In this once-organized and meticulously regulated hive city, nothing remained as it had been. What had once been clean ferrocrete causeways and orderly hab-rows—maintained under Atharion's strict civic codes—had been twisted into a grotesque mockery of Imperial design.
The xenos had reshaped the hive.
They rebuilt without understanding the meaning of architecture, only instinct. Corridors once straight and logical now bent at unnatural angles, clogged with debris, collapsed support pillars, and crude barricades made from shattered hab walls. Entire avenues had been rerouted into winding tunnels, some only wide enough for a single man to squeeze through, others expanded into cavernous chambers choked with the smell of blood and flesh.
Screech of unknown can be heard echoes through the whole underground, either simply from the corridors, or from the vents.
"Brother," the Salamander rumbled as he brought his thunder hammer down, crushing a lurking xenos into the ferrocrete, "is this wise? If the Inquisitor falls—"
"If she dies," the Black Templar cut in, unleashing a gout of flame from his combi-flamer, "then she was unworthy of the title."
Chitin burned and curled as the fire washed over the corridor.
"She boasts of slaughtering countless xenos," the Templar continued coldly, "of exterminating two entire species with only a thousand Storm Troopers back when she served the Ordo Xenos."
The Death Spectres moved ahead in silence, already fading into the shadows, while the Imperial Fist adjusted his grip on thunder hammer and shield.
"Enough," the Imperial Fist said, his tone as immovable as bedrock.
The Templar fell silent.
"We serve His will," the Fist continued, eyes fixed forward. "If the Inquisitor survives this trial—if she triumphs—then she has earned her place. Not by words. By deeds."
The squad advanced once more, boots crunching over shattered chitin and bone. Ahead, the darkness thickened, heavy with the stench of the brood, clicking of unknown beast can also be heard coming from the darkness.
"So," the Death Spectre murmured over a tight-beam vox, his voice barely more than a breath, "are we still proceeding with Plan B-7?"
His question was punctuated by the muted thut-thut of silenced bolter fire as something in the shadows collapsed without a sound.
"Yes," the Imperial Fist replied at once. "Maintain pressure. Drive the xenos toward the kill-zone. The Alpha must not be allowed an avenue of escape."
Acknowledgements clicked back across the vox.
The Deathwatch already split into two elements.
One element, led by the Imperial Fist, moved aggressively forward. With him went the Black Templar, the Death Spectre, and the Salamander—hunters tasked with flushing the brood from every burrow, vent, and concealed chamber. They advanced like an iron wedge, fire and steel forcing the xenos to abandon their nests and flee deeper into the hive.
Every corridor became a gauntlet. Every shadow a death sentence.
The second element already ahead of the enemy's flight path. They moved toward a chamber of strategic importance—a vast junction where three primary transit arteries converged. Once a logistical hub of the hive, it had been carefully selected for its chokepoints, limited vertical access, and thick load-bearing walls.
The perfect place for a trap.
There, mines were armed. Fields of fire were marked. Heavy weapons were emplaced to cover every approach, overlapping arcs ensuring no creature could break through unscathed.
Elsewhere in the darkness, the Raven Guard operated alone.
His task was twofold.
First, to inform the Inquisitor of the brood's movements—the true location of the xenos swarm and the direction of its Alpha. She and her retinue would serve as the hammer, drawing the attention of the lesser creatures and destroying those already rushing toward their leader from across the hive. At the very least, they would delay them long enough to prevent a regrouping.
Second, once the message was delivered, the Raven Guard would return to his original duty.
Shadowing the Alpha.
Moving unseen through ducts, collapsed passages, and impossible angles, he stalked the core of the brood, tracking its path with auspex and instinct alike. Any creature that attempted to rejoin the Alpha—or break away from it—died in silence, a bolt round or combat blade ending its existence before it could scream.
To the xenos, the Alpha was never alone.
And yet, it was.
