The prophesied time was getting closer, and Conrad Coetze was just waiting in annoyance.

The Storm Boundary was on autopilot, its shell covered in some sort of magic camouflage that could even avoid detection by a bird's chart, and it hovered unobtrusively over the First City.

It joins the sprawling city in the sunset of Jestal and receives a profane speech on the radio from Technologist Hasting. The only difference is that no one on this ship is actively listening to the evil whispers from subspace, but that doesn't mean that the Storm Frontier, also located on Jaystar, is immune.

Chaotic pollution is not only found in sounds that can be recognized by the human ear, but also in the electrical signals transmitted along the global broadcast network. Subspace's poisonous tricks are incapable of infecting the Stormboundary's own systems, disrupting the bizarre rules of its own, and not being qualified to affect any of the ship's official crew members—but the informal ones are a different story.

Certain keywords in those whispers seem to trigger something. As the speech progressed, a wail erupted from the small cabin where the eighteen Midnight Lords had been held.

Actually, this is not difficult to understand. The Hastings Technologist, or rather, the one in the Hastings Technocracy's bag, was mixed with incantations that could detonate the chaos pollution that had accumulated in the bodies of others. It was originally intended as part of the ritual for the inhabitants of Jaystar's previous generations, but the spell was clearly not very selective in its choice of subjects.

As a member of the renegade war gang, Chaos Astarte, who has long used subspace as a cover to deal with the empire, would not believe this kind of fantasy if these Midnight Lords had not been exposed to any chaos pollution.

Conrad Coetzes is well aware of this. Part of this conclusion can be reached with basic logical reasoning in combination with facts, and part of it is what he sees in the visions of prophecy. The moment he saw his eighteen heirs, he knew the end of these men: to be killed by him. Sooner or later.

They did not die at the scene where they did evil, but were taken captive, and then they would have died in the place where they were held. Coetzes was so sure from the very beginning, and his prophecy supported his inference a short time later. The closer he got to that point in time, the clearer that future became: he saw his children tormented by the whispers of chaos, their minds distorted by the pollution of subspace; He saw that some of these people were succumbing to the enemy because they could not bear it mentally, and the other part had become mindless monsters because their bodies had been so badly mutated; He saw that he had no choice but to destroy their lives with death, judge them for their sins, end their cruelty, and disintegrate their suffering.

He didn't do anything in the prophecy, so he didn't do anything at all in reality.

He was waiting for that time, the point where everything would become irretrievable. After that moment, he will kill all his incorrigible sons on this ship, and then he will descend to the surface and bestow a peaceful death on his favorite but equally terminally ill son.

Amid the painful groans of the prisoners in the cabin, the sense of disobedience characteristic of the Storm Frontier resurfaced, and Koz felt himself being stared at by something without malice.

When he first boarded the ship half a year ago, he had tried to find the source of this line of sight, only to give up after dozens of fruitless searches and confirmation that it was harmless. In normal times, he would choose to ignore this sense of disobedience that had no effect, but now, this little stimulation that provoked his sixth sense also made him feel extremely irritated.

After about four months, Coates rose again to search for the source of this sense of disobedience, but in the moment he did, another vision of the future gently bubbled before his eyes: he saw the eighteen Midnight Lords on the ship alive, clad in patchwork but apparently reorganized power armor loosely arrayed; He saw Yago Sevitalyon, dressed in the Terminator armor, standing in front of everyone, nonchalantly using his chainsaw halberd to support his center of gravity; He saw himself leading the squad, and he saw them like an indestructible blade, driving straight into the enemy's core position—

- He struggled to his feet in the vision, tried to pull his consciousness back to reality, and asked the empty surroundings:

"Who the hell is weaving this stupid illusion?!"

