battle parameters."
The senior Tech-Priest leading the group spoke with a metallic resonance, his optical lens flashing red.
"Chaos corruption approached the core zone. It must be appeased immediately, otherwise the primary power loop risks going out of control."
Four Tech-Priests stepped slowly toward the suspended throne, with the acolyte harboring the maggot trailing at the rear of the procession, holding a diagnostic sensor.
The closer they drew to the throne, the stronger the static electricity in the air became. Hair and robes bristled slightly, and the crackling currents vibrated painfully against human eardrums.
The moment the acolyte stepped within a ten-meter radius of the throne, the arcs of electricity—previously merely jumping erratically—instantly went wild!
BUZZ!!!
A piercing screech shattered the solemnity of the shrine as a blue-white bolt of lightning, thick as a human wrist, burst out from the core of the throne without warning.
Like an enraged dragon, it struck the acolyte priest with absolute precision!
"Watch out!"
The leading Tech-Priest cried out, but there was no time to intervene.
The instant the lightning traversed his body, the acolyte did not even have time to scream.
His red robes, flesh, and cybernetic implants were instantly carbonized under a hundred thousand volts of electric current.
Nothing remained but a wisp of blue smoke and a pile of fine, charred ash scattered across the polished metal floor by the wind.
Everyone in the shrine froze.
"The Machine Spirit... the Machine Spirit is enraged?" a young Tech-Priest's voice trembled.
No one found it unexpected.
The Chaos forces had pushed right to the threshold of the shrine, and the Death Guard's plague power had saturated the lower decks; it was only natural for the untamed machine spirit to be provoked into an extreme reaction by the scent of desecration.
The senior Tech-Priest quickly recovered his composure and issued a stern order:
"Fall back! All personnel retreat beyond the perimeter and prepare the appeasement ritual!"
The crowd backed away one after another, no one sparing a second glance at that pile of ash.
Even less did anyone realize that in the exact fraction of a second when the lightning tore through the acolyte's body, the seed of plague hidden in his hem...
Had already ridden the wild, surging torrent of electric current to plunge headfirst into the energy circuits of the Machine Spirit Throne.
Phelps had been waiting for this exact moment.