Chapter 234: The Evil Xenos
[Exterminate the False Emperor.]
The clash between the alien race empire and their expansionist campaign collided head-on with the Rangda Civilization. From that moment on, the war drums beat, and the swords were drawn—two civilizations locked in brutal combat.
The evil alien race were masters of gene manipulation and gunpowder, of modification and enslavement. Their elites feasted upon the flesh and blood of their underclasses, surrounded by gilded splendor built upon the hollowed minds of countless slaves.
Those in power indulged in privileges unchecked, adorned in gold and silver, clothed in ornate patterns, drinking fine wine and gorging on fatty meats.
And yet, by their base instincts, the lower castes worshipped these elites, entirely blind to the fact that they were mere playthings in the palms of their masters.
This race is obsessed over extravagant ornamentation, hollow achievements, and empty boasts. They are brazen and arrogant, and have no self-awareness.
Their origins and development were steeped in the purest forms of violence and waste. Their individuals tore at each other; their species was locked in endless civil war.
How had they survived this long?
Even the most ruthless lord of the Rangda could not help but express awe when faced with the Empire's staggering inefficiency, its internal strife, and its merciless exploitation of its own kind.
Cowardly yet war-hungry. Treacherous yet self-indulgent. This species was a cancer upon the physical universe. The more they developed and expanded, the more despair the world knew.
The so-called "Great Crusade"—did they even know what they were doing?
With every expansion of the False Emperor's realm came endless slaughter and chaos. They took resources and left only devastation.
More and more lives were swept into their tidal wave. Ever more extreme emotions only served to thin the veil between the Warp and reality.
The most laughable part?
This species—the most wicked of all—had the gall to call themselves "righteous."
Laughter erupted.
What gave such an irredeemable species the nerve to proclaim their virtue? Was it the ridiculous delusions in their heads?
If the lower castes were to be enslaved, better it be by Rangda hands—at least Rangda never executed slaves on a whim. They cherished every resource.
Compared to the Empire that worshipped brute violence, Rangda had confidence they could triumph. In the field of psychic mastery, they were leagues beyond these fire-gazing, chanting apes.
War had begun.
Billions of warriors marched into battle. Bullets tore through icy winds. Blades slashed through flesh. Screams and incantations rang out as war machines rumbled forward, leaving shredded meat and broken limbs in their wake.
Gene-crafted abominations of the alien race joined the fray—those grotesque, flesh-bound monsters who delighted in painting themselves with garish colors, whose very appearance made the Rangda retch.
Yet these foolish, misguided creatures—through the absurdity of their deaths—tore open holes in the Rangda defenses, bit by bit.
The first two battles were far from glorious. The third volley came with the resolute intent to purge.
The False Emperor commanded his sons to embark on the campaign—at the cost of a war to the death between two species.
The Emperor's eldest son led the war effort. Cold-blooded and calculating, not even the screams of kin or the blood of brothers could shake his resolve.
The Legions of the Lion and the Wolf advanced relentlessly, tilting the scales of war.
In response, the Rangda adopted a do-or-die stance—sacrifice, offerings, and chants to the High Heavens echoed across the fields.
An entire Rangda legion fell here. In all the histories to come, their names would never return.
But the Empire was simply too vast. For every piece torn off, more troops surged forward to fill the gaps.
Among the Rangda, those with foresight began to see the writing on the wall. To hold their ground was to perish. The Lion's blade was already at their throat—
They had to retreat.
The wisest among them had already discerned the enemy's traits. Just like their absurd colors, each force stubbornly clung to its nature—or perhaps more accurately, its weakness.
It was time to search for a new, suitable target.
Bit by bit of manipulation, a trace of temptation, carefully placed clues, deliberate words of weakness—
As expected, the fanatically loyal eldest son turned his gaze toward the sibling already on the list.
The arrogance and sharpness so typical of human elites—they were so used to looking down on their underlings that they could no longer stoop to speak as equals.
On the high-pressure battlefield, such attitudes were enough to tear the smallest cracks into great chasms.
Rumors became truth. Brothers turned against each other. Even on Rangda's battlefield, these savage monkeys couldn't resist swinging their clubs at their comrades.
The goal had been achieved.
Exploiting the chaos of alien race infighting, one of Rangda's detachments successfully escaped the battlefield. To avoid drawing attention, the fleet was small—but every warrior aboard was elite among elites.
Even with enemy forces in pursuit, Rangda had calculated the timing perfectly and was fully confident in their escape.
They would pass through several minor alien systems, then the human forge world Rust, and beyond that—the resource-rich hive world, overflowing with abundance.
Behind them, the foolish in-fighting of the human empire; ahead, a beautiful and vulnerable alien nation. Once they passed through here, the way would be clear.
