Outside.
The sun was rising slowly, signaling a new day. Day Two.
The main operation had achieved its grim success. The roiling, warp-tainted area around the dwelling had visibly recoiled, shrinking considerably under the sustained assault. Yet, a palpable wrongness lingered; some insidious catalyst still anchored the warp to the material world, a throbbing wound refusing to close entirely.
Guardsmen remained on high alert, their vigilance sharpened by the preceding horrors. Watches rotated every hour, the weary soldiers keeping their las-rifles aimed at the fluctuating boundaries.
The Promethium Octagrammatic Star still blazed, its hungry white and orange flames preventing the tear in reality from mending, while the eight priests continued their ceaseless, droning litanies, holding the ward stable.
Philos, his weaponized mechadendrites still trained on the warp-gate, abruptly turned. The Enginseer strode with purpose toward the nearest trench line.
He had new orders to relay.
"Dispatch the most efficient personnel to Area Two. Collate data. Return with full situational report. Compliance expected."
Philos commanded, his vox-grille a low thrum of authority as he addressed a guardsman hunched over a comms post.
"Yes, Enginseer!" The Guardsman snapped to attention, his posture ragged with fatigue but his obedience instant.
He disappeared down the trench, returning moments later with another, equally tired, comrade. Together, they broke cover and began a hurried run toward the distant church.
—
A few tense moments later,
they reached the ancient building's front gate, now strangely quiet after the night's unseen battle.
"Hello! Anyone there? Response requested!" one of them shouted, his voice hoarse.
Silence answered, thick and unnerving. Then, from within.
Renoir's weary voice finally replied, "Yes, yes, we are fine. Come in."
The guardsmen pushed open the heavy gate, its hinges groaning softly.
Inside,
the white flames of the ward still glowed fiercely, casting an ethereal, pulsating light across the sanctuary. Sister Thessia and Sister Lance knelt on one knee, their power armor dulled by ash, chests heaving with deep, ragged breaths of exhaustion.
Thessia looked up as the guardsmen entered. Without hesitation, she rose and walked directly over the burning ward line as if it were an illusion, completely unharmed by the sacred fire.
"Status report of Operation One?" Her voice was raspy, but her gaze was sharp.
"As intended, Sister. No unwanted variables," the first Guardsman replied, saluting.
"Enginseer calculated we have approximately four hours before the next incursion."
She nodded, then her eyes found Ulysses across the sanctuary. He sat slumped against a pew, being carefully tended by Sister Medicae Aurora, who was examining his wounds. Their gazes locked, a silent acknowledgment of the brutal, temporary respite they had bought.
Cilicia, still holding the ornate Rosarius tightly to her chest, remained fiercely protective by the unconscious Kochav's side. Her voice trembled slightly as she finally spoke.
"Is it necessary to keep Ko unconscious? I... I just don't like seeing him like this."
Worry etched her features, deepening the shadows under her eyes.
Ulysses answered, "right now, it is better for him to not experience any of this,"
his own voice tinged with a profound sadness. "I doubt his fragile mind could handle this... and Bob."
Renoir, who had dropped to the floor and leaned tiredly against Kochav's bed, sighed.
"Well, looks like we're going to need more seals and sanctified oil. Maybe even a miracle if we want to survive today."
He looked at Cilicia, a faint, forced smile playing on his lips.
"Raising a kid sure is a handful, huh, Cilicia?" he asked, attempting levity.
She offered no answer, but gave his shoulder a sharp, deliberate kick.
"Ouch... I'm sorry, I'm just trying to lighten the mood here," he quickly added, rubbing his arm.
Ulysses muttered, more to himself than the others, "Looks like we have to get everyone in the same place for today. It would be impossible to repeat what we just did twice."
A heavy silence descended, laden with unspoken worry for what awaited them. The knowledge of the daemons' inevitable, stronger return gnawed at their brief victory.
"I shall radio the situation here to the main force and have a Samaritan over to get everyone,"
the second guardsman spoke, his hand already moving to the vox-caster slung across his back.
