Emperor's Bane

Chapter 244 Frontier March: Aegis Sector

At the end of the No.80 three-year period when the Lord of Humanity started his great expedition, a huge fleet holding high the flag of the double-headed eagle finally sailed into the far eastern border of the Milky Way for the first time.

This means: another star field that was once extremely chaotic will break away from the despair and disorder of the era of strife, bow down to the authority of the Holy Terra, and become a part of the greatest and craziest war machine in human history. Let them be notorious and go down in history.

This brought with it a vast embassy of the Holy Gospel of Terra, an entire Legion of Dawnbreakers made of the finest men, millions of Mortal Auxiliary troops, Guardians from the two forge worlds of Reza and Tigrus. The teaching army, and the best god machines in the Warlike Titan Legion and the Sun Titan Legion, the number of transport ships that provide supplies and supplies for this expeditionary army alone is as many as four figures. The backbone of a specialized logistics support fleet continuously sailed out from Avalon, Gladstone, and even Ultramar, following the invisible trail left by the expeditionary fleet when it sailed to the Far Eastern frontier.

And the female tyrant of Avalon, the master of the Great Federation and the master of the Second Legion, is the undisputed ruler of all these powers and wealth. Although she does not often show her face in public, she maintains her authority just right. Her black minions have been formally organized one after another, standing in the light and shadow of Avalon, observing with cold eyes whether mortals surrender to the Lord of Dawn or not.

Those families and big figures who are rebellious, secretly dissatisfied, procrastinating, inefficient, corrupt and incompetent, or quietly put the worship of the Emperor before the Spider Queen will lose their authority unconsciously, and those who The more stubborn guys will disappear after a slightly noisy night, and no one will remember them again.

The observation and cleaning in these shadows is extremely quick and bloody. It is just a drop of black water in the gloomy lake in the heart of the Lord of the Second Legion. It is the deadly malice she exudes towards those who resist. The most ordinary report on the silver table case is enough to make tens of thousands of lives and families disappear overnight.

But other than that, if there is no interest in complicated politics and higher ambitions, then more mortals are actually willing to be ruled by the Spider Queen. For the wealth obtained from the bloody cleansing of the former vested interests, only Needing a little venting can easily feed their stomachs, and when a safer and more stable society stands proudly under the double-headed eagle banner of the Empire, the strong class and patriarchal rule of the age of strife are abolished , replaced by the cold logic of the Lord of the Second Legion.

By the way, Gou Chang.

Much more work.

As long as you are willing to bow your head, be loyal to Morgan's rule, and contribute to the needs of the Lord of the Second Legion, you can get a reward that corresponds to your efforts without any delay: the more you pay, the more you get , everything is like a cold trading machine, there is no living soil for corruption and connivance.

Although Morgan has no interest in creating a fairyland on earth that makes all mortals happy, she is indeed not a faint king who takes pleasure in the suffering of her subjects. Her rule is very cold, efficient and rational, and what she pursues is not the maximum Squeeze from the bottom, but mobilize everyone's power, with the posture of an efficient paramilitary society, to obtain more benefits in the waves of the Great Expedition, and replace the contradictions of distribution with the growth of bloody wealth, so as to achieve Let all individuals, collectives, and classes be satisfied. At that time, naturally no one will care about the Spider Queen's demands for everyone.

In the short term, the benefits of this model may not be as good as the simple and crude tenth tax of the Terra government, but the knowledge recorded in the mind of the Lord of the Second Legion clearly told her that such exploitative rule would only make the entire regime If it collapses in the heart, it will see the effect in the shortest time, and it will also cause endless disasters after a period of time.

What Morgan needs is a longer rule, a country that will be united after more than a century and is still highly loyal to her: Unlike the Lord of Humanity, the current Spider Queen does not have a huge demand for materials , this is one of her advantages, of course she will make good use of it.

