Chapter 218: Mission Accomplished |
Raphael's blade and armor were stained with the blood of traitors. Under the influence of the Warp, these highly corrosive fluids hissed, emitting plumes of searing white smoke into the air.
He had already noticed the Bishop's true form. This entity, having struck a deal with Daemons to gain the ability to wield malevolent Warp energies, was now pouring all its strength into advancing the ritual.
This made Raphael somewhat anxious.
But the traitors had latched onto the psykers as their final lifeline, using every ounce of their strength to stall the Imperial forces' assault.
And under the influence of that progressively thickening scarlet incense, the lethal effectiveness of their ranged weapons grew increasingly limited.
Whoosh!
Azure psychic flames struck a Blood Angel. The warrior, clad in Gravis Power Armour, instantly triggered his Belisarius Furnace and collapsed to the ground.
The Adeptus Astartes were not shaken by this. They continued to press the advance while the Auxiliary Sergeants swiftly operated makeshift retrieval gear to drag the heavily wounded warrior back—they were not without means to counter the enemy.
The Antiochian Orb was a highly precious sacred weapon utilized by the Black Templars.
Blending sacred unguents, sacred acid, and high-yield explosives, and inscribed with High Gothic runes by devout worshippers, it represented a curse upon blasphemers and a blessing from the God-Emperor's faithful. This transformed every single explosive into a masterful weapon against heretics and daemons.
The Wings of Dawn had slightly modified it, mixing in Sanguinius's blood, and subsequently distributed them wholesale to various Space Marine Chapters and Imperial combat forces that frequently dealt with heretics.
Its lethality did not distinguish between friend and foe; all life within its blast radius would be completely incinerated. However, only blasphemers would endure ultimate agony within the holy fire. Their flesh and blood would slowly undergo carbonization and disintegration in the purifying flames, while their souls would be branded with eternal torment. Not even Daemons would want to experience the baptism of this weapon.
And now...
Raphael raised his hand and hurled the Antiochian Orb directly into the heretic formation.
In an instant, starlight-like golden brilliance violently erupted, the incandescent heat swallowing everything in its vicinity.
The flesh and blood of the traitors twisted and blackened in the holy fire. Before their screams could fully escape their lips, they were reduced to ash.
The heretics who trifled with Warp sorcery bore the absolute brunt of it. The moment their bodies touched the radiant flames, they underwent rapid carbonization and disintegration, their very souls scorched into nothingness.
The concussive shockwave of the explosion even shook the ritual site deep within the hall.
Nine Chaos Sorcerers surrounded a not-yet-fully-activated Warp portal. Beneath their robes, their bodies had long since twisted and mutated from excessive exposure to Chaos energy.
The portal, constructed with various crystals and edged in brass, slowly rotated at their center.
The portal was still not fully open, but the energy pooling within it was already sufficient to cause a widespread reality tear.
Amidst the hail of gunfire, the sorcerers were desperately trying to control the summoning ritual and prevent energy from leaking. Their target was not this dilapidated cathedral, but to tear open the veil of reality and allow the true horrors of the Warp to descend.
However, the detonation of the Antiochian Orb had already destabilized the ritual.
"The altar!"
Sirene's psychic transmission pierced into Raphael's consciousness like a sharp blade.
Azure lightning burst from her fingertips, only to be swallowed by a writhing Warp barrier just before it could strike the altar.
"Hurry and destroy the altar!"
Raphael's blade had already cleaved through the bodies of three daemonhosts. He looked up at that blasphemous doorway constructed from bones and blackstone.
The Antiochian Orb's explosion seemed to have triggered an energy backlash. A Warp rift was twisting and expanding above the altar. Tentacles and bone spurs began tearing through the skin of the Chaos traitors, and their offensive grew ever more frenzied.
'There are too many of them. Why would an Imperial World harbor so many heretics?'
Raphael furrowed his brows tightly, observing the physical traits of the cultists. He noticed their skin was uniformly thin, to the point where the underlying muscle texture was visible.
Voidborn. A demographic that faced intense discrimination, even within the confines of starships.
Before they could completely overturn the reality that the lowest rungs of the Imperium were a living hell, they truly could not stop those living in that hell from embracing an unknown tomorrow.
"I am trying!"
Raphael roared back in a low voice. The thunderous roar of the bolters abruptly ceased; under the influence of the mist, ranged weapons could not even be fired.
At this critical juncture, a Battle Sister from the Order of the Crimson Rose suddenly lowered her bolter.
Her movements were solemn and resolute. With bloodstained fingertips, she unhooked an Antiochian Orb from her waist. Her other hand tightly gripped the sacred emblem upon her chest. The silver Imperial Creed symbol dug bloody grooves into her palm, the crimson liquid dripping down along the engraved script.
The other Battle Sisters who noticed this scene all cast gazes of deep reverence toward her—this was the ritualistic motion declaring martyrdom.
The third chapter of the Holy Word declared thus: Whoever sacrifices themselves for the Emperor shall receive His gaze; whoever dies in battle for humanity shall have their soul receive His protection.
