"Alright." Grey nodded with resignation. He truly didn't believe there could still be civilians in that settlent. After all, there were enemies entrenched within, likely heretics devoted to so corrupted cult, the kind of filth reminiscent of the cultists of the Lord of Wisdom.
Even if the residents hadn't already been slaughtered by the heretics, there was the plague. How could anyone possibly have survived?
But if Phoros believed there were civilians still alive, perhaps there really were. After all, he was a Chapter Master.
"What's your specialty?" Phoros asked, his voice calm, though his eyes were already scanning the periter.
"I'm good at destruction," Grey replied plainly, his honesty blunt, carrying neither pride nor sha.
"Then you're staying out here." Phoros turned and gestured toward his squad. His battle-brothers were already assembled, ready and awaiting his command.
Phoros quickly issued his orders, ten Astartes would breach the settlent, locate and extract any remaining civilians.
Unlike many commanders, Phoros didn't simply send his n in, he led them in person.
And it quickly beca evident why he had the confidence to insist on this rescue op.
The ten Space Marines spread out as they advanced, approaching the settlent from different angles. Their speed was astonishing, their movents eerily silent despite the massive power armor they wore.
Grey couldn't fathom how Astartes could move so fast encased in such bulky ceramite plating.
In the blink of an eye, the Astartes reached the outer buildings and began breaching from multiple directions. Walls crumbled under their fists, doors blown apart with precise charges, windows shattered as armored forms poured inside like phantoms of death.
This was no stealth mission, Phoros never intended it to be one. As soon as they entered, firefights erupted throughout the compound.
Phoros himself scaled a two-story building. His ascent was effortless, his armor gauntlets biting into masonry as though it were soft clay. Before the cultists inside could even react, his right hand brought up a bolter. The weapon roared with chanical fury, each short, controlled burst of mass-reactive shells detonating inside unarmored flesh. Heretics exploded into fragnts of bone and at, the air choked with the coppery haze of atomized gore.
For those too close for ranged fire, he drove his power spear through them with lethal efficiency.
His movents were fluid and lethal, ducking, sidestepping, and weaving between strikes. It was not wild slaughter, but a dance of death, every pivot and thrust calculated with grim artistry. Each stab of his spear was precise, not just brute force butangles and montum to maximize damage with every thrust.
Every ti Phoros impaled a cultist, he'd use the dying body's weight to drive through the next, skewering multiple enemies in a single motion.
The power spear wasn't particularly long, but Phoros made it work. The first heretic was impaled and pushed forward, the second caught on the blade, forming a grotesque chain.
Once the last heretic dropped, Phoros yanked the spear free from the corpses and gave it a quick glance. The weapon humd faintly, alloyed tal catching flickers of light from burning prothium nearby.
This weapon was part of the resupply Qin Mo had arranged, a gift forged from an alloy resembling adamantium. Unfortunately, they hadn't yet figured out how to activate its disruptive energy field, so the weapon hadn't unleashed its full destructive potential in that battle.
Setting the spear aside for the mont, Phoros moved to the window.
A mont later, one of his battle-brothers smashed through a nearby wall and erged. Spotting his Chapter Master watching, the Astartes simply shook his head.
Phoros understood without needing words.
No civilians.
He sighed and imdiately lifted his bolter, firing at a structure two hundred ters to the right. The gun roared like thunder, its recoil a familiar rhythm against his gauntlet.
The bolt round roared from the muzzle, its exhaust igniting behind it as it accelerated in a second stage of propulsion. It struck a heretic carrying a lta charge mid-stride, detonating on impact and reducing the traitor to a cloud of limbs and gore.
With that threat neutralized, Phoros continued advancing through the settlent, moving alongside the sa battle-brother who had just completed a sweep of one district. They stalked through the ruins together, systematically eliminating any exposed enemies they encountered.
Whether through windows or by blasting through walls, they chose whatever route brought them fastest to the settlent's center.
Eventually, the ten Astartes regrouped at the central square. Official source is novelFirｅ
Not a single one had found a living civilian. Only corpses, only corruption.
It was clear, the settlent had been purged long before they arrived.
Without delay, Phoros ordered a withdrawal. The enemy was only now beginning to amass in larger numbers as the Astartes exfiltrated.
….
"Incredible combat performance," Grey said as Phoros approached.
He'd heard Qin Mo describe the might of the Astartes before, but seeing it firsthand was sothing else entirely.
It wasn't just their overwhelming strength, it was the way they moved as one. Their tactics, their coordination, they were flawless.
Sure, Phoros's plan had seed a bit reckless at first glance, but their execution had been perfect.
Grey reflected, If he had entered the settlent alone, he could have wiped out all the enemies even faster. But if he'd done it alongside other Thunderborns? It would've been chaotic. Each warrior fighting their own way, with little cohesion.
That kind of seamless synergy? That was the Astartes' real strength.
"No civilians," Phoros reported, then added more detail. "They were wearing flak armor, likely local PDF. Strange runes on their bodies. Advanced necrotic tissue decay. The central structure was basically a charnel house, mass civilian corpses piled up."
"Heretical cults?" Grey guessed imdiately. The signs were clear: the settlent had fallen to Chaos.
PDF turning traitor was no surprise. Hadn't the sa thing happened in the Talon System?
The plague clearly had ties to Chaos as well.
After a quick ntal summary, Grey comnted, "See? Told you there wouldn't be any civilians."
"Confird, yes," Phoros said. "But what if there had been? A child, perhaps no older than five, hiding near a window… hearing nothing but the distant echoes of heretics screaming, the pounding of boots approaching. The child clings to whatever thread of hope remains, waiting for soone, anyone to rescue her. If we had simply bombarded the settlent outright, that child would've died before the heretics even reached her."
Grey nodded. That logic was… actually pretty solid. Still, he added his own reasoning:
"My power armor already scanned the whole compound. It picks up all biological signatures and identifies targets, hostile or non-hostile. So…"
Phoros didn't criticize him for not ntioning this earlier. He rely held to his belief:
"Equipnt isn't always infallible. And if it fails, the price is sothing you can't ever undo."
Grey had expected that kind of answer. He didn't argue further, no point in debating the reliability of gear Qin Mo personally had crafted by hand.
He turned to the nearby units and began issuing orders.
"Ogryns! Move to my position. Face the settlent, raise your right fists, your gauntlets will begin firing."
"Ratlings! Pick off any hostiles trying to escape the settlent. No survivors."
With commands given, Grey turned toward the soon-to-be-bombarded ruin, reaching behind his back and retrieving a biomass extractor.
Sa kind he'd used down in the Underhive, to harvest samples from a heretic warlord.
"Lute know how to shoot! Lute not dumb!" bellowed the largest of the Ogryns, stepping forward and clenching his left fist toward the settlent.
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