Aboard the Celestial Engine, on the command bridge.
Though Qin Mo's true body remained far away in the Talon Sector, his mind was now fully inhabiting the living-metal avatar. Through it, he had personally torn open a dimensional corridor to bring Saal swiftly aboard the Celestial Engine's bridge.
Now, Qin Mo stood beside Grey, Yoan, and Saal, the three of them watching the shifting tide of war unfold across a colossal, slowly rotating hololithic display suspended in the air like a spectral star map.
Their own fleet was steadily emerging from dimensional corridors, destroyers and escort frigates came first, faster and more agile. Cruisers and battleships followed more slowly, and even then, they still had to rush to regroup at the front lines.
The Talon Naval Forces had yet to form a proper battle line, but fortunately, neither had the Chaos fleet.
The Vengeful Spirit, flagship of the Black Legion, and the Terminus Est, flagship of the Plague Fleet, were moving swiftly toward the vanguard of the Chaos formation. Meanwhile, two Blackstone Fortresses had abandoned their assault on Cadia, turning instead to rendezvous with the main Chaos armada.
The sheer speed of the Blackstone Fortresses stunned Qin Mo. They glided like leviathans unbound by inertia, as though reality itself parted to make way for their passage. They seemed active, almost eager, as if possessed by a will beyond logic or command.
He recalled Uthlan's earlier warning: but now, a direct confrontation between the Celestial Engine and the Blackstone Fortresses was no longer a possibility it was inevitable.
"All weapon arrays, target the Blackstone Fortresses," Qin Mo ordered, eyes fixed on the looming constructs of ancient terror.
The Stone Men controlling the Celestial Engine, swiftly complied. Every weapon system embedded within the dual orbital satellite structures locked onto the two Blackstone Fortresses. Their charging sequence had begun moments ago. Now, the arrays were halfway to full power.
Grey kept his eyes fixed on the hololith projection, watching the mysterious constructs. Though unaware of their origin or capabilities, he'd noticed something critical: the Conqueror had fled into the warp, yet the rest of the Chaos fleet had stayed.
The Conqueror must've shared its sensor logs of the battle in Agripinaa with allied vessels. And still… they remained. Clearly, it was the presence of the Blackstone Fortresses that had given them such resolve.
"Those hexagram-shaped things... are they really that powerful?" Grey asked curiously.
Only then did Qin Mo realize he'd never explained what the Blackstone Fortresses were to his allies. He nodded solemnly, gaze fixed on the monstrous constructs.
"A Blackstone Fortress can annihilate a planet with ease. They can synergize with each other, forming linked assault matrices. The more there are, the stronger they become. If there were three of them here, this entire sector would already be lost."
"The Lord of Talon speaks truth," Saal affirmed grimly.
"Seriously?!" Grey exclaimed, visibly shaken. "I thought they were just oversized orbital defense platforms…"
Qin Mo narrowed his eyes, calculating their next move.
If the Celestial Engine could destroy one of the Blackstone Fortress swiftly, it would gain a significant tactical advantage.
But if it failed to do so quickly, the enemy might launch a planetary assault on Cadia while the Celestial Engine remained locked in orbital combat. Still, this too had contingencies, the teleportation array was already deployed across Cadia, and Talon's ground forces, along with the Titan Legion housed within the Celestial Engine, stood ready to reinforce the Cadian Troopers at a moment's notice.
The Celestial Engine could even deploy the Nexus Firmament Pylons to both poles of Cadia, but that was a contingency reserved for Abaddon.
["Weapon arrays fully charged!"]
A crisp voice broke Qin Mo's concentration.
He focused on the display. The two orbital satellite structures encircling the Celestial Engine's central planetary core began to accelerate, adjusting position.
The first satellite, having rotated to face its target directly, opened fire.
The Will of Eternity, one of the two Blackstone Fortresses, was struck.
