"What a brilliant and grand fireworks display."
Adam sighed softly.
He remained positioned within the Warp. Here, there was no up or down, no left or right, and no constant concept of time or space. There were only endless waves of emotion—a vast ocean formed by the collective feelings generated by countless souls in the material universe.
Those emotions tumbled, collided, and merged here, forming currents powerful enough to tear any mortal being into fragments. At this moment, the massive fleet battle occurring in the material universe acted like a reflection, stirring unprecedented stormy waves in this sea of emotion. These ripples overlapped and intensified, finally transforming into a violent vortex capable of swallowing everything.
Warp cyclones generated out of thin air near Adam's hands. They twisted and spun, emitting a terrifying suction force sufficient to drag a warship into the abyss. Adam looked down and waved his hand casually. Like a child skipping stones by a river, those vortexes that would have caused any Navigator's face to pale were dispersed with a light touch. The shattered energy turned into points of fluorescent light at Adam's fingertips, instantly swallowed by the surrounding emotional waves.
Adam looked up, his gaze piercing through the veil between the Warp and the material universe. That barrier, which required immense mental effort for any psyker to peer through, seemed non-existent before him. His sight ignored the laws of optics, the common sense of physics, and the constraints of distance and space, falling directly upon the war-torn void.
He took everything in. As an observer, Adam saw more clearly than the Chaos officers caught in the middle of the battle.
Chaos reacted quickly. After Abaddon issued the correct orders, the entire fleet completed its course adjustment at maximum speed. Those massive warships carved arched plasma trails in the void, racing toward the planet Pythos in a manner bordering on wretched.
"What a pity," Adam sighed.
Truth be told, the previous ambush plan had indeed suffered a misstep. While he was still intercepting the Chaos fleet within the Warp, Guilliman had already led that sun-blotting fleet to wait silently in the endless starry sky beyond the Pandorax system. They lay in wait at the system's edge, like predators waiting for prey.
The method of entry relied on the Necron's inertialess drive. By not traveling through the Warp, there was naturally no possibility of being detected in advance by Chaos forces. The ability of these six thousand warships to maintain such a large-scale coordinated operation was due to Necron technology and the application of various Abominable Intelligences from the Dark Age of Technology.
As for the crew members maintaining the minimum operation of the warships, every single one was a warrior resurrected from the Legion of the Damned. Their fighting spirit and patience were astonishing, and their reality-warping interference ensured that the Chaos powers in the Warp remained completely unaware of the ambush.
It should have been a perfect ambush. Everyone assumed the Chaos fleet would emerge from the Mandeville point of the Pandorax system.
However, the opposition jumped directly inside the system. With the blessing of the Chaos powers, that fleet bypassed the Mandeville point and appeared out of thin air within Pandorax. Under normal circumstances, the gravitational interference carried by such a massive fleet would make Warp jump stability impossible to calculate. Yet, under the influence of certain forces, this common sense was shattered.
The Chaos warships entered the system safely, while Guilliman, idling outside the system, became the one struggling to give chase. This allowed the traitors to desperately secure a slim chance of survival.
However, that chance was fading at extreme speed.
Guilliman, an experienced and brilliant commander, directed only half of the fleet for suppressive fire. Through horrifyingly precise calculation and allocation, the cannon fire turned into a web of death covering the entire void. The remaining warships did not need to compromise their engines for shooting and could pursue without restraint. The distance between the two sides was closing continuously. It was no exaggeration to say that the Chaos fleet's life had entered a countdown.
Adam slowly withdrew his gaze.
Obviously, certain existences within the Warp would not want to see their chess pieces cleared from the board like this. He sighed, his tone carrying a sense of expected helplessness.
"Just as predicted. Can't you afford to lose?"
The moment those words fell, the Warp surrounding Adam began to undergo a mutation. Adam looked up. Four divine domains were expanding around him.
First was the endless yellow desert. Countless weapons clashed among the dunes, producing deafening metallic clangs. The air was filled with slaughter and rage in its purest form. A pair of eyes burning with eternal fury projected toward Adam.
Khorne.
Then, a shifting, treacherous crystal labyrinth expanded to Adam's right. Overlapping crystalline structures were piled together in a way that completely defied the principles of geometry. Every shift was accompanied by the manifestation of some indescribable knowledge. A giant eye slowly opened, nine different colors flowing within its pupil.
Tzeentch.
Next was a palace of extreme purple beauty. An intoxicating fragrance and absolute pleasure overflowed from the palace, easily hooking the deepest desires of any living soul. Yet behind that pleasure lay equal extremes of pain and depravity.
Slaanesh.
Finally, there was the listless green garden. It expanded behind Adam, appearing exceptionally withered compared to the first three. The plants in the garden displayed a sickly dark green hue. Their branches and leaves drooped, as if they had experienced too many cycles of withering and rebirth and had lost interest in growth itself.
Nurgle.
The divine domains of the four Chaos Gods expanded simultaneously around Adam. The Warp began to oscillate violently. Those four distinct yet equally indescribable powers, like four giant waves capable of crushing stars, pressed toward Adam from four directions at once. The small patch of space where Adam stood began to warp and deform under this quadruple pressure.
The murmuring whispers of the Warp appeared in Adam's ears, seemingly hoping to induce his fall toward a final end.
However, Adam looked on with disdain.
"Stop chattering, it's annoying. Things have reached this point; it's not something words can solve, is it?"
He laughed wildly, his voice echoing in the Warp watched by the four Chaos Gods. Then, Adam raised his right hand, closed his fingers, and gripped his fist tightly.
At that exact moment, the divine domain of the Emperor expanded behind him!
Endless golden light erupted from behind Adam, as if an entire star had reached the end of its life at this moment, releasing all the energy accumulated over billions of years at once. That light was so fierce, so pure, and so unstoppable that the symbolic manifestations of the four Chaos Gods' domains visibly wavered under its brilliance.
Behind that endless golden light, a deeper existence was slowly emerging.
It was a black sun. It hung quietly above Adam's head, absorbing all surrounding light yet simultaneously emitting a power deeper than the golden light.
The pressure from the four Chaos Gods remained. Under their joint suppression, the power of Adam and the Emperor was indeed still at a disadvantage. But clearly, they would not underestimate this.
Adam raised his head, his gaze sweeping across his greatest enemies in this universe.
"Then come," he shouted, his voice exploding in the waves of the Warp, stirring up endless echoes. "Let's settle this!"