The sarcophagus groaned, a grinding protest of ancient metal against the crushing weight of centuries. Fine cracks spiderwebbed across its obsidian shell, each fissure glowing with an internal, malevolent green light. A low hum vibrated through the stone floor of the desecrated shrine, a sound that resonated deep within the Slayer’s chest, a long-dormant echo stirring to life. Dust, thick and cloying, billowed around the chamber as the seals gave way. The air tasted of ash, ozone, and something else – a pervasive, sickening sweetness. It was the stench of raw corruption, amplified beyond anything he had ever known. His eyes, still adjusting, registered the ruin. Once, this place had stood as a monument to some forgotten deity, its grand arches and vaulted ceilings now fractured by seismic tremors and the relentless march of decay. Crumbling effigies, their faces defaced and broken, lined the walls. Scrawled over ancient prayers were crude, jagged symbols, pulsing faintly with the same vile energy that permeated the air. He pushed against the lid, the ancient mechanisms shrieking in their final surrender. The sarcophagus broke open with a sharp crack, shards of stone and metal scattering across the gritty floor. The Slayer rose, a shadow coalescing from the blinding green flash. His muscles, stiff from an immeasurable slumber, protested with a dull ache, but the sensation was fleeting, quickly overridden by a deeper, more primal awakening. He took a deliberate step onto the cold, broken flagstones. His bare feet crunched on debris. The sheer scale of the desecration pressed down on him, a heavy shroud of malevolence that clawed at the edges of his consciousness. This was not merely a ruined temple; it was a wound, festering and wide open. The energy in the air pulsed, a dissonant chord struck in a galaxy of screams. It was familiar, yet alien. The insidious tendrils of the Warp, he recognized it now, but twisted, vast, a tidal wave compared to the currents he had previously navigated. His fists clenched, the primal fury a familiar friend, an unyielding fire rekindling in his gut. Whatever had brought him here, whatever had torn him from his slumber, it had unleashed him into a cosmos ripe for cleansing. He felt it in the very marrow of his bones: the galaxy was sick, and he was the cure. He scanned the chamber, his gaze sweeping over the defiled altar, the broken pews, the pooling shadows. His purpose, for a moment blurred by the temporal dislocation, solidified with chilling clarity. Evil had found him again. And it would pay. --- A guttural chant rose from deeper within the shrine, a rhythmic pulsing drone that made the very air thrum. Blood, fresh and glistening, stained the cracked altar at the chamber’s far end, pooling into a grotesque symbol etched into the stone. Clad in tattered robes adorned with crude sigils, a dozen figures swayed, their faces obscured by hoods, their voices raised in a discordant chorus. They were cultists, their devotion absolute, their souls already forfeit. At their head stood a larger figure, his robes more elaborate, a wicked-looking censer swinging from his hand, puffing acrid, sweet-smelling smoke into the already fouled air. The leader, a hulking man with a shaved head and a brand on his forehead, screamed a final, desperate invocation. His voice cracked, raw with zealotry. He plunged a rusty dagger into the chest of a bound, whimpering victim on the altar, its last breath stolen by the blasphemous ritual. As the life drained, a shimmering, sickly green energy flared around the cultists, pulsing outwards, momentarily bathing the chamber in an unnatural glow. It was the Warp, churning, reaching, hungry. The Slayer moved. He took a single, powerful stride, then another, his gait effortless despite the centuries of stasis. The cultists nearest to the altar, caught in their trance, did not immediately register his presence. The leader, turning to admire his handiwork, froze. His eyes, wide with fanaticism, snapped to the towering figure emerging from the green light. A choked gasp escaped his lips, the censer clattering to the ground. Terror rippled through the chanting ranks. The drone broke, dissolving into shrieks and gasps. A few of the cultists fumbled for rusty knives and crude blasters, their movements sluggish, clumsy with fear. The leader, his face contorted in a mask of sudden, profound dread, tried to back away, tripping over his own long robes. He fell, sprawling on the blood-slicked stone, his eyes glued to the unstoppable advance. The Slayer’s heavy boot connected with the leader’s head. The sound was sickening, a wet crunch that silenced the last, desperate gurgle. The man’s body went limp, his skull caved in, a final spray of blood adding to the ritualistic gore. The green Warp energy, still clinging to the cultists, seemed to recoil from the brutal impact, shimmering erratically. It felt wrong, corrupt, a noxious gas, yet it fueled a deeper, more satisfying rage within him. This galaxy’s evil was potent, pervasive, but it was still just evil. And he knew how to deal with evil. --- The remaining cultists scattered, their fervent devotion evaporating into panicked flight. One tried to fire a rusty autogun, its rounds sparking harmlessly against the air around the Slayer. He ignored them, his gaze already sweeping the desecrated chamber. His suit. His weapons. They had to be here. His eyes locked onto a section of wall near the altar, half-buried under rubble. A familiar glint of dark green armor, scarred but unmistakable. The Praetor Suit. It lay folded, a silent sentinel, leaning against a shattered icon of the Imperial Aquila, almost like it had been waiting. The suit was battered, its ceramite plates chipped and scraped, but its lines were still sharp, its purpose still clear. He reached it in three long strides, the cultists’ desperate cries fading into background noise. He extended a hand, the green energy of the suit flaring in response, beckoning. The suit unfolded, whirring with ancient, dormant power. It snapped into place around him with a series of satisfying clicks, the seals locking into a perfect, impenetrable shell. The world