"I—"
Russ began to speak, his rough voice carrying a wild energy breaking free from his throat. He was about to say—I am prepared to bear it all.
Across the holographic display, Blazkowicz's brow suddenly furrowed as piercing alarm klaxons blared through his bridge!
Mid-sentence, harsh alarm sirens exploded like a sudden tempest aboard the bridge of the Hrafnkel, red emergency lights flashing blindingly.
"WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!"
Across the cogitator arrays, the dead-gray bio-mechanical faces remained expressionless as thousands of synthetic mouths simultaneously announced the threat warning.
The bio-mechanical faces' eyes turned milk-white, streams of data flashing across them at intervals: "Defense detection array senses an ultra-massive unregistered object emerging from the Warp!"
The synthetic voice was cold and dead. Across the holographic platform, light and shadow outlined a massive, blurred silhouette.
Simultaneously, across the J-11 system, alarm arrays in every human command hall escalated to the highest threat level!
"A World Engine!" Blazkowicz growled under his breath, instantly recognizing the blurred shadow as well.
It was an engineering marvel of the Rangdan—a terrifying machine capable of browbeating the entire cosmos!
In an instant, Blazkowicz's brow knitted tight as thousands of thoughts flashed through his mind, leaving him with a single overwhelming question.
Why?
If a World Engine had not been completely destroyed, the Rangdan should have deployed it long ago to secure an unassailable strategic advantage. Yet now, right on the precipice of their defeat—at the very moment when they should be preserving their strength—they chose to throw it into the fray instead?
"Why is there another World Engine?" Russ's expression was equally grim as he exhaled a breath of turbid air: "We destroyed two, and now two more show up?"
"Damn it all!" The Wolf King slammed his fist onto the console, causing the projection to flicker as sparks flew from the adamantium platform: "Just how deep are the Rangdan Empire's reserves?"
A wave of agitation spread, instantly putting the entire J-11 system on high alert.
The sudden deployment of these Rangdan war machines came as a head-on blow, shattering the Imperium's dreams of a swift victory.
The alarm sirens echoed like cosmic thunder. On the bridges of the human fleet, countless captains gripped their control rails with dry throats, staring at the warning projections as they awaited orders.
Telemetry data had already been calculated: the ultra-massive objects navigating the Warp were each the size of a full planet.
`[Fleet re-form battlegroups. Anchor to planetary surface firepower and assume defensive formations.]`
The command directive arrived, and the fleet immediately went into motion.
Engines ignited across ten thousand capital ships as they coordinated with support barges, maneuvering alongside planetary orbits to establish defensive lines.
Connected to the heavens and earth in a veil of golden light, the Blackstone Fortress detached from Planet IX's orbit for the first time, setting course toward Planet VII.
Ferrus had made his choice: he intended to pool the strength of two fortresses to oppose the Rangdan World Engines.
---
Deep within the prison vaults of the Blackstone Fortress, several black-armored Custodes stood at rigid attention before a cell door, unlocking a grand gate inscribed with countless seals.
"Creator!"
The deep, booming voice of the Shadowkeeper Custodes bellowed, awakening the xenos Overlord imprisoned within.
Bound in runic chains, the Creator's head was clamped in a psychic suppressor, every single one of its tentacles pinned firmly to the floor.
It opened its eyes, fixing its gaze upon the human warrior.
The Rangdan Overlord said nothing, an inquiring look flickering in its eyes.
"World Engines," the Custodian stated flatly, cutting straight to the point: "How many are there in total?"
"Two," the Creator made no attempt to conceal the truth, blurting out the information directly.
The Shadowkeeper Custodes glanced at the monitoring array beside him. The psychic probe inserted into the xenos' brain returned no indication of deceit.
"Information verified."
Without further questioning, the Custodes backed out of the cell, keeping his guard up against the dangerous prisoner.
The order from higher command was simple: re-confirm the exact number of World Engines directly from the Rangdan Overlord's mouth.
The massive Blackstone door slowly slid shut, cutting off the faint light and returning the cell to total darkness.
Lost in thought, the Creator grew certain: a World Engine beyond its own recollection must have appeared!
"In my memory, there were only two World Engines," it murmured to itself in the pitch-black space: "Blueprints I personally designed, submitted to the Supreme Council, approved, and supervised during construction."
"If there are other World Engines, they must have been built in secret by the Supreme Overlord."
There was no reply from the dark, but the Creator knew its every move was monitored by the prison guards at all times.
"They are incomplete!" It snapped its head up, its furrowed brow relaxing slightly as its hissing voice took on a tone of sudden realization and glee.
From an ideological standpoint, the Creator had no desire to see the Supreme Overlord win this war. Thus, it had no intention of withholding its analysis regarding the World Engines.
HUMMM—
Sure enough, as its voice echoed in the cell, the Blackstone door parted once more.
