Upper Sector, City of the Holy Anthem. Standard Terran Year 976.M30, Day 318, 14:17.
Captain Tobias Fane's main force of the Second Company—one thousand three hundred Blood Angels—was bogged down here.
They weren't being held up by heavy fortifications or heavy weaponry, but by an endless sea of blue and purple.
"Fire! Keep firing!"
The barrel of Tobias's bolter was already overheating, the cooling fins glowing a dull red.
He had just emptied another magazine. Thirty .75 caliber explosive mass-reactive bolts shredded everything in a thirty-meter cone in front of him, blowing at least twenty grotesque things to pieces.
But forty more instantly filled the gap.
They were once the citizens of this hive.
Now, their skin was covered in crystalline, pale-purple patterns that looked like sickly scales. Their eyeballs had turned entirely blue-purple. Some had sprouted stunted wings with diseased blue and pink feathers from their backs.
Some had their arms mutated into avian talons, their nails extending into thirty-centimeter-long purple crystal spikes.
Some had lost all semblance of humanoid form entirely, their bodies twisting like melting wax, their limbs turning into tentacles, and dozens of eyes blinking open across their torsos.
"There are too many of them!" A sergeant's roar echoed over the vox-channel, set against the background noise of chainswords tearing through flesh and the relentless thud of bolters. "Seventh Tactical Squad, ammo reserves at 23%! I repeat, 23%!"
Tobias switched channels. "Strike Cruiser Five, this is the Second Company Commander. Requesting orbital fire support at coordinates..."
His words were cut off by a piercing psychic shriek.
The shriek stabbed directly into the depths of every Astartes' soul.
Thirty Blood Angels froze simultaneously.
Their movements were delayed by a single second.
And in that single second, hundreds of the corrupted citizenry lunged at them.
"For the Emperor!!!"
"By the Blood of Sanguinius!"
Tobias roared, sweeping his chainsword with all his might.
The whirring teeth tore open the chest of the first corrupted citizen. Blue-black blood sprayed out, and as it hit the ground, it began to writhe autonomously, attempting to crawl into the joints of his power armor.
The second, the third...
He killed seven, but the eighth latched onto his left leg.
The thing was no longer recognizable as human. Its entire upper torso had bloomed open like a flower, revealing a maw lined with needle-like teeth in the center.
It bit down on Tobias's greave, cracking the ceramite.
"Captain!" A warrior charged forward, leveling his meltagun at the monstrosity.
"Don't!" Tobias shouted, but he was a fraction of a second too late.
The melta beam struck the target. The superheated blast instantly vaporized the corrupted creature, taking a layer of Tobias's armor with it.
But far more deadly was the Warp energy accumulated within the creature's body; it was ignited by the melta blast. The resulting shockwave sent both Tobias and the warrior flying.
Tobias adjusted his posture in mid-air, the servos in his armor straining as he landed hard on one knee, cracking the pavement beneath him.
The other warrior was not so lucky.
He crashed through the outer wall of an adjacent building. Instantly, a horde of corrupted citizens surged inside after him.
After a brief, violent struggle, the sounds from within abruptly ceased.
"Carlos..." Tobias gritted his teeth and stood up.
Everyone knew exactly what had happened.
But they had no time to grieve.
"Keep moving!" Tobias's voice was hoarse. "The Imperium and our Primarch need us to purge these heretics!"
--
Upper Sector, City of the Holy Anthem. Eight hundred meters southeast of the Conmo Dynasty Spire, Central Plaza.
Sanguinius's pristine white wings were stained with filth.
But his advance did not slow by even a fraction.
With every sweep of the Blade Encarmine, everything within a ten-meter radius was instantly obliterated.
The Primarch's psychic power, wreathed around the blade, was the natural anathema to Warp constructs.
When the corrupted citizens were struck by it, they left no corpses behind; they were instantly reduced to scattering ash, the Warp energy within them annihilated completely.
"Left flank. Three large warp entities."
Sanguinius didn't even need to speak. His psychic command flowed directly into the minds of the thirty Sanguinary Guard Terminators.
Three Terminators turned simultaneously, their storm bolters unleashing a synchronized volley.
The things they were facing could no longer be called biological organisms. They were three constantly shifting mounds of flesh. Their surfaces would momentarily manifest human faces, then morph into books, then shift into cogwheels.
Every mass-reactive bolt that struck them blew a massive chunk out of their forms, but the wounds were instantly filled by rapidly regenerating tissue.
"Melta." Sanguinius spoke a single word.
