Warhammer: In the Name of Nirvana

At the end of the eighty-third year after the Lord of Mankind launched his great expedition, a huge fleet finally sailed into the far eastern frontier of the galaxy for the first time, holding the double-headed eagle flag high.

This means: Another star field that was once extremely chaotic will break away from the despair and disorder of the age of strife, bow to the authority of Holy Terra, and become part of the greatest and craziest war machine in human history. This will Let them be notorious and leave their names in history.

This brought with it a vast embassy of the Holy Gospel of Terra, an entire elite army of Dawnbreakers, millions of mortal auxiliaries, and guardians from the forge worlds of Ryza and Tigres. The teaching army is composed of the best divine machines from the Militant Titan Legion and the Sun Titan Legion. The number of transport ships that provide various supplies for this expeditionary army alone reaches four figures. The backbone of a specialized logistics support fleet continuously sailed out from Avalon, Graston and even Ultramar, closely following the invisible tracks left by the expedition fleet when it sailed to the Far Eastern frontier.

The female tyrant of Avalon, the master of the Grand Federation, and the master of the Second Legion, is the undoubted ruler of all this power and wealth. Although she does not often appear in public, she has appropriately maintained her authority. Her black minions have been formally organized one after another, standing in the light and shadow of Avalon, coldly observing whether mortals surrender to the Lord of the Dawn or not.

Houses and dignitaries who are rebellious, secretly dissatisfied, procrastinating and inefficient, corrupt and incompetent, or who quietly put their worship of the Emperor before the Spider Queen will lose their authority without even realizing it. The more stubborn guys will disappear from the world after a slightly noisy night, and no one will remember them anymore.

The observation and cleansing in these shadows is extremely fast and bloody. It is just a drop of black water in the gloomy lake in the heart of the Lord of the Second Legion. It is the fatal malice she exudes towards those who resist. It is placed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The most ordinary report on the silver desk is enough to make tens of thousands of lives and families disappear overnight.

But in addition, if they have no interest in complex politics and higher ambitions, then more mortals are actually willing to be ruled by the Spider Queen, and only want the wealth gained from the bloody purge of the vested interests in the past. The need to vent a little can easily feed their bellies, and when a more secure and stable society stands proudly under the double-headed eagle of the Empire, the solid class and patriarchal rule of the Age of Strife are abolished , replaced by the cold logic of the Lord of the Second Legion.

If you follow the rules, you will be prosperous.

More work, more reward.

As long as you are willing to lower your head, be loyal to Morgan's rule, and contribute to the needs of the Lord of the Second Legion, you can get a reward that corresponds to your efforts without arrears: the more you pay, the more you get. , everything is like a cold trading machine, without the survival soil of corruption and connivance.

Although Morgan has no interest in creating a paradise on earth that makes all mortals happy, she is indeed not a faint king who takes pleasure in the suffering of her people. Her rule is very cold, efficient and rational, and what she pursues is not the maximum. Extract from the bottom, but mobilize everyone's power to gain more benefits from the waves of the Great Expedition in the form of an efficient paramilitary society, replacing the contradictions of distribution with the growth of bloody wealth, so as to achieve To the point where all individuals, collectives and classes are satisfied, then naturally no one will care about what the Spider Queen wants and takes away from everyone.

In the short term, the benefits of this model may not be as good as the Terran government's simple and crude tithe tax, but the knowledge recorded in the mind of the Lord of the Second Legion clearly tells her that such an exploitative rule will only make the entire regime worse. Collapse from alienation will see results in the shortest possible time, but will also lead to endless disasters after a period of time.

What Morgan needs is a longer rule, a country that will be united and still highly loyal to her after more than a century: unlike the Lord of Humanity, the current Spider Queen does not have huge needs in terms of materials. , this is one of her advantages, and of course she will make good use of it.

Of course, this is not a process that can be accomplished overnight. In Morgan's plan, it will take her a generation or even longer to complete her transformation of the Avalon Federation.

