Chapter 1189 Epitome of War
100 million Space Marines.
The number echoed in Ahriman's mind.
The golden armor of the Imperial Fists shone brightly in the sun, and they moved between the lines of defense like a mobile fortress.
The warriors of the 11th Legion were silent as shadows, their armor paint had been temporarily changed to Terra's defensive colors, and only the emblems on their shoulder armor could still identify their identities.
Farther away, the Word Bearers' priests were chanting hymns beside the trenches, their voices low and fanatical, as if they were trying to build another wall with their faith.
The Iron Warriors' engineers turned a deaf ear to all this. They focused on setting up artillery positions. The position of each heavy weapon was precisely calculated to ensure that there were no blind spots in the firepower network.
"Do they really think this will stop Chaos?" a Thousand Sons wizard asked in a low voice.
Ahriman did not answer.
He looked up at the sky - there, transport ships were carrying the last batch of scientists and precious documents to the secondary capital Coruscant.
The scholars of the Empire were escorted aboard the ship by armed soldiers, their faces filled with fear, yet also with a certain twisted hope.
"They are not here to stop us," Ahriman finally said, his voice as cold as ice. "They are here to delay us."
Terra's starport has never been busier.
Thousands of transport planes roared on the landing platforms, and the technicians of the Mechanicus ran between the ships to carry out the final supply and maintenance. Every second was crucial, and every departing spacecraft carried the last spark of humanity.
And deep in the palace, Dorn stood in front of the strategic hologram, his face as hard as stone.
On the holographic image, Terra's fortifications were marked as countless red dots of light, while the black waves representing the enemy's advance were approaching from all directions.
"How long do we have?" he asked, emotionless in his voice.
"72 hours at most," replied an Imperial Fists officer, his data board showing the last message sent back by the reconnaissance fleet - the Warp rift was expanding and the Daemon fleet had broken through the outer defense line.
Dawn drummed his fingers on the holo-table, then raised them.
"Then let these 72 hours become their eternal nightmare."
"Understood, my lord."
........................
On the outskirts of the solar star field, billions of stars are burning.
The wreckage of tens of thousands of warships floated in the cold universe, their remains torn, twisted, and melted, like toys crushed by the hands of a giant.
The Chaos warship's spiked armor was covered with blasphemous runes, but now it collapsed in the explosion; the Imperial warship's golden Skyhawk emblem was burned into a charred skeleton by the plasma flames, but it still stubbornly hung on the broken hull.
This is a war without tactics.
No ambushes, no detours, no subterfuge—just ship against ship, muzzle against muzzle, death against death.
"All ships! Reload the port battery! Target - enemy battleship!"
On the bridge of the Imperial Navy's Holy Glory, Captain Halco Wayne's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper.
The collar of his uniform was soaked with sweat, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, but his fingers were still tightly clasped on the armrest of the podium.
On the holographic tactical map, the blue light spots representing friendly forces were extinguishing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Fire!"
The battleship's macro-cannon array spewed out a torrent of destruction. Hundreds of tons of shells, propelled by the subspace, tore through the void and slammed into the enemy ship.
The Chaos battleship's void shield flickered for a moment, then collapsed due to overload, and the shells penetrated directly into its armor belt, causing a series of explosions inside the hull.
Twisted metal fragments and burning corpses gushed out of the breach like a giant beast that had been ripped open.
But before the joy of victory could rise, the alarm pierced the bridge.
"Torpedo incoming! Starboard!"
Halco turned his head sharply and saw through the observation window that three torpedoes painted with scarlet eight-pointed stars were approaching rapidly.
He opened his mouth to order an evasion, but knew it was too late—
boom!
The ship shook violently, and the shock wave of the explosion caused half of the crew to fall to the ground.
A hideous tear was torn in the starboard armor, and the air leaked out crazily. A dozen sailors were instantly sucked into mummies by the vacuum.
"Seal the starboard deck! Damage control team!" Halco roared, and he heard screams and explosions from the lower deck.
His adjutant, a twenty-year-old Naval Academy graduate, was now trembling as he got up from the ground. The data pad in his hand displayed a diagram of the ship's structure, with the entire gun group area on the starboard side marked in a glaring red.
"Captain... we lost 40% of our firepower..."
Halco did not answer. He looked at the holographic star map, where another wave of Chaos fleets were pouring out of the Warp rift.
"Emperor..." He prayed silently.
This is not a fair war.
The power of the Warp warps reality, pulling Chaos warships from other timelines into this universe.
For every enemy ship destroyed, a new one would emerge from the cracks, as if there was no end.
On the bridge of the battleship Iron Fury, Admiral Cassius Morey stared at the tactical screen, his teeth chattering. His fleet had destroyed seventy enemy ships, but the enemy's numbers had not decreased at all.
"Did they crawl out of hell?!" a young officer shouted in despair.
"Shut up! Do your job! Soldier!" shouted a companion beside him.
Cassius did not rebuke him, he himself felt suffocated.
The enemy ships were painted in different colors, some were engraved with ancient markings from thousands of years ago, and some even carried emblems of future wars that had not yet happened.
The Warp was playing with them, bringing the wars of countless timelines to this moment.
“No matter how many come…” Cassius clenched his fists, “We will stop them here.”
The Blood Sacrifice, the flagship of the Chaos Lord Dragun Skaar, is a ten-kilometre-long behemoth with a gigantic statue of a Khorne demon carved on its bow. Eight giant plasma cannons are being charged, with scarlet energy flowing through the barrels.
It broke through the Imperial fleet's right wing defense line and stabbed straight towards Terra like a sharp knife.
"Stop it! At all costs!" The order from the Navy Headquarters spread across all channels.
But all the warships that could be mobilized were already in a tough fight, and the only one that approached was an old Moon-class cruiser - the "Eternal Loyalty".
Its armor was already riddled with holes, its port engine disabled, and a third of its turrets silenced.
Captain Marcus Leon looked at the approaching Blood Sacrifice and knew that there was no chance his warship would win in a gun battle.
"Attention, everyone." His voice was eerily calm. "Transfer all power to the main engines."
The crew understood his intention instantly. No one protested, no one ran away. They followed the order silently, just as they had trained thousands of times before.
"Target locked." The navigator's voice was trembling but firm, "The impact route has been set."
Marcus took off his military cap and gently placed it on the command desk. He thought of the oath he had taken when he joined the army, and of his wife and daughter on Earth. They should have evacuated to Coruscant, right?
"For the Emperor."
The remaining engines of the Eternal Loyalty spurted out their last blue flames, and the scarred cruiser stabbed at the side of the Blood Sacrifice without hesitation like a broken sword.
The Chaos warship spotted the threat and fired frantically, with shells blasting countless fireballs on the armor of the Eternal Loyalty. But it was too late -
At the moment the two ships collided, the void seemed to stop for a second.
Then, the plasma reactor of the Blood Sacrifice exploded, and a blinding white light engulfed everything within a radius of thousands of kilometers. When the light faded, only twisted metal wreckage remained floating quietly.
This is just a microcosm of this war.
