Tragedy of Lilith

Chapter 1: 1 retpahc

Flames lick her neck, face, and chest as some of the few unchanged parts of her unholy body. One of her four massive arms holds a human skull, tinny in her new hands, as an unchanging, toiling thought steers in her head. What was the action that led her here? A demon prince of hell rebranded heretical so far from her lover in this afterlife. Hell indeed, without her; however, life was the same when she had gone. She supposed that it was always to be this way. All starting the day her brother was selected to die in the eternal, or even when he got caught up in the alien cult plaguing her small planet, but no. Wondering on such things is for the mortals, which she is now no longer. She does not think on if, but on is. So she thinks of the planet, and the planet's grandest building.

The governor's estate, more of a city than a single estate, roads in the sky and countless sky scrappers lick and go above the clouds of smog. The planet had an entire middle class dedicated to serving him and his subservient nobles. Whole generations were dedicated to his depravity. An entire generation of perpetually young boys, countless humans stuck in mindless abominable bodies, or even the corpses of said generations stitched together in an orgy of body parts? All child's play as he would outlive his whims and the people they would tear asunder as he would extend his own life through equally unholy means. At the time of his death, the smell of the souls, bodies, and depravity would assault your nose, followed by the similarly disgusting body. More blubber than man, more machine than blubber, and more oil than even a machine can stand. The personal child of the excess, if there ever were, he would be the one to hold this fine line between using his power to his own vices and providing the ones above him to keep his place.

They would demand 85.5369812 Billion metric tons of food every ten holy Terran years and the firstborn of every family fully trained to be a soldier to be shipped off the planet. The rest can be sold for profit to only him. In exchange, the governor can keep managing the planet at his whims.

This is the place where she was born to a mechanic family under the name of Lilith Valentine, the humble sister to the most exceptional officer of the new blood from the little planet. Usually, this title would be held by a noble child, but every so often, tension and starvation lead to the rare commoner child gaining the title. The typically gray family in their grease-covered jumpsuits were all dressed up in clothes that had a brightness not seen before, colors they had not seen before, sent as a temporary gift by the governor himself that would be soon taken away and burned after the ceremony of showing off the planet's best and brightest walking body. They waited with barely a breath in their lungs for the governor himself to show in his personal flying machine. Then he flies them into the gates of his own home, more extensive than Lilith could have ever imagined, and the constant smell of oil and continents of wheat being a faded memory away with nobles cheering out.

The first stop was the barracks to pick up her brother, just on the outer side of the estate. Flying by to display the fields of drop ships provided by the Imperial Navy to support the transport of the twenty years' worth of troops. To the navy that flew in orbit overhead in orbit that could be seen from the ground as clear as the second moon. Tall buildings lined the whole field, filled with classrooms, shooting ranges, simulations, and command rooms filled to the brim. Soon to be left vacant by everyone except the most senior members to train the next batch. A car of honor guard flew through the air to join behind the governor and to let Lilith's brother on board.

Her brother stepped on board to join the family, but something was different as if some unknowable force had touched him and set him to complete one specific task. Such a young and inexperienced person couldn't have done a thing to stop what he was about to do.

The second stop was with the chantry of the holy imperium of man. These men and women were dedicated to the worship of the sacred emperor of man. An immortal man who now sits undead upon his golden throne, forever wounded by one of his sons turned betrayer due to this, forever bound to his half-completed projects of guiding a man through a safer way faster than light travel.