"BOOM——!!!"
Across the wasteland of Zais's northern hemisphere, a colossal detonation drowned out the roar of engines.
An 800mm heavy macro-cannon shell slammed violently into the flank armor belt of the landship Scavenger.
The thick composite armor plating deformed drastically in an instant. Though the high-temperature metal jet failed to pierce the inner lining, the immense kinetic energy transferred directly into the hull.
Inside the bridge, Reagan Lazarus was thrown half a foot into the air before crashing heavily back into his command chair, which was welded solid to the floor.
All around him, red warning lights flashed frantically, and the shouts of the damage control teams blurred into a chaotic mess over the comms channel.
"Port Section C armor damaged! Structural integrity down to 78%!"
"Track Assembly No. 3 is overheating! The drive shaft is about to snap!"
"The enemy is walking their fire using those coordinates! The next salvo is coming right up!"
Reagan wiped a layer of dust from his face, his bloodshot eyes staring intently at the holographic radar.
On the display, two massive red blips were biting hard on the Scavenger's tail, less than five kilometers away.
For landships of this scale—often kilometers long—five kilometers was practically point-blank range.
"Dammit, those rabid dogs!" Reagan cursed, his voice raspy.
This was Zais, the most chaotic and savage wasteland world in the Heretic Stars. Here, only one law of survival mattered: keep moving.
To stop was to die. Small ships were eaten by big ships, and big ships were eaten by even bigger ships.
And Reagan's Scavenger, unfortunately, sat near the lower-middle tier of the food chain.
The vessel was only 2.8 kilometers long, making it a mere younger brother in the landship family of Zais.
Furthermore, it was incredibly ugly. Truly hideous.
Other landships, like the two chasing him, at least boasted foundations built from the wreckage of Imperial starships that had crashed thousands of years ago. They had proper military-grade designs and thick adamantium armor. Even with their engines stripped and replaced by continuous tracks, that aura of the starry cosmos remained.
But the Scavenger was different.
It was a monstrosity cobbled together entirely from industrial junk.
Its keel was welded from the booms of a dozen collapsed cranes, its armor plating consisted of layers of ceramite pried from countless ruins, and even its propulsion system was a forced amalgamation of over eight hundred different models of diesel engines and gas turbines linked in parallel.
It possessed zero aesthetic appeal and absolutely no aerodynamic design. It resembled a moving, black-smoke-belching mountain of giant garbage.
Yet, in the eyes of those who knew their stuff on Zais, this ship was a miracle.
Because it was the only landship on the planet that hadn't been scavenged from a grave. Instead, a group of abandoned technicians and rebels had forged it from scratch, piece by piece, using their bare hands and crude tools.
This technology was the very foundation that allowed Reagan to maintain a foothold in this cruel world.
Unfortunately, technology sometimes proved useless against sheer tonnage and firepower.
"Captain! The Fuck Your Grandma is accelerating! They're trying to ram our stern!" the radar operator yelled in terror.
Hearing that name, the muscles on Reagan's face twitched. Even at a life-or-death juncture, he couldn't help but criticize that utterly moronic, tasteless excuse for a ship name.
The landship chasing them on the left was painted in gaudy, multicolored patterns, covered in vulgar graffiti and skulls. Written in massive Low Gothic letters across its flank was its name: [FUCK YOUR GRANDMA].
The captain of this ship was an absolute lunatic—originally a famous gladiator who had murdered his boss and hijacked a frigate-turned-landship. These idiots didn't just want your resources, your territory, and your prisoners; they wanted slaughter, destruction, and a loud show.
Being sunk by a ship with a name like that would be the greatest humiliation of Reagan's life. People would laugh at him for ten thousand years after he died.
Meanwhile, on the right was a far more insidious landship: [The Dusk].
This vessel was pitch black and maintained a low profile, but it played dirty. Its captain was a calculating old schemer who rarely showed his face, but whenever he did, it meant he was out for blood.
For some unknown reason today, these two factions had actually joined forces to corner the Scavenger.
"Smoke! Deploy interference smoke at full capacity!" Reagan roared, slamming the control stick hard to the left. "Open every damn exhaust valve wide! Burn all the waste engine oil!"
Though the Scavenger was ugly, it possessed a unique trick that other ships lacked—it could generate a thick, heavy black smoke covering a radius of over a dozen kilometers. Because its engines were such a mismatched mess, its combustion efficiency was incredibly low. What was normally a defect had now become a life-saving asset.
"BOOM——!!!"
As the command was issued, hundreds of exhaust pipes at the rear of the hull simultaneously spewed billowing torrents of black smoke. This smoke was a mixture of unburnt fuel, metal dust, and specialized chemical chaff.
