Warhammer: Don't Call Me the God of All Machines

Chapter 807 The Peril of Vulcan

"Our extermination order did not have the desired effect."

"An invisible warp barrier is appearing on the anvil, preventing us from freeing the human captives on this planet."

"The scanning array detected a powerful subspace energy reaction. The anvil is now riddled with spatial rifts, linking the Sea of ​​Souls to the real world."

"Your Excellency Vulcan, we must admit a fact: we have failed."

"We are not only unable to rescue those human prisoners, but we can't even kill them quickly and spare them from torture."

On the bridge deck of the Undying Ember, the ordinary captain who was in charge of the overall situation showed a rare expression of sorrow and frustration.

This legendary captain, capable of piloting the Primarch flagship, underwent numerous mechanical modifications to his brain to suppress the interference and influence of negative emotions such as fear.

The facts are right in front of them, and they cannot be changed whether they accept them or not.

In fact, the captain had already realized an extremely terrifying possibility—the Ork and the Chaos Rebels had joined forces again!
With the Chaos rebels in front and the Ork besieging them from behind, even mortals who knew nothing about military affairs realized that this was a crisis that could bring about annihilation.

The Lord of Fire Dragons watched helplessly as an unsettling, dim yellow mist gradually emerged on Gao Ge's anvil.

Countless figures of warp demons flickered incessantly in the mist, greedily devouring the human prisoners held within.

Vulcan's heart sank to the bottom. He realized that not only had he failed to free these humans from the torment of the Orks, but he had also pushed them to an even more terrifying fate.

Even the Lord of Nocturne, whose will was as firm as steel, began to doubt himself at this moment. Was this choice a mistake from the very beginning?

"Subspace teleportation fluctuations detected!"

"Our fleet has been subjected to a targeted, teleported boarding attack by the enemy!"

However, bad news kept coming one after another. The captain screamed in despair as the green dots belonging to the fire lizard on the holographic projection were turning scarlet at a visible speed.

The most densely packed crimson color belongs to the flagship, the Undying Ember.

"Launch a counterattack immediately! Deploy the anti-traitor forces and annihilate these traitors!"

Vulcan paused for a second, lost in thought, before entering a state of pure war.

No matter how much you regret it now, it's useless. The mistake has already been made, and the only way out is to fight with all your might to break through the encirclement.

"Change the fleet's course, find the Green Fleet's weak point, and seize the opportunity to break out."

The enemy's boarding attack was not a fatal blow to the fire salamander.

The expeditionary fleet that Vulcan is currently in has more than 40,000 Astartes salamanders. Any enemy that dares to board will suffer a merciless retaliation from the Sons of Nocturne.

Moreover, the most distinctive feature of the Salamander's warships is their thick hide and robust construction, with numerous defensive barriers and anti-boarding automatic weapons installed inside.

Once the warship's main control AI detects an enemy boarding in a certain area, it will immediately lock the blast doors and lower the heavy metal walls.

Even if the enemy manages to open the barrier using molten metal weapons and warp demons, it will buy them precious time.

What Vulcan was really worried about was that after his fleet was boarded, the enemies who entered the warships would specifically sabotage the warships' propulsion systems, including key facilities such as engines, reactors, and power cables and pipelines.

They are currently looking for an opportunity to break out of the Ork encirclement, and slowing down at this point would be tantamount to suicide.

“We can’t do it!”

"The green-skinned fleet has completed its encirclement. They are coming from all directions, and we cannot find a way to break through."

Vulcan couldn't help but quicken his breathing.

At this moment, even if he had a hundred skills, he was in a predicament where he had no way to use his strength.

The enemy's traps were set one after another, leaving him no chance to break out.

"In that case, we have no choice but to fight to the death."

"Activate the star harvester and aim at the Sun in the Anvil Galaxy."

"Immediately catalyze this prime-age sun and make it undergo a supernova reaction."

"Our fleet has taken cover behind the anvil to minimize the damage from the star's influence."

The captain's consciousness connected with the Thinker of the Undying Ember, using the supercomputing power of the warship's main control AI to simulate the consequences of this decision.

