Chapter 123: The Underlying Logic of Warhammer Still Delivers (Patreon)

Looking at the adorable, chibi-style Termagant in front of him, Heydrich launched into an enthusiastic explanation.

After all, the way the Great Devourer controlled the Genestealers came down to psychic signals at its core — which was why, after destroying that small Hive Fleet earlier, Heydrich had collected a good deal of leftover pure biomass.

Combining that with his own various methods, he'd produced what now stood before him: an Ultra Tyranid agent. Its purpose was to jam the Great Devourer's psychic control — in other words, to override the Warp-level command signal from the physical layer — luring Genestealers into revealing themselves.

After all, the most dangerous enemies weren't the ones out in the open, but the ones hiding in plain sight.

That jamming had its limits, though — take the Sector Governor's brother, for instance. He was a super Genestealer, one who had already grown immune to the Great Devourer's control entirely.

Cases like that had to be dealt with first. And precisely because he could resist the Great Devourer's will, his Warp signature would stand out like a sore thumb — much the same way Heydrich's own did.

Even as a psychic muggle himself, he could still sense certain shifts in the Warp.

As for what the Ultramarines thought about all this — they had no opinion on it whatsoever. However heretical this thing looked, it still couldn't hold a candle to Heydrich's magnum opus of heresy, the Great Ultra One. By now even Guilliman had held his nose and accepted it. The bar for what counted as shocking had been raised so absurdly high that even the ultra-devout, borderline-fanatical Chaplain Leandros just chose to look the other way.

Today, though, there was clearly no looking away — because Heydrich had gone ahead and let this thing loose right in front of them.

"Little guy, I've got a job for you next," Heydrich said.

He looked down at the adorable little thing perched on his arm and rubbed its head as he spoke. He was still holding himself at Primarch scale for the moment, which made his chibi-sized Ultra Tyranid look even smaller than a normal Termagant by comparison.

"For the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, and for Guilliman!!!"

"…"

At Heydrich's words, the little chibi Tyranid raised a claw-hand in salute. But behind them, Titus and Leandros both felt their hearts skip a beat.

"Just follow his lead. Leave that Genestealer Patriarch to Akurduana."

Setting the chibi Ultra Tyranid down, Heydrich began handing out assignments to the group.

A moment later, the little chibi Tyranid threw on a black robe, complete with black sunglasses and a hat.

All of it was Path-creation gear, built around Enigmata and Remembrance to let him hide himself more effectively — and make every living thing around him simply overlook his presence.

To make the concealment easier, Heydrich hadn't given him much in the way of offensive capability. The little guy was built almost entirely around staying alive.

As for the big Genestealer Patriarch, that was left to Akurduana — his combat strength sat right at the tier just below a Primarch's, so handling a single Genestealer Patriarch really wasn't much of a problem.

In any case, Heydrich intended to use these last few days before the Tyranid swarm's arrival to wipe out as many of the planet's Genestealers as possible.

They might be one of the foundations the Imperium of Man was built on, but that only held true before the Tyranids showed up. Once the Tyranids arrived, the Genestealers would become the greatest threat of all.

As for what would happen if the Tyranid swarm never showed up at all…

Well, Heydrich had already burned through plenty of Genestealers building his own forge world — large-scale construction projects tended to eat through workers regardless. However advanced his machines were, plenty of manual labor was still needed on the ground.

So this time, Heydrich had lured and captured a batch of Genestealers right here in Ultramar. After all, having faced down the main strength of the Behemoth Hive Fleet during the First Tyranid War, the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar still had plenty of leftover Tyranid remnants lurking about.

As for those Genestealers now, they were still hard at work down on Heydrich's forge world. The forge world had already begun production, true — but fully completing construction of a forge world could easily take centuries, if not a thousand years or more.

For now, it was only about fifty percent complete — enough to produce all sorts of equipment. But unlocking its full production capacity would probably take several more decades of steady construction.

To make sure it wouldn't draw the attention of any Hive Fleet, Heydrich had blanketed his forge world under a layer of Soul-Banishing Death Field. Since his people's souls all belonged to him directly — and the same held true for their descendants — none of them cared in the slightest about the so-called Soul-Banishing Death Field.

