How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 419: I still don’t know how to win

After the Storm's Edge left, the Dendera Lantern did indeed quiet down. The so-called "Glorious Grand Complex Temple" was like an inappropriate and misplaced collage, hanging abruptly above the Hera Fortress, where most people could see it as soon as they looked up.

This is certainly annoying. But considering that the sky blocked by it is no longer as clear as usual in Macragge, but is filled with the filthy light of the warp; compared to an illegal building suspended in the air, which will not move or attack for the time being, the rain of fire cast on the ground by the enemy ships that have successfully invaded the orbit during this period of time obviously needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. Therefore, the annoying Grand Temple of Glory will be quietly suspended in place for the time being. If nothing unexpected happens, Guilliman also agreed that he would not send any troops to disturb it before the Storm's Edge sent a signal.

After all, no matter what method Fujimaru Ritsuka used, she did succeed in preventing the Dendera Lamp from firing again. Since the Hera Fortress and the void shield around her were not in danger of being instantly evaporated, the urgency of this matter naturally dropped significantly to the point where it could be thrown to the bottom of the to-do list.

Since Storm's Edge rushed into the alien space, Guilliman has spent several very fulfilling hours in the war room in the fortress. There are too many deployments that need to be made by a reliable commander, not to mention that their opponent this time is also a master who is quite accomplished in the art of war and is also proficient in calculation and deployment. From civilians to the army, from the ground to the sky, from the ground forces that can still be contacted, to the orbital ships that can only know the situation intermittently under the interference of the waste code - under the great disadvantage of the sudden attack, the Imperial Regent seemed to be forced to blind himself, and then allowed to have a dangerous sword fight with the fully armed Perturabo.

But he held on. Perhaps this was also the power of Guilliman as a Primarch who was thoughtful and thoughtful, or perhaps Perturabo did not want this battle to end too quickly and be too boring, so he deliberately left a little gap in his strategy. Different people will interpret this differently from different standpoints, and no one can tell what the truth is. When the Iron Warriors' fleet approached, Macragge still stood firm, because the abominable demons who shamelessly surrendered to the power of Chaos would inevitably tremble in front of the power of the Emperor's loyal heirs - this is what the state religion is promoting, and Guilliman knew it. He acquiesced to this for the morale of the mortal troops, but he also knew that this was a lie.

Rather than "standing firm", Macragge's current state is closer to "struggling to hold on".

Although he had issued an order to build another communication line that was not affected by the waste code as soon as possible, it would take time after all. In a war, a few hours might be enough for a frontline position to change hands repeatedly in the struggle, but for an invisible information war, it seemed that it was still not enough. The mechanical sages had burned out more than a dozen servitors' wetware during this period. Their work did make some progress based on these sacrifices, but unfortunately it was still unstable.

Only once did they briefly connect to the communication channel of Macragge's Glory, and learned from the Ultramarines First Captain Severus Agman, who was stationed on it and commanding, that this ancient Glorious Queen-class battleship was fighting against her sister of the same level, the Iron Blood. Agman objectively mentioned that the situation was not optimistic, because the escort fleets of both sides were too different in number and pre-preparation. He should have wanted to make further reports to the Primarch and get instructions for the next action, but unfortunately, the enemy's waste code was like a conscious entity. After discovering this communication, it quickly occupied the channel again, blocking the communication between the ground and orbit.

Guilliman was anxious about the reality that an important battlefield was out of control, but he knew it was useless. The Primarch's power was indeed much greater than that of ordinary people, but it did not allow him to arbitrarily distort the laws of reality. He knew that if the Glory of Macragge failed in orbit, the core of the Five Hundred Worlds would be completely exposed to the muzzle of the Iron Warriors' macro-cannons and would be powerless to resist; he knew even more that even if it was indeed a more important battlefield in the current situation, he could not immediately board a Thunderhawk, pass through the orbital drop pods, fighters, and even Hell Dragons flying in the air, and smoothly return to his ship to personally command this important battle directly against his brother Perturabo.

On this issue, Guilliman could only choose to trust his captain, believing that he had enough wisdom and calmness to prevent him from being defeated too quickly under the double disadvantage of his own obviously insufficient strength and the other side having Perturabo to command. If he could gather enough forces on the ground, on the basis of ensuring the defense of important facilities, and clear out even a small piece of relatively stable airspace... In the current situation, this is indeed very difficult, but not impossible - it just still takes time.

