How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 313 Who would have thought that the first person to enter the tea party would be——

"I'm going to do a big cleanup."

Amidst everyone's shocked gazes, Conrad Curz stood calmly at the observation window of the bridge, opened his arms toward the target floating in the void outside the window, and announced excitedly.

Of course, because these words came from the mouth of the Night Haunter, the others present naturally understood the word "sweep" in the sentence as a more bloody extended meaning. Curze himself obviously noticed this, so he followed up with some more detailed explanations before he finished speaking:
"Clear out all the garbage that affects the environment, and purify the Chaos pollution thoroughly. I hope that when she is towed back to the Imperial Dockyard for repairs, she will be a clean and beautiful girl."

——When Konrad Curze said he was going to do a big cleanup, he shouldn't really mean a big cleanup in the general sense. Although this should be a fairly reasonable inference, whether it is from the impression of the primarch himself by the veterans of the Eternal War, or from the indirect impression of their betrayed bat cousins ​​from the Astartes ten thousand years later. But in this period of time that may, probably, perhaps, at least subjectively identified as "more than two years" of warp navigation and combat, this so-called "reasonable inference" composed of outdated impressions has been gradually broken, at least on the bridge of the "Emperor's Shadow" (formerly known as the Shadow Assault).

At least, the mortal crew on the bridge remained calm. This was a ship belonging to the Raven Guard, and the time that had passed was enough for them to realize that no matter what the primarch of the Night Lords was doing, it had nothing to do with them.

But a voice that was directly related to this sounded gloomily from the shadows around: "I will sink it."

This sound, with its supernatural resonance, came from all directions in layers, and "subspace whispers" were clearly written on it from top to bottom - but after more than two years of "joint operations", most people have successfully become desensitized to this kind of vision.

Curze turned his head, without lowering his arms, and turned to Corvos Corax who spoke in the shadows with this gesture that probably represented relief: "Come on, little crow, you can't just sink your own Glorious Queen-class battleship..."

In response, a pair of giant bird-like claws appeared out of nowhere in the darkness. Even though they launched a surprise attack before Curze finished a word, the Primarch of the Night Lords still showed that he had anticipated this attack. He took a half step back in time to avoid the sharp cuts, and stopped the half sentence he had not yet said, but the smile on his face was as annoying as ever.

Corax's attack didn't seem to be very heartless, the Raven Guard Primarch made only two random swipes and then stopped. This should have been a shock to any loyalist who knew the relevant history and could associate the second half of Curze's unspoken words. They should not have allowed such a clear insult, allowing a so-called "reformed" traitor to dance on the wounds of the loyal Primarch's past, but in fact, everyone on the bridge, including Corax himself, only felt a tired and numb indifference at the scene.

Similar things have happened too many times in the past two years. Most people on the bridge, including the current Raven Guard Chapter Master Kevan Shrek, were relieved that "they probably won't really fight this time." The bad news is that Midnight Haunter doesn't seem to have any intention of giving up his continuous provocations; but this also brings good news, at least the intensity of the armed conflict between Curze and Corax has become weaker and weaker between the former's high-intensity provocations.

Before setting sail from the real universe, Imperial Regent Guilliman once summoned Shrek alone. The Son of Vengeance apologized to the Raven Guard's Chapter Master with a very tired look, saying that he had to introduce the current leader of the Chapter to Shrek's Primarch while giving him a mission that he himself didn't think was a good idea. Shrek was stunned by the first half of this sentence at the time, and didn't have the time to think carefully about how bad the second half of the sentence was. Although he would certainly join this mission without hesitation if he had to choose again now - but this was too... to put it mildly, challenging the nerves and blood pressure of him as a loyal Chapter Master.