A tiny alien pocket kingdom vanished under the shadow of Rangda's fleet. Before the psychic mind-control of the Rangda, these primitives—who hadn't even discovered fire—were utterly insignificant. The path forward was unstoppable—
But then, the turning point arrived.
The arrogant eldest son was not as brutish as he appeared. He's cunning and cautious, and the enemy had summoned another legion from across the stars.
The Death Guard.
Another legion wearing one of those ridiculous colors, but at least their undecorated armor made the old jokes circulating among the Rangda a little less applicable.
Aboard the flagship, the Rangda lord silently analyzed the battle. Never underestimate the enemy—arrogance and complacency were the deadliest sins on the battlefield.
Even though they had resupplied in the previous systems, the Rangda fleet's ammunition was far from plentiful. Worse still, they had to split off part of the fleet to distract the First Legion hot on their tail.
The Rangda's high mobility, powerful individuals, and psychic abilities were useless in fleet engagements. What they needed was melee—close-quarters bloodshed and slaughter.
In fact, the ideal Rangda tactic would have been a surprise decapitation strike—using psychic powers to take control of the enemy commander and issue disruptive orders to their forces.
But the opposing fleet refused to allow close combat. The Rangda ships exiting the Mandeville Point were ruthlessly torn apart and herded into a predetermined graveyard.
There were a few small-scale boarding skirmishes, but the enemy's superior numbers gradually stripped the Rangda fleet's outer layers. And then came an even worse piece of news—
The second-largest ship in the Rangda fleet had fallen.
It wasn't destroyed by a barrage of firepower—but by a massive boarding and decapitation strike.
How could this happen?
How could this happen?!
That ship housed the most gifted psyker in the fleet, second only to the lord himself. In previous battles, enemies had to deploy entire psychic units in tandem with saturation bombing just to kill one such leader. And before dying, their psychic death wail would plunge an entire region into madness and submission.
A warlord's psychic scream at the moment of death could even turn the tide of battle in an instant—it was their final trump card, the symbol of Rangda's dominion over fire.
But just now—that ship fell.
And nothing happened.
Nothing at all???
The Warp remained eerily calm.
But the lord knew—his comrade would never have surrendered without a fight.
So what happened?
His mind raced with possibilities as he issued orders and prepared the next move. Then, two more pieces of bad news arrived in succession:
The pursuing fleet behind them was about to reach Rust.
Another Imperial fleet on the far end of Rust was already advancing toward this battlefield.
The heavy blow weighed down upon the Rangda lord's thoughts.
There would be no need for personal duels anymore—the enemy intended to drown them in sheer firepower. These crude savages would kill them in the most direct and brutal way possible.
They had lost because they brought too few ships on their escape. Compared to this savage empire, it was simply a matter of not having conquered and plundered enough resources.
The sacrifice of his comrade, the arrival of twin calamities—even the most elaborate plans were ultimately no match for the brute strength of these barbarians. Perhaps… perhaps they should initiate a mutually-assured destruction boarding strike. The psychic altar on this ship could allow them to accomplish a final, glorious act.
Grim determination and despair consumed him so thoroughly that he ignored a report from his subordinates: someone might have infiltrated the ship. But the data was vague, the warning signal too faint—it could very well be a false alarm.
Facing imminent death, the Rangda lord had no time to consider such minor details. He needed a tactic that would win the entire fleet the battle—otherwise, all that awaited them was extinction.
If they were destined to perish in the end… then the altar aboard this ship could at least ensure their enemies remembered it with unforgettable agony.
. . . . . . . .
Hades moved silently through the corridors of the alien flagship.
They relied too heavily on psychic powers.
They are arrogant.
Individually, these aliens are powerful—but at the end of the day, they were still psykers.
And as long as they were psykers, Hades was confident he could bring them down.
The previous large-scale boarding had gone smoothly. Hades still wasn't sure what had given the enemy such confidence—splitting their fleet deliberately, attempting to bait them with one of the two main ships.
Perhaps they had placed too much trust in their psychic domination.
Indeed, the Death Guard and Hadeshounds had suffered some losses under psychic assault. But having anticipated this, they quickly adapted to counter the xenos' rhythm. Still, something about the battle felt off to Hades the entire time.
Elite enemies were marked out for Hades to deal with. All except for one particularly troublesome Rangda warlord, whom he found somewhat difficult, the rest had their heads taken cleanly by his hand.
Then came Mortarion's message: the Reaper who had annihilated the Mekanic was finally joining this battle. Simultaneously, word arrived from the Dark Angels—they were about to reach the battlefield and had solemnly promised to take the burden of blood and sacrifice upon themselves—
Because this was, after all, the Dark Angels' war.
