Acervus was a typical Hive world. One that could be found in any forgotten corner of the rotten amalgamation of worlds that was the Imperium.

At least that was what Brennus had been told by his parents his entire life. It's not like he could go out and see it for himself, considering he spent most of his days toiling away at one of the hive city's many manufactorums. He wasn't even sure what they were producing there in the first place. He barely had time to care about it while he was too busy scraping by.

Such was life at the lower levels of hive cities, far below the heights where the rich dwelled, basking in their wealth and power.

Brennus hated it all. He hated the rich for having more fortune than him to be born among the ruling class. He hated the poor for acting like animals who lashed out at each other constantly in an effort to live to see another miserable day. He hated the filth they were given as food. He hated his demanding and meaningless work. And most of all he hated the Emperor, the 'benevolent' god they were told to worship.

What loving god would force his loyal subjects to endure endless misery day after day for no apparent reason? What did he give them to be deserving of their worship? He was a distant tyrant, sitting on his throne countless lightyears away, never having heard about their planet.

Such were the sentiments Brennus, as well as many others had carried his entire life. In the end it was only a matter of time before his self preservation instinct finally gave in to the realization that prolonged life would only mean prolonged suffering with no hope for the future. Ending it all would be the only way to escape this monotonous hell.

But the voices stopped him. The harder his life became the louder they sang. These voices brought him something he had long thought extinct everywhere in the hive but the Spires — hope.

At first the voices whispered reassurances into his ears. They spoke of a vague but better future. A future he himself could bring about. Then the voices started to tell him things. Things mortal men were not meant to know. And following the voices' instructions Brennus started seeking out people just like him, miserable and hopeless. Luckily for him, that was one of the few things Imperium was never low on.

Soon enough he had his own little group of followers. They did as he asked, and he did as the voices told him.

They worked hard day and night until, finally, all of their preparations were complete. All the necessary bloody symbols were drawn on the floor, all the chants written on pieces of peeled off skin. All sacrifices ready. All of it for one goal only. To summon their saviour.

Caellum Marcellus was no stranger to operations deep in hive cities. As an Inquisition acolyte he was intimately familiar with hive catacombs. Located far from any unwanted eyes they served as excellent breeding grounds for all sorts of cults that sprang up from time to time. He had long lost count of how many cults and would-be uprisings were rooted out by him and his colleagues in those putrid sublevels.

This particular operation seemed no different from many others he had been involved in. Just another cult with no apparent connections to any outside forces. Most likely a group of disgruntled citizens committing random and petty acts of violence in a futile effort to win the attention of the Dark Gods.

And yet the urgency with which he had been sent by his lord inquisitor hinted that there was something else going on. And so, after asking his lord about the true nature of the operation he was told that Alvina, another acolyte and a psyker who specialised in divination, foresaw a summoning of a demon that would take place in an abandoned chapel in the capital of the hive world Acervus.

And so the inquisitor and his retinue made haste towards the planet. After they had located the cult they dispatched Caellum to deal with the heretics.

And there he was, sitting in the Repressor APC along with a squad of arbitrators, waiting as the vehicle made its way through labyrinthine streets of the sublevel. Following their APC were three more Repressors, similarly carrying trained and heavily armed execution teams of Adeptus Arbites.

And while it would not do for an inquisitor-in-training to be overconfident and have their guard down, Caellum couldn't help feeling like the operation's success was all but guaranteed. His lord inquisitor even used his authority to equip the arbitrators with lasguns for this mission instead of regular stubbers. Four squads of arbitrators were more than enough to deal with the desperate rabble of pencil pushers and factory workers trying their hand at demon summoning. And even if they were successful and managed to bring something to this plane from beyond the veil it was bound to be a relatively weak demon, one he could dispatch with his own, admittedly limited, psychic powers.

But Caellum didn't let his expectations cloud his judgement. They would be cautious but determined in their approach.

"We're approaching the destination. ETA five minutes," the voice of a proctor informed him via the secured vox channel.

Caellum checked his bolt pistol and the power sword. The arbitrators around him did the same with their own weapons.

As soon as the vehicle stopped and the door was open the arbitrators spread out and around the APC. When all four squads disembarked Caellum spoke into the vox.

"Squad 4, stay here with the APCs, maintain the perimeter. Shoot anyone not wearing the Arbites or Inquisition uniform. The rest of you follow me."

With that the acolyte headed towards the derelict and imposing building of the chapel. The entrance alone was big enough for a tank to go through effortlessly.

As the squads formed up on either side of the entrance, Caellum could suddenly feel an involuntary shiver run down his spine. Not a moment later he could feel the metallic taste in his mouth. Long years of experience taught him that those were the signs of warp sorcery.

