The causes of many things are complex, but the solution is simple. And the Iron Hand happens to be familiar with and good at this "simple means".

After leaving the subspace, the interference of the wireless transmission protocol is greatly reduced. The Iron Think Tank, Heavy Firepower Veterans, Dreadnought Mechs, and Primordial Recruits led by Ferros were all the more at ease when they acted together, and the force quickly flowed out of the intricate vessel-like passages inside the ship as if it were alive, converging on a relatively large assembly square at the junction of the upper and middle levels.

During the ceremony, the entire ship has been simulated as a food chain. That's what Rika Fujimaru said to him. Therefore, the demon from the upper level will take all other beings in the middle and lower layers as its own food. As long as the Iron Hand assembles its team, there is no need to look for that thing - the quality of the aether converted from electricity and the real aether has fallen off a cliff, and the demons who have adapted to the true aether will feel extremely hungry even if they gain form as a result. In order to feed on the soul, it will naturally find the group closest to it.

The Iron Father thus devised a strategy to defeat the enemy once again, as thoroughly as possible.

"The enemy is the 'King of Sapphires', you may or may not have heard the name. It's all normal. "You need to know that this servant of the Prince of Darkness has brought shame on the warband. In the Highland years, our blood brothers have paid an unacceptable loss to its tricks and curses, but those brothers have poured out their boiling anger on it and pushed it back from the real universe - but these damned demons will always return.

"Now, it's back and it's coming back to us. I have no doubt that it came with hatred. It wants revenge, it wants to cross the line of the Veil, it wants to defile our spirit and flesh and make us pay the price—ha! ”

Ferros let out a mocking sound that even the synthesized sound could not hide his emotional expression:

"Then let it try! Are we going to sit still? Do we have no hatred and anger against it, no debt to pay? Do you want to let the brothers who fell in the previous chaos die in vain? This damn subspace mongrelt must pay for the evil it has done, the evil it has done! Brethren, let us untie the Emotional Containment Agreement at the right time, and no longer suppress these burning wraths, but bind it with your noble souls and throw it upon the enemy, so that the acolytes of the power of Chaos may know the power of the Iron Hand's righteous wrath! ”

Nearly five centuries ago, when the Warbands had suffered heavy losses in the aftermath of the Highland Years Rebellion, and when the consequences of the Sapphire King had put the Iron Hand in jeopardy, Cardin Stunus's speech in the Eyes of Medusa pointed out a new path for the entire warband, both rational and emotional. Now, five centuries later, the Iron Hand needs to face the Sapphire King once again, and the words that have been known to everyone reappear in the hearts of every fighting brother present.

No one had any doubts about Ferus's arrangement, and the entire team quickly set up simple barricades and bunkers in oppressive silence, waiting for the enemy to appear in a tense atmosphere. There was a dense fury in the air, as if a tiny spark could detonate all the fighting brothers at the same time - and soon after, the spark that ignited everything appeared:

The enemy from afar was undoubtedly a Slaanesh demon in appearance: pearl-white skin, a delicate, twisted body, four slender arms extending from behind, two holding scimitars, two with sharp spikes and crab claws—but that's about it.

There is no pretentious chuckle that resounds behind the curtain, no more poisonous clouds, fragrances and stenches that seem to accompany you forever, no more the waves of the subspace that surround you to set off the atmosphere. The Void Sapphire King stood still in shame and resentment, having lost everything it could in the midst of previous failures and forcible twists of ritual. No more of the song of the High Heavens surrounds it, no more jeweled armor and soft and luxurious veils adorn it, no more of the favor of the Prince of Darkness falling on it, and even the two scimitars in its hands are so simple that they do not have the taste of a demon of Slaanesh.

It is disgusted with everything around it, with the ship itself that does not conform to its aesthetics, with the iron hand of the enemy at the opposition, with the veil itself that blocks its communication with the subspace, and even with itself that is no longer favored. This instinctive extreme aversion was soon transformed into an extreme thirst for the blood, pain, and soul of all living things before it.

- Driven by a certain extreme emotion shared by both sides, the battle began in an unhonorable, non-ceremonial manner at the moment when the Sapphire King appeared.

The first to roar out was the barrage of fire from the Iron Hand. All kinds of explosive bombs, heavy explosive bombs and high-powered energy weapons played a symphony of death with great order in an instant. The trajectories of all the projectiles or beams of energy did not interfere with each other, but rushed in a subtle and perfect harmony towards the sapphire king himself and the path in which it might be dodging.

