WH 40k: Transcendence

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The precinct gates groaned open, and the convoy began to move. The engines of Repressor transports, Chimera IFVs, and Arbites-pattern Rhino carriers roared as they rolled forward, kicking up thick clouds of dust and smoke. Hundreds of vehicles, thousands of men.

Cassian sat inside a Repressor transport, surrounded by Arbites enforcers in full riot gear—midnight-black carapace armor, plasteel helmets, and thick blast visors concealing their expressions. Their shock mauls and suppression shields were locked into holsters, but their hands never strayed far. Most clutched combat shotguns, bolters, or Arbites-pattern power batons.

Cassian checked his own loadout.

Combat Shotgun: A solid, brutal weapon—capable of chambering man-stopper rounds, executioner shells, and incendiary charges.

Arbites-Issue Bolt Pistol: Compact, heavy, and utterly lethal. The mass-reactive rounds would reduce flesh to pulp and bone to shards.

Shock Maul: A symbol of Imperial law. Its crackling power field would shatter bones and send arcs of electricity through a man's nervous system.

Arbites Carapace Armor: Not quite power armor, but a damn sight better than flak vests. Thick ceramite plating, reinforced joints, and an auto-sealing system to counter gas attacks.

A vox-chime crackled.

"Five minutes to departure. All units, prepare for movement."

Across the convoy, hundreds of thousands of voices murmured the Emperor's prayers. Some were recited in Low Gothic, others in the ancient, reverent syllables of High Gothic.

Cassian heard a gruff Ogryn mutter his own version, stumbling over words. The abhumans were packed into their own transports—brutes clad in thick armor, wielding Ripper Guns nearly the size of Cassian himself. Loyal, stupid, but terrifying in battle.

Across the transports, hive conscripts muttered their own prayers. Some looked terrified—men and women plucked from their homes, given a flak vest, a lasgun, and an order to die for the Emperor. Others had the blank, hollow look of men who had already accepted their fate.

Cassian had seen it before. He had been one of them once.

Now, he was different.

Derrus sat beside him, checking the data-slate containing their orders.

"This isn't just one battle," Derrus muttered. "It's happening across the entire Hive, the entire damn cluster. Orders from above. Purge every last cultist."

Cassian nodded, but his mind lingered on Joren's warnings.

Something felt off.

They had uncovered the cult, but was this truly the extent of it?

"All units, prepare for transit."

The vox crackled again.

Then the convoy lurched forward.

—-

The streets blurred past, towering hab-blocks and crumbling manufactorums casting long shadows over the roadway. The city was alive with sirens, Arbites checkpoints, and Imperial banners fluttering in the artificial wind.

As they moved deeper into Sector 44, the change became impossible to ignore.

The air grew thick. Wrong.

Faint whispers, just at the edge of hearing. Shadows that moved when they shouldn't. Pict-displays flickering erratically, showing the Emperor's face one moment and static the next.

A conscript in a nearby transport started shaking. Muttering. His seatmate shoved him, cursing under his breath.

Cassian caught Derrus' gaze.

They both felt it.

Cassian's hands tightened around his weapon.

This wasn't just another battle.

It was something worse.

—-

The convoy came to a crawling stop.

Engines sputtered, and the low hum of the vox-net filled the air as orders passed between commanders. Doors slammed open, boots hit the ground, and thousands of soldiers filed into position. The marching thud of Ogryn units, the sharp clatter of lasguns being checked, and the click of power packs being loaded filled the atmosphere with nervous tension.

Cassian stepped out of the Repressor alongside Derrus, his combat shotgun raised, bolt pistol strapped to his thigh.

And then, he saw it.

The abandoned manufactorum of Sector 44.

Once, it had been a monolithic structure, a place where workers had toiled for generations under the Emperor's light. Now, it was a corpse.

Steel walls had blackened and corroded, sagging inward like melted wax. Massive catwalks and gantries hung at unnatural angles, twisting in ways that made no architectural sense. Enormous chimneys—once vomiting smog into the Hive's atmosphere—now dripped with a slick, red substance. It pooled on the ground like congealed blood.

The air was thick.

Not just with smoke and fumes but with something else.

Something invisible.

The conscripts felt it first. They muttered prayers, some clutching their Aquilas so tightly their knuckles turned white. A few refused to step forward, visibly trembling.

A young soldier vomited.

The Arbites commanders barked at them, forcing them to form ranks, but even the veterans gripped their weapons tighter.

The Ogryns didn't notice. They stomped forward, dull eyes scanning for enemies.

Cassian exhaled. His gut told him something was very, very wrong.

This place wasn't just a hive of heresy.

It was tainted.

Warp-tainted.

Derrus tapped the vox-link on his helmet.

"Arbites squads, form up! Fireteams, spread out in standard purge formation. Maintain staggered movement—no clumping. Suppression teams, set up heavy bolters and riot shields on our flanks!"

