Angar was spat out among a dense thicket of infernal trees and undergrowth, the translocation nausea roiling in his guts.

  The copse engulfed him with thick, violent tangles of thorned vines and razor-leaved shrubs lashing out to snatch at his limbs.

  Before anything else, Angar could sense the manipulation of psychic energies, a barrage of psionics.

  But all around, the forest blazed in a maelstrom of war, the air fouled with the stench of burning brush, festering rot, and choking brimstone, the ground shuddering endlessly under thunderous rumbles.

  As he stomped on or ripped out the grasping flora to prevent it from latching onto him or his two companions, through the twisted boughs he spotted an odd portal emanating a strange, bilious green glow, its edges writhing like diseased veins.

  It wasn’t a gateway, nor was it a rift. He’d never seen anything like it.

  Plumes of the same strange, viridian smoke billowed from it, glowing with an unholy luminescence as they coiled upward into the bruised sky, ash sifting through the infernal fumes like fallout.

  Far from the portal, the Swarm battled, no longer the colossal figure that had leered above the antechamber, but now a lithe terror perhaps ten meters tall, its bandaged form a blur of gray horror, red cowl, and shadowed menace

  It moved with a speed that almost defied comprehension, flowing like smoke one instant, striking with brutal precision the next, its withered limbs arcing fell energies or conjuring weapons out of nowhere.

  A small group of Seraphs assailed it up close, their armored forms radiant with Holy fury, weapons barking and blazing in a ceaseless barrage.

  Sal was among those, his blue visor ablaze as his left arm's cannon thundered, blasting shells that detonated in blooms of purifying fire, while the right's gatling spun up a storm.

  Ahead of him raged Grand Marshal Hulmnir, the Iron Father, his night-black, spiked armor plowing through the forest like a train as his weapon, the legendary Betty, spewed hypersonic fury, the power-sword on his arm slashing at the Swarm in a crimson streak.

  More Seraphs formed a cordon, their positions just inside a vast ritual circle gouged into the earth, a Holy ward pulsing with ethereal light, its most likely purpose to keep the Swarm from fleeing.

  Beyond the ceaseless blaring of weapons' fire, the outer perimeter churned with the battlecycles of the Black Vanguard Templars, each vehicle bearing a team. They roared in endless circuits, engines howling like beasts, their mounted weapons unleashing a relentless hail upon the Swarm, stitching the air with tracer rounds.

  Much further out, the sharp cracks of lancer blasts rent the dark, reports lagging a second behind the impacts that hammered toward the Swarm. Doubtless, the snipers including Chiyu the Windwalker among them.

  “What’s going on?” asked Garioch.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Angar answered, masking his worry as best he could.

  Garioch made a feeble attempt at rising and failed. “I’m sorry, but my legs can’t bear my weight. Are you undead? Does Simo still live, free of taint?"

  “No need, I'm not, and yes,” he replied. With his working hand, he snatched up the two scattered weapons and helm, piling them in Garioch’s only good arm. “Hold these, Saint.”

  No reply came, though Garioch should have easily been able to grip the weapons and helm more securely, but his arm and hand remained slack and unresponsive.

  “Garioch?”

  The Saint lay still, his breath shallow, lost to sleep or the void of unconsciousness, Angar couldn’t tell.

  Stray discharge whipped past them, perilously close, scorching the air and splintering bark from grasping trees.

  He could ill afford to waste time.

  Gritting against the pain, Angar hauled Simo's limp form atop Garioch's larger bulk, his weight securing the helm and weapons.

  A thorned vine lashed out, snagging at Angar's ankle with razor barbs that dug deep before he could stomp it free.

  Gripping a pauldron strap, he dragged them both through the undergrowth, keeping low in the unnatural buoyancy of the low gravity.

  Even as he moved, his gaze kept locked on the fray, though his goal was to avoid it until his companions were safely away, free of danger.

  The Swarm evaded attacks with unholy grace, plunging into the earth like a shadow swallowed by night, only to erupt elsewhere in a spray of foul soil, striking out at a new target, its laughter grinding through the ruckus like bones in a mill.

