Chapter 428: Vashtorr: Don't Stop!
The incoming firestorm met the Aegis system mounted on the bridge. The bridge, already brightly lit due to a lack of security, was now as bright as day.
Void shields absorbed the bombardment energy with all their might amidst large-scale flickering.
The defenders also had to suppress their fear and respond. Some systems locked onto targets based on automatic threat identification, while other Chaos artificers, Dark Mechanicum, and daemonhosts manually operated the rest. The gun emplacements Vashtorr had configured in various layered areas of the bridge for a sense of security, along with the weapon arrays mounted around him, launched a defensive attack of astonishing scale.
The entire ship seemed to come alive. Those mechanical creations carefully designed by Vashtorr, capable of slightly resisting the influence of reality just like the Exalted Death Guard, also roared at the same time.
Trying to tear and crush the thing at the other end of the ship that made everyone subconsciously feel fear.
"Stop them! Slaves, stop them!"
Vashtorr shouted loudly.
"You are only allowed to stay at your posts!"
BOOM!
A turbulent shockwave rushed towards him.
The daemonhosts responsible for supplying energy screamed in pain.
Several void shields above Vashtorr's head had failed and disintegrated, torn apart like fragile curtains.
In an instant, enemy firepower projected in. Bolter sweeps chiseled those precision instruments. Plasma from heavy plasma weapons poured into those slightly narrow corridors or gaps, leaving a molten area. Someone on the Chaos side was blown into the air by the sprayed flames and shockwave. A beam like a ship-borne lance shot across the sky, completely erasing the ripples of the void shield.
"!"
Vashtorr dodged the slashing Black Sword.
The furnace entrenched in the core was huge, with a diameter of over two kilometers. The difference between Vashtorr and most Chaos forces was that he really understood spatial constants and realspace technology, which allowed him to at least react to the Knight's sudden jump scare.
The attacking force was driving out from the ruins of the bridge.
The Angels of Vigilance advanced behind a shield wall, clearing a relatively safe area behind the bridge, surrounding the duel arena of Vashtorr and the Lord of Knights. The heavy fire support units of the Star Phantoms, protected by remote-controlled Dreadnoughts, crunched over the debris still retaining residual heat.
The limitations of Chapter organization and the lack of Mortal Auxilia made it difficult for Astartes to support a comprehensive combat unit. Over ten thousand years, these split Chapters also became more specialized in their adhered duties over time.
With high morale, they silently repeated their oaths in their hearts, trying to trust their colleagues under the gaze of the Lord of Knights, and doing their best to show themselves.
When dense firepower drove those Chaos creations away, several squads got stuck at various choke points, looking somewhat impatiently at the retreating daemons.
Maybe they should chase them and annihilate these enemies.
Under the Chapter Master's order, these carefully selected hundred-man squads began to project firepower on the spot.
Undeniably, they had that ability, but what would they do after breaking away?
This area would be exposed, and more defensive pressure would be shared by the remaining troops. They would be glorious, but other colleagues would curse. Moreover—
The Prince was still watching them.
The knights noticed Arthur driving Vashtorr away on the bridge.
The Prince would not support them doing so, and the Knights of the Round Table also obeyed orders.
This made them hesitate slightly, recalling the Prince's lecture, and at this moment also felt a somewhat greedy hope, hoping to hear more.
"..."
Arthur noticed Vashtorr's irritability as his troops entrenched inside the warship were blocked, and also felt the hesitation of various successor Chapters.
He noticed their faces, the faces under the helmets full of inquiry.
"No need to be impatient."
Arthur pondered slightly, forcing Vashtorr away again, then said loudly:
"The war we experienced together may end easily, but the galaxy never lacks glorious battlefields. I am the leader of the Dark Angels, and I hope to witness your triumph in the next war, and the war after that."
The Dark Angels got excited!
'Am I some garbage that can't be put on the table? What do you mean end easily?'
Facing the player's contempt, Vashtorr, who prided himself on being a player too, was exasperated, his movements becoming somewhat hasty, and then he was shot in the face by a volkite charger.
Arthur remained expressionless.
