The accompanying Sisters of Battle immediately obeyed Sanguinius's command and planted the Melta bombs they carried onto the structure of the Tyranid Hive Ship.
A gigantic insectoid monster, standing over one hundred and fifty meters tall, appeared before them.
It let out a terrifying screech, a sound so horrific that even the Terminator warriors holding the front line were forced to retreat dozens of steps.
"Great Father, this is the monster of legend," a Terminator Veteran Captain said. "The monster that theoretically exists within every Tyranid Hive Ship. We have named it the Norn Queen."
The Imperium had been at war with the Tyranids for hundreds of years, and it was not as if the Imperium had never destroyed a Tyranid Hive Ship before.
Within the wreckage of such ships, they had indeed discovered massive monstrosities. At the time, they named this creature the Norn Queen.
They were the command core of the entire Tyranid race, the source of all synapse creatures, directly linked to the Hive Mind.
"Do not be afraid, my sons. I will deal with it." Sanguinius spread his golden wings to shield everyone behind him and brandished the holy sword in his hand.
Sanguinius unleashed a massive slash that struck heavily upon the Norn Queen's body. The terrifying monster was instantly cleaved in two.
The power of this strike, infused with the power of Holy Light, was terrifying beyond measure.
"It just happens to be large," Sanguinius said.
This massive creature possessed powerful psychic abilities, but its movement speed was extremely slow. Although immense in size, once an enemy got into close quarters, it was relatively easy to kill.
However, it required a warrior of his caliber to do so; an ordinary Primarch would likely have a headache facing it.
However, the bisected Norn Queen did not die immediately. Instead, it emitted an even more horrifying screech.
A massive number of Norn Guards, standing five or six meters tall, rushed forward to shield their Queen deathly tight.
The Queen let out a horrific howl directed at Sanguinius. This howl, capable of killing top-tier psykers, felt like nothing more than a gentle breeze blowing against the face of a Warp God.
"Hmph! You call this a psychic storm? Let me show you what a real psychic storm looks like," Sanguinius roared.
A burst of golden light erupted from his body, forming a terrifying tempest that surged straight toward the Norn Queen.
The surrounding Norn Emissaries, Norn Guards, and Zoanthropes possessing powerful psychic might that tried to intercept it were instantly torn to shreds.
The terrifying impact struck the Norn Queen directly, blasting its remaining half-body into dust.
With the Norn Queen eliminated by Sanguinius, the brainless Hive Ship fell into a frenzy, and the surrounding Hive Mind connections seemed to notice the accident here.
By this time, the Sisters of Battle had finished planting all the Melta bombs, and the Terminator squad had gathered together.
Sanguinius nodded and waved his arm. After a flash of golden light, only Sanguinius remained within the entire Hive Ship; everyone else had been teleported back to the safety of the Battle Barge.
After his subordinates had safely evacuated, Sanguinius did not linger. He used a psychic blink to travel instantly to the next Tyranid Hive Ship.
The Tyranids were biological weapons with terrifying lethality against mortals, but against a Warp God like him, the Tyranids were the ones at a disadvantage.
The Tyranid Shadow in the Warp was extremely powerful, strong enough that even beings at the level of Daemon Princes and Greater Daemons could not resist it.
But before a Warp God, it was not worth mentioning. A Warp God, even a weak one, was the favored child of the Sea of Souls and a true son of the Warp.
Playing with psychic powers in front of them was like an amateur showing off their sword skills to a master.
However, the Norn Queen's psychic power still made Sanguinius somewhat alert.
The enemy's psychic strength was not much inferior to Mephiston.
Such psychic power was already at the limit of mortal life, yet the Tyranids could mass-produce such existences.
This was a terrifying concept. It must be noted that these creatures were not produced by the main force of the Hive Fleet, but were created from local materials.
As long as there was enough biomass, the Tyranids could hatch a Hive Ship, and a Hive Ship would inevitably birth a powerful Norn Queen.