Of course, this is not a process that can be accomplished overnight. In Morgan's plan, she needs a generation or even longer to complete her transformation of the Avalon Federation.

In terms of normal political science, this is a very deformed and wrong policy, a castle in the air that will collapse sooner or later, but in the frenzy of the Great Crusade, but in this cold and crazy galaxy, it is It is an extremely appropriate move, a lucky one who happens to be at the forefront of the times, and a relatively normal military regime that is hard-won for more people.

Perhaps this is the sadness and ridiculousness that the human empire has to face: in this galaxy, even a rule based on greed and exploitation, and aimed at expansion and plunder, as long as it is slightly in line with the cognition of normal human society, it will promulgate at will. A few of the most common fairness are enough to be called benevolence and compassion.

As on some enslaved worlds freed by the Dawnbreakers, statues of Morgan were erected in the name of the savior and liberator, and the hives of the Empire were celebrated in place of the Xenomorph's whip.

The Lord of the Second Legion has no wave of gratitude for these verbal expressions. She is more concerned about how much wealth these worlds will bring her, how much strength will be made to her country, and how much of this national power will be transformed. For the power she holds tightly in her hands: this last point is the only thing Morgan cares about, and the only reason why she willingly shoulders the burden of ruling.

With such desires, such thoughts, and firm belief in the tried-and-tested ruling model in the Avalon sector, Morgan's ambition accompanied the Dawnbreaker's army, broke through the edge of the known world of the empire, and sailed to the famous world. It is a fertile land on the frontier of the Far East.

Her fleet departed from the increasingly large starport in the Avalon galaxy, obtained a new forge world and the Titan Legion in Tigrus, and then went all the way north, passing through three very small forge worlds. Support, let them become the logistics supply base of the Second Army in this [Frontier March].

About two Tara standard months later, the fleet of the Imperium of Man came to the first galaxy in the far eastern border: the Aegis sector, which is the bread basket of the entire border region, and has great value enough to make people nostalgic.

Fertile agricultural worlds abound in this calm star area, and the twin worlds Manlok and Herdo are their masters and crowns. With their advantageous geographical location and excess food output, even in In the chaos of the age of strife, the Aegis star region has not been harassed more. Unwilling to be lonely, Herdo is even building a fleet, eager to establish his own proud hegemony. Although his brother Manlok is A staunch isolationist, but also full of ancient clans who are unwilling to succumb to aliens.

It is conceivable that when the double-headed eagle's wings extend to the territory they have ruled for thousands of years, these pocket countries will naturally only give one answer.

------

Herdo and Manloch rejected the imperial envoy's persuasion to capitulate with arrogance and neither humble nor haughty tone respectively, and these diplomats under Morgan's command actually did not have much sincerity in negotiating. Their biggest task is to investigate the actual situation of these worlds to let Their lord can make the right verdict: not every world deserves Morgan's reign.

The queen's verdict cannot be questioned: a few Tara standard hours after the last imperial envoy left, the first imperial warship jumped to the edge of the Heldor system, and with it, there was no room for cold offensive.

The fleet of the Imperial Navy and Reza's mechanical warships were the main force in the first void sea battle, and when the airspace near Mandeville Point was completely controlled by the Human Empire, the battle barges full of Astartes warriors They just filed in, and they happened to catch up with Herdo's main fleet, which was full of shells and torpedoes. When the chaos and howling in the middle echoed through three Terra standards, it ended in Dawnbreaker's tranquility.

The Hurdians, who lacked powerful warriors, swallowed the bitter fruit in an abrupt but natural way, even the oldest and most powerful capital ships, after being landed by a company of Astartes warriors, their only The ending can only be the loot and new power of the Dawnbreaker Legion, and the only resisters are nothing more than making the decks and corridors of the battleship more dirty. In front of the power swords and deflagration guns of the Sons of Morgan, Hell Erduo slowly realized what kind of opponent they had ushered in.

