40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 575 93. Dark Crusade (Twenty, the real heresy)
Robert Guilliman stared out the porthole.

A huge living battleship was showing off its power to him. Although the thing itself might not have this consciousness, Guilliman still couldn't tolerate it. He stared coldly at the ship and its companions, taking in everything from the misshapen raised ridge to the wildly dancing tentacles at the bottom.

"Fire," he said.

Without the aid of any equipment, his voice swept over every crew member on the main bridge, like a tidal wave sweeping through grains of sand. His orders began to be carried out, reported down to the highest levels, and listened to by loyalists one after another.

Guilliman closed his eyes, feeling the vibration of the deck beneath his feet, feeling the breath of Macragge's Glory, and his mind gradually sank into it.

A minute later, an indescribably bright light illuminated his face.

Amid the reports and cheers of the sailors, he slowly opened his eyes and saw a huge ship curling and twisting in the sea of ​​fire.

Its thick carapace has been completely penetrated, and its muscles as tough as the earth have been completely wiped out by the devastating firepower controlled by the Queen of Glory battleship, turning it into nothingness.

Several other cruisers sailing with it could not escape this fate. In just one salvo, six Zerg cruisers were shot down.

This is perhaps the only advantage of fighting the swarm. You don't need to calibrate your target and take pains to aim - you can just fire at will, pour out anger and violence, and you can achieve considerable results.

Unlike the calm and slow battles of large warships, the battlefield of destroyers is extremely bloody. Every minute and second, their void shields face severe challenges from the insect swarm's living missiles and bioplasma.

The only advantage of the destroyer battle group is speed. The insect swarm fleet moves extremely slowly, and the closer it is to the 'dining table' they choose, the slower it becomes.
But their counterattack is still terrifying. Some of them will use primitive jet propulsion to approach the unwary destroyers and charge them.

Once it hits, it will embed itself deeply and spit out pure-blooded Genestealers as well as various bugs. For a small ship like a destroyer, this is no different than being sentenced to death.

Their chitinous carapace proliferated and thickened at a speed visible to the naked eye, and their original offensive organs began to increase, and some even began to slowly expand.

Guilliman stepped down from his command platform and walked to the leftmost porthole. From this angle, he could see the battlefield of the destroyer battle group. They used their speed to stop the vanguard of the swarm fleet and were biting each other.

It does not possess any malicious intent. Apart from hunger, it has no other desires, and it even appears to be indifferent to Guilliman's arrival.

So, the question is, why was the combined fleet not affected?

Guilliman didn't have an answer yet, and he didn't need an answer. When he opened his eyes, the abstract world completely disappeared.
The reason why the insect swarm was so difficult to resist, apart from the number, was another important reason, was the shadow he just saw. The Hive Fleet is extremely psychically powerful and extremely aggressive.

It is inscribed in the engine rooms of all ships in the Combined Fleet.

It is not a single whole, but an unspeakable thing composed of countless tiny points of light, spanning the battlefield, like a huge dark cloud, covering this sea of ​​stars until the sky is dark.

More Zerg cruisers and smaller frigates swarmed in, using their bright red tentacles to suck the fragments and flesh of the dead ship into their bodies.

But why Sosa?

Guilliman saw countless hungry eyes.

Here, all things and concepts become extremely abstract, and the ships become flat and shiny, like the sequins on the collar of a palace-style dress.

Those eyes just glanced at him and then turned back, continuing to concentrate on issuing orders for the fleet to advance towards Sousa.

Yes, this is the truth about being an enemy of the insect swarm.

It can turn a staunch mortal soldier into a crazed madman, or a well-trained psyker into a screaming psychic bomb.

The light continued to shine, but there was no trace of joy on Guilliman's face. This round of salvo seems to have achieved great results, but compared to the number of the swarm fleet, it is still only a drop in the bucket. Moreover, the insect swarm has its own way to make up for this loss.
Soon, during the short time it took for the artillery position to be reloaded, Guilliman saw through the observation window a scene that would make an ordinary person collapse.

They have no morale at all because they have no concept of life and death. They don't care about losses because any losses can be made up for. They have no intelligence and no fear, because they are all controlled by one consciousness.
Guilliman closed his eyes again, and the forge roared, sinking his consciousness into a sea of ​​nothingness.

The answer lies in a deck of Macragge's Glory, the fiery forge in Robert Guilliman's chest, and a red circle of mysterious origin.

His consciousness rose from one of the sequins, hovering, whistling, and reached the top of all the ships, and he was not the first to arrive here.

Even the Astartes would have difficulty fighting off the insect swarm in such a confined space, let alone the mortal crew. Therefore, there is a general consensus among captains that if things really come to this point, it is best to self-destruct the reactor.

There is no other way, it is also a desperate struggle out of desperation, and it can be considered lucky.

The living warships of the swarm generally have predatory tentacles. These giant living creatures will open their bloody mouths and completely devour the ships that are unfortunately captured by the tentacles, and eat them very quickly. By this time, it is too late to self-destruct the reactor.
Guilliman calmly walked back to his command station and began to read the battle report that had been sent back.

The combined fleet was large in scale. In addition to the four Ultramarines battle barges, there were as many as six battleships joining it. Two Conqueror-class ships, one Victory-class ship, and three Opal Dragon-class ships.

They achieved very brilliant results, but this was also due to the pursuit and interception of the escort fleet and cruisers. Although the large forces of the Insect Hive have ignored the combined fleet's offensive, they have been sending smaller living ships such as impact ships to try to counterattack.

The collision of one ship might not matter, but what if it was ten, fifty, or five hundred ships?

The Lord of Macragge slowly fell into deep thought, and he had realized that the swarm's landing on Sotha was likely to be unstoppable.

