?!
The instantaneous annihilation of the vanguard forces was like a basin of ice water poured onto the anger-addled face of the Qu civilization.
After a brief, dead silence came a full-scale counterattack that was even more frenzied and reckless.
On this side of the Triangulum Galaxy, the main Qu fleet finally stopped probing. Bearing the violent will to crush everything, they surged out from multiple angles and brazenly crashed into the steel defense lines constructed by the four Primarchs and their legions.
A true decisive battle erupted thunderously amidst the sea of stars.
Its grand scale and 'tragic' conditions were sufficient to be recorded in the early annals of the Empire's conquests.
Viewed from a macroscopic star map perspective, the originally silent abyss of the universe had transformed into a boiling 'furnace'.
Within the numerous star systems selected as main battlefields, the Empire's steel fleets and the Qu's overwhelming tide of biological ships collided fiercely, like two destructive floods of different colors.
The Imperial fleets maintained strict formations, akin to moving metal mountain ranges.
The Dark Angels' ships were as steady as mountains; when their lance arrays fired in volleys, it was like a blooming cluster of death flowers;
Under Mortarion's command, the Dusk Raiders' warships excelled in releasing large-scale 'Wither' fields and virus bombs, eroding the life essence of the biological ships;
The Iron Warriors' fleet maximized their firepower, with precise, cold artillery cutting through the enemy's formations like scalpels;
The dark blue ship shadows of the Night Lords appeared and disappeared unpredictably, utilizing surprise attacks and booby traps to create chaos and panic among the enemy swarms.
Meanwhile, the Qu fleet displayed their terrifying foundation as a veteran civilization.
Besides the various giant biological warships that had appeared before, countless 'modified pets' of bizarre forms and treacherous functions filled the battlefield.
There were 'Flying Roach Swarms', small as carrier aircraft but capable of spraying highly corrosive acid and parasitic spores;
There were 'Void Mayflies', massive as space whales, capable of opening their giant maws to swallow small ships;
There were 'Neural Jellyfish', capable of releasing strong electromagnetic pulses to interfere with ship systems;
And there were 'Monster Bugs' capable of self-replication, attaching to the armor of Imperial ships like a metal virus and constantly gnawing at it.
These biological weapons coordinated with the main ships, forming a multi-dimensional and vicious wave of attacks.
Energy beams crisscrossed, tearing through the void.
The flashes of explosions rose and fell in succession, like supernovas detonating one after another.
Biological acid and metal fragments mixed, forming patches of lethal death stardust.
From time to time, an Imperial frigate or cruiser would have its shields overloaded and armor shattered under dense firepower, turning into a brilliant, tragic firework;
Similarly, massive Qu biological motherships were focus-fired upon by several Imperial warships, their tough biological armor forcibly blasted open, causing the biomass and energy stored inside to trigger earth-shattering chain explosions, resembling ugly flowers made of flesh and pus blooming in the sea of stars.
Battle casualties were inevitable.
The biological technology and massive fleets accumulated by the Qu civilization over unknown ages, no matter how 'incompetent' they were deemed compared to the Human Empire of the main universe, were still a force not to be underestimated, capable of inflicting tangible losses on these four expeditionary legions with limited numbers far away from their homeland.
The fall of every Imperial ship meant the sacrifice of numerous loyal crew members and warriors.
However, all of this was within the Primarchs' expectations and acceptable range.
Moreover, those fallen compatriots would have their 'souls return to the Throne' and 'go to Heaven', which was equivalent to an early 'retirement to enjoy life'.
The Empire's war machine was cold and efficient, keeping losses to a minimum, and in exchange, inflicting much heavier casualties on the Qu fleet.
Just as the fleets were engaged in fierce strangulation on a macroscopic level, another even more thrilling hunt was quietly playing out in every corner of the battlefield—in the corridors of starships, on the surfaces of asteroids, and in the shattered remains of space stations.
The main Qu individuals began to appear one after another.
They did not all throw themselves into the frontal battlefield.
Their total number was roughly between ten and fifteen million. Although this was considered scarce compared to their massive servant armies, their absolute numbers still far exceeded the combined total of Astartes in the four legions.
These Qu individuals acted as phantom commanders and elite assassins on the battlefield. Utilizing their powerful biological force fields and agile figures, they shuttled through the artillery fire, specifically seeking out key nodes of the Imperial army to strike.
For example, attempting to paralyze the engine rooms of warships, assassinate bridge commanders, or destroy important ground defense facilities.
And ordinary Astartes, even equipped with bolters and various large-caliber weapons, found it very difficult to inflict effective lethal damage on Qu individuals.
