Chapter 172: Warhammer: What Do You Mean You Conquered the Zerg

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Protagonist:

Lin En

Lena

In an instant, the last forty Ramming Boats went berserk and were completely wiped out.

Only two that luckily escaped the vortex's range turned around and fled like madmen.

Those Green Skin Boys no longer thought of achieving merit; they only wanted to stay alive.

In the starry sky, the two vortices spun for several full minutes before slowly closing and disappearing.

They forcibly carved out a "Vacuum Zone" amidst the chaotic Asteroid Belt.

The fleet clearing the way ahead also came under attack.

They had just exited the Asteroid Belt when a Green Skin scrap fleet burst out from the side.

Dozens of dilapidated ships cobbled together from scrap iron had twisted turrets and hulls that could fall apart at any moment.

But their paint jobs were a mess—green, red, yellow, everything.

Without the Asteroid Belt to cover them, they were discovered early by the detection system.

They immediately formed up with two Moon-class Cruisers as the core.

Six Escort Ships formed an escort formation, like a group of well-trained guards, standing in front of the Zhu Liang Ji.

The Main Cannons fired in unison.

Beams intertwined in the starry sky, tearing open the Darkness.

The lead ship of the scrap fleet instantly exploded into a fireball; they couldn't even get close before being blown into Fragments.

The battle ended quickly.

The path-clearing fleet suffered almost no losses; only one Escort Ship had its Void Shield energy depleted and was scratched by a stray shot.

But the mood of the entire fleet was far from optimistic.

On the Bridge of the Precept Ruler, the officers remained silent, their expressions grim.

As the Empire, or at least the Imperial Faction, they had actually been tricked by Green Skins?

Those madmen who only knew how to fight actually set an ambush in advance?

Someone secretly glanced at Luna.

The Regent King stood at the Bridge Center, her face ashen, also silent.

Her eyes stared at the empty Asteroid Belt outside the Window, no one knew what she was thinking.

A bad start, the initiative lost.

Now there was only one path left: to clash head-on with the Green Skins!

But Luna was not discouraged.

She stood on the Bridge, looking at the dejected officers, and clenched her iron fist.

She thought of Lin En!

The culprit who had lured her fleet into a Trap!

But the more he obstructed her, the more it proved one thing.

He was afraid.

Afraid she would seize Kal II first and become Expedition Marshal.

He was afraid of being trampled under her Feet.

"Issue the order." She spoke, without any emotion.

All the officers looked up at her.

"The Fleet retreats one hundred thousand meters; the two Mobile Shipyards follow; all damaged Ships undergo repairs on the spot."

"Those severely damaged, replace spare parts directly; within Three Days, I want to see all Ships restored to Combat Power."

"Then let the despicable Keli Feng and these Green Skins see our resolve!"

Since Lin En's hands weren't clean, Luna wouldn't be blamed for playing tricks either.

This was an unspoken rule both sides understood.

As the leader of the Chaos Faction, Luna naturally couldn't let Lin En prepare his fleet in peace.

While the Precept Ruler was test-flying, another front was secretly unfolding at the Bravius Main Hive.

The Machine Cult and the Noble Council joined forces to help Luna's people infiltrate the maintenance personnel ranks.

Lin En naturally knew about this; it would be hard for him not to know.

He had inserted a large number of Genestealers into the maintenance ranks; those Gene Thieves were spread across every key post, and any movement escaped Lena's eyes.

But these Mortals with some knowledge and skill were already heavily affected by Chaos Corruption.

Not to mention there was an old nest of Chaos Cultists among the high levels of the Main Hive.

So Lin En did not stop their infiltration with all his might.

It would take a lot of energy and might not even prevent it, so he simply let things slide.

Anyway, he had plenty of ways to deal with the Chaos Cultists' "sabotage."

What Chaos Cultists were best at was planting wrong seeds in the right places.

They infiltrated not to cause sabotage—that was too low-level.

They generally chose to "help in a way that hinders."

In the spaceport's Data Sanctuary, a figure in a technician's robe was operating a terminal.

His fingers flew across the keyboard, calling up the maintenance schematics of an escort ship nearing completion.

The Light Spear's focus parameters were shifted by 0.001 degrees.

The plasma reactor's fuel ratio was adjusted to the edge of the safety threshold—just meeting standards, but only a hair's breadth from the danger line.

Every modification was extremely minute, so minute that no routine check could detect any problem.

The ship would perform normally during sea trials, with all data within acceptable ranges.

But during sustained high-intensity combat, the Light Spear would inexplicably veer off target.

The reactor's power would fluctuate from time to time, and the Void Shield would flicker at the most critical moment.

By then, the Mechanical Priests would inspect every system and recite all the prayers, yet find no cause.

Because the "maintenance records" would show everything normal, they could only attribute it to the machine spirit being "displeased."

Similar scenes were playing out elsewhere.

A warehouse clerk, while moving parts, secretly swapped out a bearing.

The new bearing looked exactly like the original, except that at the spot where holy oil should be applied, a trace of acidic substance had been added.

That bit of acid wouldn't ruin the bearing immediately, but would slowly corrode it over time, eventually breaking at some critical moment.

A clerk organizing files buried a Corruption Trap into a maintenance schedule.

Anyone who saw that table would be lured by the hidden Warp Whisper within, step by step falling into the abyss of curiosity.

Their sabotage wouldn't let Lin En's people discover the problem right away.

On the contrary, the maintenance progress would even speed up, because besides "hindering," they actually did some real work.

Only when real combat broke out would those lurking problems erupt together.

This was the style belonging to Yi Su.

But what they didn't know was that everything they did was taking place under Lena's very eyes.

When it came to infiltration, the Genestealers' caliber ranked among the best in the entire Galaxy.

Those Chaos Cultists thought they were flawless, not knowing that every time they acted, more than one pair of eyes watched them in secret.

Lena's main body still slept deep in Double Peak Mountain, but her consciousness had already covered the entire Brevis through the Hive Network.

Every Genestealer was her eyes, every infected human was her tentacle.

The data modified by those Chaos Cultists was silently changed back by another Genestealer Priest the next second.

Some swapped parts were replaced with brand-new ones that very night.

The Corruption Trap buried in the files was also detected by Lena's Psychic Scan, then thrown into the incinerator untouched.

If this were within the Imperial Interior, handling these problems would be very troublesome.

The Chaos Cultists' modifications were extremely minute, and even if you discovered the problem, you wouldn't know how to fix it.

Because those parameters had already been adjusted to the "qualified" boundary; adjusting them back might cause other data to exceed limits.

Plus, they would leave "Yi Su's little tricks" wherever they had tampered.

Those traps would mislead you, distort your thoughts, and make you unable to see the problem.

They might even lure you to delve deeper, generating immense curiosity toward unknown knowledge.

Until you discovered whispers from the Warp echoing in your mind.