After turning down both Camilla's and Lion's invitations, Bruce treated the two incidents as minor, inconsequential episodes. Compared to everything else he had to deal with next, they were nothing more than small distractions.
Who was Bruce, after all?
The acting commander of the Night Lords Legion!
He had far too many important things to handle!
Like designing merchandise, boosting stock prices, improving people's livelihoods, boosting stock prices, building a better tax system, and boosting stock prices. With burdens like that piled on his shoulders, Bruce had no interest in wasting time on trivial nonsense that did nothing for the market.
With time like that, he'd rather think about how to optimize taxation. And besides, the remaining value of Nostramo's people was actually pretty high—he needed to make good use of it!
After all, in the original timeline, Nostramo would have already been destroyed by a mad Curze. But thanks to Bruce and Doraemon, everything had changed.
So in that case…
Turning death into exploitation through productive labor was perfectly reasonable, wasn't it?
Nostramo had once been an industrial world, which meant it still possessed a very respectable reserve of adamantium. Bruce intended to use one of Doraemon's tools to mass-produce the stuff.
Once that happened, the entire Night Lords Legion would never have to worry about equipment funding again.
From the Astartes all the way down to the mortal auxilia, every last member of the Eighth Legion would be kitted out in adamantium gear. Just imagine how terrifying that would be.
If Holy Terra wouldn't give them money or grain, then they'd find their own way.
Aside from domestic matters, there was one more thing Bruce needed to think about.
How to intercept and kill Erebus.
That most despicable scumbag in all of Warhammer—both Bruce and Lion wanted to personally cut him down!
So how to locate his flagship, the Hand of Destiny, and how to chart an interception route—those were all things Bruce needed to consider. Ideally, he could use this opportunity to expose the corruption of the Word Bearers Legion as well.
If the problem went from dealing with a whole bunch of traitor Legions to dealing with just one Legion, the difficulty would drop dramatically.
To that end, Bruce borrowed another divine-tier gadget from Doraemon: the Interstellar Signal Receiver.
By tuning its channels, it allowed Bruce to secretly monitor Chaos-related communications and precisely lock onto the Hand of Destiny's signal frequency. Better yet, there was no risk of the device itself being corrupted.
How could the Chaos of the Warhammer universe possibly corrupt something from Doraemon's world? Right?
Then, combined with the map tool he'd already borrowed, the moment he locked onto the signal, he could immediately dox the bastard.
Beep, beep, beep—
After several days of tracking, the receiver finally brought Bruce good news. Out of the boundless sea of stars and countless billions of signals, it had successfully picked up the Hand of Destiny's communications.
Once the lock was complete, Bruce hurriedly pulled out the map tool and adjusted the coordinates.
Using this ultimate doxxing method, Bruce learned that Erebus was currently near the Signus Cluster, deep in Word Bearers territory.
Judging by the route he was taking, he was likely headed for the nearest Mandeville Point, planning to use Warp travel to reach the Davin system—where Horus was currently located.
"Erebus! You little bastard, you're dead!" Bruce stared at the battle barge marked with the eight-pointed Chaos star and wished he could charge over right then and tear Erebus apart.
To lock onto that piece of filth, Bruce had spent no small amount of time going through records. Thankfully, Sevatar had kept organized files on the various inter-Legion communications systems and identification signals, which let Bruce trace a path from certain Word Bearer contact patterns.
Still, whatever the case, the important thing was that it worked in the end!
Now the only thing left to calculate was when to depart so he could intercept Erebus at exactly the right moment—then kill him before anyone else even realized what had happened.
Fortunately, this wasn't something Bruce found difficult, because he possessed one advantage Erebus definitely did not.
Distance and position.
Even with Warp travel in play, Bruce and Lion could absolutely reach the Davin system before Erebus did. Once there, they could set up an ambush in advance and wait.
