Rest in Peace
The air grew still.
The deafening explosions and demonic howls that had filled the landing site were replaced by an eerie silence as the squad advanced north.
But this did not signify safety. In Nurgle's domain, clamor often meant simple slaughter, while silence… meant despair.
Eileen trudged through the fog in the middle of the group. Sergeant Varo and two other veterans of the Honor Guard shielded her, their bolt pistols warily pointed at the surrounding mist.
The path beneath their feet was no longer the fleshy plain they had followed, but a gravel trail.
Only now, thick, yellowish-green pus flowed from the gravel.
"A settlement ahead."
Cole's tall figure stopped at the crossroads, his power halberd slightly lowered, his red electronic eyes scanning the buildings ahead.
"According to the map, this used to be an agricultural village with two thousand inhabitants, responsible for providing preliminary processing for the granary."
"Any signs of life?" Sicarius asked, his voice muffled over the intercom.
"Yes," Cole replied flatly. "And many. Even more than the original two thousand. But… the vital sign readings are extremely erratic."
The group slowly entered the village.
When Eileen saw the scene before her, her nerves, honed on Iax and thought strong enough, were once again shaken.
There were no corpses. Nor were there the Nurgle creatures that had charged at her with weapons.
There was only "life."
Excessive, twisted, and profane life.
The walls of the houses were no longer brick and stone, but instead pulsating tumors.
The fruit trees were laden with fruits resembling human viscera. And in the center of all this were the villagers.
They… were still alive.
But they were no longer human.
Their bodies were connected to houses, trees, and even each other by thick, fungal tubes that resembled umbilical cords.
Their skin had turned into a translucent gel, within which countless maggots could be clearly seen crawling in the blood vessels.
Their bodies were swollen to their limit, like gas-filled sacs.
Some had grown compound eyes, others had arms twisted into tentacles.
But most terrifying were their eyes.
Though their eyes were cloudy, it was still clear that they were human, not zombies.
They were consciously experiencing their bodies becoming a breeding ground for monsters, feeling the excruciating pain of maggots gnawing at their bones, yet they couldn't even commit suicide.
"Kill… me…"
An old man, hanging from a lamppost, his lower body transformed into a giant fungal sporangium, looked at the Astartes as they entered, his lips barely moving, uttering a gurgling, slurred sound.
"Please… please… you…"
The voices rose and fell, converging into a desperate chorus in the face of plague.
Sicarius stopped in his tracks.
This legendary Company Captain, who had seen countless horrors in countless battles, tightened his grip on his sword.
"This is blasphemy," Sicarius said, his voice laced with suppressed rage. "The Warp will not only destroy their bodies, but also torment their souls. Turn them into living factories that produce despair and plague."
"They are beyond saving."
Cole made a cold judgment. As a member of the Imperial Guard, his duty was to protect the Emperor; all other sacrifices were merely numbers.
"These civilians have been deeply corrupted. Their genes have been rewritten, their souls are being assimilated by the Warp.
If left unchecked, they will soon become new Nurgle walkers or carriers."
Cole raised his power halberd, its tip aimed at the old man hanging from a lamppost.
"Give them the Emperor's mercy. This is currently the most efficient and humane way to deal with them."
Sicarius was silent for a second, then nodded.
"Agreed. Honor Guard, flamers ready. Purify this area."
Several Astartes raised their guns without hesitation. This was their duty, even when facing civilians they had sworn to protect.
In this dark universe, death was not necessarily liberation.
"Wait!"
A scream shattered the cold execution countdown.
Eileen rushed out of the protective circle, spreading her arms to block Cole's weapon.
"Don't shoot!"
Eileen's face was deathly pale, her body trembling violently with fear and agitation, but her feet were rooted to the ground.
"Madam, please step aside," Cole's voice remained calm and unwavering. "Your mercy is commendable. But they have been corrupted by the Warp."
"But they didn't do it willingly! They are human!" Eileen pointed at the old man, tears welling in her eyes. "He's crying for help! Did you hear him? He's saying 'Save me,' not 'For Nurgle or the Plague'!"