An immense salvo of planet-cracking particle lances converged into a titanic beam capable of obliterating entire biospheres. So luminous was the blast that it bathed the entire system in a crimson-red glow, a false sunrise that lit the void from Cadia to the system's edge.
As the energy beam hit, the Will of Eternity activated a defensive shield, not a void shield nor an ion barrier, but something older. A howling cyclone of Warp energy erupted around the fortress, rotating like a malevolent gyre, tearing at reality itself. It had activated autonomously. Even the Black Legion personnel within the Fortress, veterans of untold Warp rituals, hadn't known such a system existed.
The gargantuan beam was partially nullified, caught in the turbulent stream of Warp energy, which acted like a dimensional lens, dissolving portions of the beam. The effect surrounding the fortress resembled shattered glass, a visual fracture in reality itself.
But this bizarre ancient shielding wasn't impervious. The sheer force of the Celestial Engine's particle beam bled through, puncturing sections of the Blackstone superstructure. Molten fragments the size of city blocks sheared off into the void.
As the Will of Eternity held its defense, the other Blackstone Fortress retaliated.
Its Warp Vortex Cannon, a gaping singularity ringed by anti-reality runes, unleashed a maelstrom of Immaterium energy striking the Celestial Engine's planetary core, targeting its heart with uncanny precision.
The incoming Warp energies were intercepted by the Celestial Engine's layered energy shields. But the residual energy spread outward, triggering the shields on the nearby satellite structures as well.
In response, the second satellite swung into position and unleashed its fully charged arrays.
Its particle arrays fired upon the attacking fortress, and where realspace energy met Warp energy, a reality-breaking pulse rippled outward, invisible to the eye, but violently tangible in effect.
Every ship in the Chaos fleet was pushed off-course by the shockwave. Some, flying too close together, collided in mid-space. The guttural screams of overlapping vox-traffic echoed across the comm-net, followed by static.
The Talon fleet was also hit; their shields instantly entered critical load, absorbing the brunt of the wave.
The duel between the Celestial Engine and the Blackstone Fortresses had turned the entire region into a maelstrom of physics and sorcery, tearing at the seams of both dimensions.
The Warp rifts across the system began to expand and contract erratically, blinking like malignant stars, pulsing like the heartbeat of a god gone mad.
Within the Plague Fleet, the Nurgle-blessed Chaos Marines and mortal followers suffered greatly; their bodies, bloated with Warp-born pox and barely held together by sorcery, fluctuated between immense power and horrifying decay. Gangrenous limbs tore off and regrew in grotesque cycles, their flesh weeping pus and screams.
It was a sign that the entire star system was now being tugged between the Immaterium and Materium, assaulted by both.
After the first volley, the Celestial Engine's particle lance arrays powered down, beginning another charge cycle.
Likewise, the Blackstone shielding and Warp Vortex Cannons ceased their function.
Both sides' superweapons were recharging, readying for another cataclysmic exchange.
"If it weren't for that rift…" Saal pointed to the edge of the system, where the largest Warp breach pulsed on the hololith, "The Talismans of Vaul would've already been shattered by now."
Qin Mo nodded in firm agreement.
That Warp rift was like a miniature Eye of Terror.
The larger the Eye of Terror, the more intense the Warp's influence upon the Materium, and the stronger the Warp entities become.
With this rift in place, both Blackstone Fortresses had grown stronger, it was the warp that powered them, after all.
"It must be the result of their ritual…" Qin Mo said, staring grimly at the rift.
He had long speculated on the enemy's grand ritual, perhaps it was meant to transform the worlds near the Cadian Gate into Daemon Worlds...
Instead, after years of sacrifice and unholy offerings, all it had done was open a small Eye of Terror within the sector.
But even that was staggering.
It wasn't the rift that would grow to become the Maelstrom that cleaved the Imperium in half, but still a Warp rift large enough to empower two Blackstone Fortresses was already an abomination.
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