  Even in its blinding celerity, the fiend couldn’t evade every blow. Impacts tagged its ancient hide, drawing luminous ichor, a strange fluid that wept like starlight corrupted, hissing as it met the ashen ground and birthed wisps of fell vapor.

  It reappeared in the air above the portal, and a maelstrom erupted from its bandaged form, crackling tendrils of green lightning forking through the battle zone in a blinding cascade.

  The ionized storm tore past Angar, sending embers and ash whirling unnaturally.

  At first, he mistook the attack’s effect for some half-broken dilation of time, a sorcerous snare that froze only some of the battlefield in stasis, with many Knights locked mid-stride, their armors rigid as statues, weapons halted in suspended violence.

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  But most battled on.

  And he felt a shift in his drag as Garioch's armor seized up.

  Realization dawned that the attack was something akin to an EMP surge.

  Though unarmored, Angar's cybernetics held firm, so his mods must’ve warded off the paralysis with grim efficiency.

  From the earth behind a frozen Seraph, the Swarm burst forth like a volcanic explosion, twin blades manifesting in its taloned grasp.

  In a blur of motion, it decapitated the immobilized Knight, the helm tumbling away in a fountain of blood, before the monster dissolved back into the soil, swallowed by shadows.

  It resurfaced an instant later behind another petrified Knight, its blades poised for the kill, but Saint Thryna's Mechanoid-like form slammed into its flank with the force of a battering ram.

  They tangled in a frenzy of steel and sorcery, her embedded blasters and spiked knuckles pulverizing mummified flesh, her blades slashing, while the Swarm raked back with claws that trailed gouges in her steel frame.

  Only for a split moment, they grappled in profane intimacy, until the Swarm yielded to the depths once more, vanishing into the foul earth.

  Then it manifested again, perched high in the boughs of a withered tree like a gargoyle from a cathedral, a bow of bone and sinew drawn taut.

  It loosed a single glowing arrow skyward, the missile exploding high above like an unholy firework.

  The blast birthed a rain of thousands, each arrow plummeting in a deadly hail that thudded into the encircling battlecycles, piercing armor and flesh.

  Screams replaced the sudden silence of weapons, the Templars' fire slackening as riders slumped or vehicles crashed, their barrage faltering like a heart in arrest.

  Angar pressed on more quickly, aiming for the ritual circle's edge, hauling his comrades' deadweight through the infernal tangle, the foliage hungering and writhing, vines lurching for his skin in futile bids for purchase.

  Throughout the forest, armor rebooted, freed from the EMP’s grip, and weapons blared in renewed fury.

  A flurry of stray attacks passed dangerously close, one embedding in the soil centimeters from Simo's limp form. Angar hurled himself over his wards, using his body as a shield against the splintering impacts.

  His wounded arm screamed in protest as he resumed the drag, keeping watch on the chaos, the Swarm flowing through the melee like sentient smog, coiling, evading, a profane serpent of undead shadow that wove through firearm barrages, psychic powers, and Abilities with supernatural alacrity.

  Angar had borne witness to all the notable Seraphs on Abyssalhome locked in battle against a demon elder named Fargus, Terran and Pleiadean alike, and that spectacle had unfolded in a manner utterly alien to this chaos.

  The titanic Fargus had lumbered forward blasting fell powers as the Seraphs peeled back in disciplined waves, yielding ground to fresh lines of brethren who maintained a ceaseless, relentless barrage.

  Abilities ignited the air, ethereal shields bloomed to deflect infernal blasts, a tactical attrition waged in mechanical, rote boredom.

  Hours after Sal had been called to that fray, from a distant mountain perch where the Seraph had deposited them, the battle had blazed through their sector. They’d only witnessed a few minutes of the fight, but even still, it had been a tedious vigil to watch.

  No Seraph had fallen in that or any other ordeal against a named entity of Hell yet, not that Angar had heard.

  But this clash was very different, a deadly ballet of doom. And he’d yet to see a Pleiadean.

  Just as he spotted another Seraph he knew, High Marshal Adenauer, the Swarm ascended once more, soaring above the earth like a malediction given wings.

