The dust beneath his feet echoed the sterility that swirled in his gut, any and all emotion long since dissolved in the raging inferno of his anger and despair. Old tears glistened on his daemonic skin, an irredecent testament to the hardships that fate had recently inflicted upon him. All coherent thought had long since fled, replaced instead by a venomous, black malaise of hatred. Black fires coursed along the surface of his skin, rippling in vile tendrils, dancing and cavorting in the heat of his rage.

So thus he lay, bitter tears intermingling with the ashes of his former life, the scent of death and destruction hanging like a fleeting memory in the air; a fitting testament to the acts of slaughter and injustice that had been committed within these walls. His gut broiled with the heat of his emotion, wiping away any mercy or altruism he may have felt for these creatures and their decomposing society. What did it matter to one such as he now? He had the power of the Dark Gods themselves at his finger tips. With but a gesture, he could demolish this fetid cancer of a city from the face of the planet, just as his life had been suffocated like a fragile candle flame.

He rose on muscular haunches, feeling the sinew beneath rippling and shifting in vile unison with the audible sound of stretching flesh. The transformation, fuelled by his hatred, was at the same time both glorious and unbearably painful, as every fiber of his physical presence shifted and tore free of its moorings to accomodate his daemonic countenance. The black fires raged about him, charring the floor beneath his feet to little more than molten rock, and still he stood, rapt by the facination of his own magnificence. Worse of all was the hot, sickening sensation of two narrow fissures tearing across his back as the macabre, bony formations of his wings unfolded, spreading the entire expanse of the room with pinions of shadow. Even this vast chamber could barely accomodate his true form, so enormous was he, so filled with the potential of his hate and despair. Nothing mattered to him anymore; the rage consumed him, dfining his existence where before had been nothing but emptiness.

He clung to it, drinking deeply of the scarlet wine that welled in his mind and soul, allowing it to imbue him with it's potency. Flesxing the leathery membrane of his wings against the dead air, he soared heavenwards, tearing through steel and mortar as the very stuff of the building melted in the face of his righteous anger, like an angel of death he rose into the waning eve sky, his darkness a malevolent sillhouette against the crimson sky. Below, life was continuing in its daily struggle as it always had. Footsore, weary women dragged their screaming children through the dust strewn streets, beggars and deviants lay on the wayside, seeking redemption that would never come. Above all of this he rose, surveying the extent of mankind's corruption of the universe that had borne them for so long like a celestial wolf might bare an infestation of flees. It was time for the beast to scratch.

He could feel the very life of the planet pulsing beneath him like a vast, blue luminescence before his mind's eye, flickering in a sea of pollutants and corruption, and from it radiated power. Such power. never had he felt it's kind, not even in the delirium of the warp, where all things could come to pass. He felt the black beatings of his own soul, coursing through his every fiber of his being like summer lightning, yearning to join with the greater force below. He could even see the diminuitive, filthy life-forces of the haggard, temporary creatures below, going about their mundane, insiginificant existances in blissful ignorance of his scrutiny. By the Dark Gods, how he now despised them and their ultimate pointlessness. How he wished to tear them and their worthless edficies from the surface of this world and cast them into the cold, unyilding void from which they'd came.

It was them. They'd stood by, gawping in brainless rapture as he'd burned on the pyre, screaming his injustice to the stars. They'd allowed the corrupt monsters that ruled them to take her...to take them all.......

Enough. With a shriek as of an immense bird of prey, it's pinions burning with awesome energies, he fell upon the Hive City, exulting in the shrieks and cries of lamentation as he settled on hooves of bronze in the Market square, his fires licking out to scorch the unworthy flesh of those foolish enough not to flee. His muscular arms snaked into the milling crowds, his black, iron talons digging into the softness of flesh with sickening ease. A sharp crack of thunder echoed from one of the surrounding buildings and he pitched forward violently as something impacted with hot, concentrated force against his back. USing his wings to steady himself he turned and bared serrated, scythe-like fangs at his attacker.

An awe-struck peasent wielding an archaic, rural fire-arm, still smoking with the heat of its discharge. He smiled malevolently at the statement of dumb-founded terror as he charged like a rampaging bull on his former aggressor. He took the creature round its grotesque throat and squeezed with a strength comparable to that of twenty of its kind, feeling grim satisfaction as its neck snapped like a brittle twig.

The denizens of the market had mostly fled, flocking towards the bridges and streets that provided the only routes out of the vast plaza. He'd savour the taste of their blood, despite its weakness. Rising into the gently cooling air once more, he let the corpse drop with a sickening thud onto the cobbles below, coursing like a dying, black star towards the retreating masses.

