Chapter 204: Calgar's Worries |
"..."
Upon hearing Calgar's reminder, silence spread through the comms channel for a brief moment. Titus could clearly feel the death glare from the Chapter Chaplain standing behind him.
The muscles in his cheek twitched involuntarily. His knuckles tightened around the grip of his gun and then relaxed. For a split second, an inner bloodlust urged him to turn around and blast that meddlesome fool.
Ultimately, however, he kept a stiff face and obediently put the Xenos weapon away.
The Neuro-Disintegrator was undeniably effective. For those high-tier Tyranid units that relied on neural nodes, it was a tailor-made countermeasure.
Throughout the various fleets' campaigns to reclaim Planets, it was an open secret that decapitation strike teams were equipped with these weapons. Having followed Romulus through countless battles, Titus had naturally used it extensively to efficiently eliminate targets.
He understood Calgar's intentions.
The Chapter Master was not trying to make things difficult for him; he was protecting him.
Out in the field, Romulus's command style had always been about maximum efficiency. Xenos technology, captured weapons, non-standard tactics—because he always won, and combined with his high status, no one dared to utter a word of complaint.
"Apologies, my understanding of the Codex requirements is still lacking. I will pay closer attention to this in my future commands."
Romulus's voice chimed into the comms channel at just the right moment, his tone perfectly sincere.
"Understandable, Lord Romulus."
Calgar's response was swift and respectful, while he secretly praised Romulus's ability to smoothly lie and provide an easy way out.
After all, anyone who had read the Tyranid Swarm Strategy Guide (Codex Compliant Chapter Edition) could easily see that the tactical manual was essentially a comprehensive analysis of the Codex Astartes, combined with a precise dissection of Tyranid weaknesses to create tailored combat protocols.
How could someone who authored such a manual possibly not understand the Codex?
However, in some matters, the truth was less important than who was speaking it.
As expected, the previously tense Chapter Chaplain instantly fell silent. Even the surrounding Codex guards, who had been preparing to log the violation, quietly stowed away their Data-slates.
Titus took the opportunity to roll his shoulders, the servo-motors of his power armor emitting a cheerful hum.
He launched a silent charge toward the gathering Tyranid Hive Fleet in the distance, his blade carving a gleaming arc through the falling ash while his iron-shod boots crushed the pitch-black beetles scurrying across the ground.
Due to the terrifying intensity of the war on the fortress world, the swarm had evolved Tyranid organisms capable of enduring extreme heat, consuming minerals and Steel to grow, thereby providing Biomass for the hive.
Now, he could finally butcher his enemies to his heart's content without breaking any rules.
"Lord Romulus, what is the status of the space battle?"
Calgar followed up with an inquiry.
With the massive Adeptus Astartes reinforcements on the surface, wiping out this portion of the swarm was only a matter of time.
Even if high-tier units like a Hive Tyrant appeared, under the absolute air superiority of the Imperial Navy, they would be swiftly eradicated by a single Lance strike.
"The pressure is quite low. Barring any surprises, this is the maximum acceptable loss limit for the Tyranid Hive Fleet."
Romulus replied, completely focused on coordinating fleet maneuvers alongside Archmagos Cawl.
A mere conversation hardly took up any of his processing capacity.
Calgar gave a slight nod, his gaze sweeping across the tactical hologram where the Tyranid signals were steadily fading.
The Orbital Defense Platform's artillery still traced brilliant trajectories through The Void, but the enemy's offensive was undeniably losing momentum.
These formidable hunters from beyond the Galaxy, while ravenous and ferocious, were not mindless beasts that only knew how to charge recklessly to their deaths.
When the Hive Mind evaluated the value of an operation and determined that the cost outweighed the reward, it would choose to retreat and select an easier target.
"You all will be quite busy in the future."
Romulus stared out through the continuous explosions illuminating The Void, gazing deeply into the boundless expanse of Space.
No one knew just how many Hive Fleets were still lurking within The Void, biding their time for the next opportunity.
"The Ultramarines will remember everything the Expeditionary Fleet has done. As for the Tyranid Xenos, we will fiercely protect our homeland."
Although the Tyranid defense line had collapsed in humiliating fashion—turning a war that should have been intercepted in the outer reaches into a desperate defense of Ultramar—Calgar was rather open-minded about the outcome.
He was already prepared to spend the next few decades, or even centuries, clashing with these terrifying Xenos.
In truth, the Imperium was notoriously sluggish in its military responses. Every department groaned under the massive burden of the Imperium's overexpansion, becoming increasingly bogged down by its own weight.
There were very few beings capable of orchestrating an entire warfront like Romulus did, and no one else possessed the authority to do so.
The two battlefield commanders had cooperated extensively during the offensive and defensive battles against Hive Fleet Behemoth. Though they had yet to meet face-to-face, their communication had been incredibly thorough.
