A blinding purple light radiated from the central axis of the Blackstone Fortress. Inside the engine chamber lay a permanent Warp rift, drawing an inexhaustible supply of supernatural energy and channeling it into the Vortex Cannon through runic sorcery.
BOOM—!
After holding out for a mere ten seconds, the planetary-scale void shield reached its absolute limit, its shimmering surface shattering with a deafening roar.
The backlash of the void shield overloading reverberated through the interior of the Battle Moon, shaking the resolve of the Rangdan and their thralls.
They had never imagined that a planetary-scale void shield could be overloaded.
In the past, whenever humans managed to destroy a Battle Moon, they did so via boarding actions or by detonating apocalyptic weapons from within.
Shredding the shields through a frontal assault was deemed virtually impossible. Yet the reality unfolded right before their eyes, plunging the Rangdan and their slave engineers into a stunned silence.
The energy readings continued to skyrocket.
Inside the command bridge, a torrent of data was rapidly processed, constantly feeding conclusions to the Rangdan Warmaster.
The instantaneous energy output of the purple beam was staggering, firmly reaching a planetary scale.
The underlying reason for the rapid shield failure was that the super-cannon's payload was not a momentary blast. The continuous torrent of energy relentlessly lashed the shield, and the compounding force simply crushed the shield network.
It was utterly inexplicable—the artificial intelligence found it impossible to parse how the fortress could maintain such a sustained output, as it flagrantly defied the laws of physics.
Displayed across multiple viewports, the astronomical energy output had not raised the temperature of the Blackstone structure at all; in fact, it had dropped significantly.
As the energy deluge poured forth, the internal power signatures of the Blackstone structure never wavered, maintaining a perfectly stable baseline.
Inside the Blackstone Fortress, Lion El'Jonson nodded with a smile, the performance of the Vortex Cannon far exceeding his expectations.
The Vortex Cannon possessed a "cumulative" trait, which allowed it to link up with other Vortex Cannons to amplify the overall destructive payload.
Within the bombardment zone, the cannon inflicted a "vortex anomaly" upon realspace, trapping the energy within the localized vortex area and preventing it from dissipating.
As long as the Warp energy was not instantly spent, the energy density within the vortex zone would climb exponentially until the target was completely obliterated.
Magnificent!
The Lion clenched his fists, a flash of reluctance darting through his eyes. Once this war concluded, he truly had no desire to return this Blackstone Fortress.
The Blackstone Fortress was a supreme weapon of war. Given sufficient time, it could completely destroy a star through sustained bombardment!
The astronomical spectacle of the super-cannon's assault pressed on. The first and second layers of void shields rapidly shattered, followed closely by the collapse of the kinetic energy shields.
Three minutes was but a fleeting instant on a galactic scale, but for the Rangdan and their thralls trapped within the Battle Moon, it was an agonizing torment where every second felt like an eternity.
As the shields broke layer by layer, the support fleet remained entirely out of range to assist, forced to watch helplessly as the beam of energy obliterated one defensive perimeter after another.
Even Warp communications failed to broadcast. The purple energy lashing the shields severely disrupted both reality and the Immaterium, dissolving all data within the energy torrent.
CRACK—
The energy shields let out an overburdened wail. Under the scouring force of the Vortex Cannon, the azure structural field shattered like glass, dissolving into fragments of raw energy.
With the multi-layered shield network entirely overloaded and collapsed, the raw Warp energy slammed directly into the hull of the Battle Moon, triggering a horrific cataclysm of opposing forces.
The power harnessed by the Vortex Cannon originated from the Warp—what the galaxy recognized as psychic energy.
The moment psychic energy contacted physical matter, it instantly triggered a violent distortion of physical laws, manifesting supernatural phenomena out of thin air.
Lightning bolts a hundred kilometers thick ruptured the vacuum, arc-dragons licking across the outer hull of the Battle Moon. Armor plating several kilometers thick peeled away in layers like fish scales.
Supernatural fire ignited the steel, melting it into a boiling soup of molten iron, while gravitational vortexes tore at the structural framework of the megastructure. The Battle Moon began to collapse inward, killing tens of millions of crew members in the ensuing Warp disaster.
The Battle Moon was pierced clean through by the Vortex Cannon, its interior purged by highly concentrated Warp energy. Living organisms disintegrated down to the atomic level, their souls forcefully severed from their flesh.
The Blackstone Fortress's Vortex Cannon ceased its bombardment. The energy readings rapidly declined as the psychic shields snapped back into place.
The Lion was highly satisfied with the outcome.
By sacrificing the psychic shields to maximize output, a single strike had erased a Battle Moon from existence.
"Initiate primitive repair protocols. Restore the damaged sections of the fortress, and set course for World A-1."
The command came from the Lion. The vessel's cogitator promptly responded, immediately triggering the repair subroutines.
Despair washed over the Rangdan fleet. Purple light began to flicker across the ruptured sections of the human fortress-ship, and the blasted fragments of black stone eerily drifted back, locking back into their original positions.
As the human fortress rotated, countless beams of purple light erupted from its obsidian hull, overloading the shields of the surrounding warships within minutes.
