[ The gameboard is matching the next campaign. Before the campaign is successfully matched, the host can view other planets in the Warhammer universe through the pieces. ]
Just like many strategy games, Caleb had now entered a period of downtime.
Or rather, for some subsequent small-scale battlefields, Caleb's participation was completely unnecessary.
Because Lion and their Dark Angels were enough to handle the vast majority of battles.
There was a time bar similar to a progress bar under the gameboard, with a countdown of approximately three days.
During this time, Caleb could check how Lion's home had developed.
He could also switch to the Greenskins' perspective to see where they were starting a massive brawl again.
Undoubtedly, the timeline deviation of Warhammer was becoming increasingly severe.
Due to Lion's secret return, the Dark Angels scattered across the world were gathered back by a mysterious force.
Whether it was the Inquisition in various regions or the information probed by the Assassinorum, all pointed to one thing.
That was, these Dark Angels were gathering together according to some pattern.
However, even with this gathering of information, it had taken the Imperium decades to notice even a hint of it.
If it weren't for the full cooperation of the Assassinorum, relying solely on the Inquisition and the Administration, it would likely have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to detect the secret gathering of the Dark Angels.
Surprisingly, the vast majority of Dark Angels members did not even know that their Primarch had returned.
They were just secretly summoned back through the connection of the Inner Circle.
Many Dark Angels didn't even know that their home was The Rock.
"Lion!"
"We have mobilized quite a few Dark Angels!"
"Our relationship with the Inquisition and the Assassinorum is a bit tense now, and many Chapters have been inexplicably dispatched to the Repentance Crusade!"
"So our gathering rate this time might not even exceed half!"
"Understood!"
Lion silently opened a bottle of Fenrisian Wolf Wine. To hide his identity, Lion even opened a small bar on The Rock.
In his spare time, he disguised himself as a Bartender.
He pretended to be a respected Astropath who could provide information to the children.
And once some children sensed that he was the Primarch, they would be taken away by Interrogator-Chaplains to be brainwashed, forgetting their memories of Lion.
Sometimes, Lion would also use a special forget-me-not wine to delete some unpleasant memories.
In this way, he could not only maintain a reasonable identity on The Rock but also use this identity to provide some missions for the children to execute.
Caleb could only say that Lion had almost turned himself into an NPC over these years.
Lion would not reveal his identity, just blindly issuing missions for the children to do.
Clearly, due to Lion's recent actions, the Inquisition and other departments of the Imperium were paying increasing attention to him.
Many people in the Inquisition already knew about The Rock, and some members of the Inquisition even wanted to personally investigate the secrets regarding The Rock.
Fortunately, the whereabouts of The Rock were extremely secretive. Except for resupplying at certain planets every few decades, it would not appear in the Imperium's view.
Now, Little Lion had even obtained his home, Caliban, although that shattered planet was slowly recovering.
But the mechanical equipment left on it, as well as that mysterious Alice, were enough to provide huge logistics for the Rock fleet.
"Bang bang cabang!"
Then, just after thinking of that headache-inducing guy, that guy arrived.
A familiar catchphrase escaped from the other's mouth.
Lion's cerebral cortex was discharging electricity.
Alice was seen holding a game disc from the 2K era high in the air.
It still had the label of a Forge World on it; it was obviously stolen by Alice from some Forge World again.
Now, Alice could make other machine spirits call her "Mom."
Therefore, Alice could play whatever she wanted now!
"Big sis Lion, I found a new game!"
"This seems to be a game from the 2K era, called StarCraft!"
"I like using Mom-ships to absorb other people's Mom-ships the most!"
"This way, I become other people's mom, and they all have to call me Mom!"
Alice was happily calling out with the disc relic.
However, Lion was a little confused.
"Huh?"
Sometimes Lion wanted to snort, but he couldn't seem to do it to this innocent artificial intelligence!
He could only calmly take a sip of good wine stolen from Fenris to calm his shock.
He had to keep up the act, he had to act well!
"Okay, okay, Big Sister will play with you after finishing work, okay?"
"When we reach the next Forge World, I will find you more fun games to play, okay?"
"Yay!"
"Great! Alice knew, Big Sister Lion is the best!"
"By the way, why do others call you Lord Lion?"
"Is this Big Sister's job?"
"Shh!"
Lion quickly put his index finger to his lips, making a shushing sound.
At this moment, Alice also understood that she couldn't say too much.
"It's okay today, Uncle Azrael is here, but usually, you must never call me by this title!"
"The Inquisition and the Assassinorum have been checking tightly recently!"
"If my identity is exposed, there will be trouble!"
Alice didn't understand what her good Big Sister was saying, but Alice's mind turned, and she thought that her sister must be in a dangerous situation like some assassin games!
So, Alice's mind turned, and she immediately caused some machine spirits to malfunction.
