Report In Alpha Primus

The air of Hive Primus VI was a tangible thing: a choking mix of ash, promethium fumes, and the coppery tang of spilled blood. Above, the perpetual smog-choked sky glowed with the sickly, bruised light of distant orbital bombardments and the ghastly green fires of warp incursions. Below, the labyrinthine under-sectors were a charnel house, concrete guts spewed forth, reeking of despair and daemon-filth.

Captain Valerius crouched behind a collapsed ferrocrete barrier, the vibrating thrum of a nearby Heavy Bolter doing little to soothe the gnawing fear in his gut. His Kasrkin squad was reduced to six weary souls, their carapace armour scarred and cracked, the light gone from their eyes save for a desperate, animalistic flicker. They were the Anvilbrook 14th, a regiment renowned for holding the line, but the line had dissolved days ago into a chaotic, sector-by-sector retreat. The enemy wasn't just infantry; it was a tide of corrupted flesh, squirming horrors, and blasphemous incantations that shredded sanity as effectively as las-fire shredded ceramite.

They were cornered in Sub-Level Gamma-7, a processing plant now twisted into a fortress of desperation. Outside, the snarls and roars of the encroaching foe grew louder. This was it. The last stand. Valerius gripped his lasgun, its power pack almost drained. Duty demanded he sell his life dearly, but a part of him just wanted the screaming to stop.

This is the end, he thought, the grim mantra of the siege running on repeat in his mind. The Emperor protects… but not always in the way we expect.

Then, a figure appeared at the shattered end of the corridor.

He wasn't a Commissar, though his presence commanded attention far more effectively than any shouted threat. He wasn't an Inquisitor, lacking the cold, clinical aura of absolute authority. He certainly wasn't a Space Marine, though his frame held a lithe, powerful grace utterly alien to the weary slump of the Guardsmen.

He wore raiment that spoke of ages past, of materials Valerius couldn't name—muted greens and greys, layered and practical, yet carrying an air of regal simplicity that felt utterly out of place in the grime and gore. On his head rested a circlet of silver, simple yet bearing an indescribable weight. His face was lean, etched with lines of sorrow and resolve, framed by dark hair. His eyes, though… his eyes held the depth of ancient forests and the light of distant stars. And in his hand, he held a sword.

It wasn't a chainsword, or a power sword wreathed in crackling energy. It was a blade of gleaming metal, simple in form, yet it seemed to drink the dim light and emanate a subtle, inner glow. As he moved, it felt less like a weapon and more like an extension of his will, humming with contained power.

He stopped before the broken Guardsmen. He didn't speak Imperial Gothic with the strained, clipped tones of an official. His voice was deeper, resonant, speaking words Valerius somehow understood despite the archaic cadence. It was not a language known to him, nor any tongue he could name, yet the meaning rang clear, as if carried on a deeper current of truth beneath the surface of language. He spoke of courage found in the bleakest hour, of an inherited strength, of duty not to a faceless Imperium, but to something fundamental, something right. He spoke of hope—not as a flimsy promise, but as a tangible force, a defiance against the encroaching darkness.

Valerius stared, jaw slack. He had seen men break and run, seen them fight with desperate ferocity, seen them die with quiet resignation. He had never seen anything like the transformation that swept through his remaining soldiers. The flicker of animal fear in their eyes was replaced by a fierce, burning light. Their shoulders straightened. They gripped their lasguns tighter—not in fear, but in readiness.

"He... he is not of the Schola," whispered Sergeant Mikal, a grizzled veteran who had seen his company annihilated. His voice was filled not with suspicion, but awe. "Or the Guard... or any House I know."

The figure turned then, his gaze sweeping across the corridor, fixing on the growing snarls at the entrance. He raised the sword. It pulsed with that inner light, a beacon in the gloom. Valerius didn't hear a shouted order to charge. He heard, again, that voice, speaking words that reached into the core of his being:

"Arise, inheritors of broken realms. Fight. For the dawn."

And against all reason, against the ingrained survival instincts of the 14th, against the overwhelming terror of the foe, they did.

---

Father Kaelen of the Holy Terran Synod watched from a concealed alcove further down the ruined corridor, his rosarius clutched so tightly his knuckles were white. His mind reeled, trying to process the impossible vision unfolding before him.

He had heard the whispers among the soldiery in recent days—tales of strangers arriving out of nowhere, speaking with voices that resonated deep within the soul, performing feats of arms that defied logic. The Commissariat had suppressed the rumours ruthlessly, attributing them to battle fatigue, warp hallucinations, or nascent heresy. The Ecclesiarchy had remained silent, watchful, wary. Anything not explicable by established Imperial dogma or proven Sainthood was suspect. The galaxy was a dangerous place; miracles were indistinguishable from daemon tricks to the untrained eye, and even the trained eye could be deceived.

