Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 185 The Cyber ​​War (2)

The Emperor's astronomical broadcast, like a bell tolled for millennia, pierced through the subspace storms of the outer solar system, crossed borders, and spread throughout the entire Empire. Its echo, oblivious to distance, exploded with an unprecedented pulse within the psionic network of the Astrologers. It bypassed the Astrologer's relay, the Executive Council's approval, and the High Lords' authorization process. The voice appeared directly in the consciousness of every Astrologer, like a wind, weary from millennia, surging from the direction of the Golden Throne.

The news spread throughout the Imperium far faster than anyone had anticipated. A warp storm was forming on the outer edge of the solar system, but the Emperor's broadcast pierced through its edges. Beyond the solar system, the Ultramarines' homeworld was the first to respond.

The walls of the Makurag Fortress Monastery are covered with anti-phantom runes, each one carved into the stone since the Horus Rebellion.

Millennia of wind and rain have worn the marks into old scars of varying depths, spreading a silent ring of time across the surface of the city wall. At dusk, the dark golden afterglow of the stars slant across the west wing window panes, spreading a layer of old gold with grayed edges on the stone floor.

The fortress monastery's sub-array was the first to detect the signal. It surged directly from the depths of the warp, like a fissure pressed into the surface of reality, tearing the silence in two.

Tigurius, the librarian, awoke with a start from his meditation. A psychic glow flickered intensely between his furrowed brows. He sensed the full extent of that psychic energy: it existed beyond time, its edges extending beyond the limits of his perception, into a depth he could never reach. He knelt on the marble floor of the library hall, his hands pressed to his temples. Only one sound escaped his throat—the pure, suppressed fear that only comes when facing a god.

The corridor lights shifted from cool white to a deep gold. The anti-phantom runes on the walls lit up one by one. The adamantite armored door at the end of the corridor, requiring authorization from three high-ranking chapter members to open, slid open by itself. Light poured out, the deep gold spreading across the terracotta floor and along the marble seams to both sides. The guards on either side of the corridor simultaneously knelt on one knee, their explosive pistols sliding from their sides, the butts striking the floor with a short, sharp thud.

Ultramarines Chapter Commander Karja saw the figure as he turned the corner of the corridor. He had gazed at that face countless times in the murals of the fortress, but the murals had not told him that when that gaze fell upon him in reality, its weight could flatten all sensation. He knelt on one knee, his right fist pressed against his breastplate.

The Emperor's voice appeared directly in everyone's consciousness.

"Do everything in your power to support Terra. The Web has reopened. I need my thirteenth son—my tool, Robert Guilliman—to stand before that rift. He has slumbered long enough; it is time for him to move."

His right hand rose. With that gesture, Terra's Hessonic Gate appeared in the hall—it had transformed into the Webway Gate, its surface bathed in the cold light of spirit bones, with the Mountain Array guarding its side. Countless ships, against the backdrop of Pluto, entered the silver ripples of void emanating from the gate. The Webway Gate was surrounded by tech-priests and engineering machines, constructing dense arrays of weapons and necessary infrastructure. His hand was lowered, and the psionic projection dissipated.

"The plan has been moved up. Humanity doesn't need the Xenomorphs' help. All Xenomorphs must die. Take Guilliman with you. He will awaken in Karasta, before me, before the Omnipotent God."

Its form contracted inwards from the edges, like a golden mountain range folded back into the void, gradually closing in. The golden light receded from the shoulder armor and boot soles simultaneously, converging towards the center, the last ray of light seeping into the air, leaving behind a lingering warmth that was dissipating.

The emperor's voice gradually lowered. "Imperial Regent, Third—" His words faded at the last syllable.

The stagnant hall fell silent again. The wall lights returned to their cold white, the anti-psychic runes extinguished one by one, and the temperature slowly dropped. But the echo of that sound lingered in the air, like an imprint pressed into a metal surface—the sound was gone, but its shape remained in the metal.

Calgar stood up, his gaze falling on the golden shell covering the surface of the stasis field, and looking at the face of the Lord of Macragge within it. Their genetic father, their Primarch, Robert Guilliman, remained frozen in time.

"Notify the Technical Priest team to immediately assess the relocation plan for the stasis device. Warm up the Macragge's Glory. Assemble the fleet and notify all available squadrons. We are heading to Terra."

