Emperor's Bane

Chapter 943 Love at First Sight (22)

The goddess stepped down from her throne.

The end and death followed.

------

The first thing to sweep through was a nightmare that sent chills down the spines of every member of the Dark Eldar.

That was a piercing scream of hunger.

It was as if... the Dark Prince himself had arrived.

It is silent and invisible, yet it leaves all the unfortunate with nowhere to escape and nowhere to hide.

Dead memories began to attack every heart that had experienced the Great Fall, whether it was an arrogant nobleman or a mad bloodthirsty wretch; their vicious minds were now occupied by an emotion of utmost purity.

fear.

Extreme fear.

The trembling when facing death and the unknown.

Like the first cry of the Dark Prince, the silver-haired goddess's shriek was unstoppable, swiftly and precisely plundering 380,000 kilometers of land like a deadly scythe. Invisible waves swept over every spire, and venomous whispers filled every street. No blood was shed, and no head was ever severed, but wherever this hellish song went, destruction and death followed.

No one could escape this blow. Under the shadow of the moon goddess, death was as equal as the surface of a lake at midnight, regardless of race or social status: the wicked Bloodwalker clutched his throat and collapsed in agony before his prized collection; the noble on the throne, who had been raising his wine cup just moments before, now had his pale hand fall limply before the crystal hit the ground.

Soldiers and servants walking in the crooked shadows fell to the ground without warning. The beasts and slaves they had chained, who had been roaring wildly, also stopped breathing silently.

The demonic Mandela and his raider transports plummeted through the air, the unmanned machines crashing through the inviolable tower without causing a ripple.

In the arena, the arrogant sorcerer sect and their sparring partners fell to the ground simultaneously, their faces filled with disbelief and horror buried in the blood-stained earth. Only when their souls were brutally ripped from their bodies, howling and struggling in mid-air, did they realize that the once bustling dueling arena was now as silent as a midnight graveyard: tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of cruel souls, in their final moments, had indulged in countless acts of cruelty.

Centered on the glorious spire of the Hillian family, within a radius of 380,000 kilometers, the Great Fall, which struck fear into the hearts of all ancient peoples, returned. Every Dark Eldar within sight had their souls brutally ripped out and thrown into the unknown depths of the void. Their modified bodies lost their color and vitality, collapsing numbly, surrounded by their slaves and soldiers. Even those who were not Dark Eldar could not escape such a catastrophe.

Destruction knows no boundaries: at least the goddess who uttered that scream would disdain doing so.

Wielding an invisible scythe, she reaped hundreds of billions of lives with a single strike. The blood shed by the Dark Eldar in the hundreds of years of strife and infighting since the fall of the Great Ones did not equal that of this moment.

After the emptiness came true destruction: endless storms and flames transformed into waves with a soft laugh, falling from the sky and roaring as they turned everything in sight to ashes. The spires of the Hillian family vanished in the blink of an eye, priceless hero sculptures and towering thrones of power were crushed to dust, and the Star-Picking Towers, connected by curved arches and veil-like supports, collapsed one after another into the twists that penetrated the net.

The storm roared, the flames rose, and the eternal end and death followed closely behind the golden footsteps, clinging to the lifeline of the Comoros like tumor cells. The sins and madness of the Dark Eldar were torn to shreds, replaced by a more terrifying Red Lotus Inferno: it originated from a greed that surpassed the entirety of the Dark Eldar, regarding the destruction of the ancient empire as a delicacy.

Only at this moment did the residents of Comoros finally realize what was happening before their eyes.

They were hacked.

They were killed.

They were destroyed.

……

How wonderful... how powerful!

When he dragged his crippled leg and timidly crawled out of his safe house, the battered and disheveled Victor knelt on the ground. He looked up at all the disaster and wounds before him, but in his narrow eyes was endless ecstasy and euphoria.

Slaughter, destruction, utter ruin, and merciless plunder and death descend without mercy.

How admirable! It makes one tremble with dread.

Slowly, Victor bent over, his shoulders and spine trembling uncontrollably, his scarred head buried deep in the ground, and the sound of weeping drifted through it: but it was not fear or regret, nor was it an expression of his emotions in the face of endless death.

On the contrary, this is joy.

