Countless lights flickered across the massive ramparts of the fortress, rapidly coalescing into a multitude of arcing points of light. They converged upon a prominent spire, then erupted, a blinding lance of energy aimed directly at the Void Sword.
"Detecting hybrid Warp-energy signature. Increasing internal psychic shielding."
The anomalous energy bypassed conventional void shields, slamming directly into the internal psychic barriers. The raw power readings of these arcs were cataclysmic, enough to reduce a planet to ash in a single stroke. The psychic shields rippled violently under the impact, nearly collapsing into nothingness. In that harrowing instant, every soul aboard the Imperial ships felt the chilling touch of death.
Data streams surged within the Void Sword with frantic intensity. Nearby, the Tech-Priests aboard the Imperial vessels could sense the sheer, overwhelming torrent of information roiling just a few kilometres away. Yet, none dared attempt to probe the Iron Men's data flows. The magnitude of that data was so vast that it would have instantly incinerated the minds of a dozen Archmagos.
The Void Sword's weapon batteries roared to life, firing in a calculated, chaotic sequence. Cobalt beams from the massive Particle Cannons intertwined with the abyssal lances of the heavy anti-matter arrays. The gargantuan railgun systems began their spooling cycle, hurling shells weighing tens of thousands of tons into the void, while psychic arcs danced across the ship's hull. The Oblivion Cannon, switching from conventional fuel to psychic reserves, began to brew its own devastating retort.
A kaleidoscopic storm of energy erupted, flooding the space between the fleets and crashing against the colossal fortress.
Within the Void Sword, thousands of sensors scanned the alien bastion at a frequency of tens of times per nanosecond, feeding real-time tactical data back to the bridge. Suddenly, the fortress's bizarre shields flared with intense, shimmering light. Most of the Imperial fire, not just the psychic rays of the doomsday weapons but even the massive kinetic rounds, was deflected, skewed into empty space as if the shields were not merely energy barriers, but solid, heavily angled armour plates.
Still, a fraction of the barrage punched through, carving superficial scars into the alien structure. Axion even noted that some secondary fire from the Imperial ships, masked within the Void Sword's main assault, had managed to penetrate, inflicting minor damage.
As the bombardment intensified, the alien fortress shifted. Sections of its rear structure unfolded, ejecting six smaller, circular constructs, each measuring dozens of kilometres in diameter. When the projection of these objects appeared on the bridge, a collective gasp swept through the Imperial fleet. The Tech-Priests finally understood the source of that unsettling, familiar dread:
"Blackstone Fortresses?!?"
Though the massive octahedral fortress and these smaller satellites differed slightly from the Blackstones of legend, the resemblance was unmistakable. They lacked the distinct boomerang-like profile, appearing instead like solid, monolithic discs.
But before the shock could settle, the disc-like Blackstones, arranged like intersecting crosshairs, began to counter-rotate in two distinct layers, spinning with the lethality of a celestial eight-pointed star. They churned the local Warp, drawing roiling energies into their cores. As the energy readings spiked, every satellite began to glow with blinding intensity.
Seeing the imminent threat, Axion immediately shifted the Void Sword's fire onto the glowing constructs. To his calculation, however, the result was unexpected. The alien shields seemed capable of projecting outwards from the main structure, absorbing the bulk of the barrage. Only a few shots broke through, obliterating two of the Blackstones.
The sheer scale of this firepower exchange was beyond the comprehension of the Imperial forces. Every Astartes present, the Space Wolves, the White Scars veterans who had endured the Thirteenth Black Crusade, and the ancients who had followed Jaghatai Khan, knew these horrors well. There was no doubt left: these were Xenos constructs. Yet, they had never imagined that a Blackstone Fortress could be anything other than a singular, independent entity. Though the Despoiler had used unknown methods to activate them during the Black Crusades, demonstrating their ability to link and share energy to amplify their destructive output, this current display left the fleet reeling.
A stunning torrent of power gathered within the Blackstone's Warp-vortex cannons, lancing directly into the central octahedral fortress. In response, the citadel unleashed a beam far exceeding its own apparent size, amplified by the remaining four satellites.
Sensing the escalation, Axion triggered the Void Sword's bow-mounted doomsday weapon. A beam of absolute, light-devouring darkness, the Nullification Mode, screeched across the void to meet the incoming onslaught.
The two beams collided. The already unstable reality of the Warp shattered, fracturing further. Space-time fragments disintegrated under the Iron Men's assault, dissolving into the nothingness of the void, while the alien fortress's attack warped reality, distorting the very laws of physics.
The sheer, monumental mass of the Void Sword granted the Iron Men a critical advantage. The doomsday weapon was pushed to the brink of meltdown, its energy draw so immense it nearly dragged the nearby Imperial ships into the Void Sword's own Warp-energy separators.
On the other side, the rotation of the Blackstones began to decelerate. The energy conduits feeding the central fortress started to wane. It was the first time Axion had encountered an enemy capable of resisting the Ectoplasmic Dissociation Cannon, a weapon of true doomsday-tier calibre.
Suddenly, countless alien runes etched upon the octahedral fortress flared, triggering a gargantuan shockwave. The resulting energy discharge roiled the Warp tides, tossing the entire Crusade of Retribution fleet like corks in a tempest.
The black beam of the Oblivion Cannon shifted, grazing the side of the fortress. The sudden change in the angle of impact allowed the beam to arc, sweeping directly into the two remaining Blackstones on the fortress's right flank. Consumed by the black light, the structures disintegrated on the spot, their very material existence unmade, rendered incapable of maintaining structural cohesion.
Without hesitation, the Void Sword adjusted its trajectory and accelerated. Massive streams of energy erupted from over a hundred colossal thrusters lining the stern of the Titan-class vessel. The ceaseless data-parsing had finally revealed the fortress's weakness.
Receiving the alert, the Imperial fleet scrambled to increase speed and maintain formation. Even at a distance, the energy erupting from the Void Sword's engines was more terrifying than the most powerful lance batteries in the entire Imperial arsenal.
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