"Eighty percent of Szarekh's fleet had been destroyed."
"The star system containing Mandala, Imotekh's Tomb World, had been completely destroyed. Everything within it had been reconstructed by the World Shaper into a primordial state. They no longer had their reanimation protocols."
"Perhaps rebuilding the reanimation protocols would not take long, but at least for now, at least while dealing with the Sautekh Dynasty, their replenishment rate would slow."
Azrael's projection stood before Lion, reporting everything he had done alongside the Lord of Tyran and the progress they had made.
"You... weren't you there to rescue people?" Lion asked, greatly surprised.
He had thought it was merely a simple rescue operation.
Yet the rescue operation had turned into a battle of annihilation, a surprise attack.
"A fortunate coincidence." Azrael answered with only four words.
During the post-battle review attended by the Dark Angels Legion Commander, he learned that Tyranid analysts believed Szarekh had never intended to fight a decisive battle. Although Admiral Kwalon had believed before the battle that the World Shaper's capture was itself one of Szarekh's schemes, a carefully laid trap, that was most likely not the case.
Through a series of coincidences and misunderstandings, the fleet led by the Lord of Tyran fought a decisive battle against the Silent King's fleet. Meanwhile, intelligence operations by Tyran intelligence against the Kanak Dynasty enabled the Iron Men's long-planned raid on Mandala to succeed.
Azrael intended to explain everything in detail to the Primarch after returning. The faster-than-light communications used by a Legion Commander had time limits.
But Lion did not need Azrael to explain further. He quickly grasped the whole situation.
Then Lion was not quite so surprised.
For a battle-hardened Primarch like him, unexpected developments in war were commonplace. No one dared claim they could see through everything, not