The Warp vortex warped by the profane barrier was like a steadily shrinking giant maw, trapping the Gemstone fast in its center.
Beyond the bridge windows, not a single speck of starlight or nebula remained—only relentless, churning, rainbow-colored Chaos energy sloshing against the Geller field's light membrane like boiling poison soup.
Every impact rippled distorted waves across the field, seeping into the heavy alloy hull with shrieks potent enough to erode souls.
Dominic stood before the command console, his posture worn with exhaustion.
From the moment the profane barrier generated, he had not closed his eyes once.
His red hair, usually groomed impeccably, stuck messily to his temples; blue stubble sprouted from his jaw, and heavy dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes.
Those red eyes that usually held pride and sharpness were now thoroughly bloodshot, filled with unhidden loneliness and fatigue.
A few hours ago, when he ordered the Gemstone to plunge into the energy trough, he believed he had seized the key to breaking the stalemate.
He had even rehearsed it in his mind countless times: the warship piercing the barrier, descending over Brevis, macro-cannons tearing through Chaos positions, and him leading the landing party to purge the heretics and become the savior of this planet.
Yet reality dealt him the most brutal blow.
That so-called energy trough was merely live bait thrown out by the enemy.
He had taken the Gemstone—a fine Imperial battleship—and dived headfirst into their meticulously prepared trap, like a fly plunging straight into a web.
"My Lord, the field's energy reading has dropped to thirty-seven percent," the navigator's voice trembled with clear panic, breaking the bridge's dead silence. "The psycher array in Section B is overloaded. Psycher Brother Thorne has fallen in action."
Dominic's eyelashes twitched slightly; he said nothing.
The psychers stored aboard the Gemstone were fundamentally "batteries" used to maintain the Geller field.
They used their souls and lives to prop up the barrier isolating them from Warp corruption.
Yet inside this violent vortex, psychic energy depleted at a terrifying rate.
A day ago, seven psychers remained.
Now, only two were left.
With every soul lost, the Geller field weakened a degree, and Warp corruption deepened a step.
He could clearly feel the ship's shuddering grow more violent; sticky, dark-red flesh tissue had even begun oozing from the metallic surfaces of several bulkheads.
Those Chaos whispers grew steadily clearer, like countless fine needles driving into every crew member's ears, tempting them to abandon resistance and throw themselves into the arms of the Chaos Gods.
"Boom!!"
A violent impact tore from the bow's direction, making the entire battleship shudder violently.
Piercing alarms immediately ramped up to their sharpest frequency as red warning lights flashed wildly, casting everyone's face in erratic shifts of light and dark.
"Warning! Warning! Port bow shields breached!"
"Chaos frigate contact detected along the hull! Enemy boarding action underway!"
"Identification signal... it's a Thousand Sons warband! Rubric Marine signals confirmed!"
The comms channel instantly erupted into chaos—screams, explosions, and weapons fire blending together to flood into the bridge through the static.
Dominic snapped his head up, the loneliness and fatigue in his eyes instantly replaced by icy killing intent.
To be trapped to death here, suffocated as the ship plummeted into the Warp abyss—that was something he could never accept.
He was Dominic Venturia—scion of House Venturia and Rear Admiral of the Imperial Navy.
Even if he were to die, he would die on the charge, cut down in melee combat against heretics.
"Celestian squad, with me." He snatched up the master-crafted power axe hanging beside the command console, its disruption field humming loudly. "Lady Link, temporary command of the bridge is yours."
The Sister of Silence standing in the corner nodded slightly, her gray eyes devoid of any wave, gently resting her hand on the hilt of her power sword at her waist.
Four Celestian Terminators, three meters tall, strode forward as their heavy Terminator armor produced deep hydraulic noises.
They were Dominic's personal guards—elites forged by House Venturia at immense expense.
Yet ultimately, they were heavy power suits piloted by mortals, carrying a considerable gap compared to true Astartes Terminators.
What proved even more lethal was that under direct Warp corruption, they could barely resist Chaos taint only by remaining near the saint mummy amulet hanging from Dominic's chest.
This meant their operational range was tightly restricted; they could not fight with total freedom.
Moving through the slanting corridor, the horrific sights along the way proved chilling.
In just ten short minutes, the intruding Chaos forces had already torn through three defensive lines.
The corridor floors were covered with the bodies of Imperial soldiers.
Their deaths were gruesome—some had eyes bulging out with extreme terror frozen on their faces, clearly scared to death.
Others had grown into the metal walls, their bloody flesh melting together into twisted lumps of meat.
Still others held lasguns tightly in hand, yet the muzzles had been reversed to pierce their own chests.
Direct Warp corruption reduced the combat effectiveness of mortal soldiers by over eighty percent.
Many were driven mad by illusions before even laying eyes on the enemy.
"Save me... save me..." A soldier curled in a corner, twitching all over as tiny tentacles sprouted from his armor gaps, burrowing into his flesh bit by bit.
