"No pity! No remorse! No fear!”

Trillions of micro-organisms, falling like dust motes, settled over the once bustling Hive City like a slow rolling fog, blurring anything beyond a few skyscrapers into a haze of bleak gray. The scent of mold and dead things, the echoes of what my rebreather missed, filled my nostrils. I tried to get a signal to the marines. Nothing. My arm shook as I tried to broadcast any message, but it was no use. Damn it. The spores must block coms. The scouting party had been split for roughly twelve minutes now. The atmospheric interference was too intense for any chance of rescue, but if I could reach higher ground...

Then my arm stopped shaking.

Then I realized everything stopped shaking.

The shaking was neither the instinctual response to extreme stress, nor the pulse of my own adrenaline. It wasn’t mine at all. It was the very ground beneath me. Each thud resonated a low, deep frequency, waves that sent a shiver from the base of my neck crawling to my feet. The spores only seemed to intensify, shrouding everything in a coat of shimmering, sickly, graininess. The blue binary suns that once brought hope now shown an eerie glow, casting ominous shadows as the light slowly filtered through the haze. Pebbles shifted restlessly. The sound of metal and stone bending and cracking filled the air as supports groaned and collapsed far below while pieces of debris rained down.

The only way out now was up.

As I kept climbing the steep metal superstructure, the air began thinning. The fungal fog becoming a mist. My lungs burned with the sheer effort of clawing my way up, one hand over the next. My vision began blurring at the edges, but I was able to discern shapes shifting in the haze far, far beneath me. Maybe it was my brothers, or perhaps the strange creatures seeing the city or maybe... it was just one titan.

The sound of hundreds of tons of explosives detonating tore through the air, a physical force that slammed into the core of the structure, ripping a cry from its metal bones. Somewhere far below, a strangled, guttural roar pierced the air. It was a noise unlike any other I heard, a sound so low and deep that it shook me to my core. Something had triggered the city's defenses. Something large enough to set them all off... at once. As the shockwave rippled through the air, my grip on the ladder loosened, I slipped...

And fell.

When I regained consciousness, I sat up as quickly as I could muster, the impenetrable will that once dictated me eroding whilst my head throbbed. Red blood trickled down my forehead, paling to shades of sickly gray before mutating completely. Debris covered me, my vision flickering as I freed myself with force. The ladder I had dropped from could be found bent and mangled another four or five stories below as I peered over the edge. I checked my Vox. Static. My foot made contact with the metal support as I kicked it in frustration. All noise ceased. The tremors vanished. Even the spores seemed to still. The hollow sound reverberated throughout the Hive city, drawing the sound out longer and thinner until...

It broke.

The superstructure groaned, its steel bones twisting as though it were paper. I staggered, clutching at the railing. Then the fog parted. A claw, or maybe a scythe? Whatever it was tore upward through the haze, razing massive towers and spires as though they were parchment. The city screamed as its peaks collapsed, cascading into the darkness below.

I drew my blade. What else could I do? The Emperor had not sent me here to cower. My vox was dead, my brothers lost, but my oath remained. I roared my defiance into the choking mist, the words of the vow tearing from my throat: No pity! No remorse! No fear!

The ground screamed as the titan ascended, its roar a sound that bent the air itself. My armor rattled. My bones shook. Still, I climbed, higher and higher, toward the satellite spire above. If I could reach it, perhaps I could signal the fleet. Perhaps I could warn them. Perhaps I could die with purpose. I felt the air pulse, as though the spores themselves had a heartbeat. The mist parted once more, not in a gentle tear but in a violent rip, as if the atmosphere itself feared what emerged.

The titan rose, its monstrous form eclipsing the binary suns completely, its silhouette a cathedral of writhing chitin and searching tendrils. The top of the spire was within reach now, a glistening beacon of hope within the gray blanket of spores. I felt the ladder give way beneath me as something colossal ripped it off... and I jumped.

My fingers grazed the edge, curling instinctively from years of battle. I felt my shoulder blade crack in half, but my hand held fast; my faith would not waver. I had a mission to complete. With my feet planted, I made a final, desperate hurdle to the top.

My boots scraped against the final rung, the metal shrieking as though it too feared what hunted me. With a last surge of strength, I pulled myself onto the spire’s crown. The jagged platform trembled beneath my weight. Far below me, the fog swirled violently, as if dragged by unseen currents, and for a moment, the world became still.

I turned.

From the mist, two pits stared back at me, blacker than the void beyond the black hole. They did not glimmer, did not shine, but swallowed light whole. My reflection vanished inside them, as though I had already been consumed.

For a moment, my faith wavered. For a moment, I felt miniscule, a mortal facing a god of war. For a moment, I was an ant, about to be crushed by a giant of immeasurable size. But I know no fear.

My gauntlet tightened around the hilt of my sword. The oath burned in my chest, louder than fear, stronger than despair. I leapt.

The blade gleamed as I hurled myself into the abyss between us, a single push against the endless void. My war cry tore through the choking mist.

“No pity! No remorse! No fear!”