Warhammer 40: From the League of Humans to Warhammer

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“Commander…” Nord interrupted his adjutant impatiently almost immediately.

"Do not object to my instructions. If you cannot do so, you may leave this position. I have no need for someone who cannot carry out my orders."

"Yes," the adjutant replied obsequiously. These commanders of the immortal level had existed since the founding of this empire.

Don't be fooled by the fact that their fleet commander is only leading them in pursuit; it's important to know that the fleet between Redstone Town and the fleet that has entered the subspace is also under his command.

As one of the original founders of this civilization, his orders were virtually impossible to disobey.

The adjutant had no choice but to carry out the order, even though the result would be that at least 50% of the Starfish crew in the entire fleet would be lost, no matter what.

One second later, the speed of the starfish warship began to increase dramatically.

They almost effortlessly surpassed the 60 times speed of light previously detected by the Mechanicus, heading towards the 80 times speed of light, and rapidly narrowing the gap between themselves and the Mechanicus fleet.

"Warning! Enemy fleet speed has increased to 80 times the speed of light!" The mechanical priest's warning was an abrupt report.

The great sage Philus was greatly shocked upon hearing this news.

Even though it had become a half-human, half-machine structure, its mechanical face still showed a shocked expression, dumbfounded.

"How is this possible? This is impossible! How could they possibly break through 80 times the speed of light? Our previous attempts only reached 60 times the speed of light!"

"There's no time! Is the subspace portal about to open? We need to take evasive action immediately, otherwise, once they get on our heels, we'll have nowhere to escape!"

It's clear that the question now isn't how they can achieve 80 times the speed of light. The most important question now is whether the subspace tunnel will open in time so they can slip into the subspace and escape immediately.

"Based on our estimates, it's impossible for us to escape before the enemy's attack arrives."

We'll probably need to leave some warships behind to hinder the enemy's advance, or we can disregard their attacks and continue our charge into the subspace tunnel.

"However, it is difficult for us to confirm whether the other side can maintain our subspace passage and then rush in with us to engage us in combat in the subspace."

The mechanical priest quickly reported the results predicted by the current AI to the great sage Philus.

Leave a portion of the fleet to block the flow, and the rest of the fleet escapes into the warp?

This choice was clearly humiliating, but it was obvious that the Mechanicus fleet had no other choice at this point, so it made its own decision.

"Leave one-quarter of the fleet to block the enemy, and the rest to open the subspace portal as quickly as possible, then escape from here!"

“No sacrifice is too great to be accepted. We must leave this place and then give Omnesia all the details and prepare for Omnesia’s arrival.”

"More importantly, the 60 times the speed of light that we previously reported to Omnisia was clearly problematic. We must make up for our mistakes and never let Omnisia receive such incorrect information."

The Great Sage Philus had long since changed his mind about bringing victory to Omnesia and instead wanted to report to Zhou Qing that these starfish could now achieve 80 times the speed of light.

Although the difference between 80 times the speed of light and 60 times the speed of light is only 20 times, such speeds would be absolutely fatal in fleet battles, especially when the enemy has equipment to suppress faster-than-light travel.

The speed of a warship can greatly influence the outcome of a battle.

Chapter 255 Enemies Meet on a Narrow Road, It Really Was These Starfish

A portion of the Mechanicus fleet halted its advance and instead launched an attack.

They were tasked with covering the main fleet's departure, and therefore they were prepared to die.

Just as the Mechanicus fleet was preparing to launch a counterattack, Commander Nord, the Starfish Commander, saw through their intentions at a glance.

"In human terms, this is like a hero cutting off his own arm, but so what? You can't escape!"

As a fleet commander who had experienced many interstellar wars and was extremely skilled in fleet warfare, he knew exactly how to fight.

Even though the Mechanicus had already made the difficult decision to cut its losses, Nord saw it as incredibly weak at that moment.

"Send a portion of the fleet to keep an eye on this enemy fleet, while the rest continue the pursuit, ignoring their attacks!"

"They will definitely take our shields in no time, there's nothing we can do about it. All we need to do is chase after them and keep them in check!"

Nord knew what their shield meant. They had lost a lot of technology, but some shield technology remained.

Their energy shields demonstrated formidable combat capabilities when defending against enemy attacks.

It was simply a matter of ignoring the enemy and continuing to attack their main force, allowing the enemy fleet to launch some attacks on our warships; such losses were perfectly acceptable.

The Starfish Fleet ignored the Mechanicus fleet that turned to attack them and unleashed a wave of cold violence.

No matter what weapons the Mechanicus fleet used to attack the Starfish fleet, and even though some Starfish warships were destroyed by the Mechanicus fleet, the entire fleet still ignored them.

These starfish fleets have only one goal.

That is to hold back the entire Mechanicus fleet, so that the Mechanicus fleet will be completely surrounded and destroyed by them!

"Damn it!" Archsage Philus slammed his fist on the control panel in front of him in frustration.

Imagine a great sage of the Cult of Machines hammering his own warship's control panel—what an abstract concept! This alone shows just how much of a headache he was going through!

The starfish's warships rushed towards their main fleet without regard for anything else, as if everything was already settled.

His forging fleet had previously intended to use these starfish as a pretext to achieve victory and offer it to Omnesia, but now these starfish were watching as this great sage of the Mechanicus made such a move, preparing to utterly destroy his entire fleet.

He was merely a great sage; he was ultimately no match for these normal fleet commanders. The Starfish Fleet's feigned weakness caught him completely off guard.

As time slowly passed, the two armies finally clashed!