Seeing Dominic walk past, he reached out a hand for help, yet what spilled from his mouth were obscure Chaos prayers.
A Celestian guard following behind raised his power fist without hesitation, ending his misery.
"My Lord, Maintenance Hangar 3 is just ahead—the Sorcerer is inside," the Celestian Captain's voice came through the comms, carrying metallic raspiness. "Nine Rubric Marine signals, plus countless daemons and cultist bands."
Dominic paused his steps and took a deep breath.
He knew decapitation was their only way out.
As long as he killed that Thousand Sons Sorcerer, the boarding party losing its psychic direction would fall into disarray, allowing the Gemstone to hold out a little longer.
Even though he did not know what point lay in holding out longer.
Trapped inside a Warp vortex without navigation or support, the field would collapse completely sooner or later.
Yet killing one more traitor and delaying for one more minute was far better than sitting and waiting for death.
"Take the maintenance conduit and flank behind them," Dominic lowered his voice, leading the four into the narrow maintenance duct nearby.
He knew every inch of the Gemstone's structure like the back of his hand—this was his warship, his domain.
Inside Hangar 3, the scene resembled hell.
Tzeentchian rainbow flames burned everywhere, scarring the metal floor with pits and craters.
Hundreds of cultists from the mortal bands knelt on the floor, chanting incantations frantically; their bodies twitched and mutated under the spells, growing extra arms and eyes.
Over a dozen Pink Horrors floated through the air, letting out shrill laughter.
In the center of the hangar on a high platform stood a Thousand Sons Sorcerer.
He wore ornate blue power armor, eyes gleaming with psychic light beneath his helmet; at the tip of his staff, a multicolored gem constantly drew in surrounding Warp energy.
Nine Rubric Marines clad in master-crafted power armor stood beside him like statues.
Tzeentch runes were etched deep across their armor, their force halberds glowing with eerie psychic light; locked inside that armor were souls cursed to eternal imprisonment.
"Hmph, a petty noble of Venturia... you do possess a bit of courage."
The Sorcerer suddenly let out a soft chuckle and raised his hand toward the maintenance conduit without turning back.
"Boom!"
A streak of psychic lightning struck the alloy door at the conduit's exit, shattering the heavy gate to pieces in an instant.
"We've been spotted—charge!" Dominic growled, surging forward first.
His power axe whistled through the air, splitting two pouncing Horrors in half.
Sensing the Chaos presence, the holy relic amulet radiated a pale golden halo, forming a faint barrier around his body.
The four Celestian guards followed close behind, shielding his flanks in a fan formation; their power axes and power fists struck together, mashing the charging cultists into flying gore.
"You think the five of you can kill me?" The Sorcerer stood upon the high platform, letting out a shrill laugh. "Truly adorably naive."
With a light wave of his hand, the nine Rubric Marines moved simultaneously.
Marching in unison, their force halberds cut through the air with fierce psychic gales to meet the Celestian squad.
"Clang, clang, clang!!"
Deafening clangs of metal echoed out.
At the very first clash, the Celestian squad fell into a total disadvantage.
Not daring to stray more than five meters from Dominic, their formation was tightly compressed, preventing them from utilizing the strength advantage of Terminator armor.
The Rubric Marines, however, held no reservations; every strike of their force halberds was ruthless, backed by Chaos psychic power to deliver thousand-pound blows.
Making matters worse, the Sorcerer stood in the rear, constantly launching psychic missiles and warping spells.
Corrosion marks had already begun spreading across the surface of the Celestian guards' armor.
"Ugh!" A muffled groan sounded.
The Celestian guard on the far left was caught in a pincer attack by two Rubric Marines, a force halberd plunging deep into the gap of his chest plate.
Eerie rainbow energy flooded along the blade, causing the sound of boiling flesh inside his armor instantly.
"My Lord, hurry and go..." Using his last thread of strength, he hugged the Rubric Marine in front of him tightly, pressing his other hand against the melta bomb at his waist.
"Boom!!"
A violent blast erupted inside the hangar as the scorching melta stream consumed both figures.
Dominic felt a wave of suffocation at the sight.
The Celestian squad had followed him for eight whole years.
From the Solar Segmentum to the Segmentum Obscurus, they had faced life and death together countless times.
Yet here, inside this damned Warp trap, they did not even have the chance to display their true strength.
The remaining three Celestian guards were equally in peril.
Cracks multiplied across their armor, their movements growing sluggish.
Standing on the high platform, the Sorcerer laughed with increasing smugness:
"Give up, mortal! Submit to the Architect of Fate, and you may yet gain even greater power..."
Dominic did not speak.
He tightened his grip on his power axe as the light from the relic amulet on his chest grew dim.
He knew he could not hold out much longer.
The Gemstone could not hold out much longer either.
Slowly closing his eyes, he offered a silent apology in his heart to the Emperor and to the ancestors of Venturia.
He had failed his mission; he had failed to hold the warship.
He had let down everyone's expectations.
