A steady voice suddenly rang out over the communications channel.
"Every member of this fleet, immediately abort the warp-jump procedure."
The Ultramarines fell silent at once.
It was the Chapter Master's voice.
Lord of Macragge, guardian of Ultramar, heir to Guilliman's will.
"Chapter Master!" The captain abruptly looked up, his voice suppressing anger and confusion. "Macragge is under attack! The Orks' Battle Moon has already..."
"I know." Saul's voice was cold and resolute. "But Terra has issued new strategic orders."
The holographic projection flickered, and Saul's image appeared in the center of the bridge.
He wore Mastercrafted Power Armor, the Ultramarines' insignia engraved upon his pauldrons. His gaze blazed, utterly unwavering.
"Andamantu Planet has fallen," he said gravely. "The Imperial Fists' defensive line has been breached, and the Ork hordes are advancing toward the Solar System."
The Ultramarines fell silent for a moment.
The Imperial Fists, defenders of Terra.
Dorn's sons had actually been defeated?
"Terra has dispatched the Solar Fleet to intercept them," Saul continued. "But the High Lords' Council believes the Solar Fleet alone cannot completely crush the Green Tide. Therefore, we have been ordered to rendezvous with them immediately and assist in annihilating this main Ork force."
Realizing that Terra was in danger, the captain could not help falling silent as well.
Chapter 46: Yes, for the Golden Throne [4th Update]
"But Macragge..." one warrior could not help saying.
"Macragge will hold. You are the fleet closest to Terra." The Chapter Master's voice allowed no dispute. "The defensive system left behind by our primarch Guilliman will not be breached so easily. But if Terra falls, the entire Imperium will descend into chaos. We must prove to the Emperor that the Ultramarines are not only loyal to Ultramar, but also to the Emperor's throne."
His gaze swept across every warrior.
"This is an order, and it is also a responsibility. Macragge does not lack your fleet, but Terra needs it."
As he spoke, the Chapter Master was not particularly willing to deal with those vermin either.
But he had to respond, and most of the other Chapters shared the same view.
After hearing the Chapter Master's words.
The bridge fell deathly silent.
The Ultramarines clenched their weapons, struggling inwardly.
Their home was burning, and their brothers were fighting.
But their primarch had taught them that the survival of the Imperium outweighed all else.
At last, the captain slowly nodded.
"Understood, Chapter Master." He spoke quietly, then turned to the bridge officers. "Reset the course. Full speed to the Andamantu Sector."
"For the Emperor! For Terra!" The Chapter Master's voice echoed through the communications channel.
The Ultramarines saluted in silence. The fury in their hearts had not faded, merely been suppressed beneath a heavier burden of responsibility.
They would not abandon Macragge, but neither would they allow the Imperial Fists' defeat to become humanity's end.
There were priorities to everything.
In the blink of an eye.
The entire fleet began its jump.
Thaddeus, the Blood Ravens warrior crawling through the ductwork with bags slung all over him and an Angel tied around his waist, suddenly felt weightless.
"Wuh—aaah!"
Rumble!
The engines roared!
The entire fleet entered the preliminary acceleration phase of Warp travel.
As the fleet sped onward, the environment inside the ducts became far less stable.
"Damn it."
At that moment, Thaddeus, who had only wanted to grab some supplies and perhaps take a few relics along the way, realized that he could not leave at all.
He tapped his arm a few times and sent several signals indicating that he might not make it home.
Whoosh!
By the time they came back to their senses, the ship was already traveling through the Warp.
"She's gone! That Angel is gone!"
An Ultramarines warrior reported this to the captain. It was their failure; they had let that suspicious Living Saint escape.
"What?"
Upon hearing the news, the captain immediately felt overwhelmed.
No matter what, it was an indisputable fact that the Angel had slain an entire planet and killed countless Orks and Chaos warriors.
Even if she was highly suspicious, she should at least have received honors befitting a hero.
No matter why she had left, the captain believed it was because they had failed to treat her properly.
After all, tying her up from the start and treating her as a heretic had truly been an unavoidable measure.
Clatter, clatter.
Just as he was regretting it.
A deafening crash of rupturing ducts interrupted his orders.
Amid the tides of the Warp, the ventilation duct convulsed violently like the intestines of a dying beast, arcing across the bridge.
Boom!
Two figures suddenly fell from the mouth of the ventilation duct.
The Ultramarines swiftly went on guard.
But when they saw who had arrived, they were dumbfounded on the spot.
Thaddeus, the Blood Ravens warrior, crashed into the tactical hololith like a cannonball, while a huge bag of assorted "spoils" emitted an increasingly blinding glow.
