The base nest of any human hive city was hell.
Not metaphorically. Not exaggeration. Literally one of the worst living environments in the entire galaxy, a place where existence itself became torture, where every breath was agony and survival measured in suffering.
Countless industrial wastes and biochemical wastes had accumulated here.
Centuries of poison flowing down from above, gravity dragging every toxic byproduct to the lowest point. The refuse from billions of lives, the chemical runoff from endless manufacturing, the radioactive slag from power generation. All of it settled here, layer upon layer, until it had almost soaked every inch of the base nest.
The ground wasn't ground anymore. It was sediment. Compacted waste that had been walked on so long it resembled earth, but which would liquefy underfoot if you stayed still too long. Every surface was slick with substances that defied identification, coated in films of oil and worse.
Even the air was visible corruption.
It was filled with toxin particles dense enough to see with the naked eye, a perpetual fog of poison that moved in lazy currents. Breathing was difficult, each inhalation drawing contamination deep into lungs, every exhalation failing to expel it all. The atmosphere itself was weapon, killing slowly, grinding down life through simple exposure.
Even a civilian who had completely adapted to the harsh environment of the middle nest wouldn't survive long here.
The base nest was reserved for the truly desperate, the utterly lost, the people who'd fallen so far that returning to civilized levels was impossible. They lived here until they died, which usually wasn't very long.
In an instant, light pierced the darkness.
A series of bright beams like sharp swords suddenly cut through the gloom that had accumulated for countless years. Emergency lumens from the decapitation team's equipment, cutting visibility through the toxic fog in narrow cones.
The light instantly scared away countless creatures.
Things that lived in the shadows, that had evolved in darkness, that fled illumination on instinct. A large number of base nest creatures of various sizes scattered with terrifying rustling sounds. Claws scraping stone. Bodies sliding through muck. The noise of an entire ecosystem disturbed.
At this moment, Nolan walked at the front of the beheading team.
He wore his Six-Armed Iron Cavalry Terminator, the green ceramite unmarked despite everything they'd fought through. The Blood Scythe was gripped in his hand, decomposition field active but dimmed to conserve power. His heavy footfalls echoed through empty spaces, magnetic boots finding purchase on uncertain ground.
He glanced at the life detection device integrated into his helmet.
The display lit up with contacts. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Dense signs of life surrounding the team on all sides, above and below, lurking in every shadow and gap. His enhanced biology recoiled at the sheer concentration of living things packed into this toxic hellscape.
Nolan couldn't help but take a breath.
The filtered air tasted of chemicals even through his breathing apparatus. The atmosphere here was so contaminated that even Terminator-grade filters were struggling, warning runes appearing on his display.
If his understanding of hive cities and the base nest had previously been only based on paper materials, academic knowledge filtered through reports and documentation...
Now he truly understood what kind of harsh environment the people in the nest city lived in.
The reality was so much worse than any description. The suffering so much more immediate. These weren't statistics or demographic data. These were real people, billions of them, grinding out existence in conditions that made the middle nest look like paradise.
At this moment, a miserable wail erupted from the back of the beheading team.
The scream was high-pitched, terrified, cut off mid-cry by something that sounded like choking. The kind of sound that meant someone was dying badly.
Nolan reacted instantly.
He drove the Six-Armed Iron Cavalry into a run, turning and accelerating back through the formation. His massive armored bulk moved with shocking speed, servo motors screaming, magnetic boots pounding through muck.
When Nolan quickly arrived at the source of the sound, David was already there.
The ancient Man of Iron stood with the regiment banner still mounted on his power backpack, the Salamanders' colors a bright declaration of Imperial authority in this lightless place. He was working with focused intensity, both metal palms wrapped around something massive.
David was prying open a giant gray shell.
The thing was easily two meters across, shaped like a massive clam but made of something that looked like ash compressed into armor. Its edges were serrated, lined with what might have been teeth or just jagged protrusions. And it was clamped shut around the lower body of a defense soldier.
The soldier was still screaming, though the sound had degraded to wet gurgles. Blood leaked from the shell's sealed edges, running in streams that mixed with the toxic muck underfoot. The man's upper body thrashed weakly, hands scrabbling at the shell, trying uselessly to pry himself free.
Nolan's eyepiece identified the creature immediately.