But this… this was no hallucination. The figure leading the Guardsmen was real. His presence was undeniable. Kaelen felt it himself, a strange stirring in his soul, a resonance that felt both deeply ancient and terrifyingly unknown. He radiated an aura of purity, yes, but it was a purity that did not feel Imperial. It lacked the harsh, cleansing fire of sanctioned faith. It was… wilder. Older. Like sunlight on untouched snow.

He watched as the man—if he was merely a man—plunged into the wave of Chaos horrors. The sword sang, a clear, beautiful tone that somehow rose above the cacophony of war. Where the blade struck, corrupted flesh recoiled—not merely cut, but seemingly repelled by the sword's presence, as though the steel itself rejected their unclean taint, leaving behind charred ruin. The Guardsmen, moments before shattered and resigned, fought with a savage, desperate courage Kaelen hadn't seen since the early days of the siege. Their lasguns spat defiance, their bayonets plunged with newfound fury. They were fighting not just for survival, but for something else, something that man with the silver circlet had ignited in their broken spirits.

A saint? Kaelen's theological training screamed the question. He manifested many signs: the inspiring presence, the seemingly blessed weapon, the rallying of the faithful (though these were soldiers, not clergy). But where was his hagiography? Who were his parents, his mentors, his place of origin within the blessed Imperium? Where was the sanction? Saints were found, verified, their miracles scrutinised, their veneration managed by the Holy Synod. This man had simply… appeared. Like a seed blown on the warp-winds.

Or worse… a tool of the Great Deceiver? The thought sent a shiver down Kaelen's spine. Chaos could counterfeit anything. It could mimic courage, twist faith into fanaticism, use the guise of a saviour to lead souls astray. That strange, ancient feeling, the lack of Imperial fire—could it be a subtle perversion, a lure into unsanctioned belief? The Emperor's Light was singular, pure, defined by millennia of unwavering dogma. This man's light felt different. Potentially dangerous.

He saw the Guardsmen rallying around the figure, their faces alight with a hope that bordered on reverence. They weren't praying to the Emperor, not in that moment. They were looking at him. Following him.

This was the theological nightmare. Uncontrolled hope was the most insidious heresy, the kind that spread not by blade, but by whispered belief. A potential miracle that could not be catalogued, controlled, or preached from the pulpits without inviting questions the Ecclesiarchy was not prepared to answer. If this man was a true miracle, sent by the Emperor in a moment of dire need, then His methods were far more inscrutable, far less bound by sacred tradition and Imperial decree than anyone dared to believe. If He could appoint champions outside the established structures, what did that mean for the structures themselves? What did it mean for the authority of the Holy Synod, the Lord Commander Militant, even the Administratum?

Kaelen watched the charge surge, pushing back the initial wave of horrors. It was a temporary reprieve, he knew. The enemy numbers were too great. But for this moment, they held. And they held because of him.

His duty was clear. He had to report this. Every detail. The archaic dress, the unearthly presence, the ancient tongue—one unrecorded in any known lexicon—the sword that shone with unnatural light, the impossible effect on the Guardsmen's morale. He had to convey the feeling of it—the sense of a king returned, not from the Golden Throne, but from some deeper, older source of legitimacy the Imperium had long forgotten, or perhaps never known.

He knew the report would cause uproar. It would be debated, dissected, scrutinised for signs of heresy or psychic manipulation. It would ignite furious theological arguments within the Synod. It would raise questions for the High Lords of Terra themselves. Who was this figure? Where did he come from? Were there others of his kind? Were they weapons to be controlled, or anomalies to be purged?

The charge broke through the enemy ranks, forcing them back into the wider corridor. Captain Valerius, covered in gore but alive, dragged a wounded soldier back. The figure in the silver circlet stood tall amidst the struggling Guardsmen, his sword raised—a lonely beacon of archaic defiance in the grim darkness of the far future.

Father Kaelen began composing the words in his mind, the ones he would dispatch via secure astropathic channel. The words that would describe the impossible. The words that would shake the foundations of faith and power across the Segmentum Solar.

Subject: Unidentified Asset/Anomaly Designation: Alpha-Primus.

*Report compiled by Father Kaelen, Holy Terran Synod Observer, Sub-Level Gamma-7, Hive Primus VI.

Witnessed manifestation of unsanctioned individual possessing profound inspirational presence and unique martial abilities…

He paused, watching the figure rally the exhausted Guardsmen once more. He saw the hope on their faces. He felt the strange, unsettling rightness in his own heart, battling against millennia of ingrained suspicion.

By the Emperor, he thought, his mind struggling to reconcile the observed reality with the rigid dogma. What has been sent to us? And how in the name of the Golden Throne are we meant to understand it?

The Emperor worked in mysterious ways, the catechisms said. But perhaps, Kaelen realised with a chilling certainty, He worked in ways so mysterious, so outside the boundaries of Imperial comprehension, that they were indistinguishable from the darkest heresy—or the most dangerous, uncontrollable truth. And this figure, this Last True King whispered about in the dark, was the living embodiment of that terrifying uncertainty.

The battle for Hive Primus VI continued, but a new, deeper conflict had just begun within the heart of the Imperium itself.