Chapter 358: Capturing Sanguinius |
"Boss, the little white dot sent us a message. He wants to talk to you."
Noisy Boy looked back at Lino on the command platform and asked, "He said he wants to meet in The Warp instead of using holographic comms. Boss, are you going to see him?"
Lino didn't decline. He walked toward the porthole.
"Open the tower's outer hatch. Palcador, you have the conn while I'm gone."
"Yes, Boss." Palcador wasn't the least bit worried about his boss's safety. The nearby Warp was already blanketed by the Palu Shadow. If Sanguinius launched a sudden attack, he'd be the only one out of luck.
The hatch opened. Lino stepped out into The Warp and flew toward the little white dot in the distance, the Palu Shadow parting for him along the way.
The distance between them closed.
The white dot gradually enlarged in Lino's vision. It was a tall, handsome figure with pure white wings, his expression heavy with solemnity.
"What is your role in the Palu Empire?" Sanguinius asked.
"I am whoever you wish to see."
Sanguinius kept his face stern, looking the greenskin up and down from a dozen meters away.
"Are you the transmigrator who stole the Imperium's Warp essence? If you do not wish to make an enemy of the Imperium of Man, step aside."
Lino looked at Sanguinius with indifferent eyes. He picked up the holler box at his waist and spoke a single sentence:
"Bombard Baal, initiate a landing extermination, wipe out at least a third of the Blood Angels, and capture Dante alive."
"Yes, Boss."
As the Palu fleet began glassing the planet with tactical nukes, Sanguinius's expression changed drastically. His aggressive glare turned utterly ruthless.
He roared and charged at the greenskin, spreading his wings and erupting with blinding white light.
"Damned transmigrator, stop what you are doing! You will only throw the galaxy into chaos! Outsiders like you should obediently accept Father's arrangements and lay down your lives for the Imperium of Man!"
What sickening rhetoric.
Back when he lacked power, being at the mercy of others was one thing.
But now that the Palu Empire was steadily on the rise, for the Imperium of Man to still look down on them was simply courting death.
Unfazed by Sanguinius's attack, Lino stood his ground.
A low hum resonated.
A pillar of white light flared.
Lino raised the Palu Shadow.
Dense green Warp energy swallowed the white pillar, leaving Lino completely unharmed within the shadow.
Sanguinius closed the distance. Just as he was about to unleash psionic energy to disperse the Palu Shadow, he sensed intense psionic ripples around him.
Before he could dodge backward, the Warp energy was bound by a Psionic Field, forming an indestructible cage that completely locked him inside.
Shocked and enraged, Sanguinius glared with bloodshot eyes and shouted, "Don't force my hand, transmigrator! I know you are after my Warp essence! I warn you, if I detonate it, we will all die! You will never get it!"
Lino looked coldly at Sanguinius, lifting the holler box to give an order:
"Wipe out the Blood Angels. Put Dante's specimen into an amniotic tank; I will study it personally."
Sanguinius roared in fury, launching a barrage of punches against the inside of the cage and stirring up a dense flurry of ripples across the barrier.
Lino glanced down at his Dataslate.
As expected of the soul of the Imperium's Blood Angels primarch. Just those few punches had wiped out one percent of the population on Flash Planet.
Keep up the good work, Sanguinius.
Sanguinius raged in impotent fury while Lino remained entirely unfazed.
About half an hour later, a voice rang out from the holler box:
"Boss, the Blood Angels have been annihilated, and Dante has been placed in the amniotic tank."
"No!" Sanguinius roared.
Lino ordered, "Blow up Baal."
"You got it, Boss."
The Palu fleet launched earth-penetrating Big Boomers, sending warheads packed with apocalyptic destructive power straight into the planetary core.
A deafening blast erupted.
As a world-shattering explosion tore through the materium, a brief, brilliant burst of fireworks erupted within The Warp.
Sanguinius roared in utter despair:
"I'll drag you down with me!"
Lino remained unmoved.
A few seconds passed. Sanguinius didn't self-destruct. He just stood there with a conflicted expression, making the scene a bit awkward.
Lino chuckled.
"Sometimes, I really think you gods of this Warhammer universe are pretty hilarious. In other worlds, top-tier fighters can crush stars barehanded, reverse time and space, and create realms of their own. But the top tiers in this world? Besides having a bunch of avatars across different timelines and cowering in The Warp, what else are you capable of?"
Devastated and lost, Sanguinius neither dared to self-destruct nor possessed the means to escape. He could only freeze in place, looking awful.
The holler box crackled with a voice:
"Boss, Baal's demolition is complete."
"Excellent. Prepare to seal Sanguinius. I only want his Warp essence, not his personality."
