The Creator's head buzzed, its body swaying with the tremors of the World Engine as its cold consciousness lapsed into a chaotic haze.
In stark contrast to the Rangdan Overlord's momentary hesitation, Blazkowicz's mind remained perfectly sharp and his objective absolute. Before the Blackstone Fortress died completely, he had engaged an emergency randomized teleportation, casting himself into the deepest section of the World Engine where the psychic resonance registered at its peak.
Materializing mid-air, Blazkowicz cast his gaze downward only to find a gathering of the Stargazers—a psychic thrall-race of the Rangdan—staring up at him in utter, catatonic bewilderment.
Glancing left and right, he realized he was suspended high above the ground. Due to the inherent instability of warp-teleportation, his body from the waist down was embedded directly inside an adamantium bulkhead, leaving his torso protruding at a 45° angle.
In such hazardous displacement scenarios, biological flesh would normally fuse with the wall's atoms at a molecular level, becoming truly "one" with the structure. Yet Blazkowicz felt no anomaly; his biological functions continued to operate perfectly.
Channeling immense strength through his core, he wrenched his legs free from the solid adamantium with brute force and leaped down from the high hall.
The Stargazers were gripped by sheer shock. They could not comprehend how a human could break free after a catastrophic teleportation failure. Their surprise, however, was short-lived. A barrage of psychic assaults erupted instantly as Warp energy coalesced into countless lethal vectors, descending upon the human Primarch.
Blazkowicz hurled his chainshield, pairing it with the sweeping, calculated slashes of his dimensional greatsword. Within two seconds, the entire hall was completely sanitized, leaving behind nothing but a floor slick with mangled meat and corpses.
Shaking the fresh blood from his shield, he strode over to the hall's primary console. He sheared through the internal conduits with his dimensional sword, executing a direct intrusion into the World Engine's data arrays.
In short order, the World Engine's security firewalls were torn open by the Void Dragon, who began reading the internal datasets.
The C'tan deity delivered his findings rapidly: "We are currently estimated to be 500 kilometers away from the primary bridge."
"The kinetic collision did not yield optimal results. After the Blackstone Fortress penetrated the defensive shields, its hull was pulled downward by the neutron star's gravitational well, drifting entirely off its original vector."
"Its velocity plummeted from near-lightspeed to a mere 30% lightspeed. The Blackstone wreckage failed to even punch entirely through the World Engine, grinding to a halt 1,200 kilometers inside the interior."
"The Blackstone Fortress is almost completely obliterated. We have lost contact with the majority of the deployed extermination weapons; only a fraction remain operational."
"If you intend to act, you must hurry."
Listening to the summary, Blazkowicz focused his gaze on the data overlay inside his visor. Four extermination-class nuclear warheads and two cyclone torpedoes were currently counting down.
Five minutes!
There were only five minutes remaining before every surviving extermination weapon within the Blackstone wreckage detonated simultaneously.
"Map the vector. Objective: primary bridge," Blazkowicz commanded in a low voice. A tactical route materialized instantly within his display.
Studying the winding, convoluted path, his heavy brows knitted together. "I am not here as a guest," he remarked with cold dissatisfaction. "I have no obligation to respect the layout of the host's domain."
With that, Blazkowicz lowered his stance and raised the chainshield before him. The serrated teeth spun to life, the high-velocity C'tan fire-blades resembling a blinding solar eclipse.
Seeing his posture, the Void Dragon tapped his obsidian cheek and let out a soft chuckle. "It seems I was the one thinking too conventionally."
Instantly, a perfectly straight trajectory was re-plotted across the visor projection.
Blazkowicz's legs flexed with explosive power, launching him directly toward the solid adamantium bulkhead. The chainshield acted exactly like a high-speed tunnel-boring machine, driven forward with an unstoppable momentum by his titanic strength!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Wall after wall buckled. The solid adamantium barriers behaved exactly like fragile paper as Blazkowicz transformed into a living armor-piercing round, leaving a continuous trail of glowing, circular holes in his wake.
"Overlord? Creator?"
Inside the central command deck, the artificial intelligence's prompts grew increasingly urgent, attempting to rouse the Creator to manage the unfolding catastrophe.
The Creator did not respond. Its mind was entirely consumed by a paralyzing terror born of catastrophic failure. When this iron planet was first conceived, it had sworn a solemn vow, guaranteeing the completion of its oversight to forge the decisive weapon that would conquer humanity. Now, the World Engine lay reeling. With its potential downfall, the Supreme Overlord would undoubtedly demand accountability, bringing down an unspeakable retribution.
Its cerebral cortex contracted, trembling in absolute dread as terror systematically devoured its remaining sanity.
"Overlord?" the AI persisted relentlessly, streaming a continuous operational update. "The World Engine's sensors have detected an intrusion by a transcendent lifeform."
A transcendent lifeform? An intruder?
The notification coiled around the Creator like a cold, venomous serpent. The sudden suffocating weight dragged it out of its spiral of panic and back to reality.
"Show me!" it bellowed in its hollow cadence. The Creator's psychic signature surged with a sudden, violent jolt, its crimson eyes flashing with an ecstatic realization.
A transcendent lifeform?