Without a doubt, Romulus's role as the supreme commander overseeing the entire war had left a profound impression on Calgar.
Victory was already inevitable.
"My Lord."
Calgar's voice lowered slightly on the private channel. His eyes swept across the busy staff officers in the command deck as he gestured for the newly returned Tigurius to cast a psychic barrier around him, ensuring no one could eavesdrop on this confidential exchange.
"Once the war is over, a victory celebration will be held on Macragge."
He paused, allowing the weight of his words to sink in.
"The investigation delegation from Terra has already arrived ahead of schedule and is making preparations."
He wasn't saying this to celebrate prematurely, but rather to issue a subtle warning to Romulus.
Surprisingly, Terra's response had been exceptionally swift this time.
Romulus replied, his voice carrying profound implications,
"According to the latest battle reports, the Expeditionary Fleet has pacified the unrest spanning from Calth to the Tyran Sector. The main body of our fleet is concentrated around Bolmina. Within the next decade, the Eastern Fringe will be able to resume its tithe payments."
As for exactly which factions would be paying those tithes, it was best not to pry too deeply.
As the general leading the vanguard to reclaim these Planets, taking a few temporary, pragmatic measures when necessary was simply par for the course.
"I will conduct the subsequent handover with the Ultramarines."
"Handing it over to the various Successor Chapters will be sufficient."
Calgar sighed inwardly.
He felt that one always had to tread carefully—
At the very least, if the Ultramarines didn't officially intervene, they could still step forward to mediate when a critical moment arose in the future.
To be perfectly honest, Lord Romulus was acting a bit too arrogantly. It was as if he were riding roughshod over the High Lords, outright declaring his intent for independence and pushing a grand Adeptus Astartes supremacy doctrine.
The Adeptus Astartes meddling in Imperial affairs undeniably brought a level of efficiency that allowed Sectors to recover at an astonishing pace. However, the Imperial organizations whose power was being eroded—the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Imperial Cult, the Administratum, the Adeptus Arbites—would definitely not be pleased about it.
Looking at the gradually recovering Eastern Fringe on the holographic Star Map, Calgar's worries only deepened.
Alongside being a Chapter Master, he was also an exceptional Politician. In his eyes, such crude and heavy-handed measures were doomed to be short-lived. The forcibly suppressed conflicts would inevitably erupt like a volcano within the next few centuries.
He wondered if Lord Romulus actually had a solution prepared.
——
A solution? What solution?
Romulus noted Calgar's expression, which had turned bitter the moment political wrangling was mentioned. It was a stark contrast to his meticulous composure when facing overwhelming military pressure.
Chuckling, Romulus terminated the private comms link.
There was no solution.
Once the Lord Regent awoke, everything would sort itself out.
Let them take their complaints to the Lord Regent.
Outside the viewport, Lances crisscrossed the void while a dense barrage of Torpedoes rained down upon the Tyranid fleet. Romulus rose from his captain's throne. Following his command, the machine spirit switched the augur array's Holographic Projection to display several Hive Ships.
"Rameses, are you finished on your end?"
The fleet maintained a safe distance, continuously applying pressure on the swarm through pinpoint Lance strikes.
Taking casualty rates into consideration, the Imperial Navy avoided forcing a direct engagement. Instead, they used evasive maneuvers to constantly tear at the Hive Fleet's formation, herding them into a clustered mass.
"Almost done, almost done."
Deep within one of the Hive Ships, shrouded in a torrential surge of green psychic energy, Rameses was tinkering with an unusually massive Warp Drive.
Encased within thick adamantium Steel Plates, the gargantuan engine was steadily overloading under Rameses's expert manipulation.
It had been stripped from an incomplete Retribution-class battleship. When Rameses snatched it, he completely ignored the furious, foot-stomping rage of the local Archmagos.
Regardless, the Expeditionary Fleet's investigations had revealed that these medium-sized Forge Worlds could supply an exploratory fleet of the Adeptus Mechanicus with a new battleship every five years.
It was easy to imagine just how half-hearted these cog-boys were when dealing with the Imperium, even going so far as to dredge up wrecks from ship graveyards to fulfill their quotas.
"Hurry up."
Standing not far from Rameses, Arthur couldn't help but squeeze out a weary demand.
Directly in front of him loomed a towering Norn Assimilator.
The Norn Queen inside the Hive Ship seemed to have sensed the imminent threat and desperately sought to destroy the Warp Drive now embedded in the vessel's fleshy bulk, going so far as to dispatch multiple Norn Assimilators to stop them.
Unlike Karna, who was trading blows evenly with his foes while submerged in the Black Rage, Arthur found himself in a rather awkward position.
Unlike fighting Chaos, trying to match the raw physical stats of the Tyranid Swarm was an unwinnable battle for him.
"Almost there! Master Arthur, if you're struggling like this now, how are you going to fight Kong Nue later?"
