The Road to Luna

Travel within the Webway initially felt like gliding along a silent river woven from frozen starlight and profound Void.

The frenzy and whispers of the twisted Warp were shut out by an invisible barrier of order, leaving only the deep hum of the engines and the steady sensation of the ships moving through strange flowing light.

Indescribable colors flowed across the passage walls, sometimes as brilliant as nebulae, sometimes as dark as the deep sea, so silent that it made one's skin crawl.

Guilliman's taut nerves did not relax because of that calm. He knew well the strangeness of the Eldar Webway and the ancient dangers lurking within it.

Obi-Wan Kenobi stood at his side, curiously examining the dreamlike Webway and wondering about the technology contained within it.

The fleet maintained a tight wedge formation. Cypher's Fallen Angel cruiser and the Harlequin Troupe's vividly colored Wraithbone vessels, like moving stages, sailed at the very front as scouting vanguards, guiding the massive Imperium fleet through the winding passageways behind them.

The unexpected happened as they passed through an unusually massive Webway junction node, twisted like a stellar ring.

The Fallen Angel cruiser ahead exploded violently, flames bursting across its side armor!

"Enemy attack! The forward fleet is under boarding assault! Energy signatures identified—Thousand Sons! Large numbers of Rubric Marines!" The bridge alarm system screamed shrilly as sensors detected countless signals radiating intense Warp fluctuations and the stench of warped metal flooding into the Fallen Angel cruiser!

"Thousand Sons! Rubric Legion!" Guilliman's gaze instantly turned blade-cold.

Tzeentchian sorcerers, and those cursed daemon puppets with nothing inside their armor!

How had they appeared here? Coincidence? Or... a planned ambush?

"Sicarius!" Guilliman's voice was like a drawn sword, instantly cutting through the bridge alarms.

"Father!" Sicarius, captain of the Ultramarines Second Company, was already fully armed, his Power Fist gleaming with dangerous light.

"Take men and support the Fallen Angels immediately! We still need their navigation!" Guilliman's order was absolute.

He despised Cypher's schemes, but at this moment, Cypher and his Harlequin guides were the key to leading the fleet out of this maze! They could not be taken out here.

"For the Emperor! For the Regent!" Sicarius growled, turning without hesitation and charging toward the transport craft.

Squad after squad of Ultramarines elites in blue-and-gold power armor followed close behind.

The Ultramarines' reinforcements arrived quickly.

A bloody, chaotic boarding battle erupted at once!

The comm channels filled with the thunder of Bolters, the howl of power weapons, the shriek of psychic lightning, and the inhuman, metallic grinding roars of the Rubric Marines.

Combat footage streamed back to the flagship bridge in real time through Sicarius's helmet recorder.

In the footage, Rubric Marines surged forward like a tide.

They wore their iconic crimson-and-gold armor, engraved with blasphemous runes. Their movements were stiff, yet carried an eerie strength.

Ultramarine Bolter rounds struck them, blasting apart large chunks of ceramite, but what spilled from within the armor was neither flesh nor machinery. It was dark-red dust, like dried blood ground into powder!

The dust spread beneath the shockwaves of the explosions, carrying a nauseating stench of sulfur and rusting metal.

"The Rubric curse..." Guilliman murmured. Complex emotions flashed in his eyes: hatred for traitors, and perhaps a trace of pity for the horrific fate suffered by these former brothers... No, more than anything, vigilance. "This is your trick of playing with souls! Using these empty shells to delay my advance!"

He understood the enemy's intent at once.

The appearance of these Rubric Marines was not meant to annihilate the Fallen Angels or the Imperium fleet. They were nothing but expendable fodder, with only one purpose—delay! To use endless empty suits of armor, like grains of sand, to pin the expeditionary fleet at this Webway node, draining their time, ammunition, and strength, preventing them from reaching Terra in time!

"We cannot delay any longer!" Guilliman slammed a fist onto the command console, and the Adamantium surface boomed dully.

The agonizing lesson of arriving too late once before was branded deep into his soul.

The Chaos gods and traitors were doing everything possible to stop him from returning to Terra. That alone proved how dire Terra's situation was, and how important this journey had become!

Every second was precious!

