noveltune Chapter 796 - 796: 795
Chapter 796 - 796: 795
"What humiliation."Savior, I will flay the skin from your body, tear out your bones, and make you crawl at my feet like rotten mud!"
Horus's face was hideous beneath the red light. His hatred for the Savior had reached its limit.
Because that bastard had launched a surprise attack on the Chaos coalition's rear, they had no choice but to rush back as reinforcements, sprinting through the dark rifts like homeless dogs.
If he caught the Savior, he would execute him in the cruelest way possible, just as he had killed Sanguinius.
He turned toward Magnus and asked, "How much longer until we reach New Dragonlin?"
The Dark Emperor would never allow the Savior to occupy his throne. New Dragonlin was the throne-world he needed for his future conquest.
More than that, it held the only ancient artifact capable of dealing with the False Emperor. It was the key means by which he could maintain deterrence against the Imperium.
Magnus glanced at the void outside and quickly calculated the relevant distance.
He frowned. "We are roughly ninety-nine light-minutes from the target. At our current marching speed inside the dark rift, we may be able to return to New Dragonlin and begin its defense within one hundred and thirty minutes."
That was already extremely fast. Otherwise, traveling at a warship's sublight speed would likely take more than ten times as long.
As for warp travel or sorcerous teleportation, both were far too unstable under the current chaotic conditions of the surrounding space.
They could not guarantee they would not become lost in the turbulent void. Any delay could lead to an irreversible defeat.
After all, the Savior's Hope Sun had descended into the Sol System just like the Chaos Gods, and it could also interfere with them.
They had to account for every possible accident.
"Those are not favorable numbers. We may face unknown risks."
Mortarion could not help growing worried when he heard that. To him, both nine and thirteen were extremely dangerous.
They were unsuitable for action.
Only Grandfather Nurgle's sacred number, seven, was a lucky number.
But when he thought of how the Savior and the Lord of Pleasure had humiliated that great being, his expression grew even uglier.
Even so, the Death Lord did not lose control. They had to maintain unity.
Besides, he had no right to interfere in the Lord of Pleasure's actions. That was a matter between gods.
Now that Grandfather Nurgle had fallen into deep slumber, the plague forces had lost far too much say in this campaign.
Suddenly, Magnus's expression darkened. He sneered. "You were right. Trouble has found us.
"A shadow is coming toward us. Perhaps it is one of the Savior's methods to obstruct us.
"He wants to use some crude trick to hold us here so he can complete his surprise attack."
As he spoke, the Crimson King suddenly launched a blast of sorcerous flame upward.
It happened to incinerate a Tyranid Gargoyle that had been lunging down at him.
At the same time, even more Tyranid organisms broke through the curtain of the dark rift and fell from above, as dense as a downpour of insects.
A Hormagaunt landed on Angron's face. Its sharp chitin claws flailed wildly, leaving scratches across his skin.
"Bugs!"
Angron reacted, howled, grabbed the Hormagaunt in a flustered motion, and crushed it flat.
At that moment, Horus and the other fallen Primarchs also moved quickly, dealing with the Tyranids that had ambushed them.
They easily crushed or stomped every organism to paste. These creatures could hardly threaten beings at the Primarch level.
"Move. Get out of here!" Horus did not hesitate. He led the fallen Primarchs and their elite forces forward at a sprint.
The Savior wanted to use these troublesome xenos to delay them, and they had to break free from this as quickly as possible.
Zzzzt.
Magnus unleashed a terrifying sorcerous attack. Energy spread outward and instantly cleared every Tyranid within several hundred meters.
That allowed the fallen Primarchs and their elite guards to advance faster.
But they had not gone far before they saw a surging black tide ahead.
It was the swarm, greedily devouring the dark warp energies.
Now it was rushing toward them, seemingly endless.
This was one of the advantages of Tyranid forces. As long as there was enough biomass, they could continuously generate more organisms.
They could drag any enemy into a war of attrition, exhausting the enemy's resources and stamina.
"Charge through!" Horus drew a deep breath and issued the order.
He led the fallen Primarchs and elite guards into the tide of the swarm, advancing like a meat grinder and leaving a trail of mangled corpses behind.
The Chaos beings could slaughter the Tyranids freely and keep advancing, but even so, they felt a deep disgust and helplessness.
The swarm had a strange appetite for Chaos energy, throwing itself at them as if it had no regard for its own life.
