Oliensis System-
Deep in the dark, lightless reaches of space, the guns of the Imperial Fleet and the Plague Fleet tore through the void. Every beam could be a warship's final cry. Wreckage and corpses drifted slowly under gravity's pull, forming a brutal star chart.
Within the Eye of Terror, the fabric of reality twisted.
The will of a Great Unclean One manifested here. Oliensis VIII, once an ordinary celestial body, had been utterly transformed into a paradise of plague by seven altars to Nurgle.
Thick toxic gas shrouded the planet, and deadly bubbles churned through its dark green swamps. Countless creatures of Nurgle clambered gleefully from the poisonous mire, chuckling, only to be swept away by buzzing swarms of plague flies and absorbed into the endless cycle of decay.
But that joy was about to end.
The blocking formation of Imperial cruisers stood like a moving rampart. Their hulls were riddled with wounds, yet they stubbornly held their place at the fleet's forefront, absorbing the enemy's torrents of gunfire and boarding torpedoes.
The destroyer squadrons were even more resolute. They accelerated toward the enemy formation, their hulls sizzling beneath the corrosive onslaught of Nurgle's plague swarms, their twisting metal screaming.
Their crews paid it no heed. Their sole mission was to launch every torpedo they carried at their targets before their ships disintegrated completely. No wails filled the communications channels, only terse confirmations of launch orders.
Countless plague warships became swelling fireballs beneath the Imperial Navy's overlapping layers of precise, lethal fire, then went dark. Every Imperial warship fulfilled its duty with gunfire and lives, coldly and efficiently.
Although these tactics seemed brutal and rigid, only the Imperial Navy could execute them across the entire Milky Way.
The Aeldari cherished their lives too dearly; they could not afford to