A Well-Funded War

One solar hour later.

A massive fleet set sail from the Webway city of Calasta.

The total number of warships stood at around fifteen hundred.

All ships of the Librarian fleet other than the White Knight traveled along the very edge of the formation, like foot soldiers marching at the outermost edge of an army column.

At the very center of the fleet was another of The Emperor's flagships—the Bucephalus Battle Carrier.

The Emperor himself was not within the fleet, but this colossal vessel was enough to represent his authority and bolster the morale of the entire armada.

The White Knight guarded the Bucephalus Battle Carrier, forming a close-protection fleet alongside another fifty Heavy Cruisers.

The most advanced and powerful vessels from the Solar System Fleet of the Imperial Navy and the Mars Fleet of the Mechanicus—the ace fleets representing the two wings of the Imperium's double-headed eagle—had been detached from their original formations and added to the fleet led by the Battle Carrier.

This was the naval strength.

The ground forces were likewise the cream of the Imperium.

One hundred and twenty thousand Solar System Auxilia troops, five thousand Custodes personally commanded by Valdor, the entire Thousand Sons Legion, two thousand Silent Sisters from the Sisterhood of Silence, and the psychic Titan Legions of the Ordo Sinister.

Five million elite Mechanicus Skitarii, and twenty-six Titan Legions.

The designations of these fleets and ground forces were displayed in orderly rows upon the holographic projection on the Battle Carrier's Command Deck.

Qin Xa stood before the tactical table, studying the information displayed upon it.

Surrounding Qin Xa beneath the holographic projection were:

Malcador, Imperial Chancellor and Master of the Administratum; Valdor, commander of the Custodes; the Solar Lord, commander of the Solar System Auxilia; Jentia Krole, commander of the Sisterhood of