3.22 Light-years away – Chaos Fleet "Rotten Claw"
Plague Lord Grot stood on the bridge, his gaze fixed on the Ultima Segmentum, a planet among the Five Hundred Worlds that were the home of the Ultramarines.
His fleet, the Phoenix Dance of the Black Legion Chaos Warriors, had arrived here on Abaddon's orders.
His mission was to launch an attack on the Ultima Segmentum, severely crippling the Ultramarines.
"The blessings of the Father make us invincible!" he cackled hoarsely, pus dripping from the corners of his mouth.
Suddenly, the augury began to blare a frantic warning.
"What?" Before Grot could react, a ghostly blue beam of light had traversed 3 light-years, directly hitting the central battle cruiser of the fleet, the "Rotten Claw."
"Boom—!!"
The entire battle cruiser instantly disintegrated under the particle lance's bombardment, its warp engine overloading and exploding, engulfing the surrounding assault ships in a destructive energy storm.
"Do you like my trans-light-year strike, friend?"
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!" The Chaos fleet descended into chaos.
But their main battle cruisers had vanished, so what good fortune could ordinary Chaos warships expect?
A barrage of Cyclone and Havoc missiles followed, launching a full-scale assault on the entire Chaos fleet.
Disintegration cannon energy beams also fired continuously, almost completely annihilating the Chaos fleet in the first wave of attack.
A Ten Thousand Mile-class cruiser of this caliber shouldn't possess such formidable combat power, but this particular cruiser had been enhanced with cyclical technology.
A single round of attack directly reduced a Chaos warband's fleet to space junk.
It wasn't until he saw the enemy completely reduced to a pile of scrap that Noah nodded in satisfaction, a portion of the anger in his heart finally released.
But even so, Noah was still very dissatisfied.
Because Nurgle's threat still existed, and with his current military strength, he couldn't punish Nurgle.
This was an insult, a blatant insult.
He needed to continue venting his anger.
Coincidentally, through the warship's scans, Chaos fleets had appeared in several surrounding star systems, and these guys became the perfect targets for his rage.
"Warship AI, begin independent operations now. Destroy all Chaos fleets in the surrounding star systems. Let their blood wash away the shame we have endured!"
"Order confirmed. All surrounding Chaos fleets will be engaged. No quarter given!"
A rare hint of solemn killing intent could be heard in the AI's mechanical voice.
The cruiser's engines hummed deeply, and the ghostly blue dark matter energy shield pulsed like breathing.
Noah stood in the center of the bridge, looking at the seven Chaos fleet coordinates marked on the holographic star map, his killing intent unstoppable.
These Chaos fleets were doomed. He had been planning to explore the combat capabilities of the civilizations in this universe, and the Chaos had conveniently come knocking. What could be easier for collecting combat data than a battle?
Nothing.
The cruiser began to roam between several star systems, then launched attacks on the Chaos forces.
Every 12 hours, a Chaos fleet would be destroyed by the cruiser.
12 hours was not the limit of the warship, but the limit of the main cannon.
Although ordinary secondary cannons could easily destroy Chaos fleets, as a cautious person, he still chose to launch an attack only after the main cannon had fully charged in 12 hours.
One Chaos fleet after another was annihilated under Noah's attacks, a situation that naturally caught the attention of both the Chaos forces and the Ultramarines.
After Abaddon unleashed the Eye of Terror, the Ultramarines' Chief Librarian had predicted the Chaos army's attack.
A simple psionics prophecy made the Chief Librarian understand that the Chaos army was about to arrive, and the Ultramarines had already prepared for battle.
It was precisely because of this that when the Ultramarines' fleet also noticed the diminishing combat power of the Chaos fleets, they uncharacteristically began to investigate what was happening in the surroundings.
Would Abaddon abandon his attack on the Ultramarines?
The answer was no; they didn't believe Abaddon would give up attacking the Ultramarines.
Therefore, understanding what was happening within their limited capabilities was crucial for the Ultramarines. If it was reinforcements, then they could launch a counterattack.
As for the Chaos side, there was even less to say, as they were the ones losing warships.
If they didn't figure out this situation, their losses would only continue to expand.
However, no matter how hard these two sides tried to find the cause, their efforts were destined to be in vain.
The cruiser under Noah's command could not be detected by Imperial or Chaos technology.