Rika Fujimaru and Somny were still on the Dark Angel's Lionmane, and at the moment, Coz was the only one on the Storm Border who could move freely. It stands to reason that his question will not be answered. But a few seconds later, a frivolous-sounding young male voice sounded out of thin air in the cabin:

"Do you think I'm trying to use such substandard crude methods?" The voice rightly accused, as if it wasn't him but Coetzes who had the problem, "After all, you shouldn't expect the precision of the magic that can be performed across the barriers of the world and in a completely different operating environment, right?" Even I've worked hard to do this kind of thing! At this time, the most important thing to do is not to criticize the accuracy of the illusion, but to praise me for being amazing! Do you understand? ”

Koz scanned his surroundings alertly, but neither normal sight nor the omen of his talent gave him any inspiration. The voice was still complaining to itself:

"I planned it well, but why don't you sleep - I'm really desperate to make all the side stories in Rikka's story end with a Happy End! It's desperate! ”

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"I don't understand." After a series of intelligence gathering (or a battle of wits with the Dark Angel Firewing Grand Mentor), remote sensing surveys, data fitting, and modeling inferences, Rika Fujimaru, who was sitting at the table, covered her face in frustration, "Although I understand that talking to Tzeentch Demon is the first step into the abyss...... But I don't understand! ”

Ranmarok glanced at the numbers, waveforms, and modeling on the large array of holographic light screens projected in front of Somny. It's good, he can't read anything.

"This ritual...... Any questions? ”

"There is nothing wrong with the ceremony itself, it can even be said to be simple and clear." Rika Fujimaru raised her head from behind her palm, reached for one of the holographic light screens, and in the next second, the display screen she hoped for floated under Somny's control, and was separately separated and projected in front of them:

It was a schematic diagram of the warp of space-time around the planet Jestar, and it was a long-term cold bench technology in an empire that relied heavily on subspace for faster-than-light travel, and even few members of the Mechanics were concerned about it. In fact, even if it is only related monitoring technology, it is not useless in astronautics, but ......

Ranmaro threw these irrelevant thoughts out of his mind and focused on the numbers shown by Rika Fujimaru.

It may be somewhat difficult for the Astartes of the other legions to understand what this refrigerated technology will show through data, but Ranmarok belongs to the First Legion.

"To put it simply, the main purpose of this ritual is to make a 'flush toilet' that flushes the entire planet into subspace at the push of a button in the final stage." Rika Fujimaru pointed out several key indicators on the light screen, showing the correlation between subspace energy fluctuations near Jestal and space-time warpage, and pulled out another model:

"You see, the distorted space-time around the planet is completely enveloping it - in fact, something similar has already happened in subspace. Theoretically, the planet's resident astralsmen should have discovered fifty years ago that their astral communications could not be transmitted. But I don't think there are any normal Star Whisperers on Jaystar. Now, as long as the planet is isolated on this side of the physical world, it undoubtedly forms a space-time anomaly that is completely unable to communicate with the outside world. In the meantime, an outside observer will never know what's going on inside, and the 'flush toilet' will be able to 'flush' itself quietly. ”

“…… It's a disaster, but it doesn't sound like it's very harmful. Ranmarok said. Abandoning a planet that was originally an alien would not have any psychological burden on him.

"That's not how it works. It's not as simple as sending an extinction order to a planet and destroying it completely in a physical sense—it's being swept out of the dimensions of the physical universe. Fujimaru Rika thought for a moment, "For example, a small dot is drawn with a pencil on a blank piece of paper, this paper is the physical universe, and the dot is Jestal. If we want to destroy the planet on a physical level, we do it by erasing it with an eraser, but this ritual doesn't do that. It took a knife from somewhere else and dug up the dot along with the piece of paper that carried it. ”

Ranmarok vaguely understood part of it: "This ritual will eventually leave a hole in the physical universe. ”

"And there's a natural flow of water going through the hole." Rika added, "I can't say what kind of water it is, but anyway, this hole will indeed get bigger and bigger under the washing of the current, and then more water will continue to tear the physical universe apart...... Vicious circle. ”

Ranmarok was silent for a moment. It is true that he has been in a hundred battles, facing visible enemies and fighting invisible monsters, but this is the first time he has faced such a problem. "Subspace invasion tearing apart the physical universe" is still too advanced for Astarte, which has been active in the thirtieth millennium.