By the metric established by the Rangdan Grand Assembly, only an entity equivalent to an "Overlord" satisfied the AI's parameters for a transcendent lifeform. Within the human species, the only entities that met this definition were the "Primarchs"—those creatures forged by the Human Emperor, such as Moribar Solas.
"Blazkowicz Nowick!" Its vocal cords were squeezed tight with sudden elation, its voice trembling as it spoke.
It recognized the towering silhouette clad in power armor across the monitor arrays instantly. Blazkowicz Nowick, the Master of the Stars, the King of Warriors. The Creator had truly never anticipated that it would be he who boarded the World Engine—and with practically no vanguard to protect him.
The Rangdan Overlord was ecstatic: a big fish had swum straight into its net!
From the intelligence gathered on Solas, it was fully aware of the Warrior King's immense individual combat prowess. But what did that matter? The Creator refused to believe that a human Primarch could single-handedly slaughter the World Engine's entire garrison before his physical endurance was completely spent.
Furthermore, with a human Primarch aboard the vessel, the security of the World Engine was practically guaranteed. No matter how insane the humans were, they would never choose to sacrifice a genetic Primarch simply to destroy the World Engine. The intruder was Blazkowicz Nowick; the tactical dossiers clarified that the Human Emperor held this particular son in the highest regard.
If it could capture him alive, then every single disaster unfolding today would be rewritten as a testament to its brilliant strategic acumen. The breach of their defenses could easily be framed as: The wise Creator boldly utilized the World Engine as bait to ensnare a human Primarch.
Having rationalized the outcome, the Creator waved its tentacles, broadcasting its orders: "Command the garrison forces to establish ambushes along his projected path. Apprehend the human Primarch at all costs!"
"By your command, Overlord," the AI responded. The data commands streamed across the World Engine's networks, mobilizing garrison regiments to intercept the human intruder.
Deep within the World Engine, countless high-tier combat elements received the directive, redirecting from their respective sectors to converge upon the human interloper. They were the true elite, veterans who had overseen the subjugation of countless species.
Through its predictive algorithms, the AI had concluded that deploying low-tier units against a human Primarch served no practical purpose; they would merely congest the transport networks and inevitably serve as localized points of failure during high-intensity engagements. Vast numbers of elite vanguard warriors obeyed the deployment orders, boarding the interior teleportation grids to converge from all directions.
Simultaneously, the Lion watched as Blazkowicz successfully breached the World Engine's interior, the heavy weight lifting from his chest. His brother had survived the most perilous phase of the operation, and he possessed a clear, unflinching understanding of Blazkowicz's immense capabilities.
Rising from his throne with renewed intensity, the Lion pointed a gauntleted finger toward the Master of the Six Wings. "The Blackstone Fortress will initiate a flanking assault. Utilize our vortex cannons' range advantage to systematically eradicate their left-wing defensive platforms."
"Bring the staging bays to standby status. Prepare to deploy our vanguard fleets to engage the enemy warships immediately."
"The fortress will maintain an orbital sweep just outside the effective range of their defensive grid, ready to receive my brother upon his return."
As the Lion's directives went out, the Legion Masters accepted their commands without a moment's delay. The Dark Angels shifted into an absolute combat footing. The Blackstone Fortress pivoted smoothly along its axis, realigning toward the left flank of the World Engine as its vortex cannons crackled with purple lightning, preparing to unleash their fury.
"Overlord, the human fortress has commenced an offensive sweep."
"Ignore them!" the Creator spat dismissively. "Those xenos are merely blustering."
"I saw it clearly just moments ago: the humans evacuated their warships and material assets. That fortress is currently packed with their personnel; they will never attempt a secondary ramming tactic."
"Engage the defensive platforms at full power; keeping the human fortress occupied is sufficient. I can see their desperation; they are spinning like ants on a hot skillet, frantic to recover a critical leader of their species."
The Creator was entirely certain: so long as the human Primarch remained trapped within the World Engine, the titanic construct was safe. The crisis response teams had already departed for the Blackstone wreckage, tasked with locating and neutralizing any concealed ordnance. Time was the ultimate resource for the World Engine. Only by stalling or capturing the genetic Primarch could they definitively bring an end to this crisis.
Fixing its gaze on the internal holographic monitors, it instructed the AI: "I am assigning full authority over the engagements with the human fortress to you. I must concentrate my focus entirely on orchestrating the capture of a Primarch."
"Understood, Overlord."
Deep within the World Engine, Blazkowicz continued his brutal progress, shattering wall after adamantium wall like a crimson meteor, completely unshakeable. Deep inside the enemy stronghold, he remained utterly fearless, striding forward with resolute steps.
Breaching yet another barrier, the Void Dragon flagged an immediate update within his helmet: "An elite Rangdan garrison unit has established an ambush in the grand hall ahead."
"Three hundred Rangdan Praetorians. They are equipped with radiation weaponry and anti-gravity dampeners; they have clearly come prepared."
A green schematic projected onto his display, mapping the peripheral movements: "Additional reinforcements are converging from secondary vectors, equipped with force-field constraint arrays."
The Void Dragon observed with an amused note: "It appears your Rangdan Overlord intends to cage you inside this unawakened carcass."
"Then let it try," Blazkowicz replied coldly. As he spoke, he shattered the primary blast doors of the hall, the dimensional greatsword in his grip igniting with a blinding, lethal brilliance.