Their biological force fields were sufficient to deflect bolter rounds, and their tough bodies could withstand the chops of power swords.
Only the Librarians in the companies, unleashing violent psychic lightning, mind blasts, or entropic decay, could penetrate that biological barrier and damage the essence of the Qu.
Dazzling psychic brilliance lit up across the battlefield, and every successful psychic strike might be accompanied by the scream and fall of a Qu.
And even more efficient hunters than the Librarians were the Honor Guards of each legion—those battle-hardened elites wearing master-crafted power armor or Terminator armor who accompanied the Primarchs through countless bloody battles.
Their experience, equipment, and willpower had reached the peak of the Astartes. The melee weapons or specially made bolters in their hands could more effectively tear open the Qu's defenses.
Similarly, the Company Captains and Company Champions, the cream of the crop within the legions, also became the core force in hunting the Qu, relying on their extraordinary personal martial prowess and powerful exclusive weapons.
Amidst the hail of bullets, they fought in close combat with those bizarre moth-like creatures, defending the Empire's honor with the roar of chainswords and the bellow of plasma cannons.
However, the ones who truly formed a crushing advantage over the Qu individuals and undertook the primary hunting missions were still those four demigod-like existences—
The Primarchs.
Lion, like a golden male lion wielding the Lion Sword, faced dozens of Qu attempting to raid the bridge on the deck of the Invincible Truth.
His swordsmanship was like a dance of death, every strike containing the power to tear through matter and soul. Under his sword, the Qu's biological force fields were like thin paper, often cleaved into two halves along with their bodies in a single encounter.
Mortarion didn't even need to swing his massive scythe personally. Wherever he passed, the Wither field naturally unfurled. The Qu's bodies, full of life energy, rapidly withered and decayed as if drained of moisture, choked to death in absolute silence.
He was like a moving natural disaster, ruthlessly harvesting the souls of those who styled themselves as modifiers of life.
Perturabo, the Lord of Iron, turned the hunt into a cold mathematical problem.
Standing at the very forefront of the Iron Warriors' defense line, the combi-weapon in his hands alternated between extreme-long-range precise sniping in bolter mode and releasing destructive beams in energy mode.
Every one of his attacks was optimally calculated to achieve maximum lethal effect with minimal expenditure. The Qu that died at his hands often couldn't even touch him.
And Curze, the Night Haunter, completely immersed himself in his favorite hunting game.
Like a true specter, he shuttled through the shadows of the battlefield, with the 'Mercy' and 'Forgiveness' power claws acting as his extended fangs.
He enjoyed the thrill of shredding prey at close range, the pleasure of slowly toying with and torturing them, and the extreme fear of the Qu before death descended.
His hunts were full of a cruel aesthetic. Often, while the Qu fleets were still exchanging fire with Imperial ships, their commanders had already been torn to pieces by the silently infiltrating Curze.
The figures of the Primarchs were like sharp knives, ruthlessly thrusting into the heart of the Qu army.
Wherever they went, Qu individuals fell in swaths. Whether it was their biological force fields, mental shockwaves, or physical strength, all appeared so pale and powerless before the Primarchs, the Emperor's perfect creations.
For the vast majority of the fallen Qu, the final frame in their recorded visual logs was the figure of a Primarch full of destructive power.
This decisive battle spanning different star sectors had evolved into a grand epic.
The collision of steel and flesh, the clash of psionic and biological power, the sacrifices of mortal soldiers, and the display of the Primarchs' divine might together formed a magnificent yet incomparably cruel tapestry of bloody battle in the sea of stars.
With its unrivaled martial prowess and determination, the Human Empire was executing the ultimate blood debt repayment upon this alien civilization that dared to blaspheme humanity.
Meanwhile, the Qu civilization, retreating steadily before the absolute power of the Empire and the Primarchs, paid an unimaginably heavy price.
And the scales of war had irreversibly tilted from the moment the four Primarchs personally joined the hunt.
The biological fleets that the Qu civilization was so proud of shattered into pieces like waves crashing against reefs in the face of the Imperial legions' iron will and devastating firepower.
Their millions of individuals saw their numbers plummet under the highly efficient hunting of the Librarians, Honor Guards, and Primarchs.
Countless massive and ugly remains of biological ships floated among the sea of stars. Their flesh, which once wriggled, was now cold and stiff, intertwining with the metal fragments of Imperial warships to form a tragic doomsday ukiyo-e.
This grand decisive battle spanning numerous star systems finally began to draw to a close after dozens of standard Earth days of brutal slaughter.
The Empire's lines remained solid, standing firm like rocks, while the Qu's offensive had become like a spent arrow, turning sparse and chaotic.
