Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 819, 08.818: "Mechanical Soul Fusion, Praise to Om Messiah"

"Warning! High-energy turn detected on the 'Light of Babel'. The main engine exhaust is sweeping toward our starboard side, and the safe distance is rapidly decreasing! It is expected to cause serious damage to our hull and a major fire in 30 seconds."

"Warning! Enemy torpedoes approaching! Split attack formation! According to ballistic calculations, our ship will be hit by two torpedoes!"

……

The cold, mechanical voices of the technical priests and the tense reports of the officers created a stark contrast in their styles.

Inside the command bridge of the Swift Skyhawk, a flying cathedral forged from steel, piercing alarms and coldly inhuman reports rose and fell, weaving a tense web.

Beneath the solemn and dignified vault, the prayerful binary whispers of the servo skull, the monotonous hum of the data engine, and the officers' whispered commands exchanged through their internal components together formed a tense symphony of imminent danger.

Horatio sat upright on his command throne, the cold nerve plug interface making a slight "click" sound behind his neck, fitting perfectly with the nerve plug port on his spine.

He took a deep breath, the cold, circulating air piercing his lungs, but his consciousness had already sunk into the steel veins of the ship.

In the remote Lati Laboratory, a set of thick cables were connected to the central control unit of the ship's core—there, the soul of the "Epic" slumbered in the advanced soul storage device.

The moment the cable was energized and the circuit closed, a familiar figure appeared in Horatio's darkness of consciousness.

Within the inner landscape of his mind, the girl opened her eyes.

Those eyes were no longer pure scarlet; the left eye remained like a burning ruby, while the right eye had turned into a deep cobalt blue—the cold, data-driven color accumulated from the century-long war history of the "Swift Eagle."

Prior to this, during a long and arduous debugging process, Lati attempted to achieve compatibility between the two machine spirits—one young and passionate, the other calm and professional.

However, previous attempts were not successful—although the Swift Eagle's machine spirit did not reject the Epic's machine spirit, it did not fully accept it either.

The two machine spirits keep to themselves, neither interfering with nor disturbing each other. However, even under forced merging, they will still erupt into mutual confrontation in order to maintain their 'boundaries'.

However, in this most critical situation, an unexpected result has emerged: the soul of the Swift Eagle has shown a very high affinity for the soul of the Epic.

Perhaps it's because this Dreadnought-class light cruiser, which has served for a century, still appears relatively young among the countless ships of the Imperial Navy, or perhaps it's an identification with the bloodline of the old friends.

The two machine spirits hit it off immediately. The machine spirit of the Swift Eagle no longer rejected this new and energetic "rising star" machine spirit. Instead, it chose to use its century of experience and war data to merge with the personality manifestation of "Little Poem" to assist the captain in dealing with this crisis.

Ultimately, she evolved into a more composed and intellectual tall young woman, a true symbiotic entity of human and ship.

“Captain…you are summoning me.” Her voice rang out before Horatio, calm and profound, its ethereal quality seemingly emanating from the depths of the ship’s steel body.

"Little Poem, I must rely on you now. Work with me and use the century-old combat experience of the 'Swift Eagle' to help me deal with the current crisis."

"Yes, Captain. Please leave it to me."

The girl tiptoed, her body slowly levitating, and floated toward Horatio's consciousness projection.

She extended her fingertips and connected with him, just as she had done in the past when she was the "Epic" attack ship, opening up all of the ship's perception and control to him.

Whoosh! Boom!

With a muffled bang, the plasma engine of the "Swift Eagle" spewed out a burst of blazing gold and blue flames, and the dazzling light of high-energy afterburner made it look like a fire meteor tearing through the night sky as it swooped down.

Horatio was firmly strapped to the command throne.

The throne's emergency protection mechanism had already been triggered; the soft leather-lined fasteners tightly secured his body, resisting acceleration and tremors that ordinary people could not withstand.

HMS Swift Eagle demonstrated agility far exceeding that of a light cruiser, with maneuverability comparable to that of escort ships that are only 2.5 kilometers long.

With an extreme maneuver, she narrowly avoided the sweeping exhaust fumes from the engine.

The crew on the bridge watched through the reinforced crystal observation windows as the plasma, as intense as a stellar flare, swept across the upper ridge of the Swifthawk at a heart-stopping distance.

