The face of Lord General Maximillian, a man whose features had been carved into a mask of weary duty by a century of thankless war, stared out from the holo-lith. His eyes, sunken and tired, held a desperate, terrifyingly fragile flicker of hope. The question he posed was not to the Lord Inquisitor whose authority was absolute, nor to the Canoness whose faith could move mountains. It was a question directed with the full, crushing weight of a dying crusade towards the serene, silver-haired being at the center of this new, impossible alliance. "What are your orders?"
Varrus and Celestine, titans of their respective orders, remained utterly silent. This was a fulcrum point in history, and they knew it. The first command of this supposed Saint would ripple outwards, shaping not just this battle, but the very nature of the legend being born around him.
Rimuru stepped forward, his posture calm and his gaze direct as he addressed the aged commander. "Lord General Maximillian," he began, his voice respectful but carrying an effortless, intrinsic authority that commanded attention. "Your crusade has fought with a courage that honors the name of the Imperium. You have bled for this sector when all others had forgotten you. That ends today."
A visible wave of relief washed over the Lord General's hardened features. This was not the raving of a mad zealot or the cryptic pronouncement of a mystic. It was the steady, reassuring voice of a true commander.
"However," Rimuru continued, his tone becoming more analytical, "courage without knowledge is a candle flame in a hurricane. To defeat a foe, you must first understand them." He turned his gaze to the hulking, black-clad form of Captain Arken. "Captain, you have fought the Great Devourer, the Tyranids. They also consume their foes to swell their ranks, do they not?"
The Deathwatch Captain grunted, the tactical comparison immediately clear. "They do," Arken's voice was a low growl. "The Great Devourer consumes all biomass. Flesh, bone, and blood. It is a physical consumption, an unending hunger."
"Exactly," Rimuru said, turning back to the war council, his voice now holding the sharp, clear edge of a scholar delivering a lecture. "And this is where our new enemy is far more insidious, far more dangerous. The Tyranids have a physical hunger for biomass. The Osseous Praxis has a philosophical hunger for minds."
He let the chilling distinction sink in. "They do not just want to eat your bodies; they want to erase your souls. They absorb your consciousness into their silent collective, disguising the absolute ceasing of your will as 'unity,' while your empty body is made their puppet. The Tyranids are a plague of hunger. The Osseous Praxis is a plague of silence."
His explanation painted a picture of an enemy more terrifying than a simple devouring monster. This was an enemy that killed the very concept of the self, a foe that championed the peace of the tomb.
Canoness Celestine's hand tightened on the hilt of her sword, her eyes burning with a new, deeper hatred. This was a spiritual blight of the highest order.
"So," Rimuru concluded, his voice becoming hard as steel. "To fight them, we must first learn the nature of their strings." He then issued his first command. "Lord General, you will cease all offensive actions immediately. Have your entire fleet disengage and fall back to a defensive cordon with our vessels. I want every augur array, every sensorium, every astropath, and every listening post you possess focused entirely on the enemy. We will not fire a single lance. We will watch. We will listen."
His final words were a quiet, confident promise. "We will give them silence. And in that silence, they will whisper their secrets to us."
The order was anathema to the Imperial doctrine of glorious, head-on assault. The Lord General was stunned, but the logic behind it, the sheer, confident wisdom, was undeniable. He looked to Varrus, who gave a slow, deliberate nod of assent. He then looked to Celestine, who, after a long, tense moment, also inclined her head. She now understood. This was not a beast to be slain with a single, glorious charge. This was a philosophy to be dismantled.
For hours, the two vast fleets stood in the bleak void, staring at each other. The Imperials watched, and Ciel devoured the data. And then, she found it.
<
The holo-lith flickered, updating with a glowing web of light that revealed the enemy's structure and, most importantly, its heart.
"The brain," Rimuru said softly. He reconvened the war council, his expression now one of a predator who has found the enemy's throat. He outlined his plan, a masterpiece of combined-arms strategy.
"The Canoness, with the full might of her fleet and the Penitent Crusade, will launch a massive, glorious, and very, very loud feint-assault on the enemy's left flank," he declared. "You will be the beacon of faith, the hammer of the Emperor. You will draw their full attention."
Celestine's eyes lit up. A glorious, righteous battle was exactly what she desired.
"While the main battle is joined," Rimuru continued, tracing a line on the holo-lith that led directly to the hidden moon. "A small, covert strike force will take a different path. Our target will be their mind. We will not just fight their army. We will decapitate it."
Lord General Maximillian stared, his jaw agape. In a few hours, this 'Saint' had gathered more useful intelligence than the Crusade had in fifty years and formulated a plan of breathtaking elegance and lethality.
"A perfect plan. The feint and the killing blow," Varrus stated, a look of profound, almost fearful respect on his ancient face.
"Captain Arken," Rimuru said, his gaze finding the Deathwatch marine. "You and your team are with me. We will be the scalpel."
Arken slammed a fist against his chest plate. "We live to serve."
The plan was set. The great armada began to move. As the largest space battle the Ghoul Stars had ever seen began to unfold, a single, small, matte-black stealth shuttle detached from the Obelisk's underbelly. It turned away from the glorious chaos and slipped silently into the shadows, its destination the hidden heart of the enemy. The Saint's first command was not just a battle plan. It was a perfectly laid trap.