But they realized it too late: eight hours after the war broke out, all the Heldo battleships had either been reduced to burning scrap iron or became part of the Imperial Navy, surrounded by a powerful defense in low Earth orbit. Although the power troubled the Second Legion for a while, the sages of Reza did not spend much effort to input the deadly electronic waste code into the startup program of each fortress, and these interesting tricks contained The ancient creations became the rewards of the mechanical priests for their trip.

All external resistance in this hive world collapsed. Under the cover of continuous orbital bombardment, the airdrop pods and stormbirds full of Astartes fighters began to roll up waves of metal on the surface of the planet. Their goal is Sweep those crucial agricultural areas, and then trap the hive capital where the nobles are located, and carry out a selective massacre and cleansing in the name of war.

Twenty Dawnbreaker companies were thrown in as the main force of the attack. The combination of ten thousand Terran veterans and Avalon recruits was enough to tear apart all opponents. The newly born Sun Titan Legion followed their footsteps with extraordinary courage, and More war engines and mortal auxiliary troops followed the gap opened by the vanguard, easily breaking through hundreds of years of tranquility.

The war machine of the Second Legion is turning like a precise cogwheel. The Dawnbreakers and their auxiliary forces are experimenting with new tactics on the fertile volcanic soil of Heldona: it is an imitation of the Iron Hand, a battle against Based on the initial learning of the most efficient steel torrent.

All firepower and indiscriminate attacks were allowed long before the war started, because the Spider Queen didn't need anything from it except the fertile soil of this world, and the only thing the Second Legion had to keep in mind was to avoid Hull Dona is a chain volcano that is almost always in its waking phase, avoiding the dramatic disturbances of natural disasters.

The annihilation operations that took place on the fertile soil were efficient and ruthless: the sons of Morgan set foot on this world when the sun was high, and when the night had not yet fully arrived, the entire planet of Heldo, only those hives The permanent fortress in the deepest part is still in the hands of the former rulers of this world. They hold on to a guard composed of a small number of reformers and powerful fighters such as Ogrin, desperately fighting against the coming of the doomsday.

------

"If they had put these guys into battle two hours earlier, our casualties would have been greater, at least a few dozen more."

Lana breathed the scorching air that is unique to this agricultural world, stepped on a giant beast he personally killed, and spat disdainfully: This mutant named Ogryn has all experienced brutal torture. Transformed into unimaginable furious freaks, their bodies are even taller than the Old Guard wearing Hades-type Terminator armor, and their twisted muscles contain daunting power.

If such power were used in the previous siege battles, the casualties would be unimaginable, because the brute force of these mutants could even blow away the heads and helmets of Astartes warriors, Fortunately, the Herdo dignitaries who controlled this monster had long since degenerated into a kind of pleasure-seeking, narrow-minded and withdrawn, pot-bellied human species. They refused to let these forces out of their sight until Dawnbreaker's army Feng approached all the way to the depths of the labyrinth-like hive city, and only 30 ogrens were released in the panic of the powerful, roaring and rushing towards the vanguard of the empire.

The Old Guards were the first batch of Dawnbreakers to encounter these monsters, because they were the ones who won the honor of being the first to break through the hive capital, and these monsters that rushed out of those magnificent statues and oil paintings were indeed Morgan's guards were stunned for a moment, but only for a moment.

In the face of the quickly formed formation and uniform firepower, even a powerful monster like Ogryn can only fall to the ground in a brainless wail. The power brought by the orderly collective is seriously underestimated most of the time. powerful factor.

In front of the Old Guards that Lana forcibly integrated with blood and iron means, only three Ogryns survived to the melee stage, and two of them became Lana's latest victory in just one minute.

The Chief Guard then inspected his warriors, and was pleased to see that only two or three had suffered slight scrapes of armor: he had spent a long time establishing order among the egoists, and in the arena one He beat them to the ground one by one, and finally squeezed this group of hopeless guys into a rope.

