9 Chapter 8: Unification of Nostramo

They say the march of progress is lined with blood, sweat, and tears, but this is 40k. We will need planets worth of it all to even progress even a bit, dragging this universe kicking and screaming into a brighter future.

With battle quickly approaching the newly named legio noctis. The black paint of every vehicle highlighted the red painted words marking the motto on each vehicle being "iudex iudicum et carnifex."[Judge jury and executioner]

The calm before the storm was broken as a yell from a scout vehicle's comms reaches the others

"Incoming hostiles from the west"

With the enemy spotted and getting closer. All prepare for the fight ahead on both sides, making their final checks. A moment later, both sides reached firing range began firing lighting up the eternal night sky with explosions of cars becoming nothing more than a fire ball. With machine-gun fire riping across the air mixed with the death screams of men dying. The makeshift army knew then and there that they would not win at a distance and needed to close the gap to possibly even destroy the more dangerous vehicles with suicide charges or try to get inside and overthrow the crew.

While the battle rages on a shadow, it jumps from vehicle to vehicle, ripping out stearing wheels, and sometimes even the driver, causing each vehicle to swerve and crash into its brethren. Eventually, this shadow lands on the largest truck, revealing the shadow to be konrad.

"Get off my ride, freak!"

shouts the driver of the truck before slaming his hand on a button, causing an arc of electricity to surge throughout the surface of the vehicle. Fore, seeing this konrad jumps into the air before it hits him, landing in the back coming fave to face with the boss of this gaggle of makeshift war vehicles.

"So it will be decoded how far you go now, freak," stated the boss lady, looking up at konrad before lashing out with what can only be a large chain flail with a spiked ball the size of a man's head attached to the end of the chain.

With the two leaders fighting both sides, forces continue their fight with grim determination. With the criminals now in small arms range doors open on the tauroxs allowing the infantry within to open fire and the unlucky few criminals too close found themselves with cracked skull or removed heads courtesy of the power weapons weilded by the judges onboard.

Over time, the criminals' lack of professional equipment leads to their numbers steadily dropping while konrads force simply overtime becomes more skilled with its equipment, which was konrads goal in the end knowing this force was nothing more than a speed bump.

Back to konrads fight if it could even be called that with him easily dodging the swings of the boss before retaliating with adding a small cut the the bosses body which by now was covered in them with a small pool of blood growing below her. Looking around, konrad notices the fight is almost over, so deciding to put an end to this farce of a fight. With little effort konrad easily catches the ball of the flail, ripping it out of her hands before lifting her by her throat and simply flinging her into another vehicle with enough force to cave in the cabin with a sick crunch of bone and metal. Turning to the cabin of the truck he currently standing on, he looks into the eyes of the now scared driver before simply driving two clawed fingers into his skull, killing him instantly before jumping back onto a friendly taurox deciding to simply watch his men do the clean up and clean up they did. The entire convoy slows down to a halt with infantry rounding up any surviving criminals simply lining them up, forcing them to kneel with a soldier standing behind each one all looking up to the seated konrad who merely castes his gaze over each criminal before nodding his head. With the message received, each soldier draws a knife with the night haunters symbol etched on the blade before granting each criminal a quick death by driving said knives into their temple.

As the soldiers scrounge the field for ammo or simply find some scrap to temporarily repair any damage to their vehicles. Eventually, the convoy of death returns to its goal of getting to the 3 hags cities.

Their arrival was met with cheers from the civilians while the leader that didn't fight were trying to escape the city with their belongings. They never hoped to escape konrad, so with their fates set, they had their crimes declared and carved into their skin before being executed in the city center. With justice given, the rebuilding began in the same fashion of quintis as the city is reorganized with proper housing and effective factories, which begins to support the war effort. With a large amount of the population that wasn't needed for the factories and judge forces were put to use in construction or conscription into the army. This had a snowball effect with the army almost doubling in size with the new supply lines bolstering their forces with an army that started at a few tens of millions almost now reaches a few hundred million soldiers and support staff.

After making sure the hive would remain loyal and his system in place to make sure it continues to grow in the direction, konrad wishes it to go. He orders the revitalized army to continue on to the next city with their dark vehicles cutting through the dust and smog of the wastes outside of the cities only visible by their spot lights, keeping the way clear for the convoy.

It didn't take that long for the hive to be spotted with the defenders' trenches spotted a bit after that. With the grinding of brakes, the whole convoy came to a halt with engineers jumping out and beginning construction of a siege camp and large artillery.

As for the infantry and armor, they began to move around the city at a safe distance, deploying infantry as they went, fully encircling the city as the infantry themselves began to dig trenches at a large scale.