The Shadowkeeper Custodes stood at the threshold, glaring warily at the xenos leader as he activated the recorder in his hand: "Continue!"
"Constructing a World Engine demands an astronomical amount of resources," the Creator's tentacles twitched slightly, its booming voice delivering an expert analysis: "Furthermore, building one is not something accomplished overnight."
"Without disrupting other projects, resource allocation could only sustain the concurrent construction of two World Engines."
"If the Supreme Overlord bypassed the Council to secretly divert resources for extra World Engines, it wouldn't have dared to make any grand moves."
"How many have arrived?" The Creator seemed no longer like a captive, turning a sharp gaze back upon the Custodes.
"Two," the Shadowkeeper Custodes replied succinctly, answering the question in a single word.
When interrogating prisoners and obtaining high-value intelligence, Custodes were permitted to reveal minor, inconsequential details.
"Then all is well!" Learning the exact number, the Creator let out a disdainful chuckle: "You may go."
As the Shadowkeeper Custodes backed out of the cell once more, the Rangdan Overlord's voice drifted out lazily: "At most, any hidden World Engines were built alongside the ones I supervised."
"Constructed in secret—with resource diversions hidden from the Council—their progress would naturally be agonizingly slow."
"They are nothing more than two half-finished products," the Creator lost interest, closing its eyes to rest: "Or perhaps one functional unit accompanied by an empty hull."
The Blackstone door fell shut. With no response from outside, the cell sank back into silence.
---
The black-armored Custodian did not hesitate, uploading the gathered intelligence onto an encrypted data-link to be sent to command for the Primarchs to decide.
When the encrypted report reached Ferrus's mind, he pondered for a moment before issuing a new directive from his life-support sarcophagus.
`[World Engines possess functional defects.]`
Almost simultaneously, the Creator's analysis and intelligence reached every command hall alongside the prompt.
Aboard his Denurian battleship, Blazkowicz received the intel and let out a quiet sigh of relief.
The suffocating pressure brought on by the World Engines eased slightly.
During its imprisonment, the Creator had divulged vast amounts of technical data, particularly regarding the World Engines. In its completed state, that terrifying weapon of war was something no fleet could ever hope to match by sheer numbers alone.
Blazkowicz opened his holographic display, transmitting a comms request to the Hrafnkel.
Moments later, Russ appeared on the screen with a smile, his face looking somewhat blunt and honest.
"Brother," Blazkowicz greeted him, a hint of apology in his tone: "My regrets, but I will not be able to join you in capturing Solas."
The two had originally agreed to drop onto Planet VI together to capture the traitor Solas and slay the Rangdan Supreme Overlord. But with the appearance of the World Engines, plans had to yield to changing circumstances.
"Understood," Russ waved a hand carelessly, casually pulling up the strategic overview of Planet VI.
At the Rangdan headquarters command post, a pillar of murky psychic light boarded a transport vessel and departed, moving from the Rangdan control zone toward the outer rim of the system.
Clearly, the Rangdan Supreme Overlord intended to rendezvous with the World Engines at the very first opportunity.
With the mission targets scattered, their operational deployments shifted accordingly.
"Go after it, quickly," Russ's blunt smile turned into a fierce snarl as he pointed at the murky pillar of light: "Do not let it escape!"
"It won't escape!" Blazkowicz's eyes flashed with lethal sharpness, his voice absolute and beyond doubt.
The Supreme Overlord had moved its throne to the World Engine—a fortress capable of both offense and retreat, ensuring the safety of its physical body in the material universe. Should the system fall, it could easily abandon its army and flee into the void.
Closing his channel with Russ, Blazkowicz accessed the Denurian comms frequency: "Li Tang and Harlan will lead the Night Guard to assault Planet VI."
"Reassort five hundred Legion veterans to form five strike teams. They will join me in pursuing the Rangdan Overlord—we are preparing to board the World Engine!"
A brief command was issued, and the Denurian comms line returned a response of just two words: `[Acknowledged!]`
"My Lord," Sophia's projection manifested on the bridge, bowing as she reported: "The Disordered Array will arrive on the battlefield in one day. The relevant telemetry has been submitted to the warning arrays, so it will not cause panic."
"Good!" Blazkowicz nodded heavily, turning his gaze toward the star-strewn void.
A fully fortified Planet VI, a pearl-string array of battle moons, and the imminent arrival of the World Engines...
To bring down such monumental war fortresses, only creations of equal and terrifying power would suffice. Without them, the cost would have to be paid in rivers of blood and countless shattered warships.
The Disordered Array—a killer machine intelligence wielding a star ring—was coming for the sole purpose of obliterating xenos abominations!
A relic of ancient technology was about to unleash its final, glorious curtain call, paving a path for humanity to crush its ultimate foe.