"Bridge communications," he commanded raspy into his vox, "initiate self-destruct sequence, passcode—"
Before the words fully fell, he failed to notice the dust-covered relief of the Emperor's icon on the hangar wall: right at the eyes, a tiny, almost imperceptible golden light quietly illuminated.
"Sizzle~!"
A faint sound of tearing space was swallowed by the battlefield's noise.
Upon the alloy wall at the far end of the hangar, a narrow fissure split open without warning.
Irregular pale flames burned along the edges of the rift.
The flames possessed no warmth, yet the moment they appeared, the temperature across the entire hangar plummeted.
Even Tzeentch's wild rainbow fire seemed suppressed, its flickers dampening significantly.
Silhouettes burning with ghostly pale flames stepped silently out from the fissure.
Thirteen in total.
Over two meters tall, they wore all-black power armor with immortal pale warpfire coiling around the edges.
Decayed bones and flame crests decorated their pauldrons and chest plates, bearing no Legion markings or squad numbers.
They stood there in silence without uttering a word, looking as though they did not belong to this world at all.
The slaughter inside the hangar eerily ground to a halt for a brief instant.
Even the frenzied daemons instinctively shrank back a few steps, letting out terrified whimpers.
The next second, they moved.
No shouts, no battle cries—even the hydraulic hum of operating power armor was nearly inaudible.
Like thirteen streaks of burning black lightning, they surged directly toward the Thousand Sons Sorcerer on the high platform at startling speed.
"What is that?!" The Sorcerer's laughter cut off abruptly, the eyes beneath his helmet contracting sharply.
He could clearly feel an aura emanating from those black-armored warriors that made his very soul tremble.
It was destruction in its purest form—the ultimate judgment directed at all Chaos existences.
"Block them! Fast, block them!!" The Sorcerer shrieked, waving his staff frantically.
Surrounding Pink Horrors, warped daemons, and remaining cultist followers surged toward the thirteen black figures like a tide.
Yet their blockage was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
In the hand of the lead black-armored warrior, a power sword wrapped in pale flames ignited.
With a casual sweep, three Horrors pouncing head-on caught fire.
There were no agonizing shrieks or scattering Warp energy.
Those daemons were like moths to a flame, turning to ash in an instant—not even a fragment of their souls managed to escape back into the Warp.
Permanent annihilation.
The other black-armored warriors struck simultaneously.
Their attacks were cold and precise, devoid of any redundant movement, every blow striking straight for lethal points.
Bolters acted as extensions of their limbs; every bullet accurately pierced daemon materializations, and the pale flames attached to the rounds burned the enemy away completely from flesh to soul.
Ordinary weapons hitting them left only shallow marks.
Even if a torso suffered heavy damage, severed limbs reshaped rapidly within the pale flames, as if they would never fall.
"Get on them! Kill them!" The Sorcerer's voice carried a trace of fear.
The nine Rubric Marines turned immediately to form a battle line, psychic energy surging along their force halberds as they met the charging black-armored warriors.
In the understanding of the Thousand Sons, Rubric Marines were nearly immortal existences.
With souls imprisoned inside armor, physical damage could almost never kill them completely.
Yet this time, they met their true nemesis.
"Clang!"
The black-armored warrior's power sword clashed violently with a force halberd.
Pale flames traveled up the halberd like burrowing maggots, seeping into the gaps of the Rubric Marine's armor.
"Haaaagh!!"
From within the armor, the agonizing screams of a cursed soul rang out.
It was a pain far more horrific than death.
The armor that had imprisoned them for ten thousand years did not protect them under the pale fire's burn; instead, it became a cage consuming their souls.
In just a single pass, the front two Rubric Marines fell stiffly to the ground.
The souls inside the armor were purified completely, vanishing without a trace.
Only empty master-crafted armor remained, clattering loudly against the metal floor.
The remaining seven Rubric Marines fell into complete disarray.
The black-armored warriors showed no pause, cutting into the battle line like precision killing machines.
Slashing, thrusting, firing.
Every movement was simple to the extreme, yet carried lethal lethality.
Pale flames spread wildly through the hangar; wherever they passed, daemons, cultists, Rubric Marines...
Every existence tied to Chaos was burned to ash.
In just dozens of seconds, all nine Rubric Marines were utterly wiped out.
The Sorcerer on the high platform panicked entirely.
No longer caring to maintain his formation, he summoned a Disc of Tzeentch, leapt onto it, turned around, and flew toward the Chaos frigate docked at the hangar port.
He wanted to run.
He did not want to stay here for another second.
These black-armored monsters were simply not existences he could fight.
Yet the warriors of the Legion of the Damned never gave their prey a chance to escape.
Following close behind, they stepped upon burning flames as if walking through the void, pursuing toward the frigate.
Scrambling and crawling into the frigate's bridge, the Sorcerer roared hysterically: "Take off! Take off now!!"
The frigate's engines had only just begun to roar when several dark figures landed squarely upon the hull.
Pale flames bled wildly inward through the gaps of the ship's plating.