Essentially, both Guilliman and Perturabo now had to race against time - Guilliman had to find a way to call for support while trying to recover the disadvantage, while Perturabo had to take advantage of the situation to directly pin his opponent to death in the subspace encirclement formed by this surprise attack. The game between the two battlefield actuary masters was so complicated that it was difficult for ordinary people to understand, and there was no room for anyone else to intervene.

Perhaps, there is indeed such a person in the current Hera Fortress who has the ability to intervene in this level of game: Rogal Dorn, who is also a Primarch of both parties in the battle and has a highly complex and quick mind. But he and Guilliman also know how important the ability to coordinate in a war is. In Macragge, the one who is more suitable to be the commander is obviously the master of Macragge. Therefore, even though he is also a Primarch, Dorn did not make any attempt to seize the command, and even steadily gathered the war group that inherited his bloodline, and tried his best to cooperate with Guilliman's dispatch to fight.

This does not mean that the old Rogal Dorn has lost his enterprising spirit - in fact, at the beginning, he seriously considered going to the most intense battlefield on the surface of the planet and leading the people of the Empire to victory, even though he knew very well that he could not get a complete set of armor and weapons, and there was no temporary replacement for the missing arm. Of course, as soon as this idea came out, it was immediately refuted by Guilliman seriously, and the various war groups built on Dorn's genetic sequence immediately raised strong objections, which made the Terra Guards give up this idea for the time being and stop for the time being.

Due to the desire of Dorn's successor chapters to be personally inspected by the Primarch, they generally deployed all their military forces to the surface of Macragge when they first landed. As a result, after the Iron Warriors' surprise attack blocked the communication between orbit and the ground, these chapters became the most complete military organizations on the surface of the planet. Therefore, Dorn appeared here consciously and took the initiative to dispatch them to various parts of Macragge to help and protect the important facilities that Guilliman needed to regain air and space control.

At present, Dorne, surrounded by the guards spontaneously selected by his own regiment, stood in the hall on the lower floor of the Hera Fortress. Beside him was Sigismund, who had obeyed the order of Fujimaru Ritsuka and returned to wait for deployment. The open door of this temporary "command post" faced the main road of the fortress. In a state of war, various war engines would pass through this road from time to time. The wind from the battlefield, carrying dust and gunpowder, flowed into the hall from time to time, gently caressing everyone's armor and clothes. This familiar scene almost made Dorne and Sigismund return to ten thousand years ago in a trance.

During the glorious era of the Great Crusade, Sigismund, the captain of the Imperial Fists and the Lord of the Templars, would often guard the tent in front of his Primarch Rogal Dorn, silently observing the captains of the Grand Companies in the hall waiting for orders and dispatches, and waiting for his own instructions. Dorn himself was also accustomed to catching Sigismund's figure at the edge of his sight. But they also knew that the era built on the pure rationality of the Imperial Truth was out of reach and could not be reversed.

Since the Siege of Terra, Dorn himself has seen too many visions that cannot be explained by simple reason, and has become so old in the torture of the warp; and Sigismund, who served for another thousand years after the end of the rebellion and finally died in the first dark expedition launched by "the Great Plunderer" Abaddon, not only became a loyal believer of the state religion during his lifetime, but was also shaped into... In this way, as the soul and spirit of the dead, they returned to the material world in the form of a warp creature endowed with entity. Time has passed, and the world has changed. No matter how similar the current scene is to the scene in the past memory, they can't go back after all. As a father and son connected by blood, at such a close distance, they can clearly feel this subtle sense of dislocation. This seemingly dislocation makes the atmosphere between them unconsciously stained with a little melancholy. But unfortunately, no one in the entire hall would pay attention to this sadness: first, the urgent current situation did not allow the people present to think about things other than strategy and tactics; second, the Astartes of the Imperial Fists were not sensitive enough to such an extent. Even if they insisted on paying attention to some "emotional problems" in the hall, the first thing that would be noticed was the problem of Cassius Vilan, the commander of the Celestial Lions behind Sigismund. When he entered the hall as the commander of a sub-regiment, he clearly showed panic that should not exist in a mature commander.

Emotionally, this is a problem that should not be overly criticized, because Cassius Velan is not a "mature chapter master". Everyone knows that the Celestial Lions have not had a smooth life in the past few hundred years, and it can even be said that they are on the verge of destruction. This so-called "chapter master", in terms of qualifications and abilities, can only barely remove the hat of "new recruit" from his head in most of the chapters present. But unfortunately, Dorn and his sons don't pay much attention to this aspect. Their advantage is that they are reasonable, and their disadvantage is that they are too reasonable - logically, Velan is still timid when attending such an occasion as a chapter master. What does it look like? Even if he is trying hard, he has to maintain a calm and composed demeanor in front of the Primarch.