In the first moment, the Slaanesh Demon was indeed stopped by such a dense and powerful firepower: the Gift of the High was gone, and on this shell of some false and faint energy, even ranged weapons that would not otherwise work began to do considerable damage.

Even so, its Origin of Bliss still found a way out for it in the face of difficulties. The Sapphire King soon began to dance with a strange and graceful dance to the death symphony played by the Iron Hand with an astonishing agility and perfect sword skill - it was still a Slaanesh demon after all, with agility and reflexes far beyond ordinary people and even ordinary Astarte warriors, and the Iron Hand's calculated and efficient barrage was partially dodged by it in an incredible way, and partially deflected with its own four arms. It sprinted forward with a wonderful rhythm, and in a few breaths it reached the improvised line of the Iron Hand.

The fact that the enemy had broken through the line of fire did not discourage the warriors, but rather that when they saw the wounds on the demon's body caused by the explosion of the bomb that they could not avoid, the Iron Hand battle brothers were demoralized by the fact that the enemy's strength was indeed not at the level that a normal demon should have.

The guards at the front of the line began to draw their melee weapons, and the staff of the think tank began to burn with white arcs, and two dreadnought mechs specially equipped for melee combat also stepped forward, trying to intercept the sapphire king who rushed into the line. Philos didn't step forward at this point, even though he was just as angry. As the Iron Father, the commander of the entire campaign, he had to ask himself to remain calm and observe the battlefield before things progressed to the point where he needed to make a final decision.

He noticed that the wounds left on the Sapphire King's body were healing at an extraordinary rate, and even the moment the damage was inflicted, the wounds themselves had already begun to heal. As a result, he realized that some of the rituals in the mid-level main power chamber were still going on, and that the energy extracted from the plasma reactor could still quickly heal the damage inflicted on the demons themselves, despite the loss of the blessing of the Supreme Heavens.

- The enemy's efficiency in healing itself is indeed fast, but it is not faster than the efficiency of the combat brothers in dealing damage on it.

This was the result of careful observation and calculation, and he was therefore optimistic about the battle itself: the Sapphire King had not recovered from the blow inflicted on him by the Iron Hand in the Highland Year system for so long, and was still weak, and now he had lost the favor of the Prince of Darkness and was thrown out as some kind of experiment. According to Fujimaru Rika, as long as they can make enough flaws in the form woven by the ether and naturally banish the demon back to subspace, it is not impossible to destroy it completely if the think tank is allowed to inflict a devastating blow on its essence with its psionic energy.

The optimistic Ferros therefore decided to speed up the efficiency of the attack, and instead of waiting for Rika Fujimaru of the main power room to dismantle the foundation of the ceremony itself, he would just kill the king of sapphires against the energy supply of the plasma reactor. This strategy was contrary to the original plan, but it was not a bad decision in the current situation, and none of the combat brothers in the chain of command questioned it, and they worked together to increase the fire output and resolutely carry it out.

But he forgot one thing: the power of the enemy to burst out in a desperate situation can sometimes be unimaginable.

It is true that without the grace of the Prince of Darkness and the blessing of the Supreme Heaven, the Sapphire King is now weak, very weak. But this weakness also brought it "in its lifetime" incomparably closer to the very nature of its birth—and under the leadership of Phyllos, the stormy attack of the Iron Hand did drive it into a desperate situation, and in the midst of it, the Devil of Slaanesh, in extreme anger and despair, crossed his own Rubicon:

It dragged its mangled body and let out a terrifying scream of despair and desolation, which caused some kind of psionic shock that swept through all the steel hands present in an instant.

It was not a scream that originated in this moment, but a terrifying echo that shook the heart and heart. It is difficult to describe the emotions contained in the screams, because they are too complex, too large, mixed with the shame of defeat, endless remorse, monstrous rage and the frustration of death. It wasn't a scream that could exist in the real universe, so no one had ever heard a similar sound in their previous lives—but every Iron Hand that heard it realized in an instant that something was clear:

The source of that voice was 10,000 years ago, in the depths of the throat of the father of their genes, before he died.

It was the last thing they could realize, and after that, there was only a monstrous rage.

Mi (flattened).

(End of chapter)