The Emperor’s Angel of Death

On the fifth day after returning to Nayshahn IV, after basically taking care of his personal affairs, Sol Invictus led the Chapter in a grand triumphal ceremony on the planet. This ceremony even attracted high-ranking Imperial officials from the entire sector. For Sol Invictus, the renowned Imperial hero, various praises and accolades poured in like a tidal wave.

However, having experienced the 'grand spectacle' of Terra, Sol Invictus was already familiar with this. But the difference from before was that he was the 'host' here, not a 'guest'.

[I hope readers remember our domain name here: Taiwan Novel Network → 𝓉𝓌𝓀𝒶𝓃.𝒸ℴ𝓂]

Since Terra had transferred the governance of all planets and asteroids in the Nayshahn system to Sol Invictus, coupled with the honorary title of 'Lord Governor' bestowed upon him by the High Lords of Terra, his identity at the triumphal ceremony was not only the Chapter Master of the Star Knights, but also the 'Lord Governor of the Nayshahn System'. Here, he understood Tyrion's intention in trying to get him this title.

The title of Lord Governor had become an honorary title in itself, but it was, after all, a high-ranking Imperial bureaucratic title with the power to rule across sectors. If it was paired with someone with actual ruling and management power, the situation would be different. It was like a small person wearing a big hat – it looked a bit comical, but if that small person became a big person, the hat would fit perfectly.

At this time, having a hat and not having a hat made a huge difference.

Without it, his title would at most be the Governor of the Nayshahn System, but now, he possessed almost the highest-level administrative title in the entire Tempest Sector. Although he couldn't bypass Terra to interfere with other systems, what if one day this place suddenly couldn't contact Terra?

This was politics – a small trick could produce a dramatic, catalytic reaction. →

After the triumphal ceremony, Sol Invictus held talks with representatives from all sides, especially the Adeptus Mechanicus. Originally, the mining rights for several planets in the Nayshahn system belonged to Gryphon IV. After Terra transferred the governance of the system, the ownership of these mineral resources became a problem.

However, Gryphon IV itself wasn't very concerned about Nayshahn, and the scale of mining was relatively small, mainly focusing on some rare minerals. They didn't dwell on this too much and generously 'returned' it to Sol Invictus. Of course, there was a reason for their straightforwardness.

According to Gryphon IV, since the Star Knights 'eliminated the pests' for them last time, there hadn't been any large-scale Genestealer activity in the resource systems around the Forge World for decades. The Magi originally thought these aliens had been completely eradicated, but who knew that long-term dormancy was just for a more violent outbreak.

Just a year ago, several major mining worlds and branch industrial worlds of Gryphon IV experienced or discovered varying degrees of Genestealer uprisings. Millions of Skitarii were poured out like water, but to no avail.

Although the average size of these Genestealer broods, which had been dormant for who knows how long, was only ten thousand or so, they weren't large in scale. However, the Skitarii were good at frontal combat, and the kind of messy battles in mountain gullies and underground labyrinths made the ruling Magi feel uncomfortable. Moreover, these Genestealers were very cunning. They knew that the Adeptus Mechanicus valued machinery, especially large facilities, so they often based their strongholds near those facilities to prevent heavy fire strikes from the Adeptus Mechanicus. →

The Adeptus Mechanicus wasn't without research on this alien threat. The Magi had concluded that as long as they eliminated the leader, called the Patriarch or Broodlord, the entire brood's command and coordination ability would rapidly decline, and it would be very easy to clean up at that time. However, those brood leaders themselves were also extremely powerful, and assassination machines like Ruststalkers could hardly inflict effective damage. In this case, Space Marines, the super-elite warriors who could take the enemy's head from among ten thousand troops, were very much needed.

However, when Gryphon IV wanted to ask for help from the Scarus Sector, they found out –

It was too late!

Most of the Chapters of the Alliance of Contrition had already gone to carry out their respective missions. The remaining part either couldn't make decisions or weren't interested in Gryphon IV's request for help. After all, the Forge World itself wasn't threatened. It didn't matter if those mining worlds were in chaos for a while. Now there was fire everywhere, and Space Marines would definitely prioritize responding to the request for help from those more populous and important worlds and hive cities, because Genestealers were aliens that could easily 'snowball'. Once they controlled a densely populated area, they could easily convert the local residents into their kind.

Moreover, Gryphon IV was one of the largest Forge Worlds in the Tempest Sector, and there was also a Titan Legion. There was no reason why they couldn't solve that 'small group' of aliens with their own armed forces. Even the Departmento Munitorum ignored them, and no matter how much they urged, they only received a reply – troop strength was tight, wait a moment.

But Gryphon IV really couldn't wait!

Although the scale of these aliens was indeed not large, and they were also very scattered, they also caused trouble.

If the main mining worlds and resource worlds were affected, the production efficiency of the entire Forge World would decrease. However, the production tasks assigned to Gryphon IV by Mars would not be reduced at all. Failure to complete them would only accumulate, unless the entire Forge World completely gave up, otherwise a slight fluctuation in efficiency would cause great passivity in subsequent production.

To make matters worse, two groups of Ork pirates had recently merged and began to attack and plunder the resource systems around the Forge World, forcing Gryphon IV to divide its forces to resist.

However, it was useless to tell this reason to the Space Marines and Imperial bureaucrats. When there was no life-or-death crisis, everyone swept the snow in front of their own doors.

So Gryphon IV naturally found their 'old friend', the Star Knights and Sol Invictus.

Since Gryphon IV had spoken, and also did a favor by giving all the facilities and resource collection stations in the Nayshahn system to the Star Knights, Sol Invictus couldn't refuse. But he also equivocated, only saying that he would send a company to assist in the battle, but the various companies were still in the process of reorganization and needed some time – in fact, when chatting with the Magi of Gryphon IV, Sol Invictus was a little puzzled, because according to several people in the Chapter, and combined with historical cases, Genestealers often launched riots when a Tyranid Hive Fleet appeared near the system, but there had been no news of a Tyranid Hive Fleet in the Tempest Sector recently.

For some reason, Sol Invictus felt a little uneasy, but he could only temporarily suppress it.

On Zhao-Arkhad's side, they also encountered some Genestealer and Ork pirate troubles. The depth of cooperation in this world was much stronger than that of Gryphon IV, so Sol Invictus naturally had to come forward to help. He told the representative of Zhao-Arkhad that he would send a company to assist in the battle as soon as possible.

After that, they talked about the construction progress of the Abyssal-class battleship. According to Zhao-Arkhad, the main structure had been completed by 70%, but they had also encountered some major technical difficulties.

First of all, there was the problem of the engine. Although there were blueprints, the Abyssal-class engine used the same 'Saint' engine as the Gloriana-class. This engine was also the most powerful shipboard engine known to the Imperium. Not only was the process extremely complex, but it also required many extremely rare metal materials. Limited by industrial capabilities, many precision parts of the engine even had to be made by Tech-Priests and Magi bit by bit by hand. Even so, there were still insurmountable technical obstacles in materials science and energy components. The Magi of Zhao-Arkhad and the Magi of Uran-Huda held several meetings, but they did not solve this problem.

Another problem was the main gun. According to the blueprint, the prow of the Abyssal-class was equipped with a never-before-recorded plasma lance cannon. If the 'Saint' engine still had a reference, then this unprecedented giant cannon had no reference at all. Even with the most detailed structural diagrams, the process of actually making it was still more complicated than building a cruiser.