According to normal politics, this is a very deformed and wrong policy. It is a castle in the air that will collapse sooner or later. But in the wave of enthusiasm of the Great Expedition, but in this cold and crazy galaxy, it is It was an extremely appropriate move, a lucky man who happened to be at the forefront of the times, and a relatively normal military regime that was hard-won for more people.

Perhaps this is the tragedy and ridiculousness that the human empire has to face: in this galaxy, even a rule based on greed and exploitation, aimed at expansion and plunder, as long as it slightly conforms to the cognition of normal human society, it will arbitrarily promulgate A few acts of the most ordinary fairness are enough to be called kindness and compassion.

As on some of the enslaved worlds liberated by the Dawnbreakers, statues of Morgan were erected in the name of savior and liberator, celebrating the Imperial hive's replacement of the xenos whip.

The Lord of the Second Legion has no trouble with these verbal gratitude. What she cares more about is how much wealth these worlds will bring to her, how much stronger her country will be, and how much of this national power will be transformed. For the power she holds tightly in her hands: this last point is the only thing Morgan cares about, and the only reason why she is willing to shoulder the burden of rule.

With such a desire, carrying such ideas, and firmly believing in the tried and tested ruling model in the Avalon sector, Morgan's ambition accompanied the Dawnbreaker's military front, breaking through the edge of the known world of the empire and sailing towards the famous world. It is the fertile land on the Far Eastern frontier.

Her fleet set out from the increasingly large starport in the Avalon system, and obtained a new forge world and Titan Legion in Tigres. Then it went all the way north, passing through three very small forge worlds, and through contracts with Support and let them become the logistics supply base of the Second Army in this [border march].

About two Terran standard months later, the fleet of the Human Empire arrived at the first star system in the Far Eastern Frontier: the Aegis Sector. It was the bread basket of the entire frontier region and had a huge value that made people nostalgic.

Fertile agricultural worlds abound in this calm star region, and the twin worlds of Manlock and Herdo are their masters and crowns. With their favorable geographical location and excessive food output, even in In the chaos of the Age of Disputes, the Aegis Sector did not suffer any more harassment. Unwilling to be left alone, Herdo was even building a fleet, eager to establish his own proud hegemony. Although his brother Manlok next to him was A staunch isolationist, but also populated by ancient clans unwilling to succumb to outsiders.

It is conceivable that when the wings of the double-headed eagle extend to the territory they have ruled for thousands of years, these small pocket countries will naturally only give one answer.

——————

Heldor and Manlok respectively rejected the imperial envoys' persuasion to surrender in arrogant and humble tones. In fact, these diplomats under Morgan did not have much sincerity in negotiations. Their biggest task was to examine the actual situation of these worlds to make peace. Their lord was able to make the appropriate decision: not every world was worthy of Morgan's rule.

The Queen's ruling cannot be questioned: a few Terra standard hours after the last Imperial envoy left, the first Imperial warship jumped to the edge of the Heldor system, and what followed was a coldness that left no room. offensive.

The Imperial Navy's fleet and Reza's mechanical battleships were the main forces in the first void naval battle. When the airspace near Mandeville Point was completely controlled by the Human Empire, battle barges full of Astartes warriors Just then they filed in, and they happened to catch up with Heldor's main fleet, which was loaded with artillery shells and torpedoes, and came in a menacing manner. The landing torpedoes filled with Emperor's Angels gave these counterattacks an unprepared blow. The public channel The chaos and wails echoed through three Terran standards before ending in Dawnbreaker-like tranquility.

The Herduo, who lacked powerful warriors, swallowed the bitter pill in an unexpected but natural way. Even the most ancient and powerful battleships, after being landed by a company of Astartes warriors, their only The ending can only be to become the spoils and new strength of the Dawnbreaker Legion. The only resisters only make the decks and corridors of the battleship more dirty. In front of the power swords and explosive guns of the Sons of Morgan, Hector Many people slowly realized what kind of opponent they had faced.