Xiao Huasheng, meanwhile, fell onto the floor with her hands behind her back, utterly lifeless and not moving at all.
Watching this scene.
The Blood Ravens warrior slowly sat up, and Thaddeus greeted the brothers of the Ultramarines Chapter.
"Knowledge is power."
"Hello, brothers."
The sticky-fingered Chapter was unexpectedly arrested!
When the war on Andamantu ended with the defeat of the Imperial Fists.
Within the High Lords' Council on Terra, the center of rule for the Human Imperium.
An increasingly fierce political struggle was also unfolding.
After the peace of the past thousand years, the Imperium had long since fallen into darkness and corruption.
But in the end, the combined efforts of the Inquisition's representative and the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum forced the Imperial Navy's High Lord Admiral, who commanded enormous forces, to dispatch the Solar Fleet.
It headed for Temple Port to engage the Ork forces gathered there.
And at this moment, this elite Terran fleet of humanity had already clashed with the Orks.
Vast numbers of terrifying gravity weapons erupted from the Orks' Battle Moon!
No one knew how the Orks had built those gravity weapons of immense mass, and even less did anyone know how the things operated.
But when they struck the center of the fleet, their power became the first formidable attack the Human Imperium had witnessed since the millennium of peace.
An admiral watched the sudden gravitational distortions appearing on the tactical star map. Twisted ripples of gravity were dragging three frigates into a crushing zone like toys.
The Orks' "waaagh" energy could be felt even through the vacuum of space. With the success of this strike, the Orks were naturally exhilarated!
After suffering one loss, the Imperial Navy swiftly spread out its formation to prevent itself from being captured so easily.
But that was almost useless as a defense.
Hundreds of jagged openings suddenly split across the Battle Moon's crude steel surface, and its rusty gravity cannon arrays warped the entire region of space into a vortex.
The keel of a Lunar-class Cruiser groaned as it twisted beneath unbearable strain. Its armor belts peeled away layer by layer like bark. Even with its engines at full power, it could not escape that overwhelming pull.
In the end, it crashed into the Battle Moon and exploded into a burst of sparks!
As one vessel watched this scene, an alarmed cry came from one of its crewmen.
"Report... we've been captured too!"
At that moment.
The admiral keenly noticed that when the Battle Moon used its gravity weapons, its Void Shield temporarily shut down.
A mad idea arose in his mind.
"Do not be afraid! Attack! Attack that planet!"
Countless artillery shells and every possible means of attack bombarded the Battle Moon.
There was barely a moment of pause, and the areas struck instantly melted away into massive holes.
Seeing that the attacks were effective, the naval admiral did not even have time to cheer.
The next moment.
Screams from the bridge and the roar of twisting metal erupted at once.
From inside the compartment, he watched the millennium-old warship crumple like tinfoil squeezed by an invisible giant hand. The bridge tower collapsed inward first, then the entire vessel twisted into a knot within the spiraling gravitational field.
Tens of millions of crewmen were crushed into a mixture of flesh and metal before the decompression alarms could even sound.
In the end, he too was fused into it, becoming a lump of metallic wreckage that smashed toward the Ork Battle Moon.
But the information gained from his attack gave the Imperial Navy immense confidence.
Soon, suicide attacks centered around the Solar Fleet appeared upon this brutal battlefield.
Everyone was giving their lives for the Golden Throne, only to inflict a little more damage upon the Ork Battle Moon. Nothing more!
And along the terminator of Temple Port, a Warp rift appeared, and the Ultramarines fleet arrived belatedly.
Chapter 47: I Want to Become a Magical Girl! [5th Update]
The moment she arrived on this battlefield, Xiao Huasheng witnessed the most dazzlingly tragic scene she had ever seen.
"This is..."
The universe was burning.
Tens of millions of warships poured down from the black void like fiery rain cast upon the world by gods. Every falling trajectory tore apart the eternal silence.
They burned and tumbled, their hulls bursting with blinding crimson-gold light through high-speed friction, like meteors unleashing their fiercest brilliance in the final moment of their lives.
The Battle Moon's enormous outline flickered amid the explosions. Its surface had long since become a boiling furnace, greedily devouring this grand dance of death.
Ship shadows were like tears, and their descent was like falling stars.
Some warships shattered before they crashed, becoming countless burning fragments that trailed brilliant yet fleeting streaks through the void.
Others were like stubborn swords, plunging straight into the Battle Moon's rusted crust and erupting into blazing white suns bright enough to blind at the instant of impact.
Molten metal sprayed like tears of blood, congealing into chains of crimson-gold beads beneath the immense gravity before plummeting down.
One ring of heat after another continuously spread across the Battle Moon.
Before you continue