The abominations retreat without warning, and there is no sign of their intentions.
Yarrick's forces achieved results, but so did the daemons and heretics, and the Astra Militarum suffered heavy casualties.
Then the demons disappeared from the battlefield, or rather they disappeared in the direction of the cathedral.
Yarick clearly realized that this was definitely not a retreat, but a precursor to an attack.
Those abominations rent the air with their hideous songs, and he could sense a catastrophe, something dark about to be satisfied.
But he couldn't think about it any longer.
The demons were so fast that a Chimera at full power might be able to barely catch up and cut through the sea of cultists, but that would mean leaving the infantry behind.
Alex didn't want to distract himself from a possible trap.
Demons abandoned their human slaves.
The cultists were running, but much slower than the demons. Yarrick felt deep hatred and contempt as he looked at these poor treacherous people.
In the cultists' frenzied hymns, he heard elements he had never discovered before.
The songs weren't as foreign as he first thought, and there were some familiar passages of hymn in them, which made him angrier when he recognized them.
Do these creatures still believe they serve the God-Emperor?
No.
Alex made up his mind.
They no longer know how to think.
"Kill the traitor!"
The political commissar shouted:
"Burn them!"
His orders were unnecessary, as the soldiers were hard at work chasing down the fleeing cultists, harvesting them with laser guns and flamethrowers.
But hatred needs to be expressed more fully.
These creatures had strayed from the Emperor's light, a crime unthinkable to the faith of the Ecclesiarchy, yet they were all guilty of it.
They have sullied the honor of this world.
So he would make a pyre of their bones.
"artillery."
Yarick began to call the command center in the rear and gave the coordinates of a memorial 1,000 yards ahead.
Armor and infantry continued to fire, slaughtering the cultists and crushing the corpses with the chimera's tracks.
Soon, the sky was filled with screams.
Streets exploded, shells rained down, and badly damaged towers tipped over each other.
Thanks to the basilisk's efforts, a hill of rubble blocked the way forward, and choking dust rushed back along the street.
The cultists gathered together and stopped.
They were confused, they didn't know where to run.
Some screamed, others sang, and many turned to attack Arek's army.
Then they all died.
The Chimera sank into a deeper pool of blood, and Yarrick was glad for that.
"political commissar."
the correspondent shouted from below.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm receiving a signal from a location in the bombardment area. Someone is accessing the communications device there. They claim their allegiance to the Emperor."
Alex's heart was filled with contempt.
They claim, but do not demonstrate, their loyalty.
The bombardment continues and he will seal off the area and kill every traitor even if possible.
This war, stained with the blood of civilians, is gradually making Yarick's once young and fiery heart become as cold as iron, which he himself did not even realize.
"Tell them that they are not going anywhere and that they must either kill every traitor they see and die, or die under our fire."
The way forward is punishment.
He will not shy away from the consequences of his orders, he will embrace them.
"Are they still transmitting?"
"Yes, commissar."
"Redirect their signals to me."
After a while, a panicked plea came from Alek's earphones.
They begged, they wept, they prayed to the God-Emperor.
Yarrick turned a deaf ear and continued to fire heavy bolters at the cultists, his lips quivering in disgust, occasionally noticing the sounds in his earphones.
Then the men screamed and disappeared into the silence.
Another tower collapsed, blocking wider access to the cathedral and destroying more homes.
Alec's roar turned into a smile.
Those who have betrayed the Emperor are on trial, and he will pronounce judgment.
As this part of Valledo sank in smoke, fire, and blood, he felt joy and was not ashamed of it.
He admitted that he had a desire for revenge, but he did not believe that revenge was wrong.
There are no innocents in this war.
Suddenly, Alex noticed movement above the smoke. He raised his head and his eyes widened in an instant.
An impossible thing happened——
The Space Marines pushed forward, and the gap to the gate filled in seconds.
Now, Soshyan is shooting and destroying the daemons that turn their backs on him, a situation unique in his fight against the powers of the Warp.
The call was so strong that when he destroyed the demons' forms, they did not turn around.
The demons trampled the cultists running back, while the fallen mortals shouted about the urgency of their mission.
Many died at the cathedral's doorways, but many more passed through them, and human blood and dissolving demonic flesh spread from the doorways onto the stone slabs of the square.
Soshiyang could feel that the subspace was becoming more violent, and the unclean power seeped into reality and began to distort it.
"quick!"
Soshiyang turned around and shouted, this psychic energy was so huge that even non-psychics could feel it.
A storm is coming.
In the cathedral, a ritual is bringing about even more terrifying madness.
The warp must be suppressed, they don't have time.
Soshiyang once again called on the power of gray marrow.
Although the side effects of gray pulp became more and more serious each time, Soshiyang decided to use it.
An icy mask climbed onto his face, and Sosh Yang stretched his left arm forward. The icy soul storm instantly purified the passage twisted and burned by the subspace.
The road is clear again.
Farzad rushed towards the door, even one step ahead of Soshyan.
As he began to cross the threshold, something suddenly changed.
Stone teeth suddenly sprouted from the broken arch, and the entire entrance turned into a mouth.
In the flash of lightning, Farzad leaned back and broke free from the creaking mouth.
The door slammed shut, biting the scurrying cultist in half.
Their heads fell to the ground, their mouths opened in ecstasy.
The stonework around the entrance rippled, a wave like the vibration of flesh spreading throughout the building.
"Back off! Everyone back off!"
Sosh Yang ordered loudly.
The Astral Knights and the Soul Drinkers retreated together, and Golgri stood beside Sosh Yang, looking at the scene in shock.
Something shifted throughout the cathedral, and the storm in the warp reached its peak.
Soshyan understood what was happening and cursed himself for his serious mistake.
The ground shook so violently that the remaining statues collapsed.
The front yard cracked and cracks in the ground opened up, big enough to swallow a man.
At the base of the cathedral, the fissure turns into a canyon.
The spiers began to tremble, their spiers hooking into the claws as the bars cracked. The flying buttresses rise and fall like a chest.
Then the center of the church slowly bulges, and it lifts the tower off the ground, higher and higher.
Now they really are weapons.
The cathedral "came alive". It turned into a giant beast nearly a hundred meters high. It climbed up on its hands and feet and began to march towards the Space Marines.