In the past three years of fighting, the Old Guard has lost eleven soldiers, each of whom is irreplaceable, but Lana still insists on pulling this team to the front line as much as possible.

Although he and his occasionally wayward gene mother are not exactly the same in many aspects, there is one thing that they are highly consistent with: as a primarch guard, it is definitely not an old guard. The reason for the lack of battle.

Even if the battle is not so urgent that the Primarch is required to play: just like now, Lana will still bring his soldiers to the front line to fight on the premise of retaining enough strength to protect the Primarch, and maintain the familiarity with blood feel.

In his heart, this taciturn veteran of Terra has never forgotten the true mission of the Old Guard: One day, they will follow the Primarch into an impossible situation, and all the trials now are for that A moment of charge and victory, this is his responsibility.

The scorching air poured into Lana's chest again, making him overly bored. He knew that this was a manifestation of several volcanoes being active at the same time. Volcanic soil is the unique trick that makes this world the largest granary in the Far East.

"Should we continue to attack?"

The low-pitched question of his subordinates rang in Lana's ears. He just shook his head and pointed to the gray building in the distance. It was a thick steeple hidden under the mud maze and giant void shield. It was surrounded by shadowy jungles of guns, and those flashing figures meant a large number of flesh-and-blood morphers.

"This is already deep in the hive capital. It is difficult for armored troops to enter, and their void shields can also block the bombing for several days. As for the fortress itself, although it is only less than one square kilometer in size, it can condescend to blockade For all the offensive routes, we may need to pay dozens of hundreds of lives, or even more combat brothers, to barely touch the wall."

"Then what should we do? Wait for the artillery support from the follow-up troops?"

"It is difficult for artillery fire to accurately hit the target here, and the large-scale bombing is very likely to fundamentally destroy the structure of this Hive City: I have to say that the founders of this world have very high wisdom, and their creations Still hindering us after thousands of years, if their descendants were not so comfortable and decadent, we could not have advanced here so easily."

"No matter how great wisdom is, it cannot stop the degradation brought about by the passage of time."

Lana's emotional self-talk did not smooth the frowns of his subordinates, who were still worrying about the next move.

"Then, we..."

"Wait."

"Wait?"

"equal."

Lana smiled, a smile that was both confident and sarcastic.

"Wait for the group of archaeologists to come over."

"They always have all kinds of weird and dangerous things, which are most suitable for this situation."

------

Although Lana called for reinforcements as soon as he saw the fortress, he did not expect that Cortes, the former leader of the Second Fleet, would actually come in person.

Looking at his battle, he also brought something extraordinary.

The chief old guard focused his eyes on the box next to Cortez. For some reason, he felt an extreme sense of danger from that small box with an ordinary appearance.

"what is this?"

After complying with Cortez's order and dispatching all the soldiers to the rear, Lana watched the commander of the fifth company gradually unlock the password and fingerprint lock outside the box with an extremely pious attitude. , One floor after another, there are more than 20 paths in total.

Cortez was not in a hurry, he quietly solved all the passwords with a pious attitude of a believer serving the gods, and then carefully opened one side of the box, revealing the mercury-like, metallic-colored half inside. Solidified matter, they are transparent, like water droplets suspended in mid-air, presenting a coexistence of movement and stability.

In the face of the old guard's inquiry, Cortez did not hide his secrets.

"This is Dana Mercury, an ancient self-healing metal that we discovered while exploring a human colony forty tera standard years ago."

"There can be items inside it, and it will be maintained in an absolute stability: that is, no matter what kind of bumps and damages the vehicle loaded with this metal encounters, or how it flips and changes direction , the items inside it will always be frozen at the moment of being put in, maintaining a kind of absolute stillness.”

"So, we'll use it to stockpile some dangerous items."

"...for example?"

"For example, some gadgets in [Secret Vault], although Dana Mercury is also a part of the Secret Vault, it is not enough compared to those dangerous elements."

