That golden holy fire appeared deceptively faint, yet the moment it licked across the decaying, flesh-wrapped hulls, it unleashed a fury tenfold greater than conventional promethium. Wherever the golden flames brushed, flesh and pustulant moss dissolved at a staggering velocity, like winter snow under a blazing sun.
Even the oxidized metal structures hissed and crumbled into ash, leaving behind zero trace of biological hyper-proliferation or self-repair.
The three left-flank plague frigates—which had been rampaging with relentless vigor just moments prior—failed to endure even thirty seconds within this interwoven, crimson-and-gold sea of fire. First, their exterior tissue scorched into blackened, curled crusts; then, their deep corruption cores ignited under the extreme thermal load. The vessels erupted like ignited fuel drums, shattering into three magnificent orbital fireballs.
Fragments of charred flesh and shattered metal sprayed in all directions, but before they could travel far into the void, the residual heat incinerated them into fine, microscopic ash. The spreading inferno swept across the neighboring pair of plague cruisers, leaving the flesh networks along one side of their hulls completely blackened and charred. Their steady advance velocity dropped abruptly—they had clearly sustained critical trauma.
A single synchronized salvo had neutralized three frigates and heavily damaged two cruisers. The tactical lethality scored across this brief sequence was significantly more substantial than the Tithe Fleet's entire ten minutes of saturated bombardment.
The officers stationed across the bridge watched the monitors in absolute bewilderment. They were well aware that flame-based weaponry acted as a natural counter against the forces of Chaos, yet they had never witnessed an incendiary payload possessing such catastrophic potency. That subtle layer of pale-gold fire was indubitably beyond the thermal parameters of standard promethium.
"Is that... holy fire?" First Officer Karen muttered to himself, his eyes wide with shock.
Dominic's eyes widened slightly as well. Then, as a sudden realization anchored his mind, the corners of his mouth arced into a knowing silhouette.
It was Carey.
Beyond that young Governor—who consistently demonstrated a knack for delivering highly unorthodox masterstrokes—he could conceive of no secondary individual capable of precisely timing an intervention with an arsenal so meticulously tailored to the crisis.
"Incoming communication request, Major General," the vox-officer broke the silence. "Originating from the Brevis local fleet. The transmitter identifies himself as the Commander of the Brevis Expeditionary Fleet, stating they are executing support operations on behalf of the Governor's Palace."
"Patch it through." Dominic adjusted the lapels of his dress uniform, his register reclaiming its historical composure, though a subtle trace of unexpressed anticipation remained buried deep in his pupils.
The communication feed projected onto the lateral quadrant of the primary screen in short sequence.
The man occupying the frame scaled as quite young—roughly thirty years of age—clad in the grey-blue naval dress uniform of a flag officer, the star insignias gracing his shoulder boards gleaming sharply under the ambient bridge lighting. He possessed highly handsome features and a sharp, incisive gaze that projected the efficient demeanor characteristic of a career military man, though his brow harbored a minor trace of the restraint typical of an officer accustomed to serving under a superior authority.
It was not Carey von.
An unnoted flash of disappointment cut across Dominic's mind—so fleeting that even he failed to consciously register its passage. He rendered a precise nod, his tone even and balanced:
"Brigadier General Griffith, the Tithe Fleet extends its commendations for the timely support of the Brevis fleet. Where is Governor Carey?"
He retained a baseline recollection of this young man; he was a general anchoring the Expeditionary Fleet.
"Sir! The Governor is currently planetside, directing frontline purging operations against local Chaos heretics and is temporarily unable to detach himself from the theater," Gus executed a textbook Imperial military salute, his voice ringing loud and clear across the audio link. "He has commanded me to bring the cumulative combat strength of the Brevis Expeditionary Fleet to your station, subordinating our routing to the Tithe Fleet so that we may present a unified front against this Chaos incursion."