Waste gray clam. A mysterious underhive creature with unknown specific origin, something that had evolved in this toxic environment, adapted to thrive where nothing else could.
Generally speaking, they only grew in the dusty wasteland outside the walls of the underhive. They used their sensitive perception of vibrations to detect prey, lying dormant until something passed overhead. Then they would suddenly open their gray clam shell like a vise, snapping shut with tremendous force.
They swallowed any living thing that passed above them in one bite, functioning like naturally grown anti-infantry mines. Patient. Deadly. Invisible until triggered.
But under normal circumstances, waste gray clams only grew to about half a meter in diameter.
They couldn't completely devour a living person at that size. The physics didn't work. A human was simply too large. Achieving that would be more difficult than the Emperor getting up from the Golden Throne to dance, an impossibility so profound it served as shorthand for "never."
However, Nolan's eyes swept over the industrial waste and green toxic substances everywhere nearby.
The pollution here was beyond measurement. The concentration of mutagenic chemicals saturating every surface. This environment didn't just support life, it transformed it, warped it, created things that shouldn't exist.
He felt no surprise at the giant waste ash clam that was large enough to swallow most of a defense soldier.
Of course it had grown huge. Of course the toxic waste had mutated it into something monstrous. This was the base nest. Normal rules didn't apply.
The miserable wailing of the defense soldier slowly subsided.
Not because the pain was lessening. Because he was dying. His strength drained away with his blood, struggle becoming weaker, consciousness fading as shock and trauma overwhelmed his system.
David's rescue operation still needed more time.
Even with power armor's enhanced strength, prying open the clam's shell was difficult. The creature's muscle tissue had compressed with tremendous force, creating a seal that resisted leverage. David was making progress, but slowly, millimeter by millimeter.
Too slowly for the soldier to survive.
Nolan made a decision.
He took out a bottle of panacea from the storage space in his power backpack without hesitation. The crystal vial emerged into the toxic atmosphere, its contents glowing with soft golden light that seemed obscene in this place of absolute corruption.
He drove the Six-Armed Iron Cavalry forward and poured out a handful of the miracle pills.
Each one was perfectly spherical, smooth as glass, radiating warmth that had nothing to do with temperature. Nolan suddenly reached down and opened the breathing mask on the soldier's face, exposing him directly to the base nest's atmosphere.
The man gasped, drawing toxic air, his body immediately starting to convulse from the poison.
Nolan stuffed the panacea into his mouth before he could resist.
The pills dissolved instantly, flooding the soldier's system with healing beyond natural limits. The effect was immediate. The convulsions stopped. Color returned to his face. His eyes focused, awareness returning as the panacea repaired catastrophic damage.
Nolan quickly stood up and waved his ceramite steel palm at David.
The signal was clear: move aside. David stepped back without question, trusting Nolan's judgment, clearing space for whatever came next.
Then Nolan raised the Blood Scythe and brought it down.
The blade surrounded by green decomposition energy moved in a precise arc, angled perfectly. It struck the giant waste ash clam and simply unmade it.
The creature's shell and flesh separated in the same instant.
The sharp edge cut through chitin that should have been harder than ceramite. Through muscle tissue that had crushed a man's legs. Through internal organs and strange biology. The entire giant waste ash clam was instantly dismantled into bloody pieces, shells and meat scattered across the muck.
The defense soldier, who had stopped wailing due to the panacea's effect, gradually came to his senses.
He realized he was free. Realized he was alive. Realized that an Angel of the Emperor had just saved him from certain death. His legs were crushed, bones shattered, but the panacea was already rebuilding them from the cellular level up.
He quickly climbed up from the bloody remains.
His movements were awkward, relying on his arms, dragging ruined legs that would be whole again in hours. He crawled through the muck and then knelt on one knee before Nolan, the gesture formal despite the circumstances.
He tried to speak, to express his life-saving gratitude, but couldn't find words adequate to the moment.
Nolan didn't care much about the display.
He shook his metal helmet slightly, the gesture dismissive. The Blood Scythe settled back into a ready position in his palm, still humming with lethal potential.
Then he turned and walked back through the crowd.
The team watched him with expressions mixing fanaticism and awe. They'd just witnessed miracle and violence in equal measure. Seen their commander save a comrade with casual generosity, then destroy a monster with effortless precision.
