The battlefield was chaos incarnate. The air was thick with the acrid scent of promethium, blood, and the cloying stench of rot that permeated the very foundation of the hive world. Gunfire roared, chainswords revved, and the cries of dying men and mad cultists melded into a cacophony of war.
Kael ducked low, sidestepping as a las-round scorched past his ear. He had no armor, just the tattered remnants of his assigned fatigues, his body slick with sweat and grime. Astra Militarum forces surged forward beside him, their discipline holding the line against the horde of cultists, who charged with suicidal abandon, some wielding rusted blades, others bare-handed, their eyes wide with zealotry.
A heavy weight slammed into him from the side. A brute of a cultist, clad in flayed skins and grotesque bone trinkets, attempted to drive a jagged cleaver into his chest. Kael twisted, gripping the man's wrist and wrenching it aside, the blade embedding into the corpse-littered ground instead. With a brutal knee to the ribs, he felt bones crack beneath the impact before finishing the cultist off with a downward stab of his own combat knife to the throat.
Above them, the ruined scaffolding of the hive loomed, a maze of rusted walkways and crumbling supports. From above, another cultist dropped down with a scream, swinging an axe. Kael barely rolled aside in time, the weapon gouging the ferrocrete where he stood a second before. The cultist pivoted, snarling, but was immediately gunned down by a nearby guardsman. The man barely had time to shout a warning before another zealot clambered up from the wreckage, plunging a blade into his gut.
Kael reacted instantly, kicking the dying guardsman's rifle up into his own hands. He fired without hesitation, the las-round searing through the cultist's skull, sending them collapsing into the pile of bodies beneath.
The battle surged around them, but the cultists were unrelenting. More of them poured from the hive's broken infrastructure, scrambling like vermin, leaping from platforms, emerging from hidden tunnels. A fresh wave charged from the left flank. Kael turned, barely managing to sidestep a crude spear thrust before grabbing the attacker's wrist and breaking it in a single motion.
From below, a cultist lunged upward from a half-buried passageway, a rusted sickle flashing toward his leg. Kael pivoted sharply, stomping down on the cultist's arm, pinning it before driving his knife into the exposed throat. Blood sprayed, but he was already moving, weaving through the carnage.
"Hold the line! Keep them from reinforcing below!" A sergeant's voice cut through the madness.
Kael saw the truth in the words. The cultists weren't just throwing themselves at the Astra Militarum mindlessly—they were pushing toward the lower levels, deeper into the hive.
A massive, powerfully-built cultist, easily standing half a head taller than Kael, rushed forward, wielding a massive rusted chain-axe.
Kael knew he couldn't block the strike, so instead he dropped low, allowing the momentum of the wild swing to carry the brute past him. Using the moment, he leaped up, wrapping an arm around the zealot's throat from behind, his combat knife driving repeatedly into the man's exposed ribs.
The brute staggered, roaring, trying to shake Kael off, but the blade found his throat in a single decisive stroke. Kael dropped back to the blood-slick ground, rolling as another cultist rushed him. He grabbed a fallen rifle, smashing its stock into the attacker's knee, sending them sprawling.
In the distance, a guttural, unnatural shriek tore through the air. The cultists faltered for a brief moment before redoubling their assault, pushing harder. Something was awakening beneath the hive.