"Ancient Orks? A Green Tide??" Datch frowned slightly at Trazyn's words.
Seeing the nameless man's reaction, Trazyn at once waved a hand, and a hologram appeared out of empty space.
In the image, a primitive planet covered in lush jungle rotated slowly.
Deep in the jungle, the first Ork grubs were beginning to emerge from spores.
Trazyn's voice rang out as he explained everything about the greenskin race to Datch in detail.
As was widely known, the Orks were biological weapons made by the Old Ones.
Their bodily structure was extremely simple.
In short, they were psychic fungi that drew nourishment from sunlight through photosynthesis.
When the Old Ones designed the race as a weapon, they set its "adaptability" and "reproduction rate" far beyond those of any naturally evolved species.
However harsh a death world's environment, however polluted a daemon world by the energies of Chaos, Orks could take root, grow rapidly and breed.
Orks often had multiple spare heart-lung systems, and their vital organs were frequently redundant.
Brain damage, or even having their head sewn onto a new body, meant nothing to them.
Wounds that would cripple or kill a human were often mere scratches to an Ork.
Trazyn adjusted the projection and switched to the Ork genome, revealing a gene map utterly unlike that of any other living thing.
"The ancient sages embedded every technical knowledge and learning module they had accumulated into the Ork genes, hoping this race would win the War in Heaven for them."
"As originally conceived, the Orks were to be the most perfect biological weapon in galactic history, needing no logistics or supply lines at all."
"Simply scatter the first spores on the target planet, and an entire army would sprout from the ground like weeds and conquer every enemy."
But before the plan could be realised, the Old Ones perished, undone by the uncontrollable Warp and hunted by the star-gods.
"With the Old Ones' restraint gone, the ancient Orks ran out of control. They no longer told friend from foe, waged war on every civilisation, and found joy in war itself."
"They once threatened even the Eldar empire at its height. Before the Eldar sank into decadence, they were the most technologically advanced and militarily powerful civilisation in the galaxy — and even they feared the Green Tide."
"In the end, the Eldar used special devices left by the Old Ones to forcibly degenerate the maddened Krork."
"The Krork once stood over ten metres tall and wore power armour more advanced than the Astartes'. Now they have been reduced to this."
Trazyn's museum held ancient Ork specimens.
He opened a hologram from the museum's collection database and projected a twelve-metre Krork specimen onto the screen.
The ancient Ork wore full armour forged with ancient sacred technology, had a cannon mounted on its back above the shoulder, and swung a gigantic war-axe.
It gave off an overwhelming sense of menace, like some terrible god of war.
And such a creature had been nothing more than a consumable in the War in Heaven.
If Orks like that spread across the galaxy, the consequences would be unimaginable.
"From my observations, the greenskins on the Armageddon battlefield are evolving rapidly under the stimulus of human technology and firepower."
The Orks, a psychic race with something like a collective consciousness, gave off their own WAAAGH! energy in every war.
That energy fed back into Ork physiology, making them grow larger and, in a sense, "evolve".
The more combat experience an Ork had, the stronger its body and the sharper its mind.
The bigger the war, the faster the Orks who took part in it evolved as a whole.
If this went on, they would without doubt turn back into the ancient Orks who had once plunged the entire galaxy into terror, forming a green host that would destroy everything.
"A Green Tide?" Datch frowned slightly after hearing Trazyn out.
He hadn't expected the greenskins to have a hidden backstory.
Seeing the nameless man fall silent, Trazyn switched the hologram's output to the scan data.
"I have measured the WAAAGH! energy across the entire planet. It already exceeds the peak of the Ork empire at its height during the Great Crusade, and is fast approaching the active state of the Krork recorded in the Necrontyr death-database."
"A few more large-scale battles at this pace, and the first individuals with Krork traits will be born on this planet."
"When they grow up, they will become a new source of evolution themselves, spreading it through the entire Ork army in very little time and forming a terrifying Green Tide."
The instant he finished speaking, a group of Imperial commanders in uniform, wearing Aquila medals, arrived.
Witnesses had immediately passed news of Datch's arrival to headquarters.
On hearing it, the high command of the Armageddon front, led by Commissar Yarrick, came at once to pay their respects to the Nameless One.