Across the manufactorum entrance, soldiers moved like a well-oiled machine.

Shock troopers deployed in staggered formations, each pair covering the other as they advanced.

Ogryn units took the front lines, heavy Ripper Guns loaded with armor-piercing rounds.

Hive conscripts filled the rear lines, lasguns primed. They would serve as fodder—but also as bait.

A towering Arbites officer shouted commands through a vox-amplifier.

"First Division, you take the left flank! Sweep through the secondary access tunnels! Second Division, hold the courtyard! Third Division, with me—we breach the main entrance!"

Derrus turned to Cassian. "We stick to the main assault. Stay close."

Cassian nodded, gripping his shotgun.

—-

The doors of the manufactorum loomed ahead.

They had once been reinforced plasteel, capable of withstanding decades of industrial work. Now, they were bent inward, torn apart by something powerful.

A deep claw mark had been carved across the steel.

No, not clawed.

Gouged.

As if the metal itself had been ripped apart by force alone.

Cassian's stomach twisted.

This wasn't just a cult hideout.

Something was waiting for them.

Derrus signaled to the breach teams.

"Stack up! Breaching in three!"

Cassian tightened his grip.

And then the final orders came.

"GO! GO! GO!"

They surged forward—into the unknown.

—-

The breach order was given.

Then—hell was unleashed.

The moment the Arbites breached the manufactorum's gates, the world erupted into fire and blood.

A wall of gunfire slammed into the advancing forces.

Lasgun beams and autogun rounds rained down from the catwalks, tearing into the first ranks of conscripts. Bodies jerked and twisted, limbs severed, heads vaporized by well-placed shots. Screams echoed through the cavernous hall—pain, terror, and the wet sound of bodies hitting the ground.

Cassian dove for cover behind a rusted pipe, heart hammering. His visor's HUD flickered with movement signatures—dozens, no, hundreds of hostiles.

Derrus shouted into the vox-link.

"Suppressing fire! Move forward in staggered formation! Riot shields up!"

The Arbites shock teams surged forward, forming a brutal wall of heavy shields.

Behind them, enforcers unleashed a storm of bolter fire, explosive rounds tearing apart the entrenched cultists. Blood splattered across the manufactorum floor, staining the already corroded metal.

Cassian popped up from cover, firing his shotgun.

A cultist sprinted towards him, face twisted in religious ecstasy, a rusted chainsword raised high.

BOOM.

The scatter shot tore into the man's chest, sending flesh and bone flying. The body slumped against a pile of half-eaten corpses—remnants of previous victims.

And yet—more came.

Hundreds of them, pouring from the upper levels, screaming praises to their dark god.

"SKULLS FOR THE THRONE!"

Cassian felt a cold chill crawl up his spine.

They weren't just fighting men.

They were butchers.

Overwhelmed

"Hold the line!" an Arbites captain roared. "Heavy bolters, cut them down!"

The gun emplacements opened fire, spewing death.

Cultists were torn apart—limbs severed, bodies split open, gore splattering against the steel walls. But they didn't stop.

They kept coming.

From the rafters.

From the maintenance shafts.

From the shadows.

It was like the hive itself had given birth to them.

Cassian ducked under a wild axe swing, slamming his shotgun into a cultist's gut and pulling the trigger.

Viscera exploded outward.

He stumbled backward, wiping blood from his visor, breathing hard.

This was madness.

Derrus grabbed his shoulder, shouting over the chaos.

"We need to break through! This entrance is a meat grinder!"

Cassian nodded. The frontal assault wasn't working.

They needed a way in.

Flanking Maneuver

Cassian's eyes scanned the manufactorum.

The main hall was suicide.

But there—a side corridor.

Partially collapsed, covered in debris, but still open.

He grabbed Derrus. "There! A side entry! We can flank!"

Derrus didn't hesitate. He barked into the vox-link.

"Shock teams, with us! Enforcers, hold position and keep them occupied! We'll clear the bastards from the inside!"

A squad of twenty Arbites followed, moving with precision.

They rushed into the side corridor, lasfire flashing behind them.

Cassian kept his shotgun raised, moving fast.

The hall reeked.

Something was rotting here.

The walls—covered in blood, symbols carved deep into the steel.

Something watched them.

Something waited.

Then—they came.

The cultists had been waiting.

They rushed from the shadows, wielding makeshift weapons—blades, rusted firearms, their bare hands.

Cassian fired.

One shot, two shots, three.

A cultist's head vanished in a mist of red. Another took a bolt round to the chest, his ribcage exploding outward.

The Arbites moved with brutal efficiency, cutting down the first wave.

But then—the next wave came.

Faster. Stronger.

And these weren't just men.

They were mutated.

One lunged forward—skin stretched over rippling muscle, eyes glowing red.