In the blink of an eye, the data simulation was completed, and the dazzling results struck the captain like a thunderbolt.

If the Sun in the Anvil Galaxy were to undergo a supernova, not to mention the extent of the damage it would inflict on the Orks, their Salamander fleet would suffer heavy casualties, with more than half of its forces losing their lives.

56.32% of warships will be directly hit by the solar storm, and even with the weakening of the Void Shield and warship armor, it will still cause serious damage.

They had already witnessed the terrifying power of the Star Harvester when they dealt with the green-skinned orcs in a star system.

But now, do they even have a choice?

They were left with no choice but to fight to the death, either surrounded by green-skinned orcs or paralyzed by Chaos rebels.

The captain chose to obey the Primarch's will, the most difficult decision he had made since becoming the commander of the Undying Embers.

It's better to kill a thousand enemies while losing eight hundred of your own than to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers of green-skinned orcs.

No sacrifice was too great to be accepted; these were all necessary costs to break through the encirclement.

The Undying Ember changed its course, and its Void Shield was already operating at full power. The intense attention from the Ork made it the target of the most firepower.

The sudden change of course of this giant ship, which was over a hundred kilometers long, instantly smashed some green-skinned warships that had gotten too close.

The ram of the Undying Ember tore through the rusty armor of the orc cruiser, and the adamantite keel modified by the Mechanicus erupted with a shriek of stress release.

A shimmering nebula of hundreds of green-skinned war machines exploded into phosphorescent flames on the surface of the Void Shield. The burning debris flowed backward along the Void Shield, illuminating the hull of the Undying Ember with the flames from the engine detonation.

"The Stellar Harvester is at 97% charge, and the main reactor is under overload warning."

The binary prayers uttered by the mechanical priests on the warship echoed across the bridge.

They are doing their utmost to bless the machine soul.

Normally, activating the Star Harvester would require consuming the power output of other warship systems, but in this desperate situation, they must forcibly use the Star Harvester while maintaining the normal operation of the Void Shield and the power system.

This is a huge burden for the machine soul. Even if it succeeds, it will still need to undergo a major overhaul and update.

But these consequences are all things for the future. If we can't even get through the present, how can we talk about the future?
A dazzling beam of radiation pierced through the dark cloud formed by the green-skinned orc warships, opening a path of light straight to the sun, much like Moses parting the sea.

The Orcs were clearly aware of humanity's plans; they knew that humans possessed a terrifying method to forcibly interfere with the sun's operation, steal stellar energy and matter, and thus induce supernova explosions.

But even if they wanted to stop it, they simply couldn't.

The Ork were stunned when they were celebrating that they had finally blocked the green behemoth's warship.

However, the sun's riots came faster than expected. A minute after the radiation disappeared, the giant yellow dwarf began to unleash its agonizing roar.

The violently reacting solar core unleashed an unprecedented solar storm.

Flares and prominences, spewing fire, burst out of the sun's gravitational pull, annihilating everything within their range with ultra-high-temperature plasma.

The radiation storm melted the warship's armor into a waterfall of liquid metal, instantly killing all the Ork inside.

The encirclement formed by the Orcs was instantly thrown into chaos by the raging solar winds.

The violent electromagnetic storm caused jamming and interference across the entire frequency band, rendering even the Orcs' "I Think Power" communication ineffective in the face of this absolute external force.

The green-skinned warships lost their command and crashed around like headless flies, their trajectories even overlapping, causing them to collide and trigger even greater secondary explosions.

Even the battle moons that revealed their true forms struggled to withstand the sun's wrath.

Their waaagh force field shields are enough to sustain them for a while, but they can't last forever.

Before a raging star, humans, orcs, or even the Chaos rebels are all so insignificant.

Humanity's deadly weapons severely damaged it, reducing its original lifespan of billions of years to a mere moment of thousands or even hundreds of years.

And all that energy will be released in the form of gamma rays and electromagnetic radiation within this extremely short period of time.

The flash of light that appeared as the sun breathed its last breath can be seen in most parts of the Ghoul Cluster.