"All ships, heed my command!" Guilliman's voice boomed like thunder, overpowering the bridge alarms and the sounds of battle on the comm channels. "Target—the engagement zone around the Fallen Angel cruiser ahead! All available weapons, fire at will! Saturation bombardment! At any cost, eliminate every enemy obstructing the fleet's advance!"

The order was cold and resolute.

The massive Lance Array at the prow of the flagship Macragge's Honour began charging first, emitting a heart-pounding hum! Then, every Imperium warship with a firing angle lit its macro-cannon muzzles with destructive radiance, while torpedo tubes opened!

"Fire!!!"

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom—!!!

The Webway space was lit up in an instant!

Countless massive lances, like swords of judgment, tore through the strange flowing light along the Webway walls and slammed brutally into the swarming formations of Rubric Marines surrounding the Fallen Angel cruiser and the battle zone itself!

The solid shells of the macro-cannons fell like a dense meteor shower onto the vessel's surface, triggering earth-shaking explosions! Torpedoes dragged long trails behind them as they accurately plunged into the densest Rubric Marine boarding points!

A tide of Destruction swallowed the entire area in an instant!

And beneath the fleet's devastating salvo, the Rubric Marines crumbled in sheets like sandcastles swept up by a gale.

Crimson armor fragments mixed with even denser clouds of red dust pouring from within, dispersing amid the explosive shockwaves and energy beams before finally fading into nothingness.

Only the pungent stench of sulfur and rusted metal lingered amid the smoke of the bombardment.

The Webway junction node was a complete wreck.

The Fallen Angel cruiser's armor plates had been badly warped and smoked heavily, but its power core appeared to have avoided fatal damage.

The Harlequin Troupe's ships had evaded most of the damage with their agility.

And the wave of Rubric Marine attacks had been forcibly halted and cleared by the merciless saturation strike!

"All ships! Maximum speed! Follow the guiding signal! Break through!" Guilliman issued another cold command without the slightest pause.

The fleet's engines roared under overload, ignoring the smoke and energy turbulence that had yet to disperse ahead. Like a torrent of steel breaking free of its restraints, they accelerated behind Cypher and the Harlequin Troupe's ships, forcing their way through the Webway node scoured by cannon fire!

The Webway passage ahead seemed to grow narrower and more twisted. Signal lights on the Harlequin Troupe's vessels flashed frantically, guiding the fleet through maze-like routes at high speed.

They had clearly been cowed by Guilliman's resolve and ruthlessness, and dared not delay any longer.

After an unknown period of suffocating silence and high-speed travel, a point of steady white light suddenly appeared in the profound darkness ahead!

It was not the strange flowing light of the Webway walls. It looked more like... starlight from the real universe!

"Exit! Webway exit energy signature detected! Coordinates... low lunar orbit!" The navigator's voice trembled with wild joy and excitement!

"All ships! Prepare to leave the Webway!" Guilliman's voice carried an uncontrollable tremor as well, and his fingers tightened slightly around the command console.

Cypher's Fallen Angel cruiser and the Harlequin Troupe's Wraithbone vessels plunged into the white light first and vanished instantly.

Then the battered yet unstoppable Imperium expeditionary fleet followed, ship after ship, like great whales leaping from the water as they burst through the steadily open Webway Gate!

The blinding white light faded. Beyond the viewports lay a cold, familiar gray planetary surface covered in craters—Luna! And beyond Luna's vast silhouette stood a scarred yet still magnificent world, guarded by countless defense platforms, space stations, and, in psychic sight, the brilliant radiance of the Astronomican—Holy Terra!

The expedition's destination, the heart of the Imperium of Man, stood before them!

The fleet slowly adjusted its formation. The sensor arrays in lunar orbit had clearly detected this immense, unfamiliar, battle-scarred fleet.

Countless Imperium identification signals and demands for verification flooded the comm channels like a tide, carrying shock, caution, and a sliver of incredulous joy.

Guilliman stared at the blue planet so close beyond the viewport and drew a long, deep breath of the bridge air, scented with engine oil and purifying incense.

All the sacrifices, betrayals, despair, and miraculous aid along the way—the blood of countless faithful souls and the filth of Chaos—had ultimately led here.

Terra. He had returned.

This time, he would not be late again.