The eight-pointed star rotated in the starry void. Though the fortified staging world had already raised its planetary shields, the Rangdan commander had completely lost all confidence.
The wreckage of the Battle Moon was plunging downward, the disrupted gravity dragging it toward the star, as if foreshadowing the inevitable doom of the world below.
The Dark Angels fleet held its position, while the Blackstone Fortress arrived directly above A-1. It remained utterly unfazed, letting the planetary defense fire harmlessly lash its psychic shields.
Short of a planetary-scale saturation bombardment, the psychic shields were virtually impenetrable; the ground-based fire felt like nothing more than a gentle breeze.
Beneath the belly of the Blackstone Fortress's upper rotating section, a launch bay slid open. The Dreadwing legionaries, burning with anticipation, aligned the mass accelerators toward A-1.
Loaded within the mass accelerators were Cyclonic Torpedoes of a highly unique specification.
The very tip of each torpedo warhead was embedded with a small shard of azure crystal, with four thin blue lines extending across the chassis to generate a distinct localized field.
"Launch Cyclonic Torpedoes!" The Dreadwing Grand Master cast a cold glance at the world below and issued the exterminatus order to purge the Rangdan staging world.
With a flash of purple light from the accelerator, the Cyclonic Torpedoes were launched at a thousand times the speed of sound. Bearing humanity's absolute disdain for the xenos, they transformed into streaks of light plunging toward the planet.
Predictably, the moment the Cyclonic Torpedoes cleared the psychic shields, they were locked onto by countless defense arrays and subjected to a dense net of interception fire.
Yet, an incomprehensible sight unfolded: despite the relentless pounding of defensive lasers, the torpedoes suffered no damage whatsoever.
Dimensional technology!
The defenders who witnessed this felt a chilling dread grip their hearts. This world was finished!
The Cyclonic Torpedoes glided through an unknown dimension, and what was visible in three-dimensional space was merely a projection of their anchored positions. When they slipped back into three-dimensional space, it would signal the arrival of utter extinction!
Like a drop of water falling into the ocean, the torpedoes slipped effortlessly through the energy shields without a hint of atmospheric friction. Maintaining their velocity perfectly, they plunged straight into the planet's core.
The death of the world began—
The continents trembled violently as the oceans drained into the mantle through massive chasms in the crust. Then, with a sudden, explosive seismic convulsion, the world detonated with a deafening roar.
The cyclonic plasma payloads detonated at the core, the sheer force of the explosion tearing the entire world to pieces!
Massive landmasses were hurled into high orbit, smashing through the dense cluster of warships, while magma erupted thousands of kilometers into space like the spraying blood of a severed artery.
Planetary fragments were flung outward by the rotational force. Suffused with a total imbalance of mass, the shattered world drifted out of its original orbit, hurtling into the void outside the system.
World A-1 was completely destroyed, an incredibly cost-effective victory.
The human fleet had not lost a single soul, yet they had wiped out a heavily fortified Rangdan world in a fraction of time, severely disrupting the enemy's troop mobilization.
A Battle Moon ruined, a staging world erased.
Realizing the tide had turned, the remaining Rangdan fleet engaged their Warp drives and scattered in all directions, fleeing to locate alternative staging grounds.
"Let them go." The Lion denied the request to give chase, looking contemptuously down at the holographic system map as he allowed the Rangdan fleet to retreat. "They will carry the news of our arrival back to the Rangdan high command."
"Drawing the Rangdan's gaze while striking deep into their rear to destabilize them is our primary objective."
"Understood." The warrior who had requested the attack bowed and stepped back, standing within the Blackstone hall to await the next summons from his Primarch.
The Lion turned his gaze out of the pyramid command bridge. The heart of the shattered world—its core—was gradually cooling, turning into a dim red ember drifting through the vacuum.
A low hum rumbled in his throat. The majestic smile never faded from his face, a clear sign that he was in an excellent mood.
The true purpose of this assault on A-1 was to familiarize themselves with the Blackstone Fortress and to test the cyclonic payloads provided by his brother.
The results spoke for themselves.
"Tear open the Warp!" The Lion's roar echoed through the vast hall. "Dark Angels, press straight into the Rangdan heartland!"
The Blackstone Fortress violently tore through the shroud of reality, leading the fleet into the roaring tides of the Warp, leaving only a ruined system spinning silently in their wake.
Throughout the Rangdan Xenocides, they would repeat this act of extermination countless times, dealing absolute judgment to any alien race that dared defy mankind.
At the other end of the conflict zone, a Blackstone Fortress emerged from the Warp. Blazkowicz's fast fleet had bypassed the Rangdan defensive perimeters, arriving deep within Rangdan territory—a region of pitch-black space.
"Unknown system. Designation assigned: U-1," the artificial intelligence reported after scanning the system, providing a corresponding title.
For the Rangdan campaign, the Doom Legion's designated code was "U." Being the twenty-first letter of the alphabet, it represented the 21st Legion.
The "1" signified the very first world the 21st Legion encountered upon entering the Rangdan interior.
Though Rangdan intelligence carried its own native designations, the Imperium of Man would never use xenos names, nor would they ever acknowledge the alien geographical terms.
"Prepare the Exterminatus. Destroy the Rangdan agricultural world."