Chapter 149: Tzeentch's Gadgets Never Disappoint (Patreon)

But no matter the circumstances, Guilliman would show no mercy to any of his sons who threw in with Chaos and betrayed him. And there were simply too many of his sons — enough, one might say, that the situation had already grown too unwieldy to control.

Heydrich had told him plainly: these days, across the galaxy, both the loyalists and the traitors alike relied on the Ultramarines as their main strength. After all, the traitors had no way of obtaining stable, pure gene-seed anymore.

So they had no choice but to steal it — and it didn't help that there were simply too many Ultramarines to go around. Guilliman could only feel a deep, helpless ache in his stomach over it; this wasn't a problem anyone could actually solve.

Still, as Heydrich liked to put it, the Ultramarines were loyal. No one could question the loyalty of the Ultramarines. Not even the Ultramarines themselves could manage that.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field facing Guilliman, there was a fleet.

It belonged to the second-in-command of the Red Corsair Huron Blackheart — the very lieutenant who wanted to replace him.

In the original timeline, this was the one who had captured Guilliman and made off with Macragge's Honour. Of course, Guilliman had eventually escaped by way of the Eldar webway.

But his flagship had been carried off along with him — and afterward, the Ultramarines had charged into the Eye of Terror to reclaim it.

The machine spirit was simply too powerful to corrupt. Combined with the fact that Huron Blackheart knew the ship was a hot potato more trouble than it was worth, and that he wanted this rival dead anyway, it hadn't taken long before the Ultramarines recovered it.

Now this frontline leader of the Red Corsairs, Verngar, felt as though he were glowing with glory, for his strength at this moment was terrifying. He had the backing of nine Greater Daemons of Tzeentch, including the Fateweaver Kairos himself — and even against the massive army Guilliman had brought this time, he dared to test his luck.

In truth, capturing Guilliman alone would be enough, and Kairos was absolutely confident of that.

After all, in the original timeline, Kairos alone had bound Guilliman with a torrent of Warp sorcery and forced the entire Terran expedition fleet to surrender.

Back then, it had been a single Greater Daemon of Tzeentch acting alone. This time there were nine — a full nine — and even a Thousand Sons Chaos warband lending its aid.

So Verngar, piloting the Blackstone Fortress known as Magog No. 6, sailed directly out to meet the Terran expedition force head-on.

What this Red Corsair didn't know, of course, was what several of those Greater Daemons of Tzeentch were doing at that very moment...

"In the name of Tzeentch, have you heard? There seems to be something quite marvelous here."

one of the Greater Daemons of Tzeentch murmured to a fellow daemon at that moment. Apart from the Fateweaver Kairos, all the rest of them had really just come along to watch the show. The reason was simple enough.

During the battle at Macragge, one Greater Daemon of Tzeentch and his entire daemon host had been hurled bodily into the fray by the Changer of Ways himself, supposedly after glimpsing something impossibly, gloriously huge.

Unfortunately, that daemon and his host were still in the process of resurrecting. So this pack of bored, idle Greater Daemons had put their heads together and decided to tag along with Kairos to see what was going on — profit if there was any to be had, no loss if there wasn't. And while they were at it, they could sneak in a backstab on this thing too. After all, backstabbing one's fellow servants of Tzeentch was hardly out of the ordinary.

As for that Thousand Sons Chaos warband — if Heydrich had been there, his eye would have twitched violently.

Because he recognized this bunch. They were the very oddballs who, only a few days earlier, had been talked into an ambush against him by Rylanor. If Heydrich hadn't intervened, they would have helped Rylanor detonate the virus bomb and die alongside Fulgrim.

But once Heydrich showed up, the whole affair had simply fizzled out. And out of respect for the fact that they'd been trying to protect Rylanor, he hadn't done much to them — just told them to get lost, and quickly.

Now this same group had somehow, in a matter of mere days, ended up here of all places — and the leader of these Thousand Sons sorcerers was itching for a chance to prove himself.

Because Rylanor's teachings had stirred in them memories of past glory, and they meant to prove that glory was still theirs to reclaim.

So they needed to prove their loyalty — which meant this bunch had decided to secretly deliver something big to the Greater Daemons of Tzeentch, and to the Fateweaver Kairos most of all.

Something to make him happy, and to prove their devotion!!!

And so, facing an expeditionary fleet dozens of times larger than in the original timeline, bearing down on them with overwhelming momentum, they surged forward without hesitation regardless.