For in the darkness behind it walked the Emperor's shadow—guiding it, herding it, bleeding it—straight into the jaws of the Deathwatch's trap.
Hours of brutal fighting followed in the lightless, twisted alleys of the hive. Step by step, corridor by corridor, the Deathwatch drove the brood forward, denying every escape, sealing every side passage with fire and steel. When the xenos surged, they were met with thunder hammers and cleansing flame. When they tried to melt away into the darkness, silenced bolters and unseen blades cut them down.
At last, the brood broke.
They fled—exactly as planned.
The kill-zone loomed ahead.
To the Deathwatch's faint surprise—though not their doubt—the Inquisitor and the bulk of her retinue had survived the gauntlet. Castil and her Storm Troopers emerged into the chamber bloodied but unbroken, armor scorched, weapons hot, and eyes hard with purpose. The xenos they had encountered lay dead behind them, their attempted reinforcements annihilated before they could ever reach their Alpha.
Castil stepped into the kill-zone and looked around at the prepared defenses, the overlapping fields of fire, the mines waiting patiently beneath the rubble.
A thin, satisfied smile crossed her face.
"So," she said calmly, inferno pistol still smoking, "this is where it ends."
And somewhere in the shadows ahead, the Alpha felt something wrong.
With a piercing screech that echoed through the hive, it abandoned any pretense of subtlety. Refusing to play the Deathwatch's game, the Alpha surged forward, personally leading a desperate breakthrough. Its brood followed in a frenzied wave, claws scraping ferrocrete as they charged toward an alternate route—one that led to a secondary xenos force already stalled by disciplined Scion fire.
It was a fatal choice.
The attempted breakout was smashed almost as soon as it began. The supporting xenos group had already been bled dry by sustained hot-shot volleys and plasma fire. When the Alpha's brood reached them, there was nothing left to reinforce—only corpses and burning barricades. And with the Deathwatch first element arrived, they were drive back and continue being push towards the trap.
What had once been a guarding force of nearly three thousand creatures had been reduced to a few hundred survivors. And with the failed breakout, their numbers dwindled further still—cut down in kill corridors, crushed beneath ceramite boots, burned by holy flame.
The Imperial Fist and the Black Templar met the Alpha head-on.
Thunder hammer and power sword struck as one.
The Alpha screamed as ceramite-clad warriors crashed into it, their blows shattering chitin and flesh alike. The Imperial Fist's hammer came down in a blinding arc, while the Templar drove forward with relentless fury. Before the creature could even reach the kill-zone, one of its four limbs was severed, torn away in a spray of ichor.
Wounded, enraged, and bleeding heavily, the Alpha staggered back—driven not by fear, but by the undeniable truth that the trap had closed.
And now, there was nowhere left to run.
With a shriek that rattled the walls, the Alpha surged forward, dragging its ruined bulk onward. Around it clustered the remnants of its guard—far fewer now, but deadlier for their resemblance to their master. These xenos bore the same warped silhouette and predatory grace as the Alpha, though mercifully confined to the size of mortal men. They moved with unsettling coordination, forming a living shield as they charged.
They entered the trap.
The moment the first creature crossed the threshold, the chamber came alive.
Mines detonated in controlled succession, not a single wasteful blast—each explosion carefully placed to collapse limbs, rupture torsos, and funnel survivors exactly where the Deathwatch wanted them. Shrapnel scythed through the brood, ichor painting the walls as bodies were hurled aside like broken dolls.
"Fire! Purge the xenos!" Castil ordered, her voice cutting cleanly through the thunder.
She raised her inferno pistol and fired. The beam struck a charging creature square in the thorax, and it simply ceased to exist—chitin and flesh liquefying into a cascade of molten ruin that splashed across the floor.
