Start with Planetary Governor

Chapter 646, The Fate of Phoenix
"Hello, Captain Su Lie."

When Su Lie heard the greeting, he suddenly opened his eyes and saw a man wearing a gold and red military uniform.

He knew this face.

Marshal Gu Hang, the commander of the empire's southern front during the Iron Armor War.

Although it was a long time ago, he still remembered it. Although they had never met, Su Lie had certainly seen Gu Hang's photo.

He sighed and said to Gu Hang, "Do you really have no other options? You've already tried to turn yourself into something that has nothing to do with me?"

As he spoke, he raised the sword in his hand.

It was a finely crafted power sword, the purple-gold color never faded even after thousands of years of wind and frost. At the end of the hilt was a soaring phoenix, a jewel made by the first inheritor of the Chapter's genes, the first Phoenix, the Emperor's own son. This was a treasure that had been passed down for a long time by the Phoenix, and it was an undoubted Chapter Holy Object, and it was named 'Phoenix'.

"Trick me with lies, I can see through them."

"Deceive me with the illusion of a battle brother, and I can still see through it."

"Even if you transform into the God Emperor to deceive me, you cannot shake my faith."

"Not to mention the current state."

As he spoke, Su Lie's pace became faster and faster. The phoenix in his hand was already raised high. A fierce purple flame rose from the edge of the sword and suddenly slashed towards Gu Hang.

The next moment, Gu Hang's figure shattered like a bubble and appeared behind Su Lie.

As if he had foreseen the future, he swung his sword backwards.

Although the distance between them seemed to be at least thirty meters, the illusory sword blade made of purple fire was like sword energy, and it reached Gu Hang's chest in an instant.

This sword came so unexpectedly.

Gu Hang's psychic power was released fiercely, forming a psychic energy ball, which collided with the "sword energy".

For a moment, Gu Hang's face turned pale.

He originally thought that the so-called sword energy was just a special ability of the weapon in Su Lie's hand, which could release energy strikes.

But it seems that is not the case. Its strength is comparable to a full-strength attack from an S+ rank psychic!

Psychic energy is the extraordinary power of emotions and souls. From this sword energy, Gu Hang could even feel Su Lie's unwavering determination.

This sword, of course, would not be able to hurt Gu Hang. However, although he was in the subspace, he was quite far away from the source of Gu Hang's power - the Kingdom of Storm God. The power could not be transmitted, which meant that Gu Hang was not at his peak. Even if Gu Hang could resist Su Lie's sword, he would not feel comfortable at all.

After much difficulty in defeating them, in the blink of an eye, Su Lie himself was already in front of them, slashing down with the Phoenix Blade in his hand, with dazzling flames.

"Wait!……"

Gu Hang shouted while fighting with his spiritual power.

A top-tier Space Marine, he now finally experienced the power of combat firsthand.

In the previous concept, Martins, including the former head of the Fury, Erso, were the best fighters that Gu Hang had ever seen. However, in front of Su Lie, those two were not good enough and there was a significant gap.

Chapter Champion?

I'm afraid this is no longer the way to describe Su Lie.

Moreover, when facing this top-level warrior, Gu Hang also had a feeling: when his own spiritual power acted on him, it would be offset by another spiritual power.

This is very unusual.

Gu Hang was able to confirm that Su Lie did not possess any psychic powers, and he should be a pure warrior. But in addition to his powerful body, which was not only far superior to that of mortals, but also far superior to that of ordinary space warriors, top warriors like Su Lie also possessed an extremely terrifying spiritual will.

The role of spiritual will not only means that they will not be defeated by difficulties, but one thing that cannot be ignored is that in this universe, spiritual will itself is powerful.

Their powerful and tenacious spirits naturally possess extremely terrifying psychic potential.

This is why if a Space Marine is trained to become a psyker and become a so-called 'think tank', they will often be more powerful than mortal psykers.

