At that moment, within the Coruscant system—a region where the void twisted and the fabric of reality was torn open like a gaping wound—
Swoosh—Swoosh—!
Amid the swirling vortices linking realspace and the warp, a vast fleet had emerged and now "stood" at the outskirts of the star system.
Five hundred warships gleamed with a cold metallic luster under the star's light. The pale gray hulls of the Word Bearers' vessels were etched with sacred scriptures, while the Midnight Lords' dark-blue ships were adorned with grim bone reliefs.
At the fleet's core, four Emperor-class battleships loomed like mobile steel mountains.
The Word Bearers' flagship, Fire of Faith, bore a prow sculpted from black obsidian into the Emperor's visage, with massive rubies embedded in the eyes that radiated judgmental light.
The Midnight Lords' flagship, Night Blade, mounted three hundred newly designed light lance arrays along its sides, each barrel wrapped in decorative chains.
Around these behemoths, the cruisers formed standard annihilation formations, destroyers and escorts circled like watchful hounds, and supply ships blinked their beacon signals from within tight protective screens.
Among this steel ocean, one ship stood out with its unique silhouette—
The Grey Knights' flagship, Judicator, was only three kilometers long, yet its hull of gleaming silver armor made it seem like a floating cathedral.
From its flanks extended enormous metallic wings, each feather a plasteel plate engraved with exorcism scriptures. When its main engines roared to life, crystalline trails of ice formed along the wings in the vacuum.
All ships had entered combat silent mode.
On the Word Bearers' vessels, Chaplain-scholars were blessing their brothers.
Within the Midnight Lords' quarters, the silent Astartes were anointing their shock daggers with nerve toxins.
And in the Judicator's relic chamber, the Grey Knights knelt before an image of the Emperor, performing final rites of exorcism.
This silence was more suffocating than any battle cry—like the deadly pause before a headsman's blade fell.
Although the fleet maintained perfect silence, their warp emergence had already been sensed by the forces of Chaos.
The tides of warp corruption surged violently, and daemonic whispers carried warnings through the void.
Moreover, the fleet could not simply warp directly into Coruscant's low orbit.
That once-glorious Galactic Capital, after Darth Vader's sacrifice of a trillion souls, had become a twisted overlap of realspace and the warp.
Its orbit was riddled with unstable dimensional rifts. Any unshielded ship attempting direct transition risked being torn apart by warp storms—or devoured whole by Chaos.
Thus, the fleet cautiously held station at the system's periphery, awaiting further tactical directives.
Inside the Judicator's command bridge, the atmosphere was thick enough to solidify.
The main console's holographic display bathed the bridge in cold blue light, reflecting the stern visages of two Primarchs—
Lorgar, supreme Pontifex of the Word Bearers, his holoprojection shrouded in the luminous glow of swirling scripture scrolls;
And Konrad Curze, the Midnight Lord, a blur of shadow except for his glinting, cold eyes.
Standing before them was the Grand Master of the Grey Knights, Kaldor Draigo.
Clad in Aegis-pattern Terminator armor, Draigo towered at three meters and three centimeters, his armor engraved with countless wards of exorcism. Yet his youthful face betrayed an incongruous weariness.
This thinning golden hair barely concealed the gleam of his scalp—clear evidence of the toll that eternal war against Chaos had exacted upon him.
At this moment, Judicator's bridge was dimly lit, filled with the scent of smoldering incense.
"Brothers," Lorgar's voice was solemn and resonant, "we must chart our course with utmost caution. Coruscant's orbital layers are fully corrupted."
Konrad's voice was cold as ever: "To charge in blindly would only turn our fleet into a feast for the daemons."
Lorgar's holographic form flickered slightly with the energy of the projection. The scrolls hanging from his heavy priestly robes fluttered in a non-existent wind.
Raising his metal-gloved hand, when his fingertips brushed the holographic star map, faint sparks leapt forth.
"We must treat this like a surgeon addressing an infected wound," Lorgar continued, his voice vibrating through the bridge air. "Coruscant's orbit is a festering sore—touch it rashly, and the infection spreads."
At that, Konrad's form distorted momentarily like ink stirred into water, before solidifying with a malicious grin.
"I, for one, would love to see the looks on the daemons' faces when they realize their banquet has turned into their last supper."
Meanwhile, Grand Master Draigo silently studied the star map, his gaze fixed on the deep-purple planet of Coruscant, noting the thousands of tiny red markers—Chaos patrol fleets.
Subconsciously, he tightened his grip on his sword hilt, causing the servos in his armor to hum faintly.
Lorgar's finger slid across the map, magnifying a ninth planet: Improcus.
A frozen world whose surface was etched with dark-blue canyons like bulging veins on an old man's hand.
