Chapter 430 – Suspected Golden Age Drifters! Reversing Time!
Bang!
The bolter roared, the deafening gunfire reverberating in the cramped compartment crammed with control consoles. In a space like this, bolters were far from ideal—shrapnel and propellant residue could easily ricochet and injure one's own men, or worse, damage a critical control unit.
But at this critical moment, Amon couldn't afford to care. In close combat, his weapons were utterly useless against Panam Wells.
He quickly fired several more shots in succession, but every round was deflected by the lightsaber in Panam Wells's hand. Even the fine spray of burning propellant that slipped through couldn't penetrate the power armor's shielding.
Against this heavily armed, heavily armored walking fortress, despair welled up in Amon's chest. The gap in their strength was too great—there was simply no point in resisting.
Panam Wells, however, wasn't in a rush to kill him. As long as he could keep this old man tied up for a minute or two, the other corporate troops would have no trouble capturing Magnus.
"Stop your pointless resistance and accept the judgment of the Imperium."
"In your dreams—!"
With the words still hanging in the air, Amon kept firing while snatching up a fallen Thousand Sons' chainsword, swinging it at Panam Wells at close range.
This time, Panam Wells no longer held back. One slash shattered both the bolter and the chainsword in Amon's hands, and with a swift turn, he kicked Amon hard into a corner.
Seeing the man crumpled and half-dead from that single kick, Panam Wells glanced toward Magnus. The primarch was still putting up desperate resistance, though the surrounding corporate warriors had him completely pinned. When Magnus' strength gave out, they would take him alive.
"Damn you! Who are you people?!"
Magnus snarled at Panam Wells, teeth clenched, his chainsword arm aching and trembling, his jaw quivering from the effort.
He could not believe these corporate soldiers were pure-blooded humans from the Golden Age. If humanity's unaltered genes were truly this powerful, why had they ever sought genetic modification and the reforging of the flesh?
During more than two centuries of the Great Crusade, Magnus had personally fought on countless battlefields, crossing blades with innumerable xenos. Even the most powerful warriors among the Orks had never given him such oppressive pressure.
Less than thirty seconds into the fight, he knew he would not escape. If the corporate warriors hadn't been deliberately holding back, his limbs would already be broken and he'd be awaiting capture.
"We are the Eleventh Ace Unit of the Iron Hand Division, Expansion Department, of the Universal Megacorp. If you don't want this to get any uglier, you'd better cooperate with our mission."
Panam Wells loomed over him, his tone flat. Time was short—there was no room for lengthy speeches.
Either he would be dragged back beaten half to death, or he could surrender with some dignity.
As expected, Magnus roared in fury: "You'll never take me alive!"
Panam Wells's brow furrowed. Without hesitation, he swung his blade.
A wet, slicing sound rang out—Magnus' chainsword arm dropped to the deck. Sparks flared from the severed power armor, crimson blood surging from the wound, the raw pain flooding through the primarch's senses. The shock snapped him out of his rage.
They actually cut me…?
For an instant, it was as if his soul had been ripped from his body. He collapsed to the floor, clutching the stump of his arm tightly with his left hand. Clearly, he had no desire to die here.
"My lord—!!"
Amon's voice cracked with grief and fury. He clawed his way toward Magnus, but before he could get close, a corporate soldier stepped on his back, pinning him down.
"Pick up his right hand and bring it with us."
Panam Wells's voice was cold.
Even with severed limbs, a primarch could recover so long as he wasn't killed outright—Imperial medical technology could restore him.
Under Panam Wells's orders, the corporate soldiers quickly secured Magnus. Amon and the remaining Thousand Sons would be handed over to other corporate combat teams.
Meanwhile, the fleets of four primarchs had completed the Exterminatus on Prospero, signing off on the destruction of the planet.
To ensure no survivors, Mortarion left a force in low orbit, hunting any Thousand Sons who tried to flee in ships.
Only when the planet's surface was a sea of molten rock did Guilliman wave his hand, ordering the fleet to depart at full speed.
But he was quickly frustrated to discover that the system's Warp routes had been completely sealed—they could not activate the warp drives at all.
"How is this possible? I thought the Universal Megacorp only restricted the Warp connections around the Radiance of Ten Thousand Suns. How could it affect us here?"
Guilliman frowned. He knew the operational limits of the Megacorp's dimensional technology. Blocking an entire star system's Warp routes was far beyond their known capabilities.
At that moment, Varro Tigurius arrived in haste, bringing new information.
"My lord, we've confirmed with the Universal Megacorp—the Warp connections for the entire Prospero system have been locked down! Even they can't break through the restriction."
Varro Tigurius, Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines, was a vast repository of knowledge and Guilliman's most trusted advisor.
"What's going on? Could their shielding array have gone out of control?" Guilliman asked. He wanted nothing more than to leave this place and report the situation to the Emperor.
"According to Commander Jack Wells, it's not their doing—it may be connected to that mysterious fleet…" Varro said, clearly anxious. At conventional speeds, Imperial ships would take years to leave the system—and no one had years to spare.
"The Megacorp still hasn't identified them?" Guilliman's irritation flared. "It's been hours, and you don't even know who they are?"
"No. But… I have an unlikely theory," Varro said after a pause.
"The design of their ships matches ancient records—no ornamentation, clean lines. It's strikingly similar to human warships of the Golden Age."
As learned as he was, Varro wouldn't speak without some basis. But the ancient texts chronicling the Golden Age had been rewritten countless times. He couldn't be certain.
Guilliman shook his head in disbelief. "Golden Age warships here? Impossible. Even if they'd become lost in the Warp, the time gap is far too great."