In his view, as the political and military core of a Legion, a Primarch brings huge improvements and status guarantees to the Astartes themselves, but also needs to do two things within the Legion.
Emotional value and ideological health.
Horus did well in the first half. The Warmaster was good at diplomacy and communication, and was not stingy with his appreciation for a certain group. This made many Chapters devoted to him; even the gene-sons of other Primarchs were more willing to obey Horus's orders.
Naming the Ashen Claws.
But the second half wasn't so good. Such a magical thing as warrior lodges could appear in the army.
Many people might not have a clue about the harm of warrior lodges.
Erebus was pulled into Horus's command group by Abaddon through the warrior lodges.
This exposed every decision of the Warmaster first to Chaos, then to the secret cults that always monitored the Primarch and used taboo means without scruples, and finally to Malcador's desk.
At least in Arthur's worldview, warrior lodges were pure cancer. He actually didn't like the Inner Circle either. A series of measures over the years were diluting the influence of the Inner Circle on the military end and unifying Legion ideology. As for the culture of secrecy, it had also been greatly reversed under Ramesses's wide-area strikes.
The existence of warrior lodges made the Sons of Horus look like a gang, even their combat style was full of gangster shadows, with big brother and little brother culture prevailing.
But it was understandable. Whether around the Emperor or on Cthonia known for gang rule, there was nothing ideologically healthy around Horus.
During the Great Crusade, Primarchs returned one by one. They didn't rely on extra technology or genetic modification, but solely on their own talents and great power to greatly increase the Legion's strength.
At least most Legions were like this.
They were already firing. Bolters, meltas, plasma bombarded the instruments cherished by Vashtorr. Above the smoke, under the gradually shattering dome, hung the former Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels.
"My lord?"
Pushing away a soul grinder attempting to intervene in the Primarch's battle, Kamael reminded.
He drove away the soul grinders crawling out of the tunnels around him. These creations were comparable to the Mechanicus's Kastelan Robots. Their complete structure and functional systems allowed them to maintain strong combat effectiveness even in the stable realspace.
"I see it, Kamael."
Arthur whispered, raising his sword to cut off the scepter swung by Vashtorr.
Their offensive was directed at Vashtorr, the culprit. Anti-psyker troops stormed into the Plagueheart, where there were also a large number of Chaos clusters, composed of Beastmen slaves and some Dark Mechanicum conducting research.
The Dark Angels had already begun killing them by the thousands.
Naberius saw it too.
Bound with the Chapter Banner, he saw the bridge fall into chaos, and also saw the figure he had been unwilling to face, especially after being captured due to combat failure.
He could see, but blurredly.
Someone secretly raised a weapon, wanting to send this former Chapter Master and the Chapter Banner to heaven together.
Clang!
A plasma bolt flew out, melting the chain. The broken end hit the bulkhead. The body with severed tendons fell weakly, finally caught by several Angels of Vigilance.
"My lord?"
Naberius hooked his head to look at the Knight forcing Vashtorr to the edge of the bridge.
As a Chapter Master, after a brief doubt, panic lingered over him.
"You won't die here."
Arthur whispered.
The Legion had its own laws. Naberius, the Supreme Grand Master, could die, but not as a martyr, let alone die at the hands of his own people in a melee.
Otherwise, just kill people when making mistakes in the future; getting rid of people makes it not my fault.
This former Grand Master would undergo a trial within the Legion, to let everyone in the Chapter know where their past went wrong, to let them know either accept reform or be completely eliminated by the new Legion.
Having been in this universe for decades, Arthur could be ruthless.
"My lord!"
Naberius said even more anxiously.
Arthur punched the wall forward, grabbed the edge of the steel wing in Vashtorr's pained eyes, and dragged this giant beast that seemed impressive but useless to the ground.
He focused on his own battle, ignoring all this.
Naberius closed his mouth.
An emotion called pain spread in Naberius's heart.
A foreign sensation flooded his mind, attacking everything that belonged to him in the past, producing an erosive tearing pain. Panic about the future made him tremble uncontrollably.
"Naberius, are you uncomfortable?"
