It was a complete stroke of luck.
The 2125th Expeditionary Fleet, which had been aimlessly exploring along its predetermined path in the Honkai hyperspace network, unexpectedly captured a spatial warp signal in a derivative subspace of the network.
Delighted, the Imperial fleet quickly tracked the source of the signal—a mere interstellar migrant group of 5,000 people.
Better to have a signal than none at all.
After all, exploratory achievements varied in worth. Worlds barren and lifeless were the lowest tier of finds. The most coveted were worlds teeming with life, abundant species, and civilizations with advanced technology. These were the sweetest fruits sought by the Imperial Navy.
Of course, even a death world could prove valuable if it possessed rich mineral deposits, unknown ores, or new elements…
It was all down to luck.
But then came disappointment. Civilization? There was one, but it was already destroyed.
In a war against giant creatures—'monsters'—humanity had been defeated. Under the selection of an AI system administered by the central government, survivors had boarded the interstellar emigration vessel Aratrum, heading toward planet Tau-e in the constellation Cetus, 11.9 light years away, in search of humanity's new home.
However, after a grueling 20-year journey, Tau-e proved even more hostile than Earth, utterly unsuitable for sustaining human life.
Now they were undertaking a desperate, long-distance subspace voyage to return to Earth… only to be intercepted mid-voyage by the Imperial fleet.
In other words, only these 5,000 people remained alive.
Five thousand? Wasn't that no different from the lowest tier—akin to a barren world?
With hopes of salvaging some benefit from the ruins, the Dark Angels Legion's 2125th Expeditionary Fleet urgently sent in reports and hacked into the mothership of the so-called "Earth United Forces to Tau-e Migration Fleet"—the interstellar vessel Aratrum. There, they uncovered its point of departure: Earth's coordinates.
And then… when the fleet's high command looked upon the display, expecting traces of an industrial civilization, they found none. Instead, the planet had reverted to a pristine wilderness, now a paradise for gigantic beasts.
The surface was covered in dense, vibrant, enormous plant life, a landscape brimming with vitality and abundance.
And that man, Haruo Sakaki—you claimed you had personally witnessed your parents killed by Godzilla at age four, and for twenty years you researched how to defeat Godzilla and reclaim Earth?
(T/N: Haruo Sakaki, protagonist of Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters and its trilogy)
You want me to believe all this evolved naturally in just twenty years?
After investigation, they realized the truth: this was Earth, but 20,000 years in the future, transformed into an unknown world where Godzilla reigned as the apex of an entirely new ecosystem.
Alas, subspace travel was fraught with risk. If one's technology could not withstand the chaotic tides of hyperspace—without fixed warp routes anchored between realspace and higher dimensions to stabilize navigation—months in subspace might mean millennia in reality.
Or worse, one could be lost forever.
This world deserved a new name: Planet Godzilla. Or perhaps, Monster Planet.
Frustrated at losing the chance to bring the Empress' Gospel to these lost lambs, the Dark Angels' 2125th Expeditionary Fleet resolved on vengeance. For the extermination of an entire human civilization—even if 20,000 years had passed—they would remember this debt.
Extermination Order. There must be an Extermination Order!
These beasts, these alien vermin—let them all die!
Burn this Monster Planet to glass!
And yet, just as the planet was about to be engulfed in fire, one of the three founding Primarchs, Selene's First Astartes, First Legion Commander, and Lord of the Dark Angels—Alex—halted the Extermination Order.
Arriving almost in unison with Alex was Alyssa, the High Lord Commander of the Sisters of Battle.
Death? That was far too merciful for these beasts.
Better to make them into 'dogs.' Whether tamed, or taken as breeding stock if their flesh proved palatable, their offspring could be slaughtered as livestock, providing rations and new varieties of meat for the Empire's armies.
Was this not more profitable than simple annihilation?
Planet Godzilla.
By now, the overwhelming force of the Imperium had scarred this once-beautiful world with countless wounds. The land was cratered, scarred, and broken. The clear blue sky was veiled in dust, shrouding the world in darkness.
BOOOOM—!!!
As if a meteor had struck, a terrifying shockwave was born.
The colossal impact ripped through the surrounding fog for thousands of kilometers, scattering the very air like chaff. The ground itself shattered under the blow, bursting apart like glass into countless fragments. Even the atmosphere was torn open, leaving a massive gaping hole.
ROAR—!!
A gigantic silhouette emerged.
CRASH!
With a deafening detonation, titanic blue-white wings spread wide, as though spears thrust straight into the heavens, cleaving through the raging storm. The immense draconic body stretched for kilometers, armored in deep blue and white. Its neck and abdomen were dark azure streaked with sky-blue stripes, and it bore four eyes. Each sweep of its colossal wings unleashed crackling arcs of thunderous lightning.
As the searing heat of its plasma breath cooled, the molten sea peeled away to reveal another figure—an ultra-colossal beast, like a tyrannosaur with jagged dorsal fins running its back.
Szzzzzz—!
The moss clinging to its body burned away. Its exposed flesh resembled charred wood with a metallic sheen, as though some grotesque fusion of hyper-evolved flora and steel.
Godzilla. Apex of this ecosystem. Yet now, it looked frail and broken, collapsed upon the earth, its thunderous breaths wheezing in weakness. More exhalation than inhalation. It had reached its limits.
Vast swathes of its dorsal plates were missing. Its body—resilient enough to endure thermonuclear strikes, famed for its durability, toughness, and regenerative capacity—was shattered. Even its skull had been torn, a great section ripped away, leaving a deep cavity.
Its body was riddled with massive wounds gouged to its innards. Strange violet-red blotches corroded its flesh, hissing szzzt like acid against metal, visibly tormenting the monster.