Two warriors stepped forward from the Terminator squad, the multi-meltas mounted on their shoulders beginning to charge.
Blue energy coalesced at the muzzles, the sheer heat warping the air around them.
Fire.
Two blindingly white beams lanced across the plaza.
The three large warp entities were vaporized into plasma before they could even utter a scream, the beams continuing on to melt through three buildings behind them.
But the instant the meltas fired, the paving stones of the plaza suddenly cracked open.
Hundreds of purple tentacles erupted from the ground, lashing toward the legs of the Terminators.
"The ground!" Azkaellon, Commander of the Sanguinary Guard, was the first to react.
He ignited the heavy flamer mounted on his armor, unleashing a twenty-meter torrent of promethium fire.
The tentacles curled, blackened, and turned to ash in the flames.
But even more tentacles surged out from every direction.
"They are learning," Sanguinius said softly, his amber-gold slit pupils sweeping across the battlefield. "They are adapting to our tactics."
He raised his left hand.
And splayed his five fingers.
Pale golden psychic energy erupted from him like a ripple, washing over the plaza.
Wherever the light touched, the tentacles snapped into pieces, the corrupted citizens collapsed in rigid heaps, and even the pervasive purple mist choking the air was partially banished.
This was the power of a Primarch. No blessings required, no rituals needed—pure, absolute biological suppression of Warp.
But Sanguinius frowned slightly.
The psychic energy expended for that single burst was 5% higher than he had calculated.
The density of the Warp contamination in this hive was rewriting the laws of reality, forcing any non-warp entity to pay an additional toll.
"Father, your psychic reserves!" Azkaellon asked, his voice laced with concern.
"It matters not," Sanguinius lowered his hand, his wings flapping lightly to shake off the clinging filth. "Keep moving. The target is just ahead."
He looked toward the structure at the far end of the plaza: the grand hall of the Conmo Dynasty.
In his psychic vision, it looked like a purple sun, continuously radiating energy that twisted reality and corrupted souls.
And surrounding the grand hall, nine far more potent psychic signatures were arranged in an intricate, deliberate pattern.
Sanguinius knew it was a trap.
But he had to step into it.
Because if even a Primarch backed down out of fear of a trap, who else could possibly purge this world?
--
Standard Terran Year 976.M30, Day 318, 14:23.
The final five hundred meters leading to the grand hall.
For these five hundred meters, the Sanguinary Guard paid a heavy price.
"By the Blood of Sanguinius!"
"For the Emperor!!"
A warrior of the Primarch's Guard was suddenly tackled to the ground by four bizarre warp entities—monstrosities with avian wings and countless eyes that had erupted from beneath the paving stones.
The creatures' talons somehow managed to pry open the joints of his Terminator armor, and purple energy was injected straight through the gaps.
Before he fell completely, the warrior detonated his armor's power core.
The resulting shockwave vaporized every enemy within a twenty-meter radius, taking him with it.
"Record this," Sanguinius's voice did not waver. "Sanguinary Guard warrior, Garvin Sol. Killed in action during the purification of the City of the Holy Anthem on Aurelian IV. Warp entities executed: four hundred and seventy-two."
"Honor unto him."
"Honor unto him."
All the members of the Guard responded in unison.
This was the Blood Angels.
Even in the face of death, they would record their tallies, and they would uphold their honor.
They advanced another two hundred meters.
Three corrupted psykers burst from a building on the flank, their hands weaving intricate seals. The blasphemous incantations spilling from their lips warped the very fabric of reality.
A bolt of purple psychic lightning lashed out, arcing straight toward Sanguinius.
Azkaellon threw himself into its path.
The defensive field of his Terminator armor clashed with the psychic lightning, erupting in a blinding flash.
He successfully intercepted the sneak attack against his father, but his armor was shattered in the process.
"Commander!"
"Keep guarding the Primarch! This is an order!" Azkaellon roared, the armor on his left arm completely melted away, exposing charred and blackened flesh beneath.
Sanguinius looked at him.
The Primarch reached out and placed a hand on Azkaellon's shoulder.
Pale golden psychic energy flowed into the wound. The necrosis stopped immediately, and fresh granulation tissue began to grow.
"You should not expend your power on me, my Lord."
"You are my son," Sanguinius interrupted him. "And I am your father."
With just that single sentence, Azkaellon, a veteran who had survived countless brutal wars, felt his eyes burn with unshed tears.
But there was no time to be moved.
Because the main doors to the grand hall were just fifty meters ahead.