Previously, if Nurgle, as a Chaos God, hadn't been able to oversee the entire universe from the Warp, he wouldn't have seen the warship in Noah's possession.
Abaddon encountered his biggest setback since the 13th Black Crusade. His fleet seemed to be silently disappearing, yet he had no way to stop it.
And Nurgle's faction fleets, in particular, had suffered heavy losses. Among the several vanished fleets, Nurgle's faction accounted for half.
This caused an imbalance among the four god factions under his command.
The original balance seemed to be breaking down.
The Black Legion had worshippers of all four Chaos Gods.
Abaddon tried his best to maintain their balance, and now that balance was being shaken.
In his fury, Abaddon slammed his hand heavily onto the command platform of his flagship, venting his anger, but it was all in vain.
Abaddon had to admit that a mysterious force was secretly hunting down his fleets, and he himself had no countermeasures against this fleet.
Of course, the only thing that brought him solace was the sheer size of the Black Legion's fleet.
Even after suffering heavy losses under Noah's attacks, they still possessed a massive number of ships that could attack the Ultima Segmentum.
His attack on the Ultramarines could still continue.
There was no need to worry that Noah's presence would prevent him from smoothly executing his operational details.
After hunting down the ninth Chaos fleet, Noah's cruiser stopped its attacks.
His own anger had subsided somewhat, but it wasn't enough. Whether it was coming to this cesspool of a universe or some other reason, Noah now wanted to personally kill a batch of guys to vent.
Incidentally.
Noah saw a very familiar psionics on a planet, seemingly bestowed by the god called the Emperor.
This psionics was now like a flickering candle in the wind, about to be extinguished.
After being saved once by the god called the Emperor, Noah was very curious to understand what kind of god this was.
Repaying kindness is the creed of the Federated humans. Since the Emperor had indeed shown him kindness, he naturally had to repay that debt.
He believed he had the ability to repay this kindness.
Now, he could first rescue the god's apostle, thereby repaying a portion of the kindness.
The cruiser accelerated again, and this time its speed became even faster, appearing in the orbit of the planet, which was emitting a faint halo, in the very next second.
The combat AI actively scanned the entire planet and provided Noah with a detailed topographic map and various 3D views of the entire planet.
Subsequently, Noah, along with his Psionic Legion and 20,000 PDF, prepared for an aerial drop operation.
The scientist also harbored anger; although he had destroyed many Chaos Fleet ships just now, the fleet's firing didn't feel as satisfying as him personally taking action.
"Everyone, enter the drop pods now! Prepare to eliminate all the Daemons below!"
"All for the Manifest Destiny of Mankind!"
20,000 PDF troops entered the drop pods, and 400 Psionic Legion assault troops also made their combat preparations. Immediately afterward, drop pods, like raindrops, plummeted towards the ground.
This planet was named Raphaeus—
As Noah prepared for the aerial drop operation, the ground of Raphaeus was currently in a confrontation between Daemons and the local defenders.
The artillery array on a bunker fortification, set up by Ultramarines, was fiercely firing at the Hell Drakes circling in the sky.
Meanwhile, Chaos units, surging like a tide on the ground, were assaulting the Ultramarines' defensive line.
The defensive line seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and the Astra Militarum troops fighting alongside the Ultramarines were desperately holding on.
Even the Chaos side had deployed more than 20 Chaos Space Marines to join this round of attacks, and the Ultramarines' defensive line seemed to be on the verge of breaking.
However, at this critical juncture, a mysterious force appeared—an expeditionary force composed of troops from various factions of the Imperium of Man.
The giant machines of the Taranis Knight House within this force began attacking the Chaos units in the sky, while the Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii and the Aeldari's Mournival also joined the battle.
The forces of the two sides could be said to have united to slaughter the Chaos Daemon Army, but the unfortunate truth was that the Chaos Daemon Army was endless.
The cultists and Chaos Daemon Army rushing from around this planet were countless, like a vast ocean crashing violently against the Ultramarines' defensive line.
Originally, there shouldn't have been so many Chaos Daemon Army here. In reality, it was because Noah had fought too fiercely during this period, inflicting unprecedented damage on the Chaos Fleet.
This caused them to begin concentrating their forces to attack specific planets.