This is ecstasy.

Countless Dark Eldar perished, their souls ripped out alive. The most brutal atrocities in the galaxy surpassed even the Bloodlust's imagination, laid bare before him: Fate, Gods, how favored was he to witness the most magnificent and supreme glory in the world?

Even if I were to lose my sight at this moment and never be able to appreciate any beautiful scenery again, I would have no regrets.

……No.

Do not!
We can't say that yet!

There's one more thing! There's one more person! Even on his deathbed, he had to see her face.

Victor raised his head, his eyes filled with determination.

He staggered to his feet, groping his way forward through the desolate and chaotic mire. The massive Reaper fighter crashed straight down behind him, the explosion echoing everywhere. Burning scrap metal left flames on his shoulders, but Victor paid no heed. He didn't care about the bloody mess beneath his feet, nor whether the shadow that obscured him was crumbling. He moved forward numbly, like a soulless walking corpse, toward the place he had always dreamed of.

Finally, he arrived.

He can lift his head now.

And so, Victor raised his bleeding pupils and looked at the goddess who had brought him countless pains and pleasures.

That silver goddess.

That boundless human race.

That great slaughterer, that destroyer.

Ah, those eyes filled with contempt and disdain...

The former slave took a deep breath.

So beautiful.

She is so beautiful.

This boundless bloodbath, this cruel slaughter, this contempt that strips away all compassion and suffering in every gesture.

Could there be anything more beautiful in the Milky Way?

Compared to them, even the Comoros are nothing more than a group of children who have never seen real blood.

he thinks.

He's falling in love with her.

From the first glance.

No, it's not this person, it's not this statue.

He loved something deeper; he loved the purest existence beneath the most exquisite beauty.

power.

arrogant.

majesty.

kill.

He loved them more than anything else in the world.

He loved her, he loved the moment she created the greatest killing and destruction in history.

It's really... really...

The dead gods are above.

He swore.

One day, he too will possess the same power.

He too would, like his muse, reside at the pinnacle of arrogance and slaughter.

It became everyone's nightmare.

In the boundless shadows, Victor's fingers dug deeply into his face.

He looked up at the sky, looking up at the arrival of the true conquerors after the destruction.

The goddess of the silver moon raised one hand, and boundless, surging power arose from it. The already crumbling net gate beneath her feet was brutally torn apart, transforming into a vortex of black and gold that exploded and extended endlessly in all directions, constantly expanding and absorbing, until it was the size of a galaxy. Even the dying black suns above the Comoros seemed as naive as children before this vortex.

Only then did the true intruder arrive proudly amidst the humility of the moon goddess: a blazing star traversed the dimensions of the network, barging arrogantly into the Comoros sky from an impossible direction. It was larger than any dying black sun, and its boundless metallic patterns and the constantly emerging and disappearing electronic waves all demonstrated that it was by no means a naturally formed creation.

But what's truly terrifying isn't it, but the figure that stands proudly atop the star. It's not large, nor does it look particularly robust. Compared to the star, this shadow is so small that it's impossible for ordinary people to see it. If it weren't for the fact that it radiates a light more dazzling than the sun, if it weren't for the fact that millions of Comorian residents were blinded by its brilliance in the very instant it appeared.

If it weren't for this light, tens of thousands of human warplanes would have swarmed out, and the Titans and knights, as massive as mountains, would have crossed dimensional distances to arrive at the greatest battlefield they had ever dreamed of, on that page destined to be etched in the annals of their family histories: and in their mountain-like, thick shadows, hundreds of thousands of flesh-and-blood giants, raising their blazing blades, numbly and mercilessly stepped into the most brutal killing field in the galaxy.

For the first time in millions of years since its founding, the Net-Way City of Comoros has been truly invaded.

The invaders longed to kill it, destroy it, and end it.

Their purpose was so obvious that they didn't bother with any concealment or compromise. Even the most dull-witted Ugul beast could understand it, let alone the Dark Eldar, who had a morbid sense of protecting their territory.

Comoros was enraged.

Thousands upon thousands of warplanes poured out of their nests like startled bats, and millions of thugs emerged from every shadow of the city, eyeing the invaders with bloodthirsty and fanatical gazes.

