Origins and Nature.
Basilica was a massive Fortress-Cathedral, once dedicated to Saint Revisen of Arkavon, a warrior-saint who led a crusade to Arkavon during the Saint's Purge. The purge had cleansed a massive part of the eastern-fringe of the alien and the heretic during the 38th Millennium.
In one such campaign it was said that Saint Revisen descended upon Thanos and correctly deducted that Chaos had gripped the world in its corrupted hands as the forces of the Dark Gods finally reveal themselves. The details about the Great Enemy's purpose or the Saints exact reason to fight a taint in Thanos when half of the worlds in the cluster was besieged by chaos was muddled in the past with a measure of truth and a more overwhelming fiction (as most of Imperial History was).
That was far as what Ekser Nero had divined from the ancient scrolls strewn through the old vault libraries which the madman Saint Marius the Marked had not burnt, or had forgotten in his quest for mastery over the world. He had found an ancient tome entitled the Hereticus Chaotica, a catalogue of events and deeds committed by the False Emperor's slave-saint detailed to the letter by some deluded follower of the Imperial saint.
He thumbed through the dog eared worn-out brown pages anxiously as his chirurgeons enhanced cortical-implants and his gods given ability to absorb enormous amounts of information in a short time, in a sense he was a genius.
According to the tales written by the deluded fool shed light on the events on Thanos over three millennia ago. The Word Bearers seemed to have been the villains in the imperial writings then too. They had descended on the world and propagated cults through out the cities of Thanos so that they may find a hidden artefact buried somewhere on the world and if the Word Bearers where looking for it, then it was indeed powerful.
The Saint supposedly had foreseen this and the location of the artefact was somehow revealed to him, thus he set about to build a massive warded and sanctified cathedral upon the location of the Artefact. By the hands of tens of thousands of Aquila marked workers who were personally blessed by the saint the massive Basilica was erected within mere days and was heavily fortified by the those members of the Imperial Fists who followed the Saint in force. The wards and anti-daemon litanies scribbled across the now faded and worn down walls of the Basilica were said to be written by Loyalist Space Marines devout to the saint.
An ancient Dark Apostle by the name of Ganadroh the Unforgiven, who had ascended to the status of a Daemon Prince, had led thousands of cultists and hundreds of Chaos Marines in a rush to claim the Basilica and the artefact. Imperials and Chaos forces clashed upon the plains of the world in a brutal struggle, which had broken down to a battle of attrition. But the battle was decided in a climatic duel between the Saint and the Daemon Prince, thanks to the intervention of a squad of Imperial Fists Terminators, led by some unnamed captain, the saint was spared an early death. However the saint managed to plunge a massive runed blade into the Daemon's head and end it's blessed time outside the warp.
Ekser flipped through the tome looking for anything other than the glorious deeds of the saint, he couldn't find anything about the so called artefact other than footnotes which said it was powerful and 'World-Rending'. He slammed the tome shut and sighed.
"Knowledge is powerful." a deep vox-enhanced voice interrupted Ekser's thoughts from the door of the vault. "But so are lies."
Esker slowly turned to see a giant, armoured form of a Chaos Marine framing the door; he quickly got up and bowed to the figure. It was the Coryphaus of the Word Bearers host, he was a mysterious figure highly respected by his peers and feared by even that upstart Morlon Degan. He was only known to all by the title of The Disciple.
"Lord, I was just strengthening my faith by immersing into unbelievers foolish lies."
"Indeed?" the Chaos Marine laughed.
Ekser swiftly moved his carapace armoured bulk out of the vault squeezing past the frame of the massive Word Bearer.
"Tell me Ekser, why the long face?"
Ekser was completely surprised by such a friendly question by such a highly held Word Bearer, he opened his suddenly parched mouth as he guessed a menacing smile form behind the horned battle-helm.
"My, lord Disciple, it is just that the battle is…well being lost." Ekser swallowed hard and expected a bolter shot ring out or a power-fist to squeeze the life out of him. Yet all he felt was a vox-enhanced laughter of the Word Bearer.
The Chaos Marine put his armoured gauntlet on Ekser's shoulder and squeezed lightly, he could hear the armaplas straining beneath the iron-grip "You seem a bit worried their, Nero."
Ekser really did not know what was happening "Lord, I don't…"
"Never mind that, but know this." The Chaos Marine's voice settled in a serious tone "All that is happening is in accordance with the plan. By the gods I will see it enacted. But I find your lack of faith in it disturbing."
