The titan, being watched by numerous knight titans, visibly stiffened, and cold sweat beaded on the forehead of the knight in the cockpit.
He was Yaeger Friedrich, a family member responsible for clearing the orks from this planet.
Because the scale of each ork incursion was always about the same, for a knight house, it usually only required one person piloting a knight titan, accompanied by their squires.
As long as the planetary defense forces cooperated, clearing out some orks was no problem at all.
Normally, this task would involve a bit of a reconnaissance first, as other matters within the knight house were simply too boring; combat was practically a vacation.
"Patriarch... Elders..." Yaeger Friedrich's voice came through the comms, laced with clear guilt. "I... I do lead the clear-up operations every year..."
"Then tell me!" Grisha's "Iron Rider king" suddenly turned, its power sword pointing at the orks continuously pouring out of the ground. "What are these?!"
Zeke watched this scene and suddenly found it somewhat amusing. He cleared his throat, interrupting his father's impending outburst: "Father, now is not the time to assign blame. These orks... perhaps they are an opportunity."
"An opportunity?" Grisha and the other knights were stunned.
Zeke's titan pointed towards the charging ork horde: "Look, they're charging in the direction of the chaos forces."
Indeed, although the orks were shouting "Waaagh!", their charge route clearly veered towards the remnants of the world Eaters who were regrouping. The leading ork Warboss even swatted off a Bloodletter's head with a power klaw.
"Gork and Mork said!" the ork Warboss roared excitedly, "The red big 'uns are the best! Get 'em first!"
Chaos and orks instantly clashed.
Though the world Eaters were valiant, they steadily retreated under the orks' tidal assault. More ironically, the Khornate daemon were also drawn into the melee—in the orks' simple minds, anything red was a "big 'un" and deserved a good fight!
There was no way around it; in this galaxy, orks themselves were not weak. The chaos side had actually used orks to conduct a chaos sacrificial ritual, which naturally provoked the wrath of Gork and Mork.
The orks received orders from Gork and Mork: they were here to fight chaos.
Orks guarding the nation's gate.
Zeke said nothing about this comical scene unfolding before him; instead, he continued to have his troops stand by and watch. It was a rare opportunity to enjoy a free show, wasn't it?
And the battle in space gradually began to subside. After all, the knight house's knight titans had already warped in, which meant the Yaeger family's fleet must have also arrived.
Theoretically, knight houses shouldn't have fleets, but that was only theoretically.
For a loyalist knight house that had existed for 20,000 years, since the Golden Age, and even participated in the Great Crusade and the Great Scouring, this was not an issue.
If their family wasn't powerful, how could they have a seat on the High Lords of Terra Council?
Whether it was the battle in space or on the planet's surface, chaos was constantly retreating, a fact that deeply displeased Abaddon, who was monitoring the battle.
If the Yaeger family were to retreat unscathed, without suffering any significant losses, wouldn't all his efforts be in vain?
No, this absolutely could not happen. Moreover, if the forces of Khorne suffered losses, it would mean a reduction in the number of Khornate Space Marines.
To maintain the balance within his own forces, he needed to employ other means.
He was the Warmaster of chaos, not intending to pledge allegiance to any of the Chaos Gods, but rather planning to exploit them. However, this did not mean that his Space Marines would not pledge allegiance to other Chaos Gods.
Among the four Chaos Gods, his Black Legion could be said to pledge allegiance to all of them.
Therefore, as the commander of the Black Legion and the Warmaster of all chaos, he needed to adjust the power of each of the four forces to keep them balanced.
Now, Khorne's forces had clearly suffered losses, causing a slight shift and imbalance in the current power dynamics. He needed to adjust this balance and, incidentally, continue to achieve his strategic objectives.
Even if he couldn't destroy the knight house, he at least had to tie down the Yaeger knight house. The strength of the Thousand Sons family was too formidable, especially a knight house like the Yaeger family, which was at the pinnacle of knight houses and overly powerful.
Engaging knights in ground combat was clearly foolish, so he had to mobilize more chaos fleets to attack the knight house.
Abaddon stood on the bridge of the "Vengeful Spirit," a cold light flickering in his single eye.
He brought up the holographic star map, his finger tracing a series of coordinates.
"Send word to the Plague Fleet," his deep voice hissed like a venomous snake, "Tell them there's a knight house here worthy of 'blessing'."
"Warmaster, are you sure you want to use Nurgle's power?" the adjutant asked cautiously. "This might anger Khorne's followers..."
"Silence!" Abaddon slammed his fist on the control panel. "Balance must be maintained! Let the Death Guard deal with those shiny knights!"
As the order was given, deep within the Warp, a fleet of decaying warships began to turn. On these rust-covered, festering vessels, Plague Marines were busy loading putrid plague bombs into their launch bays.
Meanwhile, on the ground battlefield of Eldia, Zeke was enjoying the "spectacular performance" of the orks and chaos.
Of course, this time no chaos fleet would come to bother Zeke, because the Terran Dominion fleet had also arrived.
The Warp fluctuations had caught the attention of the Dominion fleet currently traversing the Warp.
There was a world of difference between the Dominion fleet and the Imperial fleet. Unlike the Imperial fleet, which needed to activate Gellar fields to operate within the Warp, the Dominion fleet had no such requirement.
This fleet could navigate freely within the Warp; in fact, the Warp was not something that could affect the Dominion fleet at all.
After all, the Warp had already become a weapon for the Terran Dominion fleet, and battleships were specifically equipped with devices that could directly convert real space into a Warp battlefield.
From this, it could be seen that for the Dominion, the Warp was never a mysterious forbidden zone, but rather a usable battlefield.
Nurgle's fleet was setting sail, and it ran headlong into the Dominion fleet, which was on its way to find its own Emperor.