The Emperor’s Angel of Death

"Your Highness, all is well on Naysan's side. The Avesta and Abyss-class ships have defeated the Nurgle cultists and the archenemy's lackeys' fleet. Eidolon and Typhus have also retreated from Naysan IV's orbit."

In the secret meeting room of Zhao-Arkhad's Oberon-class battleship, Sotha Nul met a Golden Kestrels wearing invisible spirit bone armor and a golden feathered cape on his right shoulder. Since most of the Chapter's ships were at the front, Sotha Nul could only travel on Mechanicus ships.

Hearing this news, Sotha Nul breathed a sigh of relief.

However, after learning about the full-scale Tyranid invasion, he immediately mobilized the fleet, especially the Ecclesiarchy's Silent Fleet, to provide support, but there was a problem during warp travel.

That's right, it was something that ships with a slightly longer service time in the Imperium had experienced – a warp storm.

The warp is a very difficult area to understand. One of its most prominent features is that it can form an incomprehensible destructive storm in an area without warning or reason, just like a storm at sea. When ships pass through these storms, in the best case, they may be blown off course and appear thousands of light-years away from their target, or simply run into the unknown areas of the galaxy.

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And in the worst case, they are directly trapped in the warp in despair, becoming bait for the dark creatures living in the warp.

The duration of the warp storm itself is also uncertain. Some only last for a few days or months, but others may last for centuries.

According to the Imperial Merchant Fleet's statistics, in the forty-first millennium alone, there were more than four million missing ship reports of various types throughout the Imperium, half of which were lost in warp storms.

The power of this "supernatural phenomenon" is extremely great. No matter how heroic and unparalleled you are as an Astartes Chapter Master, or a Mechanicus Magos who masters countless supreme technologies, or a Marshal with thousands of troops, you are just a speck of dust in its presence. Whether you survive depends entirely on your luck.

Throughout the history of the Imperium, there is no shortage of terrible cases where an entire expeditionary force, or even an entire Chapter, perished in a warp storm.

However, the appearance of this thing is entirely a matter of probability. Except for certain specific areas, Sotha Nul had never encountered a warp storm in all his years as a Space Marine. Even in the Star Knights' own historical records, the Chapter has recorded only three encounters with warp storms, one of which completely lost a company.

And the Storm Nebula, as a "black zone" where warp activity is not frequent and there are no large rifts, warp storms are extremely rare. The most famous is the "Judgment Storm" during the Gothic War, which blocked support troops from some star sectors, but in general, the Imperium is a region where warp storms rarely occur.

It was as if this extremely low probability event happened to Sotha Nul at the most critical moment.

When the Navigator told him about the warp storm in horror, Sotha Nul's first thought was that someone was playing tricks in the dark, but then he thought again, how many beings in the galaxy can create warp storms?

Then he found that his seemingly all-powerful power became insignificant in the raging warp. He might be able to escape, but the entire fleet could not. At that time, the warp was like a large pot being stirred vigorously. The torrent of psychic energy pushed and swept the fleet. The Navigators tried their best to maintain the fleet's formation, and the Geller field was also undergoing the most severe test. The daemons laughed wildly in the storm, waiting for the protective light of any ship to go out, and then they would swarm up and devour it together with the ship and its people.

And Sotha Nul was almost powerless to do anything about it.

It wasn't that he hadn't thought about asking the Changer for help, but he found that he couldn't go to the Thunderstone Cathedral. Just when he was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, the extremely sudden storm began to dissipate.

So, fortunately, although it took some time, the fleet arrived safely at its destination, which was the jump node outside the Vestro System – due to the influence of the Hive Mind's shadow, it was impossible to jump directly into the star system.

But as soon as they entered realspace, a Golden Kestrels from the Royal Court requested an audience. Fortunately, Zhao-Arkhad boarded a pirate ship and the ship was equipped with Eldar signal receivers. Sotha Nul then asked the Golden Kestrels to approach in a small boat with the best stealth capabilities.

As soon as the person came in, he immediately told him a piece of bad news and a piece of good news.

The bad news was that the Fourteenth Legion and the Third Legion colluded and jointly attacked Naysan and the Brakato System.

The good news was that the attack caused basically no damage, and both groups of traitors were repelled.

".Fleet Master Giulio Prla annihilated the Nurgle cultist fleet that attacked the Brakato System, and then went to the Naysan System to provide support. When he learned that the battle was basically over, he formulated a plan to ambush the archenemy's lackeys. When the archenemy's lackeys withdrew from the Naysan System and joined the outer fleet, they launched a surprise attack, destroying 27 ships and killing about a thousand Chaos Space Marines, but Eidolon and Lucius' bodies were not found."

Sotha Nul nodded slightly after hearing this.

"It's a pity, but it's also very good. It was inconsiderate of me to let the enemy take advantage of the situation this time, but what do you mean by Eidolon and Typhus retreating in orbit?"

"Your Highness, according to post-war intelligence, the Nurgle cultists and the archenemy's lackeys used fast ships to quickly approach the orbital defense facilities of Naysan IV and launched a boarding action, and almost controlled the orbit."

"Hmm?"

Sotha Nul thought for a moment, the situation at that time should have been very dangerous, because once the orbital facilities were controlled, those weapons might turn their guns to attack the monastery fortress on the planet's surface, or even just letting the orbital structure smash down on the planet would be a disaster.

More importantly, he knew how much power was left in the Chapter's monastery. No matter how ridiculous Eidolon and Typhus were in his eyes, they were, after all, long-established figures. It was absolutely impossible to repel them with just the new recruits.

"Master Ananda?"

The first possibility that jumped into Sotha Nul's mind was this, but looking at the Golden Kestrels' attitude, it didn't seem like it.

"Do you know who repelled them?"

"Your Highness, the result of the subsequent investigation is...one of your cooks."

Sotha Nul blinked, then blurted out.

"Ah? Rogzim?"

"This subordinate does not know the specific name, but Lord Dorale asked to relay that one of your cooks used incredible power to defeat almost all the invaders single-handedly. Eidolon also summoned a Keeper of Secrets, but it seemed to be defeated by a group of Hrudd. There were also short people, Orks, etc. during the battle."