Taking advantage of this time, Somny seems to have finally found the opportunity to interject, and immediately reminded: "We have not yet begun to estimate the scale of the enemy's presence. ”

"It doesn't make sense, the chaotic energy on this planet operates completely precisely according to the ritual's programmed route, and only a trace of the demon can barely be found. There is a serious lack of information, and I don't think the person who presided over this ceremony is a powerful character. ”

"Maybe the scale of the ceremony can be reversed after excluding redundant data......"

"It's not like that." Rika Fujimaru shook her head, "The most fundamental meaning of such a thing as ritual is 'to borrow power that does not belong to oneself through some conventional step'. To put it mildly, it's like a power sword. Of course, it is more dangerous for a swordsman to hold a power sword, but if he only wants to complete a simple goal like 'splitting steel plates', any child who can hold a sword can easily do it by flipping the switch. We only see the 'sword' part now, and we can say that it runs precisely and perfectly, and it is indeed a good sword, but it would be a major strategic mistake to judge the level of the 'sword bearer' at will. ”

"This ...... Rite. Ranmarok finally regained his voice, "What can be done to stop it?" Does it have an important part of the core? If you destroy it—"

"It's got to the point where forcibly blocking it can be counterproductive. Again, the analogy of the power sword, of course, you let it cut down, of course, there is a problem, but if you shoot at its energy supply part and let it blow it up, I'm afraid it will not be possible to have any good results. Hmph, whether we stop it or not, it's the other side that wins, and from this point of view alone, it is indeed in line with the handiwork of the master and servant of the ever-changing. ”

Rika Fujimaru glanced at the time, then slowly stood up from the front of the table, slowly untied the cloak draped over the exoskeleton of Ortenus, and stuffed it with the Aquila Scepter to Somny, "Let the ritual continue, wait for that space-time anomaly to form—and then intervene directly from within the anomaly, and then insert the sword back into the throat on the other side the moment the other party cuts it down, this is my area of expertise." ”

While everyone was still stunned, she had already begun to arrange the next mission: "Mr. Ranmarok, I hope that the Lionmane can go and intercept the tax collection fleet sent by the Imperial Ministry of the Interior. Before the Jestar's anomaly is complete, the ships laden with contaminated grain will be bound to leave first, allowing the influence of Chaos to spread to other systems. The Dark Angels don't have to do anything special with the food, just use the excuse of chasing fugitives and checking the ship for stowaways to keep them from making it to Mandeville Point into the subspace. The remaining issues will be fixed when the anomalies are resolved. ”

Ranmaroch remained fully dressed and helmeted, but even then, anyone could easily read his reluctance from beneath the featureless power armor. Fujimaru Rika didn't deal with this problem for the time being, but turned to the golden giant beside him and said, "Somny, I need you to teleport back to the Storm Frontier and reconnect the energy supply to the Triton Engine, I may need your Noble Phantasm support." ”

Somny hesitated: "This function has not been tested, and I am not 100% sure that it will work." ”

"It's okay, just follow your feelings. How to release the treasure is the instinctive behavior of the Heroic Spirit, just like human beings are born with a natural knowledge of how to breathe, and there is no need for rational thinking and calculation. ”

The golden giant didn't speak, but he still looked confused. He instinctively hugged the things that Fujimaru Rika stuffed over, and then suddenly realized something: "Aren't you going to teleport back to the ship together?" ”

"Nope. It is necessary to consider the possibility that subspace teleportation will also be affected as the space-time blockade is formed. Your physical form is made of ether, and even if the landing point is stacked into the wall, you can easily get out of it as long as you are spiritualized, and my words will really die. ”

Rika Fujimaru calmly made a crazy decision:

"I did an orbital parachute directly from the Lion's Mane."