Cassian barely dodged, feeling the rush of wind as a massive claw scraped his armor.

He aimed—fired—nothing.

Empty magazine.

The thing tackled him.

Cassian hit the blood-soaked floor, struggling as the abomination loomed over him, drool dripping from its twisted maw.

It raised its claws—going for the kill.

BANG.

A bolt round tore through its skull.

Cassian rolled free as Derrus pulled him up.

"Stay sharp!" Derrus barked. "No mistakes!"

Cassian reloaded, chest heaving.

They kept moving.

The manufactorum stretched onward, deeper into the madness.

And the worst was yet to come.

The battle raged, and the air reeked of blood, burning flesh, and the acrid stench of ozone from lasgun discharges.

The Arbites and enforcers fought like cornered beasts, but it was clear—the cultists outnumbered them by hundreds of thousands.

And now, the real horrors were revealing themselves.

"Advance!"

The roar of officers barely cut through the cacophony of battle.

The Arbites' shock teams moved in disciplined formation, their riot shields locked together, boltguns firing in measured bursts.

Yet the cultists kept coming.

Cassian's vision swam with the madness of the charge— hordes of half-naked men and women, their bodies painted in dried gore, their eyes wild with religious ecstasy.

Some were still human.

Most were not.

A brute of a man rushed forward, a massive chainaxe gripped in clawed fingers. His skin rippled as if something slithered beneath it, muscles twitching unnaturally. His mouth stretched too wide, teeth jagged like broken glass.

Cassian raised his shotgun.

BOOM.

The scatter shot ripped into the man's chest, chunks of flesh flying— but he didn't stop.

Another shot. Point-blank.

The cultist stumbled, viscera spilling from the gaping wound in his gut.

Yet his mouth split into a grin—too wide, too wrong.

"Blessed by the Blood God," the man rasped.

Then—he lunged.

Cassian barely ducked the swing, the chainaxe whirring inches from his head.

Cassian's shotgun cracked.

The mutant's skull erupted, brain matter splattering the walls.

"Keep moving!" Derrus barked.

Cassian didn't need to be told twice.

The corridors of the manufactorum stretched ahead, choked with debris, old cogitator terminals, and conveyor belts that once served the Imperium's war machine.

Now—it belonged to something else.

Something wrong.

---

They pushed deeper.

The cultists had fortified positions within the manufactorum's interior—twisted corridors littered with barricades made from human bones, rusted machinery, and discarded Imperial Guard armor.

Cassian felt it before he saw it.

The air was thick, suffocating.

Then—they turned a corner.

And stopped.

The walls moved.

No—they pulsed.

Flesh.

The corridor was covered in it.

Pulsating, writhing, veins crawling like worms beneath the surface.

Eyes opened and closed within the meat, staring. Watching.

One of the conscripted enforcers gagged.

"By the Emperor…what is this?"

Derrus clenched his jaw. "Warp corruption."

Cassian swallowed, his grip on his shotgun white-knuckled.

The cultists had let the Warp seep into reality.

And the Hive had begun to change.

Something slithered within the walls—thick, wet tendrils shifting just beneath the surface.

Then—they moved.

A cultist emerged from the mass—if it could still be called one.

Its limbs had fused with the walls, bones sticking out at unnatural angles.

It gurgled something. A prayer? A curse?

Cassian didn't care.

BOOM.

He fired.

The head exploded, but the body twitched, half-melded into the flesh-wall.

More shapes stirred.

"Move! MOVE!" Derrus ordered.

The team broke into a sprint, vaulting over flesh-coated debris, avoiding the grasping limbs that burst from the walls.

One of the conscripted enforcers wasn't fast enough.

A tendril lashed out, wrapping around his leg.

He screamed—then was yanked into the wall.

His flesh sank into the mass, absorbed.

Within seconds—he was gone.

Cassian didn't stop.

Couldn't stop.

They emerged into an open chamber.

And stared into the abyss.

---

The heart of the manufactorum had become a shrine.

A great hall, stretching hundreds of meters wide, filled with writhing masses of cultists.

And in the center—

A monstrous altar.

Piles of corpses, some fresh, some rotting, stacked high.

Blood poured from the top, flowing down the steps like a waterfall.

And seated upon the altar was something that should not be.

A thing of brass and flesh.

It had once been human.

Now—it was a nightmare.

Muscle stretched unnaturally over a towering frame, its head crowned with jagged horns.

Its hands—too large, too clawed, dripping with blood.

Its eyes—hollow, burning embers.

The cultists roared in praise.

"A GIFT FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"

Cassian's breath caught in his throat.

It was happening.

The Warp was bleeding into reality.

And they were too late.

Derrus whispered the words no one wanted to hear.

"They're summoning a daemon."

Cassian's stomach turned to ice.

The mission had just changed.

This wasn't a purge anymore.

This was a war.

—-

Word count: 2369

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