Space Campaign

Guilliman, clad in his azure power armor, stepped onto the command deck, followed closely by his Honor Guard encased in Cataphractii Terminator Armor.

The sheer mass of their steel-clad forms brought an overwhelming sense of oppression; everyone on the command deck felt as if their hearts had been seized by a cold, iron grip of fear, making even the act of breathing a struggle.

The Honor Guard were all elite veterans among the Ultramarines, each boasting an astonishing record of service. Clad in Terminator Armor, which was even bulkier and more imposing than standard Space Marine power armor, their presence alone was enough to push the atmosphere of dread to its limit.

For an ordinary human to stand before a member of the Honor Guard and speak required immense courage.

"What is the situation, Brecht?" Guilliman asked, turning his gaze toward the captain seated in the command chair.

"They are gathering on the second planet of the Sara System. Judging by the heraldry on their warships and other distinct features, the intelligence we received was not false; the enemy is indeed the Death Guard. Our fleet has already deployed, and comparing the strength of both sides, we can achieve victory with ease."

Death Guard, Plague Spreaders, the cursed traitors, the eternal enemies of the Imperium, the unforgivable.

The Death Guard once belonged to the 14th Legion of the Imperium, led by the Primarch Mortarion, and had made indelible contributions to the Great Crusade and the unification of humanity.

During the final stages of the Great Crusade, Mortarion led the Death Guard to participate in the Horus Heresy. They openly betrayed the loyalists in the Isstvan System, joining other traitor legions in a massive slaughter of loyalist forces, committing unforgivable crimes.

Later, while the fleet was navigating the Warp, Mortarion was betrayed by that turncoat Typhus. The latter killed the Navigators and sabotaged the ships' Geller Fields, trapping the fleet in the Warp, where they were brutally broken by the Chaos Gods.

Nurgle, through his masterful machinations, forcibly tamed Mortarion—a man who loathed sorcery and harbored an extreme hatred for Chaos—turning him into his personal plaything.

Mortarion had originally been a Primarch who vehemently resisted sorcery and Chaos.

Yet, trapped in the Warp and tormented by plague, he was forced to submit to Nurgle, one of the Chaos Gods representing pestilence, death, and rebirth, becoming one of the Daemon Primarchs.

He was, in essence, a template of a Primarch tamed into obedience by a loathsome, monstrous master.

The fleet later participated in the Siege of Terra, using plagues to breach the defenses of the Imperial Palace and causing massive casualties. After Horus failed, the legion splintered into various warbands, fleeing to the Eye of Terror and the fringes of the Imperium.

Guilliman organized the information regarding the Death Guard in his mind before turning back to Captain Brecht to inquire further.

"I do not doubt the outcome of our victory; I only wish to ask about the situation on the surface."

"There is no feedback. All signals we have sent have been intercepted, whether electromagnetic or astropathic; we have received no response. I suspect the enemy has seized control of communications. In the worst-case scenario, the astropaths on the surface have either been corrupted or are already dead."

Captain Brecht's tone was heavy, his only remaining organic eye filled with fury.

Another planetary-scale massacre; tens of billions of human lives harvested by the Chaos Gods.

One could only pray that the Divine Emperor would have mercy on those poor souls and welcome their spirits into His embrace.

"Perhaps there is still a chance, otherwise these remnants of Chaos would not still be lingering here." Guilliman looked toward the console. Amidst the mechanical hum, the strategic instrument, meticulously maintained by the Adeptus Mechanicus, was in operation. A series of data symbols and light beams formed a tactical projection, clearly displaying the state of the Sara System and the strength of the plague ships.

At this moment, all the plague ships were positioned near the orbit of the second planet of the Sara System.

"I hope so," Brecht nodded.

"Launch the attack. Regardless of the circumstances, we must eradicate them. If there are survivors, we shall save them; if there are none, then we shall avenge them."

"Understood, my lord."

The fleet, led by the Macragge's Honour, advanced rapidly, and the planet Sara II grew ever larger in their view.

It was a green planet with ice caps at both poles.

The terrain consisted primarily of grasslands and woodlands, with only scattered deserts, making it a world highly suitable for humanity and of great colonial value.

The planet housed six massive Hive Cities, one of which was of staggering scale; based on observed data, its surface area exceeded twenty-six million square kilometers.

The projected population of the planet was at least fifty billion, making it extremely valuable to the Imperium.

Seeing the arrival of the Imperial fleet, the plague fleet reacted, spreading out their lines in an attempt to intercept the Imperial vessels.

Guilliman watched the shifts on the battlefield; the enemy consisted of three fleet groups, severely lacking coordination between them.

