Warhammer: Starting as a Planetary Governor

Chapter 769 - 768: Rogal Dorn: What is going on? Why is the Chaos host still wandering around outside?!

"By the Savior, the plague host has stopped pursuing us!"On the bridge of the transport ship, Oris stared at the rotten void-whales slowly turning in the void and backing away, his heart overflowing with excitement.

He had no idea why the plague host had stopped chasing them, but one thing was certain.

He was going to live.

As the news spread, all the workers aboard the ship broke into cheers and tears of joy at their narrow escape.

To survive a battle of glory this harsh was the kind of luck that only came once in a lifetime.

The workers had never imagined that the Savior would not only send down a miracle, but would also dispatch a transport fleet to bring them back to safety.

What favor. What grace.

This was the spirit of the New Imperium. Sacrifice might be the foundation of the Imperium, but the Imperium would not lightly abandon a single life, and would still send aid and rescue.

Even for a group of workers.

Even if the cost was greater.

That was the key to unity. It made people understand that they had value, that they were worth saving.

Rather than simply dying helplessly.

"Good thing I managed to find a route through the chaotic void in time. Otherwise they never would have made it back."

At that moment, Eden, who had been watching over the workers, finally let out a sigh of relief.

Of course, it was not solely his doing. The moment Holy Terra discovered that the Wall of Arat's main defense platform was in danger, it had immediately dispatched transport forces to extract them.

If not for that, then no matter how powerful he was, there was no way he could have moved a million workers under the Chaos Gods' blockade.

The strength and determination with which they had sealed off the Solar System had exceeded everyone's expectations, including his own.

Eden's phantom gazed down over the Solar System wrapped in darkness, and the pressure and anxiety in his heart continued to rise.

This was only the beginning. He had no idea whether the Holy Terra defense network he had so carefully built would really be able to withstand the assault of the Chaos host and the fallen primarchs.

Especially those fallen primarchs. Every one of them possessed terrifying power, enough to forcefully break through the defensive lines.

When that time came, brothers like Rogal Dorn and the other high-level figures would be under unimaginable pressure.

"I just hope the third brother can hold..." Eden sighed softly and murmured to himself.

Even though he had constructed an overbuilt defensive system, he still did not dare relax. The chance of the line being broken remained very real.

After all, the price of losing this battle for Terra was simply too great. No one could bear it, least of all him, the Savior and Emperor of the Imperium.

In that last clash, Eden had already felt the Chaos Gods' utterly undisguised killing intent toward him.

In other words, their hatred for him was now no less than what they felt for the Emperor himself.

Simply put, he had made it onto the Chaos Gods' must-kill blacklist. He was practically tied with the Emperor now, and there was no longer any chance of reconciliation.

"What did I, the Savior, ever do to deserve this much fear from the Chaos Gods?"

Eden drew in a deep breath, straightened his back, and for some reason felt a trace of pride.

For the Imperium's senior figures, getting blacklisted by Chaos was a badge of honor.

On the other hand, not being blacklisted was humiliating. It meant you had not done your job properly, that you had not inflicted enough damage on Chaos.

If someone had told Guilliman right after the Horus Heresy that he ranked near the bottom of the Chaos Gods' blacklist, the first one to get upset would have been Guilliman himself.

Would that not have been insulting?

Of course, the truth was that Guilliman's ranking had been even lower back then. He had barely been considered a threat.

Especially after he poured all that effort into writing the Imperium's famous work, the Codex Astartes, and then used it to split apart the Legions.

That had nearly earned him high praise from beings like the Lord of Change.

Eden had found records of that in the secret library of the Crystal Labyrinth, but had never dared tell Guilliman. He was afraid it would hurt his brother's feelings.

That said, Eden was still panicking inside.

If the Emperor really was taken down by the Chaos Gods, then next it would be his turn to face four supreme dark gods all by himself.

There was no way he could withstand that.

At that point, his only likely future would be running all over the warp trying to survive, and possibly getting pinned to the floor and beaten senseless.

