In the newly built Dawnlight Community, the first wave of human residents was in the process of settling in.
A young girl with mechanical prosthetic legs lay against an observation window, staring in fascination at the flickering crystal spires in the distant Protoss district.
Her father, a former Terran Dominion soldier who had lost an arm during a Protoss assault, quietly slipped the compensation credit chip back into his pocket and instead picked up the cultural exchange manual issued by the community.
As dusk fell, a segment of the energy isolation wall between Sector Seven and Dawnlight Community suddenly turned transparent.
The pre-installed cultural exchange exhibition booths lit up with soft light, displaying paintings created by Protoss children using human pigments, as well as Khaydarin crystal sculptures crafted by human artisans.
Dorn stood before the orbital observation window, gazing at the myriad lights slowly illuminating the surface below.
On the macro-scanning chart, the red zones representing human rage were gradually shrinking, replaced by cautious yellow and tentative light green.
The long reconciliation between the two species from Universe 18 had taken its first step.
Of course, Dorn, who had been granted temporary governorship by the Emperor, would never demand that humans from Universe 18, who harbored hatred toward the Protoss, be forced to let go of their resentment. Instead, he would offer them additional subsidies and benefits, and later arrange for their relocation to other universes under Imperial control.
In Dorn's eyes, no matter the universe, fellow humans always came first.
———
Imperial Calendar 0050, November 15th — Unknown Sector, Outer Rim System
In a region labeled on star charts as the "Eye of Desolation," the passage of time seemed viscous and slow.
A sparse nebula hovered like the final breath of a dying behemoth, suspended in the vacuum as a gray-white haze.
Dozens of asteroids drifted in the eternal darkness, their surfaces pitted with irregular holes—like rotten wood hollowed out by a massive swarm.
At the center of this dead space, a rust-colored planet slowly rotated.
Its atmosphere was so thin it was nearly transparent. Exposed metal veins crisscrossed its surface like dried blood vessels under the dim light of a dying star.
There were no oceans, no clouds, only endless deserts and periodic eruptions of plasma storms—echoes of a dying magnetic field deep within the planet's core.
Then, as the first blood-red rift tore through the stillness, over a dozen battered Protoss vessels tumbled out into realspace.
Their hulls were riddled with black and red corrosion scars. The neural-cord-like prow decorations spasmed with seizure-like twitches.
These ships—
Or rather, Taldarim vessels—emitted unstable red-purple pulses from their engines. What they vented wasn't pure plasma, but some viscous fibrous substance.
The lead mothership suddenly convulsed violently. The Khaydarin crystals embedded along its spine-like mainmast exploded one after another.
Black-red energy spewed from the cracks, coalescing in vacuum into countless agonized, screaming faces.
Inside the bridge, the Taldarim Highlord Alarak plunged his bone-armored hand into the console, forcibly linking his neural cords directly into the ship's systems.
"Continue the jump!" His voice echoed through the psionic network across the fleet. "We must—"
Suddenly, a warning signal pierced his consciousness.
Behind the Taldarim fleet, space twisted violently.
Dozens, then hundreds, of warp windows opened at once—blue-white vortices tearing reality apart, blooming like deadly flowers.
The first to emerge was the golden prow of the Emperor-class battleship Nerva, inscribed with glowing Imperial litanies, now illuminated one by one by psionic infusion.
More ships followed through the warp gates—
The Flame Lizard 3rd Company's assault barges, their volcanic armor etched with demon-slaying oaths; the Weepers' various warships, whose teardrop insignias glowed crimson in the starlight; and the many vessels of the Man-Eater Company, their ramming prows bearing jagged armor scraps from previous battles.
"Activate psionic suppression."
Athena's voice echoed across the Nerva's bridge.
She stood before the central holotable, golden armor gleaming, the Spear of Victory hovering at her shoulder.
At her command, a massive psionic generator array unfolded beneath the battleship. Tens of thousands of golden runes poured from it, weaving through space like living threads into a vast net spanning the entire star system.