That was the first fool in countless years to be so arrogant as to dare to step into this land of despair and to so openly oppose the true inheritors of the Spirit Clan Empire.

At this moment, few people truly realized what had happened to the destroyed Hillian district. They only saw a group of incredibly arrogant invaders, a group of lowly and primitive humans, and an army that was not even a drop in the ocean: such meager strength, yet they still wanted to challenge the remnants of an ancient empire.

Countless warships took to the skies, and all the nobles and priests turned their bloodshot eyes toward the place where the war had broken out: especially the members of the Hillian family, who could not possibly remain indifferent to the destruction of their own wealth. Thousands of elite soldiers rushed onto the Reaper airships, and behind them were even more natives of the Dark City. For the sake of blood, violence, and the pleasure of torturing the enemy, these incurable savages threw themselves into the war with fanaticism.

In the frenzy of the entire nation, no one noticed the disabled figure dragging a leg, limping into the shadows, fleeing desperately towards the distance, away from the direction of the surging crowd.

What a bunch of idiots.

Looking at his fellow human beings, whose eyes held nothing but pure killing and sadism, a mocking smile flickered across Victor's lips.

He turned his head away, abandoning without a trace of regret the place where he was born and everything he had worked hard for over the centuries.

In that destruction, perhaps the entire Comoros was unaware of what had happened, but Victor stood on the very edge of that destruction. He was lucky; his position was 380,000 kilometers away from the destruction, less than a few hundred meters away. Although even a wisp of aftershock was enough to turn everything he had painstakingly built into ashes, turning him into a wild dog struggling to move forward on the ground, it did not take away his life, nor did it take away his opportunity.

Moreover, as someone who experienced it firsthand, Asdubal also deeply understood a principle.

Comoros cannot win this war.

They're doomed to lose!
He would never join in such a futile effort.

He wanted to escape; he wanted to leave.

He was going to a safer place to wait patiently.

Comoros is not a suitable place for a large human army to stay for a long time. Whatever these younger races desire to find in the ruins of the Eldar Empire, they will surely leave once their desires are fulfilled.

That will be his chance.

He will come back: back, and continue to be the true master of this city.

……

And so it began. At the very moment the Comoros War commenced.

The most lowly, the most intelligent, and also the most cunning soul in the Dark City delivered a judgment without any emotion on behalf of his tens of millions of brethren.

He himself, however, headed off to distant places.

When the war began, no one knew where the name Asdubal had gone.

No one would care about such a trivial issue.

------

[Except for me.]

The Spider Queen frowned slightly.

Her instincts told her that a soul had just disappeared from her detection range.

It was a black soul bead that was filthy, dilapidated, and insane to an almost unprecedented degree: perhaps only the soul named Eribas from back then could compare to it.

Unfortunately, in the first strike that the Lord of Avalon had to limit, this soul that she was slightly wary of was not included: he luckily escaped the destruction that stretched for 380,000 kilometers and vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye.

really.

Even the most heinous criminals may fall into depravity.

But they are never stupid.

【…】

That's it.

The Spider Queen withdrew her gaze.

No matter what, he was just a dark Eldar with a sinful soul.

Even if his soul is more profound than that of his tens of millions of brethren, it doesn't matter: if he dares to appear before the Primarch again, he can simply be sent on his way.

She has earned the right to look down on these people.

Moreover, she also has an even more important task.

【…】

Morgan looked up as the Webway tunnel boring machine cast a shadow as wide as a star, enough to envelop the Emperor's entire Webway Expeditionary Force: this massive man-made celestial body brought not only a shock to the mind, but also constraints from a military perspective.

One star is too big a target.

Protecting it won't be easy.

Even Morgan would find it difficult to perfectly protect a target larger than a star in the face of the all-out Comoros army: the Dark Eldar ultimately inherited the most essential part of the ancient Eldar Empire, and their hysteria contained a huge threat and energy. However, the race's innate cowardice and infighting nature made it almost impossible for them to unleash this energy.

At least in Morgan's plan, the war was far from enough to force the Dark Eldar to fight to this extent.

Even so, protecting a tunnel boring machine in a limited war is by no means a simple matter.