They rested for a bit, the weary moments stretching until two Samaritan armored personnel carriers rumbled through the gate.
The four Sisters of Battle quickly boarded the first one, with Ulysses joining them in the cramped compartment.
Renoir, Cilicia, and the unconscious Kochav were carefully loaded into the second Samaritan.
Inside the moving vehicle, Renoir and Cilicia sat across from each other, their faces etched with exhaustion. Kochav slept peacefully on the cot between them, blissfully unaware of the horrors he'd just been spared.
"You don't need to worry, Cilicia. Everything will be fine,"
Renoir said, his gaze softening as he looked at her saddened face. One of her hands was clutching the Rosarius so tightly her knuckles were white, while the other held Kochav's limp hand.
"How could I not," she whispered, regret and tears beginning to roll from her eyes.
"When there is nothing I can do? Unlike you, Renoir, I don't know how to fight, so how...?"
Her voice trailed off, thick with the crushing feeling of insignificance, of being useless. The thought that their current plight might, in some way, be her fault, due to her perceived helplessness, clearly weighed on her.
Renoir reached across and gently touched her hand, which was squeezing the Rosarius so hard that the skin was bleeding slightly. He carefully, gently, released the relic from her grasp, then gripped her injured hand, his touch firm but kind.
"You are wrong, Cilicia. You have the most important role here, ever since the beginning. Even before he arrived," Renoir asserted, his voice utterly sincere.
"You were always important... to us. Even now, you have to raise such a dangerous child, all by yourself. That is something nobody could replace." He spoke with a quiet certainty that cut through her self-doubt.
Cilicia slowly wiped her tears, a soft, ironic laugh escaping her lips. "You are always good with words, aren't you?"
Renoir simply smiled, offering no further words, letting his quiet presence and the truth of his statement settle between them. The journey continues, but the emotional weight of their situation was palpable
—
Finally, the moving vehicles lurched to a halt just behind the hastily dug trenches where the first, brutal operation had been carried out. A thick haze of dust and the oppressive heat of the Artinian sands lingered in the air, clinging to everything like a shroud.
The passengers disembarked slowly, their movements stiff with exhaustion. The four Sisters of Battle emerged first from their Samaritan, their power armor now coated in grime, but their eyes still burning with unwavering resolve. Ulysses followed, his face pale and drawn, but his gaze already scanning the area, assessing the situation.
From the second vehicle, Renoir carefully helped Cilicia up. She hesitantly put the Rosarius down on Kochav's bed. The boy remained peacefully asleep, oblivious to the grim events. Sister Medicae Aurora, having finished tending to the others, came over and gently ministered another dose of a sleep-inducing drug into Kochav, ensuring his continued slumber.
Ulysses, his expression grimly determined, walked over to the waiting Enginseer, who was standing beside the praying Father Grigori.
"Casualty report?" Ulysses asked, his voice low but sharp.
"Zero. Morale index remains elevated. However, predictive calculus indicates today will exceed yesterday in operational complexity." Philos answered.
"Father, you should rest, even for a bit," Ulysses muttered, his voice softening slightly as he addressed the kneeling Priest of Terra.
Father Grigori, who had been praying for two days straight, scoffed.
"This is nothing compared to what I used to do on Terra, a few days won't kill me," he said, his voice dry but firm, a testament to his unbreakable faith and endurance.
Ulysses, his tone leaving no room for argument, ordered,
"It is an order, to all the Priests, Ogryns, and Sisters as well. We have some time to rest and prepare. This is for the best outcome. I want you all in top shape."
"As you say, Seneschal," Father Grigori finally relented, obeying the direct order.
He stood up slowly, holding onto his staff for support, the weight of his exhaustion finally becoming visible.
After a while, tents had been set up, complete with tables, beds, and much-needed relief supplies.
—
In the command tent, occupied by Ulysses, Philos, Grigori, Renoir, and Thessia,
The low murmur of shifting parchment and the distant humming of vox-lines filled the tent. For the first time in two days, there was stillness—tenuous, but real. The acrid smell of promethium and sanctified oil still clung to everyone's clothes.