Even if they do not become think tanks, or are so-called "without psychic talent", the strong willpower possessed by Space Marines will give them very strong psychic resistance.

In ordinary Space Marines, it may not be obvious enough. But as long as it reaches the level of a veteran, it is already somewhat different. The psychic power that can crush mortals to death in large numbers, when applied to a Space Marine veteran, it may just be a powerful shock wave.

As for the level of sergeant and chief sergeant, one would have to crush the power of a Lion tank before being able to kill a sergeant with psychic energy.

To win the company championship is even more difficult.

When it comes to the level of a battle group champion... ordinary psychic powers will almost become ineffective on them. Even for Gu Hang, it would take some effort to defeat a battle group champion in a one-on-one match - of course, it would take effort, not that it is impossible.

But when the strength reaches a higher level, reaching the level of the so-called "Emperor Champion" like Su Lie, it would be difficult for Gu Hang to control the opponent with psychic power.

Especially now he cannot borrow the power of the Storm Kingdom.

Before, Gu Hang was not only resisting the sword energy that Su Lie slashed out, but also using spiritual energy to form a force field, trying to tie up Su Lie so that the two of them could have a good communication.

However, Gu Hang had to admit that he had underestimated the opponent. The psychic power that formed the force field had no effect at all, and Su Lie broke free. Then, there was a series of super-fast and super-violent sword strikes, which made Gu Hang a little dazzled for a while, so that when Su Lie slashed at his face again, he was a little unable to resist.

However, even though he opened his mouth to shout to stop, Su Lie obviously had no intention of stopping.

After the sword was blocked, Su Lie did not increase his strength, but instead retracted his sword, and then slashed at the psychic shield in front of Gu Hang at a faster and more violent speed, fiercely slashing fifteen times. No matter how strong the psychic shield was, it could not stop the Emperor Champion from slashing like this, and finally shattered into nothingness with a sharp squeak.

However, when the sword hit Gu Hang again, it missed.

Gu Hang's body also dissipated like foam and appeared dozens of meters away.

Su Lie's reaction speed was extremely fast. He turned around and charged again.

After suffering losses repeatedly and personally experiencing the top-level combat strength possessed by the commander of this fledgling regiment, Gu Hang no longer dared to underestimate him.

He mobilized his spiritual energy and summoned out a lightning spear with his strongest force, and stabbed it fiercely at Su Lie.

The Phoenix Lord charged forward and slashed fiercely. The purple-gold long sword broke through the thunder and was about to slash at Gu Hang again, but a more ferocious thunderstorm appeared behind him and exploded directly.

This time, Su Lie couldn't bear it anymore. He was blown away for dozens of meters and hit the wall.

He wasn't hurt too much, just felt a strong impact. He can fight again.

At this time, Gu Hang's voice sounded again with a little helplessness: "Captain Su Lie, I know you have been under tremendous pressure for a long time, but I believe that with your spiritual will, you should be able to distinguish what is an illusion, what is the temptation of the evil god of the subspace, and what is real and unobstructed."

Su Lie, who fell from the wall, did not rush over again.

Gu Hang heaved a sigh of relief, and then he saw a few elite members of the Phoenix Guard walking in with guns after hearing the fighting inside. He was a little angry, so he waved his hand, and the shock wave knocked them away, and locked the door at the same time.

Turning his gaze back to Su Lie, he saw that the Phoenix Lord did not take any further violent actions. It was obvious that he realized that Gu Hang's attack just now would not cause any substantial harm to his subordinates.

At this time, Gu Hang breathed a sigh of relief again.

He continued: "Let me get to know you again. I am really Gu Hang."

Su Lie did not launch an attack, but he did not speak either. He just looked Gu Hang up and down, still with a very wary look on his face.

How could he not be on guard?
The Phoenix Chapter and their flagship, the Glorious Queen's Battleship Phoenix Crown, have been drifting in the Warp for ten years.

