Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 811

Chapter 805, Burning

The anti-magic war in the three regions of Devouring Star, north of the Burning Alliance, lasted a relatively short six months, from the beginning to the end of the Battle of the Covenant.

Considering the duration of the war, it was a remarkable victory.

The invading Chaos army was of formidable proportions, rivaling even the might of the Ironclad Chapter during the Ironclad Wars. Among them were Chaos Space Marines, powerful Chaos-possessed Daemons, and Khorne’s Vanguard… Their leader was a Daemon Prince of Khorne, perhaps a Space Marine from a Khorne Warband.

This single individual inflicted immense damage on the human defenses.

The fall of three planets was implicated in his own actions. Those worlds could have been held under the onslaught, but the Daemon Prince’s personal involvement in the assault, his dual-wielded Blood Axes, ripped unstoppable holes in the human defenses, leading to their total collapse.

His strength was exceptionally rare. By the time the third planet fell, the human side had foreseen the Daemon Prince’s assault.

The Ghost Sharks have been waiting for you.

Ghost Sharks is Gu Hang’s newly formed chapter. After announcing the establishment of the Imperial Dark Side Control Committee, he claimed supreme authority over the Dark Side. Therefore, establishing a new chapter naturally comes with his authority.

Gu Hang had hoped this method would be recognized by the system.

Wouldn’t that count as establishing a chapter? Wouldn’t that mean a new chapter would appear on the Chapter interface?

It didn’t.

Apparently, the System doesn’t recognize this method of creating a new chapter.

As for the current Ghost Sharks, they are indeed the new chapter Gu Hang recently announced. And the Space Marine seeds of this new chapter, as the name suggests, are derived from Blood Sharks.

Once Blood Sharks was recognized by the system as an Alliance chapter, Gu Hang gained access to two thousand Space Marines for seed exchange.

This quota includes all existing members of Blood Sharks, regardless of whether these seeds have already matured into Space Marines or are merely in seed form; regardless of whether these seeds were exchanged or naturally grown. In short, once the number reached 2,000, Gu Hang would no longer be able to exchange these seeds from the system.

Before this, Gu Hang possessed over 1,300 Blood Shark seeds. About half of these were exchanged by Gu Hang to replenish the Blood Shark Chapter, while the other half were “grown” by the Blood Sharks themselves.

Regardless of the origins of the seeds, they were now in Gu Hang’s possession.

This was how the Alliance managed the Chapters. Now that the Blood Sharks had become part of the Alliance, receiving resources from various alliances and enjoying a comfortable life, they had to hand over all their gene-seed.

Initially, the Blood Sharks were a bit reluctant. For a typical Chapter, the gene-seed tax paid to the Empire was only one-tenth; for the Blood Sharks, their long history of operating in the Dark Outlands had accumulated a long period of unpaid taxes.

Naturally, they were reluctant to hand over all the extra seeds.

But there were many reasons to persuade them. The seeds would be safe in the Alliance’s hands. The Alliance would always guarantee a Chapter strength of 1,000, and over the decades, the Alliance had never broken its promise.

Gradually, they came to trust their gene-seed.

Even when the Alliance used their gene-seed to establish a second Chapter, they had no major objections. For one thing, after all these years, more than half of the Blood Sharks were Alliance members, and their loyalty was much higher than before. Furthermore, Gu Hang’s name, “building a new bloodline for them,” was not only very similar in name, but he also invited veterans from the Chapter to serve as high-ranking officers.

This even included the role of Chapter Master of the Ghost Sharks, which was given to a veteran Blood Shark.

This completely convinced the Blood Sharks to agree to use their seed to establish a new Chapter.

After all, they recognized Gu Hang’s authority.

The same situation arose with the Dragon King’s Spear Chapter. Gu Hang used their dragon legion seed to establish a new Chapter, named the Dragon Queen’s Shield.

These two Chapters, along with the three Chapters previously granted to Gu Hang by the Empire, resulted in six new Chapters built from those seeds, totaling eight. These were Gu Hang’s newly formed Space Marine Chapters, also known as the “Dark Side Buildup.”

The Ghost Sharks and Dragon Queen’s Shield were the mainstays of the Space Marines heading north to fight against the Chaos forces.

The Ghost Sharks’ Chapter Master, formerly Captain of the Blood Sharks’ Third Company, a veteran with five hundred years of combat experience, was the primary force in the ambush against the Daemon Prince. He was accompanied by two hundred elite Ghost Sharks.

However, the operation failed.

Even the Ghost Sharks’ first Chapter Master was beheaded by a battle axe in direct combat.

The final battle to eliminate the Daemon Prince took place in a trap on Oasis. Khorne’s leaders were often too impulsive, preferring to personally engage in frontline combat. This gave Roel Deleu the opportunity to wield the Extermination Order weapon and eliminate the Chaos leader.