Lana didn't ask questions right away, because he saw clearly what was sleeping in the Dana Mercury that Cortez held in his hand: it was a model of a small animal he didn't know, but it made him He was creepy.

"what is this?"

"Souvenir of the trip to Catachan, but a nuisance now."

"It's just right, we can take advantage of this time to solve this trouble."

Cortez’s smile almost brought sinisterness to the bright side, and he put the glob of mercury into the small artillery that he brought with him: Lana had never seen a similar type of artillery, but his instinct told him that this And that what Dana Mercury is a product of one place.

"According to the distance and wind direction, it needs to be delayed for three seconds..."

The soldiers behind Cortez muttered some incomprehensible fragments of words, and quickly turned on the artillery. When the gleaming liquid metal was fired out with everyone's anxiety, Lana also Already standing by Cortez's side.

"Okay, Cortez, I think you should elaborate now."

It was said that on that barbaric face that belonged exclusively to the conqueror, there was a slight nostalgia for the madness of the past, as well as endless fear.

"Okay, Lana."

"Did you know... Catachan barking toad?"

"……do not know."

"It doesn't matter if you don't know: it is a liquid bomb developed by our Second Fleet before the return of the Primarch. It can sputter out a poisonous slurry from the Catachan bark toad. It is not volatile, but the toxicity is about It belongs to the former..."

"three times."

Before the words fell, a creepy sound rang out in the distant fortress accompanied by the impact of the bomb. The strange wind and waves out of thin air brought rustling noises, as if thousands of lifeless long snakes were suddenly caught. Released into the human world, the pungent corrosive sound can be heard several kilometers away, followed by the heavy roar of the huge transformed body crashing to the ground: everything is like the God of Corrosion being summoned to the Milky Way Among them, it is swallowing up the entire fortress with its big mouth full of deadly water.

There was no howling, no screaming, no shouting before death, the lonely wind only brought more lonely silence, until the light green liquid came out of the cracks in the wall visible to the naked eye, and began to swallow the entire fortress Into their corrosive maws, the hard masonry, guns, and these flowing liquids consume each other in a soft, ear-piercing friction. From time to time, a few stumps and broken arms will be dripped down, and they will be completely wiped out before they hit the ground. eat up.

Lana was just a few kilometers away, and he saw everything clearly: the solid fortress hanging in mid-air disappeared in a few blinks of an eye, and Cortez's poisonous plasma bomb was in contact with it. Consuming each other, devouring all the life, weapons, and even the fortress itself, but not hurting even the slightest bit of other items, and there is no disturbing pungent smell in the air.

A few seconds later, where there was once a fortress, only the rugged wreckage on both sides remained, which could prove the existence of an unsinkable fortress in the blink of an eye, and on the other side of Lana, a message from Ke The relaxed humming of Ertes.

The eyes of the Chief Old Guard became a little erratic.

"Your... secret library, are all these things?"

"Ah, not really."

The answerer shook his head.

"How should I put it... This thing is actually a failure. It belongs to the very low price-performance ratio in the secret storehouse, so I just said to take the opportunity to use it up, because its stability is too low. It's just an immature product developed when we first came into contact with the dead world of Catachan."

"...you have developed something else?"

"Of course, Catachan is a great place for great people. We have more than a dozen studies around it. There are some more terrifying things preserved in the depths of the Vault, and several of them come from Catachan."

The old guard sniffed, and while he signaled that his troops could return to their posts, he looked at Cortez with unavoidable jealousy.

"There is such a thing, so why didn't your Second Fleet open before we met the mother of genes? Whether it is the number or strength, it has even regressed."

He was answered with a bitter smile.

"Do you know why this bomb was eventually discontinued?"

"Not safe?"

"That's the first reason, and the second reason is: its research team has been wiped out in a large-scale research accident, as have all the equipment and documents."

"..."

"You'll never know, Lana, you'll never know how much power we lost to our desires before Mother stopped most of our experiments, a figure far higher than even the war. "

"No one understands the dangers in the vault better than we do."

