Chapter 143: Echoes of a Forgotten War

Humanity is the Emperor's currency. There is no redemption in the cold void of the galaxy. Every day the Imperium endures is paid for with blood, sacrifice, and unyielding faith.

Survival in this universe is never guaranteed. Extinction, however, is inevitable for those who falter.

Dukel understood this reality all too well. As a Primarch, he knew that true mercy was not in preventing death, but in ensuring that every drop of blood spilled in the Emperor's name was spent wisely.

Thus, when he seized a stronghold within Nurgle's Garden with minimal losses, it was not an act of mere conquest but a calculated expenditure.

The Ruinous Powers, despite their dominion over darkness, were faltering. The latest intelligence confirmed as much. Chaos forces had suffered crippling defeats at the hands of the Imperium, and even now, Warmaster Abaddon was rallying the forces of the Dark Gods for yet another Black Crusade.

Unfortunately for the Despoiler, his latest campaign had barely begun before running into an unexpected bloodbath between Tyranid swarms and Ork warbands near the Eye of Terror. The resulting three-way conflict left Abaddon's forces battered and forced him into a retreat. As they fled, they were set upon by Eldar, harried by the Necrons, and ambushed by countless other factions lurking in the dark corners of the galaxy.

Internal strife soon followed, and Abaddon found himself leading a desperate effort to suppress a rebellion among his own daemonic allies.

Dukel read the reports with an amused smirk. Even without witnessing the events firsthand, he could picture the chaos plaguing the Despoiler's war effort.

According to intelligence provided by the Raven Guard, Abaddon had not only failed to secure a single Imperial world in this latest crusade but had instead slaughtered vast numbers of xenos and daemons alike.

"Are we absolutely certain that Abaddon is not an undercover agent for the Imperium?" Dukel asked, raising an eyebrow as he set the parchment down.

The two Sisters of Battle standing beside him—Efilar and Shivara—exchanged glances, their disciplined facades cracking as they barely suppressed laughter.

"But…" Dukel mused aloud, flipping through additional reports. "It seems like xenos activity has been unusually high as of late."

His eyes scanned the names of various factions: Necrons, Tau, Tyranids, Skaven, and even the Squats.

"In the Emperor's name, why have these pests not been eradicated yet?"

Sighing, Dukel retrieved a particular report and set it on the table before looking back at Efilar.

"Are you absolutely certain this isn't some elaborate joke?"

The Sister of Battle stiffened. "My Lord, I swear upon my honor that this information is accurate."

Dukel frowned as he read further. "The combined forces of the Imperial Knights, the White Scars, the Raven Guard, and the Catachan Jungle Fighters… defeated by the Tau Empire?"

His expression darkened. "And Shadowsun—their so-called supreme tactician—not only bested an entire Raven Guard company but personally assassinated their Chapter Master? This cost us a Commander Star?"

Efilar nodded solemnly.

Dukel exhaled sharply, his patience wearing thin. "The Raven Guard—masters of stealth and subterfuge—counter-assassinated by the xenos? Their Chapter Master eliminated? And by the Tau of all species?"

His fingers drummed against the table as he muttered, "Have those crow cubs been branded with the Butcher's Nails? If I tell Clarks about this, my poor brother might die of rage within the Warp."

Dukel knew the Raven King well. Clarks, though often reserved, was not a forgiving man. This disgrace would wound his pride deeply.

The Primarch's instincts told him there was more to this than mere battlefield misfortune. Even with the Imperium's decline, the Adeptus Astartes were still far beyond the Tau's ability to challenge directly.

Yes, the xenos had progressed rapidly in recent centuries, but to deal such a crushing blow to the Imperium? That was an anomaly.

Dukel tapped his fingers against the report, deep in thought.

"Efilar, issue a directive to our intelligence operatives. The Tau warrant closer scrutiny. Something is empowering them beyond their natural limitations."

His marble-like features hardened. "Let me crack open their skulls, and we shall uncover all their secrets."

"At once, my Lord."

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the galaxy, the Tau remained blissfully unaware of the storm that was about to descend upon them.

A hidden world deep within the Great Rift had just received unexpected guests—Commander Shadowsun and her fleet.