Of course, the Phoenix Regiment was not missing from the real universe for that long, in fact, it was only less than three years or so.

However, the Warp is a magical place. Here, time and space are distorted. The clocks and time records on the Phoenix Crest, as well as the Space Marines' own sense of time, all clearly show that they have spent ten years.

Three years in the real universe were distorted into only ten years, which was actually considered relatively mild in the subspace. This was thanks to the protective force field on the ship, which was also ancient technology, the so-called "Geller force field", rather than the currently commonly used astral protective force field that was only used to ensure safe navigation in the astral tunnel. Otherwise, the situation would be much worse than it is now.

This includes the ships' engines that can navigate the warp, a technology that existed before the Emperor's ascension.

In that era, there was no such thing as astral tunnels. To travel faster than light and across galaxies, one had to navigate through the very dangerous warp. Ships would have warp engines and then Geller fields to protect themselves in the warp. But the dangers of the warp were much greater than those of astral tunnels.

Time is unstable when traveling in the Warp.

In modern interstellar tunnels, you can clearly know where you will enter a star system, where you will exit, and how long it will take. However, primitive subspace navigation does not have this kind of thing. Maybe three to five days will pass, or maybe three to five years will not be enough to get out. In most cases, the destination is correct, but there is also a high probability that even with navigation, you may get lost somewhere unknown.

The instability of navigation alone is fatal. Although the administrative efficiency of the empire is very poor now, it was even worse in that era due to communication and transportation problems.

In addition, there are risks in the voyage itself. Whispers in the warp can seduce and drive the crew crazy, and even warp demons can invade the ship. The Geller force field can protect against most of these situations, but there are always strange warp forces that will quietly enter without warning.

From time to time, there would be reports that a ship came out of the subspace and when it arrived at the port, all the people on board had turned into mutated monsters, but they all still believed themselves to be human. Once their cognition was exposed, they would lose their minds and go completely crazy.

All these situations gradually became history after the Emperor ascended and the astral tunnels were widely formed. The warp engine and the Geller force field also gradually withdrew from the stage of history. Only some ships built in that era retained these ancient and useless things.

Phoenix Crown Feather is a battleship from that era.

By the way, the Empire no longer has the ability to build the Queen of Glory class warships. Currently, all the Queen of Glory class warships owned by the Empire were built before the Emperor ascended to heaven. Each ship has parts designed by the Emperor himself, and they are undoubtedly the most powerful warships in the Empire.

Even though the subspace engine and Geller force field on the Phoenix Crown had not been used for thousands or even tens of thousands of years, when they were forced to do nothing and this was the only way to escape pursuit and siege, these two devices still faithfully played their due roles.

Otherwise, the Phoenix Regiment would have been finished and would not have been able to last for such a long ten years.

But despite this, the problem of the Geller force field being in disrepair still exists, and the Phoenix Regiment has been under tremendous pressure in the past ten years.

There were always warp demons that invaded the ship, and they were dealt with by the 300 surviving Phoenix warriors. But in this process, there were inevitably losses. At this point, Phoenix had already sacrificed nearly half of its manpower.

Not every one of these sacrifices died in battle. It was not uncommon for them to be lured, invaded by the power of the warp, and mutated, and then executed in tears by their own battle brothers.

What's worse is that it seems that something in the subspace is already targeting them.

The person that unspeakable existence is most interested in is none other than Su Lie himself.

Su Lie can always hear 'His' voice.

He promised him that as long as he nodded, he would immediately be able to gain eternal life, eternal perfection, eternal joy, and be promoted to a 'prince'.

And every time, he firmly refused.

No matter what sweet words that being said in his ears or what beautiful illusions that being built in front of him, he remained unmoved.

When Gu Hang appeared, he thought it was another temptation from 'Him'.

Although it doesn't feel like it, the fact that Gu Hang suddenly appeared on the Phoenix Crown Feather in the subspace itself seems even less realistic.

(End of this chapter)