The defenders didn't just stand around. Using the extra time that the integration of the first hive bought them, they built up their defense by destroying most of the slums making completely impassable land around the entrances to the main hive, creating kill zones that konrads force would have to push through. They also had the time to round up civilians forcing the women/children and the infirm to work the factories to make ammunition and IEDs to fight back the forces of justice, while those still fit were forced to dig trenches and plant the IEDs at gunpoint with every act of defiance leading to innocent deaths. It is due to these extra crimes that all criminals of thus hive would meet a grim fate to forever be remembered in that hives' history.

Within a few hours, the artillery opened fire on the first line of defense as the soldiers followed after and jumped into said trench with artillery firing on the second line to prevent reinforcement. For hours, the infantry fought in the trenches using everything from their autoguns to their shovels to kill the enemy. With the fist trench cleared, the artillery fire moved onto the 3rd trench line in tandem of the infantry, charging into the 2nd trench led by a judge screaming "AVE DOMINUS NOX" Before he himself was killed. So, the process began again of hours of brutal trench fighting till the trench was cleared of hostiles and the few thay surrendered were executed on the spot by a judge. The 3rd trench would have been the same process with the armored vehicle keeping up just a trench behind them carrying their ammo and providing support fire from its mounted heavy weapons if not for the sound of a loud *THWACK* of elastin and the sound of canisters landing followed by the mass explosions of the IEDs. After the smoke cleared, some of the 3rd trench was destroyed, and a shout of "Destroy them while their stunned" followed by a mass charge out of the gates of criminals rushing into the 3rd trench forcing the soldiers to retreat with support fire from the tauroxs and tanks.

A pattern began to form as both sides fought over the 3rd trench, and every time it looked like the trench would fall to the soldiers IEDs would begin to fall and this would happen 3 more times before konrad decided something had to be done and so he along with a few judges and vetran infantry infiltrate the city. Once inside, they crept their way to each tower that the IEDs were launched from, and each would be rigged to topple onto the makeshift barracks of the gangs. While in their they would sneak into every leaders camp and kidnap the leaders out of their very beds and take them to the 2nd trench to force them to watch as their fellows fall.

A fall they did as within the hour a new assault began the moment 3rd trench fell the towers fell along with it breaking the morale of the enemy all trying to escape deep into the city as the soldiers gave chase rounding up tens of thousands of criminals before being brought to the base with 10 sent to the top of the walls and with their leaders watching each execution by hanging and before long with the city now set to be rebuilt with thousands of corpses hanging from its walls granting it a new name by the survivors calling it the corpse city with these corpses will remain well into the later generations.

Even though the city could not support the war effort it had a unknown effect at the time by word spreading to the last city of the 3 hags of the ruin brought onto the criminals and rebuilding and upgrades brought to them after compliance was secured. With greed and treachery in their hearts, the nobility turned on the gangs, hoping it would grant them amnesty by supporting an uprising of the civilians. Though they would receive no such favor on konrads' arrival with inspections revealing their treachery leading to their doom. They, along with the criminals, would be tied to a pole outside the city, and each civilian was given a knife and told to give each one a shallow cut, sentencing each criminal to a death by a thousand cuts and for their corpse to remain creating a forest of corpses to eventually waste away around the city.

It was by this point that the only remaining city received reports of the fates of the 3 hags, and they were terrified. So terrified were they that death seemed the best option for those who fought and lived would have a slow, painful death. Unknowingly to the rank and file criminals that still didn't know that their fates were sealed the next time they went to their bosses' homes and mansons all they would find is death as the top brass of this great city saw the writing on the wall. So taking it upon themselves to chose a better death most choosing a poison to take their life and some resorted to simple hanging. In the future, records of nostramo this day would be could the night of suicide.

It was complete anarchy when konrad arrived with his army, easily capturing the rampaging criminals and then simply walking them to the bridge over the pitch black void of a canyon before simply throwing those irredeemable over the edge plummeting to their doom. While the civilians cheered for the new order, it was just the beginning of the rise of nostramo and its soon to be empire of night.

After the unification, progress began with simple void craft being built in mass to spread across what used to be called the ghoul stars to now be named segmentum noctis. It is not just space being explored but all of nostramo itself revealing many surprising secrets hidden in its dusty wasteland outside of the equator ranging from long abandoned hives now nothing more than ruins to new vains of rare resources. All of these secrets are to be revealed to benefit the night haunter, the High judge, the king of nostramo Konrad Kurze.

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Hello, Author here

sorry for the slow updates, but I'm actively looking through lore and looking through theories that people have come up with to fill certain blanks like what made the ghoul stars a dead system with answers ranging from a separate dimension from the warp called a nightmare zone to it being the home system of the necrontyr and that races many experiments into their technology.

I'm getting off track, so again, thank you for continuing to read my story.