Inside the sealed chamber, screams rose and fell in horrifying waves.
The demon-possessed old man—or rather, the twisted corpse that had once belonged to him—slowly raised its deformed arm.
Ethereal blue flames flowed from its fingertips, slithering like living creatures toward the nearest nobles.
The flames had no physical heat, yet those they touched howled in agony. Their skin shriveled and carbonized in seconds, turning into pale ashes that scattered into the air.
The survivors, untouched by the flames, were not spared suffering.
The chamber's temperature plummeted below freezing. Their breath turned to frost in the air, a layer of ice quickly forming across their skin.
A fat noble stared in horror as his fingers turned blue and began to rot, joints cracking softly under the freezing.
"The window!"
The young noble who had defected to the Intelligence Division suddenly shouted.
His gaze locked onto the narrow stained-glass window above the chamber—the only remaining exit, the last possible escape route.
Without hesitation, he grabbed a heavy statue beside him and hurled it with all his strength at the window.
With a sharp crash, fragments of colored glass rained down.
Climbing the unstable shelves below, the young noble scrambled up toward the opening with both hands and feet.
His palms were sliced open by the shards, blood pouring freely, but he felt no pain—his body had shifted into pure survival instinct, numb to everything but escape.
When he tumbled out the window and rolled onto the estate's lawn, the sight that met him chilled him to his soul.
The entire estate had become a living hell.
Servants twisted their bodies into grotesque shapes—some crawled with limbs bent in reverse, others turned their heads completely around and kept walking.
Their skin was covered in sickening pustules, bursting to release foul-smelling black blood.
Even more horrifying were the bodyguards. Most had transformed into half-human, half-bird monsters, their beaked mouths dripping with viscous saliva.
"Y-Young Master!"
A few guards who had yet to mutate suddenly burst from the hedges.
Their faces were pale and filled with terror, but they were still recognizably human.
Seeing the young noble, they clung to him like drowning men grasping at a lifeline.
"Those things... they just..." one stammered, pointing behind him.
Before he could finish, a bird-headed creature lunged from the shadows.
Its wings still bore torn fragments of its old uniform. Its claws slashed a guard's throat open, spraying warm blood across the young noble's face, shocking him back to clarity.
"Shoot! Shoot it now!"
The remaining guards opened fire in a panic.
Bullets tore through the monster, but only made it stagger briefly. From the bullet holes, black, writhing maggots oozed out instead of blood.
"Useless—run! Run!"
The young noble turned and bolted toward the landing pad.
His lungs burned like fire, and his legs felt like they were filled with lead. Behind him came the screams of his guards and the sound of bones snapping—but he didn't dare look back. He could only run forward with everything he had.
On the pad, several hovercraft sat silently.
He rushed into their designated vehicle, trembling as he keyed in the startup code.
"Come on... come on, dammit!"
He looked back and saw three guards still alive, retreating under fire.
One was suddenly snared by a black tentacle emerging from the ground and yanked into the earth. The other two leapt onto the craft just in time.
At that moment, a ghostly blue dome of light lit up at the estate's perimeter.
It slowly contracted inward, devouring everything it touched—grass withered, buildings decayed.
A servant caught in the light disintegrated into a mummy in seconds, only to "revive" grotesquely and join the monsters.
"Start already!"
The young noble slammed his fist on the controls.
The engines finally roared to life. As the systems came online and the dome approached within ten meters, the hovercraft surged upward.
The blue field suddenly accelerated, almost catching the tail.
At the last possible moment, the craft's thrusters flared to maximum, barely outrunning the encroaching energy.
Through the "window," the young noble looked back and saw the entire estate encased in a glowing blue cocoon.
The surface pulsed and writhed, as if something was gestating inside.
More chilling still, a giant face began to emerge within the cocoon—it still vaguely resembled the old man, but had been twisted into a monstrous visage.
The hovercraft shuddered violently as it sped toward Augstergrad's urban core.
The young noble collapsed into a seat, soaked in cold sweat. Reaching for the monitoring device pinned to his chest—his lifeline from Imperial Intelligence—he rasped:
"Requesting... immediate backup."
Behind them, the blue cocoon began to pulse rhythmically, like the heartbeat of a massive creature.
Each throb made the cocoon expand further outward.
But along the estate's outer streets, the Shark Raiders had already taken formation.
Their gray power armor was coated in a light-absorbing substance, blending seamlessly with the darkness.
The tactical visors of their helmets flashed with crimson light, their sensors blaring constant alerts—danger zones everywhere.
The lead warrior knelt behind a tree, thick fingers tapping the safety on his boltgun.
Nearby, the Flame Salamanders had taken elevated positions.
Their dark green power armor was shrouded by camouflage netting, flame insignias glinting faintly in the moonlight.
The heavy weapons teams had deployed plasma incinerators, glowing with near-overload energy on the firing rings.
A tech-sergeant adjusted a massive scope with his mech-arm, locking onto the pulsing blue cocoon in the estate's center.
"Civilians evacuated." The comms crackled with a metallic voice. "Three-kilometer radius is clear."
Well before nightfall, informed by the Intelligence Division, the Sharks and Salamanders had secretly evacuated the area.
Even if the chaos-warped nobles had enacted some dark sacrificial ritual, civilian casualties would be minimized.
A Shark Raider captain—an old veteran with a cybernetic left eye—nodded at the report.
Behind his helmet, the red glow of his augmetic eye revealed the psionic field before him.
To him, the entire estate was drenched in viscous warp energy, writhing like something alive, occasionally forming screaming faces.
"Stay sharp," his voice echoed through the squad's comms. "Wait for Lady Athena to—"
CRACK—CRASH!!
