Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 898 All fell silent, and you, who spent your days hunting eagles, got your eyes pecked by sparrows.
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"Who is this damned Auerbard?!"

When he saw that Mortarion had started charging without any warning, the Wolf King cursed and then began to charge forward as well.

As they were about to rush towards the Terra Exemplar, which was already weakened by multiple suicide attacks at such close range and no longer had enough Titan followers, Ruth roared and asked.

What? You're asking why we're following Dr. Mortalian?
Let's just charge in and see what happens!
In this kind of battlefield situation, there's no time to stand still and watch!
As a spear of light bit into her weapon arm like a venomous fang, the horn of the Terra Exemplar emitted a long, mournful cry.

She was like a queen charging into battle with her sword raised high, only to turn around and find her servants scattered and fighting on their own, while a pack of mad dogs surrounded her, tearing at her weapon-wielding hands and her defenseless vulnerabilities.

“I guess I’ve been listening to too much binary language,” Pallas said. “Why do I feel like she’s screaming in pain, and she’s a woman?”

“Because your feeling is right,” Mortarion’s figure had become tall and slender—very tall—his height almost exceeded that of the knight’s armor.

"The pilot of the Terra Exemplar is indeed a woman."

His scythe grew larger, longer, and wider as he grew, and then, with a swing of the scythe, he effortlessly cleaved through the first knight mech he encountered, as easily as harvesting straw.

No, it didn't happen. When the giant scythe fell like a final judgment, none of the expected sounds of metal armor breaking, electric sparks, electric arcs, and reactor explosions were heard.

It was as if the enormous scythe was merely an illusion, a shadow, something without substance.

Although the knight mech was unharmed, it seemed to have lost its vitality in an instant.

The last mechanical inertia and residual electricity caused it to stagger forward one step before collapsing headfirst onto the charred, melted ground.

"What did you do?!"

Ruth asked, having already jumped onto the back of the second crazed knight mech and was hacking open the cockpit roof with his greatsword, yet he still had the leisure to ask.

"The voice of that knight mech has disappeared! It's all gone! The reactor core seems to have shut down instantly! How did they do that?!"

"Palas exclaimed in surprise. He had already jumped onto the engine compartment of the third mad dog-like mech and was skillfully disassembling important pipes and lines. He didn't even blink when he saw which color of wire to cut with two axes."

Hundreds of knights from over a dozen families continued to swarm in, risking their lives without hesitation. While Ruth and Pallas were already rapidly incapacitating the knights, the Terra Exemplar was still under heavy attack from ancient weapons in the rear: rays, thermal melts, and miniature light spears...

Her horn sounded again with the angry cry of betrayal, but she was now on the path to the war commander, and the entire Imperial army's forces on the battlefield were centered on her. If she were to retreat or change direction now, it would undoubtedly cause great problems.

The bigger problem is that she is too big and is powerless against the attacks that betray her from beneath her feet and behind her, and the dismantling speed of the two Primarchs is still not enough to keep up with the speed at which so many rebel knights are surging in.

The small battlefield surrounding the Emperor Titan was crammed with knight mechs firing at her, creating an extremely chaotic scene.

"It's endless...!" Pallas dismantled the fourth knight and charged toward the fifth. He looked back and shouted, "Watch out! The one in the lead!"

"I see you!" the Pale King shouted, his gaunt body appearing both sacred and terrifying in the air. Gray clouds swirled around him like galloping horses, the endless starry sky shimmered in his shadow, and green lightning illuminated the heavens. His giant scythe fell upon the largest, most magnificent, and most ferocious knight piloted by Aubard Tiwann.

And so, all fell silent.

A profound silence descended upon the earth.

--------

Teanna Coren, the commander-in-chief of the Moro Empire's army, sat atop her Stormhammer super-heavy tank, simultaneously scanning and analyzing the strategic dynamics from six directions and angles through her eyes and the wires linked to the back of her head, while issuing commands.

Currently, the infantry fighting on the battlefield is concentrated between Imperial vehicles, artillery groups, and the vehicles of the Sons of Horus and the Astartes. Among these two groups, the soldiers of the Ninth and Thirteenth Legions, who have been assigned to garrison this area, are responsible for filling the gaps in the Imperial lines.