Tongues of flame lapped from his jaws and struck down many, reducing them to little more than charred cadavers of ash. The screams fell like sublime music against his ears as he once more landed in their midst, tossing bodies aside like rag dolls, smashing them into buildings and crushing them against the ground until the plaza lay like a warzone in some godforsaken corner of the galaxy, bodies, mutilated and broken lying strewn about the ground, their lidless eyes turned in silent protestation to the uncaring sky. The local militia would arrive soon. He welcomed them, and any pathetic weaponry they could bring to bear. He was invulnerable. He was immortal. Timeless, ageless, constant.

He turned his face to the darkening skies, a gibbering wretch caught in his claws, and screamed his consternation to the star-studded heavens: "YESSSSS, RUUUN! FLEE, MY INSIGNIFICANT VERMIN! FEAR ME, FOR I AM REDEMPTION! I AM NAMED BARTELBY, AND I WAS BORN AMONGST YOU, NOW DIE BY MY HAND!"

With that, he took to the skies once more, savouring the slaughter to come.

Authorization code: "Lupus" XVCG4578207843-23445764
Date: 505.M41 Imperial Terran Calendar
Thought for the day: "Cherish the ignorance of one’s followers as one would cherish their loyalty, for it is through ignorance that they are shielded."
Personal Log of Captain Maugrim Lupus of the "Ragnar’s Claws" Space Wolves.

- It’s been nearly five terran months since the data transmission from the Minos system, a small conglomerate of hive worlds connected by a revolutionary new transport system which ensures successful trading relationships between those celestial spheres who’s purpose is to provide raw materials and food and those who’s purpose is to consume the produce and spread the seed of commerce amidst other neighbouring systems. The message was largely scrambled and incoherent, even for such a back-water planet as Minos VI, some unknown energy signature unfortunately erased or scrambled most of the message, however, that which the most highly skilled Adepts of our Chapter have managed to recover has led me to some rather disturbing conclusions. (see attached document).

Date: 470.M41
Thought for the Day: Those blinded by contentment are the first to die.
Data Transmission from Minos VI. Please respond with haste.

- Those who haven’t fled are dead, or dying. Emperor save us, this thing came from the heavens like an angel of death, first it fell on the merchants and consumers at the plaza, picking up bodies and smashing them against walls and trees, spewing fire like some unholy dragon of legend. We barricade....(Extract scrambled, our scribes and techmarines are attempting to re-create or repair the message as to the best of their abilities.)
- It’s been nearly five days now, and still the thing rages outside. We’ve thrown everything we have at it, Ganruel, the fool, drove a Tractor straight into the beast’s stomach, knocking back through the wall of the library, but was cruelly brought to an end as the bloodied fiend tore through the fallen masonry and sliced at his throat... I can still hear the screams now. The Adeptus Arbites enforcement were never trained to deal with something like this! Captain Laceous, their commanding officer tried to shove a Power sword through the thing’s throat and ended up crushed against one of the museum’s pillars. The thing’s been shot, stabbed, impaled, crushed and still it refuses to lay down and die. What kind of daemon-spawn is this thing?
- ...(beginning of extract scrambled upon reception due to our proximity to a small warp storm).. morrow we make for the communications tower. Most of us are going to die. It’s no use denying what is so frankly inevitable. The bat from hell is circling the mast now, mocking us, screaming at us to come and take our prize. It doesn’t matter. If just one of us can get a message to whoever’s out there....(excerpt scrambled)...the Adeptus Astartes can stop it before it gets any further. Emperor help us all. Josie, Amruel, I don’t even know whether or not you’re alive as I write this, but I pray to The Emperor and all of his servants to deliver you from this darkness... Message Ends.

-Commercial and military communications were lost with the planet a couple of Terran days before this message was sent. I don’t know exactly what kind of alien filth has desecrated the Emperor’s soil and his hallowed peoples, but their sacrifice shall not be in vain. Even now, we are approaching orbit of Minos VI, an unyielding, cold looking world with a patina of ominous, grey clouds skirting it’s circumference. One thing however, is sending ice up my spine. Where are the lights? The hive city below covers almost a third of the planet’s surface, and is powered by seven monumental generators beneath the crust which draw on the geothermal energies of the planet’s core, yet there is nothing. Not even a single blip.
-We are entering the planet’s atmosphere now, the Fang of Russ is creaking as if it’s about to tear apart beneath our feet, but the old girl’s been through worse than this. She’ll come out fine. I admit that I am slightly apprehensive about what we’re going to find down there. We’ve attempted every hailing frequency known to humanity, and still there is no response. Why is it that I get the sensation that this planet is without question, dead?

507.M41
- We’ve made planet fall onto the Northern Hemisphere of the city. I’ve split our forces into two squadrons, Squadron Lycanthrope and Squadron zephyr, in the hope that our diversified combing of the city state will yield more results in a shorter time. I wish to leave this dead, inhospitable little mudball as soon as feasibly possible; the place makes my skin crawl.