A series of blinding lances of light struck the last Gargant, punching through its armor as if it were nothing. Superheated beams bored clean through layers of scrap-metal plating, melting and vaporizing everything they touched. The Gargant reeled, its massive frame glowing white-hot where the strikes landed, molten metal cascading from its wounds like liquid fire.
Its engines howled in protest. Warning klaxons—crude and deafening—screamed from within the towering construct as its power core destabilized.
A heartbeat later, the Gargant detonated.
The explosion tore the war-engine apart in a cataclysmic blast, hurling burning wreckage across the battlefield. The shockwave flattened nearby structures and sent Orks tumbling through the air, their war cries swallowed by the roar of annihilation.
When the smoke cleared, nothing remained but a crater of twisted, cooling metal.
The last Gargant was gone.
Following the thunderous explosion came a sound even more ominous—the deep, reverberating warhorn of a Warlord Titan.
Through the drifting smoke and falling ash, the god-engine advanced. Its vast silhouette loomed over the battlefield, banners snapping in the shock-heated air. The Warlord was armed for annihilation: twin Volcano Cannons mounted on its arms, their barrels still glowing from recent discharge, and a pair of triple-barrel Laser Blasters set into its carapace, tracking targets with cold, mechanical precision.
And with the warhorn still echoing, the smoke parted further.
Six more Warlord Titans emerged beside the first, their colossal forms striding out of the ash like incarnations of judgment. Each god-engine bore its own heraldry and battle scars, void shields shimmering as they came fully online. The ground trembled with every synchronized step, the rhythm of their advance shaking the ruins to their foundations.
Their weapons began to cycle.
Plasma annihilators glowed like captive suns. Volcano Cannons adjusted elevation with grinding intent. Macro Gatling Blasters begin to rotate. Apocalypse missile racks irised open along carapaces, their machine-spirits eager and unrestrained.
Before the surviving Orks could respond, the Warlords unleashed their weapons.
The battlefield was drowned in fire.
Plasma annihilators discharged in roaring torrents, incandescent streams of star-hot energy washing across the ruins. Whole districts vanished in blinding flashes as the beams struck, reducing fortifications, war machines, and mobs alike to ash and glass. Volcano Cannons thundered a heartbeat later, their earth-shaking blasts punching through the largest concentrations of Orks, erasing Stompas with contemptuous ease.
Macro Gatling Blasters reached full rotation.
Walls of mass-reactive fire scythed through the green tide, chewing apart walkers and infantry in equal measure. Orks were torn apart by the thousands, bodies flung skyward or simply shredded into mist and fragments of armor. Apocalypse missile racks screamed as they launched, trails of smoke and flame arcing overhead before detonating in overlapping barrages that turned entire avenues into churning seas of explosions.
The shockwaves collided, rolling outward like the wrath of an angry god.
Where Ork war cries had once filled the air, there was now only the thunder of Titan guns and the collapsing roar of a city dying.
Behind the advancing Warlords, Atharion had already disembarked from the Land Raider Prometheus. He stood amid the devastation, flanked by the Argent Wardens and the Terminators of the 1st Company, their armor scorched and dusted with ash. Around them, the armored column had come to a halt—Land Raiders, Vindicators, and Sicarans forming a defensive ring, engines idling and weapons trained outward to guard their lord.
Atharion watched the god-engines work with a commander's cold focus rather than awe. The Titans would break the Ork line—but they would not take the city alone.
The reason he did not advance alongside the Warlords was simple. He was waiting.
The 3rd Company was still inbound, racing through the outer districts to reinforce the spearhead. Until they arrived, Atharion would not commit. He needed their strength—needed the numbers and firepower—to seize and hold the breach once the Titans had smashed the Ork defenses apart.
Only then would the true assault on the capital hive begin.
"Lord," Viktor said, standing at Atharion's side. "General August has reported in. His forces are advancing on the hive. He has also dispatched additional regiments to establish a semi-encirclement."
Atharion nodded, eyes never leaving the distant silhouette of the hive, its upper spires burning under Titan fire.
"What of the Ultramarines?" Atharion asked. "Any word from them?"