She turned to Sicarius, her eyes pleading.
"Uncle Cato, didn't you teach me to protect? They're still alive! That…"
Eileen pointed to a half-collapsed house not far away.
There, a woman, her body highly mutated and covered in pustules, was still tightly protecting something in her arms with her tentacled arms.
It should have been a child. Now it was just a pulsating green tumor.
But the woman's eyes, the eyes looking at the tumor in her arms, were still a mother's eyes.
"She's protecting her child…" Eileen's voice choked, "just like you protect me. If we kill her, how are we any different from those demons?"
Sicarius looked at the mother, his expression beneath his helmet extremely complex.
"Eileen." Sicarius lowered his sword, but didn't go over; he stood still, his voice heavy. "Don't you understand? Some things are more terrifying than death."
"Can't you see? That child's internal organs are gone. And his mother's heart has been replaced by a giant parasite.
What keeps them alive isn't life force, but Nurgle's sorcery."
"We can't save them. Not even you."
"How will we know if we don't try!"
Eileen stubbornly wiped away her tears.
She didn't want to hear these grand pronouncements. The people and events she'd encountered these past few days had gradually made her understand that, as a human being, some things are more important than simply living.
For example, dignity and resistance.
"Old Huang!" Eileen screamed in her mind, "You can save them, right? Just like you fixed the servants! Turn them back!"
This time, the voice in her mind remained silent for a long time.
So long that Eileen thought he had logged off.
[Eileen.]
Old Huang's voice finally sounded, carrying a deep sigh, a tone that made Eileen's heart sink.
[The servants' programs were just messed up; a few lines of code can fix it. But these people… their 'hardware' is completely rotten. (Backend maintenance occupational hazard kicking in)]
[That old man, his lungs have become a fly nest. That mother, her blood has been replaced by poison. Now they are like paper frames plastered with mud; the only reason they haven't fallen apart is because of that layer of 'mud.']
[If I help you purify that layer of mud… do you know what will happen?]
"I don't care!" Eileen gritted her teeth, "I have to save them! Even if it's just… just to stop them from suffering so much!"
She turned away, ignoring the Astartes behind her.
She strode towards the filthy puddle. The viscous liquid reached her ankles, and the stench made her want to vomit again, but she held it in.
She reached the mother.
The mutated woman raised her murky eyes, looking at the clean-looking girl before her.
She seemed to recognize the Imperial Aquila emblem on the clothes, and a faint smile appeared on her face, which had been contorted with pain.
"Emperor… Angel…" the woman murmured hoarsely.
Eileen knelt down. In the filthy mud.
She didn't mind the filth or the potential contamination, for this was once the home of these humans.
She reached out and gently placed her hands on the woman's pus-covered shoulders.
"It doesn't hurt anymore," Eileen whispered, as if soothing a child having a nightmare. "It will stop hurting soon."
She closed her eyes.
At that moment, she didn't think about tactics, nor about conserving energy.
She poured out all the warm, golden currents within her, without reservation.
"Purify—!!!"
*Buzz—*
This time, the light was no longer the fiery golden light of the previous battle.
It was a soft, dawn-like glow.
The light rippled slowly from Eileen's center. It swept across every inch of the decaying earth, landing on the twisted bodies.
A miracle occurred, but not the kind of "recovery" Eileen had initially imagined.
Under the light, the fungi and tumors covering the villagers began to wither and fall off rapidly.
The nauseating green faded.
The tentacles on the mother's body disappeared, returning to the shape of human arms.
The pustules on her face melted away like snowflakes, revealing her pale, but human, skin.
The fungus-like tubes wrapped around the old man trapped in the streetlight snapped.
The pain vanished.
The maggots that had been frantically feeding inside them vanished in the golden light.
"Thank you..."
The mother looked at Eileen, clear tears welling in her eyes. She glanced down at the child in her arms—the lump of flesh had vanished, leaving only a small skeleton.
