The void battlefield was a completely one-sided affair.
Driving the battle ring, the Disordered Array commanded the cosmos with majestic equations to purge the enemies of humanity.
Space-time twisted into chaos, and causality reversed itself.
The human fleet had no need to fear casualties—on this battlefield, death was merely a temporary state that could be undone.
The Rangdan fleet had shattered completely, trapped like rats in a barrel as they were hunted down by the human battlegroups, encircled, and systematically wiped out.
No matter how godlike Solas's tactical genius was, he could not turn the tide of this collapsing void campaign.
Relinquishing command of the void fleet, he shifted his focus entirely to the planetary surface, personally directing the troop movements for the ground war.
Under heavy naval bombardment, the Dark Angels and Space Wolves legions successfully landed on Planet VI, their advance irresistible as a breaking dam.
Faced with two Primarch brothers, the fortress defense systems could hold out for only so long.
Across the void, drop pods rained down like a relentless deluge as the Doom Marines, the Night Guard, and vast battle-automata legions executed simultaneous orbital insertions.
With the fallen perimeter of the fortress expanding at a terrifying pace, Solas had no choice but to take direct control of the ground defense.
---
Meanwhile, on the dark side of the Rangdan World Engine, a small strike fleet drifted silently in the shadows.
Rangdan vessels darted in and out of the equatorial docks, the World Engine serving as the grand anchor of the battlefield to maintain fleet resupply.
"The dock entrances are inaccessible."
Inside a warship's flight bay, holographic projections mapped the external situation. The ship's automated intelligence locked onto the access portals of the World Engine.
Unlike conventional shield systems, the World Engine's multi-layered forcefields remained active continuously; operating across varying frequencies, ships could not simply bypass them by matching velocity.
The fleet access points consisted of several hexagonal portals arrayed along the equator of the World Engine.
Yet gaining entry through them was a monumental challenge.
According to computer scans, the forcefield shutter doors of the World Engine required a mere ninety seconds to seal completely.
Once closed, not a single atom could pass through.
And the vessel carrying Blazkowicz could not charge from its concealment into the portal within ninety seconds.
"Notify the Void Wanderer," Blazkowicz instructed the warship's automated system: "Collapse the World Engine's forcefields."
He had never intended to sneak into the World Engine—that was completely unfeasible.
"Acknowledged," the AI replied serenely.
Blazkowicz turned to face the five hundred Legion veterans: "Conduct a final equipment check. Prepare to board the World Engine."
Clack-clack-clack—
Ordered footsteps produced a metallic thunder as the Doom Marines stood in pairs, servicing each other's power armor for the final pre-combat check.
---
In the system's mid-orbit, the Void Wanderer received the order and initiated weapon sequence prep.
"Alerting friendly units."
The automated Ark ship made micro-adjustments, its prow locking onto the Rangdan World Engine: "Our vessel is executing a firing sequence. Allied units must clear the designated line of fire immediately."
The automated intelligence broadcast the firing vector, warning Imperial fleets to scatter.
Imperial Legion forces within the fire corridor abandoned their engagement with the Rangdan fleet, accelerating at full speed to clear the line of fire.
The gun ports of the Void Wanderer parted, drawing immense energy directly from the blue supergiant star and channeling it straight into the spinal accelerator.
A dimensional conduit tore open, and a brilliant blue beam of dimensional light pointed straight at the World Engine like a divine sword.
"High-energy lock detected!"
Inside the World Engine's command bridge, the AI blared a dire warning, projecting the telemetry directly before the Rangdan Overlord: "Energy signature surging exponentially—reaching 20% of shield critical threshold... 30%..."
"60%... 70%..."
With every alert, the synthetic voice grew more urgent as the threat index shot straight off the charts.
Stationed at the core hub, the Wise One issued a standard yet absolute defense protocol: "Seal all shield portals. Prepare for catastrophic impact."
Vessels rushed frantically to clear out from the World Engine as the inner energy veils flared to life and the hexagonal gates sealed shut, layer by layer.
"Fire!"
At the AI's cold command, a beam of azure brilliance severed the J-11 system in two!
Guided through the dimensional conduit, the torrent of energy advanced at superluminal speeds, far too fast for the naked eye to track its trajectory.
The blue pillar of light descended like a cosmic river, slamming directly onto the multi-layered shield network of the World Engine.
HUMMM—HUMMM—HUMMM—
A bizarre, low-frequency resonance echoed through the void, sounding like the dying groan of a monstrous leviathan.
The World Engine shuddered violently. Its shields flared brighter than stars as the ultra-massive sphere was physically pushed, drifting slowly backward from the kinetic and energy transfer.
"Shut down all non-essential sectors! Divert all reserve power into the shield grid!"
Seeing the energy output rapidly approaching the critical limit of the shields, the Wise One knew there was no time for hesitation.
With the order delivered, vast swathes of the World Engine went dark, every scrap of energy redirected to the shield matrix.
The shields blazed like a supernova explosion, as if a second sun had been ignited out of nothingness inside the system.
"Critical threshold calculations complete. Increasing energy output." On the Void Wanderer, the machine intelligence acted with cold, unfeeling precision.
The warship shuddered slightly as even more energy was siphoned from the blue supergiant, broadening the azure beam by a third of its original width.
