Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 668 Post-War Cleanup
After the roar of the main battle subsided, a deeper, more oppressive silence enveloped "Azure Dawn".

But this silence is not peace; it is the prelude to another form of war.

The empire's war machine never truly stopped; it merely shifted gears, moving from violent destruction to precise, systematic, and incredibly lengthy erasure.

This so-called "peaceful" period was even more brutal than the direct confrontation with the Tyranid swarm.

The first to arrive were the Empire's liquidators.

The cardinal from the Holy Tera State Church was accompanied by a dedicated team of inquisitors from the Inquisition.

They arrived silently on this ravaged land aboard a pitch-black, unmarked transport ship, like crows drawn by the scent of rotting flesh.

Their arrival officially heralded the beginning of a new round of suffering for the indigenous people of "Blue Dawn".

The cleanup begins with a comprehensive screening of the survivors.

This order, signed directly by the judge, has the highest priority, second only to the Imperial Oracle.

All life that survived the Tyranid swarm's global rampage must undergo the most rigorous and ruthless scrutiny.

Whether it was the civilians who had been huddled in the dark underground shelters for months and were already mentally exhausted, or the remnants of the planetary defense forces who persisted in guerrilla warfare among the ruins and fought to the last man, or even the planetary nobles who were rescued from their fortified bunkers after the Imperial Navy's cannons blasted open the nest walls, none of them were exempt.

At its core, the censorship is a dual purgatory of genetic screening and faith interrogation.

The technical priests of the court brought sophisticated and cold instruments.

Gene probes can penetrate bone marrow to analyze even the most subtle gene sequence abnormalities.

The psionic detector is like a torture device that examines the soul, capturing any possible trace of mental pollution.

In the dogma of the court, any tiny sign of mutation, whether caused by the invasion of Tyren spores or the awakening of a latent gene-stealer's bloodline, is magnified infinitely and becomes irrefutable "guilty" evidence.

The screening process stripped away all the warmth and compassion that are hallmarks of human civilization.

Temporary quarantine camps, like grayish-white festering sores, are scattered across the major islands and the remaining "safe zones" on the mainland.

The long line snaked outside the camp.

The people in the queue had gaunt faces, their eyes filled with fear, numbness, and a faint, desperate desire to survive.

They moved forward in silence, each step potentially leading to an abyss.

Trials that determined life and death often took place in simple shacks.

The technical priest operated the instrument that emitted a faint glow.

The judge scrutinized the defendant's every subtle expression and body language with the sharp eyes of a hawk.

Once the testing equipment emits a sharp, piercing alarm, or the judge detects an "unnatural" sign in a defendant's fleeting glance or ambiguous answer, the verdict will be delivered immediately.

There was no opportunity to appeal, and no review process.

The court's motto echoed coldly at that moment: "Doubt is conclusive evidence."

Executions were usually arranged to take place in broad daylight as a public warning.

People marked as “polluters” were escorted in batches to a pre-dug pit at the edge of the camp.

The firing squad consists of battle nuns or Inquisition stormtroopers clad in black armor.

The grenades in their hands emitted a dull, short sound.

The corpses were pushed into the pit like garbage, piled on top of each other.

Subsequently, high-energy fuel was poured down.

The towering flames and thick columns of black smoke became new, despairing tombstones on this land. These columns of smoke rose day and night, hovering above every survivor's gathering point, silently proclaiming the absoluteness and ruthlessness of the Empire's purification methods.

An inquisitor with a face as hard as granite and eyes burning with an unwavering flame of faith explained the logic behind his daily "purification" progress to Chen Xi in a completely calm tone.

"Judge Chen Xi, you are well aware of the necessity of this."

"It is better to kill ten thousand innocent people than to let one guilty person go free."

"The contamination from gene thieves is a plague at the genetic level, with an incubation period that can last for several generations, like a dormant volcano."

"The slightest oversight could cause the emperor's sacred territory to once again bear the seeds of destruction centuries later."

"Therefore, this planet must be thoroughly purified, from the most basic flesh and blood genes to the most ethereal soul imprints, without the slightest compromise."

Chen Xi listened quietly, her face showing no change in expression.

As a seasoned judge, he understood better than anyone the cold-blooded necessity behind such extreme measures.

Deep within his memory lie many unbearable scenes.

Those worlds that were thoroughly corrupted from within by the Genestealer cult ultimately fell not because of external attacks, but because of betrayal under the guise of trust and defection within their own bloodlines.

That kind of despair was far more terrifying than direct warfare.

Therefore, when he saw those civilians who might be innocent but were executed in batches because they could not prove their innocence, the trace of compassion that belonged to "Chen Xi" deep in his heart had long been completely suppressed by the absolute responsibility and cold logic represented by the identity of "judge".

He knew perfectly well that the past tranquility and prosperity of "Azure Dawn" was itself a fragile illusion built on the lies of the gene thieves.

This bloody and brutal reckoning, affecting every survivor, is simply a belated truth that this planet must confront.

It is the heavy price they paid for their past.

While the screening and execution of personnel were in full swing, another extermination operation of a larger scale and with a more far-reaching impact had also been fully launched.

That is the systematic elimination of the planet's ecological environment.

This is no longer a military operation, but a veritable "ecological extinction" aimed at physically eradicating all traces of life.

The Mechanicus's dedicated purification ships, like floating steel coffins, sailed on the already desolate ocean.

They opened huge valves at the bottom of the ship, pouring massive amounts of specially formulated chemical purifiers into the vast sea.

These potent toxins are cutting-edge products of mechanobiological extinction science, designed to completely eradicate any known Tyrannosaurus microorganisms, spores, and organic matter residues.

The toxic agent reacted rapidly when it was mixed with seawater.

The seawater, already polluted by the war, became even darker and more viscous at a visible rate.

A pungent chemical odor, a mixture of chlorine and rotten almonds, emanated from the sea.

The consequences of this chemical storm were devastating.

Countless marine creatures struggled violently in the highly toxic seawater.

The vast majority of them are native species that have not been infected by Tyrell.

They eventually floated belly up to the surface of the sea, which was already covered with a thick layer of Tyrande remains.

Soon, a thick and terrifying "death blanket" formed on the entire ocean surface, composed of fish, marine mammals, insect carcasses, and various indescribable organic matter.

The once vibrant blue ocean has been completely transformed into a huge, slowly rotating pool of venom and a graveyard.

(End of this chapter)