Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 143 The Black Judge

Horst wanders through the ruins of the Nest of Invernus.

The artillery fire on the northern front never truly ceased; across kilometers of ruins, it was reduced to a continuous, low-frequency rumble, becoming part of the background, like the heartbeat of some behemoth. Twisted steel frames pierced through broken terrazzo floorboards, and layers of collapsed building debris piled up in the grayish-yellow smoke. Overhead, the armor plates at the bottom of the upper nest were blasted through, and sunlight poured down through those cracks, outlining slanted beams of light in the smoke and dust. Railgun fire still flashed intermittently, each flash sharply outlining the ruins from the shadows before plunging them back into darkness.

He traversed the ruins for a considerable distance before the path began to become discernible. Broken steel beams and deformed metal plates had been cleared to the sides, and the road surface was covered with a layer of compacted broken ceramic steel and molten metal slag, much harder to walk on than the ruins outside. Every few dozen meters, orange arrows of the Garros Legion were spray-painted on the remaining walls. People lined up outside the containment station waiting for supplies, several engineering vehicles were clearing the passageways, and supply crates were piled up in front of several requisitioned factory buildings, with low Gothic signs painted on the walls reading "Northern Supply Transfer Point."

Nearly a hundred people, dressed in dark gray local work clothes, had gathered in the open space at the corner of the passage. Men and women were present, with those with graying hair and those who looked to be under twenty standing in the same row. A gaunt sergeant stood on the raised metal floor, holding a laser gun. "Power pack—push it in, you hear a click when it's installed. Out when you're done, replace it with a new one." He rested the butt of the gun on his shoulder. "Aim before pulling the trigger. Each trigger reduces the energy." He pointed to the sights. "Use this to align. It fires as a beam of light; see the impact point, and then aim for that spot next time."

No one spoke. Nearly a hundred men stood there, silently and in perfect unison. Horst walked from the back of the line to the front, and not a single person turned to look at him. Some repeatedly loaded and unloaded power packs, their fingers numb with cold, yet they continued. Some practiced aiming, rifle butts against their shoulders, eyes squinting, never pulling the trigger. Some bent down to examine the scratches on their rifles, as if memorizing every notch. They didn't even exchange a word. Each command from the sergeant was met only with the click of the power pack being pushed into its slot and the squeak of the rifle butt against the work clothes. Nearly a hundred men stood quietly in the middle of the ruins, facing north, waiting to be taken somewhere. A young woman pulled the first trigger; the blue-white beam struck the metal floor with a hiss. No one turned to look.

As Horst walked past them, those at the edge of the crowd parted to make way. No one bowed, no one asked a question. He continued walking, the silence of those behind him like a layer of dust on his shoulders.

After crossing another intersection, they encountered a patrol of soldiers. The Invernus Allied Forces' grey-green armor, explosive rifles, and the gear and skull insignia on their shoulder straps were covered in a layer of dust. The leading sergeant stopped a dozen paces away, raised his right hand, and then walked towards Horst, his finger resting on the outside of the trigger guard.

"Who is it?"

Horst didn't speak, but simply turned up the collar of his robe. The inquisition badge was revealed, silver, gleaming dimly in the light. The sergeant's gaze lingered on it for a moment, then he glanced at the six men behind Horst, took a half step back, and gave a brief salute with his right fist to his chest.

"grown ups."

The sergeant didn't ask any more questions and turned to leave with his men. A dozen men filed past Horst. Their mechanical limbs maintained a steady pace as they walked, but some details revealed that some men's knees cushioned their steps too smoothly—their newly fitted legs were still in the calibration period; others' left shoulders turned half a beat slower than their right—their newly fitted arms were still finding their rhythm. The third man walked in the middle of the group, his torso below the neck replaced by a metal skeleton. The edge of his armor collar revealed the intricate mechanical neck interface, and the gray alloy shell of his shoulder joints was faintly visible between the armor plates. Their walking posture was transitioning from "being led by the machine" to "controlling the machine themselves"—they were still in the adaptation period.

As they passed another burned-out supply yard, short bursts of explosive gunfire came from ahead. Horst slowed his pace, signaled the people behind him to stop at the edge of the yard, and leaned against a broken support pillar to look in that direction.

Ahead stood a partially collapsed building. By the time he saw the first person, the person had already crawled through a hole in the ground floor—

Standing at 2.5 meters tall and clad in greyish-white power armor, he slipped sideways through the opening, gun barrel first, then shoulder, helmet, and right arm, the movement without pause. Another person climbed the building from the outside, their equally 2.5-meter-tall frame moving rapidly upwards along the vertical wall. The sound of their power armor gloves gripping the metal bars was muffled by the weight of the armor plates, but their speed was impressive.