In a sudden motion the Chaos Marine grabbed Nero by his throat and raised him a full foot from the ground, Nero did not fight back, he had enough knowledge to simply die beneath the grip of such a holy a warrior, such was his devotion, suddenly Ekser was shoved to the rock wall behind him.
"And by the Gods, I will see that you pay for such indiscretion and disbelief!" he raged as the helmet's eyepieces began glowing red "If it weren't for you having command of the Black Hand and the pathetic cultist dogs here and their need in the plan…"
The giant released his grip and Ekser fell on his feet "Oh and you will pay if you ever again show doubt or weakness with your soul as a plaything for the Gods."
"My lord, as you wish. I will do as you command." Nero croaked from his bruised and battered throat.
"I think you will." The giant said as he gently raised Nero. "I see a lot of death by your hands in this accursed place, for that I forgive you of all the transgressions you have committed. But remember Chaos is not an oft forgiving master. Neither am I."
With that the Chaos Marine strode of down the long hall toward the upper halls. Ekser finally sighed out in pain and rubbed his throat. He struggled as he got up and found his footing as he was stumbling away to find his commanders, he paid no more heed to what had just transpired, it was just how chaos worked and he had his duty to do. It was always so, it was natural to him, the abuse, the twisted logic, random berating and all of it, just a plan of chaos to mold him into what he was right now.
Forgetting that was his mistake and he was found and punished as always, but this from a higher authority, a Bearer of the True Word. It was natural for chaos to act in such a way, thus as a follower chaos he was bound to it by soul. Thus it was his nature too. He began formulating ideas on punishing the cultists under him and a faint ugly smile creased his scarred face.
Final Push
The Iron Gate of the Citadel had swung open and the floods of cultists hit the volleys of disciplined Space Marine fire and were shredded to pieces, lasgun wielding Cadians, stout-hearted Thorians and a Legion of Erathian Storm Guard took the advantage and pushed into the gate as heavy fighting swallowed the area. The entire compliment of two thousand Space Marines who had heard the call for Arkavon Star-Cluster liberation were present for what the Council Command called the "Final Push".
It was no more than a day ago that something the Grand Admirals and the Grand Marshals weren't expecting for happened. Adeptus Terra in all their bureaucratic madness had somehow decided to grant the Council Command the Crusader Sanction and they set about gladly putting it into effect, it was now officially a crusader force thus liable to an infinite amount of manpower and resources from the local Imperial Citizenry within their jurisdiction, yet they were liable to offer assistance to any beleaguered Imperial Force within the sector.
But this also meant that all the higher ups were oath bound to finish the crusade under the clause or else, heads would roll. Mainly it would be the higher ups and they were too happy with their lives to see it end in the wrong end of a commissar's or even worse an inquisitor's bolter.
Hakon's company and the rest of the 42nd Erathian Regiment or whatever that was left of the regiment, was formed into a cohesive strike force and amalgamated temporarily with the 42nd Helios Armoured and the fresh 34th Cadian Kasrkin Regiment who had been kept in reserve to exploit just such a breach. Their objective was far to the east of the massive Iron Gate, where most of the Imperial assault was concentrated.
They were to co-ordinate a joint strike to drive into the breach at the same time as the Iron Gate's assault began, which was right about now.
Hakon looked on in anxious wait for the signal to go off, a thunderous barrage of the 45th Artillery.
Which eventually followed the massive daunting walls before the assembled force collapsed into a smouldering heap as smoke and debris rose up over the cry of exaltation from a thousand throats. Black armoured figures armed with las and auto-rifles appeared over the walls and began firing into the press of men below as the imperials returned fire as the rumbling 42nd Helios Armoured Brigade thundered into the gap through the smoke, las and shell fire, their advanced machine spirits relaying targets to the lesser technically gifted machines.
The pride and heart of the Armoured Brigade was the Baneblade Eternal Will commanded by Brigadier Seth Vornal, an aged and battle-hardened veteran of many campaigns with a legendary skill as a tactician and commander only matched by his almost devastating anger. It was said, or rather whispered, that at the battle of Revix II when the chaos armour had broken through the Helios lines the acting commander of the 42nd had called a paniced retreat. Vornal had seen this as a slight on his regiment's owner and blew up his own colonel's tank for cowardice and personally taken the armoured unit's command and turned the retreat into a decisive victory.
The Eternal Will ws the first Imperial unit to enter the breach and behind it came three hundred armoured tanks and a hundred armoured personal carrier, all firing their guns in a furious storm of anti-infantry and anti-armour fire. First to meet them were the unlucky wall of Cultists of the Marked, behind them stood black armoured warriors of the Black Hand goading the masses of cultist onward to the feiry maws of the Helios tanks.
