At last, that day had come.
"Big Boss!" Snot's projection appeared before Liu Zhipeng, filled with unprecedented terror. "The... the sky! There are loads and loads of... iron ships up there that aren't ours! They... they look really nasty!"
Liu Zhipeng slowly walked to the Command Tower's viewport and looked up.
In Hope Star's murky sky, rifts in the Warp were brutally torn open. One enormous Imperial warship after another, covered in Gothic ornamentation and sacred insignia, slowly emerged like ghosts.
Leading them was a Tyrant-class cruiser radiating cold killing intent. The Inquisition's distinctive burning "I" was engraved on its prow.
Valerius's Sin-Cleansing Crusade fleet had arrived.
Liu Zhipeng watched the vast fleet blot out the sky, his face betraying no surprise. He merely sighed softly.
"It seems they've rejected the option of peaceful communication."
He turned, and his orders spread across the entire planet.
"All forces, enter maximum combat readiness."
"Fleet, start your engines. Prepare to ascend and engage the enemy."
"Meanwhile, execute phase A of the 'Ark' plan. All noncombatants, begin boarding."
"My people," his voice rang out in every Gretchin's mind, calm yet filled with strength, "the time has come to test our faith. Let those lofty invaders see that the flame of hope will never go out!"
An unprecedented war of purification launched by an Inquisitor began alongside a meticulously planned mass evacuation, ready to cut and run at any moment.
"Target the source of sacrilege. Open fire."
On the bridge of the Silver Damnation, Valerius's voice held not a trace of emotion. He had not even issued a final ultimatum or offered any chance to surrender. To him, communicating with heretics who had defiled the Emperor's divinity was itself a form of corruption. His task was not conquest, but purification-from the physical to the conceptual,