Commissar Yarrick, also known as the Old Man with One Eye, was the Bonebreaker's lifelong sworn enemy.
During a campaign against the Orks, he had tracked down the Bonebreaker and planned to kill the warlord with his own hands, only to fall into the Bonebreaker's trap and be captured.
He lost an eye in captivity.
After escaping, Yarrick had a bionic eye implanted — the Bale Eye, which could fire a searing laser — and came to be called the Old Man with One Eye.
He led the Imperial forces to victory again and again in the Armageddon wars.
In old age, he met a heroic end on the battlefield and, along with other Imperial heroes, was called back from the flow of time by Datch.
Now Yarrick had returned to Armageddon to command the Imperial forces fighting the Ork horde.
After saluting, Commissar Yarrick reported the latest situation on Armageddon to the nameless man.
The Ork attacks were growing ever more frenzied and ever more ferocious.
Each charge showed markedly better fire density and coordination than the last, and the enemy's equipment was becoming more and more advanced.
Worst of all, even the Gretchin, regarded as disposable, had become far too clever.
"The Gretchin are clever now?" Datch asked in surprise.
Gretchin were the lowest slaves in greenskin society.
They were usually stuck with every kind of chore — polishing the Ork leader's boots, roasting meat for the warboss, hauling scrap-metal parts for the mekboy.
On the battlefield they also served as living shields, mine detectors, walkways and emergency rations.
Those scrawny little green runts that the Orks casually grabbed and lobbed like shells — they were actually clever?
"Yes. The Gretchin have become intelligent," Commissar Yarrick said heavily, with a nod.
He switched on the holographic projector and played images sent back by a reconnaissance team that had spent days infiltrating the edge of Ork-held territory at the risk of their lives.
A Gretchin sat neatly on the shoulder of a hulking Ork nob.
The Ork wore welded armour-plate far thicker than an ordinary Ork's, and gripped in its right hand a gigantic axe still belching black smoke.
The little devil pointed a spindly finger at a weak point in the distant Imperial line, muttering rapidly over and over.
Following its instructions, the nob swung its gigantic axe, roared, and ordered the boyz waiting behind it to change the direction of their charge.
The Orks abandoned their usual chaos and formed up for the charge.
They began the attack only after the artillery in the rear had finished its supporting barrage.
Their discipline astonished every Imperial general who had ever fought Orks.
It was simply too unbelievable. Without seeing it with their own eyes, no one would have believed it.
"During the War in Heaven, the Krork were commanded by the Brain Boyz," Trazyn said, switching on his projector and replaying ancient data.
The Gretchin who appeared in the War in Heaven were far larger than their degenerate descendants, with far greater brain capacity.
In the Old Ones' original blueprint, the Brain Boyz had been deliberately bred as the tactical command layer of the Ork army.
In the recording, an entire Krork legion launched an organised frontal assault on the main fleet of those who feared death.
Flanking attacks. Strikes from the rear.
Countless Ork warships advanced through the void in an orderly wedge formation. Their coordinated firepower and charges timed to the second looked nothing like a herd of barbaric creatures.
It was more like a gigantic biological weapon handmade by the Old Ones, with spores for fuel and WAAAGH! energy for a communications protocol.
Never underestimate these creatures: their cunning and capacity for action were outstanding. One careless moment, and they might scatter spores on every planet, turn whole worlds into Ork breeding grounds, and unleash a Green Tide that swallowed the stars.
Trazyn switched the projector to images preserved from ancient times.
Half the galaxy was stained green, the surfaces of countless planets covered in gigantic fungal carpets.
Countless green Orks leapt from the fungus, roaring, and raced across the stars.
The terrible WAAAGH! field was powerful enough almost to tear the galaxy apart.
The resulting surge was more terrible than any cosmic storm.
Guided by the Old Ones, Gork and Mork — the brother-gods born of the Orks — had wielded an endless Green Tide and, in the bloodiest phase of the War in Heaven, smashed the Necrons and torn the star-gods apart.
Even the so-called immortal star-gods had been battered to pieces by the green giants' fists.
The living-metal fortresses that the deathless Necrons had poured enormous labour and resources into building cracked open one after another under the concentrated fire of Krork gravity cannon.