It was like slapping someone, only for that person to lick your palm with relish.
It was deeply unpleasant. There was no satisfaction in killing them at all.
Not only that, the Tyranids' tactics were extremely cunning. Their synapse organisms had all hidden themselves, giving Horus and the others no chance to decapitate the command structure.
That was what made Old Eight's Tyranid strain so troublesome. It disgusted not only Chaos beings, but even other Tyranid splinter fleets. It could only be called a degenerate among swarms.
Fortunately, although Horus and the other fallen beings had slowed somewhat, they were still advancing.
They had a chance to shake off the Tyranid swarm's interception.
"Find a new rift branch. We need to lose these bugs!"
Horus stared at the endless swarm rushing toward them and spoke.
The rasping sound of chitin claws and fangs scraping together filled him with indescribable revulsion.
Although the swarm could not threaten them, it would severely interfere with their plans.
"I truly want to burn these insects clean," Magnus snorted, his face full of disgust.
If he had enough time to construct a large sorcerous array, he could sweep all these insects away.
However, time was precisely what they lacked most.
Soon, the Crimson King found a new branch of the dark rift, one that could also lead to New Dragonlin.
He used sorcery to mark the node region, then stepped into it first, guiding the Chaos beings behind him.
"Waaagh!"
The moment Magnus stepped into the dark rift branch, he heard a furious roar. Slime sprayed from a foul, tusked maw and splashed all over his face.
This wizard-king and scholar, proud to the extreme, had run straight into an Ork warboss. The reeking saliva left him in a sorry state, and he found it utterly intolerable.
He froze.
It was anger in its purest form, surpassing comprehension. The single eye on his forehead snapped open.
"You ignorant, crude dregs made of fungus and filth..."
Magnus's voice was low. That was how he sounded when he was truly enraged.
In an instant, surging sorcerous warp energy carried countless curses of knowledge into the Ork's brain, plunging it into extreme agony.
The Ork warboss's head swelled from the overload, then burst apart like a watermelon.
Even the pitiful fragment of soul it possessed was utterly ground away by sorcerous warp energy.
Yet in the next instant, pain flared across Magnus's rear. He had been struck hard with a blunt weapon.
Another Ork warboss had a strange light flashing in his eyes. Somehow, by an impossible method, he had circled behind Magnus and launched a vicious sneak attack.
"You dare?!"
Magnus turned around, his entire body trembling. This was an even more intolerable humiliation.
He could not understand how this green-skinned xenos had gotten behind him, much less attacked him in such a revolting way.
More importantly, these Orks faintly carried the Savior's aura. Perhaps that bastard was using the Orks to humiliate him.
In a towering fury, the Crimson King crushed the Ork into residue, erasing even its existence completely.
"Magnus, is everything all right here?" Horus stepped into this dark rift branch and casually crushed the bug in his hand.
He had sensed the Primarch before him radiating fury, along with dense sorcerous warp energy.
"Everything is fine."
Magnus forced out a strained smile.
He could hardly say he had just been ambushed and struck hard on the backside.
That was a humiliation he was unwilling to remember.
However, once Horus and the other Chaos beings had all transferred into this region, more Ork roars came from ahead.
Those green fungal lifeforms charged toward them in groups along the branch passage, yelling at the tops of their lungs.
"Damn it!"
Horus was beside himself with rage, and he found the situation deeply troublesome. These green-skinned xenos were no less difficult to deal with than the Tyranids.
This would waste a great deal of their time, disrupting their original plan.
"How did those xenos even get in here? And how can they find our position?!"
Horus was deeply confused. Under normal circumstances, other lifeforms would find it very difficult to locate them within the complex dark rifts.
At that moment, the hissing roar of the swarm came again.
Behind them, the Tyranids had gnawed a path through the rift curtain and were continuing to pour in.
Their chitin claws gleamed coldly and radiated greed.
They had caught up.
Only then did Horus understand how terrifying these Tyranids were. He became wary. They could even chew through the curtain of the passage itself.
Who knew what degree the Savior had modified these insects to? For Chaos, they would become a threat that could not be ignored.
Perhaps it was the scent-tracking and tunneling ability of these special Tyranids that had exposed their position.
After years of cultivation, Eden had long since transformed this Tyranid swarm into a terrible army capable of pursuing and devouring Chaos beings.
