"So, it should, be useful, right?" Sanguinius said, his gaze somewhat unfocused.
Alexander could tell that he wasn't entirely certain himself.
How to fight a team of Brainworms with Alpha psyker? The solution Alexander and Sanguinius discussed was...
To use Warp power against Warp power.
The statue of Sanguinius, worshipped in the Lower Nest for tens of thousands of years, the church bricks infused with Baal Red Thirst soil and the ashes of martyrs, the ongoing Sanguinius Festival, the prayers of Ashford's populace and the Astra Militarum to Sanguinius...
These elements would weaken the barrier between reality and the Warp, igniting a beacon for Sanguinius to the real universe,
Allowing him to manifest in Ashford, much like a Chaos daemon Prince descending into the real universe.
According to Sanguinius,
He had successfully manifested many times before through his connection with the Blood Angels,
But the problem was, there were no Blood Angels in Ashford now.
"So I plan to try to enter the material world through my connection with you," Sanguinius said.
"You have been immersed in my psychic energy for a long time, and you are not entirely a being of the material universe. Perhaps it can succeed."
"But this will also consume a considerable amount of my power. I will need you to provide me with sufficiently precise positioning at that time."
"At that time, even if I cannot truly enter the material universe, I can still infuse part of my power into you."
Listening to the words of Sanguinius, Alexander frowned slightly.
"What should I do?"
"Call out to me," Sanguinius said. "Call out to me in a unique, conspicuous way."
"People are praying to me constantly throughout the galaxy; I need to distinguish your voices among them."
"Tsk," Alexander tsked twice, rubbing his chin as he began to ponder. "Then I should have them all make meat and chicken meatballs."
Alexander pointed to the Battle Sisters and Astra Militarum behind him who were currently praying.
They were following the method taught by Sanguinius, gradually weakening the barrier between reality and the material universe.
Under normal circumstances, this might have been enough,
But in the Netherworld Star System, covered by Warp Shadow, Sanguinius still needed a precise coordinate.
This required Alexander, along with the Battle Sisters and Astra Militarum, to call out to him, guiding him through the Warp and allowing him to pass through the thick Warp Shadow.
If it were conventional prayer, it would undoubtedly be drowned out by the countless prayers across the galaxy.
It had to be unique, conspicuous, a prayer that no other life in the galaxy would perform.
Alexander thought for a moment, then asked for paper and a pen.
He wrote furiously, filling lines of text on the paper, then handed it to an Astra Militarum soldier beside him, motioning for him to pass the paper around to the praying Astra Militarum and Battle Sisters.
The once grand church was now half-submerged in shallow water.
Watermarks on the gray walls were records of the broken church being flooded again and again.
Huge crawler machines moved their bodies, splashing through the water as they passed.
High Sister Magda Grace cursed under her breath,
Cursing the damned Imperial Navy, and cursing the damned Tyranids.
She stood in the shallow water, waving her arms, directing mud-covered crawler vehicles forward.
These behemoths were the machines the nomads relied on for survival.
Lexio was once a magnificent Shrine World, with countless churches spread across every corner of the planet. People prayed in the incense of the churches, praising the Emperor and the Archangel.
Perhaps the blasphemous entities in the Empyrean hated the Emperor and the Archangel, or perhaps it was simply a coincidence,
The toxic binary stars of the Netherworld Star System erupted in a flare, melting Lexio's polar glaciers.
The entire Lexio should have been submerged by floods, but because Lexio had a massive moon called "Ixoi,"
The floods were pulled by the moon's gravity, turning into periodic tides that swept across the planet's surface.
So the people of Lexio began to migrate. They evaded the floods, piloting huge crawler machines and becoming nomads.
Over long ages, they gradually forgot their faith in the Emperor, instead forming many different beliefs.
High Sister Magda Grace was sent by the Adeptus Ministorum to this tidal planet, attempting to re-educate its people.
But she had never succeeded, until recently when the nomads witnessed her slaying a Lictor.
This scene was identical to the legend of a saint slaying a chameleon in their nomadic folklore, and the nomads consequently began to trust High Sister Magda.
But High Sister Magda had no time to ponder these things.
She needed to carefully plan her time and prepare to face the coming Tyranid onslaught.
The Battle Sisters would form a line, using themselves as bait to attract the greedy Tyranids, allowing the nomads to retreat.
High Sister Magda looked up at the sky. The ominous clouds completely obscured the moon Ixoi.