Warped, excruciating screams tore from inside the vessel, penetrating the hull to echo through the hangar, turning the blood cold of all who heard it.
A few seconds later, the shrieking cut off abruptly.
...
Dominic stood rooted to the spot, the hand gripping his power axe trembling slightly.
Everything before his eyes shattered his understanding.
The daemons and cultists in the hangar had been purged clean.
Only faint scorch marks remained on the floor—not even a single intact corpse was left behind.
Those once-insufferable Rubric Marines were reduced to nothing more than hollow ash.
Meanwhile, the Chaos frigate was slowly disengaging from the Gemstone's hull.
Upon its bridge, a black-armored warrior burning with pale flames slowly turned around.
Across the vast distance, Dominic could not make out his face.
Yet for reasons unknown, his heart contracted sharply.
That figure... that posture...
In a haze, he felt a strange resemblance to Barlow, the Death Guard veteran who had experienced an epiphany aboard the Gemstone days ago before perishing alongside Phelps.
Impossible.
Barlow was long dead, fallen right before his eyes.
Dominic shook his head vigorously, casting the absurd thought from his mind.
Right then, the Chaos frigate accelerated suddenly, surging toward the most tempestuous Warp turbulence ahead of the Gemstone.
The next moment—
"Boom!!!"
It did not detonate into flying shrapnel; instead, the entire ship transformed into a dazzling ball of pale fire.
The flames did not spread outward; rather, they contracted and stretched inward, forcibly burning a straight conduit through the churning Warp vortex.
At the end of the channel lay no more chaotic, multicolored glimmers—only deep space and specks of brilliant starlight.
Realspace.
The exit leading to Brevis had opened wide amid a sea of pale flames.
"My Lord! My Lord!!"
Over the comms, the bridge navigator's voice broke with wild excitement: "Stable realspace channel detected! Coordinates confirmed—it's Brevis!"
"Geller field is recovering, Warp corruption is receding!!"
Dominic raised his head slowly, gazing at the flickering, illuminated channel for a long time without a word.
He looked down at the saint relic amulet on his chest; it still emitted a faint golden light, unchanged from before.
He looked back toward the channel, but the silhouettes of those black-armored warriors had vanished without a trace along with the frigate's explosion.
As if they had never existed at all.
Only the traces inside the hangar and the genuinely existing exit proved everything that had just transpired.
Dominic took a deep breath, tightening his grip on his power axe.
He did not know what those black-armored warriors truly were—whether messengers sent by the Emperor or hallucinations before death.
Yet he knew he could not waste this hard-won opportunity.
"All hands attention," he pressed the comms button, his voice regaining its calm, authoritative weight. "Adjust course and traverse the channel."
"Target: Brevis."
The Gemstone's massive hull immediately began adjusting direction, bearing its full-body scars and battle smoke as it sailed into the path carved out by pale fire.
Beyond the viewports, the Warp's madness receded, bringing the familiar sea of stars back into view.
Dominic stood before the viewport, gazing toward Brevis.
His eyes held no trace of the former loneliness or despair.
In their place was a deeper, unyielding resolve.
...
The profane barrier's churning rainbow energy had once acted like an airtight, massive bowl, clamping down over the entirety of San Gallus Castle and most of the Midtown district.
For dozens of days, the Imperial fleet had attempted countlessly to strike this warped Warp barrier; macro-cannon shells and lance batteries hitting it produced only a few distorted ripples, unable to leave even a single crack.
Everyone had accepted the barrier as indestructible, left only to watch helplessly as Chaos forces wreaked havoc within.
Yet at the exact moment the Gemstone completed its desperate battle inside, the observation screens of every warship in orbit captured an unbelievable scene.
Right at the core of the barrier, a speck of pale fire lit up without warning.
At first no larger than a needle point, it burned furiously within seconds, transforming into a raging, pale inferno.
The fire held no heat, yet carried a domineering force capable of incinerating souls; surrounding Chaos energy melted and dissipated rapidly like snow before a blazing sun.
The indestructible profane barrier had been burned open with a massive hole by that pale inferno.
Pale flames that would never extinguish coiled around the edges of the breach, expanding outward at a rate visible to the naked eye.
The moment the churning rainbow energy made contact with the flames, it emitted a sharp sizzling sound, vanishing as wisps of blue smoke.
"Emperor above..."
On the bridge of the Vow of Vengeance, Kallen murmured in shock.
The observers stood up one after another, eyes wide as they stared at the breach on screen, faces filled with disbelief.
"The barrier is broken? The profane barrier... is broken?!"
"What is that flame? Is it the God-Emperor's power?!"
"Look! It's the Gemstone!" someone shouted, pointing at the screen.
Through the breach, the victory-class battleship clad in dark gold and wine red surged out, bearing full-body scars and battle smoke.
The left armor of its hull still bore the gruesome indentation from colliding with the Chaos frigate, yet its engines continued to roar.
Its void shields flickered still, like a steel leviathan reborn in blood.
Following close behind were the surviving Mars-class battlecruisers.