Turned out they weren't fast enough to prevent the summoning, but they could still send the demon back to Immaterium.

The last thing Makima knew before consciousness failed her was the roar of a chainsaw. It was a gladdening sound, one she had always wished would accompany her in death. And yet, why was she feeling so angry and frustrated? Where did those raw emotions she had not felt in years come from?

Denji.

Of course, it was Denji.

He killed her. Her. How could that mutt kill her? Why him? Why not the Chainsaw man? He was the only one worthy enough to kill her. Not some pup she had picked up from the streets. It just could not be.

'You may have bested me this time, Denji, but next time I will break you for good.'

"Finally! Yes! Rejoice, brothers and sisters, for our prayers have been answered!"

The sudden exclamation broke Makima from her trance state. After being brought back to reality she focused on her surroundings. She needed to figure out what was going on. She was still supposed to be on that graveyard, not wherever she was right now.

The man in front of her was the one who exclaimed. His clothing was something she had never seen before. He wore religious robes fashioned out of dirty rags and patches of human skin. His friends' robes looked no better, but with less eyeballs plastered on them as accessories.

The second thing to attract her attention was the language the man spoke. It was not Japanese, moreover it was no modern language. It sounded like a bastardised version of Latin. She could understand him, of course. As a horseman of apocalypse, the ability to understand human speech, no matter the language, was but a minor skill.

The location itself was quite peculiar. What looked like an abandoned church of massive proportions, built in gothic style. Makima found herself standing in the centre of a vast chamber. Even though it seemed like the chamber could easily hold hundreds if not thousands of people at once, it was apparent that the church had been abandoned long ago, with but a few broken benches scattered around the place and giant pillars reaching dozens of metres in height placed in two parallel rows.

But even then, Makima found the man's appearance, his language and the abandoned church somewhat curious, not worrying about it too much.

What did worry her were her contracts. Namely the fact that she could not sense any of them, as if they'd never existed.

'But how can that be? The only way those contracts could have been rendered null was upon my death. But how could I die if my contract with the prime minister made me practically immortal? And even if I did die why can I remember my previous life? Not to mention that this place looks nothing like hell.'

So many questions.

"Oh, powerful demon," the man addressed her. "I have summoned you here to tear down the unjust system and punish those who have shackled us. And, as a summoner, you must follow my commands!"

While the man spoke with loud and authoritative voice, his trembling limbs and sweat running down his face were much more difficult to hide behind a mask of bravado.

But he did say a few curious things.

'He summoned me? Interesting. I have never heard about humans summoning demons like that. But evidently, it does work. And what he said about following his commands, well that'd be hard to imagine. A dog like him giving orders to me? I shall teach him his place after I've extracted all the necessary information from him, namely where we are right now and how I can get back to Japan. If we're still on Earth, that is.'

But before she even had a chance to speak and take control of the man's mind, her ears picked up the roar of engines coming from outside. From the sound of it, it seemed like several large vehicles had stopped before the entrance, followed by dozens of rapid footsteps.

The man seemed oblivious to all of it. Either due to his excitement blinding his senses or just poor hearing. Makima knew what would happen next. And considering that she still needed the man alive to answer her questions it was too early for him to die.

That's why the moment the doors were blown open she grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him behind one of the colossal pillars. His friends were less fortunate as the intruders, whoever they were, had little interest in taking prisoners. Caught out in the open, all of them were soon lying motionlessly on the mosaic floor. With them dead, intruders started firing at the pillar Makima and her summoner were hiding behind, slowly chipping away at it.

"Wha-What's going on?! What's happening?!" It appeared the man was too shocked to form coherent sentences, so Makima tuned him out. She was already trying to come up with ways to neutralise the attackers.

And while she would usually not have any problems with a few dozen gunmen she had to be more careful now. With all her contracts gone she could only rely on her superior physical strength and abilities, inherent to her as the Horseman of Conquest. These abilities were by no means insignificant but without her contract with the prime minister she was left vulnerable. One lucky shot is all it would take to kill her for good.

But that was not all. Her opponents seemed to be armed with laser guns, like the ones she had seen in movies. And, having witnessed these lasers put down the robe clad men in quick succession, she had little doubt about their effectiveness.

Wherever she was, it seemed the technology here was far more advanced, meaning she would have to exercise caution in dealing with armed personnel, as she had no idea what other sorts of advanced weaponry they had access to.

Abruptly the gunfire grew less intense. It didn't take a genius to figure out the reason.

The enemies split up, with one group keeping her suppressed the other would go around the pillar to flank her position and get a clear shot.

