Apart from its spire, the Hive City saw no sunlight all year round.
So within the Hive City, night and day differed only in the position of a clock's hour hand.
Faint lights flickered in and out of view among the tangled passages and buildings. The once-noisy factories had fallen deathly silent, and even the ubiquitous statues of the Emperor had been smashed or carved with blasphemous patterns.
But as humanity's ultimate solution for housing its population, the Hive City held billions of civilians, and not all of them had sided with the rebels.
As a faint uproar gradually rose from the entrance, civilians hiding in the darkness looked toward it expectantly, accompanied by scattered points of dim light.
As more and more rebels charged toward the entrance in roaring waves, the civilians' anticipation reached its peak as the distant passage grew clearer and brighter.
Then their hopes plunged into an icy abyss!
"Where did these lunatics come from?!"
The civilians stared, dumbfounded. When they finally made out the scene before them, that was the only thought left in their minds.
Because what came slaughtering its way through the entrance was no heroic Astra Militarum force, nor even the Planetary Defence Force, but a mob of bare-chested melee maniacs wielding oversized blades and axes!
Some civilians even saw a homemade rebel bullet pass through the surging crowd and strike a burly man carrying twin axes.
A faint red light flared, and he simply kept swinging those oversized axes as though nothing had happened, chopping the rebels charging at him into mince.
And when the civilians looked down the long passage, they saw over a thousand such lunatics.
Compared with them, even the rebels on this side seemed like the normal ones.
The rebels came in wave after wave, and the stench of blood thickened as the death toll rose.
So much so that newly arriving rebels were overwhelmed by the pungent reek before they even saw the enemy, showing obvious fear.
Among the rebels who had initially done nothing but charge forward, more and more figures began slipping away under various pretexts.
The most common excuse was returning to report.
Now, beyond the long, convoluted passages, several blood-soaked rebels with terrified faces stumbled into a small camp protected by defensive walls.
An insignia that had once belonged to the Departmento Munitorum lay smashed on the ground, trampled underfoot by passing rebels.
The camp's walls were packed with rebels standing ready for battle, holding all manner of weapons. Quite a few carried standard-issue Astra Militarum Lasguns, but most had assorted homemade firearms.
As more and more panicked rebels came running back, a furious outburst erupted from deep within the camp.
Clang!
An alloy goblet was hurled to the ground. A tall, burly man with obvious mutations on his arms rose to his feet and glared viciously at the subordinates who claimed they had returned to report.
Looking down at the pale, trembling crowd, the burly man flew into a rage:
"You might as well tell me the Astartes are here. At least then I might actually believe you for a moment."
The rebels below grew even paler. A few wanted to explain in terror, but when they recalled what they had just said, even they felt that it did sound somewhat unreasonable.
Furious at being made a fool of, the burly man demanded through gritted teeth:
"What do you mean, a bunch of lunatics glowing red hacked their way through the entire passage?!"
Ordinary mortals knew nothing of the names of the Four Gods. Even those who joined various cults often only earned the right to learn of their existence much later.
So they knew nothing about blessings of Khorne. They simply thought that every subordinate who had returned from the front had gone insane!
The rebels knelt on the ground, wanting to weep but finding no tears. Their lips twitched several times, but in the end, they helplessly swallowed their words.
Seeing his subordinates remain silent, the burly man finally lost his temper and kicked the table aside, scattering the Imperial supplies piled on it across the floor.
Picking up an oversized cleaver and a Lasgun, he kicked his way through the people beside him and strode out.
The surrounding rebels hurried after him. Seeing that he intended to face the enemy himself, those who had fled back all turned pale with terror.
The other rebels, who had stayed in camp eating and drinking well, followed him out with eager faces.
When the burly man finally hauled his bloated bulk onto the wall, the first thing his fiercely glaring eyes saw was the very scene he had refused to believe.
Deep in the passage ahead of the camp, rebels charged in endless waves from every direction throughout the Hive City.
