Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 208 The War of the Internet (17) Ancestor Engine

The Gamor airspace had become a furnace. Shipwrecks tumbled slowly in the cold glow of psionic energy, burning armor plates leaving dark red trails, and broken keels piercing the darkness like the ribs of a behemoth. Three Eternal Bastion-class battleships continuously unleashed firepower from the center of the battle line. Each salvo from their macro cannons tore open new gaps in the Dark Eldar lines, but these gaps were quickly filled by the ships that poured back from the network of channels, like an inexhaustible vein of blood, constantly pumping new ships into the battlefield.

Forty-eight hours have passed since the first Titan set foot on the surface of Gamor.

On the bridge of the Starfire, Cohen stood before the main display screen. His consciousness, through a higher-dimensional anchor point, continuously sensed the flow of psionic energy deep within the network's walls. The dark current flowing towards the core of Gamor was still widening—from an almost indistinguishable glimmer forty-eight hours ago, it was now a continuous, traceable tributary. He didn't yet know what that meant. But the direction was certain, and the magnitude was increasing.

Marcus's face was ashen. He stood on the bridge of the Black Pearl, staring at the blue markers on the tactical projection screen that were gradually fading, his fingers pressing against the edge of the tactical console until his knuckles turned white. He no longer looked at the live feed—he had seen enough of that hellish realm. He only stared at the dots of light, those abstract symbols he could still control.

Each time the blue marker went out, it meant a ship had been wiped from the Galos fleet's battle order. Of the entire combined fleet's more than three hundred warships, fewer than one hundred were still engaged in continuous combat, and most of them were damaged. If it weren't for the Eternal Bulwark-class ships holding the line, this attrition would have already led to collapse.

The Black Pearl's hull was shaking continuously. Its adamantite armor layers were completely destroyed after forty-eight hours of continuous firefighting, barely held together by the remaining strength of its structural framework. The damage control team was suffering such high casualties that they had to rotate shifts in large numbers. Most of the people on the bridge were not focused on the Black Pearl's own damage—they were the brain of the entire Combined Fleet—only First Officer Bacchus was directing the ship's combat, damage control, and anti-boarding operations on a separate channel.

"Angyang, beyond saving. Damage control team wiped out." The communications officer's voice came through the communication panel, dry and precise.

There was a three-second silence on the communication channel. Then came the captain's final order, broken and intermittent by static electricity: "Ship the Angyang—eject the life pods, Facing the Fire Seed."

Communication was lost. Marcus changed the markings on the Proud from blue to gray.

"Callicities Fleet Report—HMS Unyielding Fist: Bridge rammed by two enemy battleships, completely destroyed. Admiral Joachim von Strasser—confirmed dead."

The communications officer paused for the first time on the last few words.

Marcus's hand remained on the tactical platform. He heard that name—Joachim von Strasser, commander of the Calithis fleet, the veteran who had led over a hundred ships from Furyport across the net to the rendezvous. He had received Guilliman's orders while assembling at Furyport, saying, "Focus on the Galos fleet," and he silently led his fleet to its designated place, then plunged his flagship into the thickest part of the battle line.

"The 8th Light Cruiser Squadron, with two ships remaining, is maneuvering towards the Fireseed," the sensor officer's voice followed. "The White Scar Destroyer Squadron—only three ships remain."

On the left flank, a Whitescar destroyer was wedged in from the flank by a Dark Eldar boarding craft. Whitescar's Astartes blocked the assault team in the passageway, but they were outnumbered. The reactor exhaust quickly turned from blue to orange-red, and an overload explosion erupted in the vacuum—wiping out the Dark Eldar elites on the bridge from the inside. Self-destruct sequence.

Marcus silently moved the ship's marker from blue to gray, then continued to watch the entire battlefield. The roar of the Thinker array on the bridge never ceased. As a specialized command ship, the Black Pearl's computing and communication capabilities far exceeded those of other ships of the same tonnage, but even it was now being pushed to its limits.

"Order the Moon-class cruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Challenger to replace HMS Proudheart in their positions."