If he really wanted to remove the threat, he still had to protect the Emperor and use the technology aboard the Eternal Soul to stabilize the Golden Throne.

That way, he would have time to send more humans and other lifeforms into the warp to expand territory.

Then the Sun of Hope could become like the Chaos Gods, possessing a divine domain of its own and relying on that domain for protection.

That was the true foundation of any warp deity.

It was also why the Chaos Gods fought so fiercely for territory in the warp.

Once a god established a divine domain, it gained protection. Within that domain, it was extremely difficult to kill.

Even if several Chaos Gods attacked together.

Of course, if that divine domain was steadily conquered, the Chaos God's power would also steadily weaken, until it might be stripped away altogether.

As for the Emperor, he was a special case. He was bound to the Golden Throne and had no real chance to establish a divine domain.

But the Chaos Gods feared the Emperor turning dark and breaking free. If he really emerged as the Dark King and began conquering territory throughout the warp, would he not slaughter everything in sight?

At that point, the Chaos Gods would most likely suffer miserably, perhaps even lose all their territory and end up wandering in exile.

They would be hard to kill, but they would lose power, become insignificant, and no longer rule the warp as they did now.

So yes, this was the decisive war between humanity and the Chaos Gods. Whoever lost might be completely overturned by the other side.

"For humanity, this is a war over the fate of the species. Whether we keep barely clinging to survival or carve out a future depends on this battle.

We absolutely cannot lose..."

Eden's phantom stared at the darkness consuming the Solar System and the endless masses of abominable armies, his voice utterly resolute.

The pressure of a war this important was impossible for ordinary people to imagine.

Even if he had to wager everything, he would win it.

The next moment, a Chaos storm swept in. Eden's vision went black, and his phantom slowly dissipated.

The Chaos Gods had once again cut off his connection to the Solar System. His true body was still too far from that region.

Eternal Soul.

Bridge.

Eden regained consciousness and slowly came back to himself.

He was not especially angry. He had already completed his task and had successfully probed the Solar System's current condition.

"Brother, how bad is it?"

Guilliman's voice rang out, and his stern face was full of worry.

There were new wrinkles on his face now, and his hair had grown noticeably drier. The pressure on him was immense.

After all, the Emperor, his father, was facing an unprecedented danger.

"The situation is bad, but not as bad as we feared. Holy Terra's defenses are still standing."

Eden turned and spoke, lifting a hand to pat his brother on the shoulder.

"We should still have a chance to get back. The future of the Imperium may be resting on our shoulders now!"

Even though the defenses had not yet collapsed, he still worried that Rogal Dorn, Lion, and the others would not be able to withstand the offensive of Horus and the other fallen primarchs.

That former Warmaster had fought the Emperor head-on before, and now he had only become stronger.

Guilliman nodded. Under his worried gaze, the machine spirit of the Eternal Soul started wailing again, as though it were being whipped onward by the Machine Goddess.

Then the unusual vessel accelerated even further, rushing toward the Solar System through the Webway.

Time was short. Every second mattered.

...

Holy Terra defensive line.

Salvation-class Iron Wall space defense platform, command center.

"The descendants of House Will and those workers, your courage deserves every possible word of praise. You perfectly embodied the fighting spirit championed by His Majesty the Savior."

Using the communications channel, Holmes, commander of the Thirteenth Defense Zone of the Holy Terra garrison and commander of the Solar Auxilia, expressed his sincere respect to the workers who had successfully escaped aboard the transports.

His tone was utterly earnest.

"Your mission is complete. You will receive the honor you deserve. Now... leave the battlefield to us."

This too was their duty: to protect Holy Terra, the Emperor, and the Imperial citizens within it.

When the garrison commander ended the call, he turned toward the observation platform and looked out through the dome.

In the void beyond were countless abominable warships and giant airborne units, stretching all the way to the edge of vision.

Within the virtual tactical display, endless red enemy markers lit up across the outer regions, almost too many to take in.