Ninety-six Holy Blood Angels and three hundred Ultimate Warriors.

They fought fiercely, and she could see it.

The precious Astartes and Terminators died in droves like ants, not to mention the Guardians and her legionary soldiers.

Although the Warmaster's Titan Legion was larger than the Empire's Divine Machines in Moro, she remained optimistic.

The Terra Exemplar was like a pillar of strength, and its experienced pilots achieved an unparalleled kill-to-death ratio.

Based on the current rate of destruction of the Terra Exemplar, it will soon, in a short while, begin to tip the tide of victory in favor of the Empire on a larger scale.

And by then...

Her gaze fell on a spot in the northern part of the battlefield.

Horus still left his reserves there.

But it doesn't matter. She has already taken the number of reserves into account. As long as the Terra Exemplar continues to advance steadily and maintains its current rate of destruction, victory will surely belong to the Empire.

But there was one place that made her feel uneasy: one of the six screens, which showed the left flank of the battlefield, had been without communication since the very beginning, and the static interference and hissing noise blurred all the images.

"The commander of the left wing is Castor Alcard, an Ultramarines. Haven't we made contact with him yet?"

The communications adjutant's answer did not satisfy Teanna Corinne.

"Where is the commander of the Holy Blood Angels?"

"Lady Salika's communications are also down! There seems to be some serious interference!"

"Then, who else is there!"

The commander-in-chief's curses echoed in the crew compartment of the tank, which was filled with the smells of engine oil, human sweat, tension, and fear.

"Find me a commander on the left that I can contact right now! Anyone!"

"Lord Raven Tiwan and his family's mechs, along with all the knight mechs around Dawn Castle, are deployed behind them, in that vicinity. I can try, sir!"

"Immediately contact Governor Tiwan. We need to seize this opportunity and quickly mobilize him and other troops to the front lines. This should be just enough to help the Terra Exemplar overcome the enemy's offensive. If we can hold the line for just ten minutes, the enemy will have no chance to turn the tide! I will then launch a general assault on Horus and his reserves from the center of the battle!"

"..."

"Still not connected, adjutant?!" The commander-in-chief's anger was visibly rising.

"...No one answered either." "What are they doing?!" The commander-in-chief roared, flung her dress coat. "The window of opportunity is very short! They're delaying our operations! I will denounce their crimes to Terra after the war!"

"New movement detected!"

"Report to me!"

"The Tiwan family is leading their army of knight mechs into the battlefield from the left flank! They are heading towards the Terra Exemplar!"

"That's great!" Teanna breathed a slight sigh of relief. "Although we can't contact the Blood Angels and the Ultramarines, as long as the Tiwan family's forces begin a coordinated attack, the gaps in the battle lines can be filled! Ladies and gentlemen! We will win! The Empire will win!"

"Something's wrong, sir!"

"what?!"

"A large number of Astartes armored formations have appeared in the south! We're surrounded!"

"What! How is that possible! That's an insurmountable barrier! There are nine thousand kilometers of primeval forest beyond the Kaihua Great Wall that are impassable by vehicles! Lieutenant! You must be joking!"

"It's impossible! No one could cross that vast forest that fast!" Teanna Coren cried out.

“These Astartes armored groups have been identified as…” the adjutant reported, his face pale, “the Fourteenth Army, Death Guard.”

--------

"I think there's a problem."

Ramizam ate the new dishes in the canteen, making satisfied noises.

This is a staple food made from finely milled grains, with added sprouts of beans, a few young shoots of Brassica oleracea from a hydroponic farm, stuffed Grox minced meat sausages, and fried and scrambled artificial eggs. The teppanyaki cooking gives it a smoky, charcoal-like aroma.

The food caused a temporary silence to anyone in the office with a tongue, with faint, intermittent sounds of eating filling the air.

“There’s one thing that’s wrong with Alivia Suleka. It’s interesting that it shows her memories of the past aren’t entirely accurate, but she doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with them.”

"What is it?" Perturabo BC realized something, and struggled to lift his mouth from the delicious food held by the robotic arm, asking the timely question.

