293: Chapter 294 The World Devourer

"You! Use your Psyker powers to open a line-of-sight window in the sky for me! Let this group of ants take a good look at what kind of trash has arrived!"

The Blood Priest did not dare to delay.

He immediately slashed his wrist, letting the blood flow freely.

Chanting blasphemous incantations, he thrust both hands upward abruptly.

Across the dark red firmament, the clouds churned violently, as if torn apart by a pair of invisible, giant hands.

A huge Psyker projection window materialized in mid-air.

The imagery displayed was precisely the real-time scene of Blackrock Star's high orbit.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Accompanied by the intense flickering of the Geller Field.

A massive voidship, like a giant whale surfacing from the deep sea, violently shattered the Warp's membrane and appeared in realspace.

But the appearance of these warships made Grimal slightly frown.

They were by no means standard warships of the Imperial Navy with smooth lines and solemn dignity.

These spacecraft were filled with a nouveau riche-like wildness and a cobbled-together feel.

Some had exaggerated rams welded onto their hulls, and the colors of their armor plates were as chaotic as a palette.

They did not even look like a regular army, but rather a group of space bandits pieced together from a scrap yard.

But what could not be ignored was that these warships were massive in size, and the number of shipborne cannons was outrageously high.

The imagery zoomed in.

Everyone clearly saw the huge emblem painted on the port side of those warships.

That was a two-headed eagle symbol representing the Imperium of Man.

But beneath the two-headed eagle, a burning torch was also painted!

This was the symbol of the Spark Alliance.

Grimal did not recognize this symbol at all, nor did he care what that torch represented.

He only saw the two-headed eagle.

That was enough.

As long as it was an Imperial ship, as long as it was a human army, before his battleaxe, the only fate was to turn into a stepping stone beneath the Skull Throne.

"Did you see that? Ants!"

Grimal turned around, pointing at the Psyker projection in mid-air, and roared frantically at all the surviving civilians in the square.

"This is your hope! This is your redemption!"

He raised his dripping chainaxe, pointing straight at the firmament, as the violent murderous intent brought by the Butcher's Nails completely erupted.

"Open your eyes wide and look clearly!"

"Watch how we tear apart their warships! Watch how we rip out their intestines! Watch how—we hack off their heads, one by one!"

"Hahahaha!"

...

Meanwhile.

In the Warp on the edge of the Thirteen Worlds.

A cruiser without any official Imperial livery and entirely in a dull iron color was sailing.

This was the warship of the renegade Space Marine Chapter—the Ashen Claws.

On the bridge, Ashen Claws Captain Cazz was staring at the tactical feedback on the Cogitator array.

"My Lord."

The Master of Communications walked to Cazz's side and reported in a low voice,

"The divination array has confirmed the signal characteristics; near the destination of the Thirteen Worlds, a World Eaters warband is operating."

"Damn lunatics!"

Cazz slammed a fist onto the console, "They beat us to it!"

As a renegade Chapter that had wandered the edge of the galaxy for tens of thousands of years, the Ashen Claws had no fixed homeworld to provide supplies.

Weapons, ammunition, population, and even gene-seed all relied on pillaging.

But for the sake of sustainable pillaging, the Ashen Claws usually did not push things to the absolute limit.

They were like experienced shepherds, harvesting regularly, but never causing large-scale devastating destruction.

The Thirteen Worlds was one of their fixed sheepfolds.

But those lunatics of the World Eaters were different.

Once a world was targeted by them, nothing would be left except ruins and headless corpses.

If the Thirteen Worlds were plowed through by the World Eaters, the Ashen Claws would completely lose an important resource point.

"Can we fight them?" an adjutant beside him asked.

Cazz sneered:

"We only have the strength of one company, and we're going to fight a group of lunatics with the Butcher's Nails jammed into their brains? That's called committing suicide."

He decisively waved his hand:

"Forget it, let's go to the next location. What was the name of that new position Narrat mentioned earlier?"

"Yuanwang Star System," the Master of Communications replied.

"Right, that's the place."

Cazz's gaze was cold,

"Narrat said there are very good population resources there. Change course, target the Yuanwang Star System."

As the warship prepared to adjust its Warp course.

A series of dense runes suddenly popped up on the screen in front of the Master of Communications.

"My Lord! Latest news!"

The Master of Communications' voice carried a hint of surprise,

"Another fleet has appeared in the capital sector of the Thirteen Worlds. Moreover, the energy signature shows... it is not a Chaos force!"

Cazz's footsteps, as he prepared to leave, came to an abrupt halt.

He turned around, a flash of shrewd light crossing his eyes.

"Not a Chaos force? Could it be reinforcements from the Imperial Navy?"

Cazz stroked his chin, instantly becoming interested.

A World Eaters warband colliding with an unknown regular fleet would definitely be a life-or-death bloody battle.

For renegades accustomed to wandering the fringes, this was an excellent opportunity.

"To reap the benefits as a fisherman."

Cazz immediately issued an order,

"Correct the coordinates! Exit the Warp directly in the outer airspace of Blackrock Star! Don't get too close, lest you be affected. But don't stay too far either..."

He grinned, revealing a cruel smile: "Otherwise, when the time comes, we'll miss the good opportunity to pull in the net."

...

Blackrock Star, high orbit space.

With blinding flashes, the players' fleet completely stabilized its formation in realspace.

Inside the flagship of the Brotherhood of Steel, the atmosphere was exceptionally lively.

