40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 383 112. Interlude: The aftermath of destruction ([-])

Valentus felt a wisp of blood sliding down his cheek. He raised his hand to wipe it, but felt a pain.

This was not a normal phenomenon. His wound should have healed. After thinking about it, Yingjie could only attribute the reason to the fact that the Word Bearers had quenched poison on the blade - Chaos toxin from the subspace.

There is no better explanation. The Word Bearers are despicable. To put poison on the blade is to put it mildly. Who knows what they will do? Warp magic?
  Yingjie lowered his head coldly and began to stare at his blood-stained gauntlet, with no sadness or joy on his face. A huge flash of light flashed through the porthole at this moment, illuminating everything in front of him.

The crowd behind them was noisy for a moment, and then quickly fell silent again. Civilians, soldiers, or legionnaires all huddled together, staring at the disintegrating planet in tacit silence.

Valentus closed his eyes, not wanting to look, but he couldn't help it after all. He opened his eyes and saw Macragge's last moments.

Led by Macragge's Glory, twelve battleships with powerful firepower followed closely behind, releasing cyclone torpedoes at the core world of the Five Hundred Worlds, supplemented by macro-cannon bombardment.

This is not a simple Extermination Order mission. The purpose of the combined fleet is not limited to destroying Macragge's biosphere, burning the atmosphere, and turning it into a dead world.
  Their aim was to destroy it completely from the inside out, so Valentus could say that after today, Macragge would cease to exist.

And this is necessary.

For the damned Word Bearers transformed it forever with sacrifices, formations, rituals, and dark powers called from the storms of the Warp. If you don't do this, it will gradually erode the Five Hundred Worlds and even the entire Extreme Star Territory under the influence of the power of chaos.
  The above words were spoken by Robert Guilliman himself. No one asked why, and few objected, at least not to Valentus.

He tried to object, but his instincts didn't want it. So, in that brief meeting held urgently, Valentus remained silent and did not express his opinions.

Neither did Tarasha Yuton. The housekeeper stood firmly beside the Lord of Five Hundred Worlds without saying a word.

The only person who raised objections was Perturabo, who vehemently believed that Guilliman's actions were "completely excessive and unnecessary".
  So Robert Guilliman took the initiative to tell the reason himself.

He mentioned the Emperor.

The hero of Okruth closed his eyes, and hatred surged up, trying to wrap him up. He refused. Rather than arousing the desire for revenge that could arouse Xueyong, he now needed rational thinking more.

At the same time, in the command room of the main bridge of Macragge's Glory, a conversation between the Primarch and the Primarch was taking place. There were three participants, Robert Guilliman, Perturabo, and Vulkan, who was still dead.

"Our losses are too heavy." Perturabo said, his tone no longer as fierce as during the meeting, but became very calm.

"If you think about it carefully, all of this is extremely coincidental, as if it was a designed drama. You were ordered to go to Calth, and we were transferred to Isstvan. The betrayal of Typhons, the sacrifice of the Word Bearer, etc. Even if one thing were missing, the outcome of today’s events wouldn’t have been like this.”

Guilliman shook his head slightly.

"No, it's not a coincidence, Perturabo," he croaked. "There are no coincidences in this world, only carefully designed strategies. If the weak want to defeat the strong with the weak, they must do their best to create so-called coincidences."

"That's what the traitors are like. They are completely unable to compete with us in terms of paper strength. No commander in their right mind would try to declare war on the enemy head-on in this kind of war where the enemy is strong and we are weak."

"So, they tried every means to gain the upper hand, and they succeeded. Many times, wars are often won or lost in a split second. They took the opportunity, and we fell into a disadvantage. That's all."

Perturabo frowned. He had no intention of refuting, but simply felt a subtle empathy for Robert Guilliman's emotions at the moment.
  This shouldn't have happened, but he could vaguely sense Guilliman's emotions at the moment. After all, it was two losers talking now.

As the commander-in-chief of the Union Army, he held three legions with complete military equipment, but in the end he could only get such a disastrous defeat, which was extremely incompetent.

Not to mention Robert Guilliman, whose importance to his homeland was well known to the world, but now he personally ordered the destruction of Macragge.

"But there is hope," Robert Guilliman said.

Perturabo looked at him.

"Hope still exists." Guilliman repeated again, the blazing light in his eyes still bright, showing no signs of dying out.

"Father told me that they would be waiting on Terra. Horus had no one left, Lorgar was dead, and the Word Bearers were outnumbered as they retreated."

