The light and shadow on the screen began to grow murky and heavy, no longer a biographical review of a single character, but shifting to a wide-angle shot grand enough to be suffocating.
In the vast sea of stars, a fleet massive enough to blot out the light of suns was assembling.
There, the most elite forces of the Empire gathered: the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters, the Death Guard, and the Emperor's Children. The warships of the four Legions were like a forest of steel, silently suspended in the orbit of the Planet named Istvaan III.
They blotted out the sun and sky, their gun ports grim and imposing, but this was not for the conquest of new territories; a strange, deathly silence hung in the air, the characteristic low pressure before a storm.
The camera slowly zoomed in, focusing on the flagship of the Emperor's Children.
Standing there was a man, Saul Tarvitz.
This Captain of the Tenth Company had his brow furrowed, his resolute face etched with confusion and unease.
As a dutiful veteran, he keenly sensed the inexplicable sense of wrongness in the tactical deployment.
According to the plan, all companies were supposed to conduct a drop to suppress the rebellion on the surface.
But strangely, those Commanders who usually craved glory the most, who were the most arrogant and loved to show off before the Primarch—like the overbearing Lord Commander Eidolon—had all remained on the safety of the warships.
And those sent to the surface were all "old-school" warriors like him. Every name listed on the roster was one Tarvitz knew: Garviel Loken, Tarik Torgaddon, Ehrlen, Huron-Fal... These men had one thing in common: though they held high positions and had distinguished combat records, they had always refused to join that mysterious "Warrior Lodge." They were Terra-born veterans, hardliners who held fast to the "Imperial Truth," the "unconforming" impurities in the eyes of the Primarch.
"This is not logical."
Tarvitz whispered to himself, his fingers unconsciously tracing the grip of his Bolter.
"Why keep the main force in orbit? If this is a suppression of a rebellion, why not commit full strength?"
To uncover the truth, and for the sake of the lingering unease in his heart, he made a decision that defied military discipline.
He risked sneaking into Eidolon's tactical room, a restricted area accessible only to those of Lord Commander rank.
There, on the dim holographic tactical table, he saw the top-secret order that made his blood instantly freeze.
On the screen, a crimson skull icon flashed frantically, the highest-level alarm representing an "exterminatus order."
[Operation Codename: The Purge.]
[Target: All life forms on the surface of Istvaan III, including deployed Astartes units.]
[Phase One: Life-Eater Virus Bomb.]
[Phase Two: Orbital Lance Ignition.]
[Execution Time: To be executed immediately after ground forces suppress the rebels.]
"Horus... has he gone mad?!"
He stared at the cold text, feeling the entire World spinning.
The Warmaster was not trying to kill rebels, but them—these warriors loyal to the Empire and the Legion.
Tarvitz had no time for hesitation, nor time for sorrow.
He knew he had to make a choice: pretend he didn't know and stay on the safe ship to survive while watching his brothers die, or risk certain Death to save his comrades who had already been sentenced to die.
He chose the latter.
Even if it meant he would become a "traitor" to the Legion.
The scene shifted as Tarvitz rushed toward the flight deck.
He knocked down the guards trying to stop him and forcibly seized a Thunderhawk Gunship. The roar of the engine exploded within the hangar.
"Stop him! Shoot down that traitor!"
Eidolon's exasperated voice exploded over the communication channel.
"Do not let him leave!"
Several interceptors roared out, laser beams grazing the Thunderhawk's wings and sending sparks flying. Tarvitz wove through the dense net of fire; his craft began to emit black smoke, and alarms blared throughout the cockpit.
At this critical moment, he connected to the communication of another warship—the Death Guard's eisenstein.
"Garro! It's Tarvitz! Listen to me! This is a trap!"
Tarvitz's voice roared through the static interference, filled with desperate urgency.
"There is no support! No support at all! They're going to drop virus bombs! Horus has betrayed us! He's going to kill everyone down there!"
Nathaniel Garro, Captain of the Death Guard's Seventh Company—this resolute veteran, as reliable as rock—was at that moment gripping the war-sword named "Libertas."