The Taldarim fleet plunged into chaos.
The mothership's engine vented thick black sludge. A warp window that had just begun to form was instantly devoured by the golden sigils.
A Taldarim escort ship's control system suddenly reversed, wrapping around its own hull like a suicidal serpent, tearing itself in half.
"Matrix lock complete."
The Nerva's tech officer reported calmly:
"Prey is caged, milady."
Athena traced a graceful arc across the star map with her fingertip.
This elegant gesture transmitted via quantum network instantly became a devastating military command.
The joint fleet of the three companies activated their main cannon arrays. Thousands of barrels lit up with blue light, forming a deadly "constellation" across the void.
Ri~shoo—shoo—!!
As the first volley lit up the star system, time itself seemed to freeze.
Railgun trajectories, plasma macrobeam lances, metallic hydrogen missile trails, golden arcs from light spear arrays—
Each distinct form of destructive energy, harmonized perfectly under Athena's psionic coordination.
They wove a three-dimensional kill net, every energy path precisely avoiding friendly vessels, yet sealing off every possible escape for the Taldarim.
The mothership's void shield shattered like thin ice under the first light spear impact.
Alarak saw his own reflection twist and warp in the blinding blast. The Chaos sigil embedded in his chest emitted a piercing shriek.
Eight black-purple tendrils erupted from the mark, pierced through his bone armor, and plunged into the control console, mutating the entire vessel into a living monstrosity.
The deck swelled with fleshy growths. Turrets twisted into fang-like shapes.
But the mutation had barely begun when a barrage of metallic hydrogen warheads slammed into the spine mast.
The stellar-level energy clashing with chaotic psionics triggered a chain reaction.
In Alarak's eyes, what he saw was not fire—but countless wailing faces dissolving in golden light.
Meanwhile, the surviving Taldarim ships tried to scatter and break through—but their formations had already been predicted.
The Man-Eater Company's assault ships pounced like sharks sensing blood.
Their gravity-ripper beams targeted Protoss neural control systems. Struck Taldarim ships spasmed like beasts with severed spines, plummeting toward the rust-colored planet.
The Flame Lizards' cruisers formed wedge formations, sweeping the battlefield with unrelenting plasma fire.
Their accuracy was terrifying—each volley precisely hit engine cores, causing enemy ships to burst into chains of blue-white death blossoms.
When less than one-tenth of the Taldarim fleet remained, Athena raised the Spear of Victory.
A golden "lightning bolt" spanning tens of thousands of kilometers erupted from the spear's tip, piercing the last heavy cruiser. The backlash even shredded the planet's thin atmosphere.
The ionized air formed an aurora storm across the surface, and the falling wreckage of warships resembled moths diving into a sea of fire.
On the Nerva's observation deck, Athena gazed at the symphony of destruction.
Behind her, the tactical hologram displayed final battle data—
[Taldarim fleet: annihilated. Allied fleet damage rate: 0.7%. Planetary surface: high concentration of Taldarim signals detected.]
As the last light spear's glow rippled through the ionosphere, the bellies of many ships opened like beehives.
Thousands of drop pods launched at magnetic acceleration, carving crimson trails through the planet's thin air.
"Recruits, remember—"
The Man-Eater Company commander Tyberos's voice boomed across all drop pod comms. "This isn't training. This is a real trial of flesh and blood!"
His voice echoed with the pod's violent shaking, like a demon's roar.
Inside one pod, Flame Lizard recruit Cassius clutched his harness tightly.
Through the viewport, he saw the sky burning with eerie purple-red light—
The remains of Taldarim ships disintegrating in the atmosphere.
Suddenly, a twisted mass of metal swept past on the right. It vaguely resembled a Taldarim frigate—now spasming like a living thing, covered in black-red slime.
"Surface contact in thirty seconds."
The cold voice of a dumb-type AI rang out.
Cassius felt the gravity shift violently. In his last glimpse through the window, he saw the decapitated remains of the Taldarim mothership falling—
Its severed end gushing not blood, but writhing black material…
…
BOOM—BOOM—!