At the same time, an overwhelming amount of information was flowing through the communications network toward the corresponding defense formations.

The Vigilant One, master of mountain-like battle lines, supreme commander of Terra's defenses, Rogal Dorn, had now taken full command over every armed force.

He was directing the entire war.

"Report to Holy Terra temporary command. Redemption Third Fleet has reached its assigned combat zone."

"The Third and Fifth Defense Zones have confirmed visual contact with the enemy. The force is identified as belonging to Khorne. Traitor primarch Angron is suspected to have returned in a cloned body."

"Sector A1343 of the Sixth Defense Zone needs one fleet to fill the line gap. Repeat, the Sixth Defense Zone..."

"Terra recuperation leave is fully suspended. All leave is canceled. Every warrior is to report to assigned positions immediately!"

"Bzzzt...

The Dark Angels have reached the outer Solar System and are requesting exact coordinates. Can the Astronomican court identify a viable jump route?"

Countless streams of information converged through this defense line, interlocking and turning like precision gears.

That alone proved the Imperial defenders were not reacting in blind panic. They had prepared for this long ago, and were already operating around the latest Holy Terra orbital defense network.

"They've finally arrived..."

Holmes stared at the endless Chaos host and the floating rotten monstrosities, clenching his fists despite himself.

The Chaos abominations had come later than expected, and were still organizing into formation, but it was obvious what would happen next.

They would attack soon.

That would be the true test of how solid their defensive line really was.

...

Outer void.

The sevenfold swarm of rotten void-whales had ceased their drifting, with only their tailfins lightly swaying.

"So... this is Terra's defensive line?"

Mortarion drew in a deep breath, his voice hoarse, his heart violently shaken.

The moment he saw that new line, he had ordered an immediate halt, not daring to charge into it recklessly.

There was no doubt now. The Imperium had used blackstone devices to establish a special screen that concealed Terra's true defenses.

At last he understood why the Savior had dismantled the old defense platforms.

The Imperium simply had no need for those inherited relics from ten thousand years ago anymore.

Its new defensive platform line was staggering.

Mortarion looked up.

One after another, giant aerial defense platforms, each dozens of kilometers long, gleamed with cold metallic light. They were linked together into a steel wall in space, like some colossal horror drifting in the void.

Their mere existence created enormous psychological pressure.

Even worse, there was not just one such steel wall.

There were several, nested one within another.

Layered defense.

And in the gaps between those platform arrays were packed countless Imperial fleets, filling the void so densely that they blotted out the light of the sun itself.

Mortarion could no longer see Terra at all, nor could he tell what still lay beyond that line.

This dwarfed any defense line he had ever seen before. It was several times larger than anything in memory, and its design was nothing like the old Imperial defensive platforms. It did not even look like something humanity should have been able to build.

For a moment, he felt almost dazed.

Where even was he?

Was this still the Imperium?

Was this really the Throneworld, Terra?

And yet the bright Imperial aquilas emblazoned across those platforms, together with the Savior's flamboyant honor banners, left the Death Lord no room for doubt.

This truly was Holy Terra.

This truly was the steel battle line he would have to face.

Confronted with that terrifying wall of steel in space, he almost wanted to retreat. The Imperial defenses were simply too monstrous.

This was the terrifying infrastructure capability of the New Imperium.

The Savior had coordinated thousands of forge worlds to manufacture the relevant components, assembled them inside the Webway, and then transported them to Holy Terra for deployment.

The project had been prepared for decades, secretly stockpiling vast numbers of platform components and weaving it together with other engineering works to hide its purpose. Then, in an extremely short time, the completed structures had been assembled and deployed within the blackstone-shrouded region.

In truth, this orbital defense line had only truly become operational a few months earlier.

Silently.

None of this had ever been publicly announced to the Imperium. Before then, no one had known what the Savior was building all those things for. Most had assumed it was simply another one of the Emperor's supply-hoarding efforts.