CRACK—!
The torrent of energy sustained its bombardment for three continuous minutes. Unable to bear the burden any longer, the forcefields overloaded with a crisp, shattering roar, dissolving into a sky full of glittering starlight.
RUMBLE—!
Amidst a earth-shattering boom, the surface plating of the World Engine vaporized instantly, leaving behind a molten crater a hundred miles wide.
The beam ceased its output, leaving behind a dim, scorched planetary vessel.
"Fast!" The Wise One bellowed, its psychic waves projecting its command downward: "Initiate emergency reactors! Ignore the shields—prioritize all remaining power to the scanner arrays!"
"Boarding! They are going to board us!" The Wise One snapped into realization.
The moment the forcefields broke, it had assumed the World Engine was Blazkowiczed, yet the human fleet had ceased its bombardment.
Keen as it was, it instantly realized that humanity intended to launch a boarding action against the World Engine.
Otherwise, the Wise One could think of no reason why the humans would stop their barrage instead of destroying the World Engine outright.
"Human forces have initiated boarding."
The synthetic voice was ice-cold, driving into the Wise One's heart like a freezing blade.
It had anticipated countless human tactics, yet it had never imagined they would arrive this fast.
The rebooted holographic displays showed human ships materializing out of nowhere, launching drop pods to execute the boarding assault.
The Wise One pointed a tentacle down toward the platform: "Reboot the overloaded reactors at maximum speed! Order all home-guard warriors to hunt down and eradicate the human boarding party!"
"We must protect the Supreme Overlord!"
Now that the boarding action had begun, the target was not hard to guess.
Only the Supreme Overlord was worthy of such elaborate measures by human warriors to personally hunt down his physical form.
"Protect the Supreme Overlord!"
Shadow Reapers snapped their wings and launched into the air; Aeldari bodyguards darted away, vanishing into the shadows; and the Rangdan Overlord's honor guard marched forth in tight formation.
The finest elite troops within the World Engine deployed in unison to hunt down the uninvited guests.
---
On the outer hull plating, Blazkowicz landed from the sky alongside his Legion veterans, setting foot upon the iron planet of the Rangdan.
The wind was biting cold, and the metal beneath their boots was encrusted with frost.
With the multi-layered shield systems overloaded, the thin atmosphere had bled away into space, causing the freezing temperatures to condense into white frost along the iron hull.
Blazkowicz glanced off into the distance, where a vast array of defense turrets had already activated, rotating their muzzles through automated self-diagnostic checks.
"Search for an entrance in that direction," he pointed toward the horizon, where a black pyramidal structure launched a beam of ominous light into the sky. The Rangdan Overlord was right there.
Golden war-boots crushed the ice crystals with a crisp rustle. Executing their orders without a moment's hesitation, the Legion warriors leaped silently like a tide of dark iron from the hull down into the structural trenches.
Holding his shield in his left hand and gripping the Crucible tightly in his right, Blazkowicz moved to the very front of the formation.
The command given to him by the Emperor was simple—slay the Rangdan Supreme Overlord.
He had to execute the physical host of the Supreme Overlord with his own hands.
This was precisely why, even though the battle ring possessed the power to obliterate the World Engine entirely, Blazkowicz still had to board it in person.
A semi-divine entity of this magnitude possessed Perpetual traits. To such a being, a mortal death was nothing more than a momentary slumber, from which it would return in the blink of an eye.
It had to be erased at the conceptual level—eliminated through a true death.
---
The team advanced rapidly. Automated turrets along the trenches failed to slow their pace, shredded into pieces by dimensional rays before they could fire.
"Large-scale structural seismic activity detected on the ground," the Void Dragon warned inside his helmet.
A virtual projection rendered, the deity predicting intense mechanical movement beneath the iron plates—the terrain was about to shift.
Sure enough, the trench split open along both sides as the iron ground fractured into geometric segments, rearranging itself into a new layout.
"Keep moving," Blazkowicz leaped forward, clearing over a hundred meters in a single bound.
He struck his shield sideways into an alloy wall, watching as the mechanical structures inside the trench shifted rapidly to expose countless iron tentacles.
The Doom Marines fired up their jump packs, transitioning into flight mode.
Prior to the boarding action, automated calculations had modeled various contingencies, including dramatic terrain shifts.
To overcome terrain hazards, all five hundred boarding veterans were equipped with jump packs, ensuring they would not be bogged down.
Spreading their thruster wings, the warriors maneuvered with agility through the constantly shifting mechanical geometry.
Their exceptional dynamic vision, superhuman physical capabilities, and situational awareness feeds inside their power armor allowed them to fly through the thin atmosphere at speeds approaching Mach 6.
Blazkowicz, meanwhile, bounded continuously from one shifting platform to another, his pace faster than flight itself.
The World Engine was simply colossal.
And after enduring a prolonged war of attrition, the Rangdan Empire lacked the manpower to fully staff it.
Apart from the core sectors, the world was managed entirely by automated AI, with defense turrets and mechanical defenses activated across all sectors.
The iron ground shifted and reshaped like interlocking building blocks.
Had it not been for the aid of flight gear, these shifting terrain traps could have buried an army of billions, trapping any landing force in an inescapable mire of grinding iron.