Even more solar material that hasn't had time to react will be ejected outward at an astonishing speed of one-tenth the speed of light, creating an "eggshell"-like structure made of expanding gas and dust.

If one could stand in a safe place and witness the explosion of a supernova, it would be a breathtaking sight that no language or words can describe.

The most fundamental forces of the universe are released in a short period of time, creating destructive power that surpasses any weapon.

However, for the salamander fleet that caused this disaster, the green-skinned orcs were simply the ones who perished a little earlier.

The green-skinned warships on the side closest to the sun have been destroyed; the wrath of the star is like a pair of giant hands, gently smoothing out any ripples on the table.

"Prepare for the impact!"

"3...2...1!"

The captain of the Undying Ember roared at full volume, and the next second, the side of the giant ship closest to the sun trembled violently as if it had been hit by an invisible punch.

Even the Void Shield could not withstand such an attack. After a burst of deep purple light, the warship's shield system burst open like a fragile bubble.

The electromagnetic storm destroyed most of the warship's electrical system, and even though the Thundercloud-class planetary warships were designed with electromagnetic interference resistance from the outset, it was to no avail.

Talking about defense without considering the scale of the attack is simply dishonest.

When Roche was considering it, he never thought that the warship would have to take the full force of the supernova explosion.

"Void Shield overload! Air tightness failure from C-22 deck to K-56 deck!"

"The pipeline repair team suffered more than 78% damage, and the rest are on their way to the site of the damage."

Blood flowed from the captain's eyes, eardrums, nostrils, and mouth.

His mind is connected to the warship's soul, deeply bound together, and when the soul suffers severe damage, he will also feel the corresponding pain as if he were there.

Even the captain's skin showed severe burn marks.

The outer armor of the Undying Ember had melted, and the exposed antennas, side guns, and towers were completely wiped out and destroyed.

The Nocturne Star behemoth decorations carved by the salamanders were completely destroyed, and the entire warship was plunged into darkness, tumbling and smashing more asteroids and celestial bodies.

However, this warship managed to hold on, while many more strike cruisers patrolling nearby were directly destroyed by the solar storm, and the mortals and fire lizards on board were instantly killed.

Vulcan felt thousands of his offspring suddenly lose consciousness; he closed his eyes tightly, waves of pain gnawing at his heart.

The heavily damaged Salamander warship sailed into the back of the Gorgon Anvil, a planet that had also been severely impacted by a solar storm.

The planet's atmosphere was forcibly stripped away by the solar wind, and what appeared on the surface were terrifying storms powerful enough to destroy continents.

Countless mortals corrupted by chaos were instantly pulverized by the storm, and boulders on the ground were swept up by the storm and disappeared without a trace along with the escaping atmospheric matter.

Vulcan could even see with the naked eye the white atmospheric material forming concentric rings of torrents on the planet's surface, like a comet with a long tail.

Those demons who were summoned to the real universe by the Great Manifestation through rituals had just tasted the wonders of the human soul when they were forced to return to the non-material world, and immediately let out a series of unwilling roars.

The Primarchs, including Luo Jia, had not expected that their gentle Vulcan brothers would use such a violent and decisive method to carve out a path to survival.

"It seems that not only have we changed, but even the brothers who are loyal to the false emperor are no longer the same as before."

Although the Great Whisperer's teleportation ritual was forcibly interrupted, at least some Chaos Space Marines and Warp Demons were teleported into the Salamander's warship.

Loka, along with Angron and Forgrim, the three demonic principalities, descended directly upon Vulcan's flagship.

The internal circuitry of the Undying Ember is severely faulty, leaving only a few emergency lumen lamps to provide weak illumination.

Blinding sparks of electricity began to fall from the ceiling and inside the armor, plunging everyone into panic.

The pipeline damage repair team was dispatched immediately to plug the cracked areas as much as possible to prevent the internal air pressure from dropping rapidly and becoming unbalanced.

However, even in this chaotic and passive situation, Luo Jia dealt another heavy blow to the flagship.

Three Primarchs, accompanied by their trusted retinues, descended upon this place.

