The Emperor’s Angel of Death

At first, this thing looked unfamiliar, but after transforming from its flying configuration to this four-legged form, Sotha Nul found it very familiar. It was the most common spirit construct in the Hollow City, everywhere. And they could walk on any smooth surface.

“This construct is called an Ant, and I speculate that its purpose is to perform various simple but repetitive tasks. Its characteristics are simplicity, durability, functional flexibility, and relatively high autonomy. As you can see, it can change its form, giving it extremely strong deployment capabilities. At the same time, its main material is a hardened spirit bone. I have already mastered the formula. Although it is much heavier than normal spirit bone, and its plasticity is reduced, its defense is greatly increased, allowing it to withstand a considerable degree of impact. In addition, its legs have adsorption devices, allowing it to walk on all terrains as if on flat ground, and its extensible hangers facilitate the installation of various types of weapons. Like the floating sentinels, they also have a psychic matrix, which can be controlled manually or deployed on their own.”

Speaking excitedly, Kael'thas walked to the Ant and gently swiped his hand across its front. The spirit bone armor on its surface immediately detached from its body and floated up, exposing its internal structure to everyone.

“It's simply a genius design. Such a simple structure, yet it creates such amazing functions. This is simply a model of modularity. If mass-produced, it will effectively compensate for our race's weakness in organizing large-scale frontal infantry lines, especially when fighting against the Tyranids and Necrons. This weakness has caused us to suffer a lot.”

Turning his gaze away from the Ant, Sotha Nul nodded.

“Indeed, even the Royal Court, when it comes to large-scale wars, still faces the problem of insufficient troops. If these constructs can be deployed in the thousands, the situation of troop shortages will be alleviated, and tactical deployments will be easier. Master Kael'thas, is it easy to manufacture for the Royal Court? Does it require the use of a large number of artisan manpower?”

“Your Highness, if bone-singers are used to manufacture them one by one, the efficiency is indeed very low, but if spirit forges are used, the efficiency will be very high. I am already researching the establishment of spirit forges.”

Spirit forges were also one of the technologies provided by the Barasvani people, equivalent to a spirit bone assembly line. It was said that manufacturing some simple spirit bone objects would be very fast, but Sotha Nul didn't know much about the specifics.

But since the other party was so certain, he nodded.

“Then produce a batch first, put them into combat to see the effect, and then modify and finalize the design based on the actual combat results.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Afterward, Kael'thas also introduced some large spirit bone constructs, but they were all relatively complex and difficult to manufacture in a short period of time.

After ending this “appreciation meeting,” Sotha Nul had to devote himself to heavy state affairs, such as arranging forces to establish forward outposts in the Screaming Vortex area. On the one hand, he had to fulfill his promise to the Barasvani people, and on the other hand, he wanted to see if he could unearth the secrets of the Star Gods and the Old Ones from this ancient area.

In addition, new arks were constantly sending envoys to the Royal Court to pay homage. Sotha Nul had never even heard of some arks, such as the Quor'al ark, which was an ark world active near the Calixis Sector in the Halo Stars. It was said to have the most dimension spider shrines, and its leader was a blind female prophet, but it rarely had contact with other arks for ten thousand years, making it extremely reclusive—although there were actually many such arks.

However, this Quor'al ark seemed to have encountered some trouble recently, and was targeted by the Word Bearers, the most common bandits in the Chaos faction. Their envoys suddenly visited with a clear purpose—hoping to get military assistance from the Royal Court.

Sotha Nul was very annoyed by this kind of ark that “minds its own business” when everything is fine, but cries “Queen save me” when in trouble, but Veronica was, after all, a “merciful” daughter of Isha, and she couldn't ignore them. In the end, after negotiation, the Royal Court still sent troops to help them, but not many, because the Royal Court had too many places to protect.

If the situation worsened, Sotha Nul would consider increasing the forces, but at least now he just wanted to send these people away.

However, just as Sotha Nul was handling official duties in the Royal Court, a very loud warp fluctuation shocked the entire Royal Court. All the seers, warleaders, and even Phoenix Lords felt the ripples of the warp, including Sotha Nul and Veronica. So Sotha Nul immediately ordered an investigation into what had happened.

But no results could be obtained for a while. With some worries in his heart, Sotha Nul could only return to the warband. However, there seemed to be no news from the human side either, except that Deitrian reported that a supernova explosion seemed to have occurred in a remote frontier area of the Storm Subsector, which was near the Orpheus Sector. Moreover, it was a binary star that detonated at the same time, which was a rare event in astronomy. However, Sotha Nul was not very interested in astronomy and did not pay special attention to it.

But then the real thing came.

The first to receive the astropathic signal was the naval headquarters of the Baka Fleet, and then they were shocked by the content of the signal. They immediately sent it to the Alliance of Suffering and then to distant Terra—why the Alliance of Suffering? Because the alliance was currently the most powerful armed force in the Storm Subsector.

The Victory's Scar of the Alliance of Suffering immediately forwarded the message to Naysan IV, and it reached Sotha Nul.

The signal had only three sentences—

The Loki Sector is in danger! Rynn is in danger! The Crimson Fists are in danger!

At first, Sotha Nul was a little confused, because as a request for help signal, this astropathic message was too vague and the tone was too heavy, as if the Crimson Fists were about to be finished. But the problem was, how long had it been since the news of the Ork invasion of the Loki Sector came? Had they already reached the Crimson Fists' homeworld?

Moreover, even if they really did, as a chapter close to full strength, with a fairly powerful fleet, it was unlikely that they would be forced into a desperate situation by the Orks, especially in such a short period of time.

Was it a miscommunication?

It was normal for errors to occur in astropathic communication. It was possible that the original message was not so urgent, and the meaning changed after being transmitted several times.

After thinking about it, Sotha Nul decided to wait and see, and let the Eternal Court send scouts to take a look, and decide whether to take action depending on the situation. If they didn't call for reinforcements, it would be very embarrassing and devaluing if he went over there eagerly.

During this period, he took advantage of the temporary lack of major events to prepare to return to Volistad, which he had passed by in the past, and try to get the Mechanicus treasure hidden there. This was not a simple matter, because it involved the Titan Legion and could easily attract attention from all sides, so he needed to personally operate it.