Witness Me! Father of Us All!

"For the Imperium! For Lorgar!"

Sergeant Slrax, commander of the Third Heavy Assault Squad, roared the words from deep in his throat. His Helmet's grille speaker amplified them into a battle cry laced with static and pure fury.

Like the wrath of an angel, his roar drowned out the shriek of Chainswords and the thunder of bolters, echoing through the uncanny interior of the Xenos white, streamlined Warship.

Slrax and every member of the Third Heavy Assault Squad embodied the faith and strength of the Word Bearers.

Their Cataphractii Terminator Armour made their already imposing bodies larger still, turning them into walking cathedrals draped in scripture and sacred icons.

Dense excerpts from the Lectitio Divinitatus and hymns to the Emperor were engraved across their dark gray armour plates. Every carved line spoke of boundless devotion to the god of mankind.

On their heavy pauldrons, the Word Bearers' Legion Insignia—a scroll and stars symbolizing "truth" and "proclamation"—gleamed solemnly in the dim light.

Their very presence was a holy Judgment upon this profane Xenos place.

"For the Emperor!"

"Crush them! Purge this profane place!"

At the command, the Space Marines moved as one.

Unlike the swift advance of light troops, a charge by Cataphractii Terminators carried an unstoppable, almost ceremonial weight.

Servo motors hummed deep within their heavy armour, like a church organ sounding the prelude to war.

Their boots slammed into the Warship's hard white floor. Every step made the silver-white structure tremble and groan.

Their first charge together was a perfect ritual of destruction.

"For Holy Terra!"

Twin-linked bolters spat deadly fire.

These were no ordinary guns. Tech-Priests had blessed them, and Word Bearers Chaplains had anointed them with sacred oil.

Their thunder was deeper and louder than that of common bolters, each burst tolling like a bell of holy judgment.

In the ship's relatively narrow corridors and chambers, their firepower was devastating.

Each bolt was more than Ammunition. It was a messenger of Revenge bearing the Imperium of Man's endless wrath and the Word Bearers' religious fervor.

The bolts screamed toward the pearl-white figures, ripping easily through their seemingly smooth, hard bio-armour and blasting the inhuman flesh and bone beneath into sprays of pale blue slurry.

Bolts fell like rain, sweeping down anything that dared stand ahead and painting cruel murals of blood and explosions across the white walls.

Disbelief and terror flashed in the compound eyes of the Xenos warriors clad in bone-white, close-fitting armour.

Their technology might have been strange and their ship advanced, but they had clearly never faced a boarding assault so brutal, so direct, or so steeped in religious fervor.

Human tactics should have meant duels between Shipboard Guns and bombardment from afar, not a band of heavily armoured Angels of Death storming their home to slaughter them face-to-face in the most primitive, violent way possible.

Their resistance was hurried and disordered. Beams of energy or jets of biological acid from their unknown white weapons occasionally left scorch marks or hissing pits in the Terminators' heavy armour.

But such attacks could not stop that advancing wall of death from firing as it came.

The Third Heavy Assault Squad was an unstoppable lance blessed by holy power. The entire Xenos defensive line was no more than thin silk before it, torn open, crushed, and pierced straight through.

They maintained a tight assault formation, their overlapping bolter fire leaving almost no blind spots. Any Xenos that tried to flank them or regroup were blown apart.

At the very front stood Sergeant Slrax.

He was the lance's keenest point, the crest of the wave of destruction.

He had forsaken ranged weapons, gripping a roaring Chainsword in each hand.

Neither blade was standard issue. Sacred parchment inscribed with scripture wrapped their grips, while prayers against the Xenos covered their toothed blades.

Now, as the Chainswords' engines spun at full speed, those prayers blurred into the killing arcs of the blades.

"Lorgar! Father of us all! Witness me!"

"For the Emperor! For the Imperium!"

His battle cry was an offering to his Primarch and the Imperium, the ultimate expression of his faith.

He charged less like a warrior than a sacred war machine gone utterly out of control, built for nothing but destruction.

The Chainswords whirled before him, becoming an all-consuming storm of death.

Any Xenos that dared enter his reach—whether raising a white weapon to fire or lunging with sharp limbs—was swept into that storm in an instant.

The Chainswords' teeth tore through bio-armour, bit through chitinous shells, and mangled the flesh and bone within.

Pale blue blood and scraps of organic tissue sprayed outward, covering the walls and ceiling around him in strange, profane patterns.

Dozens of Xenos warriors were reduced to drifting blood mist and wreckage on the floor before they could even loose their shrill cries.

His stride never faltered. Every slash and every cleaving blow carried him deeper into the ship.

Behind him lay only a reeking road of death, paved with Xenos remains and blue slurry.

In scarcely a blink, his once-solemn dark gray Terminator Armour was drenched through.

Thick, fluorescent pale blue blood covered the sacred inscriptions on his armour plates, dripped from his pauldrons, and ran in streams down his breastplate. He looked as though he wore a bizarre new coat of paint.

Were it not for the unmistakable Word Bearers emblem and his still-roaring Chainswords, his blood-soaked form could have belonged to a Legion warrior charging out of the Ultramarines.

Elsewhere, Chaplain Kroll led his squad aboard the Warship.

"Repent! Today you die!"

"Repent to our brothers! Repent to our fallen Legion warriors! Repent to the billions of Mortals who died because of you!"

Kroll held a Bolt Pistol in his left hand and a Chaplain's Crozius in his right. Legion warriors clad in Mk II Power Armour followed close behind him.

Bolter fire thundered in a steady rhythm, like dance music bearing the stench of death toward the Xenos.