Fight your way out.
You have to fight your way out.
Hopper was not piloting her Paragon Warsuit, nor was she clad in any of that masterfully crafted equipment. Like the vast majority of Battle Sisters, she wore black power armor and a white visor. This had always been her ideal image of a Sister of Battle, and it remained so now.
"For the Emperor!"
Battle on, battle on.
"Hey! Over here!"
The rescue team entered the ruined derelict ship with trepidation in their hearts. They had received a distress call from the Order of the Bloody Rose, but by the time the Imperial Navy arrived with a large contingent of troops, the entire sector had already been devastated by the Tyranids, and the very Order requesting their aid had been utterly obliterated.
In the void of space, only a few shattered hulls left behind by the Swarm remained. The search and rescue team had to move with extreme caution; if even a single trap left behind by the Tyranids was triggered, it would spell irreversible doom for the entire squad.
"Movement ahead!"
Gripping their weapons tightly, the squad members crept forward. The sound grew increasingly distinct, like something relentlessly bludgeoning raw flesh.
The hull section here still maintained a degree of atmospheric seal, and the surrounding mounds of Tyranid corpses bore testament to the ferocious battle that had once taken place.
They forced open a bulkhead door and beheld Hopper, who was pushed to the absolute brink of exhaustion. Hopper was driving her fist over and over again into a puddle of mangled flesh, the original structural components of which were barely discernible.
Noticing the approach of others, Hopper finally halted her movements. Her beautiful face was completely drenched in blood, yet the mildly corrosive Tyranid ichor inexplicably caused her no harm.
"Who are you...?"
"Cadian Shock Troops—"
Before they could even finish, Hopper collapsed headfirst onto the deck.
"Call for immediate extraction! This looks like the Canoness of the Order of the Bloody Rose!"
"God-Emperor above."
The Guardsmen stared in absolute awe at the mountain-like piles of Tyranid corpses surrounding Hopper, including massive bio-monstrosities. If Hopper had slain them all entirely on her own, it was utterly impossible to explain unless it was a literal manifestation of the Emperor's divine will.
The Order of the Bloody Rose had suffered a second near-extinction, with only the current Canoness Hopper and the retired Sister Steph surviving the calamity.
Meanwhile, the Aether-Kronos Fleet had vanished mysteriously once more. No one knew their destination, and no one knew what it was they truly pursued.
In truth, Yuki wasn't entirely sure either.
Several more years drifted by.
The scale of the Aether-Kronos Fleet continued to swell, splitting into several secondary splinter fleets commanded by War, Yuno, Yuki, and various Norn Queens. Unlike typical Hive Fleets, the Aether-Kronos Fleet would immediately move on once they finished devouring a target. Furthermore, the targets Yuki selected were almost exclusively poorly defended worlds that could be pierced clean through in a single decisive wave.
"We may be devouring a large number of worlds, but is this really dealing any meaningful damage to the Imperium of Man?"
"Well..." Facing Yuno's question, Yuki found himself at a loss for words. "Even if we can't bring down the Imperium in a single blow, our strength is continuously expanding, isn't it?"
"If we're talking about pure strength, even if you eat for ten thousand years, you couldn't possibly compare to my main fleet."
"If that's the case, then why even bother sending splinter fleets ahead? Wouldn't it be easier to just wait for the main fleet to flatten everything in one go?"
"Do you want the serious reason or the joke reason?" Yuno twirled her hair, her demeanor shifting into an alluring grace.
"The serious one?"
"It wasn't me who ordered them to attack. The main Tyranid hive fleet is a collective entity composed of tens of millions of fleets, just like us. Every single one of those fleets is larger than Behemoth, Kraken, Leviathan, and all the fleets currently active in the galaxy combined. What this galaxy is currently facing is merely the tendril of a tendril of a tendril of the main fleet."
That absurdly massive?
Yuki pressed further, "And the joke reason?"
"My creators won't allow it. It's as simple as that."
The initial astonishment Yuki felt instantly deflated into utter speechlessness. On second thought, it made perfect sense.
Yuno continued, "Do not underestimate the sheer scale of the main fleet. By the time my vanguard finishes devouring the rim of the galaxy, the rearmost forces will still take several thousand years just to arrive. And when my vanguard finally departs the galaxy altogether, there will still be rearmost forces that haven't even arrived yet."
"So... everything I am doing right now is entirely meaningless?"
Yuki finally understood where that bizarre sensation deep within his heart had been coming from. For decades, every single action he took left him with an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. Yet, he currently wielded such immense power—why did he feel so utterly helpless?
Now, it clicked. Yuno was simply too powerful. Whether he chose to aid her or oppose her, it was nothing more than a bit of flavor added to her existence. Even if the Aether-Kronos Fleet were completely wiped out in the very next second, Yuno would feel nothing more than a passing moment of regret.
In this reality, the Tyranid main fleet was genuinely capable of arriving.
Yuno suddenly became flustered. She didn't know what to do. The shift in Yuki's emotions could not possibly escape her notice, yet she had no idea how to handle it. Human emotions were incredibly intricate, and as the Great Devourer, she could only barely attempt to learn them. For all these years, she had tried her absolute best to keep Yuki from realizing this.
The vanguard fleets, the Genestealer Cults—in reality, they were all merely testing the waters, possessing no grand, definitive purpose. Yuno had never actually expected them to conquer the galaxy on their own.
"Then everything we've been doing all these years has been rather boring, hasn't it?" Yuki's tone carried a hint of helpless resignation. "I actually thought I was playing some grand, impactful role."
"How can you say that? With you here, aren't I incredibly happy? Yuki, every single second and every single minute I spend with you brings me absolute happiness!"
"Does the grand Great Devourer truly require nothing more than this?"
"I..."
Yuki couldn't quite fathom what it was he truly desired either; a sudden tightness constricted his chest.
"I know that love is a very peculiar thing, and perhaps we still need a lot more time. But just as you said, time is the one thing we aren't lacking." Yuki managed to squeeze out a smile for Yuno. "I was thinking, why don't we try focusing on things other than just eating? I mean, what if we push consumption down to second priority?"
Without a shred of hesitation, Yuno replied, "Alright!"
"By the way, what happened to that ear Nurgle gave you last time? Did you eat it? Have you figured out the virus yet?"
"I've mapped it out. It's a Warp-born virus, so evolving an immune gene is proving to be a bit difficult."
Pushing his previous existential doubts to the back of his mind, curiosity took hold of Yuki's heart once more. "What kind of virus could be that extraordinary?"
"It's likely something Nurgle engineered himself. After all, I can't think of anyone else in the Warp capable of brewing such a pathogen. Could Nurgle have accidentally slipped up while testing toxins on Isha?"
"Whatever the case, let's go take a look at Barbarus."