Mutual distrust was the weakness of the Chaos forces; they typically fought as individual warbands, resisting unified command and refusing to trust others.

When the distance closed to under three million kilometers, both sides moved from the probing phase into a white-hot, close-quarters engagement.

The Imperial ships launched volleys of torpedoes and missiles in a wide, fan-shaped distribution, creating intersecting lines, while simultaneously firing tons of anti-ship shells to restrict the enemy's maneuvering space.

Combat in space was complex and volatile. With engagement distances often spanning millions of kilometers, weapons like torpedoes, missiles, and shells possessed a certain lag, making it difficult to hit moving ships.

Commanding such a battle required immense computational power to calculate the movement of the enemy and the variables on the battlefield.

Guilliman scrutinized the battlefield with a grave expression, not letting a single minor variable escape his notice.

Before his transition, he had thought that torpedoes and missiles were useless in future space warfare, believing that equipping ships with energy weapons like Lances would be sufficient.

Only after witnessing fleet combat did he realize how foolish his previous thoughts had been.

Every weapon had its own advantages; missiles could track automatically and strike any part of an enemy ship at will.

Lances were fast, but they traveled in straight lines; while powerful and swift, they were easily blocked.

As for physical weapons like torpedoes and shells, their immense power went without saying, and the slow speed often mocked by others could sometimes become an advantage, forcing the enemy to increase their computational load and fear maneuvering lest they collide with them directly.

Stationary torpedoes and mines had a high probability of not triggering Void Shields, and once a collision occurred, the consequences were naturally devastating.

A distance of one million kilometers was considered close-quarters for space warfare. As Lances and massive shells were fired continuously, the space between the two sides quickly turned into a lethal thicket of intersecting beams and projectiles.

The Void Shields on the Macragge's Honour flickered from time to time, rippling under the impact of powerful energy beams.

The stray energy from the weapons caused the Void Shield generators on the Macragge's Honour to emit feedback noise, with some even sparking and crackling.

The Plague Warriors knew exactly who their greatest threat was; even without coordination, they prioritized the Macragge's Honour as their primary target.

Facing the concentrated fire of the enemy, the Macragge's Honour did not retreat, instead delivering an equally fierce counterattack, unleashing a barrage of fire capable of easily leveling cities upon the enemy.

A Plague Warrior ship had its Void Shield overloaded after being struck by a torpedo that hit its prow, sending it into a spin before a barrage of follow-up attacks hammered home.

The massive hull was pierced through by torpedoes, missiles, and Lances; the plasma reactor that took the hit detonated in a colossal explosion, with roaring flames swallowing the Plague Warrior ship as it slowly disintegrated in a silent rupture, burning fiercely in the vacuum of space.

A skyscraper-sized piece of wreckage flew off the exploding warship and accidentally struck a nearby warband vessel, overloading its Void Shield before a single broadside of macro-cannons from an Imperium cruiser blasted it into scrap.

Relying on the firepower of the Macragge's Honour, the Imperium fleet was like a sharp blade, thrusting deep into the heart of the enemy.

The advantage was rapidly expanding, and the scales of victory in the war were tilting swiftly toward the side of humanity.

"Their behavior is abnormal; by all rights, they should be fleeing," Phicris said, standing to the side and shaking his head. "In the past, once they realized they could not win, the traitors would almost always choose to retreat."

"Perhaps these idiots have been scared witless." Brecht wore a mocking expression; his greatest joy was destroying enemy warships one by one with his own hands, leaving the corpses of those Chaos traitors to float in the void as frozen statues.

A dead traitor was the only kind of traitor worth acknowledging.

Guilliman withdrew his gaze from the strategic projection and shook his head. "I do not think this matter is that simple. Find a way to obtain the surface conditions of Sara II. Perhaps the problem lies on the planet's surface; once we have information from up there, we might understand what is going on."

Although he was a transmigrator, he had inherited the power and all the memories of his predecessor, making it more of a fusion in a certain sense.

His Primarch-level strategy and wisdom made him feel that the Plague Warriors being so fearless of death was somewhat anomalous.

They had not sworn allegiance to Khorne, and Nurgle never encouraged mindless suicide.

Mindless charging just for the sake of slaughtering was something only that brute Khorne would do.

Thank you to the few friends for the monthly tickets, recommendation votes, and tips. If it weren't for the difficulty of mass-releasing during the new book phase, I would be doing twenty thousand words a day to show my appreciation for your support. I hope everyone will continue to vote and keep up with the chapters; once I get on the recommendation lists, I will immediately increase the update frequency, and if I can get a few hundred readers by the time it goes live, I will immediately start updating twenty thousand words a day.