Their command nodes were uprooted one by one by the Primarchs. The massive fleets lost effective coordination and became scattered sand, only able to march toward ultimate destruction under the systematic mopping up by the Imperial legions.
When the last Qu biological mothership, exceeding a hundred kilometers in length, was torn to pieces by countless lances and macro-cannons under the simultaneous focused fire of the Dark Angels, Dusk Raiders, Iron Warriors, and Night Lords fleets in the core area, triggering an explosion that swept through nearly half the star system, this strategic decisive battle deciding the fate of the Triangulum Galaxy ended in absolute victory for the Human Empire.
On the star map, the dense red spots representing the Qu main forces had dimmed and dissipated, leaving only scattered, insignificant light spots fleeing in panic under the pursuit of the Imperial fleets like candles in the wind.
However, the joy of victory did not muddle Lion's head.
He knew well that for a civilization capable of crossing interstellar space and conducting large-scale biological modifications, as long as a single individual survived, it could resurge at some future moment.
Although the main forces of the Qu civilization had been annihilated, there were bound to be those who slipped through the net or undiscovered Qu colonies in a state of dormancy in other corners of the vast Triangulum Galaxy.
Long before the decisive battle broke out, Lion had already submitted a strategic request via highest-clearance communication to the Emperor residing in the 22nd Universe—
To deploy three 'Halo Arrays' currently in standby mode, namely Array sequences 01, 02, and 03.
At this moment, as the decisive battle came to a close, the Emperor's approval and support arrived right on schedule.
At three key strategic points in the Triangulum Galaxy—located in the core area of the galaxy and the gravitational balance points of the two main spiral arms.
Immediately after, three giant artificial celestial bodies 'emerged' from spatial rifts.
They merely hovered silently in the void, yet their volume exceeded that of ordinary terrestrial planets, exuding a near-miraculous, soul-trembling majesty and power.
These were precisely one of the ultimate manifestations of the Human Empire's technology, possessing the terrifying power to reboot galaxies and purify the universe.
With the issuance of Lion's final authorization command, the cores of the three Halo Arrays simultaneously lit up with blindingly bright light that could not be looked at directly.
Buzz!!!
A 'fluctuation'—far more vast, deeper, and touching more upon the origins of the universe than the one released by the concatenation of Imperator-class flagships previously—rapidly expanded toward every corner of the Triangulum Galaxy with the three Arrays at its core, like three continuously inflating, incredibly pure rings of energy.
Wherever the light passed, it did not destroy planets nor extinguish stars.
But it executed 'purification' in a much more fundamental way.
All surviving individuals carrying the Qu life imprint—whether dormant bodies hidden beneath planets, spores drifting in interstellar dust clouds, or Qu survivors fleeing in panic toward the edges of the galaxy—had their biological structures,
their consciousness information, and their very existence thoroughly 'erased' from the physical level the instant they contacted this pulse wave.
When the light of the pulse wave slowly dissipated, the Triangulum Galaxy seemed to have undergone a 'major housecleaning'.
Although the celestial bodies and nebulas remained the same, the twisted aura of life and the sense of blasphemy originating from the Qu civilization that permeated the galaxy were completely gone.
Over 99.9% of the remaining Qu were reduced to ashes under this light of purification.
Inside the bridge;
Lion gazed at the galaxy projection on the star map, which had become much 'cleaner', without much relaxation of victory on his face.
He turned to the holographic images of his three brothers beside him, his voice still steady and firm: "Brothers, the war in the Triangulum Galaxy has temporarily come to a close, but our mission is far from over."
Mortarion responded heavily: "Understood, clear all potential threats."
Perturabo's voice sounded: "Agreed. Systematic sweeping is necessary to ensure no Qu technology or genetic samples remain."
"..."
Curze, as always, let out a low chuckle of unknown meaning, as if looking forward to the next hunt.
"Exactly," Lion continued. "We cannot relax in the slightest.
I will continue to lead you all, and our legions, in a thorough combing and purging of the Triangulum Galaxy.
We will scan every planet and investigate every nebula to ensure that absolutely no traces of the Qu are left behind.
This is the mission bestowed upon us by Father, and it is the responsibility we must fulfill for those human compatriots in the 22nd Universe who were modified by the Qu and endured endless suffering.
Until the last Qu is eliminated, until this star sector completely falls under the order and glory of the Empire, our expedition will absolutely not cease."
"..."
The order quickly spread throughout the four great legions.
In victory, they began an even more meticulous, longer comb-like sweeping of the vast Triangulum Galaxy.
The Empire's will, like an eternal flame, would continue to burn in this unfamiliar galaxy, until all darkness and blasphemy were burned to ashes...
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