But they understood too late: eight hours after the war broke out, all Heldo battleships were either turned into burning scrap metal, or became part of the Imperial Navy, surrounded by powerful defenses in low-Earth orbit. Although the power troubled the Second Legion for a while, Reza's sages didn't waste much effort in inputting the fatal electronic waste code into the startup program of each fortress, and these contained interesting tips. The ancient creations became the reward for the mechanical priests' trip.

All external resistance in this hive world collapsed. Under the cover of continuous orbital bombardment, airdrop pods and Stormbirds full of Astartes warriors began to roll up waves of metal on the surface of the planet. Their goal was Sweeping through those vital agricultural areas, and then trapping the hives where the powerful are located, they carried out a selective massacre and cleansing in the name of war.

Twenty companies of Dawnbreakers were invested as the main force of the attack. The combination of ten thousand Terran veterans and Avalonian recruits was enough to tear apart any opponent. The newly born Sun Titan Legion followed their footsteps with extraordinary courage, and More war engines and mortal auxiliary troops followed the gap opened by the vanguard, easily breaking through the hundreds of years of tranquility.

The war machine of the Second Legion is running like a precise gear. The Dawnbreakers and their auxiliary troops are experimenting with new tactics on the fertile volcanic soil of Heldor: it is an imitation of the Iron Hands, a battle against A preliminary study on the most efficient steel torrent.

All firepower and indiscriminate attacks were allowed long before the war began, because apart from the fertile soil of this world, the Spider Queen did not need anything from it, and the only thing the Second Legion needed to remember was to avoid Hel Dona's continuous volcanoes are almost always in the awakening stage, avoiding the dramatic interference of natural disasters.

The annihilation operations that took place on the fertile soil were efficient and ruthless: Morgan's descendants set foot on this world when the sun was high, and when the night had not yet completely arrived, the entire planet of Heldor had only those hives. The permanent fortress in the deepest part is still in the hands of the former rulers of this world. They cling to a guard composed of a small number of reformers and Ogryn and other powerful warriors, desperately fighting against the coming of the end.

——————

"If they had put these guys into battle two hours earlier, our casualties might have been greater, at least dozens of people."

Lana breathed the scorching air unique to this agricultural world, stepped on a giant beast that he personally killed, and spat disdainfully: This mutant named Ogryn has all experienced rough Transformed into unimaginably furious monsters, their bodies are even taller than the Old Guards themselves wearing Hades-type Terminator armor, and their twisted muscles contain daunting power.

If such a force were used in previous siege street battles, the casualties would be absolutely unimaginable, because the brute force of these mutants could even blow away the heads and helmets of Astartes warriors. Fortunately, the Heldor dignitaries who control this monster have long since degenerated into a kind of pleasure-seeking, narrow-minded, lonely, and pot-bellied human species. They refused to let these powers leave their sight until the army of Dawnbreaker. The front approached all the way to the depths of the maze-like hive city, and then more than thirty Ogryns were released in the panic of the powerful, and roared towards the vanguard of the empire.

The Old Guards were the first Dawnbreakers to encounter these monsters, because it was they who won the honor of being the first to conquer the hive, and these monsters that rushed out among those magnificent statues and paintings were indeed Morgan's guards were stunned for a moment, but only for a moment.

In the face of the quickly formed formations and uniform firepower, even powerful monsters like Ogryn could only fall to the ground in mindless wails. The power brought by the collective order was seriously underestimated most of the time. powerful factors.

In front of the Old Guards who were forcibly integrated by Rana's iron-blooded methods, only three Ogryns survived to the close combat stage, and two of them became Rana's latest victory in just one minute.

The chief guard then inspected his warriors, and was satisfied to see that only two or three had received slight scratches on their armor: he had spent a long time establishing order among this group of egoists, and in the arena one person He beat them to the ground one by one, and finally managed to squeeze these hopeless guys into a rope.

