The Emperor’s Angel of Death

After the assembly concluded, the Bishop, escorted by his bodyguards and mutant hybrid acolytes, departed. He traversed the winding underground tunnels beneath Sotha, the largest city in the Sotha system and the planet's administrative center. The Emperor's Scythes were unwilling to excessively interfere in the affairs of mortals, even adopting a completely laissez-faire attitude towards the populace, a tradition that would ultimately lead to their downfall.

Sotha was located close to the Chapter Monastery-Fortress. Standing on the city's high ground, one could see the towering peak of Mount Phall towering in the distance. The Space Marines believed this proximity would better protect the civilians, never suspecting that those they sought to protect had already betrayed them.

The Bishop was headed to the Sotha Senate, the supreme governing body of Sotha's mortal society. Due to the Space Marines' leniency, the Senate's authority had even extended to the fleet and orbital stations. Even the successive Chapter Masters of the Emperor's Scythes treated the Senate with great respect, frequently heeding their advice and requests. The current Chapter Master, Sothira, was particularly compliant, practically obeying the Senate's every word. Inevitably, this Senate had been completely controlled by the Genestealer Cult for centuries, serving only as puppets of the Bishop.

As the Bishop passed through layers of guards and entered the Senate's secret underground council chamber, fourteen Senators were already waiting. Dressed in ornate robes, their wrinkled faces displayed humility and reverence as they sat in a circle around the circular conference hall.

Leaving the guards outside the council chamber, the Patriarch walked into the center of the circle of light and spoke bluntly:

"The Ascension is nigh, and you have much work to do. You must create various troubles for the Space Marines, tell them of the hardships faced by the civilians, that children are starving and many are displaced. They are soft-hearted cowards, easily swayed by such words. It would be best to incite some people to storm their fortress, but they must be non-believers, using lies and intimidation to create panic, driving them to flee to what they believe are safe havens. Furthermore, find ways to slander Eighth Company Captain Vosuk, using your influence within the Chapter to attack him from all sides, attacking his origins, bloodline, and actions, so that the other company captains distrust and ostracize him."

All the Senators nodded in unison like puppets.

"Yes, Master."

"Also, regarding Thrace—"

Suddenly, the metal panels of the walls emitted a high-frequency vibration. The bodyguard abruptly raised his head, his bulging eyes scanning the ventilation ducts—the Cult's carefully designed alarm system, with sensory glands implanted in the ducts by hybrid workers.

But the warning came too late. Accompanied by the hum of phase shifting, the metal skeletons of a dozen Flayed Ones materialized from the void. Emerald energy blades instantly pierced the skulls of the nearest hybrid acolytes, who didn't even have time to scream before the flesh beneath their skin seemed to dissolve.

"Enemy attack!"

The Bishop's psychic shriek instantly erupted within the enclosed space. The bodyguard's three claws abruptly extended, activating the three metal canisters in his hands, spraying a mist of liquid metal that formed a barrier.

At the same time, the mutant hybrid acolytes rushed in from outside the door, frantically pulling the triggers of their modified autocannons. Bullets sparked against the Flayers' living metal shells, leaving only fleeting dents.

The bodyguard drew his curved blade, attempting to cover the Bishop's retreat, but something appeared above him with incredible speed. The bodyguard reacted with lightning speed, swinging both blades upwards in a flurry of motion.

With a snap, the blades were crushed in the bodyguard's astonished gaze. The massive C'tan Shard descended with the force of a collapsing mountain, seizing the bodyguard with its claws before he could react and turning him into neat strips in half a second.

"What is this monster!"

In that instant, he saw only a pair of scarlet eyes—

"The Patriarch... was hiding there."

Releasing his grip, Sothisyan let the Bishop's shriveled corpse, devoid of a single drop of blood, crash to the ground and shatter into pieces. In mid-air, Sothisyan chewed on the information contained within the alien soul.

Due to the special psychic connection between the Bishop and the Patriarch, the Patriarch immediately sensed when Sothisyan tried to pry, and severed the connection. The Bishop even chose to self-destruct, but Sothisyan still obtained most of the information.

Actually, he had been observing from the shadows since the assembly. He originally thought the Bishop would go directly to the Patriarch, but instead, they held a meeting first.

Sothisyan then guessed that the Bishop must have a way to contact the Patriarch remotely, so he likely wouldn't seek out the Patriarch before the Tyranid invasion, and thus chose to strike first.

In fact, everything had surprised him since he arrived on Sotha.

He never imagined that a Space Marine homeworld could be infiltrated by an alien cult to such an extent. From the populace to the army to the fleet, and even the Chapter Fortress, everything had been infiltrated like a sieve. He would never have believed it in the past.

Was it the aliens' cunning or the Emperor's Scythes' incompetence?

After much thought, it could only be attributed to self-inflicted misfortune. The Emperor's Scythes' bottomless leniency and laissez-faire attitude towards mortals was the root of all evil. Turning pro-people into pandering showed that their Chapter's thinking had been skewed from the moment it was founded, even forgetting their identity as a violent machine of governance.

To put it bluntly, Sotha's current situation was terminal, beyond saving. Even without the Tyranid Hive Fleet, the Emperor's Scythes would be doomed to extinction in another hundred years, because their gene-pool had already been completely corrupted. The Genestealers wouldn't even need to resort to violence.