The difficulty of this problem was so great that the Emperor was even hesitant to entrust it to Morgan, and instead chose to personally oversee the most important national treasure: even though this meant handing over the mining work entirely to the Mechanicus, greatly prolonging the entire Comoros War.

But there's no other way: while the Web Tunneling Machine could certainly be made smaller, if it's intended to transport the Emperor's army directly to Comoros and then continuously transport supplies, reinforcements, and loot in both directions, such a massive project necessitates maintaining its star-sized size, which also makes it a prime target for the Dark Eldar.

But at least for now, that won't happen.

As the royal guards, clad in gleaming golden armor, marched humbly past her, the Spider Queen was happily reporting her good news to her father.

As you can see.

The opening remarks were a success.

Everything is proceeding according to plan.

Within a radius of 380,000 kilometers, there are no longer any living organisms capable of breathing.

Let the army march in.

[Occupy those key positions and build permanent fortresses and strongholds. Once all the key nodes on the front lines are in our hands, the Mechanicus construction team can officially begin deployment: the sampling range of 380,000 kilometers is sufficient to complete your experiment. If you are not satisfied with the results here, then we will advance to the core of the Comoros.]

【but now……】

Morgan looked up and disdainfully surveyed the swarm of planes approaching from the horizon.

Please allow me to hang up now.

The troops have only just begun their deployment, and I'll likely be quite busy until they reach their designated operational positions.

Then, the Primarch raised a hand.

At the same time, he opened his mouth behind him.

[Bayar.]

"I am here, sir."

A loyal champion swordsman has appeared.

[Go check on our lovely little Silent Sister's condition so I can control the dosage.]

The Primarch yawned and, having not slept for some time, lazily waved his hand.

Then, she was met with silence.

[Bayar.]

[Bayar?]

Morgan raised an eyebrow and turned his head.

【What’s wrong with you?】

"Uh...it's nothing, sir."

The champion swordsmen of the Dawnbreaker Legion gazed in awe at her Primarch and the sky before her: it wasn't just Bayar who did this; any young Custodian with slightly better eyesight and any Astartes warrior watched the Lord of Avalon with their silent gazes.

The reason was that the once overwhelming swarm of alien machines in the sky had vanished into thin air.

There was no explosion, no scream.

The Primarch simply waved his hand, as if casually wiping away a stain on a dining table.

Bayar looked up at all of this with utter awe.

At the same time, he helplessly revealed the situation behind him to his genetic mother.

"grown ups."

"Actually, it was from the moment you made your move."

"Miss Ophelia... is already asleep."

【…】

Morgan's eyelids twitched.

Okay, at least we didn't overdo it.

It's a shame; it looks like we'll have to spend a bit more time in this run-down place.

Bayar lowered his head, but a question lingered in his mind.

"grown ups."

【What's wrong? 】

Please forgive my bluntness.

"Does such a large-scale war make you feel any sense of urgency or tension?"

【…】

Morgan paused for a moment.

I don't know, Bayar.

【I have no idea. 】

She looked into the distance, at the fleet surging toward her, and at the evil alien souls.

Morgan smiled.

She extended a finger: a tiny black hole slowly took shape on the Primarch's fingertip, impatiently searching for more souls and flesh.

Then, she snapped her fingers, and the adorable little creature appeared out of thin air at a place that was always on the march: sensing that thousands of alien scum were being torn apart by her actions and were dying in endless despair, the Lord of Avalon narrowed her pupils with pleasure.

【after all……】

Distracted, Morgan twisted the dozen or so towers at the edge of his vision into a pretzel, watching as the first Imperial Guard soldier walked into his battle position.

I've never felt tension in battle.

Or rather, at least in recent years: everything I've experienced has hardly been a battle.

They're just there for office work.

[I haven't had a worthy opponent in a long time: there's no force in the galaxy worthy of my true attention.]

"Even... other Primarchs?"

Bayar asked a probing question.

"Horus, Saint Gilles, Johnson, and..."

Ah...they are indeed rivals.

Which person are you referring to?

【I? 】

The Spider Queen smiled.

She absentmindedly reached out and slowly grasped a dying black sun in the distance, binding its body and soul without explanation, and smashed it to the ground.

I mean: all of them.

(End of this chapter)