The battle on Hive Thraxos was somehow going better than expected. Nurgle's forces could not find a way into the hive city. But the situation wasn't getting any better. The war could only be described as an unstoppable force fighting against an immovable object. The unending tides of rotting corpses kept coming, and the Imperium continued to shoot them down.
Then one of the soldiers came out with a new-looking gun. It looked big and bulky. If anyone from the real world had been there, they would have recognized it as the Rule of God from Earth Defense Force 4.1.
A massive boom went off.
The world went white.
And when the soldiers could finally see again, their eyes shot open with shock.
A perfectly straight line now existed where Nurgle's unending army had once stood. The weapon had just killed thousands of those things in a single shot.
Meanwhile, far away on Eden, the people who had provided the Imperium with those weapons were having the time of their lives.
Back on Eden, the people there enjoyed their newfound peace—a complete opposite of what was happening on Hive Thraxos. Children and adults played freely. Playgrounds and parks were full of laughter, joyful chatter, and the occasional boom of super soldiers with a weaker version of Senator Armstrong's nanomachines colliding with one another.
They even took part in sports that would be impossible anywhere else without accidentally killing each other—like fighting with tanks, similar to the anime Girls und Panzer. Except here, it wasn't just girls. There were men as well, all taking part in the chaos for fun.
There were also full medieval battles, complete with real medieval armor, weapons, and even fully constructed castles alongside entire medieval-style villages. It was, in essence, extreme LARPing taken to its absolute limit. And depending on the group, they could even include real dragons and other mythological monsters to fight—purely for entertainment.
If the Imperium of Man knew of Eden and all its wonders, they would be shocked, fearful, and deeply curious about the place these people now called home. But fortunately for the inhabitants of Eden, the only people who knew of its existence were the Rogue Trader, Dominia Virellia Merikova, and her crew.
To strengthen their agreement, Dr. Dew, Leonardo da Vinci, Paracelsus, Celeste Starfire Cassidy, Tesla, Artoria, Morgan, and even Merlin had decided that the next time Dominia visited, they would offer to upgrade her ship. The goal was to allow her to reach Eden faster and more safely.
The invisible forcefield surrounding their star system made travel to Eden far longer than it should be. Warp travel could not be used once inside the protected region, which forced ships to rely on slower conventional methods.
So, to solve that problem, they decided they would offer her something far more advanced—access to hyperspace—by upgrading her ship with technology derived from Starbound vessels.
But little did the inhabitants of Eden know that they were about to receive an unexpected guest.
A ship approached—sleek in design, colored in white, gold, and red. It did not match anything from the Imperium.
It was Tau.
To the complete surprise of Eden's inhabitants, this would be their first contact with alien life native to this universe—beings that were not human, and that did not immediately present themselves as a threat.
Not that the Tau possessed any weaponry Eden couldn't counter or match with equal—or greater—force. In fact, Eden held advantages in several areas, especially in close combat capabilities that surpassed both the Tau and even the Imperium of Man.
End of Chapter Forty-One.