Man in Warhammer, starting Primarch.

Chapter 244: 51, Eight-pointed Star Church
This huge fleet as a whole reflects a monotonous, dim blood-red light.

It was dotted with violent flashes, which were the light emitted by the plasma ray cannon.

The void deflection shield was fully deployed, and the shells fired by the Empire were deflected from their trajectory, igniting red fireworks in the dim atmosphere of the world of Belia IV.

Two of the most powerful fleets in the galaxy engaged each other, and the light between them was so dense that entire planets were enveloped in sickly auroras.

Both fleets emitted tens of millions of flashes, which were the lights of light spears and macro cannons. The exchange of fire between the two sides was extremely fierce, and an artificial orbital temple turned from the other side of Belia IV.

Warships in the Imperial Fleet launched an attack on this blasphemous symbol.

A powerful particle beam hit the profane temple, causing turbulence and then an explosion.

A series of explosions occurred in the temple's huge gravity engine. The violent explosion directly caused the energy core to report an error. The temple's void shield flashed rapidly, and then there was completely no movement.

Having lost the gravity field that maintained its own balance, the orbital temple inevitably began to tilt in space.

The Imperial fleet then launched several more attacks, and the huge orbital temple suffered damage and slowly disintegrated in space.

The fragments were caught in the mad storm of the warp and escaped into the depths to nowhere.

Even in the face of danger, the loyal soldiers of the Empire are telling everyone with their actions that among the stars, every blasphemous temple built by Chaos believers will be toppled by human heroes.

Saint Efilar looked at the battle, her sight piercing through the colorful fog of the Sea of ​​Souls and deep into the darkness where countless dark tides surged.

She challenged the golden giant with a look full of fighting spirit, even though he was once the son of the empire and the primarch who carried the glory of mankind.

She stared at the demon primarch Lorgar from a distance.

"Every one of your brothers who are still loyal to the Empire is far better than you, Great Speaker. You can't even defeat me. You are destined to be the loser."

Efilar provoked and ridiculed the other party mercilessly, but this was not meaningless. She wanted to arouse Luo Jia's anger and cause the other party to reveal a flaw.

The Saint is not afraid of a direct battle with the Great Word Bearer, or rather, she personally fights and defeats the Daemon Primarch, which is the only way to end this predicament.

Flames rose up around Luo Jia's body. In the magical land of the Subspace, even though he was infinitely far away from the Imperial Saint, the other's words still echoed accurately in his ears.

Especially the sentence that he was not as good as his brother, which pierced his heart like a nail.

He wanted to take action immediately and twist off the saint's head, but he restrained himself in the end.

Luo Jia appeared here for his own purpose, and he must not disrupt the plan because of a momentary impulse.

The distance between the two fleets completely turned into a deadly jungle of lasers and light spears.

The huge muzzle flashed with light, firing shells with a diameter of more than 100 meters.

However, relying on the advantages brought by technological innovation, the Imperial Fleet quickly gained the upper hand after a short period of adjustment.

"Sir, the data room sent a message that the other party's flagship is an Abyss-class battleship."

The herald reported to Efilar.

Efilar took the document handed over, flipped through it quickly, and looked at the star map in front of him.

"Aim for these locations."

Her fingers slid quickly across the display, activating the holographic markers from the blur.

The image of the Abyss-class battleship was formed on a secondary holographic projection in front of the console.

The target ship has a thick pointed bow, and its thick armor can give you a sense of its terrifying defensive capabilities just by looking at it.

Conventional caliber macro cannons and light spears can hardly do any damage at all.

The structure that looked like a sawtooth plate and the huge fleet all expressed the horror of this warship.

The three huge jagged buildings look like a giant trident.

Beneath the thick bronze of its broad side, countless twin plasma laser cannons were flashing cold light.

Powerful artillery pieces sat on every angular metal depression.

There are also dense artillery arrays and dark torpedo silos in the belly of the ship.

At the stern of the ship, a huge jet nozzle burst out with dazzling light.

The flag outlines the shape of a book, which is the symbol of the Book of Lorca.

Aiferal did not directly intervene in the command. In terms of commanding naval operations, there were people in the command center who were far more professional than her.