Hakon's was the first Erathian company to secure the breach. The Liuetenant reached the rubble mound at the breach as the rest of Sergeant Halvorn's platoon fanned out behind him setting up Autocannon and Lascannon placements. He had chosen the rest of the company to stay in reserve to exploit a break in the inner defences beyond the walls. Cadian Kasrkin poured past him and a few of the Officers nodded to him as the platoon blazed away at the masses of the enemy reforming toward a nearby tower.
Hakon aimed into the crowd of heretics who were clogging the tank treads with their dead and saw the destruction before him, he fired his Bolt Pistol and saw two of their leaders drop, discouraged the heretics began fleeing only to be cut down by arcing fire from the rooftops of faraway murky buildings.
Armoured forms of Leman Russes poured from a myriad other breaches through out the walls as a fresh flood of dark armoured Black Hand arrived goading even more miserable looking heretics on to the slaughter.
It was certain that victory would belong to the Imperials, but this was Chaos. Hakon had heard a lot about the twisting ways it enacted and its followers suffered to win a victory. His thoughts were stayed as a strange red mist erupted from unseen fissures on the ground, strange lights dances in the bodies of the dead as blood from the bodies of the heretics began ejecting out violently showering the Imperial forces in blood and body parts.
The Cadians were still pouring in through the gaps behind the armour, they shattered through the scattered heavy weapons platform of the enemy and swept into what they had least expected more tangle of urban streets, peppered with heavily armed Black Hand and hundreds of Word Bearers lined the parapets of the Basilica which had suddenly begun to loom over them. Strange impossible shapes appeared all around them, walls began forming and spikes shot up from the ground impaling dozens of the Kasrkin, random heads amongst the Imperial exploded as some of the Tanks began growing legs and vines, some rusted and some just completely disappeared. Other tanks began firing at the morphing tanks as some began firing back on their own.
Streets and buildings warped and turned into massive pits or maws. A strange feeling of nausea and the wrongness of the place swept through the men and some fell to their knees clutching their throats or cradling their heads in pain, some removed their helmets to vomit as others who were unconscious drowned in their vomits in sealed helmets. Some men just melted into a good of flesh and blood while others were slowed down considerably as if some time warp had occurred around them.
Hakon couldn't understand what he saw now a weird sense of disorientation and nausea swept through him, he could smell the ozone from the las discharges but he could also smell a sickly sweet aroma with a metallic tang of blood and a strange taste of sewage. He felt a weird tug on his arm and he turned to see nothing at all, as if a phantom ghost was pulling at him, he saw skulls instead of faces and blood erupted from the ground. Madness was rife within some of the Cadians around him who sought to slice their own bellies open and eat their own entrails.
Strange runes and forbidden litanies were scrawled on the every single surface of the place, even the Cadians themselves tore open their helmets of chest plates to reveal inscriptions burning into their skins a sudden silence descended on the loud display of battle as fully half of the Cadians within the Basilica's shadow exploded into bloody chunks of flesh and blood which began somehow attracting itself to the strange fissures on the ground. Many were lifted up from where they stood or lay and just burst into flames.
Strange odd numbered hands began birthing itself from the blood filled ground, leering horrifying faces screamed against the fabric of reality as shining multi coloured rifts began forming. Men were driven mad by a chorus of laughter erupting from evil throats of dark malevolence which sought ruin of all things. Promises of glory and whispers of infamy mingled with the certainty of death and the inescapable eternal torment destined for all.
Creatures strange and legion appeared before them some with blood dripping from every part of their bodies, others with a thousand mouths. Some looked like luscious women, inhuman yet alluring, who had claws for limbs and carried an air of violence about them, little gibbering goblin things oozing pus and phlegm began cavalcading around the dead as strange bat-like things with exposed muscle and sinew flew about picking up Cadians and feasting on them while in flight.
"Holy Emperor's Throne!" a voice swore behind Hakon. He slowly turned to see the Rashid clutching an Aquila pendant tightly to his chest while men about him began chanting prayers or forming the Aquila on their breasts. Hakon, still dumbstruck from the sight, turned back to the carnage as he fell to his knees.
Hakon began reciting the Saviour's Hymn. Because he knew that they were lost, the greatest enemy of the Emperor had materialised before him and he knew that nothing could be done, so he prayed, faith was his refuge. It was his only hope as he wept and looked on toward a legion of Daemons materialized before him.