It was exactly this faith that drove billions of believers to charge in endless waves against the blades of heretics, drowning the impure in the blood of righteousness.
To this Sister, this very moment was the holy time to fulfill her oath. Her lips parted slightly as she stepped forward, bearing the crushing weight of the psychic blast against her body, preparing to chant her final prayer...
But the sound of space tearing apart suddenly echoed by her side.
"Move out of the way!"
A deep, heavy voice boomed from behind them.
Massive numbers of heretics were shredded by a towering, azure figure. Utilizing Sirene's spatial teleportation, Titus led his combat squad and joined the battlefield.
Wet blood still clung to their forms, making it evident they had just rushed over from another warzone.
The arrival of this squad shattered the delicate balance. Especially for Titus, the scarlet mist felt as natural as water to a fish, allowing him to easily pounce upon the heretics and violently rend their bodies apart.
Under this shock assault, the morale of the heretics began to crumble. This peerless warrior, having completed his Primaris Space Marine augmentations, took only a few fleeting moments to completely collapse the heretic defensive line.
However, driven to a dead end, the Chaos cultists still grasped one final, maddened gamble.
At the core of the ritual, within the zone that repelled all external forces, the contorted Warp portal was trembling violently. Highly unstable energies formed a terrifying vortex within its frame.
The heretics faced two choices.
Detonate the portal and unleash enough Warp energy to level the entire cathedral, or... alter the summoning target, redirecting the energy originally meant to transport an entire Chaos host into summoning a terrifying Greater Daemon instead.
While the ritual requirements for the latter were not overly demanding, and the emergence of a Greater Daemon could reboot the portal to allow more Daemons into this world, it demanded the most grueling of prices.
The sacrificial souls of the summoners.
"Yes, exactly like that. Offer your souls to me..."
A whisper dripping with temptation echoed beside the Chaos Sorcerers' ears, coiling around their minds like venomous serpents.
All nine sorcerers drew ritual daggers etched with blasphemous runes, pressing the sharp edges against their own throats. A crazed light flickered in their eyes, and their lips twisted into eerie, macabre smiles.
Among them, some were plague-ridden, some had bodies covered in bloody inscriptions, and others possessed abnormally sensitive, mutated appendages.
But right now, at this very moment.
The eyes of every single one of them were tainted with a faint blue luminescence.
"Yes, just like that. Only by doing this will I descend to save you. Do not be afraid, my children..."
The voice continued its dark seduction.
"I shall embrace your souls... You will experience the boundless infinity of the Realm of Mutability."
Driven by the daemonic whispers, the sorcerers slit their own throats one after another.
The spurting blood did not fall to the ground. Instead, it atomized into a bloody mist that was absorbed by the portal, taking their shattered souls along with it.
With every sacrificial soul offered, the portal's vortex grew denser. It shifted from pink to green, until a bizarre, eerie crimson light began circulating within.
One, two... eight.
When the count passed six and seven, two waves of disappointment emanated from the Empyrean.
By the time the final Chaos Sorcerer tremblingly raised his ritual dagger, the Warp energy had boiled to its absolute zenith.
Within the Warp, encircling Daemons were completely drawn to this locus, much like sharks eyeing a school of fish caught in a net. The veil of reality had become as fragile as paper.
Titus charged forward, beginning to directly confront the impact of the Warp tide.
'Something is wrong!'
Noticing that formless divine protection, the voice within the Warp let out a piercing shriek.
Faced with the terror of stepping into the unknown, it hurriedly began to reverse the ritual.
Just as the final Chaos Sorcerer prepared to raise his ritual dagger, another crystal blade pierced outward from his chest, abruptly ending his life.
Titus felt a wave of confusion. Instinct warned him that something was amiss. He quickly cleaved the anomalous Chaos Sorcerer's corpse to pieces and seized that crystal sword, within which lay a pulsating soul.
This led Titus to subconsciously believe he had stopped the Chaos Sorcerers' ritual. However, the portal's Warp vortex suddenly surged with activity. Its murky hues grew blindingly bright, and a vivid, bloody crimson surfaced within it, gradually igniting into flames.
The teleportation vortex steadily expanded. Realizing what was happening, Titus sprinted swiftly toward the portal.
Behind him, the Chaos heretics were abruptly seized by a maddened killing intent. They began indiscriminately attacking everyone in sight.
Even the Imperial forces, including the Astartes, felt their blood boiling. Everyone experienced this uncontrollable rage.
Yet, in Titus's eyes, this sensation had little to no effect.
Rage had always been a driving force within him. But just like always, he knew perfectly well that he did not need to drown in it.
Instead, he would rely on this fury to turn the tide!
Riiiip—
Two massive hands tore open the rift and reached out from the portal, desperately attempting to pull themselves into the physical universe as if breaking free from their shackles.
Raphael looked up. The immense strength of his soul allowed him to suppress his bloodthirsty urges.
He noticed the anomaly occurring at the portal.
"Catch!"
Wielding his blade, he tore a gap through the completely chaotic heretic defensive line. In his other hand, he gripped his final Antiochian Orb, hurling it directly toward Titus.