On the spacious bridge, there was none of the strict discipline of a regular army.

Several players were crowded near the porthole, looking at the broken, dark red planet below.

"Good fellow!"

Use Fire Punch wore a heavy customized Rogal Dorn Power Armor, clicked his tongue,

"We just wiped out a Chaos warband in the north, and we run into another one as soon as we run over here? This mob-respawn frequency is not bad."

"This is normal."

Beside him, Player Pi She leaned against the terminal,

"However, that warband we ran into some time ago was a bit too weak, not durable at all. We hadn't even warmed up yet, and the opposite side was completely shattered."

Flame Fist moved his neck, producing a crisp sound of bone friction:

"Just consider it practice. According to the game's setting, the closer to the Warp rift, the stronger the spawned monsters will definitely be. Right, how are your Psyker powers coming along?"

Ever since the Shelter base implemented the Psyker infuser, a wave of immortal-cultivation craze had stirred among the player community.

Large numbers of players lined up in long queues to infuse Psyker power.

In this universe, Psykers were no longer a scarce resource for players.

And Flame Fist, as the Legion Commander of the Brotherhood of Steel, was himself a randomly generated native Psyker.

He naturally strongly advocated for his own brothers to develop Psyker powers.

This led to a very bizarre phenomenon:

Even though the Brotherhood of Steel was a bruiser legion composed entirely of macho men, it somehow became the one with the highest number of Psykers among all player legions currently.

"Not bad."

Player Pi She extended a finger.

An alien fruit two meters away from him wobbled as it floated up and landed in his hand.

"I feel like this talent of mine is telekinesis."

Pi She took a bite of the fruit and said vaguely,

"It's quite useful for moving bricks, but I don't know how to use it to fight monsters yet."

Flame Fist turned his head to look at the other side:

"Where is Zhen? Haven't his Psyker powers been calibrated yet?"

"That kid is still in his room communicating with some kind of thing in the Warp."

Wang Shouyi 13-Spice complained while wiping the huge power hammer.

"Still communicating? What kind of bizarre talent did he draw?" Flame Fist asked.

"I checked the data, his Psyker direction is the summoning class."

Wang Shouyi shrugged,

"According to the setting, if he believes in the Emperor, he can use sacred summoning like the Grey Knights; if he believes in Chaos, he can summon Warp demons."

"But the problem is... we neither believe in that dried corpse sitting on the toilet, nor do we believe in those four perverts in the Warp. Ghost knows what kind of thing he can drag out from the Warp."

Just as everyone was chatting.

The door of the bridge was pushed open violently.

An observing player rushed in excitedly, out of breath.

"Brothers! A big job is here!"

The observing player pointed at the big screen, eyes glowing,

"The Chaos warband here is not simple! I cross-referenced the database on the forum, the livery and flags of this bunch of monsters... seem to be the World Eaters!"

"World Eaters?!"

As soon as these words were spoken, several listless players on the bridge instantly perked up and dashed in front of the tactical screen.

On the screen, through optical magnification.

More than a dozen Chaos warships with ferocious appearances, painted in red and black alternating colors, and welded with brass rams everywhere, were aggressively blocking the front of the orbit.

The style was identical to that in the lore compendium.

"Hahahaha!"

Flame Fist stared at the screen and directly laughed out loud,

"There can be such a good thing?!"

As the strongest and most fanatical bruiser legion in the player faction, the Brotherhood of Steel's favorite combat method was face-to-face melee combat.

As early as on the outpost's surface, they had long been stationed at the border of the Northern Wasteland, going to the wasteland every day to single out and fight Orks.

Later, the Tyranids invaded. Although fighting bugs was satisfying, bugs had no tactics and no martial virtue, making it somewhat less thrilling to fight them.

They never expected that as soon as this expedition jumped out of the Warp, they would directly collide with a World Eaters warband!

What were the World Eaters?

They were a group of ultimate madmen with the Butcher's Nails jammed into their brains!

They were a group of ultimate fanatics who felt uncomfortable all over without fighting or seeing blood, and could only sustain their lives through melee combat and slaughter!

For the beasts of the Brotherhood of Steel, who equally loved close combat and treated their lives as consumables, this was simply a match made in heaven!

"They're coming! They're coming!"

Player Pi She pointed at the distance parameters on the screen,

"The opposing ships are starting to accelerate and close in!"

Flame Fist snatched his helmet and clapped it onto his head.

He directly brought up the legion's public voice channel and roared at the top of his lungs:

"Brothers! Wake up! Radar confirmed, the monsters opposite are suspected to be those madmen of the World Eaters Legion!"

"Say nothing more! All ship gunners leave your battle stations! Not a single cannon is allowed to be fired! Don't shoot a single gun!"

"Let's charge straight up! Fight them head-on!"

Flame Fist cleared his throat hard, his voice echoing in the channels of thousands of warships,

"Pick up your heaviest weapons! Put on your thickest Power Armor! Everyone enter the drop pods! Today, we're going to play a thrilling one!"

As soon as the words fell.

The legion channel instantly exploded into a frenzy, with countless players howling like ghosts and wolves, distorted with excitement.

"Aoligei! Fuck 'em up!"

"Oh! Yeh♦! Melee! Melee!"

"For the Yellow-skinned Old Man! Charge! Beat the shit out of them!"

"Brothers, let's see who chops off more heads! This daddy is going to use a World Eaters' skull as a bowl!"

At the same moment.