The scorching plasma glowed the armor on the top of the ship's spine and the surface of the light macro gun turret red-hot, but it did not damage them; the units were overheating and cooling down.

The tip of that dazzling, piercing wake, so bright it seemed to cut through the darkness, was so close to the bridge that its destructive light almost blinded everyone. The oppressive force was enough to make even the bravest veteran of the Imperial Navy gasp. "Wow!!!"

Old Joe's youngest son was being thrown around by the tremendous acceleration, clinging tightly to a broken section of the corridor railing.

The wreckage beside him was forcibly torn from the hull of the Swift Eagle by the powerful centrifugal force and plunged into the abyss.

He was lucky; he wasn't cut into pieces by those rapidly moving metal shards.

Immediately afterwards, the Swift Skyhawk, like a skilled diver, dived precisely to meet the torpedoes fired at her.

Thanks to the advance preparations made under Level 3 combat alert status, the Swift Skyhawk's close-in weapon system had already locked onto the rapidly approaching black missiles.

Pfft!!!
A series of tongues of fire erupted from the rotary close-in weapon system turret.

As one of the best light cruisers in the human empire, the Dreadnought-class possesses extremely powerful close-in weaponry.

The firepower of six heavy close-in weapon laser turrets on each side is enough to tear apart an entire bomber formation or intercept half of the targets hit by a torpedo salvo.

The heavy automatic cannons emitted a blood-pumping roar.

Unlike the light twin-mounted automatic close-in weapon system of the "Epic", this heavy close-in weapon system is more powerful and has a longer range, enabling it to intercept incoming enemy targets within the first effective range of the main gun.

A dazzling barrage of bullets wove into a net in the void, and the first golden spark exploded in the dark universe—a torpedo that posed a direct threat to the "Swift Eagle" was detonated in mid-air by the dense beams of light fired from the laser cannons, exploding into an ominous black energy cloud in the void.

Immediately afterwards, two more torpedoes were torn to pieces by a barrage of bullets.

The remaining torpedoes continued their rapid advance, their course posing a deadly threat to the "Light of Babel" on a higher plane, as well as to another merchant ship.

At this critical moment, the Skyhawk Squadron, which was patrolling and escorting the Swift Skyhawk not far from the ship, had already reacted when it detected the torpedo and had now reached its battle position, diving towards the mother ship.

On the helmet visor of the Fasha, high-threat torpedoes were highlighted with red boxes by the tactical computer.

"Skyhawk One, launch interceptor missiles." Fasha's voice came through the encrypted channel, calm and decisive.

"Wingman Skyhawk-2, lock onto high-threat target and coordinate the launch of interceptor missiles."

Whoosh! Whoosh! — Whoosh whoosh whoosh!

Two Fury interceptors, one in front and one behind, slowly opened their bomb bays, releasing more than ten small swarm missiles.

This is an interceptor missile used exclusively by the Imperial Navy Air Force. It is smaller and has a shorter range than wet-body air-to-air missiles. It is designed specifically to track and destroy enemy torpedoes and boarding pods.

Therefore, a 40-meter-long Void-Atmosphere dual-use Fury interceptor can carry approximately 15 such interceptor missiles, along with 3 long-range air-to-air missiles and 3 medium-range missiles.

Bang bang bang!
A series of golden sparks exploded in the void, and the dense explosion precisely engulfed two torpedoes in a row of flight paths, turning them and themselves into cosmic dust.

To ensure a successful interception, the two interceptors emptied all their interceptor missiles at once—meaning they had to return immediately for resupply and might not be able to intercept the next wave of torpedoes if there were one.

But at this moment, nothing is more important than ensuring the safety of the flagship.

Once the "Swift Skyhawk" is damaged, the entire escort operation will be a complete failure—with only the remaining small ships, there is no possibility of safely reaching the convoy line.

This is a challenge where mistakes are not allowed.

The Swift Skyhawk continued its downward descent, its target the source of the torpedo launch.

[Where...where are the attackers...]
Horatio frowned, his consciousness becoming one with the ship's detection array, searching the cold void for the ambush lurking in the darkness.

He must seize this opportunity to completely eliminate it and eradicate this vicious threat.

(End of this chapter)