Warhammer: Starting as a Planetary Governor

Chapter 779 - 778: Rogal Dorn: My Elder Brother Is the Real Commander - He Truly Understands the Art of Command!

Rogal Dorn's words, spoken as Terra's supreme defensive commander, made the atmosphere in the command hall turn even quieter.Especially the intelligence about the hidden Chaos army. It weighed heavily on everyone's mind.

It meant danger could strike at any moment, and the defenders of the Iron Wall would have to expend tremendous effort searching for the enemy's main force and preparing a response.

Otherwise, the line might be breached.

"Sigh. Compared to my elder brother, I'm still far too lacking when it comes to provocation."

Dorn let out a soft sigh, feeling guilty that he had failed to truly enrage Horus.

That failure had affected the situation in the defense of Holy Terra.

Whether in the material galaxy or the warp, the ability to taunt an enemy was extremely important. At critical moments, a well-placed barb could affect the entire course of a war, even reverse defeat into victory.

Since Dorn knew he lacked that talent, guilt was only natural.

He had read some of the records concerning the Savior and greatly admired that elder brother's talent for goading enemies.

That elder brother always seemed able to infuriate his foes, humiliate them to the utmost, and force them into direct confrontation.

Dorn had even specially studied under the Savior in that regard, but sadly he had never managed to grasp the true essence of provoking an enemy.

If that elder brother had been here, he would surely have succeeded in forcing Horus out into a decisive battle, instead of ending up with the futile result Dorn had gotten.

"A pity. Still, at least we have contingency plans. We won't fail His Majesty the Savior."

Tarko also deeply agreed with the Lord of Iron Bulwarks. If His Majesty had been here, perhaps he would already have turned the entire situation around instead of leaving them this passive.

Just as Dorn, Tarko, and the other high-ranking figures were regretting the failure of that attempt at provocation, new information arrived.

"My lord, Horus, commander of Chaos, has appeared. All the fallen primarchs have also shown themselves. They are in a state of extreme fury and are launching a violent assault on Sector Eight of the Iron Wall.

"We suspect Chaos is about to begin its general offensive!"

The chief intelligence officer came hurrying in and delivered the latest report from the reconnaissance teams.

This was clearly good news, or at least better than the enemy holding still and quietly preparing some deeper scheme.

"So... my provocation actually worked? That shouldn't be possible."

Dorn received the report in a slightly dazed state, unable to understand at all why Horus and the other traitors had become so enraged.

But whatever the reason, the enemy had now begun launching fiercer attacks, exactly as command had anticipated.

Now that the traitor primarchs had all appeared on the front lines and joined forces in a savage assault on the Iron Wall...

Then the moment when they committed their hidden main Chaos host and launched the true all-out offensive could not be far off.

Otherwise, by showing themselves so openly, they would be risking encirclement and annihilation by the Imperium's endless armies, ground down until they collapsed from exhaustion and could no longer fight.

This was still realspace, after all.

Physical laws still applied here.

Without the cover of armies, even the mightiest individual could eventually wear out.

And beyond that, the Imperium also had the Lord of Iron Bulwarks himself and the Grey Knights to participate in hunting down Chaos entities.

"Horus... are you finally about to reveal your true strength?"

Dorn's expression hardened, not daring to show the slightest carelessness.

He strode to the command dais, took a deep breath, and a trace of anticipation flashed through his eyes.

On the virtual sand table, countless markers swarmed in dizzying density. Billions, hundreds of billions, or perhaps even more troops were moving along this colossal spaceborne battle line. Every second, hundreds of thousands of trajectories shifted and fresh information poured in.

From the depths of the Iron Wall to the farthest reaches of the sky, war was raging in every potentially important sector. Steel monsters weighing millions of tons and grotesque Chaos life-forms collided and plunged into the void abyss. Great steel platforms the size of small continents burned beneath the tide of battle.

Floods of steel, sorcerous curses, and Chaos corruption interwove. Physical law and unnatural storms clashed against one another.

Chaos was using every means it could to erode this defensive line, while the Imperial defenders fought with everything they had to stop it.

The intensity of this war was no less than any great war of the past.

And when such intensity was reflected upon a virtual sand table, any being lacking sufficient mental power and experience would be overwhelmed at a glance, dizzy and completely lost.

That was the horror of large-scale legion warfare. It was brutal to endure. Even broad strategic command required a grasp of enormous detail before accurate judgments could be made.

It was a clash of coordination, judgment, command artistry, and experience between opposing supreme commanders.

And on top of that, they had to compete in sheer physical resilience and mental endurance, to see whose life and will were harder.

Even a primarch would be exhausted after a major legion-scale campaign. In some ways, it drained the mind even more than mountain-like stacks of state affairs.

By the end, both commanders would be left on the edge of breakdown.

Then, before either reached their limit, they would try to locate the other's position and personally lead a decapitation strike fueled by all the rage that had built up, bringing the torment of the campaign to an end.