By his side, the traitor Commander Grulgor was leading a group of Plague Marines who had already begun to manifest mutations, attempting to seize control of the ship.
Hearing Tarvitz's warning, Garro glanced out the window at the approaching, smoke-trailing Thunderhawk, then at his former brothers who were now leveling Bolters at him with cruel smiles on their faces.
In that instant, he made his decision.
"All batteries fire! Cover Tarvitz!"
Garro roared, his war-sword swinging out to decapitate Grulgor, whose head spilled foul pus.
"We cannot let the truth be buried! We must bring the warning back to Terra!"
The eisenstein erupted with fierce firepower, repelling the pursuing interceptors.
Under its cover, Tarvitz piloted the nearly wrecked Thunderhawk, plunging through the atmosphere like a burning meteor, heading straight for the surface of Istvaan III.
On the ground, in the Choral City.
The battle had just ended.
Garviel Loken and Tarik Torgaddon of the Sons of Horus stood in a trench filled with corpses, wiping blood from their Chainswords.
They had just quelled the rebellion and were waiting for the Warmaster's next instructions.
Loken looked at the sky, a faint sense of unease in his heart, but he forced himself to trust the Warmaster's arrangements.
"Who is that?"
Torgaddon pointed at a black speck falling from the sky, a wobbling fireball.
The Thunderhawk slammed heavily in front of the position, kicking up clouds of dust; its wings snapped, and it skidded for hundreds of meters before coming to a halt.
The hatch was kicked open, and Tarvitz, his face covered in blood and his armor shattered, came stumbling out.
"Loken! Torgaddon!"
Tarvitz didn't waste words; he didn't even have time to explain, only frantically pointing at the sky, at those black Drop Pods falling like rain.
"Get to cover! Get into the underground bunkers! Everyone, get inside!"
"Those are virus bombs! Horus is going to kill us!!"
These words were like a thunderclap that shattered everyone's reason.
Loken froze.
He looked at Tarvitz, then at the sky.
The sense of tearing between trust and reality made it almost impossible for him to breathe.
The Warmaster... our father... wants to kill us? With virus bombs?
But his warrior instincts saved him.
He saw the unique livery on those black warheads in the sky—it was an exterminatus order.
"GET TO COVER!!!!"
Loken let out a Beast-like roar, shoving the still-dazed warriors, kicking them into the underground tunnels and into sealable bunkers.
"Move! There's no time! This is betrayal!"
On another part of the battlefield, Ehrlen, a loyalist captain of the World Eaters, was resting with his men beside the enemy corpses.
Upon hearing the alarm on the public channel, this frenzied warrior looked up at the sky and then roared without hesitation:
"World Eaters! Into the bunkers! Now!"
Huron-Fal of the Death Guard was doing the same.
It was a race against the God of Death.
Tens of thousands of Astartes sprinted through the ruins, scrambling to enter those sturdy underground shelters.
As the last heavy blast door closed with a hydraulic hiss, the World fell into darkness.
Next came the shriek of Death.
The screen showed a close-up of the ground. Those black warheads detonated in mid-air, releasing dark green clouds of poison.
It was the Life-Eater virus.
They were not poison; they were living, hungry, microscopic demons.
The moment they touched the gas, those soldiers, civilians, and even every blade of grass that failed to reach cover began to rot instantly.
The scene was extremely gruesome.
An Imperial Auxilia soldier who hadn't managed to put on his helmet had his skin blister and dissolve within seconds, turning into a black fluid that slid off his skeleton.
Even for an Astartes wearing Power Armor, if the seal wasn't perfect, if there was even a single crack, the virus would crawl inside and turn that superhuman flesh into pus.
"Aaaaaargh—"
Screams rose one after another, but the sound soon vanished because the vocal cords had also dissolved.
The entire Planet was wailing. It was a psychic scream emitted by hundreds of millions of lives vanishing in the same instant, a sound that penetrated physical barriers and even gave the Psykers in orbit splitting headaches.