The first drop pod crashed into the rust-colored sand, kicking up not dust, but a haze of metallic particulates.
The instant the hatch blasted open, Weeper Company recruits in Titan-class power armor were met with a dense barrage of fire.
"Disperse!"
The squad leader rolled tactically—just in time. Where he'd stood a moment ago now sizzled with a two-meter-wide vitrified crater.
Through heat-warped air, he saw twisted figures crawling from the mothership wreckage. These Taldarim warriors had fused with chaotic corruption—their bone armor melded with black flesh, neural cords transformed into purple-black tendrils, leaving sizzling acid behind with each step.
Bolter fire instantly shattered the battlefield silence. Flame Lizard recruits vaporized many enemies with heavy weapons—until dozens of whip-like tendrils lashed out from the steam and flung a recruit away.
The Taldarim fleet had been destroyed. But the survivors who crash-landed were the perfect live targets for the new recruits to earn their first blood.
The three company commanders also drop-podded to the surface. In Athena's view, four commanders together once defeated the Blade Queen in her stable form—so three were more than enough to deal with a Chaos-corrupted Highlord.
At that moment, Man-Eater Commander Tyberos used his Terminator armor to teleport directly into a metal-rich valley, where the air reeked of sulfur and intense heat.
Here, the planetary fissures flowed not with magma, but a strange molten metal, forming silver-blue rivers.
"Locator indicates Alarak last seen in this area."
His tactical HUD flickered—the thermal signature of the Highlord appearing intermittently.
Tyberos's chain-lightning claw hummed hungrily, still stained with alien flesh from the last battle.
Suddenly, the ground quaked.
Thirty meters away, the "metal river" surged—and a five-meter-tall twisted figure burst from the molten flow—
Alarak's bone armor had completely fused with Chaos. Extra mechanical tendrils sprouted from his spine. His head now resembled insect mandibles, and the psionic blade he wielded—once pure—now writhed with screaming black energy.
"For the Emperor!"
Tyberos didn't hesitate. His jump pack roared as he shot forward like a projectile.
When his claw collided with the chaotic psionic blade, the resulting shockwave vaporized the surrounding metallic gravel.
Meanwhile, Flame Lizard Commander Gaozan led recruits through an ion storm.
The sky rained arcs of lightning, not water. Static sparked across their armor. The comms were filled with electromagnetic hissing.
"Maintain triangle formation!"
Gaozan's voice rang in every helmet.
Suddenly, the lead scout stepped on what appeared to be ordinary rock.
The ground convulsed like a living creature!
Dozens of half-melted Taldarim burst from underground. Their bodies looked like wax effigies melted by heat—yet they retained terrifying aggression.
Worse, the ground they touched instantly metallicized, forming deadly spikes.
CLANG—CLANG—!
Gaozan's twin bolters burst in rapid shots—each round precisely striking a neural junction.
But the real devastation came from the shoulder-mounted "small caliber" plasma cannon.
Back aboard the Nerva, Athena's fingers slid across the holomap. The life signals of the three commanders pulsed like heartbeats.
Weeper Commander Foros's drop pod had just landed at his assigned zone—right at the crash site of the Taldarim fuel depot. The entire valley was soaked in a corrosive fluid that ate through armor.
Her gaze shifted to the main display, showing real-time battlefield footage.
In one frame, Man-Eater recruits were smashing mutated Taldarim into metal ground with gravity hammers. In another, Weeper medics were using flamethrowers to "physically disinfect" the corrupted.
Suddenly, the entire bridge lights turned dark red.
A tactical officer shouted: "Detected large-scale subspace fluctuation! Energy peak detected at latitude 32°N!"
Athena's Spear of Victory snapped into her hand, its tip automatically aligning with the alarm's source.
The holoprojection showed it was precisely the zone where Alarak and Tyberos were fighting—but now the energy readings had exceeded the instrument's measurable limits…
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