Before he could finish, a shattering sound erupted from the center of the estate.
The blue cocoon split with countless fractures. Blinding blue light shot from the cracks.
The cocoon then exploded as if torn by invisible hands, dissolving into a storm of blue flame.
In its place stood a twisted portal nearly a hundred meters wide.
The portal's edges writhed irregularly, its frame lined with pulsating vascular growths. At its center, a swirling vortex of chaos spun wildly.
"Filthy heretics," one young Shark Raider growled.
Then the nightmare began.
Countless bird-headed, human-bodied demons surged through the portal.
Their bodies were a sickly bluish-gray, their beaks dripping with corrosive mucus, wings covered not in feathers but wriggling tendrils.
Worst of all—their eyes. No pupils. Only ever-shifting Chaos symbols.
"For the Emperor!"
The Shark Captain roared and was the first to break cover.
BANG—BANG—BANG!
His boltgun spat fire, the first volley blasting three demon heads into paste.
His comrades followed, gray-armored shadows flooding the field.
VMMMM—SKRRT—SKRRT!!
Power swords, chainswords, and lightning claws drowned out the demons' screeches.
The Salamanders maintained precise firing formations.
SHHHHRRRRAAANG!
Plasma incinerators howled, cobalt energy balls arcing through the night and exploding into deadly clouds among the demons.
A tech-sergeant had even deployed a heavy automatic bolter turret. Its targeting system ensured every round struck vital demonic points.
Inside the hovercraft, the young noble and his two guards stared in stunned silence.
Through the windows, they saw the Shark Raiders moving with superhuman speed.
One warrior was swarmed by five demons. He merely sneered and cleaved them in half with his lightning claw.
Another grabbed a diving demon barehanded and twisted its bird head off. Black blood splattered his armor—instantly vaporized by his energy shield with a hiss.
"W-What are those..." one guard stammered, his SMG nowhere in sight.
"…"
The young noble said nothing.
His eyes were locked on one figure at the heart of the battle.
The Shark Captain with the augmetic eye, his armor decorated with trophies made from teeth. After emptying his first bolter mag, he drew a massive power axe.
His combat style was more savage than the demons themselves.
And whenever his axe struck, it glowed gold with plasma. The hit demons melted like wax.
"Holy... for the Emperor..." the young noble muttered. Then realization struck. "They're fighting the monsters with faith."
At that moment, the portal suddenly contracted, belching out even thicker warp energy.
From it stepped a dozen massive demons, three times the size of the regular ones. They wielded giant swords engulfed in blue fire, every step leaving corrosive footprints.
The Shark Captain immediately changed tactics, his men forming a wedge formation.
"Salamanders!" he roared over comms. "Saturate them!"
SHHHRANG—SHHHRANG!
Dozens of plasma rounds struck the giant demons. The blasts lit the night like day.
But as the smoke cleared, the demons only staggered. Their melted flesh regenerated rapidly.
"Damn it!" the Captain cursed, preparing to order close combat—when suddenly—
A beam of golden light descended from the heavens.
Athena landed in the center of the battlefield, the air itself trembling at her presence.
The goddess of war wasted no words. She raised her spear, which burst into divine radiance and pierced the portal. The vascular frame withered, and the vortex distorted wildly.
"Now!" her cold voice rang across the field. "Cleanse them!"
With her command, a hundred golden streaks shot through the night like meteors—
Over a hundred Greek demigods arrived. Clad in ancient-style armor, they radiated suffocating might. Their weapons bore Chinese runes designed to target Chaos. Every strike made the warp energy scream.
The front lines raised inscribed shields, forming an impenetrable wall of light.
Demonic claws that struck them melted instantly.
The rear lines hurled lightning-charged spears, each piercing multiple demons and pinning them to the ground in flames.
The giant demons bellowed and charged with their blue-flame swords.
But Athena merely cast them a cold glance and tapped the air with her spear.
BOOOOM—!!
A wave of pure golden psionic energy surged like a tsunami. The giants didn't even have time to scream before they disintegrated into ash.
Then Athena became golden light, streaking into the heart of the demon horde.
Her left hand lashed out like lightning, seizing a retreating figure—
The demon-possessed old man's body.
Now grotesquely inhuman, covered in tumors, insectile limbs extending from his spine—yet the face still vaguely resembled the elder noble.
"Found you." Athena's voice was cold.
She waved her right hand. A rune-engraved stone box appeared from the void.
As it opened, countless tormented wails echoed from within.
ROAR—!!!
The possessed husk thrashed violently, but could only watch as it was sealed inside.
"You dared target my child?" Athena sealed the box and tapped it with her finger. "Then let me show you what true despair is."
Golden chains flared inside the box, each piercing the prisoner's soul.
The husk would not be destroyed immediately, but taken back to the main universe—there, the Emperor himself would cast it into the deepest hell—
Where time had no meaning, and pain would be eternal.
Not far away, Nova and Stone had just arrived, frozen in awe.
Data streamed across Nova's visor like a waterfall.
Watching the demigods casually purify dozens of demons, seeing Athena annihilate giant abominations with a glance—she suddenly realized how little she understood of "psionics."
"This is..." Nova's voice was dry. "A true war of gods?"
Her words were cut off by a sudden horn.
At the center of the field, Athena raised her spear. The demigods ceased all movement.
The goddess focused on the crumbling portal, her spear tip gathering a miniature sun of light.
In the next moment, it streaked forth, engulfing the remaining demons and the portal.
No explosion. No shockwave. Only light—pure, cleansing light.
When it faded, the estate was restored—
As if the nightmare had never happened. Only the stone box by Athena's side emitted a chilling glow, the final proof that divine retribution had indeed come.
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