Chapter 1018, Solitary

Chapter 1018, Solitary

After the Great Cataclysm, Chaos became much more active than before. Among them were some special enemies, marked as mortal foe by the Angels of Death. They never publicly acknowledged their existence, but Gu Hang already knew of them, and these enemies appeared more frequently.

Those within the Angels of Death are called 'Fallen Angels,' and are said to be traitors among the Angels of Death.

Gu Hang knew about this matter quite early on because of the rebellion of the Unforgettable Oath Battle Group, and even communicated with the Death Angels about it.

Hunting down fallen angels is the highest priority for the angels of death, and they devote a large part of their energy to this.

Expanding occupied territories?
For the angels of death, nothing is as important as hunting down fallen angels.

To be honest, Gu Hang was dissatisfied with this. But in the past, he had neither the standing nor the ability to order the Angels of Death to do anything.

After the establishment of the new empire, they did have a sense of righteousness, but in reality, the Angels of Death were still quite maverick and not very obedient.

If they hadn't accepted the original Space Marines—a group of new recruits sent in small ships at great risk using coordinates provided by the Angels of Death—Gu Hang would almost have suspected that something was wrong with this founding chapter.

Currently, it seems they are not at risk of corruption. Their long-standing habit of obeying orders but not decrees is not a problem that needs immediate attention. Furthermore, the area they control, namely the Nightless Realm, is still far from where the Dark Side Expedition's forces are located. Given the Alliance's relatively conservative approach to the Dark Side Expedition, reaching that area may take decades—a very distant prospect.

In this situation, the new empire's policy was to continue to tolerate the Death Angels' situation and even provide them with as much support as possible so that they could maintain control over the Nightless Realm.

It's a good thing that a third of the universe can be stabilized, as it preserves more vitality. When the Nightless Universe returns to peace, we won't have to go through the trouble of rebuilding.

However, when Gu Hang learned about the relationship between the 'weapons', the 'keys', and the Death Angels, he became extremely worried about the current state of the Death Angels Legion.

Unfortunately, these arrogant First Legion Space Marines were used to being independent. They refused to give up the territory they had already established in the Nightless Realm, were unwilling to relinquish the more than two thousand worlds under their control, and were even less willing to give up the numerous leads they held regarding the hunt for the Fallen Angels.

In reality, it's not very realistic to ask them to abandon the Nightless Realm and drive the giant rock back to the Alliance.

They had to carve the boulder across a considerable stretch of occupied territory, the situation of which was completely unknown. Rather than being ambushed or attacked along the way, it was better to stay put in the more stable Nightless Space.

Unfortunately, it's not a sure thing.

A very powerful Calamity fleet has captured the constantly moving, and theoretically difficult-to-locate, Stone Monastery. This Calamity fleet has put the Death Angels' fleet in a difficult position, and they have even boarded and deployed a considerable number of Chaos Space Marines into the interior of Stone Monastery to engage in fierce close-quarters combat with the Death Angels.

The battle lines were once deadlocked.

At the critical moment, the Alliance army arrived—a fleet from the Blood Angels Legion—to aid them on the battlefield.

The Alliance's army was able to reach it because an expeditionary fleet from the Alliance had previously ventured into the Nightless Starfield, braving the dangers of a journey without the guidance of the Thunder Torch Towers and suffering heavy losses.

The mission of this expeditionary fleet is to investigate the current situation in the Nightless Realm, establish substantive contact with the Angels of Death, and ascertain their true attitude towards the new Empire.

They also brought with them some Primal Forged recruits bred using the gene seeds of the Angel of Death. These gene seeds originated from a gene seed bank on Mars.

Throughout its long history, every legitimate chapter has been required to pay a geneseed tax to Holy Terra. These geneseeds are stored in two vaults, one on Mars and one on Holy Terra. While not infinite in number, they are sufficient for large-scale, legion-level military buildup.

The genetic seed of the Angel of Death is, of course, among them.

The Death Angels Chapter accepted these new recruits, accepted the assignment from the Imperial Central Committee, and acknowledged the rule of the new Empire—all good news. The expedition fleet's greatest mission was complete.

However, besides this biggest task, they had another thing to do.

After greeting the Angel of Death, they settled on an ordinary planet and used the equipment they carried to build a veiled spirit gate.

This veiled spirit gate is not large; its purpose is to transport more and larger veiled spirit gate equipment directly from the Comoros.

This method is far better than the expedition fleet bringing a large veiled spirit gate device directly. Firstly, the equipment for erecting a large veiled spirit gate is enormous, significantly occupying the expedition fleet's storage space. Secondly, its value is extremely high, and the journey to the Nightless Space is fraught with risk for the expedition fleet, which has lost many ships and even faces a considerable probability of total annihilation. Transporting the valuable, rare, and difficult-to-manufacture large veiled spirit gate device by ship would be far too risky.

Having a system that operates small spirit gates and then uses those small gates to transfer the large gates is a much more reliable method.

From then on, the Alliance had three veiled spirit gates—two large and one small—within the Nightless Realm, within the territory controlled by the Angel of Death.

The Angel of Death knew about this, but did nothing about it.

This also demonstrates their 'loyalty' from another perspective.

When the Stone Monastery was under heavy attack by the Calamity Fleet and was locked in a fierce battle, the Blood Angels squadron that arrived in time came through the Veil Spirit Gate system.

Their arrival helped the Angels of Death stabilize the situation; then, Dante led a main force of the Angel Expeditionary Army to the battlefield, directly tipping the scales of war and helping the Angels of Death completely defeat and annihilate the invading enemy.

They received the Angel of Death's thanks, but were also politely asked to leave.

The solitary angels of death do not want anyone to know their secrets, not even the allies who saved their lives.

Gu Hang had told them about the so-called 'key' and the special nature of the Stone Monastery at that time, and specifically warned them that Chaos would attack them again and again, at any cost and with unwavering determination.

They acknowledged the warning but continued to maintain a distanced attitude.

until now.

The intelligence network established by the Alliance in the Nightless Space has revealed that the Angels of Death, without informing the central government of the New Empire, have gathered more than 30 sub-corps, totaling over 20,000 troops, and a massive fleet, and are sailing in a grand procession toward the other half of the Nightless Space that is not under their control.

(End of this chapter)