Passing through the channel burned by pale fire, they returned under the starlight of realspace once more.
"The Emperor has manifested! It must be the Emperor's divine intervention!"
Unsure of who shouted first, long-suppressed cheers erupted across the bridge instantly.
Receiving the news, soldiers raised their voices in shouts of "The Emperor protects" and "For the Emperor."
After being trapped by the Chaos barrier for so long, the light of hope had finally descended once more.
Kallen quickly recovered from his shock; taking a deep breath to suppress the tumult in his heart, he barked sharp orders:
"All ships hear my command! Main guns charge, follow the Gemstone and push forward!"
"Target: Midtown Chaos positions! Support Brevis ground forces!"
"Sir!"
Orders were passed down rapidly.
The previously dormant Imperial fleet surged with newfound vigor.
Warship after warship adjusted course, filing in through the steadily expanding breach in the barrier.
The muzzles of macro-cannons raised in sequence, brewing devastating wrath.
Meanwhile, inside the barrier, at the apex of the profane spire:
A Chaos Mechanicus Magus, his body mostly replaced by cybernetic augmetics, connected several thick neural interfaces directly into the back of his head, establishing a deep link with the fragmented STC spell artifact.
Before Lord Attiya personally left to capture Raynor, he had entrusted the grave responsibility of maintaining the profane barrier and managing the Warp rift entirely to him.
The Magus's optical sensors flickered with ethereal blue light as his mechanical fingers tapped furiously across the rune-covered console.
Under his control, the spire continuously drew in Warp energy, maintaining the operation of the entire barrier.
Everything was under control—until an abrupt alarm shattered the air.
"Warning! Abnormal barrier energy drop in the core sector! Unknown purification energy detected!"
Piercing alarms echoed through the hollow control room.
The Magus snapped his head up, his optical sensors zooming to full focal length as they projected onto the barrier's holographic display in mid-air.
Seeing the expanding pale hole, his mechanical pupils contracted violently.
"How is this possible?!" The Magus's voice carried a synthesized, mechanical raspiness, thick with unhidden panic.
This profane barrier was a masterpiece combining the STC fragment and Tzeentchian runes; even a concentrated lance broadside from the Imperial Navy shouldn't have left a scratch.
That pale fire... what in the world was it?!
"Activate sector barrier generators immediately! Attempt to plug the breach!" he barked sharp orders, simultaneously upping his own power output.
Runes on the console flashed wildly as vast quantities of Chaos energy flooded toward the breach, attempting to fuse the opening shut once more.
Yet the moment that rainbow Chaos energy drew near the pale flames coiling around the hole, it was burned out clean without leaving so much as a ripple.
"It's no use, my Lord! The energy is being neutralized! We can't plug it at all!"
"Restart the core ritual array! Channel all reserve psychic energy in the domain!"
The Magus slammed his mechanical arm heavily onto the console, the surface letting out an overloaded creak under the sheer force.
Refusing to believe it, he mobilized every single psychic energy reserve stored within the spire.
Majestic Chaos energy surged toward the hole like a tidal wave, forming a thick energy wall to forcibly seal the breach.
Yet the pale flames merely flared slightly, and the entire wall vanished in an instant.
The fire continued its steady expansion with a destructive force that brooked no resistance; wherever it passed, all Chaos creations were purified to nothingness.
The Magus's optical sensors flickered frantically, and cold sweat inexplicably oozed from the remaining flesh on his forehead.
This was the first time since becoming almost fully mechanized that he experienced the illusion of breaking into a heavy sweat.
A chill that penetrated deep into his marrow crept up his spine.
He had exhausted every trick—restarting the ritual array, channeling psychic power, deploying Chaos constructs, activating backup barriers...
Every single method had been tried, yet not one could stem the spread of that pale fire.
It was like a natural nemesis to Chaos; in its presence, any foulness was destined only to be burned to ash.
"It's over..."
The Magus slumped into his seat, watching helplessly as the breach grew wider and wider, watching the dark mass of the Imperial fleet file through the opening to target the Chaos positions in Midtown with their broadsides.
He could even foresee the catastrophic bombardment awaiting him next.
...
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Before long, earth-shaking artillery fire echoed across all of Midtown.
Macro-cannon shells falling from orbit struck the Chaos army's positions with pinpoint accuracy.
Explosions kicked up dust dozens of meters high; daemons and cultists shrieking in the barrage were reduced to ash, their warped fortifications blown away and crushed like paper.
The Brevis coalition forces, previously falling back step by step, were completely stunned.
Curled up in battered trenches, covered in blood and grime, many had already prepared themselves to die in battle.
Yet suddenly, the daemon charge pressing them down ground to a halt.
A deluge of artillery fell from the sky, landing precisely on the enemy positions.
"It's orbital support! Our fleet broke through!" someone roared, and deafening cheers erupted across the trenches instantly.
"The Emperor protects! Our reinforcements are here!"
"Brothers, with me! Drive these heretics out!"