The environment clearly favoured the gunmen. With such vast open spaces the only places to hide were behind the pillars which themselves were easy to outflank. So whether you attacked over the open area or stayed behind a pillar only to end up completely surrounded your fate was pretty much sealed. If Makima was limited to only close combat, her situation would have been indeed dire.

Unfortunately for her enemies, she was not.

Peeking out from behind her cover she could see that one enemy squad that was suppressing her took cover behind a pillar. The other two tried to outflank her from both sides.

It was her chance. The distance was too great for an accurate shot so the enemy would have to get closer to her. That was when she would catch them off guard.

One of the squads tried to outflank her by moving in short dashes, hiding behind the pillars of the opposite row.

As they were about to move towards the next pillar Makima made a finger gun with her right hand and aimed at the base of the pillar the squad was hiding behind.

"Bang."

She hoped to kill a few with her force blast once they showed themselves and force the rest to stay put behind their cover.

Instead, much to her surprise, the entire base of the column exploded into a million pieces like a plate hitting the floor. Needless to say the men behind the pillar had little chance of survival. Those who weren't turned into red mist by her force blast were torn to shreds by the stone pieces that acted like shrapnel.

The pillar, now without its foundation, tilted and fell, blocking the line of sight between Makima and the squad suppressing her.

For a moment Makima stood staring at her hand. She didn't put that much force into the blast, nowhere near enough to obliterate the pillar's foundation. What was the sudden power increase? Then she realised what was likely the reason.

The man who had summoned her mentioned something about an unjust system that shackled him. It was clear he was not fond of the local authorities and thought they enslaved its people. But instead of fighting the people who controlled him he summoned a demon to do the fighting for him. Why?

Because he was afraid. He was scared of the control the government had. And, if his late friends are anything to go by, he was clearly not alone in this sentiment.

This was too perfect. The more people are scared of a concept a demon represents the stronger said demon becomes. And as the demon of control, if such fear of control was widespread in this society...

Makima smiled.

In the meantime she could hear alarmed calls coming from the enemy. Several of them requested reinforcements.

Knowing she would be stuck here for a long time if even more of them showed up, the devil decided to be more aggressive.

And it appeared that the enemy had a change of plans as well.

Instead of going around the fallen pillar and facing her, likely in fear of being torn apart by her force blast like their comrades, Makima could her them gathering on the other side of the newly formed barrier. In the next instant several grenades flew over the pillar and landed right at her feet.

In the meantime she noticed the her summoner had enough sense left in him as he had fled deeper into the church away from all the fighting. At least she wouldn't have to babysit this fool as well as fight.

Before the grenades had a chance to go off Makima, now aware that her strength and endurance were both further enhanced by the fear of control the people of this world seemed to have, leaped over the fallen pillar and landed right on top of one of the soldiers, pinning him against the floor and crushing his organs.

As a devil, Makima's movement and reaction speed easily outmatched any regular human. With her enemies caught off guard what followed could only be described as a massacre.

She crushed their heads, tore them limb from limb, bisected and beheaded with her strikes. She was a bloody blur of carnage.

Of course she did not come out unscathed. Several laser shots tore through her flesh, leaving neat holes in it. One of the men, likely their leader, even managed to pierce her heart with his sword that seemed to have some sort of an energy field around it.

She kicked him in the abdomen, expecting to hear the sound of shattering ribs. Surprisingly she didn't, and the man didn't seem to be in too much pain.

Grabbing the sword hilt she pulled it out of her chest and threw it back at its owner. The man dodged out of the way. Then he did something Makima did not expect. He clasped his hands together and turned them outward towards her. The next moment a white-hot beam of blazing energy burst from his palms.

She barely managed to get out of the way but her left arm still got hit. She felt more surprised than hurt as she watched the energy vaporise her flesh and leave behind bare bones.

'Now that's unexpected. So he also possesses some unnatural powers. What devil is he contracted with? I'll need to take him alive and ask him all about it.'

Just as she lost her arm and the wounds started to accumulate Makima figured she'd have to heal now while she had the opportunity.

Dashing towards the closest soldier she pulled him closer and sank her teeth into his neck, his armour stopping her teeth for but a few seconds before giving way. The man went limp in her embrace. Then she turned away from his comrades so he could serve as her human shield. Done with the refreshment, she pulled away roughly taking a big chunk of his flesh.

After consuming the man's blood all her wounds healed completely and her arm grew back before the man's body even hit the ground.

While she was busy with that the remaining four soldiers came to a reasonable conclusion that they had no chance of defeating her and started to run towards the entrance.