The Fateweaver Kairos, of course, was brimming with confidence at this point. He had already devised the perfect plan, one certain to capture Guilliman.

But it wasn't long before...

"That's wrong, Buhao — why doesn't the fleet's number match the plan!!!"

It was only once both sides had drawn close that Kairos noticed something was off. One of his heads foresaw the future; the other looked back upon the past.

But neither could see the present — which meant that, in a certain sense, this creature was practically blind. So it was only when the fleet was already bearing down on him that he actually saw its true, staggering size with his own physical eyes.

For one brief instant he felt a terrible premonition — but it made no difference now, since the collision was already upon them.

"Ah well. Let's just call it an insignificant little variance within the plan..."

Kairos knew there was no retreating now, so there was nothing left to do but press forward.

………

On the Netherworld Star, as the sun rose once more, Heydrich dragged back the Lion, who had fled from him in fright.

It was only a few unflattering little anecdotes about the Emperor, after all — not like the man had been sold for thirty pieces of silver, or had some story about a Roman she-wolf attached to him. Was it really worth getting so worked up over? He'd barely said anything and already the Lion couldn't take it.

And yet the fellow had simply strolled off into the forest and vanished — though in the end he'd only teleported a few hundred meters. Clearly the Lion's mastery of his own Warp abilities was growing sharper by the day; that kind of short-range, precise teleportation was genuinely useful.

After all, the doors of Heydrich's tavern only opened at a handful of necessary locations. One could, of course, try a random jump — but that really was pure randomness, no guarantees at all.

Heydrich had already seen Guilliman have his Ultramarines blind-jump onto some planet in full all-terrain adaptive armor just to issue orders on the spot. Heydrich admitted he could still muster a few Harlequins to help with that sort of thing for now.

But Guilliman had pointed out that across a million worlds, the Imperium only had so many Harlequins to go around — this kind of thing was bound to become the norm going forward.

So, to keep the chain of command functioning smoothly, this had to be tested — even ordinary mortals would need to undergo the same trials. After all, to the Imperium, human lives were cheap, but the ability to receive and act on orders quickly mattered enormously.

Heydrich had nothing to say to that. For now, all he could hope for was more Elation Pathstriders. But in a world as wretched as this one, that was next to impossible, so he had no choice but to cultivate them slowly, one by one.

After all, without a Masked Fool to guide the way, getting into the tavern was purely a matter of luck — and getting out again required just as much luck.

That was the very essence of Elation's boundless improbability, and there was nothing even Heydrich himself could do about it. Which was why this power could never compare to the Star Rail of Trailblaze.

But trying to unlock Trailblaze in a cesspit of a world like this one — that would be roughly a hundred million times harder than unlocking the Hunt.

"Don't say another word about this here!!!"

The Lion's expression, upon seeing Heydrich again, was more than a little terrified. He no longer doubted Heydrich's true identity in the slightest. And this man went around all day either recounting the Emperor's most embarrassing history or calling him by name outright — and never once got struck down for it.

That said enough. A small Primarch like himself had better stay well out of it.

"I won't say anything more. According to the latest frontline reports, things are looking dire for Ka'Bandha. He probably can't hold much longer. The swarm is taking out all the frustration it built up here on us, and dumping it entirely onto him."

Heydrich sighed at that, unable to help it. This really wasn't Ka'Bandha's fault for underperforming.

Back during the original Battle of Baal, this daemon had held the line hard on Baal's moon for quite some time. But the size of the swarm he'd faced back then wasn't remotely comparable to this one — not to mention the swarm here had already been beaten fairly badly by him.

At a moment like this, they desperately needed an outlet for their frustration, and Ka'Bandha made a decent target. There were even some benefits to fighting bugs, of a sort. Sure, these things didn't count for much since they had no souls, but they still counted for something toward the kill quota.

If you handed Khorne the skull of a Hive Tyrant or a Norn Emissary, he'd probably accept it without complaint. This one didn't care where a skull came from, so long as the quality was good enough.

No soul, so be it — hand it over and Khorne wouldn't say a word.

Compared to the unpredictable schemes of Tzeentch, the chaotic whims of Slaanesh, or Nurgle's purely favoritism-based system, Khorne's rewards and punishments were the most clear-cut of the lot. Rack up your kill quota and you got your reward — old Khorne never welched on that deal.