After all, he stockpiled a little of everything.

He had even built stasis fields to store huge quantities of bananas.

After Rogal Dorn was made supreme commander of Terra's defenses, his primary task had been familiarizing himself with this defense line, and he had poured nearly all his effort into it.

Fortunately, the Imperium's Vigilant One and great master of fortification possessed vast experience, allowing him to organize the defense smoothly when war finally arrived.

"Is this really Terra's final space defense line?!"

Mortarion hesitated.

After all, he had fought for half the day only to discover that the plague host had been attacking the Imperium's abandoned defenses. They had been hitting the wrong target the whole time.

What kind of war was this, where they had fought for so long without even seeing the enemy's actual battle line?

Now, after sevenfold Terra-hours had already passed, the plague host had only just reached the true outer perimeter of the Imperial line.

Anyone would feel uneasy at that point.

In truth, from the Holy Terra defenders' point of view, the plague host's behavior was baffling.

Even Terra's supreme defensive commander, Rogal Dorn himself, was scratching his head.

"What exactly is wrong with the plague host? Why have they still not attacked? Are they trying to lure us out?!"

What kind of army marched on Terra, only to spend all its time shambling around abandoned demolition sites out on the perimeter?

And not just the plague host. Several other armies had also charged toward various abandoned demolition zones.

Presumably they had wanted to eliminate those threats first.

Unfortunately, all personnel from the decommissioned defense platforms had already been transferred to the new line days earlier.

It really could only be said that Chaos had arrived at an awkward moment. Had they come even a few days sooner, the situation would have been completely different.

Rogal Dorn had half a mind to send the Chaos host coordinates himself, just to tell them to hurry up and come fight here already, lest the war drag on too long and create fresh problems.

Mortarion stared at the black steel wall and still did not order an assault.

The defensive line before him was too daunting. He was waiting for the rest of the plague host, as well as the armies of the other fallen primarchs.

Only then would they attack together.

Soon enough, the yellow fog behind Mortarion thickened further, and more rotten airborne entities emerged, along with an immense army of giant flies.

That was his rebellious son, Typhus, master of the fly-hives.

Far off in the void, the outlines of other Chaos armies also began to appear, with blood-fire, mists of excess, and multicolored rifts spreading through space.

At last, the Chaos host had fully arrived in this region, ready to assault the most critical defense line of Terra.

Hummm.

At that moment, Horus's twisted phantom appeared before Mortarion, and his expression was not a pleasant one.

He demanded of the Death Lord, "Why are you still not attacking? Has that false Emperor frightened you all so badly?!"

The hesitation of the Chaos host and his fallen brothers infuriated him.

Under normal circumstances, they should already have launched a full assault against Terra's core line, not continued standing around waiting.

The Chaos host had to break Terra faster, before accidents could occur. Otherwise the Savior would seize the opportunity to summon even more Imperial reinforcements.

The whole reason the Chaos armies had massed so much strength was to smash through everything in one unstoppable blow.

At the very least, they had to hit harder than they had ten thousand years ago. There could be no excessive hesitation.

This former Warmaster and Dark Emperor even suspected that these fallen primarchs had lost their nerve upon seeing Terra, and no longer dared face the false Emperor, their father.

Mortarion did not answer.

He simply raised a hand and pointed at the immense metallic battle line in the distance, the Imperial steel wall that blotted out the sun.

The Death Lord's expression was dark.

His meaning was obvious.

Big brother, Terra's line is right over there. Take a look for yourself. Why don't you go first?

"Coward!"

Seeing Mortarion's reaction, Horus only grew angrier.

His phantom whirled around. He clearly intended to see for himself what the problem was with the Imperial defense line that had frightened Mortarion so badly.

From Mortarion's point of view, the black-armored phantom of the Dark Emperor, the conqueror who had once broken into Terra itself, turned and looked toward that steel wall in space.

Then he stopped moving.

His back remained utterly still.

As if he had fallen into a long silence.

(End of Chapter)

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