"Yes, Boss."
The Warp cage acted like a physical object, dragging Sanguinius toward the Palu fleet. The dense Palu Shadow surrounded him so completely he couldn't have escaped even if he grew another pair of wings.
They entered the ship and returned to realspace.
The sight of Baal shattered into pieces was shocking. Sanguinius clenched his fists, burning with rage, and roared, "Die!"
A violent tremor shook the void.
Sanguinius detonated his Warp essence.
The Palu fleet surrounding Baal was completely swallowed up.
Blood-red flashes of Warp essence shattered into multiple fragments and shot out in all directions.
The moment they entered The Warp, they were locked down by the omnipresent Palu Shadow.
Another fleet flew over from Flash Planet.
Lino swapped to a new body, personally picked up Sanguinius's Warp essence, and brought it back onto the ship.
The power of Sanguinius's self-destruction was directly proportional to the degree to which he ruined his Warp essence.
Hoping to use his scattered Warp essence to be reborn elsewhere after blowing himself up, he had deliberately suppressed the blast's yield.
That explosion just now had only covered a radius of 0.002 light-years—hardly anything at all. The lethality it inflicted upon the Palu Empire was extremely limited.
Once he finished collecting the Warp essence, Lino prepared to lead the fleet back to the age of rebellion to study it thoroughly.
Right then, authoritative golden light flared within The Warp.
Sharp golden rays pierced through the Palu Shadow, stabbing straight for Lino's face.
Lino didn't dodge or evade. At the cost of five percent of Flash Planet's population, he blocked the dazzling, icy golden rays.
Two seconds later, the golden light retracted, coalescing into a brilliant golden figure.
It was none other than the God-Emperor.
"Hand over Sanguinius's Warp essence. It does not belong to you, nor are you worthy to possess it." The God-Emperor stood barring the way between Lino and the ship, his gaze burning. Golden light flickered in his palms, ready to unleash a devastating blast at any moment.
Lino raised the holler box, looking at the yellow weasel with a faint, mocking smile:
"Do it."
A deep thrum resonated.
The Flash Boyz manipulated the Warp energy, transforming it into towering green peaks that closed in on the God-Emperor's avatar like crushing mountains.
The God-Emperor's avatar threw out both hands, swinging left and right to blast the "mountain ranges" with pillars of golden light. Sweeping aside the green Warp energy, he charged straight at Lino.
Lino pulled out a piece of Sanguinius's Warp essence and gave it a hard squeeze.
A sharp fracture echoed.
The Warp essence shattered, dissolving into specks of starlight that scattered into The Warp as faint, ethereal wails drifted out.
The God-Emperor's expression warped in shock. His form flashed forward, closing the distance at breakneck speed.
Lino pulled out two more pieces of Warp essence and crushed them.
The God-Emperor pushed his speed faster and faster.
But as fast as he moved, Lino crushed the Warp essence just as quickly.
Only when Lino was down to the last ten pieces of Warp essence in his possession did the God-Emperor slam to a forced halt, snarling, "Damned transmigrator, I never imagined you could be this despicable! Your Palu Empire is finished. From now on, even if you hide in the Dark Imperium, you will still face the righteous judgment of the Imperium of Man!"
The God-Emperor's avatar transitioned from solid to ethereal. The golden light that had pierced the Great Rift and the Palu Shadow vanished in sync with him.
Lino quietly let out a sigh of relief.
That brief clash hadn't been as simple as it looked.
Forcing the yellow weasel back with Sanguinius's Warp essence was only part of his strategy. Furthermore, the Flash Boyz on Flash Planet had been providing him with constant protection.
In just that short span of time, Flash Planet's population had dropped below thirty percent.
If the yellow weasel had held out a little longer, Lino's side wouldn't have been able to hold the line.
Time to slip away.
Lino opened a portal. Right before leaving, he ordered, "Set a trap here. Ambush Guilliman and wipe him out if at all possible."
"Yes, Boss." Having been reborn after death, Palcador had used a neural interface to access his previous life's memories. His recollection was seamless, and he knew exactly what had just happened.
Lino arrived at the Palu Back Garden. Five Paders were waiting there, each tasked with studying a portion of Sanguinius's Warp essence.
Five research teams advanced simultaneously, each handling a different direction of study.
Team 1 researched methods to replicate the Warp essence.
Team 2 explored the mechanics of the Warp essence from a physical level.
Team 3 comprised a massive number of Flash Boyz; under Pader's leadership, they were to figure out the psionic properties of the Warp essence and the correct way to utilize it.
Team 4 investigated the link between Warp essence and genetics, attempting to merge the Warp essence with the genes of the Sisters of Silence to produce a Gene Gland that would be highly tempting and deceptive to Nurgle.
