In the four hundred years that Sergeant Efuuy had been serving the Emperor, he had seen many of his brothers perish. Across a thousand worlds he and his kind roamed the stars killing and dying in turn, as was their eternal duty. The old stories always told of grand, noble deaths. Great speeches and heroic efforts were portrayed, but all too often this was not the reality. All to often real combat saw death come suddenly and without warning. A gurgling rasp replaced the noble speeches, a tumbling head supplanted heroic deeds.

The mission was much like any other. Destroy the insidious chaos cult that had murdered the planetary governor and reestablish order. The strike team landed and dealt out death and destruction on the Emperor’s enemies without remorse. Seven days and nights the fighting had gone on and enemies of the Emperor were slain one after the other by the Sergeant and his brothers nine. That was until they reached the bowels of the palace, for there lay madness. The cultists in their zealotry had performed dark rites, that no man should know. Out of the shadows abominations rose as the rites were completed, their first action to slay the cultists and feed on their souls.

The stalwart warriors were not deterred. Their faith drove them on, hacking at the insane faces and limbs of horrors not of this reality. The first to fall was Brother Rewul, a deamon lashing out, devouring his head and shoulders in one swift bite. His body fell pathetically to the ground as his life blood gushed out on the flagstones but still the warriors drove on.

As the space marines fought on, the chaos of battle grew thick and soon the warriors were divided, fighting for their lives. And on they fought, for they knew no fear. But fearless or not, they were not invincible and so the Sergeant watched the flat lines flare in his helmet as one by one his brothers perished to the onslaught of evil that oppressed them on all sides. On and on the Sergeant fought, barely even realizing he was the last. And still he fought until he found himself a slight reprieve as the monstrosities he slaughtered reeled back.

And then all went black. There was no pain, no feeling at all, just the endless dark of nothingness. Just as suddenly light flared. Painful, searing light. His eyes opened and he was back in the depths. Out of nowhere a blinding light shone down on the faithful warrior. He could feel his vision slowly fading but he could not look away, for in the lights embrace possessed him. Just as he though he could bear no more, the light intensified and he flung his arms back as an entity possessed him. But this was no entity of dark chaos, but the Emperor’s spirit himself. “Worry not my child for you have fought faithfully”. Tears streamed down the warrior’s face as the light enveloped and overtook him. The light was all and he was the light. Rapture and pain in equal measure over took him and as suddenly as it appeared, the light was gone and the warrior with it.