All the more so because humans of the Golden Age were known for their passion and boldness—so how could they come to the Prospero system and remain unmoved by communications from the Megacorp and the Imperial Fleet?
At this moment, Jack—who had just finished speaking with Varro Tigurius—also noticed something unusual about this star system.
"Commander, the entire Prospero system is now enveloped in some kind of mysterious spacetime field. Our communications with Multiverse Base Headquarters are experiencing a delay of up to three minutes…!"
Dr. Halsey reported the bad news to Jack Wells in a grave tone. This was the first time they had ever encountered an abnormality in communications with HQ.
Even she couldn't come up with a quick fix.
A deep frown creased Jack's brow. He had never run into something this tricky before.
A civilization that could manipulate spacetime—that was something the Megacorp had truly never faced.
For the moment, there was no way to contact HQ immediately. And even if they did get through, there was no guarantee their message would be transmitted intact.
They had to figure out their own way out of this mess.
"We could request authorization from HQ to deploy a Xeelee Nightfighter to break through the spacetime field and get us out of here," Dr. Halsey suggested. The Xeelee Nightfighter was a law-level artifact, inherently capable of powerful spacetime manipulation—more than enough to deal with the situation at hand.
But Jack Wells didn't immediately agree. Revealing their trump card so early would be far too panicked and rash.
If the enemy had some other trick up their sleeve that could destroy the Megacorp's Xeelee Nightfighter, they would be in real trouble.
When two armies face off, it's not just about courage and tactics—it's also about the psychological chess game. The side that holds its killing blow until the decisive moment is the one that can settle the battle in a single stroke.
"Test the enemy fleet with a probing attack. If they don't intend to let us leave, then let's give them something to chew on," Jack Wells ordered immediately. His expeditionary corps was armed to the teeth with strategic-level weaponry; they weren't afraid of a slugging match.
And even if they couldn't do real damage, Jack could always request HQ to open a Stargate and jump out of the Warhammer universe in an instant.
If the enemy had the guts to follow them into the Prime Universe, they'd find themselves at the Megacorp's main base—where an arsenal of law-level weapons was waiting for them.
[Yes, sir.]
The flagship's AI swiftly relayed Jack's orders to every Megacorp warship, and each sector commander moved to carry them out.
In moments, the forward battle line regrouped, forming arrays of hard-light cannons and gravitational rift fields, and unleashed their full firepower toward the enemy fleet in deep space.
At first, the enemy fleet took heavy damage from the intense barrage and gravitational distortion. But once the fire ceased, the shattered ships reversed entropy itself and restored themselves to pristine condition.
The sight made Dr. Halsey's eyes light up. No doubt about it—this was spacetime technology.
A technology capable of reversing time.
In the Megacorp's Science Nexus Department, in a top-secret file on a spacetime technology project, there was mention of a substance discovered in the Edge of Tomorrow universe: "negative-entropy flow."
It was a rare material that could literally reverse time and return it to the past. Every droplet represented a tangible fragment of time.
But so far, the Megacorp had only collected enough of it to reverse time for a few years at most.
It was never used in combat, only for experiments at the Science Nexus' Edge of Tomorrow branch.
This mysterious fleet's appearance gave Dr. Halsey hope that the Megacorp might finally fill the gap in their spacetime technology and master time reversal.
Jack, however, wasn't intimidated by their time tech—because he knew that even if you could "restore the shattered mirror," the energy cost would be enormous.
Whether it was negative-entropy flow or some other spacetime method, it would consume power. And that meant he could grind them down.
See who runs out of stamina first.
Sure enough, under the Megacorp's relentless bombardment and gravitational field distortions, the enemy fleet mounted no meaningful counterattack.
That convinced Jack even more that their weakness lay in lacking effective offensive capability. Perhaps that spherical construct was their only real weapon.
Meanwhile, aboard the flagship, an increasingly agitated Guilliman couldn't help but ask Chief Librarian Varro:
"What should we do now? Just sit here and do nothing?"
To be honest, Guilliman was feeling uneasy—the scale of this space battle was beyond anything he had ever witnessed.
This was a clash between god-tier civilizations.
The Megacorp's warships constantly shifted formations, combining into one super-weapon array after another, each covering half the Prospero system.
The massive gravitational distortions disrupted planetary orbits, sending worlds careening through the system like marbles.
The mysterious fleet, shattered and torn apart again and again, seemed to be pressing an Infinity "rewind" button—each time resurrecting themselves in miraculous fashion.
At this level—fighting in higher dimensions—conventional military tactics were utterly meaningless.
Even the Emperor, had he been present, might have been nothing more than a helpless spectator.
Varro Tigurius sighed. With their naval capability, they couldn't assist the Megacorp at all. The best they could do was watch quietly and wait to see what happened next.
When gods fight, mortals suffer. Better to stay close to the Megacorp's flagship and keep their heads down.
Guilliman sighed as well, helplessly telling his Primarch brothers not to act rashly.
Not that they needed the reminder—Lion, Russ, and Mortarion all understood now was no time to make themselves known.
The normally defiant trio behaved like obedient children, huddling quietly in the Megacorp flagship's shadow.
For now, the space battle raged on.
The spacetime and dimensions of the Prospero system were caught in a cycle of death and rebirth—from the Megacorp's gravitational rifts and energy blasts to the mysterious fleet's time reversal.
On the holo-screens, the seconds ticked away.
On Prospero's surface, humanity shifted constantly between "victims" and "survivors," dying and reviving over and over again.
Those drowning at sea suffocated Infinityly.
Those who shot themselves had the bone at the back of their heads shatter and knit together again, over and over…
This grotesque and torturous cycle drove Prospero's people to the brink of madness.
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