"Chapter Master Agrippan's final report," Viktor replied, "confirms contact with three Gargants. All destroyed. However, he suspects additional war-engines remain concealed—either within the hive's lower strata or in the surrounding mountain ranges. Despite this, he decides to continue their advance and expect to complete their assigned objectives within three hours."
Atharion exhaled slowly.
"Better than nothing," he said at last.
He turned to Viktor, his expression hardening.
"Inform General Albrecht. I want the artillery regiments deployed immediately. Commence full bombardment of the hive."
Viktor paused. "Duration, my lord?"
Atharion's gaze returned to the burning hive, where secondary explosions rippled like dying stars.
"Until I give the order to stop," he said coldly.
===
While the battle in Zone Secundus neared its final phase, the fighting in Zone Tertius was far from over.
"Princeps Mankata," a voice called out over the noospheric link.
A hololithic display flared to life within the command sanctum of her Warlord. Five figures appeared—Princeps linked through data-ghosts and binharic overlays. The speaker was the youngest among them, newly elevated to the Throne Mechanicum, piloting one of the last ten Warlords Legio Solaria still possessed.
"Captain Aiaxis of the Eagle Warriors has requested immediate support," the young Princeps continued. "Multiple Gargant signatures have been detected in his operational zone."
Within her cockpit, Princeps Maximus Mankata sat enthroned in steel and cables, her senses fused with the god-machine around her. The steady heartbeat of the reactor echoed through her thoughts. For several long seconds, she did not reply.
This Princeps—like several others—had been promoted in the ashes of disaster. After Tigrus fell. After their forge world burned. After Legio Solaria was broken.
"Confirmed Gargants?" Mankata asked.
"Yes, Princeps Maximus," the young Princeps replied. "At least three."
Mankata closed her eyes briefly, feeling the machine-spirit stir at the promise of worthy prey.
"Very well," she said. "Redirect Maniple Helios and Maniple Dawnstrike to Captain Aiaxis' position. Warhounds will range ahead and mark targets. Reavers will dealt with any Stompas that appear."
She paused, then added with quiet steel in her tone:
"I will lead the main engagement."
The other Princeps straightened instinctively.
"Legio Solaria moves to hunt," Mankata declared. "Let the greenskins learn that even wounded, the Imperial Hunters still draw blood."
Within moments, massive reactor signatures shifted course. In Zone Tertius, the ground began to tremble once more as god-machines turned toward their prey.
As the Titans began their advance, the Eagle Warriors struck first.
"Forward! In the name of the Emperor, purge the xenos from our world!" an Eagle Warriors sergeant bellowed, surging ahead with his squad. Behind him, two platoons of Auxilia infantry followed, pushing toward a breach in the outer manufactorum district.
Bolters roared. Precision fire cut through the Orks with brutal efficiency—each mass-reactive round punching through crude helmets and detonating skulls in sprays of green gore. Heavy bolters chattered from elevated positions, ripping charging Orks apart and scattering the survivors in panic.
With the Astartes at their fore, the Auxilia advanced in their wake. Lasfire filled the air, disciplined volleys cutting down stragglers and pinning others behind rusted machinery and collapsed hab-blocks. Engineers moved quickly, planting charges and clearing barricades to open a stable route into the manufactorum complex.
The detonations came in quick succession.
White-hot blasts tore through ferrocrete and scrap, vaporizing twisted metal and reducing the Orks' defenses to rubble. When the smoke cleared, the road into the manufactorum lay open—wide enough for armor to pass through.
Seeing the breach, the sergeant keyed his vox without hesitation.
"Brother-Captain," he reported, cutting down a charging Ork with a brutal sweep of his chainsword, "the route is clear. The road is open."
"Understood," Captain Aiaxis replied at once. "I am dispatching additional squads and Auxilia platoons to your position. Hold the breach at all costs."
"By your command," the sergeant answered, turning back toward the smoke-choked avenue.
The Eagle Warriors snapped into position with drilled precision. Bolters barked in controlled, punishing bursts, mass-reactive rounds tearing into anything that moved within the haze. Orks charging through the smoke were cut down mid-stride, their momentum shattered in sprays of blood and scrap armor.
Around them, the Auxilia took cover among the ruins. Some formed firing lines alongside the Astartes, kneeling and standing in staggered ranks, pouring disciplined volleys of las-fire into the advancing green tide. Others manned heavy weapons, autocannons and heavy bolters thundering as they stitched the approach with death.