"No, he still has the help of Alpharius." Perturabo objected coldly. "They tried to kill your adoptive mother, before the Word Bearers showed up."

For some reason, he failed to mention that he had been warned by Khalil Lohars. Just as Roboute Guilliman did not recount the entire conversation between him and the Emperor. Guilliman was silent for a moment, then raised his hand and rubbed his brow: "Then we will add the Alpha Legion."

"Maybe Jaghatai," Perturabo added. "Don't forget his daily relationship with Horus, not to mention his legions. And the Thousand Sons."

"Thousand Sons? Magnus is in Terra, how could they-" Guilliman said, suddenly startled slightly.

Perturabo sneered.

"Yes, a legion that has been dealing with subspace and psychic energy. Everyone of them is a wizard. What's more interesting is that in recent years, although they have gradually lost their voice in the Great Crusade, some rumors On the contrary, it’s getting more and more, have you heard?”

Roboute Guilliman had certainly heard of it.

The Thousand Sons were banned from using psionic powers after the Council of Nicaea, but were still required to shoulder their responsibilities as Astartes. Many people in the auxiliary army responsible for cooperating with them have submitted reports with identical or similar descriptions.
  In reports, a large number of soldiers or officers of the Auxiliary Army pointed out that some Thousand Sons would fall to the ground for no reason during battle and twitch like epileptic seizures.

The unfortunate ones were killed on the spot by the enemy, but if they survived, they were immediately taken away by other Thousand Sons, and these people were never seen again.

This matter was so controversial that Terra's Ministry of Military Affairs specially assigned a group of observers to supervise the Thousand Sons. However, the observation team found nothing during its three-year observation. It had no choice but to close the case and treat all previous similar reports as rumors and slander.

Now it seems that these things are not just rumors or slanderous rumors based on people's dislike of psykers.

He nodded silently and accepted the words of the Lord of Steel. If these things unfortunately come to pass, the journey back to Terra may face many obstacles.

Perturabo did not speak again, but allowed Guilliman to continue thinking. He had already turned his attention to Vulkan.

The remains of the Fire Dragon Lord lay on a cold iron platform, still lifeless. If you only look at his appearance, you may not be able to guess his true identity. His current body shape does not match the Fire Dragon Lord in people's memory.

But what Perturabo didn't care about was this matter. He just wanted to know why Vulkan still hadn't returned from death.

More than four hours have passed since the thing wearing Lorga's skin was beheaded and the survivors evacuated Macragge, but Vulkan has not made any movement at all - this is different from what he showed before Resurrection times vary greatly.

Could it be that the fake object's spell is still in effect?
  Perturabo pondered, and before his eyes appeared the image of a headless body gradually disappearing in the smoke. He doesn't know much about witchcraft. Could it be that some witchcraft can continue to work even after the caster is dead?

The Lord of Steel frowned in annoyance - if he had known this, he should not have done everything possible and completely abolished the think tank system.
  Now, he had to explain all this to Robert Guilliman.

After a few minutes, he told these things in full. The Lord of Macragge nodded thoughtfully, stood up and walked out of the command room. Twelve minutes later, he walked in with a Midnight Blade.

"Adbeman Basili," Guilliman introduced. "The current director of the Night Blade Think Tank also serves as the third company commander."

"It's the adjutant, sir." Adebiman corrected. "I am the adjutant of the Third Company, not the company commander."

"Okay, Lieutenant Adebiman. Can you please help check on our brother?" Guilliman smiled apologetically and pointed at the wreckage.

He looked very tired, and even the gleaming light in his eyes could not hide the feeling of powerlessness originating from the depths of his bones, but he still had to do a lot of etiquette.

Perturabo frowned, he could vaguely feel a strong disharmony from the adjutant. Despite this, he still didn't say anything to stop it.

Adebiman slowly came to the Fire Dragon Lord, and a blue light belonging to spiritual energy lit up in his eyes. He put his hand on the charred corpse, and the room temperature began to drop sharply, as if he was in a world of ice and snow.

An unknown breeze blew Robert Guilliman's short gray hair. The original body lowered his head, made a gesture to Perturabo, then turned and left the command room.

He heard some slight quarrels outside the command room, and one of the voices was very familiar to him. The automatic door closed behind him with a soft sound, which also attracted the eyes of Marius Gage and Tarasha Yuton.

Watching them, Robert Guilliman strode away.

　Cavan, so I'm late. This chapter is 3k, and there are two more chapters, so I can collect [-].

　　
  　
  (End of this chapter)