Four bullet flashes, evenly spaced, appeared at the second-floor window. Horst discerned that the shooter, while repeatedly pulling the trigger, had made at least three turns—judging the target's location across the floor, locking onto one target every half second, and hitting all four. Immediately afterward, footsteps moved within the room, few in number, each step landing precisely at necessary locations such as corners, doorframes, and stairwells, without any unnecessary probing.

Then someone climbed out of a second-floor window and landed upright. Others emerged from the main entrance on the ground floor. A group of twelve people, each about two and a half meters tall, in greyish-white, emerged one after another, chainsaw swords hanging from their waists, explosive guns pointed downwards. The last one stepped aside to let an orc corpse hanging from a broken pipe pass by, drew his chainsaw, activated the serrated blade, sliced ​​into the back of the skull, retracted it, hung it back on his waist, and then followed at the end of the group out of the building.

Horst emerged from the shadow of the columns and, with his assistant, walked around the edge of the square. He recalled the numbers in the battle reports and stopped thinking about it.

After Amegiddon was invaded by the Orks, the Inquisition dispatched Horst to coordinate the support of the Space Dwarf fleet for the war zone. Upon arriving and completing his duties with the Dwarves, he received new orders: traces of Chaos corruption had been discovered after Invernus was recaptured, requiring the Inquisition's intervention. He traveled through the chaotic battlefield with his assistants and guards to reach Invernus.

Since the court had no personnel with higher authority in the war zone, he had to rely on his own people to handle this mess.

He paused as he crossed the next intersection. There was an unusual pattern on the crumbling wall beside the road—not a melt mark from rail bombardment, nor a scratch from orcs. Some kind of dark, crystalline substance seeped from the crack in the metal, gleaming dimly in the grayish-yellow smoke. He crouched down to look at it, said nothing, then stood up and continued walking.

He smelled it while still in orbit above Invernus—not the smell of the physical world, but the sour, putrid stench seeping from the psionic realm. It emanated from the apex, slowly dissipating from every crack in the ruins, like the fermentation of burnt silk mixed with spoiled nectar. Horst had hunted three Tzeentch warlocks in the Calicith Sector, and before each mission, his psionic assistant would describe the scene with the same word. The smell wasn't strong—Grom's death and the Titans' arrival had broken the ritual chain, but it remained.

After walking for about twenty minutes, he stopped in front of a half-collapsed administration building. Battle nuns of the Silver Robe Order stood guard on either side of the entrance, their silver-white power armor gleaming coldly in the dim light. They saw the Inquisitive Chapter on his chest and stepped aside to make way. Horst walked past them without stopping.

As Horst entered the lower hall, Sister Valeria was standing before an open data panel. She wasn't wearing a helmet, her short, silver-white hair was cut very short, and the old scar on her left cheek, running from her cheekbone to her jaw, was particularly striking under the emergency lights. Behind her stood two people—Inquisition agents in Invernus, activated after the outbreak of war, currently coordinated by intern interrogators. The intern interrogator stood to Valeria's right rear, his grey eyes narrowing slightly as Horst entered.

"Sir." He stepped forward, his right fist pressed against his chest.

"I know who you are." Horst walked straight to the data panel. "Report."

T

"Based on the Silver Shroud Order's action report and cross-checking of the Lower and Middle Nest containment stations, we have confirmed multiple anomalous signals. Three Genestealer nests have been cleared, but the real threat is not the Xenomorphs." The interrogator trainee's fingers traced a few lines on the data panel. "The Governor's corruption is deeper than initially thought. Von Kiska did not fall into depravity alone. He had an entire network around him—his staff, his guard captain, several Upper Nest noble families, and even some mid-level church members—all of whom had received Tzeentch's 'mark' before surrendering. During the Greenskin occupation, some of these people died, some went into hiding, and some are still active."

Valeria didn't look up: "The interrogations in the Spire have confirmed the identities of twelve direct participants. Seven have been confirmed dead, and five are missing. The five missing are most likely hiding in the containment facilities in the Middle Nest or the Bottom Nest."

Horst glanced at the list on the data panel. Five names, five identities. "Psionic scouts." An assistant behind him, dressed in a grey robe with deep-set eyes, pressed his finger on the interface of the data panel. After a moment, he looked up. "There are residual psionic traces in the containment area, but they are unstable and require close contact to confirm."

"Go to the containment facility, disguise yourself as medical personnel to collect samples, and if you find anything unusual, don't alert them. Report your location." The two psionic assistants turned and walked out of the hall.

Horst's fingertip paused on the edge of the data panel. "The servants of the von Kilska manor, you spared them."

,

"Yes, I did not perform any purification treatment."

"reason?"

Valeria looked at him without flinching. "I had two options. One was to kill everyone, all seventy-three, according to standard procedure—that's the rule, I know it very well. The other was to transport them out and hand them over to the Church of England's Healing Order for observation. I chose the second one."

