Inquisitor Dracus felt as though every breath he took was as heavy as swallowing a lump of lead.
The all-pervasive cold oppression of the Pariah Nexus crushed his soul like a tangible force, leaving him, a psyker by birth, barely able to think. He relied entirely on an iron will and his implants to remain conscious.
Around him, his warriors were all at the end of their strength.
They had charged into a carefully laid trap by Salas the Illuminator.
They had thought that storming through the portal would let them strike straight at the heart of the enemy, only to fall into a deeper, deadlier encirclement.
Endless Necron warriors surged in from every direction. The chill gleam of phase blades, the hum of gauss weapons, and the rustling of Canoptek scarabs formed a symphony of death.
"Hold the line! For the Emperor! For humanity!" Aphriel roared. Every swing of his power sword sent blood and wreckage flying, cutting the charging Necron warriors into pieces. Yet his ornate artificer power armor was covered in scorch marks and deep rents.
The Sisters of Battle's flamethrowers roared, incinerating swarms of scarabs, but green beams continued to claim their lives.
The Deathwatch's precise bursts suppressed the Destroyers in the distance, but their ammunition was nearly exhausted.
The Hades VIII Tech-Priests stood at the heart of the formation, their mechadendrites frantically linking into a massive Necron data-core array flowing with ghostly green streams of data.
Servo-skulls circled overhead, shrieking in piercing binary as they waged a brutal electronic war against the Necron system's firewalls.
They needed time—precious time—to download and decrypt the core data on the Pariah Nexus and the coordinates of its energy nodes! This was the ultimate objective of their mission, an opportunity bought with countless sacrifices!
"For the Emperor!!" A Tempestus