In the past three years of fighting, the Old Guard has lost eleven soldiers, each of whom is irreplaceable, but Rana still insists on bringing this team to the front line for training as much as possible.

Although he and his occasionally willful genetic mother do not have exactly the same understanding in many aspects, there is one thing that the two of them are highly consistent with: that is, as the original bodyguard, he is definitely not the old guard. The reason for sparse battle formation.

Even if the war is not urgent enough to require the original body to appear: for example now, Rana will still lead his warriors to the front line to fight while retaining enough strength to protect the original body, maintaining a familiarity with blood. feel.

In his heart, this taciturn Terran veteran has never forgotten the true mission of the Old Guard: one day, they will follow the Primarch into an impossible desperate situation, and all the trials now are for that A moment of charge and victory, this is his responsibility.

Burning air once again poured into Lana's chest, making him a little too bored. He knew that this was a manifestation of several volcanoes being active at the same time. The fertility brought by the frequent volcanic eruptions on Heldor Volcanic soil is the unique trick that makes this world the largest granary in the Far East.

"Are we going to continue the attack?"

The subordinate's low-pitched inquiry rang in Lana's ears. He just shook his head and pointed to the gray building in the distance. It was a thick spire hidden under a mud maze and a giant void shield. It could be seen It is surrounded by a shadowy jungle of guns and cannons, and those fleeting figures represent a large number of flesh-and-blood transformed humans.

"This is already deep in the hive. It is difficult for armored troops to get in, and their void shields can block bombings for several days. As for the fortress itself, although it is only less than one square kilometer in size, it can blockade it from a high position. For all offensive routes, we may need to sacrifice dozens or hundreds of lives, or even more battle brothers, to barely reach the wall."

"Then what should we do? Wait for artillery support from the follow-up troops?"

"It is difficult for artillery fire to accurately hit the target here, and large-scale bombing is very likely to fundamentally destroy the structure of this hive city: it must be said that the founders of this world possess great wisdom, and their creations They are still blocking us after thousands of years, and if their descendants hadn’t been so comfortable and decadent, we wouldn’t have been able to advance here so easily.”

"No matter how great the wisdom is, it can't stop the corruption caused by the passage of time."

Rana's emotional soliloquy did not alleviate the frowns of his subordinates, who were still worrying about their next move.

"Then, we..."

"wait."

"wait?"

"equal."

Lana smiled, a smile that was both confident and sarcastic.

"Wait for those archaeologists to come over."

"They always have all kinds of weird and dangerous things, which are perfect for this situation."

——————

Although Lana called for reinforcements as soon as he saw the fortress, he did not expect that Cortes, the former leader of the Second Fleet, actually came in person.

Looking at his battle, he also brought something extraordinary.

The Chief Old Guard focused his eyes on the box next to Cortez. For some reason, he felt some extreme sense of danger from that box, which was not big and had an ordinary appearance.

"What's this?"

After complying with Cortez's instructions and sending all the soldiers to the rear, Lana watched as the fifth company commander began to unlock the password and fingerprint lock outside the box little by little with an extremely pious attitude. , one layer after another, and there are enough to add up to more than twenty.

Cortes was not in a hurry. He quietly decrypted all the codes with the pious attitude of a believer serving the gods, and then carefully opened one side of the box, revealing the half of the box that was like mercury and exuded a metallic color. Solidified substances are transparent, just like water droplets suspended in mid-air, showing a coexistence of motion and stability.

Faced with the inquiries of the Old Guards, Cortes did not hide his secrets.

"This is Dana mercury, an ancient metal that can repair itself. We discovered the existence of this creation when we were exploring a human colony forty Terran standard years ago."

"It can contain items inside, and it will maintain an absolute stability: that is to say, no matter what kind of bumps and damage the vehicle carrying this metal encounters, or how it flips and changes direction. , the items inside it will always be frozen at the moment they are put in, maintaining an absolute stillness."

"So, we'll use it to stockpile some hazardous materials."

"...for example?"