Had the Old Ones not perished when they lost control of the Warp, and had the Orks not also suffered tremendous losses, the outcome of the War in Heaven might have been very different.
If the greenskins regained their former glory, the entire galaxy would be swallowed by an endless Green Tide.
Just then someone ran in to report that a webway portal had suddenly opened nearby, and a group of Eldar had emerged from it.
They called themselves the Ynnari and claimed to have come to support the Imperial forces on Armageddon and crush the greenskins.
"Nameless lord, do you wish to meet them?" Yarrick asked.
"Let me think about it." After a moment's thought, Datch nodded.
The Imperium and the Eldar had concluded a peace treaty in negotiations Malcador himself had overseen.
The Eldar warriors who fought alongside the Imperial fleet in the operation to retake the Eye of Terror had proved their sincerity through their actions.
These Craftworld Eldar who had come from afar were therefore allies, and there was no reason not to meet them.
A party of Eldar was brought in: seers, warriors and priests.
At its head was an old friend Datch had not seen for a long time — Yvraine, chosen of the Eldar god of the dead.
Her attire was as elegant and mysterious as ever, her long hair streaming gently behind her.
Ancient runes praising Ynnead, the god of the dead, were carved into her wraithbone armour, each glowing with a faint purple light.
Behind her came several fully armed Eldar warriors and priests.
"Honoured Nameless One." Yvraine placed her right hand on the ancient wraithbone amulet at her breast — the symbol of her status as the chosen of the god of the dead — and bowed her head slightly.
The chosen of the god of the dead harboured extremely complicated feelings.
When the fortress world of Cadia fell, and Creed and the other Imperial survivors fled the ice world in disarray…
She and her fellow Eldar had gone to their aid, and there they had met the Nameless One.
The nameless man had behaved strangely back then. His abilities were extraordinary, but he did not yet have the absolute power he wielded today.
She had also witnessed his duel with Abaddon.
The Nameless One had been no match for the Warmaster of Chaos's daemon sword. He was run through again and again and died every time, yet the next instant he would revive, brimming with life, and fight on. He endured the onslaught purely on the strength of his immortality.
Since then, the Nameless One had closed with a snap of his fingers the gigantic rift that had driven every race to despair.
He had eradicated the Eye of Terror, the Great Vortex, and other sub-dimensional rifts.
He had smashed Abaddon, the dark champion blessed by the gods, in a single clash.
He had swept away the countless renegades and xenos pirates lurking around the Eye of Terror.
Even the Silent King and the Stormlord, deathless rulers of the Necrons, had been defeated.
Now the astromancer Orikan, sworn to his service, ruled the entire Necron race.
The Nameless One had become the most powerful and influential being in the galaxy.
"Why have you come?" Datch asked Yvraine.
"I learned you intend to deal with the Orks, so I came to help." Yvraine raised her face and spoke respectfully, careful not to give the slightest offence.
"You'll help defeat the greenskins?" Datch looked over the Eldar doubtfully. "How? With numbers like yours, one greenskin swing would wipe you out."
"Nameless One." A familiar face spoke up. It was the Harlequin Shadowseer Sylandri Veilwalker.
She had intervened in the Imperium of Man's fate again and again, guiding its key figures and turning them to the great cause of the war against Chaos.
She had warned the Imperium before Cadia fell, helped Lord Castellan Creed and the others escape danger, and given the Primarchs vital information during the operation to retake the Eye of Terror.
"Of course we came to help you. Our lord, the Laughing God Cegorach, has come to Armageddon. He will help you draw out the gods of the Orks."
"Cegorach? Is he up to it?" Datch asked doubtfully.
A faint tremor showed in the eyes of Yvraine, Sylandri and the other Eldar.
Anyone else who questioned a god's ability would surely have incurred that god's wrath.
But the one asking was the Nameless One, a being of unknown origin, and he had every right to ask.
After all, at this very moment he was surrounded by gods of the material world, who waited humbly on either side of him.
"Confidence comes naturally to me, nameless lord."
A strange voice rang in everyone's minds, unbidden, stirring up happy memories of the past.
A tall figure in Harlequin motley appeared at once. It was none other than Cegorach, the Laughing God, the last surviving god of the Eldar.
...