The leading captain vaulted over the trench, chainsword held high, taking the lead in the charge.
Soldiers followed close behind, eyes bloodshot, shouting as they surged toward the disorganized Chaos lines.
The long-silent Imperial coalition launched a grand counteroffensive under the cover of relentless artillery fire.
Deprived of their barrier's protection and lacking high-ranking Sorcerers to command them, the Chaos forces fell back step by step.
Many soldiers keenly noticed that the daemons and cultists before them seemed considerably weaker than before.
Their attacks lacked their former cunning and ferocity, and their formations were completely scattered, as if they had lost their guiding hand.
"These heretics are buckling!"
"The Emperor is surely protecting us! Kill!"
With morale surging, the Imperial forces advanced like a hot knife through butter, reclaiming several blocks in short order. The Midtown defensive line, which had been on the verge of falling, was pushed back by more than half.
Inside the Midtown temporary command tent, Isoud stood quietly before the holographic star map.
Dressed in a pristine white gown with long golden hair draped over her shoulders, her face held no expression, cold as an ice sculpture.
Through this puppet, Rena's consciousness was overlooking the entire battlefield.
Only she knew that the drop in the Chaos army's combat strength was no miracle from the Emperor.
It was because the Thousand Sons Sorcerer Attiya had personally left his command post in Midtown, leading his elites directly toward Uptown with a single goal: capturing Raynor.
Yet simultaneously, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
An opportunity to eradicate the Warp domain completely.
Rena did not hesitate for a second.
Through the puppet, she issued an order for a full-scale general offensive.
"Pass down the order: all combat units are to mount an all-out counterattack, regardless of casualties."
"Objective: Destroy all Warp rifts in Midtown and cut off the Chaos forces' retreat."
The order was quickly passed down.
The previously silent Imperial fleet burst back into life.
Warship after warship adjusted course, entering in single file through the steadily widening breach in the barrier.
The muzzles of the macrocannons raised in sequence, brewing devastating wrath.
---
Inside the barrier, at the absolute apex of the profane spire.
A Dark Mechanicus Magus, most of whose body had been replaced by cybernetic implants, was plugging several thick neural connectors directly into the back of his skull, establishing a deep link with the damaged STC spell fragment.
Before Lord Attia personally departed to capture Raynor, he had entrusted the heavy responsibility of maintaining the profane barrier and managing the Warp rift entirely to him.
The Magus's optical sensors flickered with a faint blue light as his mechanical fingers tapped rapidly across the rune-covered console.
Under his control, the spire continuously drew energy from the Warp, keeping the entire barrier operational.
Everything was under control—until an abrupt alarm chimed.
"Warning! Barrier energy in the core area dropping abnormally! Unknown purification energy detected!"
The piercing alarm echoed through the hollow control room.
The Magus snapped his head up, the focal length of his optical sensors instantly maxing out as they projected onto the holographic map of the barrier floating in midair.
When he saw the expanding pale hole, his mechanical pupils contracted abruptly.
"How is this possible?!"
The Magus's voice bore a synthesized mechanical rasp, laced with unmistakable panic.
This profane barrier was a masterpiece combining the STC fragment with Tzeentchian runes. Even a concentrated volley of lance strikes from the Imperial Navy shouldn't have been able to scratch it in the slightest.
That pale flame... what on earth was it?!
"Immediately activate the regional barrier generators! Attempt to seal the breach!"
He shouted his command harshly while ramping up his own energy output.
The runes on the console flashed wildly, sending massive quantities of Chaos energy surging toward the opening in an attempt to mend the gap.
Yet the moment that rainbow-hued Chaos energy drew close to the pale flames at the edge of the breach, it was burned into absolute nothingness, leaving behind not even a ripple.
"It's no use, My Lord! The energy is being negated! We can't plug it at all!"
"Restart the core array! Channel all reserve psychic energy in the domain!"
The Magus's mechanical arm slammed heavily onto the console, causing the surface to emit an overburdened creak from the excessive force.
Refusing to believe it, he directly mobilized every drop of psychic reserves stored within the spire.
The majestic Chaos energy flooded toward the hole like a tidal wave, forming a thick energy wall in an attempt to force the gap shut.
Yet with only a slight surge of the pale flames, all of the energy walls vanished into thin air in an instant.
The fire continued its steady expansion, carrying a destruction that defied resistance. Wherever it passed, every Chaos creation was purified out of existence.
The Magus's optical sensors flickered frantically, and sweat inexplicably broke out on the remaining flesh on his forehead.
For someone almost entirely cybernetic, this was the first time he had ever experienced the illusion of breaking into a cold sweat.
A chill that penetrated straight to his marrow crept up his spine.
He had exhausted every method—restarting the array, channeling psychic energy, deploying Chaos constructs, activating backup barriers...
He had tried every trick, yet not a single one could halt the spread of that pale flame.
It was like a natural bane to Chaos; before it, any filth faced no outcome other than being burned to ashes.
"It's over..."