She didn't cry. She simply held the skeleton tightly, a serene relief on her face.
Then.
Just as Eileen was hoping she could stand up.
The mother's body began to disintegrate.
Without the support of Nurgle's evil power, this long-dead shell could no longer maintain its form.
In soft golden light, her body transformed into countless pure white, shimmering dust particles.
And not just her.
The entire village, the tormented villagers, all turned into a swirling mass of white dust in that instant.
There was no blood, no stench, no corpses.
Only a grand, white "ash motes" phenomenon rose without wind.
Light dust danced in the air, then slowly rose, as if guided by an unseen golden path, merging into an unknown shore.
The village fell silent.
The disgusting, fleshy surface of the ground vanished, replaced by clean, firm soil, though scorched and barren.
The viral spores in the air were swept away, and a long-absent breeze brought the earthy smell.
Eileen knelt on the ground, her hands still in that embracing posture.
But her arms were empty.
Only a handful of white ash lay in her palm.
"Why..." Eileen looked at the ash in her hand, tears streaming down her face, "Why couldn't she be saved... I wiped all the filth away..."
[This is the best salvation, Eileen.]
Old Huang's voice carried a barely perceptible hint of pity.
[In this dark world, for those consumed by Chaos, death is not the end, but further torment. You didn't turn them into puppets of monsters; you snatched their souls back from Nurgle's urn. You let them]
[You let them die fighting as humans, rather than existing as slaves to Nurgle. You see.]
Eileen looked up.
She vaguely saw, within the rising white specks of light, what appeared to be blurry human faces smiling at her. The mother, the old woman, and the child.
They were smiling. Their souls had found guidance.
"The mercy called 'Rest'..."
Sicarius had appeared behind her unnoticed.
The iron giant, watching the swirling dust of light, removed his helmet, revealing a face etched with shock and reverence.
Astartes' "mercy" could only be a bomb, leaving behind only carcasses.
But Eileen's mercy gave them redemption and a home for their souls.
"Well done, Eileen," Sicarius said softly.
Eileen tried to stand up, but felt a sharp, intense dizziness.
That full-power purification had almost drained all her strength.
Warm liquid trickled from her nostrils, dripping onto her trench coat—it was a nosebleed.
"I…I'm so sleepy…"
Eileen's vision went black, and her body slumped to the ground.
Sicarius's large, armored hand caught her with a dexterity and gentleness far beyond his physique.
He cradled the unconscious little girl in his arms, as if holding the most precious relic.
He looked at Eileen's pale face and the bloodstains under her nose, his brows furrowing deeply.
He realized that while this power was sacred, it was too heavy a burden for this mortal body.
She was not a god. She would bleed, she would tire, she would die.
"All on alert!"
Sicarius looked up, his eyes instantly turning cold and resolute. He put his helmet back on, his voice booming through the communication channel.
"Establish a defensive perimeter around this location! Any enemy attempting to approach, kill without mercy!"
"Apothecary! Come here immediately! We need to ensure her safety!"
The Astartes quickly dispersed, forming a defensive line on the ruins of the recently purified village.
Meanwhile, several kilometers away.
Atop a cliff shrouded in poisonous clouds.
A figure clad in a tattered robe and wielding a bone staff observed everything through a bizarre telescope filled with eyeballs.
It was a Nurgle wizard, "Plague Singer" Gurg.
He saw the golden light, and he saw the little girl held in his arms.
"Gurg..."
Gurg let out a laugh that sounded like he'd choked on phlegm.
"Found it... the glowing little bug."
"I see... she was wasting her power to destroy her loving father's garden... what a "touching" kind of foolishness."
Gurg waved his bone staff, and the surrounding mist began to thicken and become eerie, as if it had come alive.
"Since you enjoy destruction so much... then I'll prepare a special feast for you."
"Mist... rise."
With his incantation, a ghastly green wall of mist, like a tsunami, silently pressed down on Eileen's direction from the distant horizon.