Within a few short minutes, the prosperous Choral City became a dead city.
Black organic soup flowed through the streets, composed of what were once living people.
But it wasn't over yet.
The virus's decomposition of organic matter produced a massive amount of flammable gas.
The entire atmosphere of Istvaan III had now become a giant, globe-spanning fuel tank.
In orbit, Horus's flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, opened fire.
A single lance strike.
Just one, and it ignited the Planet's shroud.
"BOOM—!!!"
Monstrous flames instantly swept across the globe. This was no longer war; this was purgatory. This was extermination.
The firestorm consumed everything, burning those black corpse-fluids to ash and turning the entire Planet into a vitrified dead star.
Hurricane-like flames ravaged the land, and even steel melted in the high temperatures.
This scene, even through the screen, made everyone tremble to the depths of their souls.
It was a pure, destructive power, a total negation of life.
When the flames dissipated, the land was scorched black.
There was no sound, no life, only ash drifting in the wind.
Horus and his traitor brothers watched all this coldly from orbit, thinking it was all over.
Thinking that loyalty had been burned away.
However.
From within the ruins came a slight vibration.
In front of the scorched gates of that underground bunker, the hydraulic devices emitted a piercing grinding sound, the groan of metal cooling after extreme heat.
"Sss—"
The door opened.
A figure stepped out.
It was Saul Tarvitz. His armor was blackened by soot, but he was still alive.
Behind him were Garviel Loken, Tarik Torgaddon, Ehrlen, and thousands of surviving loyalist Astartes.
They had crawled back from hell.
They looked at the devastated World, at the ashes of their brothers who hadn't made it inside at their feet, and at the warships of the betrayers in the sky.
They did not cry.
Their tears had already run dry; all that remained was something hotter than the fires from before—hatred.
"We are still alive."
Loken, on the screen, drew his Chainsword and revved the motor; the roar was exceptionally piercing in the deathly silent World.
The flames of revenge burned in his eyes. "They want to kill us? Then let them come down and do it themselves!"
"Horus wanted us dead. But he failed."
Tarvitz raised his Bolter and aimed it at the sky, a declaration of war against his former Warmaster.
"Then let them come down."
This once-gentle Captain now uttered his final oath:
"Let them come down and kill us themselves. We will make them pay for every drop of blood spilled."
"We will make Istvaan III the grave of traitors! For the Emperor!!"
"For the Emperor!!"
Tens of thousands of surviving loyalists roared in unison, their voices shaking the heavens.
Just then, there was movement in orbit.
Angron, who had originally intended to leave directly, heard the provocation from the ground on the flagship, or perhaps felt the stimulus of the Butcher's Nails.
He defied Horus's orders, refusing the "cowardly act" of mere bombardment.
"ROAR!!!!"
With a Beast-like roar, Angron personally piloted a Drop Pod, slamming directly into the ground like an angry meteorite. Following closely behind was the equally frenzied army of the World Eaters.
Subsequently, the traitors of the Sons of Horus, the Death Guard, and the Emperor's Children also began their descent.
What should have been a clean and swift purge turned into a long, drawn-out meat grinder that the rebels least wanted to see.
The ground war erupted.
Loken faced off against Abaddon, former brothers engaging in a life-and-Death struggle amidst the ruins.
Every swing of a sword, every shot fired, was a severing of past bonds.
And in space, the eisenstein dragged its scarred hull and, without a Navigator, forcibly activated its Warp engine.
Garro stood on the bridge, looking at the burning Planet behind him and at the brothers who had stayed on the surface to cover him, tears in his eyes but his gaze firm.
"For the Emperor."
The warship disappeared into a purple Warp rift, carrying away the only truth and the Empire's last hope.
The screen image froze on Loken's soot-covered face as he raised his sword and roared in the ruins, with the traitor Drop Pods falling across the sky in the background.
[The Battle of Istvaan III has officially begun.]
[The loyalists have no retreat. The traitors have no mercy.]
[This will be the place where the blood of the Astartes is drained dry.]