The world in question had been occupied by Skaven, a wretched species of verminous xenos. Their extermination was swift and effortless.

As her forces gathered resources and processed prisoners, Shadowsun's gaze drifted toward the towering mountains in the distance.

She had always been a warrior of the Tau Empire—calm, logical, and unwavering in her belief in the Greater Good. But since her latest victory over the Imperium, something had changed.

A whispering presence gnawed at her mind, bringing visions she could not explain. She saw fire consuming the Tau Empire, their worlds reduced to smoldering ruins.

And in the midst of the devastation, stood the warriors of the Imperium—giants clad in ceramite, their eyes burning with righteous fury. They moved through the wreckage of the Empire as if its destruction had been ordained, their towering forms casting shadows over the broken bodies of her people.

A cold dread filled her. It was not merely fear—it was certainty. A doom she could not escape.

The nightmares grew worse with each passing day. Even in her waking moments, she saw flashes of destruction: fleets torn asunder, the Fire Caste slaughtered, the Greater Good reduced to nothing but ashes.

And it had all begun after her fateful battle with the Space Marines.

Shadowsun told no one. This affliction could be dismissed as a mere strain on her mind, and she would not allow herself to be seen as weak. Not now.

But she needed answers.

The whispers in her heart guided her here—to this forsaken world and the forbidden mountain known as The Ashen Peak.

Local Skaven legends warned of its curse. Those who approached either perished or went mad.

Shadowsun sneered at such superstitions. The Tau were children of logic and reason, not fearful primitives who trembled at myths.

Yet when her fleet scanned the world, the results left her unsettled.

"Commander, according to our instruments, there are no mountains on this planet—only vast plains."

Shadowsun narrowed her eyes at the officer's report. An anomaly. Something hidden.

"It must be advanced cloaking technology," she reasoned, more for the benefit of her subordinates than herself.

Regardless, she had come too far to turn back.

"Prepare a landing party," Shadowsun ordered. "I will see what lies within the Ashen Peak myself."

The Tau disembarked, marching into a world that was already watching them back.

Two crimson suns burned in the sky, casting an eerie glow over the scorched wasteland.

As Shadowsun pressed forward, the wind howled through the dry terrain. Low bushes and skeletal trees lined their path, and in the distance, the unseen mountain loomed.

She had expected resistance.

But there was only silence.

And something waiting for her beyond the veil of reality.

"The Greater Good"

Shadowsun climbed over ridge after ridge, her warriors following closely behind. When they finally reached the foot of the mountains, a sight unlike any they had ever witnessed unfolded before them.

Even for the battle-hardened warriors of the Fire Caste, what lay ahead was staggering.

Before them stretched an ancient and terrible battlefield, vast beyond comprehension. It was not merely expansive—it was distorted, the space itself warped by unknown technologies, hidden within the fabric of reality. This anomaly explained why even the most advanced scanning arrays of the Tau Empire had failed to detect it.

Countless human corpses littered the battlefield, their remains untouched by time. Monolithic war machines, now rusted husks, stood in grim testimony to the ferocity of the conflict. It was a graveyard of giants, a silent testament to a war beyond mortal reckoning.

At the heart of this field of devastation, a colossal mountain speared into the sky. An unnatural force field enveloped its peak, shrouding it in an eerie haze between reality and illusion. One glance at it was enough to unsettle even the most disciplined minds.

The Tau warriors found themselves at a loss for words.

They had long dismissed the Imperium as a decaying relic, bloated and stagnant. Yet, confronted with this battlefield—a relic of humanity's past—they were forced to acknowledge a bitter truth: the Tau Empire was but an infant before the ancient might of the Imperium of Man.

Still, they held firm to their conviction. The Imperium was vast, yes, but it was fractured, rotting from within. The future belonged to the Tau. The Greater Good would prevail.

Their march through the battlefield was slow and reverent. The dead, unyielding to time, remained frozen in their final acts of defiance. These warriors had perished not in fear, but in unwavering resistance.

Amidst this desolation, Shadowsun and her warriors pressed on.

It was then that they discovered the ruins.