When dozens or even hundreds of Norn Queens combined, they formed a Tyranid Hive Fleet.
This Hive Fleet would devour all life and living things they encountered, consuming every bit of organic matter in the star system.
They would then hatch more Hive Ships and Norn Queens. Almost no race could withstand this method of warfare, not even the Orks, who were famous for their wave tactics.
So, what exactly was the entity behind the Tyranids?
Sanguinius suspected that this so-called Hive Mind likely wasn't weaker than the four Chaos Gods.
After returning, he needed to discuss this matter thoroughly with Axis. The Tyranids had to be taken seriously. This world had Tyranids, so their own world had to be prepared to go to war with this terrifying race.
Inside another Hive Ship, Sanguinius repeated the process, ordering his sons and the Sisters of Battle to plant Melta bombs, while he unleashed a psychic storm infused with powerful Holy Light.
He eliminated the Norn Queen, along with high-level units like the Hive Guards, Norn Emissaries, and Zoanthropes.
Sanguinius stayed in each Hive Ship for only about a minute before quickly transferring to the next battlefield and teleporting his gene-sons and the Sisters of Battle away.
This battle made Sanguinius look at these Sisters of Battle with new respect, as the combat effectiveness they displayed far exceeded his expectations.
Wielding bolters and chainswords, these women were not much inferior to Space Marines in battle, and their combat sense was perhaps even sharper.
These Battle Sisters were well-trained, accurate marksmen, and fierce in combat; they were indeed a qualified force of warriors.
Now Sanguinius knew why Dante had asked him to bring these Battle Sisters along.
In thirty minutes, Sanguinius had slain thirty Norn Queens in succession and planted a massive amount of Melta bombs within thirty Hive Ships.
After confirming that everyone had returned safely, Sanguinius personally pressed the detonator.
The vacuum of the universe was silent, but the Battle Sisters and Sanguinius's gene-sons saw brilliant fireworks blooming one after another, like beautiful flowers blossoming in space.
Towering flames burst forth as the Tyranid Hive Ships exploded from within, blown to pieces.
"Long live! Long live the great Father!"
"What glory this is! Great Son of the Emperor, it is our utmost honor to fight alongside you," High Canoness Christina said with a look of excitement.
Sanguinius nodded and looked back. In this operation, they had lost over a hundred Terminator veterans, while the Sisters of Battle had suffered as many as a thousand casualties.
These women fought with no regard for their lives, often acting more like they were launching suicide attacks.
In the future Ecclesiarchy he would lead, if such Battle Sister units existed, he would have to plan carefully. He could not allow them to charge savagely to their deaths like this.
A full thirty Tyranid Hive Ships had been destroyed, throwing the Tyranids into great chaos.
The Hive Ship was the most powerful naval unit in the Tyranid swarm, responsible for command and linking with the Hive Mind.
The Leviathan splinter fleet attacking Baal had over seventy Hive Ships in total; this operation had effectively destroyed half of their mother ships.
This caused a massive number of bio-ships to lose their synapse link, and they even began indiscriminately attacking friendly forces.
Large numbers of Tyranid ground troops attacking Baal also fell into paralysis. Even some mid-level synapse creatures could no longer connect to the Hive, and their wills descended into chaos.
Upon realizing this situation, the remaining Hive Ships immediately reacted. They began using their powerful psychic abilities to manipulate the remaining fleet and ground forces.
Simultaneously, all Hive Ships began to distance themselves from the Baal system, pulling away from the human fleet led by Sanguinius.
"It seems these monsters are not without brains," Sanguinius said with a cold snort as he watched the retreating Tyranid forces.
"Great Father, these things are not mindless monsters. They possess tactics and use them very exquisitely," Dante said, approaching his Primarch. "However, under normal circumstances, they do not use tactics because there is no need. Their sheer numbers are enough to crush all enemies. But when absolutely necessary, they will use them. The reason they attacked your homeworld, Baal, this time is that they know this is the core of the resistance. If they defeat us here, all humans in the surrounding vast sector will become their food."
