Last Drop

The sky over Red Chasm was the color of old wounds—dusty crimson with streaks of darker clouds, as if the planet itself was trying to bleed.

The Maverick Cultists stood on the jagged cliffs, backs to the abyss, weapons humming, dripping, burning. Below them, the enemy approached in perfect formations: armored troopers, heavy walkers, precision artillery. Discipline. Order. Clean death.

Exactly the kind of thing the Cultists despised.

Brother Gorch stood atop a half-collapsed shrine that once bore the mark of Surm, the god of sacrifice and blood. The symbol was faded now—scratched out by his own hand.

Once, he had knelt before this altar. He had chanted the litanies. Chosen the victims. Collected the blood in sacred bowls and poured it over stone.

But one day, in the middle of a war-chant, he had paused. Looked at the soaked altar. Looked at the dying man at his feet.

And thought:

Why am I even bothering with the altar?

The revelation hit like a hammer to the skull. Surm didn’t care where the blood flowed. Or who spilled it. His hunger was ancient, mindless, absolute.

So the Cultists stopped kneeling.

Stopped pretending.

They picked up swords and guns and never looked back.

Now, here they stood—outnumbered, outgunned, outmaneuvered.

And elated.

Brother Gorch turned to his warband—dozens of half-mad zealots in blood-washed armor, some missing limbs, some already on fire.

“This is the end,” he said. “And Surm will love it.”

They cheered.

The enemy opened fire.

The first wave of troopers was reduced to red mist as flamers lit up the pass. A Cultist tackled a walker and jammed grenades into its vent ports. Another ran screaming through the enemy lines, holding a gun in each hand and a live grenade in his teeth.

Every kill was a prayer.

Every scream, a hymn.

Every death, sacred.

Eventually, the Cultists began to fall—limbs torn away, bodies crushed, laughter turning into gurgling. Gorch himself was impaled by a rail spike the size of a javelin, pinned against the cracked shrine.

He laughed.

Blood poured down the stones, pooling in the dust.

“A proper altar after all,” he whispered.

The last few Cultists kept fighting long after their bodies should have quit—until there was nothing left but twitching armor and silence.

The enemy secured the ridge. Set up med stations. Logged casualties.

They had won.

Tactically.

But somewhere in the deeper void, far beyond matter and sanity, Surm stirred.

He did not see winners or losers.

He saw rivers.

He drank deep.

And in the cold, cooling body of Brother Gorch, something smiled.