Dominic nodded, his brief disappointment evaporating instantly. Lynn executing purging operations against internal Chaos elements planetside mapped perfectly to his regional obligations; that he had managed to detach an entire independent fleet to reinforce the void theater already scaled far beyond his initial baseline projections.
His gaze refocused onto the golden fires dancing across the tactical screen, cutting directly to the core of the matter:
"Brigadier, the performance metrics of your incendiary payloads are highly unique. What specific additives have been introduced into the mixture?"
Gus declined to waste words, advancing straight into the technical parameters: "Sir, the payload contains specialized Ecclesiarchy holy oils, pulverized holy relics, and the cremated ashes of historical regional Cardinals and Saints."
"The Governor explicitly deduced that when wageing war against a Nurgle plague, conventional thermal output is structurally insufficient; it demands holy fire saturated with the raw kinetic force of faith to achieve absolute neutralization."
He delivered the data with absolute candor, bypassing any political maneuvering: "Prior to our departure window, the Governor specifically instructed me to relay this methodology to your station at the earliest operational node."
"By siphoning the Ecclesiarchy's locked reserves of holy oils, hallowed remains, and blessed relics, and grinding them into a fine powder, we can blend them directly into the primary promethium incendiary payloads."
"Consequently, the resulting discharges possess an inherent sanctification profile, rendering them exceptionally lethal against Chaos-warped flesh and plague spores."
Processing the explanation, Dominic's eyes ignited instantly.
Blending the ashes of sacred relics and ancestral remains directly into incendiary munitions?
The sheer concept sounded borderline renegade. The sacred relics and ancestral remains of the Ecclesiarchy were traditionally entombed deep within hallowed cathedrals to receive the solemn veneration of billions of faithful citizens; grinding them into powder to be stuffed into macro-cannon shells and fired into the void was an absolute subversion of standard protocol. Were word of this operation to filter back to the upper echelons of the Holy Synod, it would almost certainly be branded as an absolute desecration of the faith.
Yet the empirical evidence was playing out directly across the displays, and its sheer efficacy denied any individual the luxury of hesitation.
"This... appears to deviate significantly from standard Ecclesiarchy codices," Dominic articulated with a intentionally stern countenance, his register harboring a calculated trace of hesitation as if weighing the theological gravity of the act. "Arbitrarily mobilizing the remains of the Saints could comfortably undermine the spiritual authority of the state Church."
"I must afford this matter additional deliberation."
His verbal delivery remained entirely textbook, yet his internal thoughts were practically roaring with dark amusement.
You absolute rogue, Carey von! You are the sole lunatic across the sector capable of conceiving such a twisted masterstroke!
Had it been any secondary official, who would possess the raw audacity to target the sacred holdings of the Ecclesiarchy? Only this utterly fearless young Governor would dare to systematically exhume the ashes of every historical Cardinal across the planet's lineage just to stuff them down the barrels of his macro-cannons. It scaled as entirely absurd, yet it functioned with absolute, undeniable perfection.
Dominic had navigated the void for the better part of his natural lifespan, trading broadsides with no fewer than eight separate Chaos warbands, yet he had never conceived that the mechanics of faith could be weaponized via this specific logistical routing.
Though his mind offered profound professional admiration, his external posture remained meticulously aligned with Imperial decorum. He knit his brow slightly, projecting the uncomfortable silhouette of a commander trapped between a rock and a hard place—portraying an attitude of "this action remains highly irregular, but pressing military crises dictate emergency protocols"—while subtly shifting his verbal trajectory:
"However, extraordinary timelines demand extraordinary measures. Repelling a full-scale Chaos incursion operates as our prime strategic priority. Certain administrative regulations are... not entirely immune to pragmatic flexibility."
Ultimately, the segmentum capital lay light-years away, and the Emperor would undoubtedly process the structural constraints driving their immediate choices.
Gus had clearly received explicit behavioral guidelines from Lynn prior to the drop; he declined to linger on the theological friction, advancing smoothly back to immediate operational intelligence:
"Major General, the Governor additionally commanded me to inform you that this Nurgle armada registers a high-probability match with the 'Pale Hand' warband of the Death Guard."
