The Bell Tower

The XIII Legion's flagship had fallen into a degree of chaos, but the Ultramarines' swift response smothered it.

The crew handed the primarch data they had no time to process. Using his superhuman mind, he directly organized and calculated the warship's condition, forming effective countermeasures in his mind.

"The communications system is offline. The power system is offline."

"The scanning system and shield system are still operational." Guilliman set down the data-slate. Macragge's Honour's reactor had been affected, and its current energy reserves could only sustain the shields.

"Then activate the void shields first. Scan the status of the other warships. Restore power and communications at full capacity. Inform me the instant either is restored. If it cannot be done, tell me the exact expected time!"

The primarch was the Legion's core. After the initial panic, order returned. The crew raised the blast shutters across the deck; they could rely on the simplest visual observation to assess the situation.

Calth's sun illuminated the bridge. Starships filled the spaceport and low orbit. Some remained motionless, while others had already restored partial engine power.

Calth's surface and low orbit had not been so fortunate. The Data Surge had inflicted severe damage. Ground units deprived of coordination had caused widespread traffic accidents, while plumes of smoke and fire continually shot into the sky.

At the sight, Roboute immediately understood.

"The Weapon Array is trying to warn us. They can't transmit the message to us."

The Laser Array's power could not have been meant merely to pierce the flagship's outer armor. With the orbital defenses fully activated, combined with the spaceborne star forts and defense fleets, they would have been enough to resist any enemy daring to invade Calth.

Clearly, this had merely been a physical warning.

The surface was trying to convey some information, but under the current circumstances, it had no way to do so.

The message had been urgent enough that they had needed to use the Weapon Array to attack the primarch's flagship as a warning!

But why? Cut off in an island of information, the primarch tried to analyze what the surface Watchtower had meant to convey.

What could have required the surface to send a warning at the risk of its own destruction?

A full two hundred thousand Ultramarines and hundreds upon hundreds of warships had gathered in this system, a force several times larger than many smaller Legions.

Guilliman suddenly realized that, although the XIII Legion appeared fearless, the Ultramarines were in fact scattered across the planet's surface and aboard every warship, while the starships were docked at orbital ports for resupply.

Their engines and reactors had been shut down. Their personnel had also been dispersed among maintenance work and supply duties. Most were not at their stations.

This was their most vulnerable moment. If any enemy launched an attack now, Guilliman's Legion would suffer unimaginably horrific losses.

"Who could the enemy be? An unknown scrapcode attack, a Data Surge, and perhaps infiltration operations... who is my enemy?" Guilliman's two hearts pounded wildly, their thudding like war drums.

The Ultramarines never feared war, no matter who the enemy was.

As all of Calth descended into chaos, a transport vessel named the Bell Tower had already begun accelerating.

Its hull was insignificant compared to those battleships and cruisers laden with glory. Yet at this moment, while those behemoths of war struggled to restart their engines and desperately sent signals calling for nearby comrades, its realspace main engines were already operating at full power.

Under normal circumstances, the main engines were only activated for short-range sublight travel or acceleration in preparation for a Warp jump.

The main engines roared, driving the Bell Tower faster and faster. Then something even more insane happened—the Bell Tower activated its void shields.

It was already extremely close to Calth, but it was moving too fast to be tracked by the naked eye or monitors alone. Yet Macragge's Honour, now partially functional, had detected it through its scanning array.

"Keel code confirmed. That vessel is the Bell Tower!"

"Emperor above, it's going to ram Calth!" the Senior Tech-priest screamed.

"Weapons! Target it! Shoot it down!" The primarch slammed a fist into the command platform, no longer able to suppress his fury. The alloy plating dented inward beneath the enraged primarch's blow.

Inside the Bell Tower, large numbers of crewmen already lay in pools of blood. Chaos cultists clutching ritual daggers laughed wildly as they slit their throats, smearing the spurting blood across their own skin and devoting themselves wholly to the vile ritual.

They pushed the engines' output and the void shields to maximum, laughing without restraint.

"In the name of The Empyrean, be destroyed!"

The primarch's fury could not be carried out. Macragge's Honour's weapon systems were still offline, leaving them completely unable to stop the transport vessel that had turned itself into a bullet.

The Bell Tower pierced Calth's low-orbit platform. The ring-shaped construction of steel was utterly helpless before the Bell Tower, accelerating at one quarter of the system's speed limit.

Though they had received warning in advance, vast numbers of warships, troop transports, and cargo vessels still remained in orbit. The largest and most conspicuous among them were the famous super-heavy battleships and cruisers.

The mad bullet hurtled toward Calth's fleet. Its void shields scraped the hull of the assault ship Lecrus, reducing the starboard sensor array and radar to ashes.

It passed alongside the heavy cruiser Queen's Sigh, its void shields instantly tearing apart every small vessel nearby—cargo ships, repair ships, and more.

Blue and red sparks exploded across the void shields' surface. Countless shattered hulls scattered in every direction, bringing destruction and death to still more warships.

Warships collided and crushed against one another. Those steel monsters, several or even dozens of kilometers long, rolled and tangled together, their protruding spikes and claws forced through the bodies of their comrades, triggering further explosions and losses.

Yet a few warships could not stop the insane Bell Tower. Driving its void shields at near-light speed, it continued onward and struck the largest, oldest orbital shipyard—the Calth Veridian Anchorage—tearing apart and annihilating the colossal metal structure three hundred kilometers across.

Everything touched by the void shields was annihilated. Vast superstructural frames snapped apart. The nine-kilometer-long Hate had its engines pierced, and its reactor explosion consumed six thousand lives, while more than thirty thousand engineers died in the blast's aftermath.

Cargo vessels stationed on the orbital platform were torn apart. The cargo and containers carried by forty-nine freighters and one hundred sixty-eight small barges were hurled into the atmosphere, tumbling as they flared with blue friction-fire beneath the planet's pull.

The greatest victim—the Soul of Konor—suffered sympathetic detonations in its reactor and ammunition magazines. More than half its hull vaporized and vanished, while the remaining sections crashed toward the world below together with the shipyard's wreckage.

Broken warships were everywhere. Docks stripped of gravity, along with everything on them, fell into the atmosphere. The shipyard was finished; nothing could stop it from crashing into Calth.

The Bell Tower's remaining hull, protected by its void shields, continued its charge. It could no longer be called a ship. It was more like an immense, unimaginably dangerous piece of space debris, tearing apart Calth's miracles and dragging at least dozens of warships down into hell with it.

It all happened too fast, within the span of a breath.

The silent void made not the slightest sound. Everyone could only watch the ceaseless, dazzling explosions spread and erupt wildly, and only then feel the fear and helplessness rising from the depths of their hearts.

Today was Calth's day of destruction.