"Here," Lorgar tapped the hologram, sending ripples through the image. "Improcus maintains an ambient temperature of minus 190 degrees Celsius. Preliminary scans show only 7.3% Chaos corruption. It is the perfect staging ground—"
"—for most warp-spawned filth abhor the cold," Konrad interjected with a chilling smile.
The holo switched to a tactical simulation:
Tens of thousands of drop pods pelted Improcus's tundras like hail, leaving scorched black scars upon the pristine ice. In less than 24 hours, all Chaos forces there were wiped clean.
Konrad added, "Let the maggot-worshipers of Nurgle tremble in the ice. They'll soon realize—"
"—that cold preserves the evidence of sin far better than flame," Draigo finished grimly—his first words during the meeting.
Lorgar's gaze gleamed with approval.
Next, Lorgar pressed a wide palm onto the control panel, changing the hologram to a terrifying simulation of extermination.
When the simulated Exterminatus command was triggered, even the bridge air seemed to freeze.
Dozens of Exterminatus-class warheads, dubbed "Q-Bombs" (from the Starship Troopers naval codex), launched from the Emperor-class ships' silos.
These death-bringers blazed blue trails as they penetrated Coruscant's corrupted atmosphere.
The moment they struck, a blinding explosion forced the holoprojection to automatically dim.
The planet shattered like a giant stepping on glasswork. Shockwaves pulverized the once-majestic megastructures into glittering clouds of dust.
The most grotesque scenes were the flesh-architecture constructs squirming like insects in acid before disintegrating into pus.
The galactic capital, obliterated.
"We must seize and fortify Improcus within 24 hours," Lorgar's voice was as cold as the ice plains, "every second we delay risks letting the warp poison seep deeper into the realspace veins."
"In that case," Konrad said first, "let them enjoy a few more fleeting breaths."
Draigo nodded in agreement.
With the strategic decisions finalized, the Primarchs' projections dissolved into mist.
The Judicator's bridge returned to its blood-red combat lighting.
Grand Master Draigo stood alone before the central tactical table, his armor's wards faintly aglow. His fingers traced the shifting fleet icons, while beyond the observation windows—
Reality tore once again.
Swoosh—swoosh—!
Five hundred warships fired their warp drives simultaneously, blazing blue-white threads across the void.
These steel giants executed a textbook quantum fold jump, traversing hundreds of millions of kilometers in an instant.
When realspace stabilized again, the fleet had formed a ring around the ninth planet—Improcus.
Ri~shoom—!
The moment the fleet achieved re-lock, a hundred main warships charged their electromagnetic cannons.
The silent vacuum resonated faintly within the ship structures.
As the fire order was given, the void blazed electric-blue.
Rail slugs, launched at 3% of light speed, tore across orbit.
Chaos sentries below didn't even have time to blink before being shredded.
Meanwhile, the fallen admiral—a former Galactic Empire naval commander corrupted by Chaos—watched helplessly as enemy icons flooded his tactical screens.
Only minutes ago, he had been reassuring the daemons that Improcus was "absolutely secure."
"They should be rushing for Coruscant!" he shrieked, rotting vocal cords rasping, as his command chair oozed pus.
Before he could reorganize, a concentrated bombardment annihilated his battleship—and himself.
As Chaos forces scrambled to activate defenses, Midnight Lords' virus-tipped torpedoes breached their shields, spreading nightmare visions among the enemy crews.
The bombardment shattered Improcus's frozen surface.
Hidden Chaos temples emerged into the vacuum, desecration rituals abruptly severed.
When the Fire of Faith's blessed macro-cannons struck the largest temple, a storm of liquid nitrogen (at -210°C) instead of plasma fire swept across, flash-freezing heretics mid-flight.
The Chaos garrison was caught utterly off-guard.
The heretic fleets—believing the Primarchs would charge straight for Coruscant—had underestimated the meticulous tactics of Lorgar and Konrad.
Now, the joint fleet seized orbital control and began planetary assault preparations.
Hundreds of carriers and cruisers rotated their bellies toward Improcus, including the Judicator.
The Judicator spread its silver wings; its bay doors opened with blue flares illuminating the void.
As the deployment order was issued—
Tens of thousands of metallic flowers bloomed across space.
Swoosh—swoosh—!
Tens of thousands of drop pods launched into the atmosphere, carving crimson trails through the thin air.
Chaos AA fire stuttered uselessly—corrupted shells self-destructed hundreds of meters away.
TIE fighter remnants barely took off before being sniped by orbital lances.
The Chaos defenders could only watch helplessly as the drop pods fell.
Within a vast Chaos fortress—formerly an Imperial bastion on Improcus—corrupted stormtroopers cowered behind gun slits.
Their tainted vision glimpsed grim slogans etched on the incoming drop pods.
A thousand pods slammed onto the north polar plains near the fortress.
Bang—Bang!
Hatches burst open—
The first to stride forth into the frozen hellscape was none other than—
Grand Master Kaldor Draigo of the Grey Knights.
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