Those strange, twisted shadows were not naturally formed, but rather Tyranid flying units hovering in the air.
Every time High Sister Magda saw this, she envied Drost, who could fight in a hive city, a place with a ceiling.
That way, they wouldn't have to worry too much about enemies above their heads.
However, High Sister Magda was even more envious of the man named Alexander; he actually had a way to truly kill a Lictor.
High Sister Magda couldn't help but reach up and touch her left eye.
The newly implanted bionic eye still felt a bit unfamiliar.
That Lictor had come again, and this time, though High Sister Magda repelled it once more, she had her eye gouged out in the process.
High Sister Magda adjusted her recently implanted bionic eye. The images it captured showed the Battle Sisters forming their array.
The Tyranid were fierce and terrifying; in their presence, the remaining Battle Sisters on Lexio and the defenseless residents were no different.
High Sister Magda noticed that there were many gaps in the defensive line formed by the Battle Sisters.
But there was nothing she could do; they were too short-handed. High Sister Magda could only hope for the Emperor's blessing and the bravery of her Battle Sisters.
This was an all-or-nothing plan. If successful, the nomads would temporarily be safe, perhaps even having a chance to board the evacuation fleet.
And if the Emperor willed it, the Battle Sisters might still have a chance to board in the final minute.
High Sister Magda looked through her bionic eye at the purple tide approaching in the distance.
That was a biological tide composed of Tyranid. They were about to come and feed.
"..Come, come," High Sister Magda whispered. "May the Emperor protect."
High Sister Magda clutched the pendant at her chest, silently praying to the Emperor.
If all this was the Emperor's plan, then it must be the best plan. She recalled what the girl named Reyna had said in Ashford.
She was a good child, a devout believer. If she survived, Magda truly wanted to recruit her into the Battle Sisters.
Hopefully, Drost wouldn't try to snatch her up then.
Thinking of this, High Sister Magda looked back at the retreating crawler convoy.
Then, her pupils constricted, and she almost stopped breathing.
A portion of the crawler vehicles broke away from the convoy, turning back towards the Battle Sisters' defensive line, filling the gaps in the line.
"No!" High Sister Magda couldn't help but shout. "No, don't do this! You should leave..."
An old crawler vehicle stopped beside High Sister Magda.
The leader of the nomads, a gaunt old man, was helped down by others.
He silently bowed to High Sister Magda, then spoke in low gothic mixed with a heavy dialect.
As he spoke, he pointed to the moon in the sky, the water at their feet, and the convoy behind him.
Finally, he pointed to himself.
High Sister Magda could barely understand what he was saying.
He said:
"This is our moon."
"This is our sea water."
"These are our children."
"This is us, fighting alongside you."
The sky was ignited.
Countless drop pods began to fall from the sky, more urgent and ferocious than the first wave of Tyranid.
Looking up from the broken city, one could vaguely see the countless Tyranid warships covering the crimson sky.
Above the clouds, there were only fleeting Tyranid shadows.
The drop pods they cast down were endless, as if a deity was casting burning sulfur from the heavens, to destroy that city, that plain, and the inhabitants within, and everything that grew on the earth.
But the Cadians were already accustomed to fighting malevolent gods.
They ignited artillery from the ground, unleashing anti-aircraft fire at the drop pods in the crimson sky.
The ammunition General Drost had painstakingly scraped together and accumulated was put to use at this moment. Countless drop pods were shattered by the network of Hydras and Icarus autocannon batteries before they even hit the ground.
Even those drop pods that broke through the anti-aircraft fire were targeted by ground armor fire under General Drost's masterful command.
They were torn to shreds by the Cadian armored forces before they could release their alien passengers from their abdomens.
At the same time, under Reyna's leadership, the already prepared rogue psyker units were also put to use.
They wove lines of unquenchable soul fire, scattering them across the battlefield, forming a defensive line to block the Tyranid tide.
Alexander stood on the fortress built from collapsed statues, surrounded by eighty-seven lasguns emitting scorching laser beams.
He precisely shot down the hidden Brainworms within the Tyranid tide.
But Alexander was still waiting; he was waiting for the Tyranid's true trump card.
Alexander observed the drop pods continuously falling from the sky.
Finally, he noticed that the moment one of the drop pods was hit by anti-aircraft fire, waves of psychic energy rippled across it.
A Brainworm! It was indeed a Brainworm! There was a Brainworm in that drop pod!
"Here it comes."