On the other side, Titus had already arrived before the rift, brandishing that crystal blade.
The very moment the grotesque visage of the Khorne Bloodthirster poked out from the portal, Titus thrust his sword straight through its chest. He followed up by smashing his fist into the Bloodthirster's face. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he grabbed it firmly by the horns and ruthlessly dragged the beast of Khorne out of the Warp.
Raphael instantly understood his intent. He urgently signaled Sirene to teleport over a cloned Aeldari body and, utilizing a pre-arranged daemonhost ritual, forcefully shoved the entity inside it.
Next, the Antiochian Orb was tossed straight into the Warp portal.
"Tzeentch!!!"
In a fraction of a second, a blinding flash blossomed. Amidst the deafening explosion, a roar of pure fury originating from the Brass Throne echoed out from the Warp portal.
Immediately afterward, the crimson Warp portal began shaking violently, ultimately collapsing inward upon itself.
Deep within the Warp, a certain Greater Daemon of Tzeentch watched all this unfold, letting out a long sigh of relief and wearing an expression of someone who had just survived a lethal disaster.
"Get out of here!"
Titus spun around and yelled, as he and Raphael moved to escort the daemonhost away.
Everyone instantly understood the command and began sprinting toward the exterior of the cathedral structure.
The volatile energy condensed by the portal caused the ground to quake. After everyone had evacuated the chamber, the blood-red energy gradually receded, ultimately transitioning into a blinding azure hue.
In the blink of an eye, the portal vanished completely.
Residual Warp energy battered the structural foundations of the cathedral, causing the surrounding areas to shudder violently under the impact.
As the tremors grew increasingly severe, the retreating forces on the lower levels began planting explosives to erase any evidence of their presence, then led whatever allied units they encountered in their withdrawal.
Crash!
In the first moments of the ensuing chaos, a male guest threw himself over his female companion to shield her. As a consequence, his body bore several lacerations inflicted by flying glass shards.
Fortunately, the wounds were not fatal, as the glass had been stopped by the complex, luxurious pendants and accessories adorning his attire.
Thank the Emperor it was not a close-range explosion, or else those luxury baubles would have acted like deadly steel nails flying from a fragmentation grenade.
He hastily stripped off his ornaments to prevent them from causing any further accidents.
The environmental damage was not the greatest danger; in such boundless darkness, a panicking, chaotic crowd was the true peril.
"Turn on the lights! Can someone turn on the lights?!"
The male guest pulled his companion up, forcing himself to sound calm as he shouted. He tried to soothe the crowd with his normally infallible commanding tone, then beckoned his attendants and quickly pressed toward the edges of the cathedral walls.
Right now, the most critical priorities were providing a light source and restoring order among the surrounding people.
Panic was absolutely forbidden in this situation. The moment a stampede broke out, this place would instantly turn into a bloody meat grinder, and a crush of bodies would claim countless lives.
Just then, a sharp, authoritative voice rang out.
"Calm down! Everyone, stay where you are! Do not move!"
Sirene, having already finished covering their tracks, swiftly led her forces back up to the main cathedral floor to establish order.
"Calm down!"
She smashed her fist into the face of a guest who was teetering on the edge of hysteria, forcefully knocking him unconscious. The braziers behind the Battle Sisters flared to life, casting illumination and bringing warmth to the nearby crowd. They meticulously inspected each person, disarming them of any weapons and scrutinizing their souls.
Noticing the swift and brutal efficiency of this squad, the male guest quickly squatted down with his hands over his head, fully cooperating with their inspection.
After roughly a minute or so, the local security Battle Sisters and Ecclesiarchy attendants also appeared to help maintain order. Holding their light sources high, they rushed toward the recently repaired altar.
To these locals, the safety of the regional Bishop was of far greater importance.
It was only then that the male guest heard the shrill, horrified screams of an attendant echoing from the high dais.
"The Bishop has been murdered!"
——
"Report. Mission Accomplished."
Inside a rather inconspicuous cathedral on Astorgius, Raphael and Sirene began their mission debrief.
They meticulously detailed the specifics of the operation, the casualties incurred, and whether the objectives had been met. Simultaneously, they handed over all squad armaments that had undergone a baptism of Chaos.
A portion of the consecrated weapons would be retained, but the vast majority would be summarily destroyed.
It was an extravagant waste, but it was the only way to guarantee maximum security.
After all, the corruption of Chaos was eternally pervasive, seeping into every available crack.
"Good work."
Romulus was processing administrative affairs with Dracus's assistance. Recently, Navaradaln was dealing with a somewhat problematic mindset, and Romulus felt it was inappropriate to put further pressure on the Custodian.
He accepted the physical documents Raphael handed over, placing them atop a towering stack of paperwork that was nearly as tall as a Primarch.
"We will still need you to dedicate significant effort to the Chahake District moving forward."
No one had expected that a simple anti-corruption purge would unearth an entire nest of heretics.
Sirene and Raphael offered a solemn salute.
"For Humanity!"