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The universe is vast beyond mortal comprehension, an expanse so infinite that its size defies measurement. Within this boundless void, billions of galaxies drift like scattered embers in the cold abyss.
The Milky Way is but one among these countless stellar behemoths.
Among its swirling arms of dust and fire, where human ambition dares to carve its mark, a staggering 300 billion stars burn, their silent radiance stretching across 100,000 light-years of cosmic expanse.
Yet for all their achievements, mankind remains fragile—a flickering flame in a maelstrom of darkness.
It is only through the divine light of the Emperor that they endure, clinging to existence in the far reaches of this indifferent universe.
To those who dwell in this age of blood and fire, the Imperium of Man is the mightiest force they have ever known.
And yet, in the face of the unfeeling void, even this vast empire is but a speck of dust, a doomed civilization waging an eternal war against the abyss.
Then came the Great Rift.
A wound torn into reality itself, splitting the galaxy asunder and drawing the Immaterium ever closer.
The etheric winds raged, howling across the stars, and with them came war—war in its most monstrous form.
The flames of conflict devoured entire worlds.
Even as a son of the Emperor returned, the price of mankind's survival grew ever steeper, a debt paid in blood and iron.
The Imperium's vast war machine groaned to life once more.
From the Konor System, countless fleets set sail, war engines bristling with the might of the Omnissiah. Their destination—the Charadon Sector, where doom awaited.
The first clash erupted in the Obolis System, deep within the Charadon Sector—a realm already ravaged by war.
Obolis, a binary system, burned with a cruel, unforgiving brilliance.
A blue-white star loomed over its lesser counterpart, an aging red dwarf locked in the grip of its stellar master. The brutal dance of gravity twisted the planets of this system, forcing them into chaotic, unstable orbits.
Storms of radiation and merciless solar winds scoured their surfaces, shaping them into cosmic crucibles of agony and destruction.
Four planets orbit within the gravitational chaos of the Obolis system. Their battered atmospheres, thick with heavy elements and isotopes, have transformed them into industrial powerhouses, feeding the ever-hungry war machine of humanity
Yet in the face of such hostility, mankind had persevered.
For where nature withered life, war demanded its due.
On Obolis IV, deep beneath its tortured crust, the hive cities of man clung to survival.
Mining operations flourished, extracting the rich heavy elements and isotopes that fueled the Imperium's insatiable war machine. Massive orbital refineries toiled ceaselessly, their labor vital to the continued survival of the sector.
But their labor has not gone unnoticed.
War had found them.
The Orks had come.
Savage and relentless, they cared nothing for industry or conquest. They did not build. They only took.
For years, the nobles of Obolis IV had chosen cowardice over valor, offering tributes to the greenskin hordes rather than risk costly battle.
But this time, fate had chosen differently.
For in the heart of the system, a fleet of the Imperium now prowled—a crusading armada under the command of one of the Emperor's own sons.
The battle ignited in the upper orbits of the third gas giant, where the darkness of space was torn asunder by the fury of war.
Torpedoes streaked across the void.
Lance batteries carved brilliant scars of fire.
Warships clashed in a silent, apocalyptic ballet, a spectacle of destruction that raged without sound, only fury.
The Ork warships were monstrous, their patchwork hulls defying all logic. Some bled thick plumes of black smoke as though powered by ancient steam engines. The tech-priests had long since ceased to question such madness.
Yet fly they did—somehow.
And they fought.
The Ork fleet surged forward, uncaring of casualties, their vessels colliding with the Imperial battle line in a brutish attempt at boarding action.
Against them, the Imperium's finest stood ready.
The Novamarines led the charge, their Primaris warriors wielding the Emperor's wrath with unrelenting precision.
They met the greenskin assault blade to blade, bolt to skull, flame to flesh.
On the shattered hull of a dying Ork warship, the carnage reached its apex.
The vessel, wreathed in flames, vomited its crew into the void—thousands of greenskins screaming in guttural rage as they were flung into the abyss.
Still, the Ork Boss bellowed his defiance.
In his madness, he grabbed a cowering grot and smashed it against the bulkhead, venting his fury as the surrounding boyz roared their approval.
"Krump da humies! Dis is our scrap!"
The warboss's voice boomed through the fleet's vox-channels, stirring his warriors into a feral frenzy.
And then it came.
A single, deafening cry of warlust.
"WAAAGH!"
It rippled through the fleet like a shockwave, rolling across the battlefield as the Orks launched an unrelenting counterattack.
But the Novamarines did not falter.
Corvo, Chapter Master of the Novamarines, stood aboard the bridge of the Emperor's Sword, his expression as unmoving as the adamantium beneath his boots.
By his side, the Chapter Priest and Librarian observed the battle in grim silence.
"Their doom is certain," Corvo declared, his voice an iron promise. "But we can hasten it."
His gauntleted hand moved to the hololithic display, selecting the largest Ork vessel—a bloated, monstrous battleship at the heart of the enemy formation.
Corvo knew the battle on the surface needed reinforcements—fast.
If the war dragged on, it would tip in the Orks' favor.
They were a brutal, relentless species—more than mere beasts. They were a plague. A fungus.
A single order was given.
"We take the war to them. We board. We end this."
Aboard their waiting drop pods, the Primaris warriors prepared for war.
Bolters were checked. Chainswords hummed with eager menace. Faith burned within their hearts.
For the Orks, this was but another battle.
For the Novamarines, it was judgment.
As the drop pods launched, streaking through the void like flaming meteors, Corvo spoke the words that had guided warriors of the Imperium for millennia:
"For the Emperor."
The words were simple.
But they carried the weight of a million battles, a thousand victories, and an empire built on sacrifice.
The time had come for blood and fire.
For the Emperor's will was absolute.
And tonight, the stars would burn in his name.