"For example, some of the gadgets in the [Secret Vault], although Dana Mercury is also a part of the Secret Vault, its weight is not enough compared to those dangerous elements."

Lana did not ask questions immediately, because he saw clearly what was sleeping in the Dana mercury held by Cortes: it was a model of a small animal that he did not recognize, but it made him He was creepy.

"What's this?"

"A souvenir from our trip to Catachan, but now it's a nuisance."

"Just in time, we can solve this problem now."

Cortes' smile almost brought the sinister to the surface. He put the ball of mercury into the small artillery he brought with him: Lana had never seen a similar type of artillery, but his instinct told him that this And that Dana Mercury is a product of a place.

"Depending on the distance and wind direction, we need to delay it for three seconds..."

The warrior behind Cortes muttered some incomprehensible words, and quickly opened the cannon. When the flashing ball of flowing metal was launched with everyone's uneasiness, Lana also Already standing by Cortez's side.

"Well, Cortez, I think you should elaborate now."

Hearing this, the savage face of a conqueror revealed a trace of nostalgia for the madness of the past, as well as endless fear.

"Okay, Lana."

"You know... Catachan Barking Toad?"

"……have no idea."

"It doesn't matter if you don't know: it is a liquid bomb developed by our Second Fleet before the return of the Primarch. It can sputter out a poisonous slurry taken from the Catachan barking toad. It is not volatile, but its toxicity is about It’s the former…”

"three times."

Before he finished speaking, a creepy sound echoed in the distant fortress along with the bomb's impact. The strange wind and waves out of thin air brought a rustling sound, as if thousands of lifeless snakes were suddenly killed. Released into the human world, the corrosive and pungent sound could be heard several kilometers away, followed by the heavy roar of the huge modified body falling to the ground: everything was like the God of Corrosion being summoned to the galaxy. Among them, it is using its big mouth filled with deadly gurgling water to swallow up the entire fortress.

There were no wailings, no screams, no cries before death. The lonely wind only brought more solitude and silence, until the light green liquid emerged from the cracks in the wall in a manner visible to the naked eye and began to swallow up the entire fortress. Entering their corrosive maws, the hard masonry, guns, and flowing liquids consume each other in the gentle harsh friction. From time to time, a few stumps and broken arms will drip down, and they will be completely destroyed before they hit the ground. Eat.

Lana was only a few kilometers away, and he saw everything clearly: the solid fortress suspended in mid-air, which ceased to exist in a few blinks of an eye, Cortes' poisonous plasma bomb and its They consumed each other, swallowing up all the lives, weapons, and even the fortress itself, but not even a trace of other objects were harmed, and there was no disturbing pungent smell in the air.

A few seconds later, where a fortress once stood, only the rugged remains on both sides were left, which could prove the existence of an unbreakable fortress before the blink of an eye. On the other side of Lana, the voice of Ko Ertes' relaxed humming voice.

The Chief Old Guard's eyes became a little wandering.

"Does your... secret library contain all this kind of stuff?"

"Ah, not really."

The respondent shook his head.

"How should I put it... This thing is actually a failure. It is of very low cost performance in the secret library, so I just said I would take the opportunity to use it because its stability is really too low. In essence, It's just an immature product developed when we first came into contact with the death world of Catachan."

"...Have you developed anything else?"

"Of course, Catachan is a great place with outstanding people. We have more than a dozen studies surrounding it. There are some more terrifying things stored deep in the vault, and several of them come from Catachan."

The Old Guard sniffed, and while signaling that his troops could return to their posts, he looked at Cortes with a look that was inevitably a little jealous.

"There is such a thing, so why didn't your second fleet open it before we met the Mother of Genes? Whether it is the number of people or the strength, it has even declined."

He was answered with a bitter smile.

"Do you know why this bomb was eventually discontinued?"

"Unsafe?"

"That's the first reason. The second reason is: its research team has been wiped out in a large-scale research accident, as well as all the equipment and files."

"..."