It's not that they don't sympathize with the fate of the Celestial Lions, but this and that are obviously two completely different things. So far, no one has taken the initiative to question this, firstly because it is not important compared to the battlefield situation; secondly because Sigismund is standing in front of Vilan, or Vilan hid himself behind the first Emperor Champion of the Black Templar with the former's tacit consent; thirdly because the version of "the Primarch's treatment of the Celestial Lions" known to most people in the hall is still at the stage of disbanding and sealing the number, so there is an extra layer of tragic understanding of Vilan's behavior of appearing here.

In fact, Velan had no idea why he was here—he just stood here with Sigismund for no apparent reason. He also had no idea what role his subordinates, or the less than 100 battle brothers who had barely escaped the fate of destruction with him and survived to this day, could play on the battlefield today. He even had an inexplicable fear of personally meeting the Primarch: Captain Velan was too young to understand the issue of the survival of a number from the perspective of economic benefits. After learning that the Primarch decided to disband his chapter, he had been thinking in his heart, "Have we disappointed the Primarch?" The possibility of such failure was the most terrifying thing in the world for any Astartes.

But when he actually stood in this hall and faced the Primarch, he found that things were not as terrible as he had originally thought. The attitude Dorn showed when facing him was no different from that he showed when facing other chapter masters: no rebuke, no praise, not even a single extra glance. This equal treatment made Vilan feel a little better, but he still couldn't help standing there and thinking about it, and continued to question the meaning of his presence here.

Amidst these chaotic thoughts that even interfered with his understanding of the battlefield sand table, a commotion suddenly caught the attention of everyone present, including Vilan. The source of the noise occurred behind them, in the corridor adjacent to the hall itself and the interior of the fortress building. At first, it was just a quarrel that was common near the command center during wartime, but within a few minutes, the quarrel that kept raising its voice turned into an unsettling fight. Everyone's attention was generally attracted at this time, and even the Primarch couldn't help but frowned and asked aloud: "It's outrageous. What's going on?"

No one could answer this, because no one in the hall had time to go out to confirm how the accident happened. Of course, when Dorn asked, someone had already started to do so, but before these warband servants even had time to reach the door leading to the interior of the fortress, the exquisite door carved from heavy stone, which should have been opened with rails and hydraulic mechanical arms, had already been pushed open manually under a terrifying force.

This is obviously not something that a mortal's body can do. Therefore, it was not surprising that several Primaris Space Marines appeared after the door opened. The visitors were wearing bone-white power armor with purple patterns. There were three of them, and they were fully armed. One of them even held the banner of the chapter. Without being summoned or allowed to enter this temporary command post, the three of them still walked into the hall with their heads held high and strode forward, ignoring the angry eyes, harsh accusations, and even the sound of blades being drawn. They came to Dorn as if no one was around, and knelt down in strict accordance with the etiquette of meeting a high-ranking person. Only the banner of the chapter was still standing there as if in provocation, taking precedence over the emblem on the armor, highlighting the identity of the visitors.

"Lord Dorne." The Phoenix Sons Chapter Master, Olada Thun, bowed before the Primarch of the Imperial Fists. Even though the other party had already stated that he was not their genetic father, he himself was already fully aware of who his bloodline was inherited from. "The Phoenix Sons Chapter requests to fight."

Faced with this unexpected situation, Dorn seemed to be stunned for a moment, but he also seemed not to be. However, his answer was the same as before:

"You are not my sons," he repeated. "I have already stressed that to you."

"Yes." In stark contrast to his previous panic, Chapter Master Thune's response was measured and well-thought-out. "But in the Indomitus Crusade, not all of the Astartes Chapters under the command of the Imperial Regent, Lord Robouti Guilliman, are his descendants."

"When the Chapter was first formed, you also obeyed Guilliman's orders." Dorn stated this fact calmly, as if he had not heard the other party's implication at all. "If you want to fight, you should go and ask my brother Guilliman for a fight now. Macragge is his world, and you were also formed under his instruction."

This seemed to make sense, but Captain Thun did not move and still insisted on his original opinion:
"Even though we are not your descendants, the Sons of Phoenix have fought in your name for over a hundred years, and we hope to continue this tradition in the days to come. Lord Dorne, the Sons of Phoenix, please fight."

(End of this chapter)