Instantly, the entire wasteland was swallowed by darkness.
The visual line of sight for the two encroaching landships was completely blocked, and their radar screens dissolved into static.
"Hard starboard! Charge into the rocky crags ahead!"
Taking advantage of the moment the enemy lost sight, Reagan controlled the massive hull to execute an extremely dangerous drift around the bend.
The colossal tracks ground against the terrain, kicking up blinding sparks and flinging thousands of tons of scree. The Scavenger tilted violently, throwing everyone inside the bridge against the walls.
But they succeeded.
They plunged into the complex terrain of the rocky crags, utilizing the towering stone pillars to block the enemy's line of fire.
"Hah... hah..."
Reagan panted heavily as he climbed back into his command chair. They had shaken them off for now.
But he knew it was temporary. Those two rabid dogs would certainly spread out to search, and they would be back on his tail in less than half an hour.
Moreover, the Scavenger was in terrible shape. The propulsion system was overheating, the port armor was on the verge of collapsing, and their ammunition reserves were running low. They had to find a place to refit—or find a backer.
Reagan pulled up the strategic holographic map of Zais.
This map was also something he had charted himself, bit by bit, making it far more precise than the garbage circulating on the market. But looking at it now, Reagan felt only deep despair.
Though Zais was vast, places capable of accommodating a ship of his size were few and far possible.
The southern end of the map was a black expanse of ocean: [The Lightless Sea]. It was an ocean composed of liquid waste, filled completely with promethium. In the Warhammer universe, promethium was the lifeblood of industry. The only reason Zais could sustain so many landships was due to this Lightless Sea.
However, that area was a forbidden zone because it was occupied by Zais's most powerful super-warlord: [Fortress Odin].
That was a super-landship converted from the wreckage of a battlecruiser. Measuring over twelve kilometers long, it possessed an independent ecosystem and a complete industrial chain. Fortress Odin monopolized the extraction rights of the Lightless Sea. Any unauthorized vessel that drew near would be blasted to smithereens by their twelve lance main batteries.
If Reagan dared to run in that direction, he would likely be annihilated by Odin's patrol fleet before he even laid eyes on the sea.
What about the center?
The middle of the map featured a massive, intersecting sprawl of urban ruins: [Colunbic]. This place held Zais's only trading district. The major factions all maintained offices there, and it was usually peaceful.
But just last week, two major warlords had started a war over a batch of newly unearthed Dark Age of Technology relics. Right now, Colunbic was a meat grinder filled with non-stop artillery fire. Going in there was suicide.
That meant... only the north remained.
Reagan shifted his gaze to the northernmost edge of the map. There lay an area highlighted in red, named [Horizonburg].
Seeing this name caused Reagan's brow to furrow tightly.
In Zais, Horizonburg was a legend, but it was also a ghost story worn thin from repetition. It was an exceptionally well-preserved colony city from the Dark Age of Technology, featuring a stable foundation, ample power, and automated defense systems. By all accounts, a prime piece of real estate like this should have been fought over tooth and nail by the major warlords.
And indeed, it had been.
Roughly fifty years ago, Horizonburg was the crown jewel of Zais. Every few years, a rising warlord faction would declare its occupation, intending to turn it into a permanent base. They would move in joyfully, repair the city walls, build factories, and even start farming.
Then, within a month, the city would invariably revert to a dead town.
No one knew what happened. When later explorers cautiously entered the city, all they found were floors slicked with blood, neat slice marks, and empty streets. Every inhabitant vanished overnight. There were no corpses and no signs of a battle, as if they had been swallowed by some unseen phantom.
When it happened the first time, people thought it was an accident. When it happened a second time, they thought it was a coincidence. But after it happened more than ten times, everyone understood: the place was fucking haunted.
Later, word got out that it was aliens—a breed of native xenos possessing stealth capabilities and advanced biotechnology. They had converted an unknown area of Horizonburg into their nest, treating any human who attempted to claim the place as food.
From then on, Horizonburg became a forbidden zone. Everyone tacitly agreed to steer clear, preferring to swallow dust in the wasteland rather than throw their lives away in that ghostly place. Even the Fuck Your Grandma didn't dare approach it by a single step.
However...
Reagan's finger paused over Horizonburg's location on the map.
The situation had changed. Just three months ago, the lights of Horizonburg turned back on.
It wasn't the flickering campfires of an expedition team, but vast stretches of industrial illumination. On nighttime satellite imagery, it stood out like a sore thumb.
To this day, the lights remained on. Not only were they on, but a flag never before seen on Zais had been raised there—a yellow and blue banner. This indicated that a mysterious outside force had boldly moved into that cursed city.