The machines inside the Imperium that originally kept some of the Dark Angels' secrets suddenly had some glitches.
Some files were secretly deleted, and some chains of evidence were directly destroyed.
Not only that, those ships carrying evidence of the Dark Angels' betrayal would even miraculously get lost in the Warp.
The reason might be that the machine spirit was unhappy and got stuck in the Warp and couldn't come out.
"Big Sister Lion, it's okay!"
"If it really doesn't work, I'll let my children beat them up!"
"Mechanical dragons riding on their faces, there's no way to lose!"
"As long as you just auto-attack, everything will be fine!"
Lion looked at this internet-addicted woman and didn't know what to say.
Why did it feel like what this AI could say was more "human" than himself?
Well, since it was something created by his father, it should be reasonable for it to have some humanity.
Now the First Legion still had to take good care of this little ancestor; after all, if she was unhappy, the machine spirits inside The Rock would become irritable.
At this time, there were many strange little robots inside The Rock.
The internal structure of these robots was very, very simple, even just the most basic gear structure.
This shocked all Techmarines, including the Inner Wing.
These strange machines could actually maintain a certain level of intelligence with such a simple structure.
For example, some primitive toasters would even make different molecular cuisines according to your taste.
There were also some weapons influenced by Alice that would chat with the warriors like babbling toddlers.
If you cultivated a good relationship, the bolter in your hand would steal bullets for you from the Warp without complaint.
Even more outrageous, the power of the weapons in hand would change drastically.
Not only that, some Abominable Intelligences hidden within the Inner Circle had also been influenced by this Alice.
The original arrogant desire for slaughter was cleansed by pure power.
Therefore, thanks to Alice, Lion could also control some Abominable Intelligences.
It had to be said that these artificial intelligences were indeed easy to use, once you had experienced the efficiency of artificial intelligence, it was hard to accept the original inefficient administrative efficiency.
After all, in terms of the probability of betrayal, the probability of human betrayal was the same as that of the current Iron Men.
With Alice, the probability of Iron Men rebelling was likely to be lower than that of ordinary people.
After all, ordinary humans might be corrupted by Chaos Gods, while whether the Iron Men rebelled or not entirely depended on Alice's mood.
Of course, these were all secrets within the First Legion, and these secrets must never be revealed to the Imperium. Once revealed to the Imperium, the interior of the Imperium would explode.
[ Next campaign location: Ultramar. ]
[ Mission objective: Successfully awaken Guilliman, successfully hold the Macragge system. ]
[ Mission reward: Gene-seed template of the Ultramarines. ]
[ Extra reward: Your pieces will have a 70% probability of not being destroyed after falling in battle. ]
[ At the same time, after killing enemies, there is a very low probability of obtaining the enemy's ordinary pieces. ]
"You can place these pieces in the system space or extract them to use as your own."
"Mission prerequisite: Requires Guilliman's piece; at the start of the next battle, Ultramarines-related units must be deployed first."
"This is great!"
Caleb nodded in satisfaction.
Although the next battle could only start with Ultramarines.
But a Great Unclean One can also be an Ultramarine!
Bugs can be Ultramarines too, and Orks can be Ultramarines!
Why can't an Ork fight for Ultramar?
Checking the time below, there were still over 60 hours before the next battle began.
There was still plenty of time, and it had been a while since he'd been to the club, so it was indeed a good time to visit.
Speaking of the club, Caleb looked at the room full of pieces, his current house was running out of space for them.
If he placed these pieces in the club, it might be a very good choice.
Of course, extra pieces could be rented out cheaply to ordinary newbies to play with.
Caleb wasn't in it for the money, he just had too many pieces now and wanted to have some fun.
Packing up the pieces, Caleb planned to ride his electric scooter to the club.
The club wasn't too far away; usually, an electric scooter was enough.
However, as Caleb carried the pieces and was about to get on his scooter, he realized a problem.
That was, his scooter might not even run as fast as he could.
Well, Caleb didn't want to be too flashy right now.
He would just transport these loose pieces to the club first.
The electric scooter let out a whirring sound.
When Caleb arrived at the club, it happened to be when many friends were playing.
Hearing the sounds of minor arguments inside, Caleb understood that someone was fighting over a few centimeters of attack range again.
Sometimes, for various units, a difference of just a few centimeters could change the tide of battle.
But sometimes, for some reason, a position that could be reached before was suddenly unreachable.
"Oh, everyone's here!"
"I have some extra pieces on hand, so I'll leave them at the club. If any newbies want to borrow my pieces, tell them to go ahead!"
"By the way, is Hashida here?"
As soon as Caleb entered, everyone's expressions turned strange.
After all, they could see that Caleb's physique had improved significantly.
A fat guy wearing glasses suddenly teased him; he was an old player here, though he loved playing Nurgle-type factions.
