Mua'dib arrived swiftly with his squad.
From a distance, they saw the Seventh Squad gathered in a loose circle, surrounding something—but none dared approach. As they drew closer, the target became clear: the cult sorcerer Kyle, clutching his head and emitting hoarse, frenzied roars.
"How's it going? Everything under control?" Mua'dib asked.
"More than under control," Cain replied with a shrug, gesturing toward Kyle. "This idiot’s been losing his mind over there. We held off—figured our damage output might not cut it."
He added, his tone turning serious, "Back in the Lower Hive trench war, even a full company’s firepower couldn’t scratch that Chaos sorcerer. This one feels worse."
Mua'dib narrowed his eyes. The psychic fluctuations radiating from Kyle were dense and unstable—dangerously so.
He paused, thinking. "Let’s try conventional weapons first. If I use Hellfire, I’m locked out for ten hours. I’d rather not burn that unless we have to."
"Say no more!" Cain grinned, already turning. "Brothers! Backup’s here! Let’s carve this thing up!"
A roar of approval erupted from the Seventh Squad.
"Oh oh oh oh!"
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
With a thunder of boots and battle cries, they charged.
Weapons came down in a unified arc—
—and stopped.
A sharp hum cut through the air.
"Buzz."
Blades, shovels, and crude weapons froze inches from Kyle’s body, suspended as if caught in invisible resin. The players strained, muscles bulging, veins standing out—but nothing moved.
Not even Cain.
His arms trembled violently, but his weapon refused to advance or retreat. Around him, the others fared no better—faces reddening, teeth clenched in helpless effort.
A twisted grin spread across Kyle’s face.
"Blasphemous creatures…" he rasped. "I will burn you beneath the gaze of the Void Lord."
A ripple of unseen force burst outward.
Cracks—sharp and sickening—echoed from the front line. Bodies jerked violently as bones twisted in impossible directions.
Then—
They collapsed.
Their corpses folded in on themselves like broken marionettes, hitting the ground with dull thuds. A heartbeat later, flames ignited from within.
No screams.
Only ash.
Cain was still standing.
Bound, crushed—but not broken. His ogryn-forged body resisted, trembling against the invisible force. Watching his comrades reduced to nothing, he bared his teeth and spat:
"I’ll screw your whole bloodline! Burn the biomass, will you? What’s your master gonna eat now? When he shows up, he’ll eat you first!"
The insult would have been absurd under any other circumstances.
Kyle ignored it entirely.
Psychic pressure surged.
A pulse of violet energy swallowed Cain and the remaining players.
Ash followed.
"Mua'dib—it’s on you now!"
The Ninth Squad didn’t wait. They were already running, forming a moving shield as they dragged Mua'dib back.
Within seconds, they had put hundreds of meters between themselves and the battlefield.
Their voices carried faintly through the distance:
"Don’t mess this up!"
"Go wild, Mua'dib!"
"We’ve got your back!"
Mua'dib watched them go, shaking his head.
"Is it really that bad when I use my skill…?"
"They ran," Kyle’s voice whispered—
—and then he was there.
Right in front of him.
Face to face.
"Why didn’t you?" Kyle hissed, his warped features inches away. "Aren’t you afraid to die?"
Mua'dib didn’t flinch.
"First, none of us are afraid of death," he said calmly. "They ran to save their gear."
He met Kyle’s gaze.
"Second—burning corpses is wasteful. If your master finds out you’re ruining his food supply, he won’t be pleased."
A pause.
"Third…" He frowned slightly. "I was trying to stall, but I’ve run out of things to say."
A small shrug.
"So—guess we’re done here."
His voice sharpened.
"Prepare to die, xeno."
A beam of crimson fire erupted from his mouth—
A vertical torrent of destruction that tore through the sky like a volcanic eruption. Heat warped the air. The ground split beneath the force.
Kyle didn’t even scream.
He vanished.
Erased—along with everything behind him—consumed in a single, overwhelming blast of Hellfire.
Far away, within the Trinity Foundry Workshop, Tech-Priest Reddito Assimia witnessed the event.
His red optical lenses flickered.
"Another one…" he intoned mechanically. "It appears he has self-detonated."
Untrained psykers—especially feral ones—rarely survived their own power. Most burned out. Exploded. Collapsed under the strain.
That had been the expected outcome.
But this—
This was worse.
The unknown psyker had stabilized.
Not safe.
Not controlled.
But contained enough to persist.
"A ticking time bomb," Reddito muttered.
As a servant of the Machine God, he despised uncertainty above all else.
"A Delta-class psyker…" he said, studying the readings from his hastily assembled detector. The values had fluctuated violently before settling at a deeply troubling level.
His mechanical arm twitched as he sighed.
"Unacceptable probability deviation. Survival chance: 0.7%."
He turned toward the distant stars beyond the window.
"When will reinforcements arrive…?"