"WEBWAY"
"For the Captain-General to dispatch five Custodians and three Sisters of Silence against mere cultists—marked psykers, no less—is worrisome," Atrius observed, each word a rolling thunder beneath his helm.
"Caution, brothers," he growled over the vox as they ran toward the direction of the escaping heretics.
"This reeks of premeditation. Malice festers ahead."
The Webway's corridors stretched into impossible depths—vaulted arches of translucent crystal, veins of luminous cerulean light pulsing like a heartbeat. Shadows writhed across facets that shifted underfoot, defying all mortal geometry. Occasional fissures exhaled a chill miasma, scenting the air with ozone and the tang of corroded ether.
Up ahead, there was something on the ground: a pool of ichor glistened where a body lay at the junction of twin tunnels. A blade remained embedded in its throat, its edge etched with hexagrammatic runes that glowed a sickly green. Limbs, severed with surgical precision, were strewn like discarded statues, ivory cores stark against the crystalline floor.
Three Sisters of Silence knelt, their null aura drawing the Warp's stench into a vacuum of silence. The lead Sister's gauntlet brushed the corpse's chest, fingertips tracing fractured psyker glyphs. In silent sign, she conveyed:
He was a conduit—his sacrifice fueled sorcery beyond reckoning.
Atrius' visor reflected the scene in cold clarity; ripples of ambient energy danced across his polished war plate. He turned to the Custodes at the far end—observing a dais of molten black onyx, circled by silver chalices, each still warm with congealed blood.
One Custodian's voice cut through the hush:
"A summoning circle... yet how many daemons answered the call?"
A Silent Vigil.
*vvvvvvvvhhhhhhhhhh*—a deep breath.
They all turned to Atrius.
Beneath Atrius' helm, his optic sensors flared as he tuned into the Webway's ephemeral frequencies. The ambient hum ebbed; drifting motes of light froze in midair. Custodians stood motionless, sentinels of living gold; the sisters resumed their sacred positions, their breath scarcely disturbing the charged atmosphere.
He exhaled softly, voice crackling through the vox-grid:
"Ambush ahead. Hostiles perched above.... a great number of daemons and heretics."
A pulse of shared tension snapped through the squad. Guardian spears leveled, their tips shivering with intent. They all looked ahead with vigilance in their gazes and gestures.
In formation, they moved forward into one of the tunnels ahead. Led by Atrius, the ambient darkness of the tunnel consumed them.
"BOOM… BOOM… BANG!"
KRA-KOOM! BOOOOOM! THRUM!
flashes of light came from the dark tunnel.
in the tunnel, the custodes stood.
"BOOM… BOOM.. BOOOOOM! KRA-KOOM!"
In synchronized precision, the Custodians unleashed melta-carbide salvos at the hiding foes, their spears aiming above them. Spears erupted in a chorus of thunder:
-CRACK! RROOOOMMM!
"AaaaaAAAGHH!" heretics screamed amid the raging explosions as they fell to their demise.
"SKREEEEE!" —the unholy sound of daemons screaming blessed the ears of their assailants.
Melta blasts vaporized crystalline ledges, carving jagged apertures overhead. Showers of razor shards clattered across the chamber, each fragment singing as it gouged flesh and metal. Screams ricocheted—a cacophony of ruptured sinew and torn armor.
A daemon's bestial form collapsed, its jade-scaled hide cracking open in a sanguine bloom. The stench of burning flesh mingled with the acrid aroma of molten crystal.
As the smoke roiled, demonic shapes poured from hidden recesses: lupine horrors with spines like obsidian, tentacled nightmares that oozed corrosive fluids, and short imps whose cunning eyes gleamed with malice. Cultists in tattered cloaks raised hands etched with forbidden wards, unleashing violet lightning that lanced through the gloom.
They relentlessly charged at their assailants.
One Custodian bellowed as they approached:
"Die, daemon scum!"
Guardian spears spat streaks of powerful bolts, each round bursting through flesh, leaving blood and gore in their wake.
Atrius surged forward, ramming into the attacking daemons as he impaled several cultists with a single precise strike, slamming them ruthlessly onto the ground. Hulking daemons swarmed him; a few managed to tackle him, but he shrugged them off as though they were nothing, proceeding to slaughter his way forward.
The other Custodes were not to be underestimated—their martial might had stood the test of time. These pitiful numbers of cultists and daemons were not enough to make them falter.
Blood mist billowed, a crimson fog illuminated by sporadic flares of incineration.
The Sisters of Silence moved like living voids, their blades unsheathing with whispers of inevitability. The daemons and cultist psykers could not even approach them; they had to be engaged separately by the Sisters.
One glided into a cluster of lesser daemons, her silenced blade slicing through warp-tendrils and sinew in a ballet of lethal grace. Another unleashed a null-grenade; the resulting field of absolute silence consumed a chanting sorcerer, leaving only a smoking husk.
Their very presence twisted the Warp—each step a rupture that unmade the daemonic.
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Behind the frenzied daemons and cultists, a lone psyker-heretic knelt before an altar fashioned from the flesh of fallen heretics. Imps skulked around the battlefield, harvesting the flesh of the slain, the gore used to strengthen the profane, altar held together by dark sorcery.
The lone psyker muttered ramblings in a hushed and pious manner, arms uplifted.
A living glyph of pulsating blood-red warp energy circled him; bone shards, sacrificial oils, and blood-soaked parchment littered the ground.
"Great Lords of the Immaterium—heed my call! Send forth Thy legions, that they may lay waste to your foes! May Thy presence grace these grounds, and may Thy wrath be manifest!" he cried fanatically, his breath hitching and his eyes bulging with a grotesque mixture of agony and ecstasy.
The glyph flared violently, and a great rift groaned open, disgorging fresh horrors: hulking spawns of Tzeentch, fleshy aberrations dripping ichor, and Chaos Space Marines stamping forward in blighted ceramite.
*thum* thum* thum*!!
their steps echoed in the tunnel.
The air trembled as daemonic footfalls echoed across the crystalline arches.
The tide of battle began to change as hordes of daemons charged at the Emperor's loyal servants.
The Sisters retreated into the Custodes' phalanx as the enemy horde advanced.
Caenus looked upon the encroaching Chaos forces; his spear spattered with warp-rot.
He paused, as if deep in thought. They maintained formation, yet retreated strategically, leading the daemons out of the tunnels.
As if seized by sudden urgency, he keyed his vox to a different frequency:
"kZZZK—This is Caenus. Captain—this was a trap. They seek Atrius. This was their plan from the first!"
*szzzz...zzzs....zzzhz*
the static hissed. then came Valdor's voice, measured yet urgent:
"Confirmed? Are you certain?"
"Aye, my Lord. More Chaos spawns encroach even as we speak. A rift to the Immaterium itself yawns before us. Only one thing could compel them to such reckless desperation. I believe Project [Alpha-Omega] ####### hath been compromised," Caenus replied swiftly. None heard their conversation, even the nearby Custodes locked in battle.
"...How?..." a long, grim pause.
"...Very well. Inform Atrius to fall back immediately. Team Two is en route. Hold the line at all costs."
A silence taut as a drawn blade.
"And Caenus... protect him with your life... for the Emperor."
"FOR THE EMPEROR!" Caenus hummed in reply, before resuming his position, welcoming the onslaught of the damned.