After careful consideration, Alex decided to make significant adjustments to the Imperial Army's original offensive strategy.
He abandoned the radical plan of simultaneously eradicating two major xenos factions, opting instead for a more cautious tactical deployment: first, ordering the Imperial Army to feign territorial expansion, launching a series of diversionary attacks in surrounding star systems, meticulously creating the illusion that the Imperial Army intended to seize strategic strongholds.
When the time was ripe, he would then assemble elite forces to launch a decisive strike against the Necrons' throne world.
The core intention of this strategic adjustment was very clear—to avoid over-provoking the Necrons and preventing them from being pushed into a fight to the death.
Alex hoped to use this strategy of feigning weakness to make the Necrons misjudge the Imperial Army's true strength and strategic intent.
When the Necrons determined that conventional war offered no chance of victory, they would likely take a desperate gamble and release their imprisoned star god shard as a final trump card—and this was precisely Alex's carefully designed strategic objective.
However, Alex was not entirely confident in the actual effectiveness of this strategic adjustment.
He deeply understood the paradoxical nature of Aeldari prophecies: prophecies often became self-fulfilling curses.
The Aeldari would always foresee a disaster, then take various preventive measures, and as a result, it was precisely these preventive measures that led to the prophecy's fulfillment.
This fated paradox made Alex wonder if his strategic adjustment would backfire, becoming the direct catalyst for the Necrons to release the star god shard.
To verify the correctness of his decision, Alex decided to personally perform a Psyker prophecy.
When he concentrated on peering into the future, what he saw was a chaotic and unclear picture; the trajectory of the future was shrouded in thick mist, difficult to discern.
But this prophecy was not without gain—Alex clearly perceived that each of his choices was shaping different possibilities for the future.
This crucial revelation gave him enough confidence, ultimately prompting him to adopt Vallis's prophetic advice and make significant adjustments to the Imperial Army's strategy.
At the same time, Vallis was also closely monitoring the changing situation.
Like Alex, she was well aware of the characteristics of Aeldari prophecy, and thus could not be certain if the future she had foreseen had already changed.
But based on the belief that "the future has changed, and the Aeldari have a glimmer of hope," Vallis still did her utmost to improve the situation according to the prophecy's guidance.
When Alex adjusted the battle plan, she immediately set about verifying the impact of this change on the trajectory of fate.
In the Warhammer 40k universe, while prophetic ability is not entirely out of reach, differences in talent determine how much of fate's true face a Psyker can glimpse.
Some Psykers can only capture fleeting fragments of the future; their foresight is often limited to a few seconds—sometimes, they barely perceive danger before the enemy is already upon them.
Such seers can at most issue hurried warnings, but find it difficult to make effective responses.
As for those truly powerful Psykers, predicting the future is as natural as breathing.
Take Ezekiel of the Dark Angels Chapter, for example; he can accurately foresee battlefield changes and, based on these, command the First Legion's warriors, allowing them to preemptively dismantle enemy offensives.
His prophetic ability ensures the Dark Angels always seize the initiative, even laying deadly traps before the enemy acts.
However, even the most outstanding human prophets are mere toddlers compared to the Aeldari.
As an ancient race naturally endowed with Psyker abilities and having researched Psyker technology for sixty million years, the Aeldari's prophetic artistry has reached its peak, capable of discerning the most subtle ripples in the river of time.
Therefore, for an Aeldari Farseer like Vallis, confirming whether her intervention had changed the future was incredibly easy.
She only needed to concentrate slightly to capture traces of change within the intricate web of fate.
When she finally confirmed that the future had indeed changed due to Alex's strategic adjustment, a long-lost sense of hope welled up within her.
Perhaps the seemingly irreversible tragic fate of the Aeldari truly had room for reversal.
This discovery strengthened her conviction, making her determined to continue pushing the gears of fate to secure a final chance for her people.
—
While Alex was busy dealing with the Aeldari Farseer and the star god shard, 32 and Mai Mai, among others, were delving deep into the Hive City of the Mariupol Sector Capital, attempting to find clues about The Unseen Brotherhood.
All of them had their own Kill Teams, so they certainly weren't lacking in firepower.
However, with several Kill Teams squeezed together, the group appeared somewhat unwieldy, and with too many targets to investigate, they decided to split into several teams, each choosing a direction for investigation and reporting findings promptly.
After all, they were all using proxies, so even if they were truly wiped out, it would just mean shouting outside and redeploying new proxies.
And the enemy would be completely exposed to them.
Unless the enemy managed to kill them by creating accidents, leaving them with no discernible clues.
But that would be somewhat difficult.
After all, this group included an Adeptus Mechanicus Sage, an Astartes Forgemaster, a Rogue Trader, and a Navy Captain, as well as a Krieg Fortress Commander.
Hoping to silently kill them was perhaps a bit much to ask.
Even when split into five groups, each with their Kill Team, they still appeared "numerous and powerful."
32 only had one Tech-Priest Enginseer and two Kastelan Robots by her side; while seemingly few in number, if the two Robots were allowed to dismantle freely, just these two Robots could cut through the entire lower levels of the Hive City.
The target she wanted to investigate was precisely the corpse guild located in the lower levels of the Hive City.
Although corpse starch is not essentially made of corpses but is a synthetic food produced by the Adeptus Mechanicus through promethium extract, this does not mean that the corpse starch you eat contains no corpses.
The reason is simple: the Imperial Army has too many corpses to process.
Taking the Hive City of the Mariupol Sector Capital, which 32 and her team are currently investigating, as an example, approximately eighty billion residents live within this massive artificial mountain.
Although it cannot compare to some giant Hive Cities with over a hundred billion residents, the population is still considered quite dense.
And with such a dense population, even if the mortality rate is only one-thousandth, the corpses generated could literally pile up into a mountain.
After all, one-thousandth of one hundred million people is one hundred thousand, and one-thousandth of eighty billion is eighty million.
Such a large number of deceased people obviously cannot all be perfectly embalmed and buried.
Even if the Imperial Army had tomb worlds, using an entire planet as a graveyard would be completely insufficient.
Moreover, in the Imperial Army, no one would waste resources like that.
Not to mention that ordinary people are not even qualified to be buried.
But so many corpses must be dealt with, and thus the corpse guild came into being.
They process the collected corpses into corpse starch, which is then made into synthetic nutrient paste to feed the Hive City residents, thereby both disposing of corpses and feeding the vast population—a perfect solution to a dilemma.
This is, of course, a good thing, but the problem is that the corpse guild is prone to cults.
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