"They wield a specialized warp pathogen designated the 'Ferric Blight,' which possesses the capacity to infect and corrupt mechanical infrastructure upon direct material contact. The contamination vector scales from individual lasguns up to capital ship hulls, forcing the machine spirits to turn renegade."
"The Governor requested that I emphasize this variable: your fleet must maximize distance parameters to avoid close-quarters contact, and under no circumstances should you authorize boarding operations."
"Any independent compartment that sustains infection must be systematically severed and isolated immediately, denying the plague any opportunity to propagate across the broader hull architecture."
Dominic felt a sudden chill anchor his spine: "May the Emperor preserve our souls... it is the Fourteenth Legion."
He harbored a deep, historical solemnity for those warriors who had once operated as the absolute Scythe of Judgment in the Emperor's right hand. Yet across the current timeline, those traitors had long since discarded their ancient honor, transitioning into nothing superior to a walking plague traversing the stars.
Dominic discharged a low sigh.
No wonder that Lunar-class Cruiser had foundered so rapidly, its mechanical systems turning renegade alongside its meat; the Death Guard had arrived in theater.
Concurrently, his internal indexing of Lynn's "all-knowing and omnipotent" profile scaled up by several degrees.
First came the precise operational forecast regarding Lagnar and the structural traits of the greenskins, extending down to the exact coordinates of the Ork Warlord's staging ground. Now, even the specific designation of the Chaos warband and the precise operational parameters of their warp pathogen were being delivered with crystalline clarity.
What volume of intelligence was this individual concealing inside his cognitive center?
An uninitiated observer would comfortably deduce that the young man had a Segmentum Ministry of War supercomputer anchored directly inside his cranium, permitting him to instantly retrieve the most obscure data trails and formulate the absolute optimal tactical response regardless of the adversary.
In the past, he might have aggressively questioned the underlying source of such intelligence. Yet after weathering so many bizarre encounters, Dominic could no longer be bothered to ask. Even if he pressed, the young Governor would merely deflect with standard excuses about "local archival records" or "scout reconnaissance telemetry." It was far more efficient to skip the interrogation entirely and execute his battle plans directly using the provided data.
"Understood," Dominic replied with a firm nod, his focus snapping back to the tactical display. "General Griffith, your fleet is temporarily attached to our left-flank strike group. Deploy along the planetary orbital vector and maintain continuous incendiary suppression against the enemy's left flank."
"I will command the central capital group to adjust their firing solutions, condensing all available lance batteries and operational incendiary weapon arrays to prioritize the eradication of the enemy flagship."
His finger tapped firmly on the display, illuminating the massive heavy cruiser holding formation at the absolute rear of the theater.
"That flagship right there. Neutralize their command locus, and these damned traitors will fall into absolute disarray."
"Understood, sir!" Gus snapped to attention and saluted. "The Brevis fleet will execute the directive to the letter!"
The communication link severed, and the display faded. Dominic pivoted toward his second-in-command instantly:
"Karen, broadcast the order: all vessels are to immediately log their precise inventory of incendiary munitions."
"Reroute all melta torpedoes and promethium-burning payloads to the forward firing tubes. Furthermore..."
He did not hesitate for a single second before laying down his next directive:
"Furthermore, instruct the fleet's Ecclesiarchy Chaplaincy to prepare immediately. Tell them to exhume and catalog the hallowed relics, the holy oils, and the cremated remains of historical high-ranking clergy currently entombed aboard this ship."
"Liaise with the Tech-Priests; command them to modify a batch of incendiary munitions at maximum operational velocity, stuffing these materials directly into the warheads."
First Officer Karen froze for a split second, but his military conditioning overrode his shock instantly:
"Understood, sir! I will oversee the execution immediately!"
As the command cascaded down through the operational tiers, the entire fleet surged into frantic activity.
