Journal of Dante Stopheles, High Claviarii, Brotherhood of the Key, 9 367.057.M42

Per my duty as the keeper of hidden knowledge within our chapter, I stayed in my room, analyzing the various holorecordings, pict-captures, and remembrancer descriptions of our founding. The information contained within these detailed fragments could not be allowed to fall into the hands of anyone. Despite the fact that we had passed trials to showcase our purity as Astartes, were information to ever leak that we and others were formed from the remains of traitor legions, overzealous Puritans in the Inquisition would likely assail us with the help of their Chambers Militant. Not even the Millennial himself could save us from the fate we would be forced to experience, all that we had done becoming annihilated in a fraction of a moment.

It was for this reason that I had been entrusted with our chapter's High Claviarii, I would hold the most hidden knowledge of the Astartes chapters once forged by the enigmatic individual known as the Millennial. We had heard little of him since the initial expedition into the Eye of Terror - the formation of a bastion into the realm of Chaos itself, a strike back against the infernal forces that eternally plotted our damnation.

Half our number had been requested by another Inquisitor, a Miss Amberley Vail, to pursue reports of a Tyranid Hive Fleet festering on the borders of the Imperium. This Hive Fleet, designated as Perseus, had previously been encountered by the Ultramarines, who soon drove them out of the Segmentum Ultima and into the galactic fringe. Our goal, according to this member of the Ordo Xenos, was to determine the status of the alien monstrosities in question - find whether they had consumed new worlds unknown to us, whether they had fallen into a state of hibernation, or whether they had starved to death. We were also to investigate the lifeless world of Adri's Hope, believed to have been rendered such by a monstrous Tyranid creature over the span of three weeks.

Sent to assist us were members of the Deathwatch - black-clad Astartes fervently devoted to the proper extermination of the foul xenos. But these were not ordinary - several kill-teams of Blackshields were who found themselves on board our Strike Cruiser. A very unnatural number given that they were often considered to be the outcasts of their Watch, but their commander, Pironus, had apparently ordered them to come. To deny them would be an offense to some of the finest in the Orders Militant of the Ordo Xenos.

Rumors had spread as to the former identities of such a large number of Blackshields. The common belief was that they were outcasts from the Enclave, the Astartes discovered in the Eye of Terror as the remnants of the Abyssal Crusade. We knew the story well - an apostate managed to use his sly words to manipulate many chapters of our brethren into a futile crusade within the Warp rift, leading them to damnation as Astartes after Astartes fell to the corruption of Chaos. Only the Vorpal Swords had returned intact to denounce him as a traitor - all others were believed lost.

Yet we were blessed to know the truth.

A message received by the Millennial had indicated a loyalist presence on a world near the fringes of the Eye's grasp - on a Dead World known as Enclave. It was there that the four chapters whose fate had remained unknown - the Blades Eternal, the Chorus of Eltain, the Fists of Olchis, and the Prophets of Mercury - found themselves united in brotherhood, struggling to survive against repeated Chaos Space Marine attacks as their numbers were slowly shaved down. The ruins of their broken vessels littered the landscape of the world, and soon they shed their identities as individual units of Astartes, becoming the group known as the Enclave. It was rumored that other chapters, sent to the Eye of Terror for seeming misdeeds, had also found their way within the Enclave, becoming united in purpose rather than in chapter.

That said, we had not received any reports, publicly or clandestinely, stating that such Astartes were to be brought with us. Whatever their reason for being here was, there was no rationale to deny them. Not now, anyways.


Journal of Battle-Brother Allectus, Erinyes, 4 956.057.M42

My blood burned with a righteous fury, and my lips were barely able to resist uttering words of damnation against what we were witnessing. We had been ordered by Chapter Master Megaerus to observe the situation on the world of Belial IV. The spectral wisps of fallen xenos still lived on in this place, but our Librarians were aptly skilled in banishment techniques, sending the alien spirits back to whatever damnation they now experienced.

Below us, within a lifeless valley on the corrupt world's surface, two forces battled one another - forces of corrupt Astartes, once more experiencing their perfidious infighting that further twisted the Emperor's sons against one another. On one side stood a force of warriors armored in murky verdigris, their topknots showcased along with the many symbols adorning their armor. These were the 'True Sons,' a cult of Space Marines from the fallen legion known as the Luna Wolves. Despite our Father slaying his wretched son, still these cretins worshipped him as a god - and from what we could gather, they were here to sacrifice xenotech to the one they viewed as a deity.

On the other side stood a cacophony of Black Legionnaires - their equipment tattered and torn. The Oath-Broken, as they were evidently known, were the lowest of the low - not only had they turned away from the Emperor's light. They had also failed the usurper of Horus, the twice-damned traitor once named Ezekyle Abaddon. They were scum, not fit to lick the boot of a loyal Battle-Brother.