The situation now seemed almost too easy. On the surface, this was a textbook rout. Hades could lie peacefully in the command room aboard Reaper's Scythe, waiting for his allies to come pick him up.
But.
From the ship previously captured by the Death Guard, they had obtained all the data on this sister ship.
And the bad news was: this ship housed an altar—the kind that could tear open the barrier between the Warp and the physical universe.
Tearing a hole between reality and the Warp and sucking everything nearby into it… The Empire had such devices too—but they were small, short-lived, and difficult to sustain.
Mortarion's vortex grenades were just such a thing.
He could crack one open and throw any psyker he didn't like into the Warp. In fact, the Primarch had done exactly that on many occasions.
Hades didn't understand psychic phenomena.
So, he passed all the information he gathered to Ugo, the Lantern Bearer.
Ugo's response: There's a possibility that the Rangda intended to tear open a "Rust Rift" that could suck the entire Death Guard fleet into the Warp.
Though temporary, under Rangda's psychic sorcery, the rift would last long enough to drag the entire fleet through.
If the enemy really did intend to die together with them…
Then this was very bad news.
What disturbed Hades even more was this:
It seemed the Rangda fleet had partially decoded the Dark Angels' communications—that meant the enemy had already intercepted the message that reinforcements were en route.
And in the face of such overwhelming power disparity, the other side might indeed make a mad, desperate move.
They were dealing with a bomb about to go off.
And only Hades and Ugo knew it.
The Dark Angels and Mortarion… were probably already thinking about post-battle cleanup.
So...
Hades glanced at the flawless 3D layout of the enemy ship on his screen and simply decided:
"Guess I'll just board and decapitate the leadership."
Sneak in. Kill the enemy commander.
According to the intel, the altar's ritual required the lord to sacrifice themselves to activate it.
Black Domain, psykers, the flagship's map—and even if it failed, reinforcements would arrive any moment.
Maybe it was time to just charge in.
Hades suddenly realized that in this universe, no matter how the battle progressed, no matter how absurd things got, it always came down to melee combat between individuals.
Was it because ship bombardments and machine clashes couldn't convey ideology and meaning?
Whatever. Classic Warhammer.
So Hades cheerfully chose to stealth-jump.
A wraith gliding silently through the darkness.
According to the plan, twenty minutes after Hades infiltrated the enemy ship, the Death Guard would launch another boarding party.
It's either to clean up the scraps or to carry Hades' broken body back home.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
In the unnoticed corners of the ship, strange noises began to echo.
But the surrounding Rangda didn't seem to notice—
Some were already dead.
Some… simply lived on in ignorance.
Hades might have been a Death Guard, not a Night lord or a Raven Guard, but he'd still trained in the basics of stealth.
With the aid of the Black Domain, Hades could even brag a bit about how his stealth was… passable.
By retracting his Black Domain, he could erase his presence as long as no one was looking.
But if someone started focusing on him—
Then the Black Domain would do the opposite: it would amplify his presence in their minds.
Against enemies who relied heavily on psychic senses, the effect was even more exaggerated.
In short:
If you didn't notice Hades—he might as well not exist.
But the moment you did, he became like a massive black fly buzzing right in front of your face.
Death came swiftly.
Compared to the psykers of Drune, the Rangda had much finer control of their power, which forced Hades to tighten his Black Domain to guarantee instant kills while harvesting their souls.
Since his footsteps were too heavy, Hades had to neutralize every Rangda he encountered along the way to avoid detection.
Eventually, he successfully reached the command room.
At this moment, the Death Guard began their second boarding wave.
Hades crouched silently in a shadowy corner just outside the command chamber—then unleashed the Black Domain.
He didn't even need to enter.
The Black Domain alone should have been enough to bring down the enemy.
Maybe not kill the lord outright, but it should at least knock him unconscious.
But—
The command room was empty?!
Hades instantly leapt up, expanding the Black Domain to its maximum—
There!
He spotted the Rangda lord at the far end of the corridor.
Too far.
The Black Domain couldn't reach him at that distance.
Hades gritted his teeth, raised his weapon, and fired a shot—then charged forward.
Stealth was blown.
No more games—time to assassinate the target head-on!
What surprised him was—
The Rangda lord didn't fight back.
This massive creature turned and ran away right in front of Hades.
"Oh? What? Running? You really think you can just run away now?"
According to the map, there were no traps near the command chamber.
It should be safe to attempt a limited pursuit.
He chased.
It fled.
Wherever the Black Domain passed, nothing was left alive.
In nearby chambers, Rangda corpses lay strewn across the floor.
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