"Because of every danger, we are the first to experience it."

------

After Cortés left, the Old Guard continued to move forward. They waited for the reinforcements of the brother troops, and with an unstoppable momentum, they tore through the last few fragile obstacles in the depths of the maze layer by layer. The crazy transformation body collapsed in front of their crossfire, and the ambush lurking in the shadows could not penetrate the thick armor of the Hades-type Terminator at all.

Those low-level dignitaries hiding in the outermost layer became the first batch of characters to leave the stage. The Dawnbreakers found these panicked wastes in the still gorgeous ruins, and killed every life coldly and ruthlessly. The stubborn strongholds threw flames and wiped out ancient families that have been passed down for thousands of years amidst screams.

When this kind of massacre lasted less than one Terra standard, it completely shattered the last sliver of arrogance of the Herdo dignitaries. When the advance of the troops appeared to be stagnated unexpectedly by Lana, he felt that he was at the forefront. I saw a few figures with their hands raised staggeringly out of the ruins, shouting words similar to surrender and submission.

It has to be said that their Gothic language is not bad, and they know a lot about the human empire. When these Herdo dignitaries fluently spit out the script attitude of the human empire towards various worlds, and loudly promised that they would definitely When the will of the Lord of the Second Legion was the primary goal, although everyone did not give up their vigilance, most of the muzzles no longer emitted killing intent: this kind of thing has happened too many times, and they know that this The recovery campaign is over.

Except Lana.

Because he knows more.

The chief old guard watched several surrenderers with cold eyes. After observing that they were indeed in a desperate situation, the loyal heir of Morgan raised his gun and pulled it when no one, including his own people, expected it. trigger.

Shots rang out and the body fell.

"Destroy them, leave none behind."

Lana's words caused all the Dawnbreakers to fall into temporary confusion, but they took action the next moment, and the monstrous flames, accompanied by the call sign of the last Heldor dignitaries, quickly engulfed the entire labyrinth deep in the Hive City. It also swallowed the history of the entire world.

"Is this mother's order?"

As Lanar watched in silence as it all burned, his warriors gathered around him, feeling the last shiver of humanity for those shrill cries in the flames.

"Yes."

Lana nodded.

"Unlike before, there is no negotiation or compromise this time. Before the start, my mother told me that she only needs the land of Herdo, and the population on it..."

"The less the better."

"It's not the same as before, Lana, did you misinterpret what mother meant?"

A typical old Guards question.

Lana thought of this, and a sarcastic smile flashed across his heart.

"Do you know? Do you know how this fertile mixture of agricultural world and hive world worked before we arrived here?"

"……do not know."

"slave."

Lana smiled.

"The skinny people in flails that we saw outside the Hive City were all human slaves purchased by Herdo from other galaxies. Those dignitaries let the slaves work in volcanic ash and high temperature to grow Food, their frighteningly high death rate is the second reason why Herdo can become the granary of the East."

"Moreover, during the negotiations with the imperial envoys, Herdo insisted that after submitting to the empire, they still needed slaves to maintain their agriculture: Ha, what a ridiculously inefficient statement, but what is even more ridiculous is that referring to the In other cases of the expedition, if it is not our kind of Legion that follows the Ultramar model, then their requirements are very likely to be met."

"But we are the ones who came, but this world belongs to our mothers, so everything will not go as they wish: the gene mothers don't care about the powerful and slaves in this world, they are products of inefficiency, the more they disappear The cleaner the better, soon, the land here will be full of professionals and instruments, as well as huge instruments to control volcanic eruptions and maintain soil fertility, these things don’t need the Held people who used to be.”

"So... Mother is going to abolish slavery."

"The entire Far Eastern frontier must abolish something that should not exist."

"Because of justice?"

"Do not."

A smile crept onto Lana's lips.

"Because it's efficient."

(End of this chapter)