"They can't be that stupid..." I muttered in a low voice, making Canis snort at me.

"Just shoot." Inquisitor Valeyne demanded with an angry voice.

Of course I was shooting! The problem was Unclean Ones made for a bad target, being super-resilient by their nature and also regenerating at speed from the presence of that Nurgle shard.

Not only that, this invasion carried a Plague Planet with them and hundreds of Plague Hulks, each inhabited by billions of Nurglings and other lesser daemons.

My barrage of Nova Mines was mostly ineffective as long as the big daemons were around...

"Hooooowwl! Wof!" my wolves spoke both at once, then sped ahead Canis glowing like a second sun while Zath burned with Cosmic Fire, and crashed into and through the leading Chaos warships. Right, Zath was the opposite of a coward, unlike Lash. Plus the C'tan wolf had his Trascendent self right inside the Black Lament, as a guarantee.

'Fleet wide! Engage one Hulk at a time. Valerian, focus the beam on the small Nurgle thing.' I commanded via my Sounding Board, and somehow felt the C'tan grin at me, mentally.

With Sister Dessima out to provide system-wide Blankness, and the Eternal Lament powering its Necron Pylon as an ad-hoc reality cage, we stood a good chance of defeating the second invasion as well.

As expected, the Nurgle shard didn't like being splashed by the deadly Immaterium Beam and hid inside his Plague Planet, which simplified my targeting a lot.

I knew that Abaddon had used two Blackstone Fortresses to explode a whole planet once, although he had the help of his Sorcerers.

I only had Sister Stern and the 6 Alpha psykers from the Omega Vault as extra power, but it should be enough.

Two clicks later, Sister Stern was helping Librarian Valerian focus the beam onto the green-clouded planet while I drained the 6 Alpha psykers and powered the Black Lament and did the same.

A huge buzzing sound filled the void as the two beams melded and drilled towards the core of the Plague Planet, while Canis and Zath fought and slashed two Unclean Ones to shreds, again and again.

Two Unclean Ones made their way down to the surface of Hydraphur, and began ripping to shreds the defending troops of the Mechanicus, while Dread Pods filled with Chaos Marines tried the same, and mysteriously vanished in the system's sun. I couldn't block Great Daemons, but unshielded ships or drop pods were a different matter.

Newly recovered and repaired bunkers and Tarantula turrets appeared once more in front of the main Hive City, flanked by Titans and Knights from my House, just as the two landed Great Daemons summoned their armies directly onto the surface.

Daemon engines of a dozen types, Chaos Marines and billions of corrupted guardsmen and cultists flooded the polluted plains of Hydraphur, then died just as fast as I could scatter Nova Mines at the Warp portal's exits.

The battle was on!

Little by little, our drilling beam pierced through the Plague Planet, then after some twenty minutes of tense tension the planet's core was breached and the giant thing exploded, just as I scattered a few thousands Nova Mines of the exposed surfaces. Shrapnel the size of moons and asteroids splashed the Chaos Fleet, destroying dozens of Space Hulks outright, while damaging most of the rest.

"Just make sure to clean up the system." my Inquisitor wife advised me as she vanished, and reappeared among the Custodes host that engaged the Great Daemons, in melee. Because that was the best way to block the shots of my Titan Legion, of course.

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'Albesalom and Stern, go help on the planet.' I ordered with a mild voice, not even trying to sound upset. Mostly tired. Sure, melee was glorious and all, but I was trying to leave this place...

Then shook my head, as I discovered the Nurgle shard was still alive somehow, even if his plague planet had exploded around him. Damn stupid thing!

I heard myself growl with irritation, then fired the Immaterium beam again, this time catching the thing straight on and vaporizing the shard as it stood still, possibly a little disconcerted.

"Keep calm, Lord Lancefire. This black beam of yours can also kill the remaining Great Daemons, right?" The Blade spoke in a soothing voice, reminding me I had a job to do.

I just grinned and splashed the next Unclean One, burning its soul away. After a minute, I saw Canis fly at hyperspeed and bite through the dying Great Daemon, then rush to help Zath with the remaining one.

Rushed small steps arrived from the door and a little girl jumped in my arms, even turning her head to smile at me innocently. "Can I, daddy?"

I sighed inward and cursed my bleeding heart. Taking her small hand in mine, I pressed the beam button and fired on the last Great Daemon, while my Pariah powers drained the 6 Alpha Psykers once more.

"It hurts...but it's good. I am getting stronger..." Purity muttered as tears began to drop from her eyes.

Yeah. I know, little one. And this is only the beginning. There is only war, pain and the laughter of thirsty gods in this place.

'Don't splash me!' I heard Zath comment in my mind, obviously worried the Immaterium Beam would end his immortal life much too soon.

It was funny, in an eldritch sort of way. The Talismans of Vaul were created exactly to fight the C'tan Star Gods, and anything else on that scale. A mere C'tan shard was an easy target.

I hesitated for a second, then decided not to. 'Your help is valuable to me, Zath. You may feast on the corrupted souls.' I answered as the beam focused more tightly and pinned the Great Daemon like a cockroach on a dart board.

A minute later, the last Great Daemon in the void was gone, its soul ripped apart among my wolves.

Canis was also growing stronger and stronger, almost at the point he could escape the tesseract when I brought him back. Almost, but not quite there yet.

"You had fun?" I asked as my wolf nudged my glove away, then licked Purity's hand for some reason.

"Wooorf" he answered in a grave voice, then sat down to watch the combat on the main screen. Duty?

Not a wolf of many words, my brave Canis.

Then again, what will I do when he start writing poetry? Hunting the pack's enemies made sense.

"You saw me, Canis? I shot the beam at the ugly daemon!" Purity claimed in a loud voice, and jumped from my lap into the wolf's thick fur.

The wolf didn't speak, just licked her hair and watched the screen with an intense gaze.

Right. There was more war to conduct. More Space Hulks to steal, mostly for metal and some old relics.

The Death Guard to pin down and then obliterate their souls, via Pariah rituals. Was this the last of Nurgle's strength?

He should be way more powerful though. Yes, the shattered shards if caught in real-space then locked down via Pariah and Necron Pylons could be destroyed, but he only lost half his actual strength with our Garden invasion.

And since life, disease and death kept happening, Nurgle wouldn't be vanquished so easily. He should recover.

No, this second invasion was meant to influence the Great Game, possibly deny the Black Legion a foothold inside the Imperium, or acquire it at an cheaper cost.

It wasn't exactly my domain, this whole intrigue of gods, but I was slowly learning. Or maybe I was getting smarter?

Then again, my ships and troops, even my own actions were quite hard to predict by Chaos diviners, being Blank and all. Ships moving through real-space and not the Warp helped too.

As for astropathic communications, we rarely needed to. It wasn't like I had to wait for orders at every step.

Still, the last part was the main danger remaining for my Crusade. My Inquisitor wife...she didn't truly realize what the Warp did.

Although wary of daemons and corruption, she couldn't truly comprehend how the Warp functioned and stole every thought and emotion.

I clenched my fist and vanished every enemy from the surface, before they reached and infected the Hive Cities, leaving only two Unclean Ones to battle a Psi-Titan and the Demonifuge, with the Custodes keeping watch.

Most of them were already injured, since they lacked C'tan blades and my better Weave shields. Auramite armor was good, but already behind the curve.

The Tyranids had already adapted to Chaos spells and weapons, making their insect carapace the best armor in the universe against the Warp, not to mention projectile and energy weapons.

Perhaps I could help them, and help myself too. Tiamat-class armor, bonded over auramite would increase the defense of power armor by another order of magnitude.