As a nice side effect, it also kept every heretic and xenos abomination from getting anywhere near the place.

"Well. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the war to start. I still don't have any real battleships to speak of, sigh…"

Heydrich sat in his chair, silently watching the dense mass of Tyranid bio-ships crowding the tactical display. A powerful navy mattered, sure — but it depended on the situation, and given how Heydrich's forces were currently structured, a navy simply wasn't a top priority.

Still, between the forces he'd brought himself and Titus's contingent, he had roughly five thousand Space Marine at his disposal. And stronger still than those five thousand Space Marine was the Titan legion Heydrich had already begun deploying.

That would push his overall combat strength up several tiers, so this fight wouldn't be nearly as one-sided against him as it might otherwise have been.

If it really came down to a losing battle, well, he'd cross that bridge when he got to it — hold out until Dante arrived with his fleet, and retreat if it came to that.

"Oh, right — take me to the Grand Prism. I want to see if I can seize control of it. This isn't Baal, and it's not the eleventh hour yet."

He said this to one of the Men of Stone standing beside him. He recalled there was also a space Necron Overlord in this region, along with the space Necron Traveller, Anrakyr, and Overlord Zarathusa.

"Understood."

The Man of Stone nodded, then led Heydrich toward their destination.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, aboard the Ark.

"Whew…"

Wondrous Shadow set down the book in her hands and let out a breath of relief.

Just as Heydrich had hoped, she'd quickly come to understand her own responsibilities. Still, Heydrich differed from the Emperor in one key way — even though he himself was plenty anxious underneath it all.

He wasn't the kind to rush her. If she wasn't ready, he wouldn't pile on the pressure — not like the Emperor, who'd apparently thrown a whole Legion at his sons the moment they met and told them to hurry up and start the Great Crusade.

Granted, the Emperor back then had had no choice but to race against time. Heydrich, though, was under no such obligation to rush.

"Today's exams are all finished. Top marks across the board — whether it's academics or military courses…"

Wondrous Shadow took a deep breath, looking over the coursework in her hands. There was, of course, no physical fitness course among them — putting her through a fitness exam would honestly have been bullying.

"Hm?"

Just then, Wondrous Shadow's eyes drifted to the two figures beside her.

"Mimi, Mimi, Mimi…" "Ugh, what even is all this?"

Irena and Mimi were both here too. After watching how carefully Heydrich was raising Wondrous Shadow, the two of them had decided they couldn't afford to fall behind, and had tagged along.

Mimi was doing fine enough — she still couldn't speak human language, but her fundamentals were solid, so she was picking things up fast, right on par with Wondrous Shadow.

Irena, though, was suffering something awful. How to put it — in modern terms, she was basically one of those rural redneck types out west, the kind who never learned anything beyond the Bible.

Irena was much the same — her past training had been little more than combat drills and the Ecclesiarchy's dense, endless scripture. As a Sister of Battle, after all, she was meant to charge headlong into the front lines against Chaos corruption. And given her potential as a Living Saint on top of that, the scripture side of things had been drilled into her even harder.

So making someone who was, functionally, an illiterate in every modern sense sit through these specialist courses was, admittedly, a real ordeal for her.

Mimi was currently tutoring her, but since Mimi couldn't speak human language, and Irena lacked the telepathic link Heydrich shared with her, the whole process came across as painfully abstract. By now Mimi looked ready to burst a blood vessel from sheer frustration — the exact expression of a parent trying to help a kid with homework.

She'd gotten so worked up she was now bouncing and stomping around on top of Irena's head — which, admittedly, looked pretty adorable.

"Whew…"

After taking a deep breath, Wondrous Shadow left the school. Using the teleportation system, she quickly made her way to Heydrich's General's Residence — only this time, she couldn't find him. Instead, she found Pearl sitting in his seat, working through a mountain of tangled, miscellaneous business.

"Where is he…"

Wondrous Shadow asked, sounding a little dejected, though she still kept her eyes earnestly on Pearl. Usually, whenever she scored well, he'd make a real point of praising her — and, on top of that…

…give Irena a good scolding, mostly because the woman had spent the past several years freeloading here alongside Celestine, doing nothing but eating and mooching, which had thoroughly annoyed Heydrich. There's only so much of a Goldie a person can get away being.

