The Space Marines emerged into darkness.
The chamber around them was carved from jagged black stone—volcanic and cracked, as though the room itself had been hewn from the bones of a dead world. The floor crunched beneath their armored boots, uneven and sharp, as if the rock still remembered the violence that shaped it. No light source could be seen, yet everything was dimly visible in hues of gray and red, lit by the sickly glow of the Immaterium bleeding through the walls.
Lieutenant Thalor stepped forward first, thunder hammer at hand and ready, his helmet sweeping left to right in silent assessment. To his right strode Sergeant Varkos, chainsword in hand, bolt pistol drawn. Behind them came Brother Korran, encased in hulking Terminator armor, his storm bolter and power fist at the ready, each step a grinding challenge to the cursed stone beneath.
They had been aboard the battle barge Vigil of Iron, en route to a chaos incursion near the Hadrex Anomaly, when the warp storm swallowed them whole. Now, they stood in a place that was neither real nor illusion.
Three figures waited at the center of the chamber.
The first towered in black armor, his form encased in a suit that pulsed with unnatural life. A cloak hung from his shoulders like shadow incarnate. A dark helm masked his face, but the pressure in the air told the Astartes all they needed to know.
“A psyker,” said Thalor, voice low over vox. “A powerful one. Warp-touched.”
Sergeant Varkos nodded grimly. “I feel his presence gnawing at my thoughts.”
The figure did not speak. Yet the air around him vibrated with unseen fury. His hand hovered near the hilt of a crimson-bladed weapon unlike any imperial design.
Flanking him were two soldiers in smooth white armor, their movements mechanical, their weapons alien mockeries of lasguns.
“Not men,” Korran growled. “Shells. Cultist scum in sacred shell casings. Hollowed out by doctrine not our own.”
Thalor stepped forward, voicing what all three knew. “They are not of this realm. But they are no less the enemy.”
A sound like a blade igniting filled the air. Red light bathed the stone.
The three Space Marines raised their weapons in unison.
“In the name of the Emperor,” Varkos intoned, “you will burn.”
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