The void shuddered in silence.
The Morning Wood and the Ark of Hope faced each other across an astronomical distance of emptiness. Anyone could see at a glance that these were two fundamentally different warships.
The hull of the Hope flowed with the cold, sharp luster characteristic of the Dark Age of Technology. Its lines, smooth to the point of being organic, resembled the vascular network of a living creature. Every pulse stirred visible Warp ripples in the void. Its main battery muzzles adjusted their angles slowly, the antimatter light deep within glowing like imprisoned stars, waiting for the moment of release.
The Morning Wood simply suspended itself there. Its silver-white hull flickered with a faint light in the void—a light that was not dazzling, but brought a strange sense of peace to the souls of all who gazed upon it. There were no hideous battery arrays, no thick armor layers, and even the fluctuations of its void shields were imperceptible. It stood in silent confrontation with the Hope, like a mirror calmly reflecting the other's ferocity.
The surrounding fleets instinctively scattered toward the periphery. Whether it was the Imperial Phalanxes or the Chaos Gloriana-class battleships, the behemoths that were originally slaughtering one another were now pushed aside by an invisible force. When two true "strongest" existences occupied the same patch of void, all other beings naturally became mere backdrops.
King against King. General against General.
Then, the Hope fired.
There was no warning, no sign of energy buildup. From a muzzle as massive as a mountain range, a silver-white torrent of pure antimatter erupted. This was different from before; a causality weapon woven into the structure of reality itself was released simultaneously. The moment the shot was fired, the hit became a predetermined fact.
The torrent crossed the vast astronomical distance. The void along its path twisted into fragments amidst the annihilation reaction between antimatter and matter. Space itself resembled a piece of parchment licked by flames. Escort ships that failed to evacuate in time were erased from the material plane by merely brushing against the edge of the torrent, leaving not even wreckage behind.
The Morning Wood did not dodge. Or rather, it had no need to.
The antimatter torrent, capable of evaporating a mountain range in a thousandth of a second, struck the Morning Wood's void shield. That shield was as thin as a soap bubble, transparent to the point of being nearly invisible, as if a light breeze could blow it away.
Then, it opened its mouth. That was not a metaphor.
The Morning Wood's shield changed the moment it touched the antimatter torrent. Its surface cracked open a rift that expanded rapidly in a manner defying geometry, turning into a massive maw beyond the description of language. The antimatter torrent poured entirely into that maw. Everything was swallowed, like a drop of water falling into a parched desert, vanishing without a trace in an instant.
The Morning Wood's counterattack arrived at the same moment.
Ten points of light lit up on its hull. Their brightness climbed from a faint candle flame to something comparable to a supernova explosion within a millionth of a second. Those were ten Nova Cannons—but unlike the Nova Cannons on Imperial ships that required long charging times, these ten cannons completed the entire process from startup to firing the moment they lit up.
Ten black hole shells were fired simultaneously. They exceeded the speed of light.
In the physical rules of the material universe, nothing can exceed the speed of light. But the Morning Wood's Nova Cannons clearly did not intend to follow that rule. Those ten black hole shells arrived before the Hope the moment they were fired, the intervening process deleted by a higher-dimensional power.
The Hope's void shields oscillated violently under the bombardment of those ten black holes. The thickness of those shields was enough to withstand a fleet's salvo, but cracks now appeared at a visible rate. The Dark Age creation, capable in theory of resisting any conventional attack, finally showed its limits when facing an equally unconventional assault.
The void was torn apart at this moment. The thousands of kilometers of space between the Morning Wood and the Hope became a forbidden zone of death. Antimatter torrents and lances intertwined into a web of destruction. Probability clouds released by quantum weapons expanded in the void, collapsing all possibilities into a single outcome of ruin.
The void black hole generators released by the Hope created miniature singularities around the Morning Wood, each with a gravitational pull sufficient to compress a city to the size of an atom.
The Morning Wood's response was even stranger. Spacetime distortions began to appear around its hull. Past, present, and future lost their meaning in that patch of void. Sometimes the silhouette of the Morning Wood appeared in three different positions simultaneously—projections of itself on different timelines. The Hope's quantum lances struck one of the projections, but it merely rippled like a reflection on water before restoring itself.
The Morning Wood responded with doomsday weapons. Forbidden weapons from the Necrons awoke one by one on its hull.