In the dim light, the terrifying power of these enormous shadowy figures, each at least five to six meters tall, was amplified. A hazy, chaotic light emanated from them, piercing the psychological defenses of the onlookers. The damage repair team was wiped out instantly; the ferocious Chaos Space Marines, all blessed and enhanced by the warp, were now fully capable of fighting alongside the Proto-Forged Space Marines.

Especially the enchanted warriors under Luo Jia's command, whose bodies have been severely mutated and twisted, exhibiting some characteristics of demons inhabiting their bodies.

Some of them were covered in scarlet spikes, while others had arms that had become flesh and bone, transforming into grotesque shapes resembling scythes.

The enchanted warrior's head sprouted demonic horns resembling bull horns, piercing directly through the protection of his tactical helmet and extending wildly upwards.

The pipe damage repair team, equipped with power armor capable of surviving in a vacuum, was nothing more than lambs to the slaughter in the face of these enemies that were practically invisible.

When the signals they sent before they died reached the ears of the nearest Salamander Space Marines, squads of Salamanders immediately sped towards the location.

These Vulcan's Sons, clad in green-painted Star-type power armor and wielding promethium flamethrowers and molten launchers, quickly detected an incredibly powerful psionic reaction.

The think tank members felt that their heads might explode at any moment under the pressure of the other party's psychic energy. They were forced to kneel on the ground under the excruciating pain, which felt like a direct craniotomy.

"It's those demonic archetypes!" the think tank roared before dying.

"Those traitors!"

The next moment, as Luo Jia, who was strolling, slightly clenched his fist, a "snap" sound came from inside the think tank's helmet.

The towering fire lizard suddenly stopped moving, its corpse slowly falling forward onto the cold deck under the influence of the warship's gravity generator.

Large amounts of blood mixed with brain matter flowed from the broken tactical helmets and the gaps in the links, deeply agitating the furious nerves of the other Salamander Space Marines.

The deadly metallic storm unleashed by the Stormblaster, mixed with the fiery dragons swept by the Promethium Flamethrower, engulfed the Chaos Space Marines pouring out of the portal.

The loyal plasma never overheats; each giant plasma burst, upon contact with the enemy's body, immediately begins to evaporate and annihilate, melting everything with its extreme heat.

Faced with the grand scene before him, Luo Jia simply smiled dismissively.

He is very different from before.

How could such a ridiculous attack from a mortal object possibly harm his body, which was formed from primordial power?

Luo Jia waved his hand, and the Enlightened Warhammer immediately burst forth with brilliant light, blocking all ranged attacks in front of him.

This was not just blocking the attack; Luo Jia was manipulating and reversing time, reflecting all those deadly attacks back at the fire lizard.

Suddenly, a violent explosion occurred right next to the salamander warriors.

The reversed explosive returned to the barrel with perfect precision, and the burst of flames instantly destroyed these sturdy and durable weapons.

The shrapnel from the explosion left scratches on the adamantite armor, and some unlucky ones had their goggles pierced directly, with shrapnel penetrating their brains.

Under the influence and blurring of the chaotic forces, even the indestructible adamantite armor underwent subtle changes, its physical properties being distorted and rewritten.

The fire lizard, blasted away, struggled desperately on the ground, but Luo Jia quickly distorted gravity again.

An overwhelming sense of oppression firmly suppressed these powerful Astartes, rendering them unable to move no matter how hard they tried.

Only a small number of anti-psychic bombs were deployed, which could cause Luo Jia some trouble.

At least when faced with those flying black stone bombs, the Great Whisperer needs to easily sweep them away with his warhammer.

A profound sense of despair spread through the eyes of the fire salamanders.

These Astartes, selected and forged from the fires of Nocturne, possess an unwavering will, yet they are helpless when faced with such an overwhelming enemy.

Aside from risking their lives to buy time, they couldn't even manage to inflict damage on the Primarch.

Foghrim's soft laughter echoed in the cabin, as if he were on a different timeline from the others, transcending the concept of "speed".

With a casual flick of his snake tail, he silently appeared beside the fire lizards and, with a tender, kiss-like motion, plunged his piercing scimitar into their necks.