  Its bandaged and bloodied form coalesced into something far more solid, its monstrous bulk swelling to gigantic size and taking on density, becoming a much easier target.

  It didn’t even try to avoid harm.

  Abilities and attacks battered it in a relentless tide, many failing to penetrate, but many ripped through its hide, sending its strange ichor splattering to the ground.

  As Angar wondered what it was up to, smoke erupted from it in a profane explosion, a torrent of shadow that unfurled like the birth of nightmares.

  The writhing foliage responded to the darkness, a cluster of razor-leaved shrubs surging toward Angar that he slashed at with claws, severing tendrils that oozed foul sap.

  Then the smoke reached him, and dark whispers assailed his mind.

  But not whispers. Screams.

  Terrible screams, almost like those torn from the throats of ancient evils of a gateway's far side, a powerful cacophony that flooded his skull like a breached hull.

  They overwhelmed in an instant, drowning thought in a dark abyss, his legs buckling under the onslaught.

  The earth warped, a liminal weave growing around him, something as colorless as the shadow realm, but completely barren and empty.

  All the tremendous pain he was in mercifully fled his body. A thousand voices spoke at once, no longer screams, but the patient, grinding certainty of eternity.

  Come.

  We will knit your shattered bones with iron oaths.

  We will give back all that has been taken.

  You will know no pain, nor want.

  So much power.

  And you will never kneel.

  All we ask is for you to be still.

  Just for a moment.

  And let us in.

  The words slithered into Angar’s mind like cold tendrils.

  His resolve, already exhausted from having just rebuked the undead curse, along with every atom of his battered body, yearned for his surrender.

  The seduction hooked deep.

  Half his mind screamed for him to relent, to welcome this splendid prize.

  It was irresistible, inevitable.

  Glorious darkness washed around him like a roiling sea, bathing him in loving sacrilege, filling him with its grandeur.

  And he reveled in it.

  Finally.

  He closed his eyes, overwhelmed with bliss unending.

  But behind the closed lids, Spirit’s face blazed, tortured and bloodied and judging him, disgusted with what she saw.

  Was his faith this brittle? His pride so feeble?

  All of it, all he'd been through, just for this end?

  Every time he had spat blood and stood back up.

  Every enemy he had torn apart with bare hands.

  Every oath kept while the galaxy demanded he break it.

  No.

  He wasn’t done yet.

  The word was small.

  Then it became a roar.

  He stood inside the raging storm and bellowed until his lungs bled, until the darkness recoiled, until the smoke shattered against his will like glass against stone.

  His legs steadied.

  His spine straightened.

  He was incorruptible, an unstoppable force, God’s righteous hammer to shatter the profane.

  The world returned to color.

  The pain returned too, and in full. He welcomed it back home like a wayward brother, his mind emerging clear and unbroken from the unholy storm.

  He looked across the smoke-filled forest.

  Two Seraphs he doubted were peak fled in fear, and another stood frozen as if his armor had succumbed to another EMP blast.

  Though higher of Realm, lesser men than he.

  He grabbed the strap and continued to haul his companions away, noticing Simo's steady breaths, watching the deadly war unfold.

  As he steadily neared the ritual circle’s edge, a sudden rustle from behind spiked his adrenaline.

  He whirled, claws unsheathing, ready to give what battle he could, only to exhale a ragged breath of relief.

  Two from the Sisters of Fury Ordo stood there, one’s aura cutting through the gloom like a Holy lantern, nullifying the dark whispers.

  Sanctissima Inquisitrix Chiara, the famed Golden Matron, the Ordo's founder.

  Her lithe power armor glowed with an auric, inner radiance that laughed at both this world's perpetual twilight and all that was unholy.

  Her auto-blaster began to bark, spitting sanctified rounds into the fray.

  At her side, a subordinate sister in heavier armor stood with a large pistol bucking in each hand.

  "He’s free of corruption," the Golden Matron screamed over the weapon fire to her companion. "Get them out of here!"

  The sister nodded, stepping forward to lend her gauntleted hands.

  But the earth betrayed her in that instant, erupting in a geyser of foul soil and shadow.

  The Swarm surged forth like a curse, twisting with impossible grace, twin blades blazing in its grasp.