Ulysses traced a gloved finger across a topographical chart, then looked to Philos.
"What's your assessment of the gate's current state?"
Philos, his red robes slightly scorched at the hem, stood perfectly still. His mechadendrites twitched lazily in standby.
"Residual warp energy is measurable but contained."
"Octagrammatic ward effective. Estimated flame integrity: Three hours and forty minutes remaining. No anomalies detected within the protected zone."
Grigori sipped from a battered tin mug of recaf.
"Then we hold the line. The Emperor has given us this reprieve. Let's use it wisely."
Renoir glanced over a dataslate.
"I still don't like how quiet it's been."
Philos's vox-grille buzzed to life again.
"Beginning recalculation of breach boundaries."
"Preparing to extrapolate updated perimeter geometry."
He interfaced with a nearby cogitator unit, his data-spike slamming into the console. The hololith display shimmered and rotated, symbols realigning.
"Initiating spatial scan…"
Z-ZZTCHKKKK.
The hololith glitched—lines distorting, the map folding in on itself. Philos's head twitched slightly. His vox-grille emitted a harsh screech of corrupted static.
"Warning… anomaly detected… recalibration required…"
Philos's mechadendrites began to sway erratically. One slammed into the table, unbidden.
"Unstable input. Sensor loop corruption. Source: unknown. Limbs… compromised…"
The hololith pulsed once—then projected a chaotic swirl of symbols, wrong in their geometry. Glyphs that resembled runes but shifted too quickly to comprehend. They looked at you, even as you looked at them.
Grigori hissed and stepped back. "Emperor, protect us…"
Renoir rose from his seat, hand on his sidearm. "What's happening to him?"
"Gate perim#!** c#l!aps■* v#rt!c■l#y*. G■om*#y inc#**si!t#■.… n*w sp!r■#l de!#**t." Philos words crytic.
Then, laughter. A thousand dissonant voices screamed and laughed into Philos's systems. A sound no one else could hear—but Philos did.
"We. Found. Found. You. The. Logic. The. Encryptor."
His optics flared with erratic light. One mechadendrite spasmed—then the servo-arm jerked upward, fully extended, aiming at his own torso.
A charge began to build in the plasma rifle's coil. The weapon was aiming directly at his head.
"Philos?!" Ulysses said, voice tight.
Philos twitched violently. His systems hissed and vented steam. Sparks showered from beneath his hood.
"OVERRIDE—OVERRIDE—OVERRIDE—!"
The plasma weapon began to charge—
BOOM!
The coil discharged, but the barrel jerked at the last second. The shot struck low—torso, not head. A bloom of plasma tore through Philos's abdomen, severing him in half.
His upper body collapsed, mechadendrites flailing in death spasms. Oil, blood, and sparks sprayed across the tent floor.
Everyone froze.
Then—Philos's left arm twitched. Shaking. Weak.
It pointed downward.
"Beneath us?," Renoir whispered, eyes wide. Philos's optics flickered once. Then glitched.
The time to rest was gone. Their only logic-adept—the one capable of calculating where the threat lay—was now incapacitated.
"Ulysses?!" Renoir snapped, bolt pistol up—not at a daemon, but at Philos's ruined body, ready to end any lingering torment.
"Hold your fire!" Ulysses's voice cut through the panic like a chainsword.
He stepped forward, unmoved by the carnage, eyes fixed on Philos's lifeless head. Symbols still danced across the flickering optics—corrupted glyphs, remnants of the daemonic intrusion.
"Evacuate all priests! Guardsmen, form a new perimeter—one hundred meters wider!" He barked the orders, but the vox unit answered only with giggling static and whispers.
Ulysses snarled, threw the device to the floor, and crushed it under his boot.
He turned to Thessia. No words were needed. She nodded and sprinted toward the medical tent.
"He aimed for the torso, not the logic core," Father Grigori muttered, stepping beside.
"A desperate act of will. He's not dead… we are not lost."
His voice rose into a fervent chant, whispered prayers laced with urgency.
Renoir exhaled shakily, murmuring, "He is not dead..."