"Order the Pale Judgment to be incorporated into the Calithis fleet and take over command. The Calithis fleet headquarters will be moved to the Pale Judgment."

"Command the Sword-class corvettes 'Lookout' and 'Far-Looking' to provide flank cover for the Black Pearl."

Marcus turned to First Officer Bacchus: "The Black Pearl will charge forward to draw enemy fire and buy the fleet breathing room. Reinforcements are on their way—we must hold out until then."

On the dispatch channels of the service boats flanking the Fireseed and the Starfire, another battle was raging. Every service boat was continuously launching catapults, searching the wreckage for the catapult's locator beacons, and recovering those who could still be rescued. Every sunken Garros ship launched its life pods, and those just pulled from the pods were either missing limbs, hit again by stray bullets, or unconscious from the impact and immediately taken to medical units.

"Heroic, the twelfth batch of ejection bays has been recovered and is now maneuvering towards the Spark."

"The Valiant has been received. There are still more than 3,800 empty seats in the medical mobile unit."

"Seventh Light Cruiser - Hull fractured, all catapults deployed. Coordinates sent. Survivor count confirmed —"

A standard light cruiser has a complement of tens of thousands of personnel. Service boats don't wait until they're fully loaded before returning; they return at their maximum capacity, smuggling the most seriously wounded into mobile medical units before ejecting again. Service servitors never stop, nor do the servitors in the medical units; when those people are transferred into the wet module of the CMC-500 power armor, their vital signs are frozen on the brink of death. Garros's war logic is ruthless, but ruthlessness itself is a form of mercy—as long as the wet module signal remains, no one will be abandoned.

The combined fleet was previously on the defensive, with only one mission: to ensure the landing forces were not suppressed by enemy heavy fire from the high ground. The Garros fleet, having committed almost its entire strength to Operation Gamor, was disappearing in droves. For this war, Garros had given everything. The Dark Eldar's reinforcement fleet continued to pour in, but the signal density at the edge of the tactical projection was decreasing at an almost imperceptible rate—those locked subdomains were contracting their forces, and those families were beginning to consider conserving their strength. The rate of attrition was still faster than the rate of collapse; every crack was too deep to be filled. This was a battle of attrition between the Eternal King's appeal and the combined fleet's resilience.

The Black Pearl was rapidly maneuvering through the battlefield, slowing down the enemy's advance and drawing their fire. Each hit caused a violent tremor, and even though the Black Pearl's adamantite armor covered almost the entire ship, it was now riddled with wounds. Amid the tremors and rumbling, the command center on the bridge continued to operate as usual.

"The Gamosi District defenses are collapsing. Our surface offensive is fierce and has advanced to the outer edge of the second-tier spire complex." The communications officer's voice rang out again. "The remaining ships of the artillery barge squadron on the flank of the Fireseed are being redeployed—"

"Battle damage?" Marcus asked. This was the first time he had asked this question in the past forty-eight hours.

The communications officer paused for less than a second. "The Galos fleet has lost two-thirds. The Calissis fleet is more than half its original strength. The White Scar fleet is over 70% complete. Reinforcements from the Chogris direction are expected to arrive in several hours."

Marcus didn't answer. He just needed to hear someone confirm the number.

Just then, a servo skull slid into the bridge, its optical lens flashing in the dim light: "Communication received—Valancius family fleet, code matching Garros sequence." Marcus's right mechanical eye twitched briefly—the first time in forty-eight hours he had readjusted his focus. The holographic projection in front of him automatically zoomed in on this area.

"Announce to all—reinforcements have arrived."

His voice carried through the ship's communications to every vessel in the Garros order: "Reinforcements have arrived. All ships, hold on."

At the rear edge of the combined fleet, newly acquired identification signals were flooding the sensor arrays. Lady Silver—Margaret von Valancieus—stood on the bridge, her gaze fixed on the burning silhouette of Gamo on the main display screen. Her fleet, having departed from Garros Netway Harbor, had completed its final leg of the voyage along the route marked by the navigation ships. The Valancieus family's deep blue ships cut into the battlefield in tight formation, their turrets warming up as they sailed.