"Focus your fire on this Abyss-class battleship. For the sake of the Empire and the Holy Throne, we must destroy this blasphemous thing!"

The Imperial Navy Admiral sat in the command center. Without much hesitation, he gave the order on the communication channel.

The Abyss-class battleship was forged in secret on the eve of the Great Heresy by the Word Bearers and radical mechanics who intended to betray the Imperium.

Its scale is even larger than the Queen of Glory class.

Even after they put all their efforts into it, they only managed to build three ships.

They are the Furious Abyss, the Blessed Lady, and the Triskelion.

These three ships almost exhausted all the resources of the Word Bearers and the Adeptus Mechanicus at the time, and the number of slaves and ammunition they were equipped with was countless.

These fearsome giants served brilliantly in the war that betrayed the Empire.

Even the Ultramarines suffered heavy losses under their firepower.

In Abaddon's 13th expedition, the Abyss-class battleship reappeared after an absence of ten thousand years. As soon as it appeared, it caused the Empire to suffer unpredictable losses.

The admirals decided to sink this abomination into the abyss of the sea of ​​souls forever today.

On the battle line, more than a dozen cruisers were lurking in the dark. When the Abyss-class battleship appeared, they had been prepared for a long time and instantly burst out with all their firepower.

Almost all of their firepower hit the target.

Continuous bombardments lit up over the Sea of ​​Souls, and beams of destruction gathered into a torrent that annihilated everything.

Under normal circumstances, a giant ship can withstand bombardment for several hours with its shields fully deployed.

Multiple void shields protected their hull, and the hull's own steel walls were tens or even hundreds of meters thick.

But the Empire's current ships have all been improved and upgraded by Dukel and the scientific research team, and their attack capabilities far exceed those of the Empire's old models.

Under their concentrated fire, even if the opponent supports both the deflection shield and the Geller force field at the same time, they will be destroyed instantly.

With just one concentrated attack, the Abyss-class battleship could be blown to pieces with overwhelming firepower.

When the void shield of the Abyss Battleship was overwhelmed by the light spears, the shield generator overloaded with frequent flashes.

Countless particles of light covered the surface of the Abyss Battleship. Just twenty seconds later, the hull of the Abyss-class battleship turned into a huge pillar of fire.

The huge ship's hull began to slowly break apart, and its reactor exploded in a chain reaction. The flames lit up, like a miniature sun slowly rising, enveloping the Abyss warship in a perfect sphere of flames. The victory was almost certain, the Imperial Navy's tactics took effect, and the admiral smiled a little.

Even the Abyss-class battleships were severely damaged in the first moments of the battle.

The other ships had no chance of fighting against the Empire.

The Imperial Saint was also delighted with this outcome. Then, with her extraordinary vision, she crossed the sea of ​​souls and looked far away at the Great Speaker.

She wondered what decision the demon primarch would make next.

The Word Bearers fleet was still capable of combat, and Ephirral believed that they would continue to engage the Imperial fleet.

But what she didn't expect was that after the Abyss-class battleship suffered severe damage, the Word Bearers fleet began to evacuate rapidly as if it had really been defeated.

During the evacuation, Aiferal even saw Luo Jia's unwilling look.

The Saint almost wanted to chase after him immediately and capture the Demon Primarch.

If she could really capture the Great Bearer, Dukel would be very happy.

Thinking of the Warmaster's admiring and approving eyes, she could no longer suppress the impulse in her heart, but at this moment, the officer of the command center dissuaded her.

Experienced admirals believed that the Word Bearers' retreat was a deliberate attempt to lure them into a trap that had been set in advance.

Even if the enemy was truly defeated, the Imperial Fleet’s primary strategic goal at this time should not be to hunt down the Word Bearers.

Because there is an even more terrifying demon fleet chasing them closely, and the enemies in the warp are still staring at them.

The admiral's words were like a bucket of cold water, calming Efilar down.

She knew very well that if the Imperial fleet was once again trapped in the vortex of the Warp, it would be very difficult for them to escape.

Having given up on chasing the Word Bearers, the Imperial fleet turned around and prepared to land on the world of Belia IV.

On the surface of this world, there stands a dark church as huge as the capital city.

This is the masterpiece of the Word Bearers. Just like their genetic father, they always have a fanatical pursuit of faith.