If these bugs were truly mindless, they would be easier to deal with. But in reality, they were brilliant strategists. These Hive Fleets would even actively attack Chaos Daemons.
"You all remain here," Sanguinius said, nodding to his sons. Then, with a blink, he appeared directly in the vacuum of space.
His golden wings faded, replaced by wings of blood-red, and his stature grew even taller and more robust.
At this moment, Sanguinius entered a state he rarely accessed: the War Angel.
He streaked through the universe like a crimson beam of light. Sanguinius moved at incredible speed through the Warp, arriving instantly at the Tyranid Hive Ships several astronomical units away.
Waving his long sword, he sliced a massive Hive Ship directly into fragments, then used powerful Holy Light to incinerate it completely.
The reason he had performed the boarding actions earlier was to train his sons. Now that the training objective was achieved, it was time for his own amusement.
He, Sanguinius, was also a battle maniac.
He, too, yearned for Axis's style of combat, facing an entire army alone.
Sanguinius, transformed into the War Angel, unleashed a storm of blood and gore within the Tyranid swarm. The smaller bio-ships could not hinder the War Angel's advance at all.
Crimson sword-energy slashed through the universe. Each strike precisely destroyed a bio-ship.
"Is this all you have? Is this the extent of your power?" Sanguinius sneered, charging toward his next target, a Tyranid Hive Ship.
Repeating his earlier method, he eliminated all the high-level units and the Norn Queen inside, then erupted with psychic and Holy power, blasting the entire ship to dust and burning it clean.
Among the human forces, Dante, the Sisters of Battle, and the Blood Angels watched, dumbfounded.
Was their Father truly this powerful?
Rumors said the Father could duel an Emperor-class Titan alone; it seemed this was not an exaggeration, but rather an understatement.
Their Father could fight bio-ships, or rather, a whole swarm of them. Was this the power the Father now possessed?
"WE SEE YOU!" At that moment, a terrifying voice penetrated Sanguinius's mind, making even the War Angel's head buzz.
The entity speaking to Sanguinius was none other than the central will of the Tyranids, the consciousness attacking the entire galaxy.
"EXISTENCE THAT COMPETES WITH THE SWARM FOR FOOD MUST BE EXTERMINATED. NONE CAN DEFEAT THE SWARM."
Any existence that stole food from the bugs was an enemy that had to be purged in the eyes of the Tyranids.
For this reason, the Tyranids had even established a fleet specifically to deal with Chaos Daemons, named Kronos.
When Chaos Daemons entered real space, they lacked physical bodies, composed instead of Warp energy. Their target for consumption was also the souls of intelligent life forms.
Thus, a core conflict arose with the Tyranids. Killing Chaos Daemons yielded no biomass for the Tyranids.
Furthermore, on planets visited by Chaos Daemons, all biomass would be corrupted or destroyed. Therefore, after arriving in the galaxy, the Tyranids quickly defined humans and other intelligent races as food.
Chaos Daemons, however, were identified as enemies stealing their food. Consequently, the Tyranids established this special fleet. This fleet did not need to harvest biomass, as the Leviathan fleet would allocate biomass to them for their use.
This legion was composed entirely of top-tier psychic units. They had only one mission: to locate Chaos Daemons and travel to exterminate them.
Clearly, Sanguinius, an existence possessing powerful psychic abilities, had also been identified as an enemy by the Tyranids.
Previously, the attack on the Blood Angels' homeworld of Baal was to acquire the food there, to plunder the biomass. They were merely pray. But now, the situation had changed.
The Tyranids were shifting from feeding mode to war mode.
The terrifying Hive Fleet Kronos had altered its course and was heading toward the Baal system.
"Come and try it then. I'll kill as many as you send."
Sanguinius retorted fearlessly.
'You call for reinforcements? You think I can't?
'I'll immediately call that freak Axis over.'
.
.
ps?