—
Then—
the ground trembled.A deep, groaning noise surged upward from the earth, a sound that vibrated through bones and marrow. Dust drifted from the tent seams, and the shattered hololith flickered back to life for a heartbeat—projecting a warped spiral of glyphs before dying completely.
Ulysses looked down at the ground, then back to Philos's head. His voice was quiet, but steady.
"He said something before his system shut down."
"'Gate… perimeter collapse… vertical geometry… now spi—'?" He recited the last fractured message.
Father Grigori's eyes widened in recognition.
"Vertical collapse...? That means the gate—the warp tear—it's moved beneath us. They've adapted."
His tone was grim. "It's burrowing, bypassing the wards."
Ulysses nodded. "They corrupted his body to stop this message. It nearly worked."
He gestured to the remains. "Now we must find the boundary... without our Enginseer."
At that moment, Sister Aurora burst into the tent. Thessia was gone. Aurora's face was pale, her movements sharp. Her medicae kit was already open.
"Seneschal—your command?" she asked.
Ulysses didn't hesitate.
"Philos's logic-core is intact. His body is compromised."
"I need you to remove his head—preserve the braincase."
"Stabilize him in your Cranium-Preservation Unit. Inject the insomnic toxin."
"His knowledge is vital."
Aurora hesitated only briefly. Her hands moved fast.
"Yes, Seneschal."
She knelt, vibro-scalpel whirring to life, and began the meticulous, grotesque task of severing Philos's cybernetic skull from the carnage.
The smell of burnt flesh and blood filled the tent as oil pooled beneath them.
Ulysses turned to Grigori and Renoir.
"Father Grigori—gather every priests. I want them evacuated until we found the edge."
"Renoir—mobilize everyone. Guardsmen, Ogryns. Shift the perimeter outward a hundred meters wider. Stay vigilant."
Renoir nodded sharply and ran.
The time for rest was well and truly over. The war for Artine had just descended into a subterranean nightmare.
—
At the Medical Tent - A Few Moments Earlier
Back in the medical tent, a tense stillness had descended after Sister Medicae Aurora's abrupt departure. The low hum of the tent's life-support systems seemed unnaturally loud.
Cilicia sat by Kochav's cot, his sleep still unnervingly deep, the purity seals on his blanket faintly glowing. Sister Thessia, who had came over, panted slightly.
The distant, muffled explosion from the command tent, followed by a resonant, subterranean groan that vibrated through the very ground, confirmed her premonition.
The Warp was active again, and this time, it felt different.
"What was that?" Cilicia whispered, clutching the Rosarius tighter to her chest, her eyes wide with renewed fear.
Thessia's face was grim. "Trouble, Cilicia." She moved swiftly to Kochav's side, her gaze sharp, assessing the boy.
"Ulysses will need Aurora, but we need to move Kochav. Now."
Without wasting another second, Thessia began to unclamp the purity seals from Kochav's bed frame. Her movements were urgent but efficient. A few groaning medicae servitors, usually tending to less critical patients, lumbered closer, their optical sensors beeping questions.
"Help me move the child," Thessia commanded them, her voice clipped.
"Get his bed into the Samaritan. Immediately!"
The servitors, designed for heavy lifting, responded without hesitation. With Thessia guiding them, their crude but powerful arms carefully maneuvered Kochav's cot, the boy still blissfully unconscious amidst the rising chaos.
Cilicia, her face etched with worry, stayed glued to his side, her hands clutching the Rosarius and Kochav's limp one, as they wheeled the cot out of the tent and towards the waiting armored personnel carrier.
As soon as Kochav was carefully loaded into the Samaritan and secured, Cilicia scrambling in after him, Thessia gave the servitors a quick nod.
"Stay with them. Guard the vehicle."
Without another word, she turned and sprinted towards the main trench lines. She needed to find the other Sisters. Ulysses's orders to expand the perimeter and prepare for a subterranean assault meant every battle-sister would be crucial in a rapidly shifting battlefield.
