Under the command of the original Primarch, the Imperial forces launched a full-scale counterattack to wipe out the remaining enemies on the battlefield.
Archmagos Cawl and General Raskian uploaded three-dimensional coordinates in turn, guiding battleships in orbit to bombard ground targets.
Armored units and Knight houses provided fire support, the thunder of bombardment unending.
Troops roared, launching counterattacks and hunting down the enemy.
However, the red-armored warriors and daemons, under their sorcerers' command, quickly formed a circle.
They moved with astonishing coordination, shielding the central sorcerers.
Relying on this formation, the enemy maintained their ranks even under siege, constantly breaking through Imperial blockades and withdrawing further.
With the Emperor's Sword in hand and his honor guard escorting him, Guilliman charged the enemy's circle.
His goal: target the enemy sorcerers. If they were eliminated, the remaining traitors and daemons would be nothing to fear.
Garrein, Cypher, Greyfax, Celestine, Crowl, Navradaran, and other Imperial heroes led fierce assaults.
The sorcerers suffered devastating blows under the Primarch's attacks.
Some were torn apart by commander-directed bombardments, their bodies shredded and dying in ruin.
Others were beheaded by the Emperor's Sword, foul blood spraying as their remains burned to ash and drifted through the air.
With Magnus's banishment, the enemy's already flagging morale collapsed entirely, combat effectiveness plummeting.
The sorcerers' massacre by Guilliman deprived them of leadership, leaving them unable to organize any effective resistance.
The situation quickly became one-sided, and the loyalists began a wholesale slaughter of the enemy.
When the last red-armored warrior's corpse was smashed and scattered as shining dust across the ground, the Battle of Luna was over.
Afterward, the field was scoured and purified.
Vehicles landed one after another on the lunar surface, gathering and incinerating traitor bodies in bulk to prevent contamination of the land.
Representatives of the High Courts and Cult Mechanicus gathered in the halls,
the former eyeing irreplaceable relics and their secrets,
the latter beginning repairs to the damaged base and restarting ancient research.
Datch paid no attention to this. After Magnus was banished and Luna was victorious,
his eyes constantly flashed with completion prompts for his missions.
[Mission completed: Helped Roboute Guilliman escape. Congratulations!]
[Reward: 2000 XP, 2000 points, +150 Reputation, 1x Super Shotgun Halloween Upgrade Kit]
[Mission completed: Helped Roboute Guilliman throw Magnus into the webway and succeeded in banishment. Congratulations!]
[Reward: 1800 XP, 1800 points, +150 Reputation, White Blade]
Datch immediately chose to use the Halloween Upgrade Kit.
Before his eyes, the Super Shotgun transformed: its barrel now covered in a Halloween pumpkin shell.
When fired, little pumpkin heads appeared as special effects, producing eerie laughter.
The gun's quality also upgraded from green to blue, with even more astonishing power.
"Huh... Even in a single-player game, you can sell skins!"
"All I can say is, it's still pretty cool."
Datch complained, then stashed the gun.
He then received another task reward—the White Blade.
The sword looked plain: a thick blade, strange lines carved on the spine, and a coldly gleaming edge.
According to the weapon description:
In combat, as long as the user swings the sword, the enemy will 100% kneel to receive the white blade. Currently, it can only be targeted at a single foe.
Used with the Super Shotgun, it formed a truly invincible combo.
If he'd had this sword when fighting Magnus, even the Crimson King's knees and face wouldn't have been spared.
Once free, Guilliman summoned Forge General Raskian, Inquisitor Crowl, and Custodian Navradaran to investigate the current state of Terra.
Raskian, Crowl, and Navradaran could not hide their shock and excitement.
Terra was in chaos; the revival of the original Primarch was of unimaginable significance. Perhaps he could drag the Imperium out of the mire and restore its former glory.
Guilliman skillfully extracted detailed information about Terra from the three.
But there was no good news—the situation was far worse than imagined.
Before the Great Rift, Terra was already sliding into a rotten abyss.
Every department had swollen and become inefficient, making it almost impossible to recover.
Even the Astronomican, crucial for safe warp travel,
had become a monstrously inefficient behemoth over the millennia, with machinery and installations everywhere.
Within hundreds of kilometers of the Astronomican Tower, the air buzzed from machine activity.
The required energy exceeded any reasonable limits, and a single demand could exhaust the power supply of an entire sub-district city.
Maintaining this psychic reactor consumed hundreds of psykers daily.
Worse, the expansion of the Great Rift
drove Astronomican psykers insane, many slaughtering servants and guards.
Though the mad Whispering Stars was stopped, the battle severely damaged the Astronomican, making recovery extremely difficult.
The Golden Throne was in even worse shape,
with buildings near the throne room replaced by energy stacks to meet exponential power demands.
Additionally, to barely keep the Golden Throne running, tens of thousands of psykers had to be burned daily.
Even so, the Golden Throne had many failures.
If not addressed, a complete breakdown was highly likely.
After the Great Rift, cultists succeeded in sacrificing and summoning daemons on Terra—something unseen since the Horus Heresy.
This portended the failure of the Astronomican and the Golden Throne, and the loss of Terra's barrier against warp evil.
Terra's population was also in turmoil.
Custodian Navradaran and Inquisitor Crowl reported that as Terra's hive swelled, illegal and criminal acts multiplied.
Along with more cultists, xenomorphs like gene-stealers were active.
After the Great Rift, the risk of warp travel skyrocketed, and many food supply ships could no longer reach Terra on schedule.
With no food supply, famine broke out in the hive's middle and lower strata.
Local administration became completely ineffective, and law enforcement had to suppress unrest with harsh measures.
But frequent riots and bloodshed only worsened panic and distrust, and the situation kept deteriorating.
It was total chaos.
Guilliman's despair deepened, for the heart of the Imperium—Terra—was in truly dire straits.
He forced down his despair and began to regroup and plan solutions.
The first priorities: repair the Astronomican and Golden Throne,
then reorganize Terra's administration, restore normal food supply, and stabilize the situation.
After making these decisions, Guilliman gathered many Imperial heroes, requesting their company to Terra.
As for Datch, no one could find him at first—he'd vanished again.
But as soon as the landing craft was about to depart, Datch appeared, hopping into the cabin, bothering the driver, and eventually hitching a ride.
The group loaded the landing craft onto an orbiting battleship, and then set off for Terra.
...
Bonus chapter at 300 PS
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