Nolan walked toward the depths of the base nest, leading them onward.
For those who had voluntarily followed him down here for the decapitation operation, he felt profound respect.
No matter what their past identity and experience had been, regardless of whether they were veterans or convicts or fanatics or simple soldiers...
At least at this moment, they were all human heroes worthy of being remembered by the Empire.
Even if some were just regular soldiers who couldn't do much against Chaos-corrupted rebels in direct combat, their courage in coming here mattered.
Nolan was unwilling to easily give up any comrades who followed him to fight.
Not when he had the power to save them. Not when panacea could restore even mortal wounds. Not when their sacrifice meant something.
Not long after, the decapitation team gradually discovered traces of the rebels.
To be precise, they found traces of rebel bodies.
At this moment, Nolan stared through his eyepiece at something moving across his field of vision.
A mass of translucent substance that wriggled like a slime, crawling with disturbing fluidity. The creature moved slowly, leaving a trail of digestive enzymes that hissed where they touched ferrocrete.
Ice mud. Another base nest creature, this one resembling a mobile stomach.
In the completely transparent abdominal cavity of the organism, Nolan could see its latest meal.
A terrified rebel body rolled back and forth in digestive fluid that emitted a faint fluorescent light. The corpse was partially dissolved, flesh sloughing off bones, the rebel's face frozen in an expression of terminal horror. It tumbled up and down as the ice mud moved, slowly breaking apart.
Nolan made a cautious judgment based on the degree of digestion.
"All teammates, be alert! Be prepared for a firefight!"
His voice carried through the communication device to every member of the team. Quiet but intense, the tone of someone who'd spotted danger before it became obvious.
"We may not be far from the tail of the rebels!"
The body was too fresh. Digestion had barely begun. That rebel had died recently, probably within the hour. Which meant the main force couldn't be far ahead.
As Nolan's voice fell, the team responded.
The remaining thirteen fanatics who had followed Nolan through life and death instantly tensed. They clenched power weapons and lasguns in their palms, checking charges, testing activation studs, preparing for violence.
The fifty-man defense army unit quickly lowered their heads to check equipment. Whirlwind missile launchers received final diagnostics. Heavy stubber guns were loaded with fresh belts. Everyone made ready to meet attack from the rebels at any time.
At this time, David approached.
The ancient Man of Iron drove his power armor forward, bringing veteran Hassan and psychic Lucy to Nolan's position. He spoke through the communication channel, his mechanical voice carrying interesting news.
"My Lord, Lucy may have discovered the location of the rebels' base."
Nolan's attention focused immediately. "How?"
"She vaguely sensed the signs of a large amount of psychic energy flowing."
That made sense. Chaos rituals required enormous psychic power, energy drawn from the Warp and channeled through reality. A sensitive psyker could detect it like heat from a fire.
"Hmm? There is such a good thing? This will save us a lot of tracking time."
Nolan's tone carried genuine satisfaction. Hunting through the base nest could have taken days. This way, they could strike before the rebels completed whatever they were planning.
He turned to the bald psyker with her metal amplifier.
"Lucy, you come and show us the way!"
The order was delivered without hesitation. Nolan trusted the intelligence, trusted Lucy's abilities despite her low rank in the Imperium's hierarchy.
He waved his ceramite steel palm at the assembled team, the gesture commanding attention.
Then he led the entire decapitation force forward, continuing the advance into the depths of the dark base nest.
However, as time passed and they drew closer to the rebels' base, things changed.
Nolan could vaguely hear sounds in the distance.
The low hum of lasguns discharging. The familiar roar of physical ammunition weapons firing. Not just sporadic shots, but sustained fire. The sound of battle, intense and ongoing.
At the same time, in the darkness ahead, fierce firelight appeared.
Explosions constantly illuminated the dark space, each detonation creating brief moments of visibility. The light was transmitted to everyone's field of vision, painting the toxic fog in orange and red.
"Who are the rebels fighting?"
Nolan spoke the question aloud, wearing his metal helmet, his voice carrying puzzlement.
"Base nest creatures? But the pollution and corruption of Chaos is not something that a group of fierce bottom nest creatures can easily resist, right?"
It didn't make sense. Chaos corruption was absolute. Nothing natural could stand against it for long. Whatever Nurgle touched died or transformed, no middle ground. So who was fighting the rebels?
