Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 492: It doesn’t matter, and Calgar hasn’t slept yet
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"what are you doing?!"

The Warsmith froze for two seconds, then jumped up like a dog whose face was scratched by a cat.

Then, like any man who had endured for a long time and was suddenly attacked, he roared and clenched his fists, but finally opened his fists and slapped the prophetess who looked extremely surprised.

"you……"

Clearly, Moriana had faced and fought against many Chaos Warlords who came seeking her aid, including the Warmaster who was about to lead his Thirteenth Black Crusade.

But Hong Suo's reaction was obviously beyond her expectations. She had never expected that Hong Suo's reaction would be so... "real".

He looked like he was simply angry because he was teased and hurt, but he didn't attack her out of uncontrollable anger. Astarte's self-control and tolerance for pain couldn't be that weak...

In a flash, he, she hurriedly read out a few words, and the psychic lightning in the air insidiously pierced the war blacksmith from behind, and at the same time, a crackling stench like that of a dead body spread out - to be honest, this made the war blacksmith's palm-leaf fan-like slap a little more firm - and then, in the next second when Moriana's incredible expression appeared on her deformed face, the reckless young man really slapped the prophetess and sent her flying.

"I curse you! You little bastard! How dare you do this to me! Warsmith Honsou!" She shouted hoarsely and resentfully, the old woman's deep eye sockets with chicken skin and gray hair radiating hatred. She raised her hand, and the power of this place gathered in her bird-like claws. She used the blood of the Iron Warrior as a medium to curse the bastard who dared to slap her in the face with the most vicious curse that a thinking creature could think of. "This is the backlash you will suffer!"

The remaining few drops of blood were surrounded by her ancient power, suspended in the air, dyed black by the cursed warp poison. The two people in the cave stared at the drops of black blood, but nothing happened.

"Praise the unspeakable name, praise the Lord of Steel." A hearty laugh broke out from the other side. "It seems that your witchcraft is no longer effective on me!"

The Potion Master's facial muscles visibly relaxed, while Moriana's face was filled with the panic of being rejected by fate. They both realized one thing: if the curse she had prepared for Hong Suo did not work, then, no matter how similar they were, "this Hong Suo" was not "the Hong Suo" that Moriana had been waiting for.

Although this difference made him feel a little uneasy before the "falling out", the witch did not become too suspicious, thinking that it was just some minor influence.

She looked up in astonishment at the tall giant standing in front of her. Hong Suo's light blue eyes were now shining with a happy, pure but malicious light. The thick medical mechanical arm behind him stretched out from the robe that had been hidden all the time, grabbed the prophetess like a chick, and lifted her up to a height where she could face the master of potions, but not too close.

"Guess what happens next? Catalina Moliana?"

The witch spat at him angrily, but a thin layer of halo from the stance blocked the turbid liquids and burned them with a sizzling sound until they were completely burned out.

"You are so dirty that it makes me sick! I've had enough of the terrible pollution here! I told Vannus before that I am not bound by any eyes or affected by any opinions, but I just realized that I was deceiving myself before," the master of potions said briskly, "I should have walked in like this when I found the coordinates here, picked up this old woman who was pretending to be a ghost, and then shook it out to get what I wanted, instead of patiently accompanying you to perform this fairy tale-like classic forest witch drama and having you scratch my face! This is me! Not the Hong Suo who is still afraid of facing an unknown fate deep in his heart!"

“Who are you?!” Moriana screamed, “You are Hong Suo, but you are not Hong Suo! This is impossible! You are indeed Hong Suo! I saw it clearly! You have manipulated the powers of so many gods and immortals! Are you Hong Suo?!”

"You have so many questions. But you haven't even answered mine yourself."

There were some very slight mechanical noises deep in the Potion Master's arm armor, and the Prophetess's hollow eye sockets widened in fear.

The soft tubular metal mechanical tentacle flickered in the firelight, with a calyx-like split head with obvious nerve needles and other micro-medical devices. It flexibly extended from the back of Hong Suo's hand along the five fingers, and continued to split at the fingertips to form more soft, tiny needle-like insertion suction cups. She began to scream.

"No, you can't! You can't do this to me! Not even Rogal Dorn has ever..."

Hong Suo's hand that was about to put on the back of her head suddenly stopped, and his light blue eyes stared at Moriana again.

"Are you not ashamed, Catalina Moliana, or the other lady?" He said slowly. "You have served your god, your truth, and the tools of chaos you know for so many years. Your prophecies have guided and helped them kill so many of his children, but at a moment like this, the first name you think of to protect yourself is still his name."

She suddenly realized that the blue eyes were being illuminated by the purple witchfire in her hiding place. Now they looked neither blue nor purple, like...

"who are you?"

the old woman asked again, gently this time.

"I am Honsou. The Iron Warrior. Son of two strangers. Son of enemies. Genetic child of two fathers. Forgotten victim of betrayal, murder, and defilement, sole bloodline of unsung heroes."

The other replied, continuing to place his large armored hand on the back of the witch's head.

The ancient witch felt that the sluggish nerves on her aging skin were transmitting dense and fragmented tingling sensations to her, followed by sharp pains like cold chemical burns. The invading probes began to outline the shape of every important nerve and groove in her brain under her skin, just like using a rake to stir up the sediment on the seabed, allowing the relevant knowledge and memory fragments stored in her consciousness to float to the surface of her consciousness and be read by the other party's cortex scanning probe.

"Who are you..." Moriana muttered, gathering her last bit of sanity, "You're going to die...?"

"That doesn't matter."

The Master Potion Master replied.