The Salamander Space Marine was instantly decapitated, and then the Primarch reached into the enemy's chest with one of his claws, as if taking something out of a bag, and took out the unharvested gene seed from the chest cavity, stuffing it into his mouth and chewing it.

"Hmm~"

"It has a kind of explosive, spicy flavor; no wonder it's a warrior born from the planet Nocturne."

Foghrim commented like a top gourmet, sticking out his long, narrow tongue to lick the bloodstains on his lips.

Angron didn't have so many fancy moves; he simply wielded his black sword, using absolute savagery and violence to tear the fire lizard in front of him to pieces.

The black sword was incredibly sharp, and each time it struck the adamantite, it would tear through the heavy armor covering the Son of Vulcan amidst blinding sulfurous sparks.

Even when facing these heavily armored enemies, the Black Sword changed its combat form, sprouting countless brass serrations like sharp teeth, which spun rapidly with a hoarse roar.

This group of over twenty Salamander Space Marines only lasted about ten seconds before being brutally slaughtered.

There was an insurmountable gap between Space Marines and Primarchs.

Moreover, the Primarchs like Loka were beings who embraced Warp Gods and received numerous blessings.

Given enough time, they could even slaughter all the salamanders and other guards on the entire Undying Embers.

Three Primarchs personally joined the rebellion—a treatment that had never occurred even during the Great Rebellion.

Their goal was to kill and capture Vulcan, but if they could also besiege the city and deal with the reinforcements, such as Guilliman who was on his way to provide support, that would also be a good option.

In fact, compared to the kind-hearted Vulcan, the three demonic principalities present harbored ten times more malice towards the Macragge.

The perfect city of Luojia was destroyed by Guilliman, and Nukelia in Angron was also blown to pieces by Guilliman. Even the arrogant Forgrim couldn't stand Guilliman's hypocritical "sincere" attitude.

Forgrim would have no qualms about using his scimitar to slit Guilliman's throat and let him taste the agony of impending death.

The Undying Embers is guarded not only by the fire salamanders Astartes, but also by the mortal auxiliary troops and ironman units belonging to the Eighteenth Legion.

These fearless mortal auxiliary troops witnessed the Emperor's angels perish one by one, yet they gritted their teeth and displayed the courage of the Nocturne people.

Undeterred by death, they strapped themselves with molten metal and plasma bombs and charged at the Chaos Space Marines and the Primarchs.

The Sentinel Ironmen also displayed a variety of spiritual powers.

Now that the subspace rift has opened, a large amount of aetheric energy is pouring out, which objectively amplifies the destructive power of X-Force.

Luo Jia stared in astonishment at those steel-boned lumps of iron that unleashed psionic lightning, as well as special attack forms such as radiation shockwaves, laser beams, and cryogenic storms converted from psionic energy, all directed at her.

"An iron man who can use psionic powers?"

This level of psychic energy was useless against Luo Jia. He was just curious why these soulless beings could also use psychic power.

He casually grabbed a Sentinel Iron Man and placed it in front of him. The creature was still fiercely resisting, and the high-temperature flames scorched Luo Jia's scales, but could not cause any damage.

The Primarch's resistance to psionic energy is now ridiculously high; Luo Jia only felt a slight warmth, and nothing else.

He used his claws to tear open the living metal body and pulled out the reactive organ that carried the X gene.

"A magical technology that can simulate psionic energy and leverage the power of the ether!"

Luo Jia was once again alarmed by the new technologies that had emerged from humanity.

If there were more Sentinel Iron Men here, their combined psionic attack could threaten his anchor point in the real universe.

A relentless army of demons surged forth, shrieking as they pierced the warship's armor and swept toward the other decks.

In the darkness, monsters originating from humanity's most terrifying nightmares began to roam, preying on any visible soul or life form.

Luo Jia, who was slaughtering the guards of the Undying Ember, suddenly held her breath.

He and his other Primarch brothers turned their heads together, looking in a direction they had ignored.