Nolan shook his head slightly, dismissing speculation.
They'd know soon enough. Better to see with his own eyes than waste time guessing.
He led the decapitation team forward at increased speed, everyone moving faster now that they had a definite destination. After turning off light sources to avoid detection, the team quietly lurked on the top of a high cliff.
Nolan's keen senses clearly heard the extremely fierce exchange of fire coming from the bottom of the cliff.
The sounds were unmistakable. Full-scale combat. Multiple weapon types. Hundreds of combatants engaged simultaneously. A proper battle, not a skirmish.
He ordered everyone around him to prepare for engagement, then drove the Six-Armed Iron Cavalry carefully to the cliff's edge.
Nolan peeked down cautiously.
The next moment, a battlefield appeared in his field of vision that was absurd even by the standards of the grim darkness.
The scene below defied expectations and logic in equal measure.
On a battlefield burning with industrial debris, lit by fires that had probably been started accidentally and now raged unchecked...
Ragged mixed-blood acolytes rushed at the front of a battle line.
They fought fiercely with staggering Nurgle zombies, holding tattered physical ammunition weapons that looked like they'd been assembled from scrap. The acolytes were barely armed, barely armored, but fighting with desperate intensity.
More than a dozen tall aberrations moved among them.
These mutants were larger than human, twisted by xenos genetics into forms that barely qualified as humanoid. They kept waving ugly metal hammers in their palms, crude weapons that relied on mass and momentum rather than sophistication. And they were launching terrifying charges at the Chaos Eggs that occasionally appeared in the Nurgle corpse tide.
The aberrations hit the diseased monstrosities with tremendous force, hammers crushing putrid flesh, mutations battling corruption in brutal melee.
At the same time, a larger aberration master engaged a disgusting Nurgle beast.
The creature was massive, its body as soft and juicy as a slug, easily the size of a tank. It moved on waves of diseased flesh, leaving trails of toxic slime. The kind of thing that should have been unstoppable, an avatar of Nurgle's power made flesh.
But from the fighting between the two combatants, something shocking was obvious.
The Nurgle beast was losing.
Its huge body bore wounds that weren't healing. The aberration master, twisted though it was, possessed strength that overwhelmed even Chaos-blessed biology. The beast had actually fallen to a disadvantage, being driven back, taking more damage than it dealt.
But what shocked Nolan even more than mutants fighting Chaos was what he saw at the rebels' temporary base entrance.
A heavily armored Goliath truck advanced under heavy cover.
Two Leman Russ tanks flanked it, both vehicles showing broken parts and jury-rigged repairs. They looked like they'd been salvaged from scrap, restored to functionality through ingenuity and desperation.
Facing the rebels' extremely fierce firepower, the attacking force launched continuous assault on the base entrance.
Las-bolts streaked from rebel positions. Heavy stubber fire raked the advancing vehicles. But the attack pressed forward despite casualties, pushing toward the entrance with single-minded determination.
Then Nolan heard it.
Battle roars erupted from dozens of throats simultaneously, voices raised in religious fervor that made the fanatics behind him look restrained by comparison.
"For the Four-Armed Emperor!"
The cry echoed across the battlefield, amplified by passion and faith.
"Rebellion can lose! Chaos must die!"
Instantly, Nolan understood.
Genestealer cult. Xenos-corrupted humans, infected by Tyranid organisms, worshiping the Hive Mind through twisted Imperial theology. The "Four-Armed Emperor" was their corrupted vision of the God-Emperor, adapted to accommodate their xenos masters.
These were enemies of humanity. Traitors to their species. People who'd embraced xenos infection in pursuit of belonging or power or whatever the cult had promised them.
And they were fighting Chaos.
All the Genestealers on the battlefield seemed to feel blessing from some kind of spiritual power.
The psychic connection to their cult's egregore, the collective consciousness of infected minds united in purpose. The power flowed through them like electric current, enhancing strength, sharpening reflexes, coordinating actions.
Their offensive against the rebels actually increased!
The Genestealer cult surged forward with renewed fury, pressing the attack, driving toward the base entrance with fanatical determination that matched anything Nolan's followers could achieve.
Human traitors corrupted by xenos, fighting human traitors corrupted by Chaos, in the depths of a hive city's toxic underbelly.
The galaxy's madness distilled to a single battlefield.