"Go catch some slaves. The lower decks need enough labour to get the ships moving." The grating voice drifted into the distance alongside countless swift figures.
The "Astartes" scattered. Moments later, only anguished howls remained across the planet. Tears of grief soaked the parched earth, and the stench of death swept across the world like a whirlwind.
The mutants fled in every direction, hiding in caves, ravines, and stone forests, desperately squeezing their thin, withered bodies into narrow gaps the "giant warriors" could not enter.
Farther away, great numbers of mutant slaves were being whipped into a long line, marching toward two long ships atop the distant mountains.
Two battered Lunar-class Cruisers lay "stranded" on this world. During the great incident when William's fleet had lost its way, an Alpha Legion ambush had succeeded. The brothers aboard these two warships had been taken into the Eye of Terror, but they had fought their way back out.
No one knew what they had seen. Once every Primaris Warrior had fallen in battle, the seeds of corruption finally took root within the Blackshields.
The Blackshields remained very "calm," strictly following Evan's development strategy: survive first, replenish their numbers next, and devote everything to growth.
He replenished their strength and repaired their warships. This was an obsession shared by all Astartes.
They mercilessly enslaved the surrounding mutants. After a fierce war several millennia ago, the deaths of vast numbers of technical personnel had accelerated this little world's social regression, until it finally lost the artificial light on which it depended.
The mutants accustomed to darkness disgusted the Astartes, but they had no alternative.
Among the many crew members originally aboard the warships, the corruption acquired during their passage through the Eye of Terror gradually began to surface. As time passed, more and more