From the bridge of the Obelisk, the Imperial command watched the aftermath of the space battle with a mixture of reverent awe and profound terror. The tactical holo-lith, which moments before had been a maelstrom of fratricidal combat, was now quiet. The Chaos fleet was a scattered, drifting field of wreckage, being systematically purged by the advancing Imperial Navy.
"Orbital supremacy is achieved, Lord Inquisitor," the Fleet Admiral's voice crackled over the vox, heavy with disbelief. "Casualties: negligible. We are awaiting your orders for the planetary assault."
Varrus stared at the single, massive icon of the Carrion Triumph, which now sat in silent dominion over the battlefield. Inside that corrupted vessel was the being responsible for this impossible victory. A conventional planetary assault, he knew, would be a century-long meat grinder. It would be an insult to the strategic masterpiece he had just witnessed.
"The asset, 'Tempest,' has a plan," Varrus stated, his voice a low command that silenced the entire bridge. "All ships, hold your positions. Provide a screening cordon and await my signal."
Aboard the captured flagship, Rimuru stood before the main viewport, looking down at the sickly, green-and-brown swirl of Helios Prime. The planet radiated a palpable aura of despair and decay, an almost physical stench that Ciel's analysis identified as a high-level, perpetual psychic broadcast of entropy.
"A ground war would be… unpleasant," Rimuru noted to Captain Arken, who was now acting as his de facto bodyguard.
"War is always unpleasant," the Deathwatch Captain growled, his storm bolter held ready. "We will deploy via Drop Pod and strike at the heart of the corruption. It is the Astartes way."
"It is a very direct way," Rimuru agreed. "But it will get you surrounded and bogged down in an endless sea of those 'Plague Zombies'. We need a fortress. A beachhead from which to stage our assault." He looked around the corrupted bridge. "And we are currently standing in the largest, most durable fortress in this system."
Arken's cybernetic eye whirred as he processed the implication. "You intend to land this ship?"
"More or less," Rimuru said with a cheerful smile. "Think of it as a very large, very angry Drop Pod."
Before he put his audacious plan into motion, however, he had one more task. The souls of the fifty billion trapped inhabitants of this world cried out in a silent, psychic scream of unending agony. He could not save them all. But he could offer them a moment of respite. And he could deliver a message to the master of this foul garden.
He returned to the command throne. "Archmagos Valerius," he broadcasted on a secure channel back to Ryza. "The Phase-Resonant Array. I require its assistance once more. Focus its energy output and channel it through me."
On Ryza, a new wave of zealous fervor erupted. The Omnissiah's Emissary had a new command! Valerius personally oversaw the process, diverting the full, raging power of a dozen plasma forges into the great device.
Aboard the Carrion Triumph, Rimuru became a conduit. He drew the immense, purified energy from the Array, millions of kilometers away, and combined it with his own vast reserves. He was not preparing an attack. He was preparing a benediction.
He projected his will, his very essence, outwards. It was the concept of order, of purity, of peace. It was the feeling of clean water and fresh air. It was the antithesis of Nurgle.
From the rusted hull of the Chaos flagship, a wave of silver-blue light erupted. It was not a destructive beam, but a gentle, silent wave of pure, orderly energy that expanded outwards, washing over the diseased face of Helios Prime.
On the bridge of the Obelisk, the Imperial crew cried out in shock. On the main viewscreen, the planet was changing. Where the light touched, the swirling, toxic clouds of smog momentarily parted. The great, sluggish rivers of pus and filth ran clear for a time, their foulness burned away.
On the surface, the effect was even more profound. The endless, mindless shamble of the Plague Zombie hordes faltered. For a brief, blessed moment, a flicker of clarity returned to their rotted, diseased minds. The eternal, gnawing hunger and pain receded, replaced by a ghost of peace. The very soil of Nurgle's garden recoiled, the weeping fungal trees ceasing their lamentations, the chittering daemons retreating from the pure, clean light.
It was not a cure. It was a temporary cauterization of a planetary wound. A moment of grace in an eternity of damnation.
And it was a declaration of war.
Deep within his citadel of flesh and bone, the Daemon Prince Vorlag the Vile, who had been slumbering in a pool of blissful filth, awoke with a guttural roar of agony and rage. Something clean and pure had touched his world. Something was trying to spoil his Grandfather's beautiful garden.
"Now," Rimuru said, the light fading as he concluded the planetary-scale purification. "While the garden is in disarray, we make our entrance."
With Ciel at the helm, the Carrion Triumph turned its nose towards the planet. It plunged into the atmosphere, a colossal, burning spear of defiance. The ship's corrupted void shields, now reinforced by Rimuru's own power, flared as daemonic spore-cannons and plague-towers fired from the surface. The colossal vessel groaned and shuddered, shedding chunks of its rusted hull like dead skin, but its trajectory was true.
It did not land. It crashed. The flagship plowed a ten-kilometer-long furrow through the corrupted landscape, pulverizing fungal forests and undead legions alike before grinding to a halt a mere dozen miles from Vorlag's immense, boil-like citadel. It was a brutal, ugly, and magnificent arrival.
Silence fell, broken only by the groaning of stressed metal and the distant moans of the reawakening hordes. The main assault ramp of the Carrion Triumph slammed down with a thunderous boom, kicking up clouds of corrupted soil and powdered bone.
At the top of the ramp, silhouetted against the dim light of the hangar bay, stood Rimuru. His new sword, Soulcleaver, was held loosely in one hand. Flanking him were Captain Arken and the five silent, black-clad veterans of the Deathwatch.
Before them lay the Daemon World of Helios Prime. The ground was a carpet of pulsating, fleshy moss. The air was a visible, swirling haze of green and brown spores. In the distance, the first wave of the endless horde of the damned was already beginning to shamble towards them. On the horizon, the Citadel of Vorlag pulsed like a diseased heart.
The air was a poison, a physical and spiritual contagion. The Deathwatch marines' suit-filters worked furiously, their armor's holy wards glowing faintly.
Rimuru, however, was an island of purity in an ocean of filth. He took his first step onto the corrupted soil of the Daemon World. Where his foot fell, the fleshy moss sizzled and withered, turning to clean, black ash. A small circle of purification spread from him, the very ground recoiling from his presence.
He looked out at the approaching horde, his golden eyes calm and steady.
"The ground war," he said, his voice a quiet declaration of intent, "has begun."