"This will be another war, ten thousand years later, that decides the fate of mankind."

Rogal Dorn did not fear such vast legion warfare.

On the contrary, he was eager for it.

Every commander yearned for such battles.

Or rather, loved and hated them at once.

Everyone wanted to overcome all the pain and pressure, defeat the strongest possible enemy, and save everything.

He had spent all this time drinking coffee, and now he could finally cross swords with Horus the traitor. This would be a true contest of command between great commanders, one that could truly judge a commander's real level.

Dorn glanced toward Tarko and said with some feeling, "In the past, the Savior also stood in a place like this and directed wars, didn't he? It's a pity I never got to witness him commanding a campaign myself."

The Lord of Iron Bulwarks genuinely admired the Savior's command ability. According to Imperial records, the man had personally overseen at least five legion-scale campaigns and won unprecedented victories in every one of them.

And the records often contained phrases like the Savior going weeks without sleep, battling for months on end, or campaigning continuously for years.

That alone was enough to prove the Savior's staggering strength and shocking will in grand warfare.

Any primarch would be utterly exhausted under such conditions.

Yet the Savior had endured them, and even looked radiant doing so.

How astonishing.

No matter how one looked at it, the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium - his elder brother - was one of humanity's greatest commanders, one who truly understood the art of command and yielded to no one.

Not even Horus.

Perhaps only the Emperor, their father, could be slightly superior.

It was likely for precisely that reason that the Chaos Gods feared the Savior enough to lure him out of the Solar System.

Without question, Rogal Dorn sincerely admired the Savior and regarded him as the kind of primarch elder brother who could teach him.

"His Majesty the Savior is indeed humanity's greatest commander at present. He possesses extraordinary command artistry, enough to sweep away any enemy of mankind."

Tarko nodded and said it with a perfectly straight face.

He was not about to tell the Lord of Iron Bulwarks that if His Majesty the Savior were actually looking at the virtual sand table, the most likely outcome was that he would say it made him a little dizzy, then sit off to the side drinking coffee while waiting for reports.

As for directing a battlefield, His Majesty rarely took part in it personally.

He decided whether to fight and when to fight. Once the war began, actual command duties would be handed off to the command staff.

If the situation was not too intense, His Majesty might even go off and get some sleep, restoring his energy while waiting for the decisive moment to arrive.

Still, in name, the Savior remained the supreme commander of those campaigns, and that title helped boost morale and make the soldiers fight better.

Of course, even though the Savior never personally directed wars, Tarko still believed Him to be the greatest commander of all, because He always led the Imperium to victory again and again.

He even believed that commanders like Horus or Dorn, who personally directed every aspect of battle themselves, were in fact operating on a lower level.

In truth, within the Savior's own self-conception, he was a leader, a builder, and an administrator, not a professional battlefield commander.

He was the Emperor of the Imperium. He could cultivate countless commanders beneath him. The image of him as a grand strategist was largely about projecting omnipotence, building prestige, and intimidating enemies.

Or to put it another way, perhaps the Savior's only true command art was throwing money and resources at the problem until sheer saturation firepower crushed everything.

Plain and unadorned.

"If my elder brother were on Holy Terra, perhaps I would not even have the chance to command, and the war might end faster."

That was Dorn's thought.

What he did not know was that even if the Savior returned, the only real change in this command hall would probably be the addition of one more person drinking coffee. The job of commanding the armies would still fall to the Lord of Iron Bulwarks.

Many things were decided before a war even began.

Command was often just the finishing touch.

Only when there was an overwhelming gap between two supreme commanders could battlefield command truly reverse a war.

The one real advantage of having the Savior in the command hall might simply be that Imperial morale would rise even higher, making the soldiers fight even harder.

Dorn lightly ran a hand over the command platform, and his eyes turned flinty.

This time, beings in both the galaxy and the warp would learn that he, the Praetorian and master tactician, was no hollow name.

He turned to his adjutant and ordered, "From this moment forward, I will assume full command of the Iron Wall defensive line.

"Make absolutely certain that the reconnaissance forces keep Horus and the traitor primarchs under watch. The instant there are signs that they are committing the main Chaos host, report it directly to command and establish teleport coordinates.

"And mobilize every reserve asset. They are to await orders and be ready to enter the battlefield at any time and encircle those traitors."

Even though Horus and the other traitors had already shown themselves, Rogal Dorn still maintained a conservative stance. He did not immediately gather up the Imperial armies and strike.

He feared this was still bait.

That the Dark Emperor was deliberately using himself to draw Imperial forces out while the truly hidden Chaos main army prepared to strike elsewhere.

The Imperium had to wait until the main Chaos host showed itself before committing to a full encirclement campaign. Otherwise, gaps might appear in their defenses.

It was the safest strategy.

Conservative, yes, but at least it would not let Chaos stab the Iron Wall in the kidney.