They have done their best, whether from a tactical point of view or not, but the figure of the hive mothership has been obscured.

Guilliman knew very well that a hive fleet would not only have one mothership, but there was still only one ship that was the truly important 'central processor'. They only needed to find this ship to be temporarily stagnant. The attack of the swarm.

However, it is really difficult to do this in front of the living ships that occupy almost the entire Sousa system. The Hive Mothership is hidden in the center of countless living ships. This huge and discrete mass of meat has the ability to react quickly. Any gap created by the bombardment will be filled immediately, and the mothership itself is a huge biological factory. They are always cultivating more bugs, and living ships are naturally included.
Reached an impasse?
Guilliman frowned. Naturally, he didn't want the swarm to get close to Sousa, but this was no longer something he could change. Their spores would break into Sousa's atmosphere soon, killing the people in that world. dragged into a long war of attrition.

At this moment, he was quite grateful that he had allowed Belisarius Call to stay on Sosa to conduct his research.

This great sage, who is still ostracized by most of the Mechanicus world, is a 'genius' personally recognized by Markmaster Malcador. Although he and Guilliman had some unpleasantness nineteen centuries ago, it does not matter.
There was no way he could hide a fragment without permission.

--etc.

The Lord of Macragge was silent for a few seconds, and some questions were suddenly answered. At the same time, an indescribable anger and disbelief surged in his heart.

How dare he? !

Guilliman strode away from the command platform and ran towards the communication array.
-
Khalil stood up straight and squinted his eyes in the oncoming wind, surrounded by a torrent of steel pouring out of Belisarius Caul's mechanical maze.

He was moving at high speed, but he was not moving by himself, but hanging on the side of the huge body of the great sage of the Mechanicus.

It may be strange to say this, but Kaul's transformed body is completely a terrifying tank. He can move at high speeds and at the same time make precise avoidances, but there is something fishy about this.

For example, where did Kaul get such a quality of energy to drive such a body?
Khalil knew the answer, but he decided to turn a blind eye to the dark red light emanating from under Caul's red robe.

There are some things that are not suitable to be revealed for the time being. Although Belisarius Caul’s behavior can be called heretical in the extreme, but
Khalil suddenly realized at this moment that he was surprisingly open-minded in some aspects.

"I must tell you, my lord, your plan—" Call began, roaring in the wind. "——Totally unreliable!"

"Really? Which point?"

"How do I know?!" the great sage shouted. "You didn't tell me at all, not even a single word!"

Khalil smiled. Kaul's mechanical body was roaring, but he was as leisurely as if he was on an outing.

"Then why do you say that my plan is unreliable? Moreover, Great Sage, given your status, is the adjective unreliable a bit weird? I thought you would list a variety of arguments to refute me one by one. "

"You are simply..."

"Okay, okay." Khalil patted him comfortingly and spoke softly. "It's not that I don't want to tell you, or that I'm deliberately trying to keep it secret. It's just that there really aren't any specific details about this matter."

"I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to kill it, Great Sage Caul. The Hive Mind is certainly not physical, but it is still a spiritual body, isn't it? Perhaps by the definition of the physical world, it cannot be touched. , so what if we change places?"

Amidst the roar of the engine from nowhere, Kaul rushed out of the defensive camp at the foot of Pharos Mountain in silence. There was no obstruction, and all security protocols had been opened in advance.

He was the leader and his army followed. If anyone could look down from the sky, they would see this terrifyingly large iron-gray army flooding the mountains and forests of Sosa.
In the nineteenth century, no one knew how many fighter servitors Belisarius Caul had created and what "surprises" he had prepared for the swarm. However, there were two things that might give people a glimpse of the leopard.

First, Sosa is an agricultural world and a world rich in minerals.

Secondly, its agriculture has reached its peak, but there is no official mine on the entire planet. However, there is a continuous flow of metal, which is transported from the depths of Pharos Mountain and supplied to all walks of life in Sousa. So, who is mining the ore?
The scene in the mountain forest was torn into blurry blocks of color by Belisarius Caul's speed, and high-temperature steam gradually diffused from under his red robe. Khalil looked down at him with interest, waiting for his answer.

Call pondered until they were approaching the city before speaking.

"Do you want to enter the subspace and kill it?" Mechanical Sage asked seriously.

"That's not true," Khalil said. "But it's not impossible."

He nodded thoughtfully.

"Better say goodbye, sir!" Kaul immediately shouted to dissuade him. "The first solution you proposed is shocking enough. I don't want to hear the second one. I'm afraid that my thinking array will be overloaded and shut down. But, how are you going to do this?"

"This is not difficult. According to the investigation report, the Hive Mind likes to go step by step, right? Then I will break its pace. And I will not hold back unless it produces through its spores a sufficient and I'm a match for the bugs."

".With all due respect, sir, I don't think it can do this. There has never been an insect of this level in the data——"

Halfway through speaking, Kaul suddenly realized something else.

"Yes." Khalil nodded at him.

"It has a very rational plan for assessing resistance, a grading system or something like that. And I will become its biggest threat. I will force it to gather all the biomass and drown all the unborn bugs. From the infancy, a new species of insect is born.”

"But -" Kaul struggled to keep up with him, the steam brought by high-speed calculations becoming more and more intense. "——According to my calculations, it is impossible for it to do this. There is a limit to the biomass that can be stored in a hive fleet."

After the words fell, Call heard a chuckle. He turned his prosthetic eyes and saw the expression of Khalil Lohars at this moment in an almost weird way.

It was an indescribably peaceful smile.

"You're still looking at this plan in a rational way, Call, but you don't have to. It's its business whether it can do it or not, and I don't care. I just want to kill it, that's all. And if it doesn't I will never touch any other Sosa people and let them shed another drop of blood."

(End of this chapter)