"Those damned dark elves have been cowering in Commorragh's core districts all this time. They don't dare respond to our provocations at all."
"Commorragh had already raised its highest-level alert. Every passage leading to its core districts had either been completely cut off or heavily fortified with forces that could not be decapitated."
"The moment any of those places sounded the alarm, the dark elves' armies would swarm in and drown our assault forces in their absolute numerical advantage."
"Relying on this turtle-like strategy, those dark elves had survived until now, just as they had survived the birth cry of Slaanesh."
"I've fought many enemies, but foes as cowardly, as shameless, and as utterly without limits as the dark elves are indeed rare."
Leman Russ rested his broad palm against his forehead as he answered the complaints of his sons.
While the Imperium was still immersed in the immense joy of the Emperor's return, a grueling war of attrition was unfolding in the deepest reaches of the Webway, within the colossal Webway-node city of Commorragh.
It was called a war of attrition because it had begun a century ago, when a band of savage human raiders had charged into the depths of the Webway and started ambushing dark eldar slave-taking parties everywhere.
At first, the lofty Archons of Commorragh's Kabals had merely considered it a brief and sudden incident.
The Webway belonged to the eldar—more precisely, to the dark eldar.
The other eldar, whether Craftworld eldar or Exodite eldar, were not true eldar at all. They were merely lowborn races bearing the name of the Aeldari.
And humanity? A species whose history was not even a fraction as long as that of the Aeldari could never adapt to the Webway's environment and survive within it.
But as their dealings with