The Word Bearers' favorite thing to do is to build magnificent churches.

Before the rebellion, Lorgar personally commanded them and spent more than a hundred years building the perfect city, but the city-state was eventually destroyed by the wrath of the Emperor.

After plunging into Chaos, they became obsessed with building temples for the Dark Gods.

This huge city-like church has an octagonal shape, which is a symbol of the eight-pointed star of chaos.

But unlike the ordinary eight-pointed star, in the center of this octagonal building complex stands a strange tower building that should not appear.

This abnormal scene made the church in this huge city even more blasphemous in Efilar's eyes.

Ephilar immediately decided to destroy the temple.

This time no one contradicted him. For the empire, tearing down the profane temple was part of its duty.

And the location of this giant city church is also very good, perfectly arranged inside a basin.

There are also a large number of columbarium towers nearby.

The Bone Tower is an alien creation unique to the Eldar, which has the function of disrupting the perception of demons in the Warp.

With this unique position, the Imperial forces finally had a brief respite.

When they blew open the door of the temple, the imagined battle did not happen, and the temple was empty.

Only blasphemous runes and bones were left.

Not all of these skeletons belong to humans. In them, one can find characteristics of almost all races in the galaxy, whether it is the Tau or the Tyranids, one can even see the bodies of the Necrons whose energy cores have been dug out.

Seeing this scene, Efilar could foresee that the Word Bearers must have spent unimaginable effort on the part of mortals to build this temple.

A learned psychic speculated from the many traces here that a sacrificial ceremony had once been held inside this church.

But what puzzled the psychic was that this sacrifice was not directed to any god he was familiar with.

This is also abnormal. In the Warp, there are only a handful of gods worthy of worship by the Word Bearers, and the power of many lesser gods is not even as strong as that of the Word Bearers themselves.

As for Lorca, the Great Speaker, he even disdains to worship the dark gods. He only worships the original truth.

This sacrificial ceremony took place not long ago.

Ephilar recalled the whirlpool that the Imperial fleet had encountered before, and she speculated that this whirlpool was the result of the Word Bearers' sacrifice.

But the psychic did not comment on this speculation.

The scholar is still observing every detail in the temple, trying to infer the true purpose of the Word Bearers.

In his opinion, both this temple and the sudden retreat of the Word Bearers revealed a strong sense of abnormality.

There must be a truth hidden in this that he doesn't know.

But Efilar had lost her patience. She was a battle nun with a hot temper. Even standing beside the Lord of Destruction, she restrained most of her edge.

Efilar ordered the imperial soldiers to overturn the statues of the dark gods, smash the stairs dedicated to the gods, then erase the blasphemous runes and clear a place for the imperial soldiers to rest.

After leaving the ship, their feet stepped on the ground again. After months of fighting, the soldiers seemed to be suddenly deflated and felt exhausted from the bottom of their hearts.

With the help of the prayers of the virtual world priests, they were able to travel in the virtual world while sleeping, obtaining supplies from the virtual world in the shortest time and recovering from the fatigue of war.

This is a very popular way of resting in today's empire.

The workers on Terra's favorite thing to do every day is to come to the virtual meditation room and recover from the fatigue caused by long hours of work by traveling in the virtual world.

The soldiers of the empire are recovering at the fastest speed, gathering their strength for the next upcoming war.

Some ships in good condition were still docked in the outer orbit, and their powerful firepower systems were constantly being charged, on the one hand to intimidate the Word Bearers who had retreated not long ago, and on the other hand to be prepared to deal with the demon army at any time.

At this time, Efilar contacted the Eldar goddess Aisha through the mental network.

As the racial god of the Eldar, Aisha knows every entrance to the Eldar Webway.

Normally, the Imperial fleet disdains the use of the Eldar Webway, though they are now able to do so after the Warmaster captured the Goddess of Life, but Void Warp is more popular with them.

Unless necessary, the alien's webway is never their first choice.

But now is the necessary situation. Efilar sent out Space Marines, following the information given by Aisha, and began to search for the entrance to the Webway.

If those long-abandoned Eldar webways were still usable, they might be able to escape directly and join up with Dukel who was on his way.

(End of this chapter)