Three months had passed, and instead of being wiped out, they were conducting massive construction projects. Reconnaissance footage showed tall walls being erected, heavy artillery being emplaced, and strange aircraft patrolling the skies.
What did this mean? Did it mean these outsiders had wiped out the xenos? Or had they reached some sort of agreement with them?
Whatever the case, it proved that the strength of these people was unfathomably deep.
"Captain..." The first mate approached, his face turning pale as he looked at the position Reagan was pointing to. "You... you aren't thinking of going to Horizonburg, are you?"
"That's a dead zone! A place dubbed 'The Reaper's Dining Table.' Have you forgotten?!"
Reagan didn't answer.
Outside the window, the black smoke was dissipating, and the silhouettes of their two pursuers were turning visible through the haze. The prow cannon of the Fuck Your Grandma was charging, its red glow exceptionally piercing amidst the dust.
"If we don't go, we die," Reagan said coldly. "If we get caught by those two bastards behind us, what will our end be?"
"The men will be nailed to the armor plating as decorations, the women will be sold to the Lightless Sea as slaves, and the ship will be scrapped into junk metal."
"Rather than getting fucked over by them, I'd rather deal with aliens."
Reagan was an extremely pragmatic man. Since Horizonburg could keep its lights on for three months, it meant order existed there. Where there was order, there was the possibility of a transaction. The two ships behind them, however, represented pure, unadulterated lunatics with whom no reasoning was possible.
"But... how do we get there?" The first mate pointed to the dashboard. "Our fuel isn't enough for a full-speed sprint. Besides, that's north. We'd have to turn around, and doing that will expose our flank entirely to them."
"We don't need the whole ship to go," Reagan decided. "We'll keep driving deeper into the rocky crags, using the terrain to stall them. But I'm going to send out a vanguard."
Reagan stood up, straightening his grease-stained work jacket. "Select six of our fastest all-terrain vehicles. Pack the 'good stuff' we dug up from that ruin last time. And take my data slate filled with those high-grade blueprints."
The first mate's eyes widened. "Captain! That's our life savings! We were going to use that to trade for a new engine!"
"If our lives are gone, what use is leverage?" Reagan glared at him. "This is a tribute. We need to show the boss of that outside force that we have goods, that we have value."
"Furthermore..." A glint of cunning flashed in Reagan's eyes. "We can redirect the threat."
"As long as our convoy runs toward Horizonburg, those two rabid dogs behind us will definitely think we've carried off our most valuable treasures. They will split their forces to pursue."
"When that happens, the main ship will have a chance to break away. If the convoy successfully makes contact with the outside force, perhaps... we can even use their blade to kill our enemies."
He was gambling that the outside force was reasonable, gambling that they were interested in technology, and gambling that they possessed the capability to wipe out the pursuers. Although the risk of losing the bet was absurdly high, it was currently Reagan's only option.
"Execute the order!"
"Yes, sir!"
Ten minutes later, a vehicle bay door at the belly of the Scavenger cracked open.
Six heavily modified all-terrain vehicles equipped with nitrous oxide boost systems surged out like a pack of startled rabbits. Instead of following the landship deeper into the crags, they veered sharply, charging straight toward the open wasteland to the north.
Hanging from the roofs of the vehicles was a makeshift flag fashioned from a white bedsheet, upon which a gear and a wrench were crookedly drawn. This was the universal wasteland symbol for "Trade Intent" and "Peace."
"VROOM——!!!"
Engines roared, kicking up clouds of yellow sand. The convoy sped at 120 kilometers per hour, hurtling toward Horizonburg—the legendary forbidden zone of death.
Behind them, on the bridge of the Fuck Your Grandma.
A muscular, bald brute sporting a nose ring peered through a pair of binoculars, watching the convoy that had suddenly burst forth.
"Hahaha! Look at that!" the brute roared with laughter, his gold teeth gleaming. "The rats have launched their lifeboats! They must have loaded all the good stuff onto those cars!"
"Want to run? Not that easy!"
He grabbed the communicator and bellowed to his subordinates below: "Boys! Chase them down! Deploy all assault bikes and armed pickups! Bite onto them!"
"Make sure you intercept those vehicles for me! I want to see what kind of treasures are packed inside!"
Over on The Dusk's side, a similar reaction occurred. Dozens of black interceptor vehicles rolled out from their bays, joining the pursuit.
For a moment, dust billowed across the wasteland. Six off-road vehicles sprinted wildly in front, followed by over a hundred assorted armed vehicles forming a long, ravenous serpent that stretched madly toward the north.