"Although the Terravat family of the Ural Mountains did hand over a large number of blueprints and ancient technologies, and was indeed annihilated by the Martian Mechanicus and Terran forces after handing over their most treasured possessions... there is no doubt that this was completely a case of our certain Pigeon Emperor discarding his usefulness after it was no longer needed."

He placed his hand on the book beside him.

"But this discovery was a lucky accident. Actually, Suleka shouldn't have revealed this problem from the Terra Exemplar. Because there was a small error: the Terra Exemplar wasn't built on Terra, and it wasn't a Titan from Mars."

He watched with a smile as the pigeon, engrossed in its meal, seemed to be devouring something of unparalleled deliciousness.

"It's a Titan built by the Forged World Riza, belonging to the Warbringer Legion. Interesting, isn't it?"

"What's so interesting?" Peturabo BC asked knowingly.

"This means that there must be some problem with Alivia Surek's memories of Terra. Some kind of disturbance. It's impossible for an immortal who has lived for tens of thousands of years to have such obvious memory deviations—if her memories would be so greatly distorted in such a short time, then her sanity simply cannot be guaranteed to remain so normal tens of thousands of years later."

Ramizam stared at the pigeons.

"Am I right?"

"Cuckoo..."

"Since she can remember your arrival and departure, you must not have tampered with most things, otherwise she would have noticed if you had done too much... So what did you change in Alivia Suleka's mind that left a disturbance?"

The feathers on the pigeon's neck bristled nervously.

He was clearly in a state of mental turmoil, trying to figure out why the person before him would realize that He had tampered with something. It made no sense! Who would think that an immortal being misremembering one thing meant He had been sabotaged? But it was hard to say…

If it's "him"... is it really possible for him to have seen through the deepest hidden plan he left behind back then...?
The pigeon cautiously raised its eyes and peeked at the smiling person behind the desk, its gaze meeting those icy blue eyes... azure and beautiful...

"Very well! It's just a spell to seal that door!" He shouted. "I can't go back to seal that door because that spell ultimately requires an eternal life to complete!"

"So that was a seal you couldn't complete in the first place."

Lamizane raised an eyebrow. "So it's no wonder people say you can't go back after stealing something... I've been thinking, since the entire sealing spell is actually performed on the safe side of the real universe, and even someone as weak as Alivia can accomplish it... then for you, as long as you stay at a safe distance and don't get close to the door to release the seal, wouldn't that be enough? Since that door can prevent what's behind it from appearing in the real universe, it certainly can't let what's behind it reach out and pull you back, right? High-level magic isn't something so inconvenient!"

"I see."

Perturabo BC said coldly, "That's why you left an immortal with similar abilities to yours there as a guard, even though she doesn't seem very suitable for the job. — You left her there, and she thinks she's just a guard, but actually you plan to use her as your substitute to complete the seal when it's released, right? As long as she thinks the situation is urgent and rushes to the door to recite the sealing incantation, the door will indeed close — because she has completed the contract in your place! Then you can also largely break free from the constraints of this contract. A perfect plan, a very meticulous scheme. I would even admit that I underestimated you before. How could I have thought you would make a stupid mistake for no reason?"

"The only problem is that she has been too successful for a century."

The pigeon had regained its composure and didn't think there was anything wrong with its behavior. "I originally thought she would be able to complete the seal soon after I left—there are always so many guys with clues who think they've found some clues."

"No wonder... no wonder more than a hundred people discovered the problem over a hundred years. Considering your actions of altering the memories of several legions and Primarchs just to hide this secret, the number of people involved is far too many. It turns out it wasn't that you were stupid, but rather that you were exceptionally clever."

"Lamizaen murmured, placing his hand on the book's cover."

The atmosphere in the office had reached a freezing point, and Magna's electronic eyes were flashing with various defense programs.

Suddenly, Ramizam laughed again, a hearty and genuine laugh.

"That was really clever! But I didn't expect you to actually admit it!"

The pigeon's two big, beady eyes were wide open, staring intently at the person behind the desk. If it had teeth, it would be showing them all now.

"I just felt this was a bit abrupt, and I knew you'd hold back, so I just lied to you! And you actually admitted it!!! Hahahaha!!!!"

"Ahhhhhhhh!!!! I'm so angry!!!"

(End of this chapter)