The Magus slumped in his seat, watching helplessly as the gap in the barrier grew larger and larger. He watched as the dense, black mass of the Imperial fleet streamed through the breach, training their gun muzzles directly onto the Chaos positions in the mid-city.
He could already foresee the destructive bombardment awaiting him next.
---
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
Before long, earth-shattering artillery fire resounded across the entire mid-city.
Macrocannon shells falling from orbit struck the Chaos army's positions with surgical precision.
Explosions raised dust clouds dozens of meters high. Daemons and cultists shrieked as they were turned to ash amidst the gunfire, while twisted Chaos fortifications were flipped and crushed like paper.
The armies of the Brevis Coalition, who had been retreating step by step, were all stunned.
They crouched in the ruined trenches, covered in blood and grime, many of them already prepared to fight to the death.
Yet suddenly, the daemon charge that had kept them pinned down came to a halt.
A deluge of artillery poured down from the sky, landing precisely on enemy positions.
"It's orbital support! Our fleet broke through!"
Someone roared, and a earth-shaking cheer instantly erupted within the trenches.
"The Emperor protects! Our reinforcements are here!"
"Brothers, charge with me! Drive these heretics out!"
The company commander leading the line vaulted over the trench, raising his chainsword high as he spearheaded the countercharge.
The soldiers followed close behind, eyes bloodshot as they roared and rushed toward the disorganized Chaos positions.
The long-dormant Imperial forces, under the cover of torrential artillery fire, launched a massive counteroffensive.
Deprived of the barrier's protection and lacking high-ranking sorcerers to command them, the Chaos army actually began to retreat step by step.
Many soldiers acutely noticed that the daemons and cultists before them seemed considerably weaker than before.
Their attacks were no longer as vicious or precise, and their formations were in total disarray, as though they had lost their guiding pillar.
"These heretics seem to be faltering!"
"It must be the Emperor protecting us! Kill!"
Their morale surging, the Imperial forces swept forward irresistibly, quickly reclaiming several blocks. The mid-city defensive line, which had been on the verge of falling, was forcibly pushed back by more than half.
---
Inside the temporary command tent of the mid-city, Isolde stood quietly before a holographic star map.
Dressed in a pristine white dress, her long golden hair fell over her shoulders. Her face was devoid of expression, cold and serene as an ice sculpture.
At this moment, Sarah's consciousness was overlooking the entire battlefield through this mannequin.
Only she knew that the drop in the Chaos army's combat strength was not due to any divine manifestation of the Emperor.
It was because the Thousand Sons Sorcerer, Attia, had personally left his command post in the mid-city, leading his elites directly toward the upper city with a single goal: capturing Raynor.
At the same time, however, this presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
An opportunity to completely purge this Warp domain.
Sarah did not hesitate in the slightest.
Through the mannequin, she issued the order for a full-scale general offensive.
"Pass down the order: all combat units are to initiate a full counteroffensive regardless of casualties."
"Objective: destroy all Warp rifts in the mid-city and cut off the Chaos forces' path of retreat."
Simultaneously, she contacted the priest at the bottom level: "Order the Plague-Cleansing Sect to enter the war in full force."
The moment the order was issued, the priest felt a surge of doubt.
To have them enter the war in full force now... what if they were exposed...?
Yet Isolde's tone left no room for negotiation—it was cold and decisive.
She naturally knew what a full deployment of the Plague-Cleansing Sect implied.
Those warriors carried varying degrees of Genestealer traits; once the battle concluded, they were highly likely to be noticed by the Imperial side, potentially attracting an Inquisition investigation.
However, none of that mattered anymore.
Raynor's safety was more important than any secret.
As for their identities being exposed?
These humans would have to survive first before they even earned the right to investigate them!
The order quickly reached the Undercity.
The next second, countless plague-cleansing warriors dressed in gray robes with eyes glowing purple surged forth from various underground channels and ruins.
Taciturn and perfectly synchronized, the weapons in their hands gleamed with cold psychic frost.
Their arrival was like placing the final weight on the scales.
The already crumbling Chaos defense line collapsed completely under the impact of the Plague-Cleansing Sect.
The momentum of the counteroffensive in Midtown became increasingly unstoppable.
Meanwhile, above Uptown, the storm raged at its very center.
Stepping upon his Disc of Tzeentch, Attiya hovered beneath the burning fiery clouds, the eyes under his hood staring sinisterly at the castle below.
An capture he had assumed would be as simple as reaching into a bag had been thrown into total disarray by the sudden appearance of the Frost Dragon.
Snow and wind swept across the sky, swallowing half the burning clouds whole.
A azure dragon silhouette nearly ten meters long, wrapped in biting cold winds, came to a steady halt directly opposite him.
Frost-white scales shimmered with a jade-like luster, and its ice-blue slit pupils held no emotion—only the coldness of a apex predator looking down on its prey.
When its wings spread, they blocked out the sky and sun, dropping the surrounding temperature straight to the freezing point.
Rena wasted no words.