The True Sons raised a tattered war banner, the infernal Eye of Horus looking out upon the heavily wounded Chaos Space Marines before their leader raised a sword, pointing it at the Black Legionnaires as they rushed forward, ready for the kill. The carnage grew intense as the already tarnished forces began to slaughter each other wholesale, viridian and charcoal-armored Astartes collapsing to the ground from fatal injuries.

The leader of the Oath-Broken, who appeared to be a Chaos Sorcerer of some sort with a broken staff, raised himself up, engaging in combat with the nearest corrupt Astartes and sending a bolt of hellish energy through his torso. Internally, I smiled - when heretics destroyed one another, they were doing our work for us, thinning their numbers so they could be sent back to their false patrons in failure, their souls forfeit.

Brother-Sergeant Orion waited patiently for a critical moment within the battle, as the number of corpses grew and the number of combatants dwindled. At last, a sliver of both sides remained - the Chaos Sorcerer and two True Sons. With that, he gave the signal, our bolter fire raining down upon the unexpected foes. They were unprepared to protect against our attack, and soon fell to the ground, lifeless like the rest of their disgusting fellows.

"Pathetic Chaos-worshipping fiends." Sneered Orion. "Do they not realize their eternal damnation is at hand? Horus cannot save them now, nor can that accursed Abaddon." He enjoyed exterminating the vile traitors, that I knew - even as more Thunderhawks landed with reinforcements from the White Legion. I knew their origin - that their gene-seed had been that of the few pure Luna Wolves, stored away over the millennia since the heresy. I, as well as Orion, had served with the Millennial during his initial sojourn into the Eye of Terror. We were informed of what he had done - of how we were the last vestige of purity in the long corrupted legions of Astartes.

Librarian Aximus of the White Legion soon joined us, gazing out over the battlefield. "I can sense it. The pain. The suffering. He is pleased... They were... Here?" He fell to his knees as I soon rushed forward to support him.

"What? What do you see, Librarian?"

"Darkness." He responded. "Darkness comes. A tide of Chaos is sweeping towards this world. We must prepare for its onslaught."

"What of the Enclave? Are they..."

"They shall swoop down upon the world, purging the blight with bolter and chainsword. Rest, they shall not, for The Purge shall end only when the last darkness is cleansed..." With those words, he fell into a healing trance - his body wracked with an almost unnatural shudder as he fell face-first to the ground, shivering. Blood seeped from his nostrils, though breath still exited his lips.

Chapters of Astartes. Left for millennia within the Eye of Terror. The Relictors, the remnants of the Grey Slayers... even those survivors of the Abyssal Crusade who had never returned to the Imperium. That they had continued to fight the abominations of this infernal realm, with no support other than what they had been able to accrue, was truly remarkable, a testament to their faith in our Father. That their loyalty to mankind proved too strong for the heresy laid within the Imperium to subvert was... intriguing.

"We shall take the bodies of these traitors." Uttered Orion. "We shall cleanse their armor of heresy and preserve it for future use, should it be needed."

"Brother-Sergeant..." A question was now raised by by the young Porphyrus. "Why do we reuse armor that has been worn for millennia by those who abandoned the Emperor's light for the desires of their own hearts? Should we not stray from a closeness to such armor?"

"Whenever a piece of armor is still pure enough that it may be cleansed, the very sensation of the corruption being purged from it through the Rites of Perdition is an attack against Chaos. Those infernal enemies of mankind feel pain whenever their presence is driven from metal. There are some instances, admittedly, where the presence of the Great Enemy is so deeply entrenched within the ceramite plate that it must be destroyed instead of purified. Those are judged by the Purificatus. Weapons are also to be cleansed - depending on what they are. Daemon Weapons and the infernal contraptions of Chaos are never to be used - their destruction is of great import. And, in due time, we shall recover a relic of unimaginable import to the Emperor."

"A... A relic?" Porphyrus was confused. "Was our purpose not to exterminate a section of the Black Legion to further blunt a potential assault on Cadia?"

"Officially." Orion responded. "But we are here for other reasons as well." Looking up into the distorted starlit sky, he gazed out into the warped cosmos. "There is a world where a relic once crafted by the Primarch Ferrus Manus himself is located. That world is one we shall beseige - and one whose inhabitants we shall purge for the Emperor. The weapon shall be purified and presented to our brothers in the Iron Hands as an everlasting symbol of our support."

When the day would come that we would assault Medrengard, we would be ready. The Astartes of the Erinyes would be prepared to purge the Daemon World of life, slaying countless Iron Warriors along the way before reclaiming that which was the rightful property of the Iron Hands. We would gather with other Chapters, overwhelm them and utterly annihilate the vile traitors from the face of the galaxy. We would further cleanse worlds within the Warp vortex, dedicating their purging to the Emperor as we took them, using them as bastions for deeper incursions into the Warp. We would recover more artefacts of the Primarchs - of the Emperor's creation, perhaps, long left to worlds swallowed by the Chaos Astartes whose blood would be spilled as a sacrifice to the Emperor.

At least, as long as the Blood Ravens never stole it before we acquired it. But such could never happen.

Could it?