Concurrently, within the grand cathedral occupying the lower decks of the Gemstone, the atmosphere suffered a jarring, chaotic shift.
Bishop Venca stood solemnly before the grand altar, his hands clasping a heavily gilded book of common prayer. He was leading a dozen robed priests and a gathering of the faithful in a low, rhythmic chant of the Litany of Purification. Candle flames flickered before the towering icons, the thick scent of holy incense permeating the solemn sanctuary while a massive, golden statue of the God-Emperor cast its downcast gaze upon the devotees below.
Ever since the Nurgle fleet materialized in the void, Bishop Venca had remained anchored to this sanctuary. He recognized the catastrophic perils of the void theater; he knew the pathogens of the Plague God were entirely pervasive. Only continuous, unyielding prayer—leveraging the spiritual aegis of the Divine Emperor—could shield the massive warship from absolute warp-born corruption.
As the litany crested toward its theological climax, he prepared to raise his staff, but his heart suddenly leaped into his throat. An unaccountable wave of anxiety and profound irritation flooded his consciousness, simulating the sharp instinct that something deeply sacred was being brutally desecrated.
"Something is amiss..."
Bishop Venca snapped his head up, a flash of startled fury cutting through his turbid eyes.
His ancestors!
The hallowed remains of ancient sages and historical bishops long entombed within the crypts beneath the cathedral floor, alongside the holy relics accumulated over centuries of void-crusading... someone had targeted them!
BANG!
The heavy oak doors of the cathedral were violently thrown open from the exterior.
Hundreds of naval armsmen clad in matte-black carapace armor strode into the sanctuary in tight formation, their heavy combat boots striking the polished marble floor with sharp, echoing thuds. The lieutenant leading the detachment possessed an expression of cold iron. His gaze swept past the bewildered priests and faithful before locking squarely onto Bishop Venca at the altar.
"Bishop Venca, I extend our humblest apologies for disrupting your prayers," the lieutenant executed a stiff military salute, his tone entirely official and stripped of actual remorse. "The Nurgle fleet is bearing down upon our coordinates; the survival of the entire fleet hangs in the balance."
"Authorized under direct mandate from Major General Dominic, we are executing an emergency requisition of all holy oils, sacred relics, and hallowed ancestral remains within the crypts. These materials are to be utilized in the fabrication of sanctified incendiary munitions to repel the Chaos fleet."
"Impudent heretics!"
Bishop Venca shook with unmitigated rage, the prayer book in his hands nearly slipping to the stone deck. He pointed a trembling finger at the lieutenant, his voice cracking with fury:
"Do you possess even a baseline comprehension of what you are doing?!"
"Those are holy relics! The hallowed remains of our ancestors! They are the absolute spiritual anchors meant for the veneration of the faithful!"
"Do you actually intend to reduce them to raw ammunition to be fired down the barrels of your guns?!"
"This is absolute madness! It is desecration! It is an unpardonable insult to the God-Emperor Himself!"
"Your Eminence, the crisis scales far too high," the lieutenant replied, his expression unchanging as he refused to give an inch of ground. "The Emperor dictates that our prime obligation resides in the preservation of mankind's children."
"With Chaos on our doorstep, countless soldiers and citizens are actively succumbing to the plague. If these relics can be converted into a cleansing fire to strike down the lackeys of the Ruinous Powers, it will truly fulfill the spiritual legacy of our ancestors."
He cast a measured look at Bishop Venca, noting the absence of an immediate counter-argument before delivering his final point.
"To permit this plague fleet to breach our lines, slaughtering the entire crew and delivering the tens of billions of souls across Brevis into the foul clutches of the Grandfather simply to preserve bureaucratic protocol—that would comprise the ultimate betrayal of our faith."
With a swift hand signal, the armsmen behind him split into two columns, marching deliberately toward the relic vaults flanking the altar and the entrance to the subterranean crypts.
"Halt! I dare any man to take another step!" Bishop Venca thrust his staff horizontally to bar their path, his beard bristling with outrage. "Without my explicit dispensation, not a single holy asset leaves this cathedral!"