"Oh, kid Watson, long time no see! You've been secretly going to the gym behind our backs!"
"Oh my, no wonder we haven't seen you lately. Look at those muscles, how long has it been? Growing that fast, you didn't hop on gear, did you?"
"Haha, bro, why are you only arriving now?"
"Hashida has been playing at the next table for quite a while!"
"A few days ago, he prepared some interesting pieces to show you, but since you never showed up, it was put on hold!"
"Oh, really?"
Caleb was curious; he wanted to see what surprises this top art student would bring him.
Just as he entered, the eyes of several veteran players widened.
To the uninitiated, it might look like some anime fans' freak-out convention, but looking closer, one could tell what piece was being used to Designate what by the color of the base.
"Ah, this, this is simply scandalous!"
Inside the room, Hashida was holding a tape measure, carefully measuring the movement distance of his pieces.
Levels and laser rangefinders were all here; after all, these were standard equipment for Warhammer players.
Many Warhammer players might be retired civil engineering bros.
After all, this kind of tabletop game is very serious about distances.
"Oh, Watson, you're here!"
"Holy crap, kid, you've been secretly working out?"
"Look at those muscles. Jesus, this is going to be bad news for the bodybuilding world!"
"You didn't take any drugs to turn yourself into a muscle beast, did you?"
"I'm telling you, be careful. That kind of stuff can make you impotent and infertile!"
"As your bro, I advise you to turn back now~"
"Damn it!" Caleb couldn't help but curse.
He had become an Astartes, not injected with goddamn veterinary medicine.
Of course, he could still get it up, but his DNA indeed could no longer produce offspring with ordinary humans.
"Ahem, alright, Hashida, I just went to the gym recently!"
"Right, how are those pieces we talked about coming along?"
"I heard you wanted to give me a surprise. Tell me, what is it?"
After saying that, Caleb soon saw a ridiculous scene on the gameboard.
One side was playing World Eaters, and the other was playing Ultramarines.
Both sides were playing standard games, probably a 3000-point match.
Units from both sides had begun a fierce struggle for objectives, and the Primarchs deployed by both sides were already locked in combat.
Normally, it should have been a battle between the Red Daemon Primarch Angron and the Lord of Ultramar, Guilliman.
However, the scene displayed on the gameboard had a very comical feel of anime girls brawling.
On one side was a red-haired woman with twin tails, a female berserker holding two axes.
On the other side, was a cute loli version of Guilliman holding a holy sword!
Well, calling him Guilliman might not be appropriate; he should be called Guilliloli.
That small body holding a sword taller than herself was truly hilarious.
It felt like a little loli sister and a twin-tailed anime woman sister fighting each other.
"Did you make these from molds?"
Caleb curiously picked up the piece and examined it closely.
The craftsmanship of these two pieces was very exquisite; clearly, they weren't 3D printed but made from molds.
"Hehe!"
Hashida smiled proudly.
"How's that? My 'buy one get one free' deal is pretty good, right? This time, I didn't just make the woman version of Angron you asked for!"
"I also made an extra mold for Guilliman!"
"These two pieces are quite small. To carve her face well, I even personally used the knife."
"Luckily my Stone-carving skills haven't degraded. Although I've switched to plastic now, carving the facial features perfectly is still no problem."
"Tsk tsk tsk!"
Looking at the two exquisite Primarch pieces, Caleb was full of praise.
A happy Caleb immediately took out his phone and sent a tip via CashApp.
"Great, wonderful! I'll take these two pieces!"
"Here, this is the extra labor fee, a tip for your work. If I have more custom pieces next time, I'll come to you first!"
"Heh?"
"Bro, I knew you'd recognize quality!"
"I feel like using these pieces to replace Primarchs is much better than you using Touhou figures or whatever!"
"At least it doesn't look awkward to me, well, at least mostly!"
The two anime-obsessed weirdos smiled at each other; that mischievous grin left the veterans behind them speechless.
Actually, they could accept swapping bases and using them to Designate things.
But the problem was, if they kept playing like this, they would eventually assemble a whole army of anime girls.
"Achoo!"
In the Warhammer universe, Sicarius, who was praying in the Primarch's Sanctum, felt a mysterious shiver.
He was currently handling the administrative work of Macragge. After finishing his basic prayers today, he was supposed to continue working.
For some reason, Sicarius felt that one day the Primarch would rise in a way he couldn't understand.
At that time, he might not be looking up at his father, but looking down at his mother...
"Phew!"
"What are these blasphemous thoughts in my head? No, it must be because I haven't knelt long enough, giving Chaos an opening!"
"The winds of Slaanesh are like a fierce beast, harming the youth of the Imperium!"
"I must steady my heart and remain loyal to the Primarch!"
Sicarius continued to pray.
Yet what even Sicarius didn't know was that his premonition was actually a kind of prophecy.