"Fight back against them! Even if we all die here, we cannot be cowards! For the glory of Omnisiah!"

Since we can't run away anymore, let's not run, let's fight back!

As the Great Sage, he must prove to Omnesia that he is not a coward, and for Omnesia's honor, he must fight these aliens to the death.

Even though he was prepared to fight to the death, he still felt a pang of heartache while battling the aliens.

This fleet was his greatest asset in building the world, and now the entire exploration fleet is suffering massive losses. More importantly, many of his naval warfare strategies are simply unusable in this battle.

The enemy's shields are also designed to protect against slow-moving targets, which means their final battleship boarding tactic is now completely unsolvable.

These aliens don't fight them; they rely on warships to bombard each other.

Even though such battles have become common in human empires since Zhou Qing's appearance, how could a tradition that has lasted for tens of thousands of years be changed so easily?

The Great Sage Philus was extremely anxious about the current battle situation.

Meanwhile, in the warp, Zhou Qing was leading his fleet toward his location. Although it seemed that the battle between the starfish and the Mechanicus fleet had not lasted long, more than ten Terra days had actually passed.

At this point, Zhou Qing's fleet was only a day's journey away from the battlefield where the Mechanicus was fighting the enemy.

Reinforcements were already on their way, and Zhou Qing had also seen the situation on the battlefield.

"Little Grey, zoom in on the target. Why do these warships look so familiar?"

It had been several years since Zhou Qing arrived in the Warhammer universe, and for some reason, when he saw the fleets chasing the Mechanicus, they looked very familiar.

“I feel like I’ve seen this warship design somewhere before. Little Gray, pull up my database to compare warship designs.”

Scientists have very useful brains, but they also have so much knowledge that Zhou Qing usually chooses to keep unimportant information to himself.

Instead of trying to figure this out in my head, I might as well just give it to my AI and let it retrieve it from the database.

[Received. The enemy warship model has been entered into the database and is being compared. Comparison complete. A total of 1996543 similar targets were found.]

[Further optimization is underway; the comparison has been completed, and I have selected the most similar target and conducted an analysis.]

The analysis results are in: the warship most likely to resemble the design of the Sethsar Empire's warships.

"Those starfish?" Since the enemy of this empire also looked similar to starfish, and Little Gray directly showed him which empire's warships these warships resembled.

This allowed Zhou Qing to lock onto his target immediately.

[If nothing unexpected happens, it should be that Starfish Empire; the database has marked it as a kill target!]

Human citizens have both the obligation and the right to can these starfish or eliminate them entirely if they encounter them!

Zhou Qing lowered his head and looked at his ship exhibition room, especially the name of this ship from the War Month, Europa 7.

"What a small world!"

"I never expected to end up here and run into these damn starfish!"

Zhou Qing couldn't help but mutter to himself. He hadn't expected that he would encounter such an abstract thing even though he was already in the unfamiliar universe of Warhammer.

He's practically in a different universe, yet he still encounters these starfish, humanity's former enemies?

"Trajan, order our troops to prepare for battle. We must wipe out all these starfish in one fell swoop. This is our most important task now!"

Regardless of whether they were once an enemy of the Human Federation, just the fact that they resembled starfish and even had similar warship designs meant they deserved to be killed.

Chapter 256 Zhou Qing Arrives Amidst the Pressure of a Planetary-Level Warship

"Yes, Commander!" Trajan chose to carry out the order, but after he finished relaying the order and stood behind Zhou Qing again, he couldn't help but ask a question.

"Commander, I just overheard you communicating with your AI. Do you have any information about the alien we're about to face?"

Anyone who isn't mentally unstable would likely assume, after hearing the conversation between Zhou Qing and his AI, that Zhou Qing must have some understanding of the alien.

"Yes, but you could also say no."

"I do have some understanding of it, but the alien civilization I know shouldn't be that weak."

At this point, Zhou Qing could only confirm that the starfish looked similar, but he couldn't be sure that these starfish were the enemies he had encountered before. Therefore, Zhou Qing didn't claim to know anything about them.

Trajan was completely baffled, not understanding the meaning behind Zhou Qing's words. What did he mean by having some understanding, but not being certain if he was the one he truly understood? Was he really that weak?

Trajan glanced at the data sent by the Mechanicus, then recalled the weaponry once possessed by the human empire, and finally shook his head helplessly.

Trajan then glanced once more at the warship beneath his feet, Europa VII: The War Moon.

Well, compared to the warships that the War Commander brought out, then 60 times the light intensity is indeed insignificant and can be considered weak.

Tula didn't quite understand, but that wasn't a problem.

He was just a minor commander of the Imperial Guards; all he had to do was obey Zhou Qing's orders.

As for the rest, they have nothing to do with him, and he doesn't need to care.

After all, he was just a military commander. As for how strong the enemy was and how to fight them, that was something a war general should consider.

Trajan suppressed his curiosity and prepared to execute the battle plan, while the Mechanicus fleet was already in dire straits under the attack of the Starfish Fleet.

Their numbers are dwindling rapidly, and the starfish's attacks are becoming increasingly fierce. Several massive mechanical arks are united, using the Void Shield, a top-tier shield, to desperately resist the enemy's attacks.

Meanwhile, ordinary destroyers and cruisers would lay down a large number of traps to hinder the enemy's attack, causing them to encounter minor obstacles on their way to advance, thus delaying the enemy and inflicting more damage.

The Mechanicus fleet was almost at its last moment. Simply turning back to engage the pursuing fleet was not too difficult for the Mechanicus fleet. The biggest challenge was the naval fleet that suddenly appeared behind them.