As Thessia ran across the battlefield, the ground shook once more, but this time it was much more violent. The sand whirled and bedrocks shattered with a loud crack.
From those fresh ruptures, a gust of noxious blue gas—tainted Warp energy—spewed forth.It spread unnaturally fast, turning sand to black glass as it moved.
Those unfortunate with low resistance, who came in close contact, quickly lost their minds. Corrupted. Mutated. Their bodies twisted—arms contorted, legs snapped sideways, and horns burst from their skulls. Their faces melted and reformed, extra eyes sprouting like tumors.
This agonizing transformation then hit its last, chilling state:
their cries of pain turned to murmurs of unknown, blasphemous prayers.
Thessia saw this. Instinctively, she pulled out her flamer. A roaring jet of cleansing promethium fire erupted, engulfing a mutating guardsman. He did not stop murmuring, just liquefied and died, a bubbling, hissing puddle.
The terror of it got her thinking. What was it praying for?
Without a second thought, she tore an incendiary grenade from her belt and threw it down the crack. It exploded with a concussive blast, the flames ravenously consuming the blue mist.
For a moment, the chasm became a churning void of clashing colors – a mixture of blue and red flame, Warp and Faith, fighting for control.
This confirmed one thing for Thessia: fire was still their weakness.
No matter how the Changer of Ways twisted its minions or opened new pathways, the holy flame of the Imperium remained a potent weapon against them.
She would ensure every flamer and incendiary charge was brought to bear.
She raised her gauntleted fist, her voice booming over the roiling earth and the distant sounds of battle.
"Listen to me, Guardmen! Sisters! Count your Incendiary ordnances, the holy flame of the God-Emperor still burns the puppets of a false god. BURN THEM ALL! and evacuate the clergymen at all cost!"
Her voice, laced with righteous fury and a desperate, renewed conviction, spurred the nearest Guardsmen into action, their eyes widening at the sight of the burning rifts and the chilling mutations.
The time for hesitation was over; the time for fire had begun.
"Meredith!"
Thessia shouted, her voice cutting through the roar of flamers and the crack of las-fire.
Her gaze swept across the line of roaring Sisters in combat until it found Sister Meredith, easily distinguishable by her almost fanatical laughter echoing over the battlefield as she spewed fire and explosions into the surging, blue-tinged rifts.
With a sharp intake of breath, Thessia took aim with her boltgun and fired a single shot. The round impacted a rock near Meredith's boot, scattering sand and sparking harmlessly off the reinforced armor.
Meredith instinctively rolled to dodge, then looked over at where the shot came from, her zealous grin fading. Their eyes locked, and Thessia let out a disappointing sigh, clear even over the din of battle.
"Sister Thessia, w-what do you need of me?" Meredith asked, fidgeting under the Sister Legatine's gaze, visibly embarrassed and shy now that her battle-frenzy had been broken.
Thessia cleared her throat, her voice stiff with immediate, serious intent.
"Go to the medical tent. Seek out Cilicia and the child. Protect them."
Meredith's former self, the overzealous warrior, shed away instantly, replaced by a resolute determination to carry out the order to her death,
She nodded and rushed through the dust, past Thessia, past the Guardsmen still grappling with the horrors emerging from the ground.
—
She arrived at the medical tent.
In front of her, the Samaritan armored transport loomed, its ramp sealed, guarded by six groaning, optical-beeping servitors, their heavy flamer limbs ready to deter any threat.
The sight of multiple obedience servitors armed with heavy flamers got her drooling....
She snapped back to reality, then ordered, "Situation report."
The servitor directly before her, a hulking construct whose head was little more than a blinking optical sensor and vox-grille, rumbled its answer.
"Asset secured inside. Noospheric data from this machine spirit confirms: no disturbance detected."
Meredith's head swiveled, taking in the immobile servitors, the sealed vehicle, and the relative quiet of the medical tent area compared to the raging battle a few hundred meters away.
"Noospheric data only," she repeated, a grim understanding settling in. Their simple data-ghosts wouldn't pick up a psychic tremor, or a creature that walks between dimensions.
Her duty was clear: protection from all sources.
