The Chaos fleet had expended considerable effort to temporarily drive back the Ork fleet. Cadia's void had then become a battlefield contested by three major powers.
"This is just wonderful." Drau sneered beside the map. "So this expedition is going to fail again, isn't it? Cadia won't fall now that the Orks have interfered, and our mission will become digging as much Blackstone as possible out of this miserable planet?"
"You cannot put it that way. Warmaster Abaddon has his own considerations," the Dark Mechanicum priest replied.
"So you belong to Abaddon's faction?" Drau asked.
"No." The Dark Mechanicum priest answered decisively. "But as a leader, changing one's deployment according to circumstances is a quality one should possess, and Abaddon is precisely that kind of leader."
"Oh! Is that so? Let me guess. Is he once again thinking of using some sorcery to weaken the enemy?" Drau had gleaned much hidden meaning from the Dark Mechanicum priest's answer, and the priest's silence confirmed his suspicion.
Drau gave a few cold laughs. "Relying on Degraded Ones and sorcery, he has pushed the Space Marines to the fringes. I'd say he's hardly any different from the Corpse Emperor now."
Faced with Drau's profoundly disrespectful tirade, the Dark Mechanicum priest could only respond with silence.
Turning his attention back to Cadia's ground war, the fourth line of defense had completely collapsed. The remaining Degraded Ones were utterly incapable of stopping the Imperial forces' advance. But the purpose of the four defensive lines Drau had established—or rather, the five defensive lines—had never been to stop the Imperial army. It was to wear them down.
Once the Imperial army's momentum had grown increasingly feeble, Drau's rested troops would deliver a counterattack they would never forget for the rest of their lives. By then, not a