"He's already headed to the Netherworld star region in the Imperium Nihilus. War in this universe never stops just because of anyone's personal will."

Pearl explained, looking at Wondrous Shadow. This world was simply that cruel — war wouldn't vanish because of anyone's will. Not even the four Dark Gods could stop it; no one could.

"So if you want to stay by his side at all times, you'd better work hard. War is the cruelest thing there is — it doesn't leave room for the slightest bit of selfishness."

Pearl glanced at the slightly dejected Wondrous Shadow and set down the pen in her hand, a note of wry amusement in her reminder.

"Yes!!!"

At Pearl's words, Wondrous Shadow proudly puffed out her chest.

…

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Heydrich had arrived at the critical core of the Netherworld star system.

"So this is the Grand Prism, the old weapon of the Mephrit Dynasty? Though the Imperium's been using it as a power generator."

Looking at the Grand Prism before him, Heydrich fell deep in thought.

"That's right, my lord. Though activating this weapon requires consuming an entire star — a bit lacking, compared to your own creations."

"Don't remind me. I don't exactly consider that something to be proud of…"

At the compliment, Heydrich buried his face in his hand. Plenty of his inventions had started out as simple attempts to make life more convenient, and somewhere along the way, a few of them had turned into giant firecrackers instead.

Of course, plenty of them had turned out successful too — the Memetic Virus, for instance, or that super budget-tier A-Ruan Pouch.

Sure, it couldn't hold a candle to the original, but it made up for it in being cheap and plentiful — good enough to run trade through the tavern network.

"You try activating the Grand Prism. I'm not planning to burn my trump cards here in the Netherworld system. Hit them too hard, and the Tyranids can just reroute. Changing course costs them dearly, sure, but it's not off the table — they've got no reason to fight to the death over this one system. So worst case, we just detonate the star and wipe out every Tyranid in the system."

Having handed everything over to the one beside him, Heydrich took his leave for the time being. This one, like Pearl, had once been a Necron Cryptek — colloquially known as a Necron Grand Tech-Tyrant. Heydrich also knew there were two space Necron Overlords who might be watching from the shadows somewhere in the region, though he had no idea where either of them currently was.

If contact ever became necessary, though, this one could handle the first approach.

As for Heydrich himself, he could technically restart the Grand Prism on his own too, but it would take time. His grasp of Necron technology was actually rather limited — the common stuff, like phase teleportation and Gauss weapon tech, he understood well enough.

But the more advanced systems left him completely in the dark. With war looming, Heydrich didn't have time to fumble his way through it here.

So in a brief flash of light, Heydrich returned to the Sector Governor's command room. By the time he got back, the Lord Castellan of Cadia had already woken up.

"Great Ancient Sage, have you sent people out to clear the Genestealers?"

The Cadian commander, Maelon Dhrost, saluted at once as Heydrich walked in, asking the question. He'd already reviewed the battlefield and found that Heydrich hadn't touched his strategic deployments at all — just reinforced a few spots that had been left thin only because his own forces hadn't been enough to cover them.

"That's right. Bit of a shame, really — you won't have much room to do your own thing for a while."

Heydrich nodded, then glanced toward one of his own Palace Guard standing nearby — one he'd promoted up through internal selection, since positional warfare was still the mainstream approach in this Warhammer universe.

Heydrich didn't have any of Rogal Dorn's gene-seed on hand, so he'd had to make do with Iron Warrior gene-seed instead.

But with only a few days left before the enemy arrived, this one clearly wasn't going to get much chance to show what he could do.

"This one…"

The Lord Castellan glanced at the guards standing behind Heydrich, all of them Custodes-height, and his brow furrowed slightly.

"My assistant. The Tyranids are practically on our doorstep now. How are the ordinary people on this planet holding up? If they're left out in the open, they'll be nothing but rations for the Tyranids."

"I've already arranged for as many as possible to be moved inside the hive. But you know as well as I do, there's no way to clear out everyone in the wastelands — and a lot of them are Genestealers anyway."

"Understood…"

Heydrich nodded at that, then fell silent, turning his gaze to the sky above — where the Tyranid fleet now loomed directly overhead.