The guards lining both sides of the corridor had all risen. Night had fallen completely by the time the news spread throughout the fortress monastery. The relocation procedure for the stasis device was initiated; technical priests lined up at the corridor entrance, and engineering vehicles moved along the walls. Communication channels were flooded with confirmation signals from the Macragge railroad to the various outposts, and dozens of warships were preheating their engines from their berths. The entire fortress monastery began to function like a machine that had been refueled.

Primarch Guilliman will be resurrected on Terra. Before the Emperor. That is an order.

Deep within Karata, another arrival is taking shape.

Beneath the sacred bone dome, the rift in the net-like passage was expanding. This rift had originally been the lingering scent of a dark purple Nurgle, the sediment that Tzeentch had watched solidify after cooling, the faint traces of Slaanesh's smirk etched into the spatial structure. But now, at the other end of the rift, the shadow of the Skull Throne was spreading. Crimson light surged from the depths of the rift, carrying the intense aura of sulfur, rust, and charred bone, leaving a layer of solidifying, rust-colored veins on the sacred bone's surface.

The first roar came from the depths of the rift. By the time it reached Karata through the rift, the sound wave had faded, leaving only a weight that pressed down on the psionic senses, exploding like a shockwave—the hunger that had been imprinted for millennia.

Khorne's demonic army surged forth in an eightfold layered sequence.

The eight bloodthirsty demons, including Angrass, Kabanda, and Skabrand, were the first to cross the rift. Their forms were larger than any known bloodthirsty demon, their burning wings leaving dark red trails spanning kilometers in the cold light of the sacred bone dome. The Blood Demons followed closely behind, their bodies pressed together in dense clusters as they passed through the rift, their crimson forms gleaming coarsely in the cold light of the sacred bone dome. There was no pause upon landing—one after another was already in mid-air as one stepped onto the sacred bone ground. Their speed surged to a point where they were virtually impossible to track within the first few breaths.

Fleshhounds weaved through the gaps in the blood demon ranks, their low-lying bodies moving swiftly. Their dark red fur gleamed damply in the cold light, their massive jaws half-open, revealing jagged fangs. They formed a vanguard that continuously expanded outwards from the edge of the crimson sea. The bloodthirsty berserkers began to cross the rifts, their burning wings leaving dark red trails in the darkness as they swooped down from above, gliding along the curved surface of the dome. The entire field of vision was now reduced to one color—crimson—spreading simultaneously in all directions.

As Angron crossed the rift in the net, every scar on its body gleamed with the dark red glow of Khorne's brand. Its presence made all the surrounding noise seem insignificant. In its left hand, it gripped a massive chainsaw axe, the serrated blade gleaming dark red in the cold light of the sacred bone. Even the brief moment of stagnation after crossing required Angron to recalibrate its position on this new battlefield. It watched as Karasta unfolded in the crimson light, then took its first step into the depths.

Countless layers of demonic armies arrayed themselves deep within the warp. Each layer was larger than the one before, stacked in multiples of eight in the abyss, like an inverted mountain range extending downwards from the edge of the rift, its depths seemingly bottomless even beyond the limits of psychic perception. Khorne had committed everything this time. Sleeve sat upon the skull throne, beneath the walls of the brass fortress, as Khorne's demonic army surged endlessly, merging into the crimson vein burning within the rift. The Blood War had begun.

At the other end of Karata, Tzeentch's army split from a mirror-like rift. The silhouette of the Shapeshifter appeared directly in the cold light of the Bone Dome, constantly transforming, splitting, and reforming. Pink ghouls weaved through the ranks, emitting sharp, snickering laughs.

Carlos Fateweaver hovered in the center of the Legion. Its two heads slowly rotated, the left head bowed as it perused past memories, the right head raised as it gazed into the void at a moment yet to come. It could not see what was happening now—the price Tzeentch paid for casting it into the Well of Eternity. But the intersection of past and future was enough for it to construct the entirety of the present: the psionic conduit being repaired stretched out in the darkness, and the one who brought it all to reality was unseen.

Carlos knew that Tzeentch had chosen to wait, allowing Khorne to strike first.