Buried beneath centuries of dust and debris, a shattered city sprawled before them. Despite the erosion of time, the unmistakable marks of the Imperium were everywhere—towering structures built in defiance of entropy, gothic spires that had once loomed over the battlefield, their presence a silent reminder of humanity's unrelenting will.

Shadowsun remained outwardly calm, but within, her mind was ablaze with questions.

What had transpired here? What enemy had these fearsome humans fought? What kind of war had demanded such a price?

No matter how advanced Tau technology had become, it could not yet replicate such architectural feats. Even in ruin, the sheer scale of the structures spoke of a power beyond their own.

The more she saw, the more uneasy she became.

Despite their ideological disdain for the Imperium, Shadowsun could not deny that she was grateful. Grateful that this vast empire was too preoccupied with its endless wars to turn its full attention to the Tau.

As she ventured deeper into the ruins, the visions came.

They were not mere hallucinations. They felt real—more real than the crumbling structures around her. A voice, ancient and insidious, slithered into the depths of her mind, growing clearer with each step.

Then they found the altar.

It loomed at the heart of the ruins, inscribed with labyrinthine symbols that defied reason. Around it stood banners, tattered but unmistakable. She recognized some—White Scars, Raven Guard, Space Wolves. Others were unknown to her, but she had no doubt they too belonged to the Emperor's Space Marines.

Nine banners.

Nine Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes had once stood on this ground.

Shadowsun struggled to comprehend the implications. A force of this scale would have dwarfed any known Tau military campaign.

Then she saw it.

A viscous black liquid oozed from the altar's engravings, slithering along its lines like a living thing.

Her warriors reacted immediately, activating their scanners to analyze the strange substance.

But their instruments returned nothing. No matter how they adjusted their readings, the black liquid did not exist.

A Fire Warrior took a cautious step back, his voice taut with unease. "Commander, we should leave."

A primal fear clawed at the edges of their minds, a terror deeper than reason. It was as if something ancient and malignant was watching them, its presence pressing upon their very souls.

Shadowsun's expression remained impassive. "Wait here."

Without hesitation, she stepped onto the altar.

The moment her foot touched its surface, the entire structure moved.

A surge of unseen energy coursed through it, breathing terrible life into the ruin. Whispers coiled around her mind, voices without origin. They knew her, understood her. She could feel their presence—unseen eyes, grasping hands, a multitude of formless entities watching.

Her warriors recoiled, their visors frantically scanning, but there was nothing to see. The Fire Caste, so proud, so disciplined, were reduced to lost children in the dark.

She refused to falter.

"Enough of your tricks," she declared coldly. "Those who walk the path of the Greater Good fear no enemy."

The shadows swelled.

A figure emerged from the writhing blackness, its form barely distinguishable from the seething mass that birthed it.

"Who are you?" Shadowsun demanded, though every fiber of her being screamed at her to run.

The figure laughed—or rather, the laughter manifested within her mind, bypassing the need for sound.

"You do not need to know who I am," it said. "You came seeking answers, did you not?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Your sorcery does not frighten me. I will not be made a pawn of whatever foul force you serve."

The shadow chuckled again. "You already know what I am. You merely refuse to admit it."

Her heart pounded. The Tau did not believe in gods, nor in daemons. And yet…

"I have seen the future," the figure continued. "The end of your kind, the ruin of your cities. Your people reduced to ash beneath the gaze of a single man."

Visions seared through her mind. Tau worlds, engulfed in flames. Her kin, screaming, burning. A lone figure, clad in ceramite, his expression cold, his will absolute.

The annihilation of the Tau, at his hands.

Shadowsun's voice was barely a whisper. "How do we stop him?"

The shadow was silent for a long moment.

Then, with something almost like amusement, it answered. "Lead him to a place of my choosing. That is all."

Her mind raced. "That's it?"

"In truth, it is everything."

Shadowsun exhaled, steadying herself. "And if we do as you ask… what do we gain?"

The entity's next words sent a chill through her soul.

"Survival."

A heavy silence followed.

After what felt like an eternity, Shadowsun spoke, her voice quiet yet firm.

"…No price is greater than that."