Team 5 started from the angle of Palu-fication, searching for a way to convert Sanguinius's Warp essence into the Warp essence of Paru Boyz.
Lino activated Genetic Simulation, heavily expending Monocrystal to accelerate the progress of every research team.
Three Terran days later.
Over 600 million tons of Monocrystal had been burned to dust. Four out of the five teams successfully completed their research tasks.
Team 1 discovered that Sanguinius's Warp essence could be "cultivated" by infusing it with the power of faith, achieving the effect of "replicating" the Warp essence to a certain degree.
After conducting extensive physics-side experiments, Team 2 concluded that the so-called Warp essence was a collective body of energy and consciousness with a fixed structure, a stable energy field, and a certain degree of self-awareness.
When infusing it with faith, one could hypnotize it by substituting key terms, thereby altering it from Sanguinius's Warp essence into "Brother Li's" Warp essence.
At the cost of over 100,000 Flash Boyz, Team 3 figured out the effects of the Warp essence.
Simply put, it allowed for brief bursts of power far beyond standard levels, predicated on self-imposed restraint.
For example:
When the Red Thirst and Black Rage erupted, the combat power of the Blood Angels skyrocketed.
But if they failed to restrict themselves and purge the Red Thirst and Black Rage, they would lose their minds and turn into monsters.
This extraordinary surge of power that required self-restraint to remain controllable was precisely what made the Blood Angels' Warp essence unique.
For the sake of easy memorization, Lino gave this trait a name: Unstable Frenzy.
Team 4 successfully integrated Sanguinius's Warp essence into genetic fragments, then fused it with the genetic fragments of the Sisters of Silence to form a Gene Gland.
This approach sounded a bit impractical, but during the actual operation, it was entirely feasible.
Meticulous Palu scholars and Paders had discovered that after undergoing fragmentation, the Warp essence became closer to the physical realm—primarily demonstrated by the fact that certain strains of Psychic Fungus could serve as its vessel.
Team 4 used standard-issue Sealing Yeast to degrade the Warp essence, obtaining roughly one kilogram of yeast mass saturated with Warp essence.
Once subjected to genetic editing, this yeast mass would become a Gene Gland.
Team 5 was the only group whose experiments failed.
However, the failure couldn't be pinned on them. Sanguinius's Warp essence naturally clashed with Orks; the two were completely incompatible right from the start.
Therefore, primarchs transformed into Paru Boyz—such as a Palu-fied Sanguinius or a Palu-fied Guilliman—could never emerge within the Palu Empire.
Only individuals like Pader and Palcador could be Palu-fied through genetic means.
Lino instructed the five teams to join forces in optimizing the Gene Gland in preparation for capturing Nurgle.
Seeing that his boss was finally free, Palcador stepped up from the side and said in a low voice, "Boss, the fleet near Baal sent word. Guilliman didn't go to Baal. He bypassed our trap completely and headed in the direction of Ultramar. Our ambush failed."
Just as expected.
Guilliman had the God-Emperor covering for him. How could the latter just watch him march to his death?
"It doesn't matter. Redirect the fleet to the Eye of Terror to support the survey teams exploring it. Have them stand ready to back up our assault on the Garden of Nurgle. We'll make our move the moment the Gene Gland is finished."
"Yes, Boss. There are two more things you need to know."
Palcador said, "First, the Greenskin Tide has already overrun the expansion zone and started spreading toward the Eastern Fringe. It's estimated that they will occupy a quarter of the Eastern Fringe within a month.
"Second, the modifications to the Mutagenic Spore meant for Webway daemons are complete. This spore possesses all the traits of the standard Mutagenic Spore, but it can also actively seek out paths and spread into specific sectors of the Webway designated by us."
Lino's eyes lit up. "Let me see the lab report."
Palcador handed over the Dataslate.
Once Webway daemons were mutated into Paru Boyz by the Mutagenic Spores, the Palu fleet would open the Webway gates for them, allowing them to spread outward autonomously.
The Greenskin Tide in the materium spread almost entirely without order; the Paru Boyz simply went wherever they pleased.
But the Greenskin Tide within the Webway could be guided by specific wavelengths of the Palu Psychic Field to converge on targeted sectors of the Webway.
For example, Calasta, the Webway city situated beneath the yellow weasel's toilet.
"Make the arrangements. Launch the Webway Greenskin Tide initiative immediately." Lino paused. "Target: Terra."
"Yes, Big Boss."
"Right, how are the preparations for the invasion of the Garden of Nurgle coming along?"
"Everything is ready and waiting. We're just waiting on the Gene Gland."
"Good."