He didn't want to recall it very much, but this so-called "joint war" was a disaster in the first three subjective months. Shrek had imagined more than once on the verge of collapse, tearing into pieces the man whose true identity he didn't know yet and who first asked his Primarch to "please monitor the actions of Curze and the Night Lords". Even after this period, the conflict between the two sides seemed to have eased, but the cold hatred not only still existed between the two Primarchs who seemed to hate each other without a doubt, but also formed a clear chasm between the Raven Guard and the Night Lords.

Shrek knew that in the following war, almost all the Space Marines on the ship were looking for an opportunity to reasonably bypass the ban on "forbidding mutual attack" and kill each other. The Raven Guard's Chapter Master had no doubt that if this huge fleet carrying more than 10,000 (enemies) Astartes and hundreds of thousands of mortal crew members had not entered the warp within three months, the instability of the external environment (and the reluctant edicts of the two Primarchs) forced everyone to cooperate to the minimum in order to survive, the living forces in this joint fleet would have been completely lost in the internal fighting before arriving at the battlefield.

At least during that time, Shrek thought that his gene father who looked very much like the Warp and the giant bat who only symbolically followed the rules of physics were really thinking about "destroying each other" all the time. At that time, he worried about whether the Shadow Assault could continue to sail soundly as a flagship six times a day on average. Often before he realized what he was thinking, he couldn't help but pray to the Emperor that the fight between the two Primarchs, which was bloody and seemed quite incomprehensible in the Warp environment, must not affect the Warp engines or important facilities such as the Geller force field on the ship.

Perhaps they were indeed lucky, or perhaps the Emperor really showed his power in the process. In short, the entire fleet miraculously did not suffer any casualties due to the warp storm while sailing within the range of the Great Rift. They even arrived at the vicinity of their destination inexplicably, under the premise that no psychic could distinguish the direction in the warp storm and navigation was almost stopped, and successfully defeated a fleet of the Black Legion stationed nearby.

As for how the Raven Guard (and its successors) and the Night Lords (including the Primarch) miraculously managed to merge into what they are now during the battle, Shrek didn't really understand, and didn't really want to understand. He was tired of doing useless work on a problem that would be destroyed by Curze in an instant even if he made an effort. In short, now that his bottom line has been retreated again and again for various reasons, he thinks it's good to quietly pick up the fallen feathers for the Raven Lord outside the scope of the fight between the two Primarchs.

The question of "what happened in the middle" will not be discussed for now. Let's just talk about the reason why Curze suddenly became interested this time and aroused Corax's numb nerves again: after passing through the defense line led by "World Reaper" Haken, the planet that was once called "Praise Star" in the Empire's records was exposed before their eyes. This matter is not so important in essence - what is important is that the Auger array captured a "familiar" ship shadow at the airport of this planet.

Nightveil. The flagship of the Night Lords during the Great Crusade. Used by Konrad Curze himself.

Thanks to the fact that Harkon's tragic situation and end had been publicly broadcasted by short-distance transmission signals, the scattered Chaos warbands could no longer make any effective defense in the orbit of the planet of Appreciation, and the Imperial ships quickly shortened the distance to the point where they could clearly see what was anchored in the port. Now, everyone in the bridge could see from the observation window this unexpected discovery: in the past ten thousand years, the huge warship that had been inevitably polluted and eroded by Chaos had undoubtedly been covered in dust by evil forces, but it seemed far from being hopeless. Although the aesthetics of the Night Lords were not flattering in the eyes of the Raven Guard, they still had to admit that the human mind could see the glory of the former Empire during the Great Crusade from some of the structures of this majestic Queen of Glory. Another irrefutable fact that pierced their hearts like a small thorn was that the Nightfall was indeed a Queen of Glory-class battleship. When the original Shadow Assault battle barge got close enough to her, anyone could realize from a simple comparison of size that the words "Shadow of the Emperor" painted on the hull of the ship after it was renamed were nothing more than a self-deceptive psychological comfort for the descendants of the chapter.

"I'm going to sink it." The Crow King's voice came from the shadows, accompanied by the sound of feathers rubbing against each other.