With a subtle focus of the dragon's eyes, an invisible psychic impact swept toward Attiya like a colossal wave.
This was a psychic onslaught at the Hive Tyrant level, potent enough to easily tear apart the soul of an ordinary Alpha-level psycher; even a Space Marine Chief Librarian could not handle it with ease.
She opened with a lethal strike.
Attiya's expression shifted drastically.
He had guessed that this "Frost Dragon" was a high-tier Tyranid unit, but only when engaging it directly did he truly feel the terrifying magnitude of its psychic power.
This was no ordinary Hive Tyrant—this psychic intensity was comparable to some veteran Thousand Sons Exalted Sorcerers!
Not daring to display the slightest arrogance, he flipped his wrist to produce an ancient bronze censer in his hand.
The censer was small, its surface covered in warped runes; through the gaps of its lid, a cluster of eerie blue flame burned quietly.
"Hum~!"
Attiya poured psychic energy wildly into the censer, causing the lid to snap open.
The eerie blue flame swelled instantly, gushing out from the mouth of the vessel.
Within the fire, hundreds of twisted, suffering faces emerged, shrieking and wailing as they wove together into an airtight psychic shield.
"BANG!!!"
The psychic impact slammed heavily into the ghost-face shield, letting out a deep, booming roar.
The surrounding air distorted violently, and the spire of the castle below was instantly shattered to dust by the shockwave, sending rubble raining down.
The shield formed by the ghost faces shook violently, hundreds of faces shrieking in agony at once, yet it managed to force back that terrifying psychic strike.
However, the blue flame inside the censer grew visibly dimmer.
Attiya breathed a quiet sigh of relief, his palms soaked in cold sweat.
This "Censer of Ten Thousand Souls" was one of the vast galactic treasures hoarded by the Thousand Sons Cult of Knowledge.
Sealed within were tens of thousands of powerful psychic souls—capable of both offense and defense, a rare strategic-level artifact.
Had it not been for the grave importance of capturing Raynor, the Exalted Sorcerers of the Cult of Knowledge would never have entrusted an item of this caliber to him.
Without the Censer of Ten Thousand Souls in hand, that strike just now likely would have left him severely wounded.
Yet before he could catch his breath, the Frost Dragon launched another attack.
Spears of ice-blue psychic energy materialized out of thin air, shooting toward Attiya like a torrential rain carrying bone-chilling cold.
Psychic Lash, Mind Blast, Frost Breath...
Rena unleashed several distinct psychic spells in rapid succession, wave after wave of relentless offensive pressure.
Attiya could only drive the Censer of Ten Thousand Souls, repeatedly using the ghost-face shield to block.
With every blow intercepted, the fire within the censer dimmed another notch, and the ghost faces on the shield blurred a bit more.
After a few exchanges, the eerie blue flame was already as weak as a candle in the wind, liable to extinguish at any moment.
If dragged on like this, the Censer of Ten Thousand Souls would be ruined sooner or later.
Gritting his teeth, Attiya made up his mind to turn and run, intending to ignore Rena entirely and head straight to capture Raynor.
As long as he seized Raynor directly, he had plenty of ways to break away from the battlefield!
The moment the thought surfaced, the Frost Dragon across from him let out a clear, ringing roar.
Seemingly tired of her psychic attacks being repeatedly blocked by the strange censer, she flapped her massive wings violently, her huge body diving straight toward Attiya amidst biting cold winds.
Sharp dragon talons gleamed with cold brilliance, driving down toward his skull with immense force.
Its speed was so fast that it was not inferior to psychic attacks in the slightest.
Attiya's face paled instantly; he frantically maneuvered his disc to dodge while swinging his staff to shoot several streams of rainbow psychic beams toward the dragon's body.
These were warping rays capable of corroding armor and twisting souls, easily melting through even heavy Dreadnought plating.
Yet when the rays struck the azure scales, they merely kicked up a few faint sparks before sinking into nothingness, failing to leave a single mark.
Attiya's pupils contracted sharply.
Psychic resistance this high?!
This was practically more "untouchable" than a Sister of Silence!
His psychic attacks were almost entirely useless against this dragon.
Cold sweat instantly drenched Attiya's back.
He couldn't break through with psychic power, and close-quarters combat looked equally unwinnable.
If this continued, he might truly fall here today.
While frantically dodging on his disc, Attiya cursed wildly in his mind.
Where was that woman Luna?
Didn't she want to capture Raynor to claim credit too? Why hadn't she arrived yet?!
He no longer cared about who got the primary credit.
Failing to capture Raynor and failing the Architect of Fate's task meant an endless torment far more horrific than death awaited him.
His only remaining hope was that Luna's Chaos Knights could capture Raynor quickly.
As long as they could secure Raynor, there might still be a slim chance of victory.
Gritting his teeth, Attiya channeled his remaining psychic energy, maneuvering via the disc's speed in the air while occasionally darting his gaze toward the avenue behind the castle.
Luna...
You had better hurry.
Otherwise, both of us are going to die!