Beyond the reach of light, Cohen stopped before a crack in the Web of Light. His consciousness extended along the flow of psionic energy at the level of the Sacred Bones, sensing the escalating need for more nodes, more Sacred Bones. The process of the boundary membrane absorbing subspace energy and converting it into psionic energy was intensifying, instinctively triggering the underlying code of the Ancients. The continuous repair had created the same bond between the Web of Light's underlying code and Cohen as it had with the Ancients. He vaguely sensed that each healing of the Web of Light was squeezing the boundary of that crimson crack.

With each section he repaired, the edge of the crack receded an inch. He didn't stop, he continued forward.

On the edge of Karasta, dozens of high-ranking Imperial commanders stood in formation on a massive mechanical command platform. Trajan Valoris, Commander of the Imperial Guard, stood at the forefront, with Frago Herman, Commander of the Imperial Fist, to his left, and Morwen Val, Grand Master of the Holy See, to his right. Projection equipment on the wall flickered wildly, monitoring the movements of Khorne and the Jaeger's army in real time.

Behind the flanks of the battlefield, several Goliath-class industrial ships were sequentially spraying special gases to warm and oxygenate the battlefield, spreading them across the civilian front.

Ahead. The Astragalus's defensive line is unfolding systematically, layer by layer. Petrified Lizard self-propelled artillery continuously fires indirect fire, shells hurling through the ruins and rubble, striking behind the Chaos Cultist ranks, each impact creating a brief void in a crimson wave. Lemanrus battle tanks have established several crossfire nodes amidst the ruins, their turrets rotating alternately between cover. Chimera armored personnel carriers stand by behind the defensive line, awaiting the moment a breach appears.

But the most unstable variable on the defensive line was the pilgrims. They surged up from the flanks—mortals clad in shoddy armor or even work clothes, wielding laser guns, unorganized, squeezing into the weak points of the line amidst the priests' roars. The priests, standing atop the ruins, held the Imperial Icon above their heads, chanting broken prayers from their hoarse throats. The pilgrims filled every gap in the line, kneeling beside tank tracks to fire, crawling behind fallen Astragalus corpses to reload. A young pilgrim turned his head between shots and saw a priest lying on the ruins, his chest torn open by shrapnel, the Icon still clutched in his hand. He took the Icon from the priest's hand and held it above his head. The person behind him continued the next prayer. In that instant, the entire flank of the defensive line shouted the same phrase in unison, and then all the guns opened fire simultaneously.

The order was relayed along the Astral Army lines, and every salvo, every reload, every rotation was executed flawlessly. Pilgrims filled every gap, firing salvos from their laser guns, then falling, then being replaced. All they did was stall—use their flesh and blood to hold back the crimson torrent for even a moment longer during the critical window of opportunity.

In the intervals, batches of servient machines were recovering weapons and reusable technological components.

Not a single high-ranking officer present glanced at the burning holographic screen. Their eyes were fixed on the expanding crimson fissure on the main screen. They knew the significance of the mortal battlefield—to make the Chaos Demons pay the first price before entering the main battlefield. The Astral Army and the Pilgrims were that price itself. Artillery fire was replenished as it was consumed, positions expanded as they contracted, and blood was being continuously pumped into the battlefield. The images on the holographic screen continued to burn; no one turned to look, having already completed all the calculations in their minds.

Trajan raised the Watcher's Axe. The golden blade gleamed silently in the cold light of the net. He lowered his arm, the blade pointing towards the crimson fissure.

"The Emperor's orders are to hold this place at all costs. Time is on our side. The Emperor is watching. Reinforcements are on their way. Starlight illuminates the entire galaxy, and even warp storms cannot stop the Empire's advance. Ten thousand years of shame will be washed away in blood."

Beneath the sacred bone dome deep within Karasta, steeped in dark purple chaotic energy for millennia, Carlos sensed a shift in the future trajectory of the psionic energy pathways. From fragments of the future, he repeatedly saw the same ending: the skeleton of the network was being pieced back together, the hub to be reinforced to insurmountable strength. And the one who would make all this a reality, Carlos could not see.

For the first time, its two heads reached an agreement, which made it more uneasy than any disagreement.

"A variable—a variable not mentioned in any prophecy."

"Because of that variable, time is not on our side."

"Let terrorism strike first."

The Myriad Shapeshifting Demon Lord writhed uneasily around it. Carlos simply hovered there, staring at the direction in which the rift was being mended. It didn't know when the streak of light would reach its location.

Cohen's work continues. The underlying logic of the sacred bones is opening up to him.

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