The Rangers fought valiantly, relying on each other to survive. They used coordinated fire and tactical retreats to avoid being annihited. Yet it was clear they were barely holding on. Rosina’s onsught was uing, f them into a desperate fight for survival. Every sed felt like ay, and every strike from Rosina brought them closer to defeat.

  Time was their only hope. The Eldar weren’t fighting to win—they were fighting to survive until reinforts arrived. The human strike force, led by Elizabeth and Kayvaan, was their st ce to destroy the altar and stop the Chaos incursion. If Rosina couldn’t be stopped, the entire p would fanihition.

  The altar loomed ominously in the ter of the battlefield. Psychiergy swirled above it, visible to the naked eye. A dark mist coalesced into a dense bck cloud, pulsating with malevolent power. The altar wasn’t just a symbol—it was a duit. The psychiergy it gathered would soon reach a critical mass, tearing open a rift iy and allowing Chaos to pour through.

  For the Eldar Rangers, the sight was a reminder of their grim reality. They weren’t just fighting for survival—they were fighting to stop the unthinkable. Yet despite their efforts, the altar tio pulse with growing energy.

  Sydria swung her Mirror Swords in desperate arcs, trying to find an opening in Rosina’s defenses. Occasionally, she used her psychiiper rifle to fire precision shots, but none could nd. Rosina’s mastery of the battlefield left no room for error. The Rangers were locked in a stalemate that only served to dey the iable.

  Elizabeth and her squad raced toward the altar with all the speed they could muster. Yet even as they pushed themselves to their limits, the timer on Elizabeth’s scope told the grim truth. Time was slipping away too quickly. She stared at the tdown, willing the seds to slow. But time obeyed no one. As the numbers hit zero, the truth became undeniable: they wouldn’t reach the altar in time.

  Above the surface, the sequences of their dey became clear. In the darkened sky above the underground city, a massive vortex began to form. From its ter emerged an enormous Chaos Gate, jagged and hor over the ndscape. The structure pierced the heavens, its spiked silhouette a stark trast against the swirling chaos behind it.

  The arch was a gate—a doorway for the forces of Chaos to ehe material world. Its sheer size made it seem like a reliyth, a gateway for the gods themselves. As it stabilized, the air grew heavy with the oppressive presence of the . The psychiergy gathered at the altar below had succeeded in opening the rift.

  For Rosina, the sight of the gate was a triumph. For the Eldar Rangers, it was the beginning of the end. Sydria, battered and bloodied, looked at the altar in despair. She didn’t need a human timer to know the truth—time had run out.

  Boom. Boom.

  The colossal doors creaked open with a thunderous noise, revealing a se that seemed torn from the depths of a fevered nightmare. Beyond the doorway y a desote, alien world. T ruins of shattered high-rise buildings reached for a blood-red sun hanging ominously in the sky. Below the sun, a crimson, droplet-shaped mass pulsated faintly, as if the sun itself were bleeding. The wind howled violently through the ruined ndscape, pig up monstrous creatures and hurling them across the skies like discarded toys.

  Standing in perfeation before the gate was a vast, grotesque army. ed monstrosities mutated by the powers of ingled with hulking Chaos Space Mariheir bck armor scarred and decorated with twisted runes of devotion to the Dark Gods. Some of these nightmarish soldiers wielded primitive melee ons—wicked bdes and jagged axes—while others carried advanced ranged onry, armed to the teeth with the tools of destru.

  At the front of the infernal host stood a singur figure who anded both fear and reverence: a red-haired daemon of surpassiy and terror. She bore a striking visage, her eyes gleaming like twin embers and her fiery hair casg like living fmes. Twin goat-like horns jutted from her head, and her bck armor was ornate and alluring, blending elegand menace.

  This was no ordinary daemon. She was the favored servant of Sanesh, risieorically within the ranks of Chaos. Her name oken in awe and dread even among her peers in the infernal hierarchy. Her reputation had reached the highest echelons of the Bck Legion, and now she stood as the leader of this unholy army, tasked with a mission of ic significe.

  For the red-haired witch, however, this mission was a tedium. Her task was to retrieve an objemense power from this barren, forsaken world. But there was ao crush, no prey to seduce or torment. The p’s lifeless expanse offered nothing to satisfy her appetite for cruelty or dece.

  "Why am I doing this?" she mused, her expression a mix of disdain and resignation. She wasn’t a mere errand runner—she was one of Sanesh’s chosen, a daemon of status and renow here she was, dispatched like a on courier. Her orders came from the highest authority—directly from Sanesh herself. Disobedience wasn’t an option, even for one as exalted as her.

  Rumors among the ranks whispered that these orders were lio a grander scheme orchestrated by her than Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of Chaos and lord of the dreaded Bck Legion. Abaddon, the self-procimed heir to Horus, had once again decred his iion to unch a Bck Crusade—a campaign to topple the Imperium and uhe Emperor from His Golden Throhe Warmaster’s audieh Sanesh had been clear in its i: to secure the Dark God’s blessing for his campaign. As he had many times before, Abaddon painted a grand vision of victory, promising to finally tear down the Imperium and deliver untold souls to the Ruinous Powers.

  Sanesh, in her enigmatic grace, offered support. Whether this was due to faith in Abaddon’s pn or mere amusement at his hubris was impossible to say. Among the daemoe, many mocked Abaddon behind closed doors. He was derisively niamed "Abaddon the Despoiler, Invincible and Ued”—a sarcastiod to his frequent failures to secure decisive victories.

  Yet Sanesh saw fit to aid him. It wasn’t a question of trust or belief but of indulgeo a deity like Sanesh, success and failure mattered less than the drama aions each attempt evoked. As a gesture of support, Sanesh bestowed Abaddon with invaluable knowledge: the location of a Bckstone Fortress and instrus for its activation.