The colors of the warp were kaleidoscopic and chaotic, like a canvas splattered with countless spilled buckets of paint. Distorted light and shadows triggered ripples across the shields of the Chaos fleet.
With a dull, heavy boom, another insignificant fireball bloomed just off the flagship's port side. It was yet another poorly constructed, frankly jerry-rigged single-pilot boat. Like a tireless moth, it had flown straight toward the massive Iron Warriors warship with zero tactical evasive maneuvers, only to be easily torn to shreds by the automated point-defense turrets.
This was the second one.
Warpsmith Grendel stood on the bridge's command platform, staring at the rapidly dispersing wreckage through thick armored glass, his brow furrowed deeply into a tight frown. As a son of Perturabo, he was suspicious by nature, possessing an almost obsessive fixation on data and logic.
"Did the auspex pick up any readings? Even a trace of warp signal fluctuation?" Grendel asked in a deep voice.
"Nothing, my Lord," the Dark Mechanicus tech-priest responsible for the auspex replied, his voice carrying a metallic warble.
"It was just a piece of scrap metal completely devoid of any long-range communication capabilities. Before destruction, it didn't even attempt to fire its engines to flee, nor did it emit any psychic screams. It was as if... it simply wandered by, and simply died."
That made it even more bizarre.
The uneasy feeling in the depths of Grendel's heart grew stronger. In a godforsaken place like the warp, the probability of running into two of these suicidal mortal boats back-to-back was lower than him finding a bar of soap in a Khorne dueling pit.
Although technical scans repeatedly confirmed the enemy hadn't transmitted any warnings, his battle-hardened instincts were screaming at him—it felt as if an invisible pair of eyes was staring dead at this massive fleet.
He subconsciously glanced back at the group of "allies" behind him.
The World Eaters champion was dismantling and reassembling his chainaxe, muttering unintelligible slaughter-mantras under his breath. A Thousand Sons sorcerer was drawing dizzying runes in the air, seemingly playing a game of chess with some incomprehensible entity. A Death Guard plague marine was busy counting the maggots crawling out of the gaps in his armor. And the Emperor's Children lord... was currently doing something unspeakable to one of the bridge's support pillars.
Grendel felt suffocated.
Reason told him that something was amiss here, and the safest course of action was to halt the advance, alter their course, or even retreat.
But could he actually say that?
If he showed even the slightest hint of "retreat" or "hesitation," the already impatient World Eater would undoubtedly bury an axe in his skull instantly. The insidious Thousand Sons sorcerer would immediately turn him into a Chaos Spawn, and the other two degenerates would surely be delighted to carve up his fleet.
This wasn't a coalition; it was a pack of rabid dogs tied to a powder keg, and he was the unlucky fuse.
"Damn it—" Grendel cursed inwardly, forced to steel himself and push onward. At this point, he couldn't exactly turn to these maniacs and say, "My stomach suddenly hurts a bit, how about we head back and try again next time?" If he showed weakness, those four would likely tear him apart first, picking his bones clean to use as nourishment.
Right then, a mortal thrall covered in implanted tubes walked over trembling, collapsing to his knees at Grendel's feet.
"M—My Lord—"
Grendel looked down, irritated. "What is it?"
"Just now—the port defense array fired again—" The thrall's voice shook like a leaf in the wind. "Another small boat was destroyed, just like the previous two—"
A third one?!
The muscle in the corner of Grendel's eye twitched. This feeling of swatting flies only for another to immediately take its place filled him with disgust and annoyance. Since these bugs couldn't cause any damage and couldn't send out signals, then let them be! What he needed to focus on right now was how to breach the void shields of Badab, not listen to this garbage reporting!
"Enough!" Grendel waved his massive hand impatiently, the wind whipped up by his metal gauntlet nearly knocking the thrall over. "Do not bother me with this trivial nonsense again! They are just warp debris, flotsam! Blow them away when you see them, there is no need to report it to me! Do you understand?!"
The thrall felt as if he had been granted a divine reprieve, bowing his head frantically. "Yes, yes, my Lord! Even if a thousand ships come, we will simply destroy them and absolutely not disturb your thoughts!"
Meanwhile, in the strategic briefing room of the Palace of Thorns on Badab Primus.
The atmosphere here was entirely different from the anxiety aboard the Chaos flagship. As Joker marked the third red dot on the holographic star map, a cheerful air even swept through the room.
Having reviewed the message sent to him by the player [Freeman]—who had just been vaporized by a large-caliber macro-cannon—Joker swiftly marked the third coordinate point on the map.
Three points connected into a perfectly straight line on the star map.
The terminus of this line pointed directly to a specific gravity well weak point on the outer fringes of the Badab system—the optimal location for a large fleet to transition out of the warp and enter realspace: the Mandeville point.
"We have them caught." Malakim Foros, Chapter Master of the Lamenters, stared at the line, a hint of awe in his tone. "Such precision—they didn't even attempt to mask their course, as if they were entirely certain we couldn't detect them."
"Arrogance is Chaos's greatest weakness, and the very reason they must fail," Kozak, Chapter Master of the Mantis Warriors, said coldly, his finger pressing down on the predicted jump coordinates. "If they reach this position in three hours, our fleet can lay an ambush there ahead of time."
Huron stood at the head of the table. Looking at the battlefield map, which was now completely transparent to him, the gloom in his mind vanished entirely.
He had prepared for the worst-case scenario: the enemy splitting their forces to harass them, dragging Badab into a grueling war of attrition, and leaving the Maelstrom Zone in ruins. But he had never expected these Chaos traitors to be so "straightforward"—massing all their forces and sailing in a straight line, heading directly into the barrel of his guns.
This was practically a gift from the Emperor himself!
"This is the triumph of intelligence! This is the power of holding the initiative!"
Huron spun around, his crimson cape billowing behind him. His eyes flared with brilliant red light as he swept his gaze across every commander present, his voice ringing with absolute dominance and fanaticism: "No need for probing attacks, no need for reserves, and no need for any of that damned back-and-forth tug of war!"
Huron slammed his fist onto the holographic table, completely shattering the coordinate representing the Chaos fleet's projected emergence point. "Since they want to play big, we will play with them to the very end! Pass down my orders: assemble every warship, every Space Marine, and every orbital defense platform! We are going to unleash a devastating salvo on them at this exact point!"
He raised his power claw high, as if already crushing the enemy's throat, and roared, "The first battle is the decisive battle, winning it all in one strike! Today, we shall bury these Chaos scum once and for all in the void of the Maelstrom!"