sharpened, the HUD flickering to life in his visor, displaying environmental readings, threat analyses, and a familiar targeting reticle. The air filters purged the stench of ash and blood, replacing it with the clean, recycled air of his combat systems. His strength surged, his movements gaining a lethal grace, the cumbersome mass of the armor becoming a part of him. His hand found the Super Shotgun. It lay beside the suit, its double barrels a testament to brutal efficiency, its stock worn smooth from countless battles. The weapon felt like an extension of his own arm, a familiar weight that settled into his grip with perfect balance. He racked the pump, the satisfying *clack-schk* a symphony of impending annihilation. The remaining cultists had holed up behind overturned pews, peeking out with terror-stricken faces. One of them, emboldened by desperation, charged, a crude chainsword buzzing angrily. The Slayer met him mid-stride, the Super Shotgun barking once. A concentrated blast of buckshot tore through the cultist’s torso, ripping him apart in a spray of blood and viscera. The other cultists screamed, their resolve shattering. Another two tried to flee, scrambling for a collapsed doorway. The shotgun roared again, a brutal double-tap that vaporized them both. The tide had not merely turned; it had been crushed under an unforgiving boot. The cleansing had begun anew. --- The tremors started subtly, a low rumble beneath the broken flagstones, shaking the dust from the crumbling ceiling. Then they grew, intensifying with a terrifying rapidity, rattling the very foundations of the shrine. The air pressure dropped, a sudden vacuum sucking the breath from the chamber. The Slayer, still scanning for threats, braced himself, his sensors flaring, registering an impossible energy signature forming directly above them. The sky above the open roof of the shrine began to twist. It wasn't merely a cloud formation or a storm; it was a wound in reality itself. The blue-grey firmament ripped apart, not tearing like cloth, but convulsing like flesh, revealing an abyss of swirling, impossible colours. Violet, virulent green, and angry crimson light bled through the tear, painting the ruins in a horrific, ethereal glow. The sound was a cacophony – a million whispered lies, a cosmic shriek, and the deafening roar of a nascent supernova, all compressed into one unbearable din. It was the Great Rift, opening wider, directly over this ruined world. From the rent in the sky, things began to fall. Not rain, not debris, but nightmares made manifest. First, smaller, screeching horrors, their forms indistinct, like insects pouring from a gaping wound. They writhed in the air, their razor claws tearing at the fabric of the sky before plummeting to the ground, slamming into the earth with wet thuds. Their shapes resolved into hunched, leering figures with wickedly curved blades and canine faces, their skin the colour of fresh blood. They were Khornate Heralds, lesser daemons, but their numbers were legion. The ground shook violently as more poured forth, their forms more grotesque, more varied. Tentacles lashed, wings beat against the impossible light, and guttural roars echoed across the shattered landscape. The scale was overwhelming, a cosmic deluge of pure, unadulterated evil. It was a manifestation of the galaxy’s pervasive sickness, a cancerous growth erupting through the veil of reality. The Slayer watched, his visor reflecting the infernal light. His rage, already simmering, flared into a roaring inferno. This was not merely a cultist ambush; this was an invasion, a galactic-scale affront. He tightened his grip on the Super Shotgun. The fight had just truly begun. --- The daemons landed with sickening impacts, their forms reforming from shimmering Warp-stuff. They shrieked, a chorus of hungry, ancient malice, their eyes, glowing with malevolent intent, immediately fixing on the lone, armored figure. The crimson-skinned horrors, their blades dripping with unseen ichor, surged forward, a tide of raw aggression. The Slayer met them, the Super Shotgun spitting fire and lead, each blast tearing through the daemonic flesh, sending chunks of corrupted matter spraying across the ground. He moved with a brutal precision, a whirlwind of ceramite and gunfire. A daemon lunged, its curved sword aimed for his chest, but he sidestepped, bringing the shotgun up and blowing its head clean off its shoulders. Another tried to flank him, only to be met with a devastating punch that sent it sprawling, its ribs caving in with a sickening crunch. His movements were fluid, relentless, each action a testament to centuries of ingrained, unyielding combat. The air filled with the scent of ozone and burning daemonflesh, a grim perfume of righteous slaughter. Even as he cleaved through the lesser daemons, his internal sensors screamed a warning. A massive shadow fell over him, eclipsing the infernal light from the Rift. The ground vibrated with a heavier, more deliberate tread. The other daemons, for a moment, paused in their frenzied assault, their attention drawn to the new arrival. This was no common Warp beast, no mere foot soldier of Chaos. This was something bigger, something ancient, something that radiated raw, unbridled power. From the deeper shadows cast by the collapsing arches, it emerged. It was a colossal, eight-limbed monstrosity, its segmented body covered in plates of chitinous armor. Its skin, where visible, was a grotesque tapestry of screaming faces, each contorted in an eternal rictus of agony and despair, constantly shifting, whispering unheard blasphemies. Four massive, multi-jointed legs carried its immense bulk, ending in razor-sharp talons that gouged furrows in the stone. Its four upper limbs ended in scythe-like claws, one of them crackling with sickly green energy. It was a creature born of pure terror, a Greater Daemon, a true herald of the Warp’s deepest horrors. It let out a deafening, echoing roar, a sound that shook the very foundations of the world. Then, with a sudden, impossible burst of speed, it lunged from the shadows, its colossal claw poised to rend the Slayer in half.

Awakening in Ash