The battle Urian Vendraig had long awaited, his chance to prove himself, finally arrived in the 1st month of the year 842.
After sacrificing forty-three capital ships, the First Legion at last reached high orbit over the Grail Abyss.
Vendraig personally led the Eighth Company, the one he once served in before becoming Legion Master, and launched the first orbital drop.
Leaping from the drop pod, he faced the beams fired by the Mitu with perfect composure, calmly taking aim and firing back.
A single high-explosive round shattered a hovering Mitu disc-tank.
The warriors of the Eighth Company followed, boltgun fire roaring through the alien holy ground.
In Vendraig's visor, runes representing each squad lit up one after another.
Despite the chaos of landing, the Eighth reformed quickly into proper combat formations.
Vendraig led the advance. Mitu arcane weaponry inflicted heavy losses, but could not halt their march toward the Chalice Temple.
On the temple's radiant staircase, Vendraig encountered a Mitu High Priest, its shimmering robes paired with its iridescent anemone-like body, making it appear half illusory.
As the First Legion's master swordsman, he immediately noticed the priest's blade, its form like drifting blue-green smoke.
He focused on the weapon; its hilt seemed grown, not forged, fused seamlessly to the wielder's limb.
The blade projected a wavering energy field, flickering like swirling mist.
Vendraig raised his sword, assumed a combat stance, and advanced on the Mitu High Priest.
The priest let out an ear-piercing shriek. Vendraig didn't understand the words, but could guess their meaning, maybe curses, maybe blasphemies.
As the creature hurled itself forward in rage, Vendraig struck first.
He parried the alien weapon, twisted his wrist, pressed past the shimmering blade, and aimed straight for the priest's throat, but the High Priest dodged with uncanny agility.
They clashed at close quarters, their blades leaving trails of pale blue light and drifting smoke.
The Eighth's warriors trusted their commander completely. They poured bolter fire into the Mitu ranks, preventing them from closing in.
Vendraig did not disappoint them.
The First Legion's swordmaster unleashed a storm of blows, faster even than the High Priest's prophetic precognition.
The priest's blade skill could not match Vendraig's speed.
With a relentless sequence of cuts, Vendraig sliced deep wounds across the anemone-flesh.
The priest grew slower and slower, unable to keep pace.
Vendraig twisted his power-sword, rolled the blade along the lock, and thrust cleanly into the High Priest's abdomen, tearing flesh apart in a shrieking burst of disintegration energy.
One more sweeping strike, and the creature's body split apart.
While the First Legion cleansed the Mitu from the Grail Abyss, the returning Nareth launched his own offensive from Mezoa.
The route from Mezoa to the Manachea system passed through Moab, a cold desert world, and one of the few stable warp corridors between the Cyclops Cluster and Manachean.
Though barren, Moab had become the largest human colony in the region.
Centuries ago, Mitu shadows covered its skies, turning the world into a flesh-factory.
Pell Koscheny, Chapter Master of the Eleventh, was ordered to attack Moab and seize the gateway to Manachean.
In the 2nd month of 842, the Eleventh's fleet arrived.
Aboard the Relic-Class Battleship Son of Vostroya
In the Simulus Chambers, runes glowed bright blue as systems activated.
Pell sat in a cable-wrapped throne, connecting the neural spine-jack. His consciousness drifted, then plunged into a sea of data.
Using both enemy and friendly readings over Moab, he and dozens of adjutants calculated and compiled the battle plan.
Frigates and destroyers launched first, forming a spreading sphere of destruction.
Then the capital ships advanced, two mighty battleships, Sword of Vostroya First Company and Shield of Vostroya Second Company, hammering both flanks of the Mitu fleet.
Only the Son of Vostroya held back, using its relic-class firepower to snipe Mitu capital ships at long range.
As the Black Emperor's greatest "advocate," Pell exploited every advantage and struck every enemy weakness.
With void supremacy achieved, he moved to the next task: testing the forged-reading technology, improved using recovered Jandan xeno-tech, on twelve warships.
He deployed all twelve ships into a single region of space, carefully isolated from all friendlies.
Such precise fleet maneuvering would be impossible for most Imperial fleets, but the Shadows of Order, with their Simulus Chamber, could achieve what others could not.
The twelve black warships moved without disrupting the fleet line, as replacement vessels seamlessly filled their formation gaps.
More than five hundred ships maintained flawless coordination.
Communications craft, once vital, was now reduced to one-tenth of their former number.
For the Shadows of Orders, they were nearly obsolete; kept only for emergencies.
Their Punisher-class reactors provided such immense output that the Simulus Chamber could assume many of the duties once performed by human signal crews.
Aboard the First Company flagship Sword of Vostroya, Gibbs sat in the Simulacrum, fully aware of his role.
He selected a Mitu capital ship as the test target and gave the order.
Five meters away, a tech-sergeant immediately executed the command.
The battleship's new concealment-field generators powered up to maximum.
Thousands of nodes activated flawlessly, especially those tied to the aether.
Since Mitu remote sensors relied heavily on aetheric readings, these were critical.
Gibbs focused on the one result that mattered:
Would the enemy fire on the Sword of Vostroya?
After two broadsides, he saw it clearly,
The Mitu ships failed to detect his battleship at all.
They kept rotating like dim, lumbering spheres, stupidly identifying the Gothic Imperial vessel as one of their own.
Data from all twelve warships flowed to Pell.
Not a single one had been targeted.
The test was a complete success.
With victory in the void assured, Pell ordered the Son of Vostroya into high orbit over Moab.
After bombarding the Mitu orbital defenses, he began the planetary assault.
Moab's void-port was crucial to the future Shadows of Order. It could not be reduced to ruins.
Pell entered a drop pod, plunging toward the largest port dome identified by the Auger Array.
Humans in the labor camps stared in shock at the rain of blazing lights descending from the sky.
Pell stepped from the pod, assembled his guard, and charged toward the central dome.
He raised his archeotech pistol and fired an inferno round.
The diamond-core shell pierced a Mitu disc-tank and ignited oxy-phosphor gel, burning through alien flesh.
He drew his golden blade.
"For the Monarch of Vostroya!" he roared, and silently added, 'For the Black Emperor. For my lord.'
Then he surged into the alien ranks, brandishing the golden sword forged by the Black Emperor himself during a duel with Vulkan.
Power filled Pell's body.
The Black Emperor had forged only a single weapon with his own hands, and Pell held it.
The honor was overwhelming.
The "Barbarian" bellowed a savage war-cry.
Twenty Mitu reeled, vision swimming.
The golden blade flashed, smashing through Mitu's arcane weapons.
The guard bathed in light like the Primarch's own twin wings, racing behind Pell.
The golden radiance pierced the alien line like a spear tip until they reached the dome exterior, forced to halt.
A Mitu commander, a towering anemone-creature, rushed from the defense bunker, wreathed in smoky light.
Bolter fire hammered its shield, bursting in rapid detonations.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Pell noticed the xenos shield held firm even under the guard's full assault.
The creature raised a crystal-like pistol and fired a lance of orange light,
It speared through a guard's power armor, leaving the air thick with burnt flesh.
Pell, newly ascended "Briber," lifted his archeotech pistol and fired five inferno rounds.
Flames coated the arcane barrier, but the commander remained calm; such attacks were far from enough.
Then, The shield vanished.
The Mitu commander froze for an instant in confusion.
Pell was already upon him.
The golden blade fell, cleaving deep into the anemone-flesh.
.....
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