A new world to claim. To new populous to subjugate. More change and chaos to sew. Advance the great game.
With the warp disturbance in the Pegasus Gulf’s hades gate – now the Hadex Anomaly – proving enough to anchor the great rift extending from the eye of terror, De’gis’ik’lik turns attention to the next goal. Leaving the newly formed daemon world of the black reef behind, the forces of The Everprescient flicker back to the warp, aiming for the Vigilus system.
Knowing the barriers between warp and real-space are still too strong to fully manifest, a herald is sent in the stead. This herald of change commands a multitude of the Permutable’s forces. The Daemons manifesting into the realspace on Vigilus, seeking to weaken the defenders there, and fracture the barriers between realms and let loose the Master of Difference onto Vigilus’ very soil.
The unrest on the planet caused by the opening of the war of beasts had weakened the veil enough for the Herald to claw into realspace. Lifting a formless limb, a slash of light appears and a horde of amorphous shapes fall into reality.
This particular sector of the Dirkden Hivesprawl was under-defended, having seen many battles already between the Genecult of the Pauper Princes the planet’s defenders and scattered forces of the xeno-hunting Deathwatch. The Herald and the newly summoned daemons quickly killed all in the area with shaped talon, claw, and warpfire. The scattered mix of cultist acolytes and lesser abominations were no match for the overwhelming numbers the Herald brought forth from the abyss.
In the moments after entering reality, after dispatching the military forces there, the Herald began searching the skeins for weak points to exploit to bring more and more forces through the veil. It was then that a small detachment of Deathwatch arrived, expecting to have to put down rogue cultists, but facing the shifting faceless horde of otherworldly invaders. Ruining the plans, the deathwatch forced the Herald to retreat before an oncoming wave of ork raiders swarmed the block.
Not to be discouraged, the Herald pushed onward with the goal of piercing deep into the city to establish a gateway using the damaged admech archeotech there.
Before a single step was set into the city however, the same deathwatch detachment from earlier – having dealt
with the Orks – had set up a defensive perimeter. Knowing that breaching the lines was of utmost importance, the Herald used the last of the available power to summon a storm of warp energy to hide the advance of the faceless horde.
The storm swept into the city, obliterating all sight and targeting sensors, allowing the hordes to sweep over the defenders and into the city, but not before the Herald dispatched the Deathwatch Leader, a librarian of surprising power.
Fortuitously for the imperial forces on Vigilus, Hivesprawl Dirkden was under heavy Genecult control, for should the Herald succeed and rip a hole in reality large enough for the Daemon Lord De’gis’ik’lik to step foot on Vigilus, the world would surely be doomed.
The storm had come from nowhere. What seemed like a localized planetside warpstorm had manifested over Apollon’s forces stationed on the outskirts of Dirkden. He’d lost contact with his advance squad, likely due to the storm’s interference.
“Bravo squad, on me,” he snapped to the veteran kill team under his command. “I need to see what is happening out there.”
Advancing out into the rubble of the outer Hivesprawl, Apollon began to feel uneasy. He could sense a warp presence pushing on his personal wards.
“Hold!” He ordered his squad, and began to throw up wards and shields around him and his battle brothers.
Just before he could fully shield himself, gouts of flickering warpfire descended over the kill team, incinerating a veteran whole, and incapacitating several others. He countered with witchfires of his own, but it was not enough. Seemingly stepping into reality from a hellish-looking tear, was an indistinct mass of flesh and tendrils. Raising a formless limb, which appeared to become an arm and hand as it did so, the creature turned to Apollon, and as it did so, he saw that it’s face – if it could be called that, had a manic grin, full of rotting teeth and cold lips, but no eyes.
“Foolish mortal” came a surprisingly melodic voice, before the mouth and face rotted away back to formless flesh. Warpfire engulfed Apollon and he collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. The last thing he saw before darkness took him was a horde of formless horrors clambering over the ruins where his advance squad had been stationed, the damned storm covering all behind and before them.
