---o---
"Perfect!!!"
In the middle of the chaos, Zhou Ye quietly slipped the profane, Chaos-rune-covered Warhound Titan straight into his Thousand-Person Theater. Then, in a single bound, he cleared the outer perimeter and stood watching the complete disintegration of the camp behind him.
In all honesty, they never had a chance of figuring out what had happened. If some enormous hulk had suddenly appeared in their midst, they might have clocked it as Shadow Ravens — but there was no hulking figure here.
So almost by pure instinct, every faction assumed it was someone else's doing. That, combined with the fact that the most unhinged group in the camp were already Khorne cultists who needed exactly zero provocation to start killing everything in reach, meant the whole place dissolved into a complete mess in seconds. The confusion gave Zhou Ye the opening he needed to lift the Warhound Titan, and then he pushed the chaos right over the edge.
"It's all kicking off, it's all kicking off, everything is going exactly to plan... hm. Wait."
But just as Zhou Ye was savoring his masterwork, his expression shifted abruptly. Without a moment's hesitation, he turned and walked briskly away.
The reason?
The Warhound Titan he'd just pocketed was currently going absolutely berserk inside his Thousand-Person Theater.
He was at least grateful it was only a Warhound and not something equipped with a Volcano Cannon — because if it had been, even if his Thousand-Person Theater could take the hit, everything he owned inside it would have been vaporized in one shot.
"Damn it all, Tzeentch!!!"
He was muttering curses the whole way back. In the Warhammer universe, whenever something unexpected happened, blaming Tzeentch was always a safe bet.
So a moment later, he stepped directly into the Thousand-Person Theater.
The Authority of the Herrscher of Thunder and the Authority of the Herrscher of Erosion activated simultaneously. A massive wave of erosion force flooded directly into the rampaging Titan and locked it up cold.
Then Zhou Ye blinked forward, landing directly in front of the Warhound just as it crashed into its shutdown state. The space around him shifted — the sky became the ground.
The Warhound toppled.
And above it, hovering in the newly inverted space, was an oversized Converter. The instant the Titan fell into it, it began devouring everything Chaos-corrupted on the machine's surface — the kind of deep-seated corruption that would leave any real Tech-Priest completely helpless was consumed in seconds.
With each passing moment, enormous surges of Imaginary energy generated as output. Zhou Ye found the whole process immensely satisfying.
The corruption was stripped clean before long. What remained was the profane sigils and the twisted sensor head — the bones of a Titan purged of its rot. As for the Machine Spirit, it was gone as well. But of all the problems here, reinstalling a Machine Spirit was the one Zhou Ye found easiest to solve.
He landed in front of the Titan's shell.
The Authorities within him surged. The profane sigils faded and disappeared. The damage repaired itself. The broken places sealed over.
And more importantly — a new Machine Spirit was taking shape inside. Or rather, a newborn A.I.
To prevent any future possibility of Chaos corruption, Zhou Ye threw the Imaginary Authority into it without restraint. The logic was simple: the same principle that governed his Herrscher's Kin and the Honkai Beasts — if you corrupt something yourself first, nothing else gets the chance.
---o---
On the other side of things, Aestia's hive city was burning.
The Planetary General, who had just barely finished rooting out the traitors within his own forces, was desperately reassembling a proper defense. Fire networks were being repositioned. The vehicles that Zhou Ye had blessed and repaired were being deployed to their optimal positions.
The Planetary Defence Force was leveling its weapons at the battlefield below.
And on that battlefield — the Genestealer army was locked in a full-throated war with the Tzeentchian cultists. Even with the occasional burst of psychic energy crackling out from the cultist lines, the Genestealers — especially the purebloods leading the charge with their total disregard for self-preservation — were pushing the line steadily backward.
The stalemate only returned once the Thousand Sons sorcerer arrived on the field and called down his Rubric Marines.
Honestly, these particular Rubric Marines were on the lower end of quality. But the Genestealers here weren't exactly in peak fighting form either. Their strength hadn't yet built to the point where they could serve as a proper beacon for an incoming Tyranid fleet, so their capabilities were naturally limited.
"Based on our assessment, those rebels won't hold for more than three days."
Inside the Planetary Governor's chambers, the atmosphere was grim.
Another round of rebellion. And anyone could predict what came after — once the cultists were dealt with, they'd have to turn around and slaughter the Genestealers. By the time that was done, entire sections of the hive city might be stripped bare. Even by the standards of a Warhammer 40,000 setting, where human life grew back like weeds, the population loss would leave a serious gap.
The Governor, to his credit, was holding himself together fairly well. The Indomitus Crusade hadn't started yet, so the Imperial Tithe — maddening as it was — could be delayed slightly without immediate consequences. Fall behind for too long and eventually a bolt round would arrive with the next collection notice. But Aestia's payment record had always been solid. One deferred installment could be made up at the next visit.
The prerequisite, of course, was keeping the casualties from the Genestealer purge from getting out of hand. Everyone in the room would have preferred the Genestealers and the Tzeentchian cultists to simply destroy each other completely. Unfortunately, the cultists didn't appear to be performing well enough to deliver that outcome.
"As for the Tech-Priest 010 Omega — a Mechanicus Magos of that standing should be able to..."
The Governor found his thoughts drifting back to Zhou Ye. Everything he'd observed pointed in one direction — before this priest had been expelled from his Forge World, his rank had to have been considerable. Possibly a candidate for Magos or even Forge Marshal tier. That was why the Governor had instinctively added an honorific when mentioning him.
Three Kastelan Robots. An ancient class of war machine. That wasn't something any ordinary priest got to use. The local Tech-Priests on Aestia considered themselves fortunate to have a squad of Skitarii. A Kastelan was entirely out of reach for them.
But before he could finish the thought —
"The rebel factions outside the walls are fighting each other!!!"
"...What?"
A moment of stunned silence. Then another report followed almost immediately.
"They've launched an all-out assault. They've broken into the Lower Hive."
The Governor's face stayed relatively composed at this. Because of the Tzeentchian rebellion and the Genestealer situation, he had already completely written off the Lower Hive — all available strength had been pulled back to the Middle Hive. The Lower Hive was an empty shell. That alone wasn't surprising.
"If the two forces merge, the situation becomes extremely dangerous. Our intelligence confirms they have Dark Mechanicum and Chaos Astartes among them."
The White Scars commander's face darkened considerably at that. It was not good news.
"The rebel forces have entered the Lower Hive and are now engaging the Tzeentchian cultists and the Genestealers simultaneously. The whole Lower Hive has dissolved into complete chaos. Should we commit our warriors?"
"...Hm."
"...Ah?"
"...Well."