The death of this Daemon Prince was crucial to the battle.

Another key factor was the immense damage they had inflicted on the demonic army in just six months. They had crashed headfirst into the Alliance’s defenses, inflicting heavy casualties themselves. The

combination of their leader’s death and the sheer number of casualties meant that even if the Khorne demon army had attempted to continue fighting, they had already lost their offensive capabilities, ultimately forcing them to retreat unwillingly.

On the other hand, the military force the Alliance handed over to Deleu was a formidable force.

Not only were Liao Guang, Gu Cheng, and other four regional defense forces in the northern part of the Alliance assigned to him, but Gu Hang also allocated a powerful legion, resulting in a robust naval and land force presence.

A simple comparison clearly demonstrates this. During the middle stages of the Ironclad War, the Alliance’s total forces deployed to the conflict were perhaps only slightly less than those under Deleu’s command, essentially on par. By the end of the war, this force was minimal, if not completely depleted.

From this perspective, it seemed like another victory that was hardly commendable, or perhaps even a Pyrrhic one.

However, after careful consideration, Gu Hang accorded Roel Deleu, a veteran who had practically exhausted himself in the war, a commendation and honor.

He was granted a special promotion to become one of the Alliance’s marshals, skipping the rank of general from lieutenant to senior general.

He was showered with medals and medals, and the plan was to appoint him Commander-in-Chief of the Dark Side Expedition’s northern front after his recovery.

While the Alliance suffered heavy losses under his command, the strategic objective was nonetheless achieved.

Looking at the veteran commander’s decisions during the war, they were truly flawless and could even be considered exceptional.

As for the enormous sacrifices, the greater factor was the inherently formidable enemy, and given the nature of Khorne’s demonic forces, they excelled at and favored relentless attacks. If the Alliance were to hold out, they would inevitably suffer heavy losses; there was no way around it.

And, to be more cold-blooded, let the losses be.

In the past, when the Alliance had only one core territory, the Dragonhawk Segmentum, such losses would have been unacceptable. With such a small area, a limited population, and limited production capacity, the army that had been built up over a decade, if it was annihilated in a single wave, would undoubtedly have been severely damaged. To assemble a similar number of troops would have taken another decade or even decades. Countless opportunities for growth, development, and expansion would have been missed in the intervening years.

But now, things are different.

This force, of course, is a valuable and substantial force. Losing it quickly would be painful for the Alliance, but as long as the war doesn’t spill into the Alliance’s homeland, it won’t be a major setback.

In a year? Two years? Three years at the most, all losses will be recouped.

Especially as the Alliance’s wartime system becomes increasingly robust and its wartime potential is unleashed, the Alliance’s rapid deployment of troops and warships will be further enhanced.

The cost is entirely acceptable.

While withdrawing the troops, who had endured six months of intense fighting on the front lines—a brutal battle far more brutal than the Dark Side Expedition to the west—for rest and recuperation, Gu Hang began to seriously consider the Three Stars Region in the Devouring Stars Realm as the next target for the Dark Side Expedition.

At the very least, a buffer zone should be established around the Alliance’s borders, between the Scarlet Spot and the border, to prevent being caught off guard by such a massive Chaos force again.

Honestly, if the Alliance had discovered the Khorne army two years earlier, giving them two years to properly manage and build defenses, the war wouldn’t have had to reach its current tragic depths.

However, Roel Deliu declined Gu Hang’s offer.

It wasn’t out of discouragement or aversion to war, but simply because his body couldn’t sustain it any longer.

“Burning out” was a fitting description for him.

He had already been older when he underwent the rejuvenation surgery, and its effects hadn’t been fully realized. This time, he’d been working for hundreds of hours straight, relying solely on nutritional supplements and psychiatric d*rugs to keep himself going.

Now, he was practically at the end of his rope.

Marshal Deliu, now in a nursing home, was diagnosed with a life expectancy of no more than ten years. Furthermore, while a second rejuvenation surgery was possible, the chances of success were much lower than for an average person.

Gu Hang demanded that the best technology, the most outstanding rejuvenation surgeons, and the best materials be used to extend Deliu’s life.

He still hoped that the veterans who had experienced this great war and accumulated a wealth of experience in large-scale combat could continue to play a role.

In particular, Gu Hang could see that after this battle, Deliu’s level had not only risen to LV8, but his rarity had also increased from the original S-level to SS. He

was really reluctant to lose such an excellent “worker”.

Although the current Dark Side Expedition had not yet encountered a battle of the scale of the Battle of the Covenant Star, it was almost inevitable in the foreseeable future.

Especially when the expedition entered the deep waters and fought in areas where Chaos erosion was particularly serious.

Similar wars might not even be just one at a time. The more experienced generals like Deliu, the better.

(End of this chapter)