The Last Spark

When the soldiers of the Death Korps of Krieg, like silent ghosts, stepped into the enormous crater still billowing with thick smoke and reeking of scorched flesh, they were utterly stunned by what lay before them.

Nothing intact remained here.

The ground had been burned into black crystalline matter that gleamed like glass. The once-steel buildings had become twisted metallic wreckage resembling abstract art. Gray-white ash drifted through the air like snowflakes—the final traces left in this world by hundreds of thousands of Orks and several thousand human soldiers.

The entire crater was like an incomparably massive hearth that had been burned through. Everything inside had become fuel, burning itself away and burning the enemy with it.

"Report! Life signs detected! Very weak! That direction!" A soldier wearing a life detector pointed toward the ruins of the enormous central control room at the center of the crater and shouted his report.

Colonel Grim and Commissar Friedrich exchanged a glance, each seeing a trace of disbelief in the other's eyes.

There were still survivors in a place like this?

A squad of Krieg soldiers immediately rushed over. They used lasguns to cut through the warped metal and entrenching shovels to dig through the thick ash and chunks of concrete.

They soon found the survivors.

It was not one person, but more than a dozen.

They were crammed into a narrow space miraculously held up by a collapsed ceiling and control consoles. Their uniforms had been shredded into black strips of cloth. Their bodies were covered in burns, cuts, and blast wounds. Every face was coated in thick dust and congealed blood, making their features unrecognizable.

But they were all still alive.

They were the last surviving sparks of the 99th Regiment, "Cadian Pride."

As the rescuing Krieg soldiers pulled them out of the rubble one by one, none of the survivors groaned in pain, nor did any show joy at being saved.

Their eyes were hollow and numb, as though their souls had been completely emptied by that great explosion. Yet deep within that emptiness burned a strange flame that made even these Krieg soldiers, long accustomed to death, feel a chill in their hearts.

"...The fire... was so bright." One surviving soldier bared his teeth as if trying to smile, but black blood seeped from his cracked lips. "Big Brother... he... lit the Hearth. We... kept... our promise."

"Hearth? Big Brother?" Commissar Friedrich frowned. He could not understand the nonsense these survivors were spouting at all. It sounded more like some kind of cult code.

"Where is the Commissar?" Another survivor struggled to seize Colonel Grim's greatcoat, looking at him with eyes full of anticipation and fanaticism. "Our Big Brother... Commissar Alexander... is he still alive?"

At that moment, a weak cough, suppressed by pain, came from deeper within the ruins.

Everyone's heart leapt into their throat.

The soldiers immediately redoubled their efforts. When they finally shifted a massive, twisted metal plate, they saw the man everyone had been speaking of.

Alexander von Lawrence.

He lay amid the wreckage, half his body pinned beneath a collapsed control console. His distinctive black commissar uniform had become a heap of charred rags fused to the horrific burns on his body.

His left arm had been severed at the shoulder by a broken metal support glowing red-hot from the flames. The wound was a mangled mess of flesh and blood, seared into charcoal by the heat.

He looked as if he could die at any moment.

But he was still alive.

His right hand still clutched a flagpole burned down to half its length. The regimental banner of the 99th Regiment, "Cadian Pride," embroidered with the Aquila and the Cadian Gate, was tattered and riddled with holes, yet still hung stubbornly from it.

He seemed to sense the change in light around him and slowly opened his pale golden eyes.

His gaze swept over the silent, ghostlike Krieg soldiers around him before finally settling on the surviving soldiers of the 99th Regiment, struggling to crawl toward him.

An exceedingly faint yet deeply gratified smile appeared on his face.

Then his head lolled to one side, and he lost consciousness completely.

"Medic!!!" Commissar Friedrich let out the most frantic, undignified roar of his military career. "Quick! Save him at any cost!!!"

The postwar statistical report was soon placed before every senior commander at the subsector's temporary high command.

The report's contents were concise and clear, yet every word carried the suffocating impact of blood and fire.

[Summary Report on the Defense of Viridia Prime]

[Results:]

1. Confirmed elimination of the Ork warlord Iron Jaw Bonecrusher Grak and all clan leaders under his command.

2. Confirmed total destruction of the Ork ground forces that invaded Viridia Prime, estimated at between seven hundred thousand and one million. Enemy elimination rate: 99.9%.

3. The Imperial Navy participated in coordinated operations and has confirmed the defeat of the Ork orbital fleet. The Waaagh! threat has been completely eliminated.

[Our Losses:]

1. The 99th Regiment, "Cadian Pride," had a prewar strength of 70%, totaling 3,452 personnel. After the battle, 351 survivors were confirmed. Of them, 100% suffered severe, permanently disabling injuries. The regiment has effectively ceased to exist.

2. the Steel Temple in Agricultural Zone 7 of Viridia Prime and its surrounding facilities were completely destroyed. According to preliminary assessments, these losses will reduce the food reserves of the entire Taranis Subsector by 20% over the next five years. A large-scale famine is expected.

3. Commissar Alexander von Lawrence of the 99th Regiment was confirmed alive, but he suffered critical injuries and permanently lost his left arm. He remains under emergency treatment.

4. The report concluded with a handwritten note from Colonel Grim, commander of the 17th Siege Regiment of the Death Korps of Krieg, along with a mental-state assessment of all surviving 99th Regiment soldiers recorded by Commissar Friedrich.

Colonel Grim's note contained only one sentence:

[Upon my personal honor and that of the Death Korps of Krieg, I guarantee that the 99th Regiment, "Cadian Pride," fought the most glorious and tragic battle of sacrifice since the founding of the Imperium—a battle enough to shame every soldier of the Astra Militarum. Every one of them is a hero of whom the Emperor would be most proud.]

Commissar Friedrich's assessment report was much longer and filled with far more unsettling details.

[...All surviving soldiers displayed an extreme and abnormal tendency toward collectivism and personal worship. They refer to their unit as the 'Hearth,' a 'home.' Their commissar, Alexander von Lawrence, is regarded as their 'Big Brother,' a sacred and unquestionable spiritual leader.]

[...In their understanding, this mutually destructive explosion was not a military operation, but a glorious and voluntary 'collective sacrifice.' They believe death is not an end, but a return to the 'Hearth' in the form of 'fuel,' providing warmth to their 'family.' This ideology has completely surpassed the bounds of loyalty and sacrifice advocated by the Ecclesiarchy, displaying characteristics of a heretical cult that demand the highest degree of vigilance.]

[...In conclusion, I personally believe Commissar Alexander von Lawrence is an extremely dangerous yet extremely effective contradiction. He possesses a saint-like ability to unite people, yet employs heretical methods of bewitching hearts and minds. In only a few weeks, he transformed a group of battered remnants into a fanatical legion of martyrs capable of shaking the entire course of the war. But the price was the utter annihilation of humanity and the complete loss of reason.]

[...I recommend that, while he is being commended, the Inquisition must conduct the strictest and most thorough loyalty investigation into him. For I cannot determine whether he and his Hearth Theory will ultimately bring the Imperium salvation, or... a greater, more uncontrollable... fire.]

This report, so full of contradictions and shock, caused a tremendous uproar among the Imperium's upper ranks.