The 49th year of the 40th millennium.

Russell leads the Order of Truth to slaughter the heirs of the warring parties in the miniature galaxy.

Robert Killiman is busy pacifying the political situation in Terra and preparing for an unyielding expedition to regain lost territory.

The remnants of the 1st Expeditionary Fleet and the 13th Expeditionary Fleet have arrived in Terra with the original body, and the stargate is being built. The Terra Expedition launched by the Prophetess has come to an end, but the other expeditionary fleets scattered across the galaxy are not aware of this news at this time.

They are still trudging through the difficult trek of the Sun Domain.

At present, the closest expeditionary fleet to the solar star field is the 5th Expeditionary Fleet.

The 5th Expeditionary Fleet, led by the Salamander Regiment 'Red Dragon', is the flagship Valkyrie-class battleship 'The Survivors'.

This powerful expeditionary fleet had chosen to force its way across the harsh Ghoul Nebula in order to save time on the expedition, but on the way, they accidentally encountered a Spirit Ark World, whose Soul Prophet claimed that their ongoing expedition would lead to the rise of humanity and threaten the revival of the Spirit Race, and the Spirit Ark launched an attack in the name of it.

The salamander's sub-group took full advantage of the harsh environment in the Ghoul Nebula to deal with the attack of the Eldars, and with its own powerful combat power and the mobility advantage of the Valkyrie-class battleship 'The Survivors', the 5th Expeditionary Fleet finally paid a huge price and successfully destroyed the Ark world, but due to its own heavy losses, the Red Dragon Warband was unable to continue to lead the 5th Expeditionary Fleet to Terra.

The 5th Expeditionary Fleet spent many years moving slowly from galaxy to system, struggling to recuperate while laying stargates across the hazy star fields.

Recently, they came to a planet called 'Medusa'.

Medusa is the hometown of the original 'Ferus Manus' and the home planet of the Iron Hand of the 10th Legion.

This is a very harsh planet, the resources on it that can be exploited have long been exhausted, and the unstable geological environment has made the continents on the surface of the planet float like rafts in the sea on the molten lava layers, changing positions every moment, and few humans can survive on this planet except for the powerful clans that supply the Iron Hand with soldiers.

In a way, Medusa's environment is even worse than that of the salamander's home planet.

As a result, the 5th Expeditionary Fleet didn't expect to get any supplies from the Iron Hand home planet from the beginning, and it didn't ask poor relatives for food, and the Red Dragon Warband's Warband Leader 'Nabal' now just wanted to hand over the L-Star Gate construction template to the Iron Hand as soon as possible, and then continue to Terra.

But as soon as the Surviving approached Medusa, Captain Nabal noticed something was wrong.

Medusa, as the home planet of the Iron Hand, was almost armed to the teeth, and this geologically unstable and hostile planet was almost wrapped into a large iron ball by the dense orbital defense facilities, and after getting closer, Captain Nabal found that Medusa's orbital defense facilities had serious damage marks, the artillery array was scattered, and the orbital starport had traces of being shelled.

And, most importantly, the various defenses in the Medusa orbit were largely dismantled.

Commander Nabal has a wealth of experience in fighting Chaos, and when he saw this scene, he immediately became keenly aware that Medusa had been attacked by Chaos on a large scale, and that the Iron Hand's defenses had been corrupted by subspace during the battle, so it would be largely dismantled after the battle.

"To be able to destroy the home planet of a start-up warband to such an extent seems that this is no ordinary Chaos attack......" Captain Nabal was awe-struck and apprehensive, and made contact with the Iron Hand, who was repairing Medusa's defenses.

From the mouth of the current commander of the Iron Hand, the 5th Expeditionary Fleet has a general idea of what happened in Medusa:

After Nurgle's death, the cults and Chaos Wars that believed in Nurgle were scattered, and the Chaos Space Marines who were deeply influenced by their fathers and whose bodies had been corrupted by subspace died violently, and Chaos' strength was greatly damaged.

However, some of the Nurgle warbands, who were less affected by the subspace, survived, and the death of their loving father crumbled their faith, turning them into a group of stragglers with no purpose or pursuit, all the while being annihilated by the Iron Hand and other imperial military forces that guarded the Eye of Fear.

But recently, for some unknown reason, the remnants of the Nurgle's cultists have been united, calling themselves the 'Apostles of the Plague' in a collective action that has launched a near-mad assault on the planet Medusa near the Eye of Fear.

"At first, we thought that this group of plague apostles was just a rabble driven by extreme ideas, but soon we realized in the actual battle that this was not the case." Dolcas, the commander of the Iron Hand, said in the communication array: "Their actions are unified and planned, with clear operational objectives and tactical division of labor, and in the early stage of the war, we suffered a lot of losses because of the light enemy. ”

Nabal was a little puzzled, Medusa was not a good place with rich resources, but it was garrisoned by the Iron Hand of the Startup Warband, armed to the teeth, and attacking Medusa needed to face the strong defense of the Iron Hand, and even if it succeeded, it could only get a barren planet with a harsh environment.

In short, fighting Medusa is a foolish act of doing more with less effort, and the reward for attacking at a huge cost is completely disproportionate.

"Why did the plague apostles, the remnants of the Nurgle, invade Medusa?" Nabal was puzzled.

"I don't know." "But in the war against the Apostles of the Plague, our warriors have captured some suspected Tzeentch cultists, and we suspect that the lackeys of the Lord of Change have instigated the remnants of Nurgle to orchestrate the invasion of Medusa. ”

Hearing this, Nabal basically gave up on the idea of finding a motive for the Plague Apostle's invasion of Medusa, and if this was really the mastermind of the Lord of All Changes, then it was probably unmotivated.

Tzeentch's followers have a very strong personality of musicians, which ordinary people cannot understand.

"The motives of the believers of the Lord of All Changes are indeed incomprehensible." Commander Dorkas expressed understanding of Nabal's reaction.

Just as Nabal was about to change the subject and talk to the Iron Hand Warband Leader about the L-Stargate, Dorkas suddenly remembered something and said, "The motives of the Tzeentch are difficult to understand, but if you want to find a motive for the actions of the Plague Apostle...... It seems that it can be found, too. ”

"What do you mean by that?" Nabal hurriedly asked.

Dorkas continued, "Nearly half a century ago, the Iron Hand hunted a strange creature in the starfields near the Eye of Fear, an indescribable creature...... The creature's corpse is now sealed in the vault on Medusa, and our Warband's think tank believes that the Plague Apostle's invasion of Medusa is likely to be aimed at robbing the creature's corpse. ”

Of course, it's just a possibility, and it's not entirely certain.

"What's that creature called?" Nabal asked curiously.

"It seems to be called—Poison Saint."

(End of chapter)