She climbed up onto the Samaritan's chassis to get a better field of view, her bolter held ready. The flamer servitors arrayed themselves in a defensive arc around the transport, their fuel tanks hissing softly, their weapons aimed outwards.
"Stay vigilant," Meredith ordered the silent constructs, checking her own weapon and armor systems with practiced ease.
The battle raged on around them, a symphony of screams, explosions, and now, the chilling cracks as the ground continued to yield to the burrowing Warp.
She knew it was only a matter of time before something came for them from below.
KNOCK-KNOCK!
A sharp, metallic knock echoed from inside the craft, directly below her position on the Samaritan's chassis.
"Who is there, what is the situation outside?" Cilicia asked, her voice laced with worry, muffled by the armored hull.
Meredith knelt, leaning closer to the hull, answered .
"It's me, Cilicia. Everything will be fine. How are you two doing inside?"
Cilicia hesitated for a moment, then answered, her voice still laced with a slight tremor.
"We are fine. No warp-related occurrences happen yet."
"Just keep talking to me if you are worried, okay?" Meredith sincerely offered, her voice softening slightly, a stark contrast to the battle-hardened tone she usually employed.
"Thank you, Meredith." Cilicia let out a relieving sigh, the sound faint but clear through the thick plating of the Samaritan. She held to the boy's hand and Rosarius tightly.
—
Command Tent – Minutes Later
The smell of scorched circuitry still lingered as Ulysses moved with practiced urgency.
Sister Aurora knelt beside the Cranium Preservation Unit (CPU)—a cylindrical tank filled with viscous stabilizing fluid.
Inside, the severed head of Enginseer Philos floated, wires and noospheric nodes emerging from the base of his skull like a grotesque crown.
The tank hissed gently, a low rhythmic pulse indicating life was still possible… but slipping fast.
Ulysses moved to a nearby servitor. He knelt and drove his combat knife into a panel at the unit's back, forcing it open with a grunt.
"Aurora. I need your hands. Hold it steady."
Aurora rushed over, stabilizing the tank while Ulysses reached into the exposed compartment, pried loose a glowing primary power cell, and pulled it free.
The servitor sputtered, let out a garbled binary groan, then collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
The power cell thrummed in his hands—warm and volatile.
"This should be enough to bring him back ," he said, sweat beginning to bead along his brow.
"We only need him lucid, not mobile."
He knelt beside the CPU and slid open the maintenance hatch. Carefully, he inserted the power cell into a dedicated socket built into the tank's power ring.
A second passed. Then two.
A sudden hum surged through the chamber. The amniotic fluid shimmered, and Philos's optics flickered—dim red at first, then rapidly stabilizing.
"LOGIC CORE… STATUS: CRITICAL BUT INTACT."
The vox-grille on the front of the tank vibrated with life. The voice was mechanical, yet unmistakably Philos.
"Power level: 14%. External environmental data... volatile. Warp residue exceeds safe limits. System override acknowledged. Operational… barely."
Ulysses allowed himself a single exhale.
He pulled the harness rings from the back of the tank and clipped them across his shoulders, strapping the cylinder to his back like a bulky power pack.
The glowing power cell he affixed to his waist, connecting it via cable to the CPU to ensure continued function.
Renoir, standing nearby, stared at the setup with a mix of disbelief and admiration.
"Is this some kind of Protocol?"
Ulysses nodded, he turned slightly and spoke over his shoulder.
"Command integrity is fractured," Ulysses said, adjusting the weight.
"We've lost vox. No coordination. Tower's dead."
"A moment…" Lights blinked rapidly across the tank's control plate as Philos scanned.
"The primary vox-spire is corrupted," Philos responded through the tank's modulated speakers, voice distant and warbled, like a data-spirit speaking through a grave.
"Resonance frequencies suggest warp-infestation of internal channels. Transmissions echo back. Contaminated. Danger level: Extreme."
Ulysses grimaced. "Priority: re-establish communications. We can't organize a retreat—or a defense—blind."