"You will never know, Rana, you will never know how much power we lost for our thirst before Mother stopped most of our experiments. That number was even far higher than the war. "

"No one knows the dangers in the vault better than we do."

"Because we are the first to experience every danger."

——————

The Old Guards continued to advance after Cortes' departure. They waited for reinforcements from their brother troops, and with unstoppable momentum, they tore through the last few fragile obstacles in the depths of the labyrinth layer by layer, hordes of The insane cyborgs crumble in the face of their crossfire, and the ambush lurking in the shadows cannot penetrate the thick armor of the Hades-type Terminators.

The low-level dignitaries hiding in the outermost layer became the first batch of people to leave. The Dawnbreakers found these panicked wastes among the still gorgeous ruins, killing every life coldly and ruthlessly. The stubborn strongholds threw flames and wiped out ancient families that had been passed down for thousands of years amidst the screams.

This kind of massacre lasted for less than a Terran standard, completely shattering the last trace of arrogance of the powerful people of Heldor. When the advancement of the troops came to an unexpected stagnation for Lana, he felt the front, only to I saw several figures staggering out of the ruins with their hands raised in the air, shouting words similar to surrender and submission.

It has to be said that their Gothic speaking is pretty good, and they know a lot about the Human Empire surprisingly well. When these Heldo dignitaries fluently spoke out the Human Empire's scripted attitude towards each world, and loudly assured that they must When the will of the Lord of the Second Legion was taken as the primary target, although everyone did not give up their vigilance, most of the guns no longer exuded killing intent: this kind of thing has happened too many times, and they knew that this The reconquest operation is over.

Except Rana.

Because he knows better.

The Chief Old Guard watched the surrenders with cold eyes. After observing that they were indeed in a dead end, the loyal heir of Morgan raised his gun and pulled the trigger when no one, including himself, expected it. trigger.

Gunshots rang out and bodies fell.

"Destroy them all, leaving no one behind."

Rana's words caused all the Dawnbreakers to fall into temporary confusion, but they took action the next moment. The monstrous flames, accompanied by the shouts of the last Heldo dignitaries, quickly swallowed up the entire deep maze of the nest. It also swallowed up the history of the entire world.

"Is this mother's order?"

As Lana silently watched everything burn, his warriors gathered around him, feeling the last shivering of humanity at the sharp cries in the flames.

"Yes."

Lana nodded.

"It's different from before. There is no negotiation or compromise this time. Even before we started, my mother told me that she only needed the land of Heldo and the population on it..."

"The less the better."

"This is different from before, Lana, did you misinterpret what mother meant?"

A classic Old Guard question.

Lana thought this, and a sarcastic smile flashed in his heart.

"Do you know? Do you know how this mixture of fertile agricultural world and hive world worked before we arrived here?"

"……have no idea."

"slave."

Rana smiled.

"The skinny people wearing flails we see outside the hive are all human slaves purchased by Herdo from other galaxies. Those powerful people let the slaves work in volcanic ash and high temperatures to grow crops. Food, their mortality rate is frighteningly high, but it is the second reason why Herdo can become the granary of the East."

"Moreover, during the negotiations with the imperial envoys, Heldor insisted that after surrendering to the empire, they still needed slaves to maintain their agriculture: Ha, what a ridiculously inefficient statement, but what is even more ridiculous is that, with reference to the Great In other cases of the expedition, if it was not a legion like ours that adheres to the Ultramar model, then their demands would most likely be met."

"But it's us who are here, but this world belongs to our mother, so everything will not go as they want: the mother of genes does not care about the powerful and slaves in this world. As inefficient products, they disappear more and more. The cleaner, the better. Soon, the land here will be covered with professionals and instruments, as well as huge instruments to control volcanic eruptions and maintain the fertility of the soil. These things do not require the former Heldians."

"So...Mother is going to abolish slavery."

"The entire Far Eastern Frontier must abolish something that should not exist."

"Because of justice?"

"No."

A smile crept onto Lana's lips.

"Because it's efficient."