Purge of the Contqual Sub-sector - Advancing Onwards: As the Titans engaged the enemy in the Maw, Lord Commander Arven Rauth ordered his Iron Hands to accelerate their advance. After cleansing the two Melamar spires, they moved on the hive cluster's Capitolis. Rauth required the services of Chief Librarian Telach, for he possessed no intelligence on the transit routes towards their objectives.By this time, the Imperial forces had suffered through nearly two full standard days of combat against a seemingly endless tide of corrupted mortals, and the fighting had taken its toll on his spirit. Telach found that his head throbbed within its Psychic Hood. Unlike his battle-brothers, who fought only with their physical attributes, Telach drew on the powers of the Warp, and the effort required to tap into that capricious well of psychic power was significant.Using his innate abilities, Telach let his consciousness drift out of his body, using his psychic sight to determine the enemy's positions. As his disembodied spirit approached a massive gateway swept up out of the shadows, he encountered psychic resistance.As Telach masked his presence and attempted to penetrate within, he detected the presence of the Archenemy. He instinctively knew that the Iron Hands had not seen the full extent of the enemy forces yet.Suddenly, something else made its presence known. Something vast and ancient, like some creature of a deep ocean sweeping out of the abyss to feed. Even as he rushed back to his mortal body, back to where his physical form would afford him some level of protection against whatever dwelt in the Capitolis, Telach heard the creature's voice, as seductive as honey, but sadistic and immeasurably, infinitely cruel.Telach broke the psychic link, and his projected self snapped back into its mortal bounds. He confirmed the lord clan commander's suspicions. If the Iron Hands were able to force passage through the hive complex's subterranean tunnels, they would be able to forgo facing the heavy wall defences of the Capitolis. Telach warned the lord commander to be aware, for he recognised the unknown Chaos presence in the Capitolis: the Iron Hands had fought it before.In the meantime, Lord General Nethata had grown impatient with the Iron Hands, and decided to depart the relative safety of his command bunker to rendezvous with the forces under his command. He departed in his personal command Baneblade Malevolentia. Nethata was thoroughly frustrated with Arven Rauth -- the implacable, inscrutable, infuriating Lord Clan Commander Rauth.Getting tactical information from the clan commander was next to impossible. One moment, Rauth would demand the redeployment of whole regiments of the Astra Militarum's Ferik regulars for some obscure purpose, the next he would issue a formal protest at Nethata's request for a single Iron Hands squad in return.Every time a detachment of Astra Militarum troops was assigned to Rauth's command it took horrendous casualties, to the extent that Nethata had started to wonder whether his troops were being gunned down by the Astartes' side.Nethata was an Imperial commander in his own right, used to having the final say over the lives of millions of troops and thousands of companies. He had always carried out that duty soberly, mindful of the many and varied factors involved in the proper conduct of war.Every order he had issued as a lord general of the Astra Militarum had been made in the full knowledge that he bore the ultimate responsibility for the consequences of his actions.Nethata had been ordered to rendezvous with the Galamoth 4th and 9th Armoured Regiments in the area known as the Maw. The coordinates for the rendezvous had come from Clan Commander Rauth. Nethata observed that a smaller structure stood to the east of the principal hive spire -- a lesser spire, relatively intact along its southern face.Enemy positions lodged high up in the walls had not been the target of Rauth's assault, and the smaller spire still mustered a volume of fire on his right flank.If Nethata had been in overall command, he would have moved to neutralise that threat before pressing on towards the centre of the hive cluster. That would have been the prudent thing to have done.Nethata decided to make a change of plans. He knew that the Iron Hands only respected strength. He would show them strength alright -- mortal strength. He ordered his entire armoured column to proceed to their rendezvous with the Galamoth regiments as planned, but the flanking position could not be allowed to persist.The Iron Hands continued their relentless advance on the Capitolis. They crunched their way through a thick layer of burned, twisted and ruined bodies. Corpses stretched away fore and aft, interlocking and overlapping into a carpet of cadavers.The hive of Melamar Primus was finally secured. The tunnel approaches were now under assault and Rauth made clear to his battle-brothers that he would lead the attack beyond. Though Telach had warned his brothers of the potent Chaos presence in the spires, it was clear that the normally stoic Chief Librarian had been unnerved by what he had sensed.Rauth ordered heavy support to be put in place and he contacted Princeps Lopi. Rauth did not intend to have the Iron Hands enter the Capitolis unprepared. All of the claves of Clan Raukaan were to be assembled and the Librarians deployed, but most of all, Rauth wanted the support of the Titans. Rauth ordered the Princeps to send the Warhound Scout Titans into the hive complex itself to break the enemy's spirit.Princep Lopis' own Warlord Battle Titan had made its way across the open space of the Maw and through the narrow gap between the Melamar Primus and Melamar Secundus hives. Striding through the valley between sheer walls on either side, it had waded through whole detachments of heavy armour, crunching the wreckage beneath its feet and grinding the smoking remnants into the ash-soil.The enemy had nothing with which to fight back. Their tanks were too slow and too bogged down in the morass of semi-derelict buildings to respond adequately. Only the Heretics' ferocious wall-mounted artillery packed a big enough punch to trouble the war machines of the Legio Astorum.Melamar Secundus had been ravaged by the relentless barrage of the Titan assault and had become a pyramid of fire. Huge rents had been gouged out of the hive city's protective plating, exposing the layers of habunits within.Flames the size of Thunderhawks rippled up the precipitous edges, fed by the wind and spilled Promethium. Secondary explosions rocked the spire from within, spewing out gobbets of smoke and sparks. The fire positions were black holes gouged deep into Melamar's heart.The princeps received the priority request from Rauth in regards to the tasking for the Warhounds. He authorised their use as fire support for the Iron Hands. The remaining Warlord Titans had bigger prey to stalk.