The Most Perfect Heresy

Colonel Karsten's method of reorganization was traditionally Mordian. He tried to restrain the recruits with harsh discipline; any minor infraction, such as standing improperly in formation or failing to fold a blanket into a neat square, would earn merciless "physical punishment." Yet these high-pressure tactics did not bring obedience. Instead, they provoked the deeper rebellion and hatred of authority rooted in the bones of these Hive City scum. They began to drag their feet, even secretly plotting small-scale riots.

Alexander's approach was the complete opposite.

He never physically punished anyone, and he even abolished all the tedious drill exercises. Every day, he merely gathered the recruits together, sat among them, and listened to them tell their stories.

"...My name is Zola. I came from the lowest levels of Terra's 'hive.' I never knew my parents. I survived by fighting mutant rats for scraps in garbage heaps. My only 'family' was my younger brother, but last month, he stole a piece of synth-bread and an enforcer beat him to death right in front of me. I killed that enforcer, and then they sent me here." A young man with a vicious scar across his face and a wolfish gaze recounted his past in a hoarse voice.

There were no tears in his eyes, only glacial numbness and hatred.

Everyone fell silent. Stories like this were far too common here.

Alexander listened quietly until he had finished, then rose to his feet and walked over to the young man named Zola.

He did not offer any words of comfort. He merely extended his cold steel left hand and gently laid it atop Zola's head.

"I know how that feels." His voice was soft, yet it carried a warmth powerful enough to pierce the heart. "That despair of watching everything you love be mercilessly crushed before your eyes, while you can do nothing."

He slowly raised his head and looked around at every recruit present.

"Every one of you is the same as me. You are orphans abandoned by the world, dust trampled beneath fate's heel. Your hearts are filled with pain and hatred."

"Those lofty figures tell us to forget our hatred and learn obedience. They say it is for the Emperor, for the Imperium."

"That's fucking bullshit!"

It was the first time Alexander had cursed.

"Hatred is not our sin! Hatred is our most precious, most sacred treasure! It is the only proof that this damned world has ever hurt us!"

"I will not make you forget your hatred. On the contrary, I want you to embrace it, feel it, and forge it into your sharpest weapon of vengeance!"

He pointed at the three hundred and fifty-one veterans standing nearby, silent as statues.

"Do you see them? They once had nothing, just like you. They are Cadian orphans, the remnants of war. But now, they have found a new 'home.'"

"In this home, we do not care where you came from or ask about your past. We care about only one thing—whether the hatred in your hearts runs deep enough, whether the flames of your vengeance burn fiercely enough!"

"Here, your hatred will be respected, your pain shared by all, and your vengeance will become the common goal of every one of us!"

"We will become each other's family! We will use everyone's hatred to kindle a massive Hearth, one great enough to burn this unjust world to ashes!"

"We will no longer be orphans! We will no longer be dust!"

"We will become—flames!"

"Now tell me, you souls abandoned by the world! Are you willing to join this family?!"

His words were like the most violent Warp seduction, striking directly into the depths of the recruits' battered, numb souls. The longing for "belonging" and "meaning," suppressed for so long and long forgotten, erupted like a dormant volcano!

"...I am!"

Zola, the wolf-like young man, was the first to drop to one knee and bow his proud head—one that had never bowed to anyone—to Alexander.

Then came the second, the third...

In the end, the tens of thousands of criminals and scum from the lowest levels of the Hive City offered their most fanatical, most absolute loyalty to the young commissar, whose left arm was steel but whose face bore a saintly smile, as though welcoming their god.

Colonel Karsten watched everything from afar, and felt an icy chill shoot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.

And he, Valerius Karsten, was nothing more than an irrelevant, laughable backdrop at the birth ceremony of this grand heretical cult.

Half a year passed in this bizarre atmosphere of half seawater and half flame.

Over those six months, the 99th Regiment of the Cadian Pride underwent an incomprehensible, earthshaking transformation.

Through Colonel Karsten's almost self-tormenting persistence, the unit's "surface" increasingly resembled that of a real army. The soldiers learned to march properly, fold blankets, and shout praise for the Emperor during parades. Their bearing and discipline were impeccable—so much so that even the Mordian Iron Guard's honor guard would have been put to shame.

Yet beneath that "strictly disciplined" outer skin, the unit's "inner self," guided by Alexander, charged headlong down a completely uncontrolled path of madness.

The Hearth Theory had become the unit's sole and supreme guiding doctrine.

The recruits no longer called one another "comrades." They called each other "family" or "brother." Their form of address for Alexander had also quietly shifted from "Commissar" to "Elder Brother," just as the veterans called him.

Every day's training began with a ritualistic "adding firewood" ceremony. The soldiers formed a circle and roared out their deepest painful memories and hatred for their enemies. Then, like a patient and persuasive priest, Alexander guided and elevated this "firewood" of negative emotion, ultimately transforming it into the resolve to protect their "home" and the purest, coldest killing intent toward their "enemies."

The three hundred and fifty-one veterans became the three hundred and fifty-one "warrior priests" of this "cult." They taught the recruits their battle-hardened, brutal, efficient killing techniques hand in hand, and used their savage scars and cold prosthetic limbs to show them the ultimate "glory" of "sacrificing for one's family."

The entire 99th Regiment became a highly unified, airtight fighting force filled with collectivist fanaticism. They were polite and disciplined toward outsiders, yet within them burned a destructive flame powerful enough to make even Khorne's maddest followers take notice.

Colonel Karsten saw it all and protested to Alexander countless times, even threatening to "report this to the Commissariat and the Inquisition."

But every time, Alexander merely smiled and used perfectly impeccable, almost politically correct rhetoric to leave him speechless.

"Colonel, I am only explaining the teachings of the Imperial Ecclesiarchy in a manner closer to the soldiers' hearts. Look—comparing a company to a 'family,' comparing the Emperor to the 'head of the household'—is that not the most vivid and profound interpretation of the word 'loyalty'? Do you believe our soldiers should not defend the Emperor's territory as they would defend their own family?"

Colonel Karsten was left choking on his words. He knew every word the other man said was twisted logic, yet he could not find a single loophole with which to refute him under Imperial law.

This young commissar was like the most cunning and adeptly disguised demon, wrapping his darkest and most dangerous heretical core in the holiest, brightest language.

He could only watch helplessly as the unit traveled farther and farther down a road entirely beyond his control.