His thoughts drove the built-in system of his power armor to work. The prophetess' body was violently arched due to the invasive surgery on her head. She was frozen in midair like a patient with epilepsy. She opened her mouth and screamed silently. The ripples of the subspace spread from behind the curtain into the cave, and dust, debris and even human skin scrolls were blown out. Hong Suo was unmoved. Only the medical equipment was still flashing and working.

From under her loose, pale skin covered with age spots, tiny earthworm-like traces bulged out and continued to wriggle. They were the medical probe cables that invaded the skull and took over the brain. After searching for a while, the potion master finally found the information he wanted and mercifully stopped stirring the witch's brain.

Before finally leaving the cave, he thought for a while, sorted out the surrounding environment, and began to implant a brainwashing memory fragment into the witch who fainted from the pain.

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Varro Tigris sat up in his simple bed, sweating profusely.

The steel bed was hidden under the linen sheets. It was tightly connected with rivets and was very quiet, without any creaking sound like a wooden bed would make under heavy pressure.

The Chief Think Tank of the Ultramarines looked out the window. The tranquil moonlight was shining on the Hera Fortress and the harbor below it. The market and the crowds that had been busy all day had already gone to sleep. Only in the courtyards of a few entertainment venues were there still bonfires or electric candles.

Astarte's keen hearing carried the gentle lapping of the waves into Tigris' mind.

The omen of the dream just now... has come again... The enemy coming from deep space, the desecrated blue armor, the double-horned head laughing in the flames, three deaths and three resurrections, the scene of swallowing the desecrated flesh and blood with a smile, and the excommunicated rebels drinking the gift from the great enemy monarch in front of the Hera Fortress...

The chief think tank stood up, opened the freezer, and poured himself a glass of iced fermented sweet tea. The cool and sweet liquid went down his throat, refreshing him.

He recalled the characteristics of those things that had been particularly obvious in the omen just now.

Blue armor...maybe belongs to the Ultramarines...

Flames, horns, heads, death and resurrection... Will the ghost of the hateful Destroyer of Calth hover over Ultramar again?
A huge Gothic building with a beautiful cross-symmetrical layout. The central fortress is surrounded by tall spires adorned with beautiful gilded statues, intricate and elegant flying buttresses, various towers and city walls... a cathedral?

No, that's not right. In his dream he also saw reflections of starlight. What passed across his retina was a beautiful layer of ultramarine, ivory and golden paint, coupled with the lower buildings that looked like reflections in the water. This was not a church built on the ground, but a flying fortress... a precious Ramirez-class star fortress belonging to the Extreme Warriors.

Perhaps Master Maneus is not in bed yet, he thought. I must speak to him immediately.

The Chief Librarian put on a dull dark blue robe and pulled the edge of the robe over his head. He took his staff and quietly left his room, walked silently past the stern-faced honor guard, and knocked on Calgar's door.

"What happened at this late hour? Tigris."

Calgar's warm blue-gray eyes looked at the visiting Librarian with some surprise, but he immediately caught the urgency in the other's eyes.

"Come in and talk."

Tigris nodded. The lights in the Chapter Master's chamber were dim, and it was obvious that the Macragge Archon had been meditating or preparing for bed before his visit.

The first question the chief think tank asked after entering the room made Maneuvers Calga's face change.

"My lord, although this is not my duty but the domain of the Fleet Lord, can you tell me the whereabouts of all the Ramirez-class star fortresses in the current chapter, and have you ever heard of a name, the Three-Born?"

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The Ramirez-class Star Fortress is a gigantic semi-mobile void fortress. The super plasma energy conduction technology it uses is impossible for today's mechanical believers to fully study and understand its principles, but thanks to its huge STC that was not lost throughout the turbulent years but was miraculously preserved, the Empire can still build such a space fortress over a span of hundreds of years.

It goes without saying that it has sophisticated and powerful firepower and reactors, but its ability to produce a plasma-like field large enough to wrap around an entire star fortress for warp navigation is what makes it truly terrifying and incomprehensible. Usually they serve as an important node in a planetary defense system, a chapter's fortress monastery, a Death Watch watchtower, or a deep space facility where the Inquisition or the Mechanicus conduct research or other purposes in places where they don't want to be discovered. Since it has four quadrants and docks, and each part can operate independently, towing it directly as an exploration and bombing position for the Imperial Navy and a forward port for the fleet is also a suitable and common use.

In short, few Chaos warbands or pirates would plan an action against a Ramirez-class star fortress, because the maximum number of weapons and personnel that a normal fleet ship can carry is far from enough to break through and conquer such a fortress by boarding, which would only make them become new space fireworks ignited by the star fortress defense system. Similarly, few Ramirez-class star fortresses would constantly navigate and make warp jumps, because such behavior is usually unnecessary and not worth the cost. It is usually much more appropriate to send one or even several fleets on such a navigation mission.

And if someone really wants to have such a behemoth perform a random subspace jump within a designated range every nine days in space, in most cases they will be strongly protested and accused of being a meaningless waste.

Because to do this, it would require a dozen of the best navigators and their ships, hundreds of towing barges to tow the star fortress, countless fleets and other manpower to provide logistical supplies for all ships and personnel, in addition to the guards of the star fortress itself. All these precious resources, which are enough to fight a major battle, will be purely wasted on constant and boring sailing throughout the entire navigation cycle instead of being deployed to actions that need them more.

But if such an order comes from the will of Lord Macragge himself, then it has meaning and will certainly be executed and served accordingly.

At Mandeville Point, an uninhabited planetary system in the farthest corner of the Ultramar system where no commercial or military routes pass, the Ramirez-class star fortress "Indomitable" and its accompanying fleet are slowly beginning to reveal their true appearance from behind the veil of the warp.

(End of this chapter)