The lieutenant frowned slightly, hesitant to cross the line into physical violence against a high-ranking cleric.
As the standoff locked into a tense stalemate, First Officer Karen's vox-link cut through the silence, his voice blasting clearly from the lieutenant's comm-unit into the vaulted spaces of the sanctuary:
"What is the bottleneck down there? Accelerate your timeline! The frontline engagement is deteriorating; munition modifications cannot endure a single second of delay!"
"Inform Bishop Venca that relic-fused munitions have yielded verified, catastrophic efficacy against the plague fleet—the Brevis fleet has already field-tested the methodology on our behalf."
"Furthermore, Major General Dominic will extend his personal apologies to His Eminence following the resolution of this engagement. The Major General will shoulder the total administrative and spiritual liability alone."
"Now, execute the directive immediately!"
The lieutenant deactivated his comm-unit and rendered a shallow bow to the cleric: "Your Eminence, forgive our intrusion."
The armsmen hesitated no longer. Stepping forward, they politely but unyieldingly moved the protesting priests aside, throwing open the massive doors of the relic vaults.
Case after case of beautifully sealed holy oils, silver reliquaries engraved with sacred runes, and the urns and ossuaries housed deep within the crypts were systematically hauled into the open, loaded onto transport carts waiting just outside the cathedral doors.
Bishop Venca stood rigid before the altar, watching his sacred holdings being cleared out, his chest heaving under the weight of his fury.
That damned world of Brevis again!
Did those planetary upstarts retain even a shred of fear or reverence for the authority of the holy Church? Though he declined to offer further physical resistance, his mind locked onto a definitive resolution: once the smoke cleared from this theater, he would launch a sweeping inquiry into the Ecclesiarchy of Brevis to determine if they had completely abandoned their sacred duties!
He stared at the candle flames flickering before the great icon, his lips trembling, until his rage finally dissolved into a heavy, sorrowful sigh.
God-Emperor on Earth... let this madness truly preserve the children of Your Imperium.
The red-gold holy fire roared and roiled across the vacuum, its tongues licking over the stench-ridden plague fleet.
The Brevis Expeditionary Fleet's second synchronized salvo followed closely in its wake. Dozens of promethium incendiary shells mixed with relic powder trailed pale-blue exhaust plumes, smashing with pinpoint accuracy into the enemy formation that had been thrown into disarray by the spreading inferno.
"Gemstone, lance arrays calibrated. Target: the enemy's central formation!"
The observation officer's voice broke the heavy atmosphere on the bridge, his register laced with an irrepressible excitement.
Dominic stared at the plague fleet enveloped in holy fire on the main screen, a cold glint flashing in his eyes as he delivered the command in a deep register:
"Fire!"
Three azure columns of high-energy light instantly tore through the dark expanse of space. Like Nails of Judgment cast down by the God-Emperor, they drove fiercely into the enemy ranks, riding the trajectories of the burning ships.
The two leading plague cruisers, already scorched black by the flames, failed to hold on for even half a second. The lances effortlessly punched through their precariously weakened flesh armor, tearing through their hulls with absolute devastation to pierce the corrupted engines deep within.
Two muffled explosions bloomed silently in the vacuum, sending dark-green corrupted fluids and charred flesh fragments spraying in all directions.
Yet this time, they were completely unable to heal via their hyper-proliferation capabilities.
The holy fire clung to every piece of wreckage, incinerating all contacted plague tissue into fine ash, leaving not a single trace of fungal mold behind.
And that Lunar-class Cruiser which had just turned renegade, having been assimilated into the Nurgle ranks for barely two hours, met an even more miserable end.
Its hull had not yet been fully remodeled by the power of the plague; the hyper-proliferating flesh merely blanketed its surface armor. The deeper metal structures and energy conduits still retained their Imperial standard formats, meaning the Chaos blessings had taken extremely shallow root.
