Imperial Calendar 0050, November 15th — Final Encirclement on the Surface of the Desolate Planet
The distorted images on the holographic projection cast the bridge into silence.
Alarak's once-elegant Protoss form had now swollen into a seven-meter-tall aberration. Hundreds of screaming faces protruded from the surface of his bone armor, and the mechanical tendrils extending from his spine each coiled with black-red chaotic energy.
His psionic blade had fully mutated into a living organ, dripping corrosive fluid. Every swing left a lingering purple afterimage in the air.
"Energy readings exceeding threshold!" the shipboard Smart AI reported urgently. "Target now exhibits psionic fluctuations at greater daemon-class levels!"
On screen, Tyberos's Terminator shield shattered. Corrosive pitting marred the surface of his armor, and a clear fissure gaped on his left shoulder plate, exposing the nanoweave suit beneath.
Still, his chain-lightning claw roared relentlessly. Each clash with the chaotic psionic blade emitted a metal-twisting screech that set teeth on edge.
Suddenly, a tendril wrapped around his right leg, slamming the Man-Eater Company Captain heavily onto the metalized ground. A web of cracks spread outward over twenty meters.
"Captain Gaozan has reached the engagement zone!"
The sensor officer shouted.
The holographic view shifted instantly — a streak of "dark green" was breaking through the ionosphere.
The Flame Lizard 3rd Company Captain's Terminator armor glowed during the dive, the capacitive rings of his shoulder-mounted plasma cannons now a blinding white.
At three hundred meters from the ground, his jump pack erupted in an overcharged plasma jet, hurling him like a meteor into the heart of the battlefield.
BOOM—!
The shockwave from Gaozan's landing vaporized every grain of metallic sand within tens of meters.
His powered gauntlet slammed straight into Alarak's chest. The overloaded plasma field burst forth, engulfing the upper half of the Chaos greater daemon in white fire.
The screaming faces writhed and melted in the heat, releasing a chorus of horrifying wails.
As Alarak staggered back, the shriek of engines split the air.
Weeper Company Captain Foros's custom power armor unfurled metallic wings as he dove through the plasma storm.
He moved so fast that afterimages trailed him like phantoms. His master-crafted power sword flashed in an arc as bright as a crescent moon.
The slash severed three regenerating chaotic tendrils in one stroke. Black-red corrupted blood splattered onto the sand, instantly burning deep, smoking craters.
"Triangle formation!" Gaozan's voice thundered.
The Terminator-armored captain held the front steadily, shoulder cannons spewing extreme-energy, extreme-temperature plasma bolts.
Tyberos prowled the flanks like a wounded predator, his claw strikes always aimed at joint connections.
Foros's wings gave him full three-dimensional maneuverability — diving from above or skimming the ground, each attack aimed for neural cord nodes.
Alarak's body began to spasm unnaturally.
His mouth, now a circular maw, gaped open to spew a waterfall of black slime.
Tyberos couldn't dodge in time. Corrosive holes like honeycomb blossomed in his left arm plate.
Instead of recoiling, the Man-Eater Captain laughed, using the moment to rake open his foe's abdominal armor — revealing the chaotic core within.
What should have been a Khaydarin crystal was now a black tumor, pulsing and contracting grotesquely.
"For the Emperor!"
The war cry of the three captains echoed across the wasteland.
Gaozan's heavy fist slammed directly above the chaotic core, the overloaded plasma field ionizing everything nearby.
Tyberos's claw ripped into the opening, the spinning teeth shredding the tumor to pulp.
Foros plunged vertically from above, his power sword driving through Alarak's crown. The blade tip emerged from the lower jaw, dragging a twisted psionic shadow with it.
Hahahahahahaha—!
Yet the "dying" greater daemon suddenly burst into wild laughter.
His ruined body swelled rapidly. Thousands of psionic runes surfaced beneath his skin, rising into the air to form a massive eight-pointed star.
The planet's crust began to quake. The rivers of molten metal boiled upward, coalescing in midair into the beginnings of a portal.
"He's sacrificing himself to open a gate linking realspace and the Warp."
A battle handmaiden on the bridge warned.
Athena's Spear of Victory suddenly floated on its own, the tip pointing toward the surface.
In the next heartbeat, the goddess of war's form was engulfed in golden flame. When she reappeared, she was a kilometer above the battlefield.
Her golden armor blazed under the chaotic energy's onslaught. Her hair flowed in the air as if alive.
"Fall back."
Her voice resonated directly in the minds of the three captains.
They immediately pushed their jump packs to maximum thrust.
The instant they withdrew, Athena raised the Spear of Victory overhead.
Uncountable golden lightning bolts erupted from the tip. They did not fall randomly, but wove themselves like living threads into a three-dimensional net that wrapped layer by layer around the forming Warp portal.
"In the Emperor's name, purge all filth!"
At her declaration, the golden net contracted violently.
Alarak's bloated body crumbled like pottery in an invisible giant's grasp. The boiling rivers of metal froze into ugly sculptures. The eight-pointed star collapsed from its edges inward, shattered psionic runes dissolving into the void like snow.
When the last trace of black-red energy was cleansed, the planet fell into an eerie stillness.
Floating metal dust slowly settled. Melted ground solidified.
The three captains stood on the crater's rim, their armor battered but their eyes still burning with battlelust.
Athena descended slowly into the center of the field.
Her spear tip touched Alarak's final remains — black bone armor already crumbling to dust. With a passing breeze, the figure that once strode the StarCraft universe's battlefields vanished utterly.
"Mission complete," the goddess of war's voice carried through the comms. "All units, prepare to withdraw."