Dorn's hands moved rapidly across the virtual sand table, searching through hundreds of thousands of threads of overlapping information for potential opportunities and traces of the hidden Chaos host.

A trace of nervousness and excitement ran through him.

The true clash was about to begin.

...

"It is already over."

Horus strode slowly forward, black fire melting metal and leaving one hateful footprint after another on the ground.

His face was full of rage, yet he sneered as he looked at the rain of artillery and the collapsing platforms across Sector Eight of the Iron Wall.

"I can already see Terra's miserable future. Rogal Dorn, that fool, overestimated our strength and became too cautious, leading him into the wrong decisions. He has personally handed us the chance for victory."

In a campaign of this intensity, opportunities vanished in an instant.

And yet Terra's supreme defensive commander, the Lord of Iron Bulwarks, had tied his own hands because of a Chaos main host that did not actually exist, too wary to redeploy the Imperial armies freely.

Because of that, he had missed the crucial moment.

Although Horus had suffered profound humiliation, the instant he realized Dorn had misunderstood the situation, he seized the opportunity at once and did not let even a single factor of victory slip by.

He had even predicted Dorn's prediction.

He rearranged his troops to create the illusion that the hidden Chaos main host might emerge at any moment, pinning down the Imperium's true reserves and buying the time needed to destroy Sector Eight.

That would be the beginning of the Chaos coalition turning the tide, and the resulting chain reaction would hit the Imperial defenders faster than they could react.

"When that fool realizes what happened, he'll probably be so furious he spits blood. He personally buried the Imperium's greatest chance of winning this campaign for Terra..."

Alpharius bared his teeth in a savage grin.

He did not hide his hatred for Dorn in the slightest. He was looking forward to seeing the man's face twisted by pain and regret.

"The Imperium stretched this defensive line far too long. It cannot adequately cover every sector, and it wastes vast resources.

"Once we break this critical section of the line, the Chaos armies will be able to continue their breakout at minimal cost and push all the way to Terra's surface.

"By the time Dorn the fool realizes what has happened and hurries over with troops to stop us, it will already be too late."

A faint blue glint of intelligence flashed in Horus's eyes.

"If that fool dares show himself on the battlefield, I will seize him and tear his bones apart one by one before finishing him completely..."

Rogal Dorn had now enraged every fallen primarch.

If he dared leave the protection of his layered fortresses and appear on the battlefield, there was only one possible end: the fallen primarchs would seize him and subject him to the most savage tortures in both the galaxy and the warp.

Even if he had an elite Custodian bodyguard force at his side, it would not be enough to stop the joint assault of multiple primarchs, much less the Dark Emperor himself.

"Destroy it!"

Horus tightened his grip on his sword and pointed it toward the core fortress position of Sector Eight, giving the order to attack.

He had to seize this precious opportunity and destroy this section of the line at the lowest possible cost.

Once the order was given, the fallen primarchs charged this core fortress line while enduring Imperial fire, attacking without holding anything back.

Their assault was terrifying.

Irresistible.

Bzzzz.

The moth-wings on Mortarion's back spread wide, and from them poured countless rot-flies, swarming together into yellow clouds.

Where those decaying fly-swarms passed, soldiers collapsed beneath erupting pustules. Rumbling war vehicles withered into ruin, their gears blooming with oozing rust until they ground to a halt.

"Slaughter!"

Angron roared as he smashed apart a trench line. One sweep of his blood-axe sent a Leman Russ Conqueror heavy tank flying through the air.

Then he charged an Imperial Knight and tore it to pieces, toppling the war machine like a child's toy.

That abominable beast rampaged across the battlefield, nearly unstoppable.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

A Redemption Emperor-class Titan detected a high-threat target and raised the plasma annihilator cannons mounted on both arms, gathering lethal force.

"Heh. You think those pathetic little gun-tubes can threaten the Crimson King?"

Magnus floated in midair, psychic energy churning in his eyes, and looked disdainfully at the god-machine before him.

"Kneel, scrap. You pitiful creation is beneath contempt."

As he spoke, the Titan's mechanical body stiffened, as though struggling against some invisible power.

Then, in the next instant, it could no longer endure the pressure. Its legs snapped, and it crashed down to its knees before an unnatural force tore it apart completely.

It split in two and collapsed.

To Magnus, a fallen primarch skilled in psychic sorcery, human Titans were little more than scrap metal.

Soon the other fallen primarchs also launched their own attacks against the fortress line in their own ways.

Every Imperial defense felt as flimsy as paper, torn apart with frightening ease.

The situation was pure despair.

"Savior, this is the line you spent so much care constructing?"

Horus watched the blood and death consuming this section of the line with appreciation.

Then, as if sensing something, he raised his head toward the void, as though speaking to some distant being.

"Perhaps it is like your so-called New Imperium. Nothing but a fortress made of piled sand.

"Completely unable to withstand a single blow."

(End of Chapter)

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