They could even ignore certain Chaos environments and labyrinths, always finding delicious Chaos entities.
Then they would continue the pursuit.
He planned to send this swarm into the Immaterium in the future, so that Chaos beings could also experience what it felt like to be coveted by Tyranids.
Horus still had questions in his heart, but asking them now was meaningless. They were about to face the siege of xenos waves.
The black and green tides surged toward the Chaos beings, covering everything.
What disgusted them even more was that the Orks seemed somewhat strange. They specifically targeted low and dirty angles with their attacks.
It made them impossible to guard against.
Under the influence of Edork's outrageous legend, the Orks had become even more cunning, and they had grown especially fond of using weapons to jab enemies from behind.
Some larger Greater Daemons, while fighting, wished they could keep one hand covering their vital areas at all times.
Otherwise, they might suffer a humiliating critical hit.
The interception by the Tyranid swarm and the Ironteeth Orks severely delayed Horus and the other Chaos beings' return speed.
It caught them even further off guard.
Under normal circumstances, even if humanity sent a large army to stop them, it could not perform mass-wave tactics the way these xenos did.
"Advance! Advance!"
Horus was burning with impatience as he led the Chaos elites forward with difficulty.
These xenos, who ignored Chaos corruption, had completely ruined their operational plan.
That would leave them at an even greater disadvantage in the decisive battle.
...
Outer orbit of New Dragonlin.
The Æonic Orb's attack was still continuing, erupting with scorching light. The veil surrounding the Chaos fortress planet was already on the verge of collapse.
"I hope we can break through the planet's near-orbit defenses before Horus arrives."
Eden watched the surrounding void, not daring to relax in the slightest.
At present, he appeared to have gained the advantage, but that advantage could be overturned by the enemy at any time.
For example, if Horus and the other fallen Primarchs broke through the xenos army's interception and rushed back to New Dragonlin, that would be a massive problem.
They were fully capable of launching a surprise attack and destroying his precious Æonic Orb, then holding New Dragonlin.
If that happened, he would lose a valuable relic, and this war would become a prolonged siege.
That would cause even greater losses, while also giving Horus and the other Chaos beings a chance to break out of the Sol System.
Not only that, they would take this precious planetary fortress with them. How could Eden allow that?
Right now, Eden wished he could seize New Dragonlin immediately, then play with it right in front of Horus and the Chaos Gods.
He also wanted to bring in ground-based air-defense arrays and long-range attack arrays, completely arm New Dragonlin, and make it fire brutally at the Chaos beings.
After the Hope Sun was lit, the logistics department could already transport the relevant large-scale weapons through the Webway. The engineering department was also howling with eagerness, ready to begin weaponization construction at any moment.
Those fleets were assembled nearby, ready to be deployed to New Dragonlin at any time.
Once that happened, they would build while fighting, and let the galaxy and the Immaterium learn what infrastructure madness truly meant.
"Our interception plan succeeded."
Not long afterward, a trace of delight appeared on Eden's face.
His xenos armies had already delayed Horus and the other Chaos beings. At minimum, they could hold them back for a full day.
It was just that the Orks seemed to have developed some unusual preferences due to the influence of the Lord of Pleasure's rumors.
But perhaps that was a good thing. He could feel that the power of Edork's image had grown even further.
In any case, as long as it disgusted and frightened the enemy, there was no problem.
With the interception plan successful, Eden ordered the fleet to launch an even fiercer siege. The Æonic Orb also accelerated its attacks without holding anything back.
After more than ten hours, he finally blasted a breach in New Dragonlin's defenses.
It had not been easy.
"Brothers, let us begin the landing operation.
"This fortress planet will become Imperial property. Soon, we will face the decisive battle and end the grudges of the past ten thousand years..."
Eden looked toward the Lion and the other loyalist Primarchs as he spoke.
Their hatred with Horus and the other traitors had endured for ten thousand years. It was time to settle it.
That was also what the Primarchs had always looked forward to.
They would take their revenge personally.
Eden and the loyalist Primarchs armed themselves fully and stepped onto the launch passage.
They would descend to the planet's surface through the safest physical method: blackstone drop pods.
That would prevent the Chaos Gods from using Their authority to interfere.
"Did I forget something?"
Suddenly, Eden thought of something. He frowned slightly and muttered to himself.
He had an ominous feeling.
(End of Chapter)
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