As for how to save the Warmaster, Bruce had already worked that out too. At worst, he just needed to get a bottle of Universal Healing Spray from Doraemon. If that wasn't enough, he could pull out the Soul Purification Lamp. And if even that failed, then they'd simply preserve Horus in stasis first!
As long as they could get the Warmaster to Holy Terra, the Emperor would have a solution. And to be safe, they absolutely would not travel through the Warp—he would use the Anywhere Door instead!
Bruce admitted there was an element of gambling in all this, but he thought it was worth it. As long as Horus didn't fall, everything else still had room to turn around.
And once Horus was dealt with, the next target would be…
Magnus.
That psychic phone call of his was a problem of truly epic proportions. Sure, he only made it after seeing Horus's corruption, but Bruce still felt it was necessary to put some restraints on that oversized genius.
If both of those problems could be handled, then everything would be secure!
A golden age was about to arrive!
"Hm↗ hm↘ hm~"
Just thinking about his perfect plan made Bruce hum softly to himself.
Speedrunning Warhammer 30K—wasn't this basically done already? At the end of the day, having Doraemon as a bug-tier teammate lowered the game's difficulty by several whole levels.
Knock, knock, knock—
Just as Bruce was basking in the pleasure of his brilliant scheme, a sudden knock at the door broke his concentration. He frowned and thought, Who the hell is it at this hour?
"?!"
Wait—
With his superhuman hearing and keen senses, Bruce identified the person outside just from their heartbeat and presence, even through the door.
Lion.
Why her?!
Could it be…
Was she still trying to recruit him?
So she was really that stubborn about making him her son, huh? Well, he wasn't calling her "Mom," no matter what!
"Bruce, are you in there? I have something very important to discuss with you."
Lion had clearly sensed that he was inside, so she took the initiative and spoke first.
These last few days, Bruce had been avoiding her. Was it because of what happened last time?
She sighed inwardly. She hadn't thought things through properly, and now Bruce had clearly been scared off.
But!
It wasn't too late to change things now!
After all, no matter what, they were still comrades!
"Y-yes, of course!"
Bruce had originally wanted to refuse, but then he remembered something important: doors only existed to provide emotional security.
To a primarch, if she really wanted in, one kick would blow the thing open, and there wouldn't be a damn thing he could do about it.
Lion was being reasonable only because she still cared about appearances. But if she stopped caring about face, then Bruce could scream "Mommy" all he liked and it still wouldn't save him.
She was a primarch! If you refused to show her respect, were you trying to die?
"Please, come in! I was just mapping out routes. I was about to summarize the intelligence from the past few days and sync it with you."
As he opened the door, Bruce couldn't help but feel relieved to see that Lion was dressed properly this time. A white top and blue skirt—the classic casual outfit. He'd heard Doraemon had generated it with one of his gadgets, and it suited her quite well.
There really weren't any clothes in the Scarlet Devil Mansion that fit Lion except maid outfits. Everything else had been tailored to Curze's body size.
So generating clothes Lion could wear had been a necessary compromise.
"Intelligence?" The moment Lion heard Bruce bring up business, she instantly slipped into a serious mindset. Whatever she had originally come to talk about was pushed aside for the moment.
"Yes. It's about Erebus. I was just about to talk to you about it. Don't stand there—come in."
"I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa. I also have some snacks in my room. You can listen while you eat."
"T-that would be too much…"
"It's fine. We can talk while you snack. Unless you dislike it?"
"No, not at all!"
Lion stepped into Bruce's room, and the open door quietly closed behind her.
Staaare—
Something fishy was going on.
Meiling, crouched at the corner of the hallway, had witnessed the entire scene. In the middle of the night, a woman entering a man's room alone—could this be…
Her eyes spun once, and she instantly landed on a possibility.
They were absolutely sneaking off to privately practice some newly invented martial art!
Aha! Keeping a new martial arts technique all to themselves instead of sparring with everyone? This had to be reported to the young lady immediately!
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter108)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 99
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 95
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 99
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 92
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 47
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 44
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 43
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