Looking down on the foe she had crushed, Alyssa descended, her immense draconic claws dragging slightly as her form emerged from the dissipating mist. Her sky-blue vertical pupils gleamed with arrogance, flashing with humanlike disdain. "Nothing but trash in my way!"
Tilting her head, glancing left and right, she roared thunderously, "Garbage is garbage."
Scattered across the ground near Godzilla were golden, radiant bones and shredded membrane.
They were the remnants of Ghidorah's heads—torn violently from the extradimensional beast's body and ripped apart by Alyssa.
At that moment, on a mountain ridge near the battlefield, a sudden super-spatial portal flared open. An icy gale swept in from the void, carrying shards of frozen crystal into the blistering air, lowering the temperature at once.
Thud, thud, thud!
Surrounded by his honor guard, a towering giant emerged. From him radiated surges of immense Honkai energy, so great that even the atmosphere strained to endure it. Destructive power shimmered in waves about his form.
If a 2.7-meter-tall Astartes could be called a small giant, then this warrior was a true giant—like the manifestation of a god.
His short, neatly combed tawny hair framed a face as chiseled as marble, stern and resolute, with eyes like burning torches. His entire presence was that of a sword—sharp, restrained, indomitable.
He wore master-crafted armor of black trimmed with silver and red, inscribed with runes of authority and glory. A cloak of red and white flowed from his shoulders. Upon his gorget, an olive wreath encircled the numeral Ⅰ, declaring his identity.
The golden pelt of a lion draped his massive shoulders. A greatsword hung at his waist, and a resplendent winged helm rested in the crook of his arm.
"Ghidorah the Planet Eater… so that is its name, a super-gravitational mass surpassing even a black hole."
Alex spoke as he strode toward the cliff's edge.
High in the sky, an immense gravitational distortion twisted space-time. The golden necks of Ghidorah writhed as two more heads extended from extradimensional space into the universe, their serpentine length swaying with alien majesty.
Compared to the necks of Ghidorah, each stretching for tens of kilometers, the 300-meter-tall Godzilla looked like a mere speck.
"A higher-dimensional lifeform lurking within dimensional seams? The true form of a god? The object of native worship? No. The Empire requires no new faiths, and tolerates no heresies."
Clenching one fist, Alex raised it high. Violet-red energy sparked at his fingertips, linking heaven, subspace, and dimensional rifts together. Bzzzmmm—!
"Her Majesty grows ever more unfathomable." As one of the Astartes Legion Commanders, an absolute authority within the Empire, Alex too had received a measure of Selene's ascendant blessing.
Though far less than that of Sebas or Alyssa, even a fraction of Selene's vast might resonated with the surrounding time and space.
The violet luminescence flickered.
"You are called the End? Hmph. Then behold the true End! Descend, Selene's radiance—grant us the glorious finale!"
High-energy Honkai particles condensed into concentric rings of tangible violet light, rippling outward from Alex's form.
The glow grew ever brighter. The sky itself seemed to shatter. Terrifying cracks of light spread like spiderwebs, expanding, devouring, and eroding the twisted mass of gravity.
BZZZMMM!
ROOOOOAR—!!
Sensing danger, the two golden heads thrashing into realspace howled in anguish, their cries echoing across the battlefield.
At once, brilliant golden light coursed up their necks, gathering at their jaws, and erupted as a storm of divine lightning.
But this time, their foe was not the same as the alien civilizations Ghidorah had once annihilated. The Honor Guard of the Dark Angels Legion stood unmoved as stone. With a wave of Alex's hand, countless violet barriers surged skyward, shielding them from Ghidorah's golden deluge. Thunder of Honkai origin materialized from the void, blasting against the mountain-sized golden heads.
"Alex, you cheat! Wasn't this supposed to be my game? I was going to capture these beasts alive to serve as a feast for our Queen!" Alyssa's voice rang out in dissatisfaction.
"You meddled, and spoiled my fun."
ZZZZT—BOOOOM!
A storm of plasma suddenly engulfed the sky. A massive blue-white form ascended, swelling in size as it rose, interposing itself between Alex and Ghidorah.
Even the mere aftershock of its movement caused the earth to crumble.
"Alas, Lady Alyssa, these are the Empress's orders. It seems once again, you are to embark on a new journey."
"What journey? Where?" Alyssa asked, confused.
"Toward the expedition of Horus, Lord of the Luna Wolves. That world holds gods, elves, celestials, merfolk, beastkin… much potential for development, according to intelligence. The Empress commands me to ask whether you will go. If not…"
"I'll go! But that gaudy three-headed monster is mine as well!"
Her words had barely left her lips when blinding plasma light turned the world to searing white. The shattered land, burning forests, crumbling mountains—all seemed to glow as if aflame.
BZZZZMMM—!
The draconic silhouette swelled, blotting out the sky. Clearly, Alyssa's excitement had been stoked. The current game no longer held her interest. She resolved to end Ghidorah swiftly.
In the next instant, the dragon-shadow moved. On a scale that defied physics, it lunged toward the dimensional rift where extradimensional and realspace overlapped, crashing headlong with unstoppable might!
CRRRRRAAASH—!!
The atmosphere shattered like glass. The last surviving peaks groaned under the weight, then collapsed into rubble.
Almost simultaneously, Ghidorah's remaining two heads burst like pierced water balloons, exploding into a storm of golden flesh and blood. The fragments scattered across the sky, shining like countless stars against the cold earth below.
...
Elsewhere, within the Honkai hyperspace network—the expedition path of the XVI Legion, the Luna Wolves.
Aboard the Legion flagship Vengeful Spirit.
Horus, Lord of the Luna Wolves, stood silently in the grand bridge hall. His eyes remained fixed upon the void before him, gazing at the untouched virgin world awaiting conquest.
"Humanity… one of the sixteen races… the lowest of them all…"
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