And while she could have given chase and taken them down before they even got close to the doors, she decided to get the summoner and bring him to the exit first. Those soldiers would be their way out of there.

Even as he ran Caellum voxxed frantically for aid. Both his lord inquisitor and the local arbitrators. To his horror all the vox channels were filled with endless static and mad and inhuman laughter. Was it another of the demon's powers? Or were those its kin helping it by hampering their communication?

Caellum figured it didn't really matter at the moment what was the cause. They needed to stop the demon but Caellum sincerely doubted they had the ability to do so. The demon was stronger than anything he had seen. Logically speaking a cult of impoverished workers with little to no occult knowledge could not have possibly summoned something so powerful.

As Caellum and his remaining men reached the APCs and the men guarding them he shook his head.

'What's important right now is that we stop the demon. It can still be hurt and our Repressors' heavy bolters just might do the job. But then again I don't know how much the armour will help against its ranged attacks. It might hold, it might not.'

As he came to a stop before the arbitrator officer he started giving out instructions without wasting a single precious second.

"Have everyone board the Repressors. They will shoot out of the firing slits. The heavy bolters must be aimed at the entrance. Have you tried calling for help?"

"We have sir, but there seems to be some interference."

Before Caellum even had the chance to curse someone shouted.

"Movement at the entrance!"

Immediately everyone took their positions inside the APCs. Caellum stayed outside. Now that he had lost his sword his next best weapon were his psychic powers. He already wounded the demon once, perhaps now his fire could kill it.

Even if that failed he hoped a lucky bolt from his bolt pistol would finish the job.

"Everyone, don't shoot, drop your weapons."

It took a moment for Caellum to understand that that was the demon's voice coming from inside the church. Did it really think they would just give up?

It took him a moment more to realise that his bolt pistol along with more than a dozen lasguns hit the ground simultaneously.

"Good, now we can talk like civilized people."

With that the demon strolled out of chapel, a cultist who might have been the leader hesitantly following it. If it wasn't for the bloodied and burned clothing you wouldn't have been able to tell it had just killed more than two dozen elite arbitrators. The way it carried itself was also completely different from all the other demons Caellum had seen, though admittedly it wasn't that big of a number.

Even then all the demons he had seen had been feral in nature. They might have possessed intelligence comparable to that of a human but in combat they were always wild, chaotic and animalistic.

But even during the battle this demon acted and fought in an almost detached manner. Unlike other demons who clearly relished in the suffering they wrought, this one killed with indifference, like a human squashing a bug and then immediately forgetting about it.

It was terrifying in its own way.

As the demon got closer and closer it was apparent it had some sort of mind control abilities. Knowing his only chance was to catch it off guard, he prepared to cast his psychic flames. Once it got closer the flames would consume both of them. He'd rather be burned alive than let than demon roam free.

The demon stopped in front of him and spoke.

"I am very grateful to you and your men for saving me from this deranged cult," the woman smiled sweetly and pointed to the man behind her. "And I want to congratulate you on capturing the cult leader."

Caellum was taken aback at first but then it all came back to him.

'That's right, we did save her from the cultists! Of course, just as I expected the mission was nothing serious. Although we did lose some people... Wait, how did we lose them again?..'

Before he could remember, the woman in front of him, who was quite a looker, as he started to notice, gave him a smile so sweet his heart started beating that much faster.

"I would appreciate it if you gave me a lift. I hope it is not too much to ask?"

The man was quick to reassure her.

"No no! Not a problem at all! You went through a lot today miss. We'd be happy to escort you to safety. Not to mention that we would also like to hear your account about the events that transpired today."

Then he turned towards the cultist who looked more terrified by the minute.

"And fear not, we shall punish this heretic with the utmost severity for his transgressions."

"You do that, and in the meantime I have a few questions to ask you, would you mind answering them while we're en route?"

For some reason a part of Caellum felt irrational anger towards the woman. It was weird, she was the victim here and all his anger should be directed at the heretics who would sacrifice such a beautiful young woman to the demons.

Shaking his head he extended his hand towards the nearest Repressor.

"I'd be happy to answer your questions," even as he said that he felt a sense wrongness. Almost as if he wasn't supposed to share information with her.

The woman gave another disarming smile and proceeded toward the waiting APC.

Caellum, a few arbitrators and the cult leader followed her inside.

Not a minute later their APC set off towards the precinct fortress, the rest of the arbitrators staying behind to secure the scene until a clean up team arrived.

As their transport slowly accelerated he could not help a vague and strange sense of foreboding. Something in his mind urged him not to trust the woman sitting beside him.

Caellum sighed.

'I need to do something about my extreme paranoia.'