Around her, the Storm Troopers opened up in disciplined volleys. Hot-shot lascarbines burned lines of searing light through the smoke, cutting down xenos that failed to evade the killing lanes. Those that tried to rush were shredded mid-stride, limbs severed, torsos punched clean through as the Scions advanced step by step, boots planted, formation unbroken.
The chamber became a slaughterhouse.
A thunderous shriek tore out of the darkness as the Alpha burst from concealment, hurling itself forward with the remnants of its brood surging at its heels. No longer reckless, no longer mindless, the creatures advanced with brutal cunning—limbs crossed over vital nodes, chitin locked tight to deflect killing blows. Las-fire still cut them down, but fewer now fell, and those that did bought time with their bodies.
Enough time.
They hit the firing line like a avalanche.
Razor-sharp claws tore into the Storm Troopers, sink through carapace armour as if it were parchment, ripping flesh and bone alike. Men were dragged screaming into the press, vox-casters dissolving into static as formations shattered under the sudden, violent impact.
"Close combat! Break! Break!" someone shouted over the din.
The Troopers had no choice but to scatter—tight ranks becoming a death sentence once the enemy was among them. They fell back in pairs and threes, firing point-blank, drawing blades and shock mauls, fighting for every step of ground as the chamber devolved into brutal, claustrophobic chaos.
Castil was already moving.
Her inferno pistol flared again, burning a path through the press, while her power sword flashed in lethal arcs. A xenos lunged at her—she stepped inside its reach, drove the blade up through its jaw, and kicked the corpse aside without breaking stride.
"Hold the center!" she commanded, as three Troopers gather around her, covering her flank and blind spots.
Seeing the Alpha and its brood fully committed, the Deathwatch of the second element erupted from concealment.
The Howling Griffon charged first, storm shield raised, absorbing the Alpha's furious blows in a storm of sparks and cracking chitin. His thunder hammer answered each strike with crushing force, slamming into the creature's torso and driving it back step by step.
The Mortifactor followed like an executioner, his power axe rising and falling with brutal precision, hacking at the Alpha's remaining limbs. He did not seek the kill—only ruin. Each strike was meant to cripple, to break, to leave the beast alive but helpless.
As the Alpha reeled, the Novamarine—leader of the second element—voxed rapid, clipped orders. Storm Troopers were pulled back from the melee in disciplined movements, repositioned without drawing the enemy's attention. Slowly, methodically, the surviving xenos found themselves being herded, boxed in by fire and ceramite.
Then the heavy weapons spoke.
The Iron Hands Marine planted his stance and unleashed his plasma cannon, incandescent blasts vaporizing clusters of xenos and sealing escape routes in walls of superheated ruin. Beside him, the Ultramarine's heavy bolter thundered, mass-reactive shells chewing through bodies and barricades alike, each burst tightening the noose around the brood.
Surrounded. Bleeding. Broken.
The Alpha shrieked in defiance as it lashed out once more—only for the sound to be cut short as the Imperial Fist and the rest of the Deathwatch emerged from the shadows at its rear.
The Imperial Fist did not pause.
His thunder hammer rose and fell in a single, merciless arc.
The impact was cataclysmic. Both of the Alpha's legs shattered at once, chitin and bone exploding outward as the creature was slammed into the ferrocrete with enough force to crack the floor beneath it.
It screeched again, a raw, animal sound, and began to drag itself forward with its mangled limbs, ichor pooling beneath its bulk.
That was when the Howling Griffon and the Mortifactor closed in.
The Griffon drove his storm shield down, pinning the Alpha's torso to the ground, sparks flying as its claws scraped uselessly against ceramite. At the same time, the Mortifactor's power axe came down in a brutal, precise chop, severing another limb and rendering the creature utterly immobile.
The Alpha thrashed, its remaining strength spent in futile resistance.
Around them, the last of the brood was cut down—Storm Troopers advancing in disciplined lines once more, Astartes fire and steel erasing the final pockets of xenos resistance.
At last, the Alpha lay broken, alive only because it was allowed to be.