Hmph, want to escape?

In the void, the Word Bearers' battleship, the False Emperor, turned amidst a battlefield littered with debris and artillery fire. Its engines began to accelerate, heading straight for the Mandeville Point beyond the star system.

The tide had turned, and the Word Bearers had to admit that their strategic attempt to crush the Ultramarines had failed.

Half of the Ultramarines' fleet had regained power, and their weapon arrays had been reclaimed.

The captain of the Glory of Macragge noticed the enemy's attempt to escape. The Primarch and his forces were returning via other warships in orbit, and he had to do something.

"Full engine power!"

The massive hull of the Glory of Macragge began to accelerate, locking onto the False Emperor's trail, determined to blast the enemy ship to pieces.

The False Emperor would not be allowed to escape; it had to pay the blood price for Kaos.

However, the False Emperor was faster than the Glory of Macragge. Its engines had been refitted and were augmented by some foul sorcery.

The currents of the Aether favored the False Emperor; the Warp was calling to it.

Khorvalen was dragged into the operating room by the Word Bearers' warriors. His condition was dire; his heart had completely ruptured, shattered by Guilliman's lightning claw.

The disintegration field had caused hundreds of bone fractures and internal organ ruptures throughout his body. It was a miracle he was still alive.

The foster father of Loka lay like a tattered sack, blood and shredded flesh seeping from his body, soaking the operating table with foul, blackish fluid.

The backlash of his psychic abilities rendered Khorvalen unable to speak. The timely teleportation had not been without cost; he had struck a dangerous pact with entities in the Warp, which allowed him to channel psychic energy to leave the orbital platform.

And when dealing with the Warp, the Warp was never the one at a disadvantage.

The Apothecaries began to find ways to heal his body. The blasphemous laboratories aboard the False Emperor provided cloned bodies for transplantation. He used drills and blades to cut open clones floating in nutrient fluid, dismembering them to extract organs.

Khorvalen's condition was so critical that the Apothecaries believed replacing his entire body offered a better chance of survival.

"No, just replacing organs and limbs isn't enough! Hurry and perform the ritual!" the Apothecary screamed madly.

The Glory of Macragge's first salvo struck the False Emperor. The energy was blocked by the Void Shields, but it also drastically reduced its speed, creating the possibility of boarding.

"Quick, finish the ritual! We must return to the Empyrean immediately. Why won't these damned Ultramarines just die obediently!"

"We've made so many deals with the Empyrean, paid such heavy prices, yet they're still alive and kicking, chasing us."

A Word Bearer roared in frustration. Despite their efforts, they had only managed to heavily damage the Ultramarines, not destroy them.

The Chaos cultists on the ships chanted softly. The captured soldiers and civilians remaining on board were painfully killed by ritual blades. They were disemboweled while still alive, their organs and bones extracted to become sacrifices for the ritual.

Blood and suffering were offered to the will of the Empyrean, and the gateway to the Warp was opening.

"No, they're going to escape!"

The Ultramarines' eyes widened in fury. They would never allow the False Emperor to escape before their eyes.

Hurry! Hurry! Machine spirit, we beg you, go faster!

To this end, they were even willing to disregard the immense danger and dispatch another wave of Ultramarines for a boarding action.

It would be a suicidal strike; whether the boarding was successful or not, the dispatched team was almost certainly doomed.

But there was no time to think further. The captain made the decisive order for the remaining troops on board to prepare to enter the boarding torpedoes. They would be launched and, accelerated by thrusters, would catch up to the False Emperor.

Just as the False Emperor was about to warp into the Warp, a starship, appearing from nowhere, suddenly dropped its camouflage.

Its engines at the rear spewed a long blue trail, leaving a shining mark in the dark expanse of space. It collided with the hull of the False Emperor at a flank angle of nearly forty-five degrees.

Collisions between warships were always the most brutal form of combat. The movements of these colossal metal constructs, whose mass alone was enough to create micro-gravity fields, were bursts of immeasurable energy.

The starship, barely a kilometer long, pierced the False Emperor's ribs like a short dagger. The crackling warp field at its tip easily tore through its outer armor, and then, without any sign of deceleration, snapped the central hull's keel.

Various sealed compartments and the ship's skeleton were completely shattered by this devastating blow. The cultists and Space Marines inside were either torn apart by the shockwave or sucked into the vacuum of space.

A chain reaction of explosions instantly followed. The engines failed completely under the shockwave, and the False Emperor was nearly split in half. The exploding metal fragments and the fiery shockwave killed almost everything on board. With the Warp engines disabled, they had no chance of escaping into the Warp.

"What the hell is that ship! Can anyone tell me! Can anyone tell me!"

The captain witnessed the destruction of the False Emperor through the auspex. It was an undeniable fact. He urgently changed his plan to follow the False Emperor into the Warp, controlling his warship to decelerate immediately.

"Cannot query the ship's hull number. That is not an Imperial vessel!"

"Should we destroy it?"

The officer awaited orders. Unidentified starships were to be treated as enemy targets on the battlefield.

"Negative. The other party helped us destroy the False Emperor. Continue observation."

"Do not alert them. Attempt communication."

The captain did not rashly issue an attack order. This was not only because the suddenly appearing starship had sunk the False Emperor, but more importantly, under the observation of the auspex and scanning arrays, the other party showed no signs of damage.

This was simply unbelievable.

The Glory of Macragge's machine spirit was issuing a warning. The captain clearly sensed the machine spirit's resistance; it was unwilling to attack this unknown starship.

"I didn't want to interfere, but it seems if I don't act now, this guy is really going to get away."

Loci stood on the bridge of the Red Alert, hands clasped behind his back, leaning against the raised platform.

"Although it looks like I'm stealing the kill, the Ultramarines probably won't blame me." Loci's mood improved. "You think you can escape from me?"

"Sorry, this road is blocked."

The flames from the reactor explosion spread across the screen. The starship turned at an incredible sharp angle, its speed instantly dropping to zero, then surging again to average speed as it flew towards Khorvalen's orbital trajectory.

For these enemies who have committed countless crimes, Loka will show no mercy.

Although they were once human, they no longer deserve to be called such since becoming puppets and slaves of the Warp.

"The transformation of this sun is irreversible. The deadly radiation released by a nascent supernova will render this system, and even nearby systems, uninhabitable for humanity."

"I should go meet Guilliman. The Battle of Kaos is nearing its end, and I'll pay a proper visit to this son of the Emperor."

Loka maneuvered the starship into Kaos's low orbit. While docking wasn't necessary, it was a gesture to expose itself to the Ultramarines' view, making them feel as though everything was under their control.

The battle in space had concluded. All Word Bearer warships, except for those that wisely activated their Warp drives and fled, were annihilated by weapon arrays and space fleets.

Prosperous interstellar trade had vanished. The ceaseless merchant adventurers had fled, leaving the Veridian system with nothing but debris and space junk scattered throughout its low orbit and several planetary gravity fields.

The fires of Kaos still burned; the planet had become a hellscape.

Loka disembarked from the starship's airlock, ordering the AI to remain on standby while refusing all boarding requests except for its own.

If the situation turned unfavorable, he could instantly teleport back to the ship and immediately engage the engines to escape.

Captain Ventanus had been waiting for a considerable time.

"Esteemed guest, Lord Roboute Guilliman requests your presence."