"Excellent."

Aboard the BattleshipTalon's Wrath, Lord Admiral Adam was thoroughly pleased with the results of the initial salvo.

Before the corrupted fleet had even closed to engagement range for their ships, more than half of their vessels had been annihilated by the withering fire of their fleet.

The void was littered with the glowing debris of the plague ships, charred fragments drifting amid the starfield, spinning out in wide, lazy arcs across the blackness like dying embers swept by an unseen wind.

But Adam's satisfaction was short-lived. His eyes narrowed as he saw the wreckage of the destroyed enemy ships releasing massive clouds of green motes into the void, along with what appeared to be gaseous emissions that shimmered like sickly auroras.

Even through the thick adamantium bulkheads and layered energy shielding, Adam almost imagined he could smell the rot, something primal, festering, leaking into reality itself.

Drawing from previous plague-cleansing reports, Adam immediately recognized that these were no mere aftereffects of the destroyed plague ships. Those gases were likely concentrated toxins, dense enough to be visible to the naked eye. As for the motes… their purpose remained unclear but highly suspect. He knew enough of Chaos to assume that anything inexplicable was almost certainly hostile.

"Divert energy from lance intensity, prioritize range and accuracy. Target enemy propulsion and point-defense systems. Ready defensive torpedoes," Adam ordered without hesitation.

Across the fleet, weapons officers adjusted particle lance arrays, reconfiguring power grids and recalibrating targeting systems. Energy was channeled toward the lance base rather than the beam itself, sacrificing penetration and raw damage for pinpoint accuracy and extended reach.

Meanwhile, the escort frigates readied a specialized payload: defensive torpedoes.

Defensive torpedoes were designed to generate a massive, unidirectional energy shield around enemy vessels, while simultaneously corrupting the void shields of the target ship to support its actions. These shields couldn't repel outside fire, but they could intercept any outbound attack from the target ship.

Additionally, each torpedo carried teleport beacon arrays, capable of forcibly relocating afflicted enemy ships to uninhabited systems.

Originally meant to thwart enemy ramming and boarding assaults by teleporting warships mid-charge, today they were repurposed to isolate and remove the plague-ridden hulks before their corruption could spread.

The downside was that they were extremely expensive to produce, so each escort carried a limited number aboard. They were also bulky, and larger ships required multiple torpedoes to be fully effective.

Once the defensive torpedoes were ready, another volley of lance fire tore through the void.

This time, every lance targeted key weaknesses in the hulls of the enemy ships, locking onto their engines and defense hardpoints. The precise strikes punched through thick armor plating, disabling vital systems and sending the ships into a slow spiral of disarray.

In mere seconds, the remaining two corrupted cruisers and both escort ships were crippled.

"Frigates, advance to torpedo range and hold. Fire when ready," Adam commanded.

The escorts moved forward in tight formation, their weapons primed, and their engines glowing with intensity. They unleashed their payloads, and over forty torpedoes surged toward the immobilized enemy.

But then Adam noticed something: the green motes that spilled from the shattered hulks were swarming and moving with unnatural purpose, actively converging on the torpedoes.

Tactical overlays flagged the movements with crimson threat markers, too coordinated for random drift.

Most of the torpedoes began to slow mid-flight. Autoturrets mounted on their exteriors spun into action, their precision beams flashing to intercept the incoming threats. Each torpedo was equipped with autonomous defense systems designed to target small hostiles.

Beams lanced out at the incoming green motes.

Observing this, Adam quickly deduced that the "motes" were not debris. They were likely warp-tainted bioforms, creatures roughly the size of a Thunderhawk or larger. Plague-ridden biofighters or some form of daemoncraft.

The defensive torpedoes had been built to survive interception armored, slow-moving, with point-defense systems triggered only upon confirmed contact. Their AI response proved Adam's theory right.

Yet the sheer number of hostiles overwhelmed the defenses. The motes swarmed, twisting through the void like a plague of locusts, their forms flickering with otherworldly energy. Nearly every torpedo was destroyed mid-flight, save one. Just one reached its target.