Valancius's fleet was tasked with blocking the Eldar fleet's retreat. Lady Silver's instructions were brief: "Command is transferred to the Black Pearl; my flagship will only serve as a communications relay."

Meanwhile, even denser signals continued to pour in from behind them as the fleet heading towards Chogris continued to arrive. Each ship, after completing identification, was directly incorporated into the First Brotherhood of Chagatai's formation and then pushed to the forefront. Those ships left parallel blue trails of flame in the darkness, like a river of steel being continuously injected.

Marcus watched the blue dots surging in from the rear of the formation on the tactical projection. He lowered his right hand from the edge of the tactical table, the marks left by his seven fingernails still visible on the metal surface.

Gamo, the Throne Tower.

Flashes of gunfire surged from above Gamor, piercing the gaps in the bone dome and casting alternating, flickering shadows on the floor of the grand hall. Victor sat on his throne, before a holographic projection showing the surrounding spires of Gamor ablaze. A Titan's plasma beam pierced through the bone structures layer by layer, while cannonballs blasted fissures at the base of the towers. Crimson phalanxes of the Guardians advanced through the ruins, the nearly hundred-meter-tall silhouette of the Imperial Titan grinding towards the throne's spire, each step crushing the flesh and bone fragments of the Dark Eldar warriors. Vibrations traveled along the bone's energy channels to the base, then climbed the walls, finally reaching the throne beneath his feet.

Humanity's territory is too vast. Once they truly master the network, they will swarm out like cockroaches from every crack, omnipresent. Gamor's reinforcement fleet, though still superior in size, is being systematically worn down by the Imperial fleet's interceptions—victory is impossible without it on the front lines. Gamor belongs to the shadows, to the corners, to the gaps of ambush and assassination. He doesn't need a positional battle, but to hide, to sharpen his blade again in the darkness, and to return the killing to its familiar form.

He recalled an ancient word, the Ark. In the Eldar's context, it referred to the colossal ships that carried survivors away from their home. But in older documents, in those forbidden manuscripts, the word pointed to something else: a door, a path, a key that could extricate one from any desperate situation.

In the age of Eldar's fall, the birth of Slaanesh tore apart the foundations of the Eldar empire. Those beings, whose true lineages were even older than the Eldar, built Gamor. The city's true purpose was not as a refuge, but to conceal an ancestral engine. It was not a weapon, but a contingency plan left by the Old Ones: capable of drawing upon the psionic energy of the entire Web of Paths to propel itself beyond the infinite galaxy.

Activating it requires an immense amount of psionic energy, enough to envelop the core city within its proliferating sacred bones, detaching it from the Web's framework. Once enveloped, the engine will store vast amounts of psionic energy, maintaining its activity and self-healing capabilities for an endless future. However, extracting such a massive amount of psionic energy comes at the cost of temporarily deactivating the entire Web's sacred bones, exposing its framework to the erosion of the warp. This is a gamble, the starting point of the collapse, and the unbridgeable rift behind the survival.

The Eldar have long lost the ability to repair the Ancient Web. Under normal circumstances, they could not afford such a price, nor could they relinquish the convenience brought by the vast legacy of the Web, but it was indeed the last resort for escaping this place. The Crown Family, to which Victor belonged, kept this secret, sealing the Ancestral Engine layer upon layer beneath the Throne Spire, preventing any prying eyes, and guarding it for countless millennia.

Now, it is time to activate it. Gamor will not perish. Its core people—hundreds of millions of Dark Eldar—will depart under the engine's protection, only to return one day with an indelible hatred.

Victor rose and walked toward the passage behind the throne. A teleportation device activated at the end of the passage, engulfing him in a flash of psionic energy. The next moment, he stood in a vast, domed space.

This is the true heart of Gamor—the entire city was built for it. The dome is covered with sacred bones, creations left by ancient saints, older, more refined, and better at carrying the flow of psionic energy than the Eldar's imitations. Suspended in the center of the dome is a device, several kilometers high, its outline resembling an inverted spire. Energy conduits extend from the bottom of the device, flowing along the dome's walls into Gamor's main city, now slowly accelerating with the awakening of the engines.

