Chapter Three: The Forge of Damnation
The Dark Mechanicum Forge World of Scoraphon was a grotesque monstrosity of iron and corruption, a world-sized factory of profane innovation, endlessly churning out cursed war machines for the followers of Chaos. Towering manufactorum stacks belched black smoke, the landscape teemed with mechanical abominations, and daemon engines roared with unholy life. The denizens of Scoraphon, twisted Tech-Priests and corrupted Skitarii, praised their Dark Gods as they worked to desecrate the art of machinecraft, believing themselves untouchable in their fortress of steel and blasphemy.
Then, the silence fell.
Across the darkness of the planet's surface, machinery sputtered and failed, vox-casters cut off, and servitor eyes went dark. The air grew cold, a chill beyond nature that seemed to seep into metal and flesh alike. Then, the Raptorus Rex breached reality, the spectral flagship materializing above Scoraphon with ominous purpose. From its shadowed hull, the Legion of the Damned descended like a dark storm.
At the head of the assault were Ferrus Manus and Sanguinius, their forms shimmering with ghostly fire as they led their Damned warriors toward the heart of the Forge World. Ferrus surveyed the landscape of twisted metal and corrupted cogitators with a gaze colder than death itself.
The corrupted Tech-Priests scrambled to mount a defense, their mechanical limbs twitching as they activated daemon-bound constructs and alerted the War-Forges. Cybernetic abominations, towering Castellax-class robots, and hulking Warpsmith dread engines stomped forward to defend the Forge World. But the Damned cared nothing for the defenses arrayed against them—they moved through them like a scythe through grain.
Ferrus approached the first War-Forge, his iron hands blazing with ghostly energy. He reached out and plunged them into the twisted metal of the forge's walls, letting his spectral essence flow through its logic engines. The forge screamed as Ferrus' will tore through it, sending corrupted code spiraling into chaos. Servo-arms went berserk, turning on their masters, slicing through Tech-Priests who wailed as their own creations slaughtered them. Ferrus twisted his hands further, warping the forge's systems until it tore itself apart in a storm of metal shards and ghostly flame.
Elsewhere, Sanguinius descended upon the daemonically possessed Titans stationed around the forge. The great war engines, bound by unholy rites, were sluggish to react to the ethereal Primarch's presence. Their corrupted Princeps, tangled in cables that pumped warp-tainted energy into their veins, attempted to bring the massive guns to bear, but Sanguinius was already upon them.
With a radiant, otherworldly grace, he soared toward the head of a massive Warlord Titan, his spectral wings leaving trails of burning light in the air. As the Titan's cannon fired, Sanguinius twisted mid-air, his blade of radiant fire slicing clean through the barrel. The weapon exploded, shrapnel scattering harmlessly through his ghostly form. He landed atop the Titan, plunging his blade through its armor and into the cockpit, where the bound Princeps let out a gurgling scream. The Titan stumbled as its life essence was purged by holy fire, its towering form collapsing in a heap as Sanguinius soared to his next target.
The Tech-Priests of Scoraphon could only watch in horror as their finest constructs were dismantled with ease. Ferrus Manus continued his march, an unrelenting force of destruction, his iron hands tearing apart daemon engines and twisting machine spirits into submission. Each time he reached into a machine's core, his spectral essence pulsed, infecting it with purity that shattered its corrupted programming. In one area of the Forge, a massive daemon engine reared up, an abominable mix of flesh and steel with a maw large enough to devour tanks. Ferrus strode forward unflinchingly, raising one iron fist, and plunged it into the creature's head. The engine buckled, shuddering as Ferrus crushed the core of its spirit within his grip. Without a sound, it fell silent and cold.
Meanwhile, squads of Damned Legionnaires swept through Scoraphon's production lines, their every movement shrouded in ghostly flame. They encountered twisted Skitarii, wielding blasphemous weaponry, who charged at them with the zeal of the damned. The Legionnaires moved without a word, their bolters spitting rounds of spectral fire that bypassed corrupted armor and tore through both flesh and spirit. Spectral Dreadnoughts thundered through the manufactorums, smashing their way through corrupted walkers and Warpsmith dread engines with merciless efficiency.
On a ridge overlooking a factory of possessed automata, Ferrus Manus stood alone. He extended his arms, his iron hands glowing with spectral light, and he began to shape the very metal around him. Pipes twisted, gears buckled, and cables tore as he brought the entire facility under his control, the machinery twisting into horrifying shapes. Ferrus had turned the Mechanicum's own creations into instruments of their destruction, reducing the factory to a twisted, burning ruin.
In another sector, Sanguinius landed atop a corrupted Knight engine. The daemon-bound Knight swung its colossal chainsword at him, but he danced out of reach, his movements swift and taunting. The Knight's Princeps, maddened by the Warp, bellowed curses, his voice drowning in the war machine's furious roars. With a single leap, Sanguinius launched himself toward the cockpit, his sword blazing. He cut through the Knight's helm, plunging his blade into the Princeps' heart and filling the machine with purifying fire. As the Knight crumbled, Sanguinius rose, an ethereal figure bathed in holy light.
As the Legion dismantled Scoraphon piece by piece, the remaining Tech-Priests scrambled for one last stand. They activated a relic of the Dark Mechanicum, a cursed Automaton of ancient design, bound with the souls of hundreds of sacrificed Adepts. It stomped forward, a lumbering behemoth bristling with arcane weaponry and cruel, bladed limbs.
Ferrus Manus paused, observing the construct with a cold gaze. Without a word, he extended his hand, and the ghostly flames surrounding him flared to life. He moved toward the Automaton, his steps slow, deliberate, and unyielding. The machine opened fire, but Ferrus merely phased through the hail of bullets and plasma, his form flickering in and out of reality. He reached the Automaton, his iron hands plunging into its chest. The ghostly fire spread, consuming it from within, until the Automaton exploded in a brilliant shower of metal and Warp energy.
At last, as Scoraphon's factories lay in ruin, Sanguinius and Ferrus met at the heart of the Forge, standing amidst the twisted remains of heretical machines and Tech-Priests. Together, they looked out over the world they had reduced to cold, flickering embers, a reminder to the Dark Mechanicum that no fortress was beyond their reach.
As the Damned began to fade, leaving Scoraphon a smoldering graveyard, Ferrus and Sanguinius offered no words of victory. Their work was done; their cold, unrelenting duty called them onward. In moments, they vanished, the Raptorus Rex slipping back into the Warp, bound for the next dark corner of the galaxy in need of purging.