The void wailed. It was not actual sound—sound cannot travel in a vacuum. But every living being present could "hear" that wail. It was the scream of the structure of reality itself being shredded by two forces beyond comprehension.
The Phalanxes were retreating. Those fortress-level behemoths were now like small boats in a storm, doing their best to stay away from the void that had turned into a purgatory. Their void shields flashed violently in the aftermath of the battle; merely enduring the dissipated energy caused their overload warnings to ring out continuously. The Chaos Gloriana-class battleships were also pulling back, the giant ships blessed by the Four Chaos Gods having lost their usual arrogance.
It was as if the ancient War in Heaven was being reenacted in the galaxy. At this moment, the destructiveness displayed by this battle had surpassed the limits of understanding for the vast majority of people present. Imperial Navy commanders who had experienced centuries of war stared blankly at the holographic projections, their thoughts coming to a standstill.
On the bridge of the Fist of Iron.
Ferrus frowned. His pupils reflected the dance of destruction in the void. The Morning Wood and the Hope were still locked in combat. Antimatter torrents and faster-than-light lances shone together; quantum weapons and doomsday weapons took turns; spacetime vortices and causal erasures rose and fell. Every exchange left unhealing scars in the void, like wounds that would never close.
It was a stalemate.
The ultimate legacy of the Dark Age of Technology versus the reality-warper's vehicle of high-tech sorcery; the strongest ship in history versus the strongest ship of the modern era, fighting to a standstill in the void. The Hope could not penetrate the defense system of the Morning Wood, which was composed of countless anomalous items, and the Morning Wood could not completely suppress the firepower of the Hope, a peak creation of the Dark Age.
However, Ferrus noticed something else. His gaze pierced the battlefield of intertwined light and landed on a more critical position. The aftermath of the battle was moving toward the Imperial array.
No. It was being guided intentionally.
Ferrus's gaze swept over the tactical projection. The green light points representing the Imperial fleet were regrouping according to his previous orders. However, the core area where the Morning Wood and the Hope were fighting was sliding slowly toward the Imperial array in a trajectory that seemed random but was actually precise.
Its target was—the Blackstone Fortresses?
Ferrus's pupils contracted slightly. As the core of this Cadian War, those thirteen Blackstone Fortresses were like thirteen nails, firmly pinned to the veil between reality and the Warp. Every Blackstone Fortress was itself a massive energy amplifier, and the thirteen fortresses together wove an energy network sufficient to suppress the entire Eye of Terror. Destroying any one of them would affect this network.
...Or would it?
Of course not. The corners of Ferrus's mouth curled up slightly.
My resources are infinite, but there is only one Hope!
Ferrus began to wait. Then, he got what he was waiting for.
The Hope moved. The peak creation of the Dark Age of Technology suddenly accelerated in an interval between its clashes with the Morning Wood. The energy released by its propulsion system in this moment was so vast that the trajectory the entire warship drew in the void was like a lance of light. It swept past the ship wreckage in its way, passed through the energy storms that had yet to dissipate, and pounced on the nearest Blackstone Fortress in a nearly straight line.
Its speed was too fast. That speed was not like the maneuver of a warship; it was more like a jump—but in the spacetime distortion field released by the Morning Wood, any Warp jump was a suicidal act. Therefore, the Hope chose pure, physical acceleration. The Dark Age propulsion system spat out energy wakes behind it sufficient to melt a planet, pushing the entire warship forward.
Like a hungry wolf. Pouncing on the prey that seemed exposed.
Ferrus's palm tightened slightly. He waited. He waited for the moment the Hope entered the ambush zone. The Phalanxes standing by had already adjusted their angles, their engines ready to flare.
Then, the Hope swayed slightly. A feint.
The Hope suddenly changed course at the edge of the ambush zone. Its hull doubled back at an angle that defied all laws of inertia, the massive body drawing a sharp, nearly impossible arc in the void. The Phalanxes that were ready for the strike missed their mark, their hulls vibrating violently in the void due to emergency braking, their void shields rippling.
It retreated. It went back into the void where it was fighting the Morning Wood, continuing their dance of destruction. It was as if it had never left.
Ferrus let out a long breath of turbid air. The fire of rage in his eyes suddenly flared, burning even more intensely. His pupils reflected the firelight of that battlefield. His gaze seemed to pierce the boundary between reality and the Warp, passing through the layers of steel and void to look at the figure sitting on the other side.
It really is you!