He stood beneath the device, looking up. The light in the energy conduits had begun to brighten, shifting from a dim blue-white to a blinding, blazing white. Gamor's skeleton was trembling—psychic energy was being drained, and the sacred bones of the Netway were gradually dimming. And that drained power was surging into the core of the engine.

Victor watched it all with a blank expression. He knew what he was doing—he was exposing the Webway to the erosion of the warp, he was igniting a cataclysmic event that could engulf the entire galaxy. But Gamor had to live. As long as they were alive, the hatred would remain. And hatred would eventually find its way back.

He walked to the control platform and entered the sequence command. Intense psionic light surged along the energy conduits into the dome walls, seeping into the base of every spire in the core city of Gamor—those outward-expanding cities were merely extensions added over tens of thousands of years; the true Gamor was only here.

"Start the second procedure."

The device began operating. At the edge of the core city, a pale white spherical light membrane emerged, spreading outwards from the throne tower and covering the entire ancient city. Psionic energy continuously condensed within the light membrane, its density constantly increasing, the light gradually blazing from pale white to incandescent white. Inside the light membrane, sacred bones proliferated and grew from deep within the dome's walls, spreading layer by layer along the curved surface, like a breathing skeleton slowly closing in, enveloping the entire core area of ​​Gamor, covering an area of ​​hundreds of thousands of square kilometers.

The instant the engine began drawing psionic energy, the sacred bone channeling layer of the Gamor main hub node was the first to experience a disruption in psionic pulses—this was an energy-level fault, not a physical rift. But the impact extended far beyond that. The disruption spread throughout the entire network at a speed far exceeding the speed of light—every hub and every tunnel trembled to varying degrees at the same moment. The void ripples on all the network gates were fading, and even the psionic energy of the Ark connected to the network began to be rapidly drawn away, the cold light on the psionic walls diminishing. The pulse of the sacred bone was gradually weakening—this continuous extraction was stripping away not only energy, but also the structural strength of the network itself.

In the direction of Karata, within the chaotic-corrupted network segment, the previously dominant automatic repair suddenly stalled, then stalled, and then reversed. The dark purple of chaos began to spread again along the cracks in the sacred bone, like a tide that had been suppressed for too long finally finding a breach. Repair had ceased, and the erosion resumed—not a regression, but a collapse. The situation was sliding into the abyss.

Victor returned to the Throne Spire and began issuing orders. Legions at the front withdrew from the fighting zone in batches under the pretext of "defense of the main city": the main fleet of the returning fleet sailed directly to the Throne Spire—the colossal structure, thousands of kilometers high, completed its assembly in its berth. Gamor's skeleton continued to shrink amidst tremors, the sacred bones covering the final gaps.

The closure of subdomains continues. Those governors who locked the portals are completely unaware that they are the ones being abandoned. Similarly, the Dark Eldar legions putting up their final resistance in the outer cities are equally oblivious to the fact that they have been abandoned.

Only Victor's direct followers—those legions that have served the Crown Family for generations—are entering the true Gamma. The life support systems, armories, psionic artifacts, gene banks, and complete research and production facilities accumulated over countless millennia are all perfectly preserved within the core city. The city's true heritage has never left this place.

On the bridge of the Starfire, Cohen sensed the widening tributary of psionic energy. It was no longer an "anomaly"—it was continuously drawing energy from the Web's boundary transformation flow, forming an independent vein. He still didn't know what the Gamor Core was doing. But he knew the direction of that flow, and he knew it was accelerating. And at this moment, he realized that the course of events had completely veered out of his comprehension—the tributary was suddenly rising, and the Web's framework was being torn apart in depths beyond his reach. Darkness was irresistibly surging in a direction he had never foreseen.

Countless Ark worlds are urgently shutting down their connections to the Web. Every Eldar prophet understands what the prophesied ashes truly are.

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