Kamael asked.
"I'm fine."
Naberius said. He looked again at the successor Chapters overlapping in hundred-man teams.
He was lying.
That pain was worse than ever.
He breathed hard, but put on a plain look and the calm face he expected in his heart.
Clatter!
Another embarrassed roll away, parts scattered all over the ground.
"I am different from you, different from all of you!"
Seeing the Grey Knights storming into the Plagueheart, seeing that heart give up beating as if relieved, Vashtorr said somewhat madly:
"I am the Creator, the Machine God, I am Vashtorr."
He tried to defeat the Knight in front of him in combat. Escaping dangerously again and again made him disbelieve that he would definitely be pinned here.
He knew it was dangerous, but the opportunity was right in front of him. How could he give up, how could he give up!
Made a series of deals with Nurgle in exchange for the Plagueheart, spent a huge price to coax an AI from the Dark Age of Technology, completed a large number of orders for the Four Gods with a serious attitude never attempted in ten thousand years, hoping they could further restrict the activities of the Dawnbreakers, even relaxing the terms a lot.
He even moved the fragments of Caliban here, fragments he collected from realspace and the warp over countless years...
Vashtorr knew very well that if he failed this time, he would never have another chance.
He did not accept—
He could not accept!
"My calculation and deduction level is second to none, able to see those unnoticed clues. I made foolproof preparations..."
"So after getting beaten, it's easier to break defense?"
Ramesses asked while watching the warp, kicking the Tuchulcha Engine trying to run away back into the Webway.
He was looking for Vashtorr's main body.
Now to guard against Master Art, these famous daemons all had several resurrection items per person. This was why Vashtorr dared to stay here and why he could live until now.
The Haemonculi were crying for their copyright.
"AH!!!"
Vashtorr let out an almost heart-rending howl, reaching out and pouncing forward, wanting to tear Ramesses's mouth apart, but was cut down by Arthur with a sword.
"Faster."
Arthur reminded.
Frankly speaking, dragging Vashtorr in realspace without killing him was a technical job for the current Arthur.
Mainly because he couldn't let his troops bear too much risk.
"Soon, soon."
Ramesses was bowing his head with Ulthran and the Eldar Farseer group, relying on the Vaul's Talisman contributed by the Eldar to search for Vashtorr's specific location in the warp.
Psykers like Aglaia were learning, observing this operation of reverse-tracking warp entities through rituals from a first-person perspective.
Although Vashtorr had no interaction with the Eldar, he had some relationship with the Eldar gods.
During the Fall, Vashtorr also licked the bag a little. The existence of the three artifacts was known at that time; otherwise, Vashtorr wouldn't have made no progress in tens of millions of years.
Then he kicked Ulthran's calf and said:
"Faster!"
This was a positioning spell, part of the offensive spells studied by ancient Eldar when fighting warp daemons, capable of positioning warp entities through a medium.
In the past when Slaanesh did not exist, Farseers could even position the Greater Daemons of the other three gods in this way, dragging them out of the warp to seal them.
To ensure these Greater Daemons wouldn't cause trouble again, ancient Eldar usually sealed these artifacts inside Necron tombs. Even though the Eldar didn't have many ways to destroy daemons, such treatment made countless daemons wish for death, and also made those daemons hesitant when trying to prey on ancient Eldar souls.
Perhaps because of this, ancient Eldar didn't care much about the dangerous state of the Sea of Souls.
After all, no matter how dangerous the warp was, it was still a paradise for the Eldar.
The influence of the warp on reality deepened precisely because of this. Ancient Eldar enjoyed themselves for millions of years, finally detonating the plugged cesspool again, causing the Sea of Souls to completely overlap with reality.
And the Eldar, whose respawn point was occupied, lost the ability to fight against the warp in the new era.
"Soon, soon."
Ulthran wiped his sweat, took another handful of parts dropped from Vashtorr, ignored Ramesses's PUA of 'You Eldar should be ashamed! Be ashamed!', sank his soul completely into the warp, and continued to advance the spell.
He hadn't used it for more than ten thousand years.
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