The shrill alarm, like countless red-hot steel needles, pierced ruthlessly into the eardrums of everyone on the bridge.
Blood-red lights flashed frantically; with every flicker, they cast an ominous hue upon Valeria's heroic face.
Her perfectly tailored black uniform seemed soaked in blood under the glow of the red lights.
She stared fixedly at the central holographic star map.
On the star map, the tiny dot representing the genesis was being enveloped by a frantically pulsating, ever-expanding blood-red skull mark.
It was no longer just a mark.
It had become a living thing, a greedy, hungry monster frantically banging on the door from another dimension!
"Goddess!"
Valeria's voice wavered imperceptibly due to extreme shock, but her hands, gripping the edge of the console, remained steady as a rock.
"Alert! The spatial structure outside the ship is being forcibly torn from the outside! Ultra-high intensity Subspace psychic reaction detected! Energy signature... pure brutality and slaughter!"
Each of her words was precise and cold, as if reading out a death warrant.
As a former Imperial Commissar, she had witnessed the most brutal battlefields and faced the most bizarre xenos.
But the scene before her still exceeded the scope of what she could comprehend in her forty-year career.
"Not a Subspace jump, not a wormhole, nor any known form of spatial travel technology..."
Data streams flashed frantically in Valeria's grey eyes.
"This is more like... more like using an invisible, blood-stained giant axe to forcefully... cleave a gash into the fragile canvas of reality!"
The moment her thought finished.
The deep void outside the genesis, that eternal darkness, split open... without any warning.
There was no sound, no explosion.
It was a silent "tearing" more terrifying than any loud noise.
A colossal blood-red rift, as if intending to split the entire galaxy in two, appeared out of thin air.
It was not like a door, but more like an eternal cosmic wound, constantly gushing pus, blood, and bones.
Viscous, dark-red light seeped from the rift, staining the hull of the genesis with an infernal hue.
An aura of terror, pure and tangible, filled with an endless will for slaughter and brutality, had already pierced the ship's armor and shields, injecting itself into the air of the bridge like cold venom.
Those elite mortal crew members, selected by Griffin IV, experienced severe physiological reactions the moment they came into contact with this aura.
Some began to retch uncontrollably, while others clutched their throats tightly, as if trying to squeeze out that invisible sense of oppression.
Their eyes quickly became bloodshot, and their hands trembled violently and uncontrollably.
Fear, like a plague, spread quietly among the mortals.
"Steady!"
Valeria's roar was like a loud slap across everyone's face. "Think about who you are fighting for! The Goddess is watching us!"
This sentence was more effective than any sedative.
The crew's breathing calmed instantly, their trembling bodies tensed up again; although fear still lingered in their eyes, it was now overshadowed by a reawakened, fanatical sense of mission.
"For the Goddess..."
Valeria took a deep breath, forcing herself to tear her gaze away from the suffering crew and refocus on the gate of hell.
A ship... no, that terrifying creation could no longer be called a "ship"—it was slowly squeezing out from the blood-red rift, like a beast emerging from its cage.
Its hull was not cast from metal, but composed of countless twisted bones, congealed blood, and a kind of brass-lustered flesh tissue that pulsed as if alive.
Countless faces in agonizing wails were imprisoned on the hull, emitting silent screams.
At the bow was a colossal brass skull, burning with hellfire.
It had no engines; every inch it advanced was propelled by an endless torrent of blood gushing from the rift behind it.
This warship from hell, with an unquestionable posture, charged straight toward the genesis!
"Evasive maneuvers!" Valeria ordered sharply.
However, it was already too late.
The enemy's goal from the beginning was not a gun battle, but the most savage, bloodiest boarding action!
"BOOM!!!"
Another terrifying impact, even more violent than before, as if to tear the entire ship in two.
The bow of that flesh-ship, that burning brass skull, smashed ruthlessly and precisely into the side armor of the genesis!
The heavy alloy armor, capable of withstanding meteorite impacts, was easily melted and torn like fragile paper before the brass skull, opening a massive, hideous gap with edges still dripping molten metal.
Two worlds, at this moment, were forcibly connected.
On the other side of the gap was the blood-red hell, filled with the shrieks of demons.
A gale mixed with sulfur, blood, and endless resentment poured madly into the gap.
On the bridge's holographic screen, the alert for the side area instantly turned into a deep black, flashing symbol representing the highest threat.
"Alert! Severe hull damage in deck areas three through seven! Large-scale biological intrusion detected!"
"It's demons! My god! It's Khorne's demons!"
A young crew member, looking at the distorted surveillance footage on the screen, let out a desperate scream.
Valeria ignored him.
Her pupils contracted to the extreme.
Because she saw, at the torn gap leading to hell, a silhouette so massive it was breathtaking.
The silhouette slowly stepped out of the gap, carrying an oppressive aura as if it reigned over the world.
It was too tall; even the massive gap, large enough for a main battle tank to pass through, required it to slightly lower its head to pass through unscathed.
It was a terrifying beast, covered from head to toe in a sturdy shell like forged brass, with muscles knotted like mountain ranges.
Behind it, a pair of giant wings, like tattered leather and large enough to blot out the sun, flapped slowly; each beat stirred up a foul-smelling hurricane in the corridor.
In its left hand, it gripped a hideous giant axe, larger than itself, with blades burning with an inextinguishable hellfire.
In its right hand, it coiled a long whip made from the spines of countless mortal heroes, each swing emitting the wails of souls.
It just stood there quietly, and that pure, undisguised will, which took slaughter as the supreme joy, swept through the entire genesis like a tsunami.
On the bridge, all mortals, including Valeria, felt as if their hearts were being gripped tightly by an invisible giant hand, almost stopping their beats.
"Greater Daemon..."
Valeria's lips trembled slightly as she uttered the name that represented ultimate fear in Imperial archives.
The most bloodthirsty, most powerful, who personally slaughtered countless worlds and civilizations under Khorne...
Bloodthirster, The Bloodthirsty Fiend!
This brass beast from hell took a greedy, deep breath, as if tasting the air for that scent which felt so familiar, yet so infuriating.
It was its prey, the scent of Angronia.
But in that scent, there was a mix of "divine" and "newborn" aura belonging to another deity, which made it sick.
This was blasphemy!
It was the most thorough betrayal of its master, the Blood God!
"ROAR!!!!"
The Bloodthirsty Fiend raised its hideous, bull-like head and let out a roar that could shatter a planet, filled with endless joy and a thirst for slaughter.
The roar turned into a tangible sound wave, echoing frantically through the metal corridors of the genesis.
Immediately after, from the blood-red rift behind him, endless, slightly smaller Bloodthirsters and countless Khorne demons of various shapes, wielding bronze swords, poured out like a burst blood dam, or a plague of locusts that had caught the scent of blood; screaming and roaring, they converged into a demon tide that blotted out the sky, rushing straight into the depths of the genesis.
Doomsday had arrived.
The bridge was deathly silent.
Everyone was stunned into silence by this hellish scene.
Facing this mythical enemy, capable of making any Imperial fleet despair, their meager forces weren't even enough to fill the gaps between their teeth.
However, the initial shock and horror on Valeria's face receded like the tide.
Replaced by a steely, cold-to-the-extreme determination.
She took a slow, deep breath, as if to completely purge all fear and weakness from her chest.
Then, she reached out with her slender, powerful, black-gloved hand and pressed the ship-wide communicator.
Her voice, through the speakers, clearly reached the ears of every warrior preparing for battle, whether demigod or mortal.
The voice was calm, clear, and without a trace of tremor.
"All hands, prepare to engage!"
"For the Goddess!"
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