In synchronous orbit, the Nerva's main batteries retracted.
On the holotactical map, the red zones marking chaotic corruption faded at a speed visible to the naked eye.
This desolate planet might never know life again, but for now, it was no longer a breeding ground for Warp-spawned daemons.
The Taldarim faction, whose stubborn madness had drawn Chaos's gaze, was now utterly annihilated by the human Imperium.
But the Protoss Hierarch Artanis remained a grave threat.
Thus, Athena's combined fleet of three companies would continue to pursue the "Golden" fleet under the Hierarch's command.
Artanis possessed numerous Xel'naga weapons and vehicles — a major threat. But Athena likewise held a complete Xel'naga artifact. After all, during the Char campaign she had not used it to purge the Queen of Blades Sarah Kerrigan, and so it remained fully usable.
———
Imperial Calendar 0050, November 20th — Universe 18, StarCraft Universe's Solar System
Here unfolded a picture of human civilization both prosperous and "fragile."
The blue Earth rotated gracefully under the Sun, like an elegant dancer performing on the stage of the cosmos.
In low Earth orbit, thousands of space stations and defense platforms formed a steel wall that seemed unbreakable.
The structures were arranged in precise geometric arrays, creating a complex defensive network. Most prominent was the cluster of orbital fortresses—
Each fortress mounted twenty-four missile silos, their destructive power enough to turn an entire continent into scorched earth in an instant.
Shuttle swarms buzzed like busy worker bees, weaving dense traffic between platforms.
Their streamlined hulls cut through the black void, ion drives trailing pale-blue exhaust that traced silver lines across space.
These craft carried rare minerals from lunar bases, or delivered the latest equipment to Mars colonies — the "capillaries" of the solar system's economy.
The Moon's sunlit side had transformed into a shining metallic marvel.
Hemisphere-domed cities dotted the silver-gray surface like pearls. Their transparent nanocrystal domes adjusted light transmission automatically, shielding residents from cosmic radiation while ensuring perfect indoor daylight.
Three orbital elevators, twelve kilometers tall, rose like the titans of Greek myth, carrying He-3 resources up carbon nanotube "ladders" to massive transit bays, then on to Earth.
In zero-g, the fusion fuel formed glowing blue streams, like rivers of stars hanging between heaven and Earth.
The Moon's far side told another story.
No domed cities here — only countless automated factories shaped like black pyramids.
Their surfaces were coated with material absorbing 99.9% of light, rendering the region nearly invisible from space.
Inside, billions of machines worked tirelessly in absolute silence, transforming raw ore into precision warship components.
Occasionally, a transport ship slipped in or out. Its specially treated engine nozzles emitted no detectable infrared trace.
Mars's terraforming was an engineering masterpiece.
Twelve atmospheric processors floated above the equator like cities in the sky.
Each, over five kilometers wide, was held aloft by a quantum constraint field, with tens of thousands of "tendrils" reaching down to inject genetically modified algae and synthetic oxygen into the thin atmosphere.
When sunlight hit at certain angles through their filtration systems, Mars's sky turned for a moment into a dreamlike emerald green.
The once-barren red surface now wore a green cloak. Gene-forged lichens formed endless tundra, enduring extreme temperature swings and releasing stored moisture at night, creating the unique Martian morning fog.
A network of canals carried unmanned cargo ships along precisely charted navigation routes, their silver hulls gleaming like flowing mercury in the sun.
New Chicago's glass dome stretched sixty kilometers in diameter, built of self-repairing nanocomposite. When dust storms struck, its surface secreted a cleansing fluid, ensuring visibility stayed perfectly clear.
Beyond, the outer solar system bustled as well.
In Jupiter's orbit, over a hundred jellyfish-like harvest ships spread kilometer-wide electromagnetic nets, drawing helium and hydrogen from the raging atmosphere.
Quantum fractionation devices aboard synthesized fusion fuel directly in orbit. Their work painted luminous blue seas in the clouds below.
On Saturn's rings, research stations radiated an air of mystery. Strange blue flashes across their hulls hinted at forbidden experiments—
Rumors spoke of attempts to merge Zerg genes with human DNA.
Yet behind this splendor, the Imperium saw fatal flaws.
Orbital defense platforms boasted impressive firepower, but their fire-control systems showed reaction delays — enough to decide a Chaos raid's outcome.
Space station armor seams lacked psionic-resistant plating, making them as fragile as paper against Warp corruption.
Mars's perfect-looking biosphere rested on a fragile balance. If a single processor's containment field failed, the entire environment would collapse in ninety-six hours.
Worst of all, the solar system had no Warp defense measures.
No psionic shields, no planetary energy barriers — and its people had no idea that in the cracks of realspace, countless daemons hungered for their unguarded world.
Not every universe's Earth and humanity had an Emperor on the Golden Throne, eternally radiating psionic protection for the species.
Nor did every human realm understand the Warp's threat — or the horrors lurking within.
In the Moon's eternal far-side shadow, an Imperial Intelligence stealth recon ship watched silently.
Its quantum cloaking field bent all sensor waves. Adaptive camouflage merged it perfectly into the background radiation of space.
The vessel, codenamed Eye of Shadow, had lurked here for seventeen standard hours, its quantum scanners mapping every weakness in the UED's defenses.
The encrypted data streamed to Mar Sara, providing key intelligence for possible military action.
The Sun still shone on this universe's cradle world. But in the shadows, the observer knew: in the vast multiverse, not every Earth enjoyed the Golden Throne's shelter.
Here, the people would never understand that the steel wall they trusted so absolutely was, in the face of a true Warp storm, nothing more than a toy castle built of sand by children.
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