If you were tough enough, don't hesitate — go pledge yourself to Khorne. His path to promotion was the clearest of them all.

"But there's an even bigger problem than Ka'Bandha that we need to deal with right now, and that is..."

At that moment, Heydrich pulled out a data slate, and the corner of the Lion's eye twitched almost immediately.

Because the display was now dotted with a dense scattering of red markers that hadn't been there before.

"The swarm hadn't committed its full strength before this — they kept part of it in reserve. Say what you will, but after eating enough humans, they've started developing actual tactics."

Heydrich's head ached a little at that. He was up against the Leviathan fleet. Had this been the Hive Fleet Behemoth from the First Tyranid War instead, this fight wouldn't have been anywhere near this brutal.

Because back then, the Hive Fleet Behemoth had no tactics to speak of — it was pure brute-force numbers.

Clearly, whatever these bugs had been devouring out beyond the galaxy, they'd never met any real resistance — maybe none at all.

Otherwise there'd be no explaining why the earliest Tyranid Hive Fleets had shown no tactical sense whatsoever, while the Leviathan fleet was a completely different animal. And considering how many worlds this land-stripping horde must have devoured before ever arriving here, that tracked.

"What are they planning?"

At Heydrich's words, the Lion's brow twitched involuntarily.

Because he had a bad feeling that the swarm might be cooking up some new nightmare again.

"You guessed right — based on my read of it, the swarm might be going all in this time. What is it about this Netherworld Star that's worth all this to them..."

Heydrich genuinely couldn't puzzle it out. Their target, after all, was supposed to be Sanguinius's remains. Had they given up on Sanguinius's flesh entirely, just to slug it out here to the death with him instead?

In truth, his Voidrangers weren't invincible — mostly because they were too unstable. Deployed to the field, they'd typically self-detonate within minutes, and they had no real control over the Destruction energy they unleashed.

So they weren't well suited to freely roaming the battlefield on their own. Adjusting tactics was enough to handle that limitation, and there were two reasons Heydrich hadn't relied on them much before, whether fighting Chaos or Orks. First, the situation back then hadn't been nearly as dire as it was now. Second — and more importantly — while the surprise factor might catch enemies off guard once, they'd inevitably adapt afterward.

But this weapon had, by its very nature, been designed to exterminate bugs. Since the Tyranids fought using cost-effective, wave-after-wave 'fill the mountains, drown the seas' tactics, that density made them perfect fodder for Voidrangers self-detonating right in their midst — silent and effective.

But now, according to Heydrich's observations, something had changed: the Hive Fleet had abandoned its usual mass-swarm tactics entirely. Instead, it had started hatching large numbers of high-value units — meaning it had stopped producing Termagants and Hormagaunts altogether.

The lowest-tier unit now would be the Tyranid Warrior, which Heydrich found almost unbelievable. Termagants and Hormagaunts had extremely high recovery efficiency — the Hive Mind could reclaim over ninety-nine percent of biomass from their corpses.

The Hive Mind didn't care how many of those died, but Tyranid Warriors were elite units. The cost of producing them bore no comparison at all to what could be recovered from them — and it wasn't just Tyranid Warriors, either, but a whole host of things like Executioners and Lictors.

Lictors in particular served as the Hive Fleet's tactical intelligence gatherers — every single one of them was precious. Even the swarm would go out of its way to recover them whenever possible, since only that way could it retrieve the detailed intelligence and skills they'd gathered.

Of course, this strategy meant the swarm was giving up its density advantage. His Voidrangers might still be useful in that scenario, but their usefulness would be limited — at most taking out one or two targets per detonation, since these new units moved far too quickly.

An unstable Voidranger thrown right in their faces — they could still react in time and dodge, avoiding being blown up entirely.

But doing this also meant that even if they punched clean through the entire Cryptus System, it would still be a losing proposition for the swarm — a bloody, costly loss, in fact.

So now Heydrich genuinely couldn't make sense of it. Was the Hive Mind out of its mind? Fighting him to this extent, to this cost — had it really given up on Sanguinius's flesh entirely?

"This..."

Hearing all this, the Lion froze for a moment — and then his expression quickly turned grim.

Because it meant that in the battles to come, mortal forces would count for far less. Against this scale of elite units, the mortal battle lines were sure to collapse — and their greatest trump card, the Voidrangers, might have their usefulness drastically reduced as well.