The blaring of the alarm was a shriek of impending doom, a sound that sent a tremor of disciplined panic through the entire forge world. On the holo-lith, the red icons representing the Ork fleet multiplied as more crude vessels poured from the bleeding wound in reality, forming a battle-swarm of truly apocalyptic scale.
Archmagos Valerius-9-Tane reacted with the speed of a machine built for crisis. [All Skitarii Legions to battle stations! Awaken the Knights of House Taranis! Prime the orbital defense lasers! I want the Litanies of War broadcast on all forge frequencies! The sanctity of Ryza shall not be violated!]
His orders were a cascade of binary commands, and across the continent-sized factory, the planet began to stir. Titans slumbering in their arming bays were roused by the prayers of their Princeps, and armies of cybernetic soldiers marched toward their defensive emplacements. The air, already thick with smog, began to crackle with the energy of rising void shields.
Captain Arken, a warrior in his natural element, turned to Kael. "My Kill Team is battle-ready, Interrogator. Give me a target."
Kael's mind was racing, his gaze flicking from the tactical display to Rimuru. The situation was dire. A WAAAGH! of this magnitude would mean a protracted, brutal war of attrition. Ryza would likely survive, as it always had, but the cost would be measured in mountains of corpses and shattered manufactorums. The project, their study of Rimuru, would be delayed for years, if not indefinitely.
Rimuru, however, was simply observing the holo-lith with a calm, analytical expression, as if watching an interesting weather report.
"This is very inefficient," he said, breaking the tense silence. His voice was so matter-of-fact that it cut through the rising panic like a scalpel.
"Inefficient?" Captain Arken growled. "This is war, xenos. It is bloody and absolute."
"But it doesn't have to be," Rimuru countered, turning away from the display. He looked at the Archmagos. "A long battle will damage your beautiful forges and delay my research. The noise will be terrible. I find the entire prospect to be a waste of time and resources." He gave them a simple, declarative statement. "I will handle it."
The three Imperial representatives stared at him. Handle it? Handle a WAAAGH! that threatened an entire Sub-sector?
"What do you propose?" Kael asked, his voice tight with a mixture of hope and utter disbelief.
Rimuru walked back to the massive, crystalline heart of the half-finished device. He placed a hand on its smooth, glowing surface. "We are in the final stages of constructing a Phase-Resonant Array, are we not? A machine designed to manipulate the very fabric of spacetime." A confident smile touched his lips. "Let's give it a field test."
The Archmagos's lenses whirred, his logic-engines struggling to keep up. [The device is untested! The rituals of activation are incomplete! To use it now would be… heresy!]
"Is it more heretical than letting your holy forges be overrun by Greenskins?" Rimuru retorted gently. He looked at the frantic Tech-Priests. "Link your primary plasma conduits to the array's core. Divert all available power. I need everything you can give me. I will handle the tuning and calibration myself."
For a moment, Valerius was paralyzed by indecision, caught between millennia of rigid doctrine and the insane, confident logic of the being before him. He looked at the red tide sweeping towards his world on the holo-lith. His decision was made.
[DO IT!] he boomed in pure binary. [Heed the prophet's command! Channel the Omnissiah's divine wrath into the holy device!]
A new, frenzied energy swept through the forge-cathedral. Tech-Priests chanted Litanies of Power Transference as colossal conduits were connected to the base of the array. The entire chamber began to thrum with unimaginable power, the air growing hot and tasting of ozone. The crystal at the device's heart began to glow with a brilliant, silver-blue light as Rimuru poured his own magicules into it, his mind a nexus of trillions of calculations as Ciel guided the flow, taming the raw, brutal power of the forges into a coherent, focused beam of reality-warping energy.
High in orbit, Fleet Admiral Vorl stared at his own tactical display in grim resignation. The Ork fleet was a monstrous, chaotic wave of scrap and violence, closing faster than any sane ship should. His ships were ready, the crews reciting their final prayers to the Emperor. Victory was uncertain, but their duty was clear.
Suddenly, every sensor on his bridge screamed at once.
Directly in the path of the Ork fleet, space itself tore open.
It was not the violent, nauseating wound of a Warp rift. It was a perfect, stable, shimmering circle of silver-blue light, a gate that had opened onto a different place. It was vast, easily large enough to swallow the biggest of the Ork ships, and it hummed with a clean, orderly power that felt like a direct insult to the chaos of the approaching WAAAGH!
Aboard the lead Ork Kroozer, the Warboss, Grizgutz Mag-Uruk, stared at the shiny new portal on his viewscreen. One of his Boyz turned to him. "Boss! Wot's dat? Should we turn?"
Grizgutz slammed his power klaw on the Ork's head, crushing it. "TURN?! ARE YOU A GROT?! WE DON'T TURN! DAT'S A NEW THING! AND NEW THINGS ARE EITHER FOR KRUMPIN' OR FOR LOOTIN'!" He pointed a massive green finger at the portal. "FULL SPEED AHEAD, YA GITS! I WANNA SEE WOT'S ON DA UVVER SIDE! WAAAGH!"
Driven by the sheer, indomitable logic of the WAAAGH!, the entire Ork fleet, from the smallest escort to the largest Rok, aimed itself directly at the shimmering portal. With a collective roar that echoed even in the void, they plunged headlong into the unknown.
One by one, the red icons on Admiral Vorl's display vanished as they entered the gate. Within a minute, the entire Ork fleet was gone.
Then, as cleanly and silently as it had opened, the portal snapped shut.
Space was empty. The WAAAGH! was over.
In the forge-cathedral, the great device spun down, its silver light fading to a soft, ambient hum. The Tech-Priests were silent, their vocalizers unable to form the proper litany for what they had just witnessed.
Kael stared, his mouth agape. Arken stood as if turned to stone. Valerius's many lenses were all focused on Rimuru, his logic-engines crashed and rebooting from the sheer, paradigm-shattering impossibility of the event.
Rimuru dusted his hands off, looking entirely unconcerned.
"Where… where did you send them?" Kael finally managed to ask, his voice a hoarse whisper.
"Oh, them?" Rimuru said with a shrug. "I found a nice, uninhabited star system on the far side of the galaxy. No strategic resources, no life, nothing of interest at all, really." He gave a thoughtful tap to his chin. "They'll be very confused. It should take them at least a few hundred of your years to get back here, assuming they don't just find someone else to fight along the way."
He turned to the stunned Archmagos, his expression bright and business-like.
"There," he said cheerfully. "The distraction has been handled. Now, about finishing the final calibration on the array…?"