Adept Solengar paused in his shuffling gait and flexed his thin,, arthritic fingers. The crowd of thousands in the huge boulevard swept instinctively around him like water rushing past in a fast flowing river.
Solengar was in his mid-thirties but looked like a weathered man in his sixties. Working thirteen hour days seven days a week had aged him. Long ago he had lost most of his hair. His dark crimson robes indicative of his position were given to him when he had first taken his position in the Administratum sixteen years prior. It was a good three sizes too big now but hid much of his build beneath. A hunched build which had more in common with a scavenging aviator bird than a human.
He took off his spectacles and wiped them clean before placing them back on his beak-like nose. Many in the crowd of adepts and menials on their way home looked up at the explosions in the sky but Solengar didn't.
The damned Planetary Defence Force were practising shooting their anti air weaponry again. It was nothing. He thought this while conveniently forgetting the earlier broadcast over the hive's live feed. An Adeptus Arbites Ornithopter had fired into a crowd of people only twenty kilometres west. Killing hundreds.
He had dismissed it. The Adeptus Arbites were amongst the greatest and most loyal enforcers of the God-Emperor's will. Those fools most assuredly deserved it.
Solengar moved on, losing himself in the swarm of bodies scuttling through out the hive. Above, the explosions continued on and the thick cloud of pollution which covered the entirety of Omnartus' sky riled and thrived like some living, breathing sentient being.
Solengar had never looked up at the sky.
Three hours later he arrived at the entrance of his hab unit. With a shaking hand he unlocked it and shuffled into the small, darkened cave. He was a man of order and work was his life so his meagre possessions perfectly arranged into shelves. A small window allowed him a brilliant view of the bustling hive outside.
Solengar shuffled into the kitchen and put on a pot of pre-made broth on the stove. He shuffled to the statue of the God-Emperor set on the table set dead centre of the hab and knelt before it. Made the sign of the aquila at his chest and began his daily prayer.
'God-Emperor may I, your humble servant, have your blessing. May you grant me the strength to serve you and resist corruption and heresy against your word and law. Because only in death does duty end.'
His eyes were closed as he carried on, so he never noticed the pollution above Omnartus disperse for the first time in thousands of years. A bright, light beautiful blue.
He never noticed the countless bright white bombs showering through the sky a second after.