Inside the base, a squadron of aircraft descended.
Led by a black Dreadnought with orange-yellow stripes, a group of little yellow figures stepped out behind it.
These were none other than the Lamenters, whom Zhou Ye had assigned to the rear to organize the civilian evacuation, along with the Blood Angels Dreadnought Ancient. These days, the Ancient walked around everywhere with a brood of little yellow figures trailing after him -- clearly a product of Zhou Ye's world-shaking wisdom. This group of Lamenters had come to believe that this Dreadnought was the founding ancestor of their Chapter, and now that so few of them remained...
Their Chapter Master and their original Dreadnought brother were both of unknown fate. Naturally, they had all gravitated toward this Ancient with quiet, unspoken consensus. At least now there was an Ancient who could hear their grievances. He was, after all, the only Blood Angel who had ever truly acknowledged them, and a member of the revered Sanguinary Guard no less.
It was like a mother hen being followed everywhere by a brood of little yellow chicks.
The moment they all landed, however, every face wore the exact same expression of complete bewilderment.
The Emperor Titan? Oh, charging headlong into the daemonic tide in the far distance.
Their battle-brothers? Oh, charging headlong into the daemonic tide up ahead.
The Astra Militarum? Oh. Charging headlong into the daemonic tide up ahead.
And the Chapter Master? Oh, the Chapter Master was playing saxophone. Wait -- that was wrong. The Chapter Master was holding a sacred relic, standing atop a converted Rhino APC, currently maintaining a vast Life-Death Barrier that shielded everyone on the field.
"No!!!"
A sharp, explosive war cry rang out. The Contemptor Dreadnought raised both legs and charged straight ahead. Behind him, a gaggle of little yellow Lamenters sprinted to keep up.
Chapter Master: Today we held a spectacular death charge, every company and champion was invited -- care to guess who wasn't?
Well. Zhou Ye certainly was not going to admit he had specifically arranged to bully them like this.
He had wanted to keep them in the rear -- he genuinely had. But they were Astartes. He could only push them back so far. If they wanted to charge, there was nothing he could actually do to stop them.
Organizing the civilians for a gradual, orderly evacuation had been the task handed to them. And for good measure, a secondary sweep for corruption or gene-contamination while they were at it. Those duties had been passed off to them. Of course, it was all just going through the motions -- everything would be handled properly once the ship was in flight.
The inspection method was simple and blunt: Authority of Sentience, full activation. Read the memories directly.
---o---
On another part of the battlefield, the Imperial Fists company had barely advanced before running headlong into precise, targeted interdiction.
Zhou Ye honestly could not wrap his head around how the Iron Warriors, from within a surging mass of soldiers that all looked identical and bore no distinguishing markings whatsoever, had managed to pinpoint every single Imperial Fist with uncanny accuracy.
And then intercepted them. This time, the Iron Warriors had clearly gone back to call in reinforcements -- five Ironclad Dreadnoughts, all in one go. At that point there was absolutely no sense in the Imperial Fists pressing forward. Better to plant their boots right here and fight it out.
Zhou Ye was not worried about it. Those Iron Warriors stood essentially no chance of winning against his Imperial Fists. Never mind that the combat capability he had fabricated was already nothing to scoff at, with his own personal modifications layered on top of that. This was a force that was essentially all Primaris, plus three Terminator squads, three Centurion squads.
And one Contemptor Dreadnought. There was simply no way anything could go wrong here.
---o---
"For the All-Father and Russ."
A bellowed war cry, and the Contemptor Dreadnought raised a Thunder War Axe Zhou Ye had hand-crafted and cleaved a Beast of Nurgle clean into pieces. It then led the Space Wolves charging at the very tip of the spear. As for the Beast of Nurgle's not-yet-dissipated corpse, Zhou Ye quietly recovered it and consumed it for energy.
Then he ran into a real problem.
A colossal, bloated form slowly materialized before them.
A Daemon Prince.
One that had long since been warped and twisted into one of the most powerful varieties of these tumorous abominations. The upper and lower limits of a Daemon Prince were extreme -- the ceiling was a Primarch, the floor was potentially being banished by a mob of ordinary mortals. But this one was clearly no weakling. It moved to directly block the Contemptor Dreadnought, and the Ancient found itself unable to break free within any short span of time. The great momentum of the advance began to slowly, inexorably grind to a halt.
Even the Emperor Titan had to ease its pace. The Void Shield could deflect ranged attacks. But slow, close-range assault was something it could not simply ward off -- that required supporting units to intervene.
The current Void Shield was Zhou Ye's own "I think, therefore it is" reinforced variant, but there was nothing to be done about close-quarters tactics of this nature.
One of the most effective ways to destroy a Titan was boarding it, after all. Even an Emperor Titan feared that kind of assault.
The battle line slowly stagnated, then became swallowed into the vast, surging mass of the enemy horde.
---o---
"If only I could fabricate Stigma Awakened and MANTIS right now. But I don't have nearly enough of the conditions for that yet."
Zhou Ye could not help grumbling aloud. There were False Herrschers too, for that matter. But he could not afford those either -- mainly because their energy cost drew on Imaginary just the same.
He would need to supply them with sufficient Imaginary energy, and the problem was that right now Imaginary was simply not enough. If the Star Rail tracks grew extensive enough in the future, then fabricating one would become a real option.
Or maybe it did not even need to be that complicated. He could simply forge himself a Grand Daemon -- no, that was not right -- or rather, an Emanator.
"No idea how much longer until the Great Rift tears open. Running into those T'au confirms this is the Eastern Fringe -- far too distant from where I need to be. If the Great Rift does tear open, things can be announced on a much wider scale. The Imperium's grip on the shadow side of things will weaken considerably at that point."
Zhou Ye muttered to himself. As for where to head next, he was fairly relaxed about it. If he could get there, he would. If not, there was nothing to be done. He was not going through the Warp regardless. And given how unstable the Warp currently was, there probably would not be time anyway.
......
---o---
In contrast to Zhou Ye's forces -- whose advance had grown somewhat sluggish, no longer the knife-through-tofu ease of earlier -- Typhus on the other side of the field was breaking out in a cold sweat across his skull.
Zhou Ye merely found things sluggish because up until now they had been massacring dregs. Everything Typhus had brought here was his finest, and even that was not enough to hold the line.
First there were the Iron Warriors. Their clashes with Imperial Fists were ordinarily grinding, mutual, and bloody affairs. But this engagement? His Iron Warriors were being pinned face-first into the dirt and ground to powder.
They had committed five full companies, more than five hundred warriors, to assist the Nurgle daemon host in blocking this group of a hundred-odd Imperial Fists.
The current exchange ratio stood at 50:5.
At that moment, one of the Iron Warriors finally identified the problem.
"Traitor! Heretic! You stand alongside the Corpse-Emperor's dogs -- Imperial Fists of all things!!!"
An Iron Warriors Dreadnought bellowed in furious accusation, its focus locked onto one specific individual within the Imperial Fists formation.