When one of the Brevis fleet's incendiary shells detonated flush against its bridge, sending golden holy fire surging into its interior via the ventilation shafts, the entire warship lost control almost instantly.
The newly grown blood vessels melted with loud, hissing crackles under the extreme thermal load, and the corroded weapon barrels snapped and fractured. The pustulant moss covering the hull violently shriveled like skin splashed with boiling oil.
Before the Nurgle daemons aboard could formulate a response, the Gemstone's lance strikes arrived downrange, scoring a pinpoint hit on its power core.
Amidst a thunderous explosion, this former Imperial warship completely detonated into a magnificent fireball, taking the countless not-yet-fully-corrupted crew members and daemons inside with it as they were reduced to cosmic dust.
"Kills confirmed! Four enemy vessel signatures have vanished from the augurs!"
The observation officer's report rang loud and clear, prompting waves of cheers to erupt from the ratings across the deck.
The officers and men, who had been suffocating under the adversary's sickening self-healing capabilities since the engagement commenced, finally tasted the exhilaration of a decisive tactical victory.
Dominic exhaled a breath of stale air, the tight lines of his jaw relaxing slightly, yet his brow did not completely unfurl.
He held a firm conviction that the forces of the Lord of Plague would absolutely not be limited to merely these tactics.
Sure enough, following a brief span of chaos, the Nurgle fleet rapidly initiated a response.
The plague warships, which had previously relied on their flesh's self-healing capabilities to charge headlong like rabid dogs, systematically altered their vectors. They no longer ignored the bombardment to advance in straight lines; instead, they began utilizing the smoke from the detonations and the wreckage of their allied units as cover.
They executed evasive maneuvers using irregular S-shaped trajectories, anticipating the macro-cannon impact zones like seasoned veterans of naval warfare. From time to time, they even discharged salvos of corrupted shells in counter-attacks, accurately suppressing the Imperial fleet's firing positions.
Their advance velocity dropped, but their hit rates and survivability spiked massively.
The incendiary crossfire net, which was not particularly dense to begin with, suddenly found itself hitting empty void for the most part. The majority of the incendiary shells missed their marks, merely detonating into useless golden blooms of fire in the vacuum.
"Major General, the enemy has initiated evasive maneuvers!" First Officer Karen knit his brow tightly, pointing at the constantly shifting enemy trajectories on the tactical screen. "They are no longer tanking the fire head-on. Their routing is extremely tricky; our hit rate has dropped by nearly sixty percent."
"At this rate, it will require at least double the ordnance output to compress their operational footprint."
Dominic stared at those slippery, dark-green ship silhouettes on the display. Instead of frustration, the corners of his mouth arced upward.
Fear. That was the exact correct response.
Their previous audacity to ram straight through the lines was strictly predicated on the immortality afforded by their hyper-proliferating meat. Now that the holy fire could breach their defenses and sever their self-healing loops, this pack of plague-rats naturally shrank back.
"A positive development," his voice remained steady, stripped of obvious joy or anger.
"If they wish to wage a war of attrition, we will accommodate them. Transmit to all ships: maintain formation and advance steadily. Deny them any openings, and do not rush for a rapid conclusion."
He understood clearer than anyone that the enemy's evasive delays, while appearing tactically advantageous for them, were actually buying the absolute most precious chronological window for the main fleet's munition modifications.
Time slipped away second by second; the bombardment across the void theater continued to roar without interruption, yet the engagement had locked into a bizarre stalemate.
The Nurgle fleet relied on agile maneuvering to weave through the Brevis fleet's crossfire, taking occasional bites out of the Imperial fleet's outer perimeter. The Imperial fleet, in turn, rigorously maintained its distance parameters, leveraging its numerical superiority to slowly bleed the Nurgle fleet. Neither side managed to secure an immediate, decisive tactical result.
This sustained until a Tech-Priest's vox-link connected directly to the bridge, carrying a trace of almost imperceptible urgency buried within the metallic vocal registers:
"Major General, the modifications are complete! The main macro-cannon batteries and torpedo tubes of the capital ships have all been loaded with purifying incendiary payloads laced with the hallowed ash of relics."