But at the far end of that tide, where he was certain there were no lights, a dim red glow surged through the depths of what should have been a pitch-black passage.
As blood continued to spray, that red glow even seemed to surge more fiercely.
And the rebels, who should have been fearless of death after being beguiled by various cults, were beginning to produce large numbers of terrified deserters scattering in every direction.
Coupled with his subordinates' earlier terrified reports, the thought that these lunatics might truly have hacked their way here from the entrance made the burly man draw a sharp breath despite his earlier bluster.
He instinctively looked around for one of the mysterious preachers who had preached to him. After all, as a minor rebel leader entrusted with a supply depot, he knew a little about the names of the gods he worshipped.
Because now, after just one glance, the fact he least wanted to acknowledge lay right before his eyes.
A bunch of Imperial lunatics, bearing Khorne's blessings, had actually hacked their way through the rebels and were heading straight for him!
That might have been the truth, but the question was...
Did this make any fucking sense?!
Who blessed their enemies?!
With his limited knowledge, the burly man could not understand it. But while he struggled to make sense of it, Sith, fighting at the very front, suddenly lit up at the sight of the camp.
He hurled the serrated sword in his hand, its tremendous force cutting down two scrawny rebels ahead.
Then he grabbed a rebel before him by the throat and lifted him up, using the man's own long blade to separate his head from his body.
As the rebels before him crowded backward in terror, Sith pointed straight at the camp:
"The supply depot is right ahead!"
At Sith's words, the soldiers behind him hacked and slashed even more fiercely.
But that was all. Their faces remained relatively calm as they continued efficiently slaughtering the rebels coming at them in waves.
Although venerable Khorne was very pleased and had bestowed quite a few blessings, Sith and his soldiers had not succumbed to a frenzied desire to slaughter.
Sith had been a little nervous at first, afraid that his soldiers would all become mindless killing maniacs. But now it seemed that even his and his soldiers' resistance to Warp corruption had increased a hundredfold.
They were getting Khorne's benefits without suffering the drawbacks.
Sith led his men onward toward the supply depot, while the rebels on the walls poured fire down from above.
Although the dense barrage shot down some soldiers, more relied on their blessings and held rebel corpses before them, charging straight through.
Then, once they were close enough, a dense volley of blades, swords, and axes flew out.
Watching the rebels beside him fall in an instant, the burly man lost every trace of his earlier bluster. He merely tottered down from the wall on trembling legs, hoping to escape through the gate.
But just as he reached it, the gate burst open, and those red-glowing fiends charged straight in before him.
The one at the front, who looked like an officer, even glanced straight at him.
Startled, the burly man instantly dropped his cleaver. In Sith's peripheral vision, he moved with agility far beyond what his obese body should have allowed...
And dropped to his knees!
"Long live the Emperor!"
The burly man shouted in terror, but the death he had imagined never came. All he saw was Sith leading more men into the camp.
"Ana, come with me to the warehouse. Everyone else, take the walls immediately and return fire with the rebels' guns!"
Sith issued his orders quickly, and the veterans around him immediately carried them out efficiently.
For at that very moment, as Sith pushed deeper, the entire Hive City seemed to have awakened. Endless rebels were converging from every direction into a sea of bodies, surging toward this tiny camp.
Brunok turned, braving the barrage streaming through the gate and flying past him, and roared as he desperately forced the battered gates shut. Then he directed the soldiers to barricade them completely with corpses and building materials.
More soldiers ran up onto the walls, firing their weapons outward as the rebels' flying barrage wove bands of light that streaked incessantly over the veterans' heads.
Sith had no time to worry about the urgent situation outside. With Ana and a handful of veterans, he ran to the warehouse at the very heart of the supply depot.
When Ana used her Adeptus Mechanicus authorization to open the doors swiftly, the scene within emerged in a dazzling blaze of light. Before Sith lay a vast stockpile of supplies, enough to support an entire Astra Militarum army!