A massive black shadow, comparable in size to them, was rapidly approaching from the darkness, radiating intense fury and an overwhelming sense of oppression akin to a natural disaster.

The only one who could give Luo Jia this feeling was Vulcan, who was also a Primarch.

The Great Manifestation showed no fear. He even opened his arms, and in the surrounding darkness, one eerie candle after another was lit, fueled by oils and souls extracted from human bodies.

"You finally came!"

"My fire dragon brother!"

"I thought you could still put up with it."

Luo Jia burst into laughter, and the Lord of Nocturne Star, wielding the Dawn Messenger, emerged from the darkness.

His skin was charred black, blending perfectly into the surrounding darkness.

The dark green power armor was covered with fine, dragon-scale-like scales, and the most durable radiant gold was decorated along the edges of the armor with Vulcan's incredible forging techniques, creating a dazzling and magnificent suit of armor.

The dragon-skin cloak billowed behind him without wind, now resembling the mane of a ferocious beast, intimidating the enemy before him.

Vulcan's bloodshot eyes flashed with a fierce light as his gaze swept over Luo Jia, Fugrim, and Angron in turn.

He saw the corpses of fire lizards scattered everywhere. His sons had proudly died in battle against an enemy they could not defeat, without flinching even as death approached.

By the name of the Emperor, Vulcan is about to be melted into molten iron by his own rage.

Only the fury he felt upon seeing the Ork's report on how they tortured human prisoners could compare to this moment.

Reason told Vulcan that he could not defeat the three Primarchs on his own, or even in a one-on-one fight, he was not confident of victory.

Vulcan never saw himself as a warrior; he was a blacksmith, a guardian, but certainly not a qualified warrior.

But now, regardless of whether he is a soldier or not, he has no other choice.

Vulcan could not stand by and watch his own children being slaughtered and the mortals who were loyal to him being abused.

He had to step forward, just as he had once stood alone at the Web of the Golden Throne, wielding the Seven Hammers Amulet to fight against the endless warp demons.

Angron nodded slightly to Vulcan; he had no prior grudge against the Lord of Fire Dragons.

Even during the Great Crusade, the few acts of goodwill that Angron received came from Vulcan.

Apart from Kurtz, no one would hate Vulcan, and Kurtz was simply twisted in his heart, hating the kind nature in Vulcan.

The Blood God bestowed upon him not only a thirst for killing and bloodshed, but also an appreciation for courage and glory.

He would challenge the strong, and then offer their heads as sacrifices to the Blood God.

The Lord of Red Sand's black sword slowly swayed, shielding Luo Jia and Fugrim behind him.

"He is...mine!"

Angron let out an extremely unpleasant growl, like the chilling noise of two rusty brass battle axes rubbing against each other.

Forgrim didn't want to fight with Angron, that brainless idiot, and he wasn't surprised at all that the other would cut him down as well.

Luo Jia also took a half step back, handing the first opportunity to make a move to Anglong.

At this moment, in the Anvil Galaxy, the solar storm continues, with stars releasing energy every second that would normally take millions of years to release.

The Salamander warship, having suffered half its damage, finally managed to hide behind the anvil, using the star and the Earth's magnetic field to resist.

The other green-skinned warships and combat moons also took similar evasive actions. Everyone was suffering in the solar storm, and a truce was temporarily formed.

The most dangerous confrontation took place inside the cabins of the Undying Ember.

If Vulcan is defeated, killed, or captured, all the human fleets will be powerless to fight back, with only two possible outcomes: being killed by a solar storm or being destroyed by Ork warships.

Vulcan felt heavy-hearted; he knew he could only win, not lose.

"Come on, Angron, let me see just how much you've improved since you joined the Blood God and became His war hound!"

Vulcan strode forward, charging toward Angron's ferocious and monstrous demonic form.

The Blood God's demon prince roared and met the Dawn Messenger head-on without flinching or dodging.

The black sword and the Dawnbringer collided, and the surging energy waves instantly tore apart the surrounding cabins, with large amounts of gas and corpses being swept away by the gale.

An incredibly brutal battle unfolded between two imperial heirs in the most cruel way.

(End of this chapter)