Egypt, Cairo.
The Middle East, where World War II had only just ended, should have been in the midst of reconstruction.
Yet the sky here was shrouded in an almost sickly purplish-red light.
It was as though some unseen presence had projected its will onto this barren land.
In the distance, the Nile River, the mother that had nurtured this ancient civilization, seemed to have been polluted as well. Its clear waters had turned viscous, its churning waves shimmered with an iridescent sheen, and beneath its seemingly tranquil surface, strange, uncanny shadows swam like indescribable monsters!
Hot winds swept grit through every street in Cairo.
Eerie purple patterns covered the ocher city walls, slowly writhing as though alive.
Anyone who drew closer to examine them could even smell what occasionally seeped from deep within the patterns on the walls and ground,
a fluid that gave off a sickly sweet, putrid stench.
Fine motes of pink light drifted through the air, but they were certainly no mere dust.
They were the physical manifestation of a massive outpouring of Warp energy. Every mortal who breathed them in showed signs of madness, tearing at their own flesh as though insane. Disheveled, barefoot, and naked, they raced through the streets and alleys or danced and contorted their limbs into all manner of obscene poses.
Even the fanatical believers had gone from devout prayers to ecstatic moans and broken screams.
Their prayers no longer carried any real meaning, nor were they addressed to the gods who protected Egypt. Those profoundly blasphemous, rambling phrases, formed from sounds utterly alien to human speech, all pointed toward one being... the god of love and desire!
Yet all these horrifying sights were merely an appetizer.
The colossal Pyramid standing in the center of Cairo, a structure bordering on a