This Is Our Warhammer Journey

In the burning sea of void, the Oberon-class Battleship Sanction of the Expedition Fleet tore through the nebula veil with its ramming prow, its nearly ten-kilometer armored hull reflecting the faint glow of the star.

“Volley fire.”

The lance array erupted simultaneously with auric beams, ripples forming on the Void Shield at the Imperial warship’s prow.

Three seconds later, the blasphemous spire cluster on the Chaos warship’s port side exploded one after another, molten metal and mutant corpses freezing into crystal shards in the vacuum.

The macro cannon battery began a second round of bombardment.

Portside macro cannons unleashed armor-piercing barrages at three-second intervals, tungsten-core rounds punching a conical pattern of flame across the Chaos warship’s armor belt.

By the seventh salvo, the enemy ship’s rear armor finally ruptured. Plasma flames burst through the fissure, hurling the two desecrated thruster engines and half of the biomass facility into the void.

Above the enemy vessel, the battle barge of the Devouring Sharks Chapter swept over the battlefield, its assault pods piercing into the Chaos ship like arrows.

Due to the sheer mass of both Imperial and Chaos ship structures, and after the Explorator Fleet’s firepower shredded the Chaos escort group, subsequent engagements against the heavy warships became a stalemate.

Relentless bleeding, until the enemy ship fully collapsed.

“Do we need to board next?”

In the observation chamber, data streams flickered across Romulus’ lenses.

He was studying. The Tech-Priests aboard this ship had granted him plenty of access, enough to construct a model for commanding a single-ship engagement.

But sometimes, Romulus really didn’t get it—why was the Imperium so afraid of Greater Daemons and other ground units? With weapons arrays like these, you could just blast the surface and even the Emperor Titans would probably get blown apart on the spot.

To protect planetary environments?

He remembered the Imperium’s climate restoration tech could even revive planets chewed through by the Tyranids.

“No need!”

Marshal Orlando and Tyberos both interjected almost simultaneously, fearing that these elders would get too fired up and leap to board.

Boarding actions led to heavy casualties, and smaller ships entering the void came with too many random factors. Even for Space Marines, veterans or Chapter leadership wouldn’t be deployed for such tasks unless absolutely necessary.

“......”

Sensing the anxiety spilling through the comms channel, Romulus chose to stay silent.

He turned to watch three Chaos cruiser wrecks drifting to the edge of the battlefield, pulled toward the star’s gravity well. Sometimes he really wanted to complain about these Space Marines who were starting to treat them like holy relics.

“Wizard, the False Emperor’s lapdogs have boarded. We don’t have the numbers to hold them off for long!”

Inside the Chaos warship, a Chaos Space Marine—his face mangled by burning promethium flames from a ruptured pipe—clambered onto the bridge.

His roar was laced with the wet, grinding noise of flesh scraping flesh, and fluorescent slime oozed from the gash in his chest, corroding the floor beneath him.

Pfft!

A staff formed of blue flame crystal and twisted white bone pierced his ceramite armor, Warp energy scorching warped burn marks around the wound.

The Nurgle Word Bearer howled, his blood crystallizing into icy shards in the vacuum, the deep green polyhedral droplets refracting the eerie glow of the staff, tracing bizarre, twisted paths across the chamber.

“You just disrupted a divination that could’ve saved our fate.”

The Tzeentch sorcerer’s voice rasped like rusted gears grinding together. Behind the nine-concentric-ring mask set on his face, twenty-seven neural probes wandered through his skull.

Beneath his helm, the Chaos sorcerer—now mutated to have nine eyes—stared at the surface of his flesh altar. The corroded remnants of the Imperial Truth and Chaos scriptures formed an uncanny, parasitic pattern.

‘What’s this about the weakest yet most critical point? That cruiser called Dawn is the fleet’s biggest weakness?’

Artillery shockwaves rattled through the iron hull to his brain as the Word Bearer sorcerer stared in silence at the results of his divination.

Until the bubbling brain-matter solution within the augur device settled into stillness, the prophecy bubbles—paid for with the eyes and brains of ninety educated Imperial nobles—burst one after another.

Only then did he look away.

Why did this result feel like some cruel joke from the Changer of Ways?

Even if his brain was nearly marinated in Chaos scriptures, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that the False Emperor’s lapdogs would place something so vital on a mere cruiser.

Especially one positioned at the edge of the long-range strike formation, in the middle of the fleet, utterly unremarkable, just another ship maneuvering with the others.

Unwilling to accept that, he casually used psychic lightning to snatch a few cultists from the bridge, pulverizing the swine into blood pulp in the cruelest manner.

The body of the fallen Nurgle Word Bearer at his feet began to mutate, rotting flesh sprouting translucent blue branches, desperately trying to grasp at the dissipating remnants of prophecy.

The sorcerer then hurled a freshly acquired Avengers gene-seed—still warm—into the altar with the blood slurry, restarting the augury ritual.

The blue crystal atop the staff suddenly projected nine layers of holographic images, each depicting a different timeline.

In four of them, Devouring Sharks assault squads had already broken through and decapitated him in four different ways. In another four, the warship’s power core was overloaded and he was consumed by the explosion.

Only the last one— the sole outcome where he survived—was the one where he boarded that cruiser via assault boat.

Same conclusion again...

Neural probes buzzed. The Word Bearer sorcerer—who had always resented being the one who betrayed his team but still got caught—looked around.

The honor guard that had been surrounding him now all took a step back. Only the lead sergeant dared to step forward.

“......My lord?”

The sorcerer ignored him and raised his staff.

The Chaos Space Marine he’d just killed had already become an empty husk of iron, only ashes remaining. The shipmaster—grown into the command throne—had been reduced to meat paste by a fallen column.

Aside from his own honor guard, there were no suitable sacrifices left on this decaying bridge.

The Changer of Ways is also the Lord of Hope—perhaps my offering has pleased Him?

The sorcerer began to ponder.

There must be something critical aboard that cruiser they haven’t noticed. If I retrieve it, maybe I can escape alive. This must be the path laid out for me by the Changer of Ways.

“Yes, that’s it. It must be.”

So he thought, and the more he thought, the more convinced he became. He quickly persuaded himself and firmly believed it.

“Prepare the assault boat. Lock onto that cruiser.”

He suddenly stood, casting a glance at his retinue, who had returned to their posts. There was a newfound confidence in his voice.

“I shall find a path to survival for you all.”

It’s just a Mechanicus cruiser. What, is it going to flip the heavens?

Can’t beat the False Emperor’s lapdogs—but I can still beat you, right?