While the Space Wolves and Ultramarines were engaged in their boisterous transhuman bonding, Axion's massive fleet was cutting a relentless path through the tides of the Immaterium.
At the vanguard of the formation sailed the planetary-scale Titan's Spear. Its sheer physical presence and the titanic energies of its Geller field provided a protective umbrella that covered over half the fleet. Minor Warp squalls were simply obliterated as they struck the prow of the titan-class vessel.
Such an immense physical footprint in the Warp acted as a beacon, drawing the frenzied attention of the Daemons that haunt the depths of the Aether.
Unlike Imperial fleets, which are forced to navigate the treacherous corridors of the Cicatrix Maledictum to avoid Daemonic incursions and rebel ambushes, the Iron Men navigated with a brutal efficiency. Having largely eliminated the risk of Warp-drift, their method of travel was uncompromisingly direct.
The distortion of physical laws within the Warp allowed this moon-sized vessel to move without the risk of gravitational collapse or the accidental destruction of star systems. However, the wake of its churning engines left behind massive energy tides that crushed any Daemons caught in its path like insects under a tread.
Navigating across a third of the Imperium's expanse meant a prolonged sojourn in the Sea of Souls, and inevitably, encounters with the denizens thereof. Aside from Traitors and Daemons, almost nothing traverses such distances within the Warp.
But today, the Empyrean had a very violent guest.
Axion had already lost count of how many stray Daemonic vessels his fleet had erased during the transit. Each engagement followed a predictable, merciless pattern.
The Titan's Spear would open with its anti-matter beam arrays, skewering the target through its core. This was followed by a definitive volley from the strike cruisers' Fragmentation Cannons. Finally, the reinforced hulls of the assault cruisers acted as a literal meat-grinder, smashing the remains into microscopic debris as the fleet sailed directly through the wreckage. Whether they were Chaos warbands or Neverborn entities, the outcome remained the same.
However, as Axion skirted the Great Rift along this unique trajectory, he encountered something of significant mass.
Several Arks of Omen, accompanied by hundreds of Chaos escort vessels, were laboring through the Warp. Ordinarily, both Traitors and Imperials rely on the psychic sight of the Navigator Houses to read the tides and maintain formation. Human error is inevitable, often causing fleets to scatter or lose synchronicity.
Thanks to the twisted genius of Vashtorr the Arkifane, these Arks could ignite "minor torches" fueled by Daemons and psykers, allowing the Traitors to follow these beacons and muster in the void.
The Iron Men ignored such primitive methods. Machines do not suffer from error; their algorithms are identical. Every second, they performed mutual localization and fleet-wide position verification. Their assessment of Warp-tides was perfectly synchronized.
Thus, two massive armadas collided head-on in the Warp.
Axion looked upon these vessels of scrap and bone with a certain cold anticipation. These mobile ship-cemeteries often contained data he required or remnants of ancient technologies; he had previously recovered Titan Quantum Cores from such derelicts.
Without hesitation, the Titan's Spear ignited its prow-mounted lance array.
The massive hull, wreathed in arcing energy, slammed directly into one of the Arks of Omen. While these Arks were gargantuan by the standards of other ships, they were nothing compared to the world-sized Titan's Spear. It was like a billiard ball colliding with a marble.
Simultaneously, the assault cruisers ignited their own lance weapons and plunged into the ranks of the rebel fleet.
…
"Warning! Multi-spectral analysis indicates a massive non-Aetheric relativistic trauma in this sector!"
"Detecting harmonic resonance data points linked to multiple Warp-conduit activities... the values exceed the calculative ceiling of the Cogitator arrays!"
"By the Omnissiah! What is tearing its way out of the Warp?!"
A Tech-Priest stared in shock at the data cascading across his monitors, his voice rising to a shout. It was the first time since joining the Bastion Fleet that he had witnessed monitoring data this catastrophic.
Piercing alarms soon wailed across the entire armada. Over a thousand Imperial vessels stationed in the Scarus Sector were called to battle stations. This region sat on the desolate border between the Scarus and Calixis Sectors, a wasteland that had seen its Imperial garrison double since the fall of Cadia to deter Traitor incursions. Not even Abaddon would lightly bring a fleet here to engage in a war of certain mutual annihilation.
A colossal Warp-breach tore open.
The vanguard of a massive Chaos fleet came spilling out. The silhouettes of four Arks of Omen were unmistakable; even as they were only halfway clear of the rift, the Imperial defenders recognized the threat.
"Chaos incursion! Massive scale... Great Machine... God...!"
The Tech-Priest's report cut off. As the data analysis finalized, his voice failed him, and he sank into a stunned silence at the image on his screen.
These Arks of Omen were not sailing out of the Warp under their own power. They were being shoved, skewered like dolls by an even larger, more incomprehensible vessel and forcibly ejected from the Empyrean.
That gargantuan ship was further distending the Warp-rift, returning from the profanity of that space amidst a blinding halo of energy arcs.
"Emperor preserve us," an Imperial Navy rating whispered beside the Tech-Priest, clutching an Aquila in silent prayer.
Similar scenes were playing out across every bridge in the Imperial fleet. Every officer and rating who witnessed the event fell into a state of shock or prayer. The Sector Munitorum immediately flagged the event as a Priority-Alpha emergency, transmitting the data directly to the Solar Segmentum. Vessels across the entire Segmentum Obscurus were being forcibly mobilized to meet what looked like a Chaos invasion on the scale of a Black Crusade.
But as the world-sized vessel finished shoving the Chaos fleet out of the Warp, a secondary fleet emerged behind it, every ship the size of an Imperial battleship, emerging from the distended rift with cold, machine precision.
Observers quickly noted the aesthetic consistency between the planetary craft and its escorts. The Imperial commanders realized with a jolt that this was not merely a Chaos civil war; it was a distinct, unknown power.
As the massive Warp-rift began to seal, the void erupted in a staccato of explosions.
A sea of light-beams, bright enough to illuminate multiple star systems, lashed out. In a single, coordinated instant, the Chaos fleet, numbering hundreds of ships, was pruned until only the four Arks of Omen remained.
The silver fleet fired with perfect synchronicity. The interlacing beams of their weapons possessed a chilling, clinical beauty. It did not look like an act of slaughter, but a choreographed display of cosmic pyrotechnics.
Each beam struck with absolute precision, easily overloading void shields before the remaining energy vanished into the targets like a fuse hitting a powder keg. Deprived of shields, the Chaos ships detonated into clusters of scrap and radiant light, casting a beautiful, terrible glow across the dark.
The sheer brutality of the display froze the Imperial fleet in place, halting their attempt to surround the engagement zone.
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