With the continuous attacks of the Chaos Daemon Army and the support of Space Marines,
even the combined forces led by Drakoar, along with the Ultramarines and Astra Militarum, found it difficult to withstand the Chaos Daemon Army's assault.
At this critical moment, a large number of drop pods descended from the sky.
The drop pods crashed into the battlefield like meteors, and the explosive shockwaves instantly overturned swathes of Chaos cultists.
The moment the hatch doors sprang open, twenty thousand PDF troops, clad in plasti-steel power armor, surged out like an iron torrent.
Noah and his four hundred Psionic Legion also emerged with them, and powerful psionics permeated the entire field.
Giant psionics lightning bolts directly annihilated a large number of surrounding Chaos cultists along with Chaos Daemons.
Ordinary cultists were instantly reduced to dust, while Chaos Daemons directly vanished from the real universe; they were not banished, but rather their existence was fundamentally erased.
The powerful psionics gave Noah sufficient capital to eliminate these Daemons from Chaos, but these Warp entities directly lost the very basis of their existence.
It was this round of attacks that made the Mournival of the Aeldari widen their eyes.
They witnessed Chaos Daemons being directly annihilated.
Those long-ears, who were still fighting, couldn't help but freeze and cease their operations.
The Imperial forces were also dumbfounded, watching the sudden arrival of reinforcements.
A large number of 'cans' they had never seen before appeared.
The PDF's gauss rifle began firing continuously; silent firing, yet delivering terrifying and tangible lethality.
Whether cultists or Chaos Daemons, under the impact of these weapons, they instantly melted away like ice and snow.
The Hell Drakes and those unique Daemon Engines, however, received special attention from the Psionic Legion.
One psionics lightning bolt after another was hurled from their hands, subsequently striking down or banishing those Daemon Engines.
At the same time, the gauss rifle was not incapable of inflicting damage on these heavy units.
Therefore, some PDF troops also concentrated fire on Daemon Engines, utterly destroying them.
The Chaos Daemon Army, originally like an ocean, was directly blocked like a reef struck by the sea after encountering this round of attacks.
No matter how turbulent the waves, the ocean still could not overcome these reefs.
Instead, the range of the reefs was constantly expanding, and the Chaos Daemon Army seemed to have already begun to fall into defeat.
And in this battle, Noah was the most formidable, he was utterly enraged.
The result of his anger was that he quickly stepped forward and grabbed a Hell Drake.
Then, holding the drake in his hand, he fiercely swept away all the surrounding cultists and Chaos units.
The seemingly invincible Hell Drake appeared to have become a whip-like object, held in Noah's hand, wantonly lashing out at everything around him.
Such divine power left everyone in the Imperium stunned; they had never imagined that a human could single-handedly lift a Daemon unit in front of them and then wantonly go on a killing spree.
This was simply a Primarch reborn.
Under the attacks of the PDF troops, Psykers, and Noah, all surrounding Chaos units were annihilated or banished.
The Daemon units struck down by the PDF troops could be considered fortunate.
At most, they were directly banished, but the Chaos units attacked by Psykers or Noah could be said to be in agony.
Most Psykers could not directly annihilate Chaos Daemons, but Noah could.
Every Chaos unit Noah attacked had its existence fundamentally erased.
Other Greater Daemon of Chaos and Chaos units could be born in the Warp, but such Greater Daemon of Chaos and units would never be able to revive or reappear.
They had been completely annihilated.
How strong was Noah? He was so strong that when other Greater Daemon of Chaos sensed the battle here and specifically rushed to provide support,
when the massive body of a Greater Daemon of Chaos appeared on the open ground and then saw Noah going on a killing spree,
it merely stood still for a few seconds, then swiftly turned its head.
It left the battlefield without looking back.
Others might have been a bit foolish, not clearly seeing what exactly had happened.
But the Greater Daemon of Chaos was different; it truly and clearly perceived that the existence of those Chaos units had been fundamentally erased.
This meant that if it died at Noah's hands, it would truly be dead.
There would be no possibility of being banished and then reviving and returning to reality, as in the past.
What it faced was the direct erasure of its very existence; even if a Greater Daemon of Chaos like it were to be born afterward, that Greater Daemon of Chaos would no longer be it.
Facing the threat of true death, the Greater Daemon of Chaos, originally so arrogant, ultimately chose to follow the dictates of its deepest inner feelings.
It decided it wasn't that keen on fighting after all.