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The shrill alarm echoed through the command room on the upper decks of the Flame. Red hazard lights spun madly, bathing everyone in the command room in crimson.

"Warp contamination detected in lower-deck sector D1347."

"Gellar Field check normal. A Warp rift has appeared inside the hull."

"Warp contamination has also appeared in sectors D1544 and D15009."

Captain Vomit Mitter of the Flame listened in silence to the reports from the command crew and tech-priests before swiftly making his decision. He reached out and opened a communications line to General Westad. "General Westad, a Warp breach has appeared inside the Flame. I need your troops to seal off the C0, C10, C20, C40, and C50 Gates leading to the middle decks. We will seal all remaining small ventilation shafts and abandoned passages, then alter the Gellar Field's output to overlay it onto the structural field. Your men must hold those gates at all costs. The area is too large to be covered by the Gellar Field."

General Westad listened to Captain Mitter's request and shook the cigar in his hand. "You can trust the Kasare Legion." With that, he cut the connection.

Captain Mitter looked at the holographic structural projection of the entire ship and turned to Magos Rotakos beside him.

Wrapped from head to toe in the Adeptus Mechanicus's distinctive red robes decorated with cogwheel patterns, Rotakos extended several metal prosthetic limbs into the ship's console. He immersed his consciousness in the vast flow of data and the machine spirit of the ship, feeling its pain.

"Can you determine how that Warp rift came into being?"

"According to the sacred machine spirit of the Flame, and my analysis of the sacred code, there is nothing wrong with the ship's equipment itself. The Warp rift was caused by an external force."

"An external force?"

"There is a 98.99 percent probability that the rift was caused by an exploding vortex weapon."

"Is there any way to seal it?"

"We have never conducted sealing experiments on a rift opened in the Warp by a vortex weapon, but we can try using another vortex weapon to create an annihilation reaction."

Listening to Magos Rotakos's cold mechanical voice, Mitter only wanted to block out his suggestion. Emperor knew whether those people who loved data more than human lives had proposed it merely to use this opportunity for an experiment.

Just as Mitter was struggling with the decision, the command room hatch opened.

An Inquisitor in power armor strode into the command room, followed closely by several elite storm troopers. "I have a way to seal the Warp rift."

"Oh! Inquisitor Vissi, that is wonderful. Please, tell us."

Vissi concisely explained her plan to the group. "In the material universe, every Warp breach requires rituals and blasphemous runes to sustain it. Though we are in the Warp, and that may not apply here, it does not affect my judgment."

"But why?" Mitter stared at the Inquisitor with an unfriendly gaze. He had already realized that the beautiful woman called Vissi was hiding secrets.

"The unrest on Karmaklan Agri-World was not merely a simple civilian riot. It was the result of direct intervention by heretics—Black Legion warriors under Abaddon. In our investigation, there were three locations that suffered rapid assault and destruction, but we only found two of those damned heretics."

"So the remaining one most likely infiltrated the Flame and used his blasphemous heretical knowledge to summon Demons aboard the ship?"

"Exactly. That is what I believe. Therefore, to seal the breach, we must push through every obstacle and destroy the ritual and runes. Even if we cannot fully seal the rift, we can at least reduce it as much as possible."

Mitter once again opened a communications channel to General Westad, while also contacting the accompanying Space Marines.

Apart from the Emperor's holy Angels of Death, Captain Mitter could not imagine anything else capable of fighting its way through an immeasurable sea of Demons to reach the destination.

Westad's face and another rugged, heavily bearded face appeared on the holographic screen.

"Greetings, honored lord."

"Ha! Boy, your ship doesn't seem to be in very good shape."

"My lord, Black Legion heretics have infiltrated our ship. They have opened a Warp rift within it, and we require your aid in reaching the lower decks to destroy the sustaining ritual."

"Black Legion traitors? Hmph. Then we most certainly must go. Our boarding torpedoes will fly straight there."

"Thank you very much, my lord. We will transmit the ship's structural schematics immediately."

Space Wolves Space Marines

As the coarse laughter gradually faded and the Space Marines' holographic screen shut down, only Captain Mitter and General Westad remained.

"You heard everything, didn't you, Westad?"

"Mm. I heard." Westad silently lit another cigar and put it between his lips.

He reached out and closed the communications screen. Westad began calculating how many brothers he would lose in this accident. One hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand? Or even more? Would all 450,000 Kasare Legion soldiers transported aboard the Flame die at those five gates? And even if they survived by chance, would the Inquisition and the sisters of the Ecclesiarchy execute them all?

Westad smoked bitterly. He knew he had no choice.

He drafted an order and sent it down to every regiment capable of receiving it. Then he lay back in his chair, waiting for good news—or bad news.

Just under half of the Kasare Legion soldiers living on the Flame's middle decks were constructing temporary defensive positions at the junction of the five gates. Thanks to the tech-priests' diligent maintenance of the alarm system, everyone had learned of the Warp contamination on the lower decks at the first possible moment.

The rift was rather far from the middle decks, so the Demons that had just emerged from it rampaged through the complex, narrow lower decks in search of any living soul. Once the sea of Demons had completely engulfed the impoverished people below, along with all manner of strange xenos and creatures, the Demons began slaughtering one another again.

After all, they sensed that this ship contained only so many souls. The more Demons there were, the fewer souls each could consume. The roars from the great melee between Khorne, Slaanesh, and Nurgle's Demons on the lower decks passed through layers upon layers of pipes and compartments. Those terrifying howls filled the Kasare Legion soldiers stationed at the gates with the urge to retreat.

Yet they could not retreat either. Setting aside the intimidation brought by the corpses of cowards executed by commissars, they had nowhere left to go. The ship looked enormous, but it was ultimately finite. Once the Demons broke through the line, it would only be a matter of time before they devoured them all. Perhaps the Demons would enjoy this game of hide-and-seek even more.

C0 Gate, the largest transport passage between the ship's middle and lower decks, was guarded by the greatest number of soldiers. Hundreds of Leman Russ tanks stood lined up behind temporary steel barricades. Hundreds of densely packed Tarantula turrets slowly rose from every corner of the gate's broad passageway, their targeting lasers pointing into the darkness ahead, where the power system had already been destroyed.