A sharp light flared in Dominic's eyes as he forcefully raised his hand:
"Advance the entire line! Deploy overlapping crossfire grids; trap them in the central kill zone!"
The exact millisecond the directive cascaded down, the entire Imperial fleet bared its fangs like a reawakened leviathan.
Nearly sixty warships adjusted their headings simultaneously, slowly enclosing the theater from the left, center, and right vectors. The muzzle flashes of the macro-cannons linked into a continuous ribbon of light, blanketing the entire operational void beneath a canopy of holy fire.
The four-to-one numerical disparity was demonstrated with absolute, devastating clarity through the sheer density of the ordnance output.
The plague fleet, which had previously managed to navigate the theater comfortably via evasive maneuvering, instantly found itself hopelessly stretched. Golden fire and azure lances saturated the void from every conceivable angle. Evading the bombardment on the left guaranteed absorbing the torpedo spreads on the right. The millisecond they skirted around the forward lances, macro-cannon shells from the rear smashed into their sterns.
Like fat sheep driven into a corner by a wolf pack, they thrashed left and right within the dense crossfire, fleeing in panic, completely stripped of their previous overbearing momentum.
Warship after warship was ignited by the holy fire, spinning out of control across the void while trailing raging golden infernos, eventually detonating into localized orbital fireballs.
And at the absolute rear of the formation, the Pale Rose—the flagship that had continually remained detached from the fray like a cold observer—was finally dragged into the concentrated firing zone.
Gus's Brevis Expeditionary Fleet firmly locked its jaws onto its flank.
The young Brigadier General remembered Lynn's explicit instructions. Knowing full well the tactical principle of decapitating the enemy command structure, he had locked his targeting augurs onto this plague flagship from the very inception of the engagement.
He had specifically requisitioned the most concentrated batch of incendiary munitions from the armory. These payloads were blended using the holy oils and the cremated remains of every historical Archbishop from the Brevis Ecclesiarchy diocese.
The absolute purest spiritual payload!
"All vessels, execute torpedo spread! Target: the midship section of the enemy flagship!"
Over a dozen torpedoes trailing golden wakes discharged from their tubes simultaneously, resembling a volley of sacred arrows fired at a void-behemoth. In the exact millisecond the Pale Rose attempted to list and evade, they scored pinpoint impacts against its midship section.
BOOM!
A golden inferno, magnitudes brighter than any previous detonation, suddenly erupted. Tongues of fire meters high rapidly spread across the surface of the hull.
Unlike standard plague warships, the Pale Rose was perpetually shrouded in a dense, dark-green domain of putrefaction. It acted as a physical extension of the plague's raw power, capable of corroding void shields and dissolving kinetic energy.
Yet the exact instant the golden holy fire made material contact with that domain, the seemingly eternal layer of dark-green fog began to dissolve at terminal velocity.
The violent hiss of burning matter defied the vacuum, echoing as the thick layers of fungal mold and hyper-proliferating meat covering the hull sloughed off continuously, exposing the heavily rusted and decayed metal framework beneath.
The vessel's previously stable advance vector shuddered violently, and the corrupted miasma venting from its thrusters instantly lost more than half its volume. Its velocity dropped precipitously, like a reanimated monstrosity having its blubber burned through, spasming in absolute agony across the void.
Deep within the bowels of the Pale Rose, Phelps unleashed a roar of unmitigated pain and fury.
He existed in absolute symbiosis with the entire warship; the trauma of the holy fire scorching the hull fed back into his own nervous system magnified a hundredfold. The golden fire acted like a flesh-eating necrosis, crawling along the biological neural-links and driving straight into the seams of his power armor, incinerating his long-rotted physical frame.
Not even the plague power bestowed by the Grandfather could suppress this magnitude of agony.
"Impossible... how could mortal fire ever breach the Grandfather's grace..."