The broad main deck of the Mechanical Ark was carpeted in blood, with unrecognizable human remains and all manner of armored vehicles sliced open and chopped to pieces.
This was the only route connecting the Mechanical Ark's upper and lower decks, as well as the last line of defense for the warship's internal factories and sacred research sites.
The turrets and metal breastworks that had risen from the ceiling and floor had all been destroyed. The machine spirits endlessly let out creaking wails, yet no Tech-Priests or labor servitors came to soothe them or repair the equipment.
This vessel had become a dead ship. No matter which direction Tovens turned his ear, all he could hear was the symphony of blood dripping onto every kind of surface.
"I'm alive?" Tovens could hardly believe it. "I'm alive?" he repeated.
Gasping for breath, he staggered up from the heap of corpses. Nearly falling over, he steadied himself against the warped hull of a Chimera.
His own vehicle, the red-painted Emperor's Blade, had detonated during a blocking action on the Agrippina Forge World. That war machine, its hull engraved with countless badges of honor, had taken several hundred daemons with it in its final blaze of light.
Tovens stood there blankly for a while, waiting for his heart, which felt ready to leap from his chest and explode, to settle back into a normal rhythm. Then he found a lasgun in the blood and filth, violently shook the blood and chunks of flesh from it, and began recalling the desperate battle from moments before.
The Agrippina Forge World had shattered. It was an outcome even more terrifying than Exterminatus. This planet-sized factory, which had faithfully served the Imperium and produced weapons and supplies for tens of thousands of years, had collapsed under the