Why?

"Because the apex is the center of the Tzeentch ritual. If we stay there for an hour and a half, our own judgment in that psionic environment will further decline, and every extra minute increases the risk of contamination. But that's not the real reason. The real reason is—von Kiska prepared for this ritual for months. His last words before he died were, 'The Master of Changes will not stop his game because a single piece falls.' He was telling me that the ritual would not be interrupted by his death; the seed had been sown."

Valeria's voice did not rise.

"Those servants were the only ones he didn't sacrifice in the final stages. I don't know why he kept them—maybe to make his interrogators face a group of uncontaminated living people and start to doubt their own judgment. Maybe he was waiting for someone to fire a shot in the Spire, providing Tzeentch with a ready-made sacrifice. I don't know. But I do know one thing—"

If I were to execute seventy-three people on the spot, my chainsaw would likely be completing what von Kirska didn't finish. Tzeentch is waiting for me to pull the trigger for him. I have reason to believe I will be a link in the entire ritual chain.”

Horst remained silent for a long time. "You're not sure if those servants have Tzeentch's seed."

"It's uncertain. If there are any among them, releasing them would be risky. But the risk ends with me; I've handed them over to the National Church Medical Order. They will record, observe, and report. If any of them exhibit abnormalities, the National Church has the right to handle it immediately. My judgment doesn't conceal any potential follow-up possibilities."

Horst looked at her face. It was a face tempered by two hundred years of war; she no longer needed to explain her decision to anyone. But he still asked one last question: "Have you ever regretted it?"

Valeria's eyelashes fluttered slightly. "No."

Horst looked away, offering no further questioning. He knew Valeria's reasons for releasing the servant weren't perfect, but standard procedure was designed to prevent hesitation. When someone is able to bear the consequences of their choices and face questioning, the rules have been redefined. He turned the data panel, shifting the conversation to the next item.

"The real accomplices aren't the specific individuals. It's the entire hive sacrificed in the surrender," Valeria said. "Von Kirska didn't fall alone—he offered up Invernus as a whole. The Greenskins merely carried it out; the real ritual was completed the moment he signed the surrender order."

Horst didn't respond immediately. If the entire Invernus was a ritual site, every survivor who crawled out of the ruins might be carrying that seed. He changed the subject. "Cohen Severus. You've seen him. What do you think?"

Valeria's gaze fell out the window. The distant gunfire from the northern front still rumbled. "When we crossed the warp storm, the Emperor issued a warning on a spiritual level, clearly stating that Korn Severus was an enemy of Chaos, at least for now, loyal. And he did indeed drag Invernus off the altar. His Imperial Titan crushed Grom, shattering the ritual chains. He marched past the medical station, where the wounded survived; his Legion pulled the lines back from the brink of collapse. I will not testify for him, nor will I accuse him. I will continue to observe, to follow him. If one day he stands against the Emperor—" her hand rested on the hilt of her chainsword at her waist, "I will be the first to strike."

Horst looked at her hand on the hilt of her sword, then looked away. "Your mission remains the same. Reconnaissance and sampling will be handled by my psionicists, combat support by Silver Shroud. Sister Highness, continue the clearing of the Underhive; report any new signs of Tzeentch activity directly to me." He then turned to the interrogator trainee. "Your men, in cooperation with my psionicists, will take samples under the guise of medical examinations, focusing on the five missing persons. Report any unusual activity; do not act on your own. As for Cohen Severus, his affairs are not your concern."

No one spoke in the hall. Horst recalled the debates surrounding Cohen—the Martians, the State Church, and the Inquisition each holding their own version of events. But now, after witnessing firsthand the two wrecked ship fragments slowly rotating in orbit, thousands of Starcage mechs were deployed in organized formations at the forefront of Invernus, and Cyclone torpedoes struck the orc wrecked ships. Binary hymns accompanied the Titan Legion's advance. The fact that these things were in the hands of an ordinary mechanical monk was a wake-up call in itself. He would add a note to Cohen Severus's file: The Garros Legion possesses a large amount of technological assets from the Great Crusade era, including Starcage mech clusters and Extinction Order-level weapons such as Cyclone torpedoes; continued monitoring is recommended.

"Damn oil geezer," he muttered.

Valeria remained expressionless. The interrogator trainee was scribbling on a data board, head down. Horst turned and walked towards the door, then paused.

"Keep working."

He stepped into the grayish-yellow smoke and dust of Invernus. Above, the wreckage of the Bonecrusher still spun slowly, its fractured metal gleaming a dark reddish afterglow in the starlight. The distant artillery fire from the northern front still rumbled, but the direction of the containment station led to another path. He turned and walked in that direction. A new line had been added to Cohen Severus's file. Horst entered the ceaseless embers and gasps of Invernus.