The breach became a killing ground.
Orks surged forward in waves, howling and firing wildly, but each attempt broke against the combined firepower. Bodies piled at the mouth of the road, the smoke glowing red from muzzle flashes and burning debris.
And then—
The ground began to shake.
At first it was faint, easily mistaken for distant shelling. Then it grew stronger, rhythmic, undeniable. Every step sent vibrations rippling through the rubble beneath their boots.
Behind them,
four Warhound Titans of Legio Solaria emerged at a run. Sleek and predatory, their plasma reactors howled as they advanced, turbo-lasers and Vulcan mega-bolters already aiming at their targets. Their banners snapped violently in the heat haze as they bounded past shattered habs and twisted gantries, hunting for larger prey.
With them came reinforcements.
Five platoons of Auxilia infantry rumbled forward in battered trucks, troops leaping down even before the vehicles fully halted. They fanned out at once, officers shouting orders as heavy weapons were dragged into position.
Rhinos followed close behind, their ramps slamming down as Astartes poured out—three Tactical squads forming disciplined firing lines, three Assault squads igniting jump packs as they vaulted over the ruins, and two Devastator squads setting up firing positions with practiced efficiency.
Two Predators rolled in last, autocannons tracking targets as they took up overwatch positions overlooking the breach.
The moment the Assault squads crashed into the Ork lines in a storm of roaring jump packs and whirling chainswords, it became the signal.
The Tactical squads advanced at once, bolters barking in controlled volleys as they pushed down the cleared roadway. Behind and above them, the Predators and Devastators laid down punishing fire, shredding Ork counterattacks before they could fully form.
The Auxilia moved with them.
Some advanced alongside the Astartes, hugging the armor of the tanks for cover, lasguns firing in disciplined ranks. Others flowed into the ruins, breaching shattered buildings and manufactorum annexes. Flamers roared to life, gouts of burning promethium washing through corridors, stairwells, and hidden chambers, flushing Orks from cover in screaming waves of fire.
Room by room, level by level, the manufactorum outskirts were purged.
Above it all, the Warhounds of Legio Solaria begin their hunt, their weapons hammering deeper into the complex—signaling to every greenskin still alive that the Imperial Hunters had come, and there would be no escape.
As the advance and destruction continue, a sudden huge rumble can hear coming from the depth of the manufactorum.
The Orks reacted at once. Their roars grew louder, more frenzied, and they charged with reckless joy, hurling themselves at the Astartes and Auxilia without fear, eager to die in the coming carnage.
The Auxilia did not yet understand what was happening. They held their lines and kept firing, cutting down the charging Orks in disciplined volleys.
The Astartes did.
Sergeants immediately opened their vox channels.
"Captain, heavy signatures detected. Requesting Doomhammers to advance to our position. Repeat, requesting Doomhammers."
At the same time, the Warhounds of Legio Solaria began to spread out. The Scout Titans moved toward open ground, avoiding narrow streets and towering structures that could trap or channel enemy fire. Their plasma reactors growled as they repositioned, ready to sprint or strike as needed.
Inside their cockpits, Princeps voices filled the noosphere. Warnings, estimates, and targeting data were shared as Moderati Primus operators focused on auspex screens, filtering through interference and debris to identify the source of the disturbance—and, more importantly, how many enemies were coming.
Before a clear count could be confirmed, the battlefield changed again.
Reactor signatures flared across the displays.
Reinforcements had arrived.
Nine Reaver Titans and the remaining Warhounds of Legio Solaria strode onto the field, their void shields snapping to life as they advanced toward the manufactorum outskirts.
Though renown for their hit-and-run tactics, they also know for their enjoyment for acts of showmanship and bold tactics, taking even the slightest failure as a personal insult. As such, they are aggressive on the battlefield; wanting to hunt down and destroy the enemy and seeking out powerful foes for a worthy and glorious battle.
This resulting their battle titans will always equip with a close combat weapon, while this bring them many glories since the Great Crusade, this also cost them dearly.
As the rumbling from the manufactorum grew louder—closer—the Princeps of Solaria did not withdraw and wait for the Warlords.
They advanced.
Whatever was coming, they intended to meet it fist to fist, Titan to Titan.