From a practical point of view, Shrek thought that the Nightfall was in surprisingly good condition, and since it was a Queen of Glory-class battleship that the Empire could hardly produce again, they should contact the Mechanicus to tow the ship back to see if there was any place where it could be reused. But when he thought about who the ship originally belonged to, which legion it was the flagship of, and who had proposed a similar idea a few minutes ago, Shrek found that he could hardly consider it from a practical point of view.

He didn't say anything, but secretly agreed with his Primarch's decision. If necessary, he wouldn't mind jumping on board himself and attaching melta bombs to the important facilities of the Nightfall.

But the Primarch of the Night Lords obviously had a different view on this statement: "You are just speaking in anger, I don't believe it."

The voice in the shadows dropped an octave threateningly: "I find that you are becoming more and more fearless."

Even in an environment like the Great Rift where reality and the Warp are almost indistinguishable, Corax can naturally move around without restriction in his "overall image", but when there are mortal crew members nearby, this Primarch, whose existence is already quite Warp, always chooses to hide himself, lest his still unstable emotional fluctuations inadvertently impact the fragile minds of mortals.

Curze, on the other hand, has fewer concerns. It's hard to tell whether it's because his "reality shell" is more stable or because his personality is just so regrettable. Given that his appearance has remained stable as "Primarch Konrad Curze" for most of the time, he hasn't scared many people in the fleet for more than two years - but when he decides that he needs to "plant a little fear in others' hearts", he doesn't care whether the people around him are mortals or Astartes, friends or enemies.

At least now, he didn't look like he was going to scare anyone, so Shrek could even see a bit of handsomeness in his regularly groomed appearance. "Don't say such harsh words, my good brother. We are just gradually figuring out each other's boundaries and bottom lines. This shows that our two-year-long efforts have actually paid off."

No new sentences came out of the shadows, but all the raven descendants in the bridge clearly sensed through some kind of psychic connection: their gene father was angry. Shrek was not sure whether Konrad Curze had sensed this. Logically, in the current environment, the Primarch's keen senses should not miss the emotional fluctuations caused by another powerful warp entity. But whether he realized this or not, he acted as if he was completely unaware:

"I told you I'm going to do a big cleanup." The Night Haunter ignored the raven's voice. "You heard me, little Peko, who is always worried. Find a way to arrange this matter - it can't be done by just the Raven Guard. Within five hours, I need to hear that the Night Lords' exploration vanguard has successfully boarded the Nightfall."

Shrek instinctively glanced at the other end of the bridge, far away from most people. A Primaris Night Lord warrior wearing MK10 Phobos Armor stayed there quietly, acting like an inappropriate and bad-taste decoration until his Primarch called him by name. After being called by name, he lived up to the description of "always worried" given by the Primarch, and immediately showed a little "startled" body movement (Emperor, he has even passed the Primaris surgery), and then looked at the shadow where Corax was hiding with a trembling that could not be concealed by the power armor helmet.

In a sense, this is why Shrek and his fellow brothers allowed such a Night Lord to exist on the bridge of the Raven Guard: at least Dihail Peko knew whose ship it was and which Primarch had the real power to issue orders on this ship.

Everyone held their breath and spent dozens of seconds to confirm that the shadow would not refute anything. The trembling Midnight Lord finally obeyed his Primarch's order and quietly walked out of the bridge door. After his back disappeared into the closing door, Corax's voice was heard again from the shadow:

"Even if the Nightfall is confirmed to be worth repairing after evaluation, her ownership will not return to you."

"Of course I understand, but I believe this is only temporary." Coze even looked like he was about to hum a song happily, "Relax, don't be so serious. Perhaps soon, we can have a chance to set aside some time to chat alone like real brothers?"

No new sound came from the shadows, but after these words, the disgust in the heart of the Raven Lord was almost immediately and unreservedly transmitted to the hearts of all his descendants.

(End of this chapter)