A flicker of static, then:
"Agreed, reconstruction is feasible. Materials required. Improvised repeater node required."
"Suggestion: utilize this unit as signal relay."
Ulysses frowned. "Your tank?"
"Correct. This container possesses integral noospheric link-ports and signal boosters for deep-space preservation. Redirecting cognitive bandwidth to act as encrypted repeater node."
Ulysses moved quickly. He rummaged through the battlefield until he found a shattered vox-pack from a dead guardsman — its casing split, but the core and antenna mostly intact.
"Use this." Ulysses muttered.
"Commencing Integration....." Philos's computic replied
They got back to the tent, it lit up with flickering sparks as Ulysses jammed the vox components into Philos's interface socket. A las-rifle battery was affixed as auxiliary power.
The cranium unit's runes pulsed in response, now cycling through frequency bands in rapid succession.
From the outside, he looked like a man burdened by a machine-altar — a walking shrine strapped with techno-relics and divine logic.
The servants of Mars would weep at the heresy — but Ulysses wasn't interested in their opinions.
A distorted voice buzzed to life.
"—Command… Command, do you read?! This is Line-Unit Artine-Four."
"Reporting multiple Warp-breaches in south trench! Repeat! Breach—!"
Philos's calm tone followed:"Vox restored. Local range only. Routing field communications through an unnamed channel. Encryption in place. Signal stable."
A pause—"Name pending."
Ulysses adjusted the straps digging into his shoulders, the weight of the cylindrical tank pressing cold and steady against his back. Sweat beaded at his brow, but his expression remained unreadable.
He muttered under his breath, deadpan:
"Just name it Machine-Priest's Head or something. I don't really care."
A mechanical whirr from within the tank."Understood. Channel designation: Machine-Priest's Head or something. Confirmed."
Ulysses blinked. "…You're not joking."
"Humor subroutines temporarily disabled for operational focus. However, logic responded 0.8 second slower to recognize the sarcasm. Change is now impossible."
"Sister Aurora, come with us. I need your expertise in case something happens to the Enginseer."
Ulysses gave the order without looking back, adjusting the straps digging into his shoulders. The Cranium Preservation Unit pulsed softly on his back, connected by thick cables to the salvaged servitor cell now slung at his waist.
He exhaled—long, tired, heavy with responsibility—and stepped toward the exit flap of the command tent.
Outside, the vox was already howling again: desperate calls for support, overlapping coordinates, the sharp bark of fire orders.
—
The battlefield was screaming once more.
And beneath their feet, the true war—the hidden, burrowing, insidious one—had only just begun.
Behind him, Philos's optics glowed faintly inside the preservation tank—a steady amber pulse meeting Aurora's gaze.
She blinked, hesitated for a moment, then gave the Tech-Priest's disembodied head a small, awkward wave.
Philos said nothing. The light pulsed once in return.
With a half-sigh, Aurora gathered her kit and followed Ulysses out into the war-torn daylight.
Ulysses crouched at the perimeter trench, his auspex twitching useless static, he looked up toward the ruined house, where the initial gate breach had once stood.
Then he spoke, voice low and deliberate.
"The gate collapsed vertically, right?"
A pause.
Then Philos's vox-grille hummed to life.
"Correct."
"However, the interferences from the warp have contaminated all known data parameters. Sensor logs are corrupted. Geometry records—unreliable."
"Conclusion: We must re-map the entire zone to determine the new configuration of the warp-network."
Ulysses exhaled, his jaw clenched tight.
"So, we are going for a walk, through the battlefield?"
"In simpler term, yes." Philos answered.
From behind, Sister Aurora adjusted the strap on her medicae kit. The wind tugged at her robes, carrying the faint scent of promethium and incense.
"How far?" Ulysses asked.
"Unknown. I will require motion. Passive sensors ineffective. I must approach the anomaly fringe—direct contact, visual confirmation, terrain distortion analysis."
—Pause.
"Recommend clockwise tracing pattern, lateral increments. Step pattern: one-two-pause."
Ulysses gave a tired grunt and rose to his feet.
"Alright. Let's go for a walk, then."