Rameses cast a Shield around Arthur, unable to resist playfully teasing him.
"I'll fight him normally."
Arthur shook his head as he parried a vicious cleave from the Norn Assimilator.
Unlike facing Tzeentch, where his powers would immediately fizzle out, or Nurgle, where he'd instantly perish, or Slaanesh, who would writhe in agony from restored sensations—Daemons of the Kong Nue lineage were genuinely troublesome for Arthur.
Or rather, stripping away all the flashy tricks for a straight-up, brutal one-on-one duel put the most immense pressure on him.
No complex mechanics to exploit, just pure, overwhelming brute stats.
If he couldn't outmuscle them, he simply couldn't outmuscle them.
"Horus!"
A thunderous roar echoed through the chamber, accompanied by a blast of searing heat that washed over their faces as Karna charged in to intervene, dragging his blazing spear behind him.
Not far from where he stood, another Norn Assimilator was already slowly dissolving into ash within a pillar of raging fire.
"Ah, raw stats."
Rameses shook his head, reminiscing over the theoretical concepts he had painstakingly extracted from the consciousness of Fabius Bile.
The power of the Eldar God of the Dead was intrinsically linked to Guilliman's resurrection, and he certainly had a few ideas on that front, but he had yet to figure out a way to enhance the rest of his companions.
Initially, the plan was to issue a Sword of the Crone to everyone. However, if Arthur were to actually accept the power of The Warp, he would paradoxically lose his most crucial ability.
'Perhaps I really should look into the Star God. I'll write up a report when I get back, see if there are any Star God Shards we can get our hands on, and test if they're usable.'
The residual warmth of soul ash still lingered on the sorcerer's fingertips as two precious soul crystals crumbled into fine powder within his palm.
"Tsk, finally found it."
He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the final readouts on the Warp Drive, a sharp grin curling the corner of his mouth.
Detonating a Warp Drive was a simple procedure—just overload the core. But finding the perfect spot to trigger the explosion required a considerable amount of time.
After all, their ultimate goal was to utterly annihilate the Tyranid Hive Fleet. To ensure this batch of Tyranids never reemerged, they needed to toss them into the lap of an adversary capable of wiping them out completely.
Vashtorr's Forge of Souls was naturally the top choice.
When it came to revenge, swift and brutal satisfaction was key. The longer one waited, the more the passion for vengeance faded.
That old bastard Vashtorr was in cahoots with Tzeentch. Surrounding The Enclave earlier was bad enough, but Tzeentch had even plotted to corrupt him through physical mediums in realspace. If he hadn't stuck close to Master Arthur, things would have gone horribly wrong.
He definitely needed to return the favor.
Don't ask why he didn't crash this party directly into Tzeentch's divine realm, the true mastermind. Dropping this meager fleet there would be nothing more than a momentary firework display. It was much better to let 'Demi-Immortal Vashtorr' have some fun and experience the absolute zenith of biological engineering from beyond the Galaxy.
Causing trouble for Chaos was the overarching goal, anyway. There was no need to split hairs over the specifics; all things considered, this still counted as sweet revenge.
Rameses without hesitation initiated the self-destruct sequence on the battleship-grade Warp Drive, immediately teleporting away with his companions.
The energy core instantly overloaded. Blinding blue-white light erupted from every seam and crevice of the engine room. The massive vessel burst like an overinflated balloon, tearing a hideous Rift millions of kilometers wide across the boundary between the material universe and The Warp.
Vooom—
A colossal vortex generated by the resulting Warp Storm swallowed the nearby Tyranid bio-fleet whole. Those terrifying Hive Ships twisted and deformed within the dimensional turbulence, their carapaces peeling away and their Flesh and Blood evaporating as they were hurled directly into Vashtorr's Forge of Souls.
When the blinding light finally dissipated, only a dozen or so crippled Tyranid vessels remained, clinging to a miserable existence in the depths of space.
——
Deep within The Warp, Vashtorr—who was already overwhelmed with capturing suitable Daemons to fulfill his production quotas and plotting to eradicate the Lord of the Formless and Faceless's Enclave—was currently staring dumbfounded at Hive Fleet Behemoth.
They emerged from the Warp rift, diving headlong into the heart of the Forge of Souls.
Driven by pure starvation and bloodlust, and seemingly suffering from a temporary disorientation after entering The Warp, they immediately began attacking every living thing in sight.
His Daemons were driven back, and his precious war engines—marvels capable of being deployed into the material universe without the need for summoning rituals—were being frantically devoured by these ravenous organisms.
They appeared to have been starving for a very long time, as they didn't even spare the molten iron bubbling in his cosmic crucibles.
Heh heh...
A sinister cackle echoed from the Crystal Labyrinth.
Vashtorr unleashed a furious roar.
"Tzeentch, you—!"