That lone torpedo drilled deep into the crippled cruiser's hull. As it breached the outer hull, its onboard cutting beams sliced through bulkheads, tunneling deep into the ship's structure.

Upon reaching the core, the torpedo deployed its energie-shield, encasing the infected cruiser.

"Focus fire on that one," Adam ordered.

The torpedo's power supply could maintain the shield for just under seven seconds.

Without hesitation, the fleet focused their fire, their lances and plasma batteries tearing through the temporary barrier. The cruiser was shredded into drifting ruin, pieces of metal and burning wreckage splintering away into the black abyss.

Just like before, the vessel released noxious gas and green bioforms, but this time, the unidirectional shield held them in. The energy field shimmered briefly before flickering out. Two seconds later, the dismembered wreck was teleported out of the system.

Now, only one enemy ship remained.

This one would not be so lucky.

The escort frigates launched another salvo of torpedoes, each activating their point-defense systems the moment they left their launch tubes. As the green motes swarmed again, the frigates' weapon systems flared to life, beams of light cutting through the swarming horde.

The surviving torpedoes struck the final cruiser from multiple angles, embedding deep within the target's vulnerable systems.

Thirty layers of unidirectional shields blossomed around the corrupted ship.

Then came the final fusillade.

Each beam punched through the overlapping shields, cleaving hull from hull. The vessel was ripped into over twenty segments before being teleported away, banished from the system.

"Deploy melta torpedoes and lance fire. Cleanse the residual toxins. Then proceed with plague extermination across the system," Adam ordered as the final phase commenced. The combat data was logged for debrief upon return.

…

Meanwhile, far beyond the reach of matter and light, Qin Mo observed the entire battle from within the Dreamscape.

Thanks to the abilities of the Shapeshifter, he had even seen inside the enemy warships.

"Those twelve ships were sacrificial," Shapeshifter said, turning from the fading vision to face Qin Mo. "They were testing the Talon fleet's combat capabilities."

Qin Mo nodded thoughtfully, recalling the grotesque scene aboard the corrupted ship, the bloated captain, the gibbering Nurgling, and the eerie calm before their demise.

Indeed, the Shapeshifter's analysis rang true.

If he were commanding a Nurgle warband and lacked intelligence on the Talon forces, he would've done the same: send a disposable fleet to provoke a response and analyze the capabilities of his enemies before committing any true assets.

"We've lost the advantage of surprise," the Shapeshifter remarked.

"Sure," Qin Mo replied, his voice dry. "But what choice did we have? Let them sail unchallenged into the heart of the Talon System?"

Shapeshifter nodded. It wasn't criticizing, merely stating facts.

Qin Mo looked again into the still-flickering vision. He appreciated Shapeshifter's utility, at least while it wasn't having one of its infamous episodes.

It was the ultimate overwatch. No matter where the enemy was or what they did, as long as they were in the materium, he would know. Every whisper, every movement, captured and heard; there was almost nothing the enemy could hide.

"How's the fleet I built holding up?" Qin Mo asked, a little out of the blue.

Shapeshifter thought for a moment.

"Compared to the fleets of the War in Heaven... this would barely qualify as a civilian convoy."

Qin Mo sighed and nodded. Fair enough. But damn, did he have to be that blunt?

"But don't forget, you started from nothing. And this isn't the War in Heaven. You're not fighting the Old Ones," Shapeshifter continued, smiling in its humanoid form. "For a C'tan specialized in forging? Not bad at all. If it were me, I'd just rush in and start biting ships apart."

Both of them chuckled.

But Shapeshifter's smile slowly faded.

Then, silence.

It had forgotten where it was… what it was doing… even what it had been.

Qin Mo noticed the sudden change. "What's wrong?" he asked cautiously.

No answer.

Shapeshifter stood frozen. The mirage it had created began to shift, no longer a single star system…

…but the entire Milky Way galaxy.

.....

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