Chapter 328: The First Month of War
Silence, following the cessation of shelling, was the only sound.
The air was cold, a suffocating mixture of the ozone stench of charged weaponry and the metallic tang of evaporating blood.
In a trench below the edge of a Cadian rift, an entire bastion had been swallowed whole.
The burnt-out hulks of tracked war machines were piled together like dead beetles in a trap.
In the trench, they lay overturned and jumbled. On the upper layers, there were still signs of recent activity; tracks hung limply, like dying beasts trying to crawl over the corpses of their kin. The only movement was the lazy drift of smoke and dust.
Beyond the trench embankment, and along the road to the high plateau, their heads were mounted on pikes.
The heads were turrets. Some still had weapon mounts attached; others had their barrels severed, the jagged breaks suggesting they had been torn off by brute force.
This was a particular fetish of the World Eaters. They displayed decapitated tanks as trophies, each wreck posed in a deliberate posture of humiliation, barrels drooping as if bowing to their conquerors.
The dry gully was filled with wet bones.
Carrion had long since been stripped away, leaving only bleached skeletons fused with the scorched earth.
The hands of the dead were melted to their ruined weapons, knuckles curled through trigger guards as if still trying to fire, entombed in a mausoleum of destroyed bunkers.
Upon a highland of steel and bone, an Obliterator of Khorne knelt on one knee. The weapons fused to his body vibrated with his breathing, chains and gears humming low. His movement held no respect.
It was merely procedure.
The corpse beneath him belonged to a loyalist Astartes. His gold and red armor was scarred by bolt craters and chainsword tears, like a tool used to destruction.
He had won this battle.
At the cost of several times the casualties.
[Thirty-five to one.]
Such was the exchange ratio between attacker and defender. Under the roaring firepower of the bastion, the presence of void shields forced the attackers to rely on low-velocity projectiles to saturate the area, then send assault squads for close-quarters combat.
Ignoring the constant roar of commands in his ear, the Obliterator extended his hand.
The coating on his gauntlet was worn away, exposing the metallic ceramite beneath.
He thrust his hand into the breach in the Space Marine's chest plate.
It was an efficient wound, one he had made.
A precise chainaxe strike, diagonally from collarbone to ribs, nearly cleaving the torso in two.
Sensors beneath his gauntlet fed data to the Khorne Berzerker.
[Temperature: Falling.
Vital Signs: None.
Internal Structure: Disintegrating.]
Fingers passed through the jagged edges of shattered slab-ribs, feeling like thrusting a hand into a bag of broken pottery.
The Berzerker found the hearts.
His trophy.
Biological engines, recently stalled.
They were warm, heavy, the muscle tissue still taut with the stubborn memory of their last beat.
Squelch~
The Berzerker tore them out, the sound of snapping tendons dull and wet.
He raised the hearts to his faceplate like a pilgrim. Through his cracked crystalline lenses, he pressed the organs against his helmet's vox-grille.
Teeth clenched, metal grinding against flesh with a harsh rasp.
Then came the flood of information.
No taste, only data. A violent, raw stream of data bypassing his taste buds and pouring directly into his cerebral cortex.
He tasted the marine's final thought, an electrochemical signal mixed with duty and steel-hard stubbornness.
He tasted the muscle memory of swinging a power sword a thousand times, the angle of every parry, the shock of recoil against the scapula with every trigger pull.
He felt his loyalty.
It was a useless impurity that needed to be filtered out.
He absorbed the rage, he absorbed the combat skills, he absorbed the essence of the warrior, and discarded useless emotions like honor and sacrifice as waste.
He stood up.
But the hunger in his gut remained.
Since stepping onto this cursed land, he had not tasted a single soul.
He surveyed the terrain of corpses and wreckage.
The sky was gloomy. Fire trails of drop pods streaked across the horizon, occasionally accompanied by the falling debris of massive warships. Above the thick clouds, intense flashes erupted constantly.
Through his damaged lenses, the world was simplified into basic forms: the living and the dead.
Hunger drove him to turn everything before him into the dead. It was not a desire.
It was a command.
This command drove them to conquer a bastion and bury it in the pits of Cadia.
The Obliterator took a step.
A tremor passed through the atmosphere.
The Obliterator's eyes widened slightly behind his clouded lenses, a flicker of sluggish surprise. Invisible pressure slowed his thoughts, as if time itself had become viscous.
Then, he saw a tall Knight standing before him.
Black armor, crimson cloak. The cloak unfurled on the windless battlefield like a frozen waterfall of blood.
He had been so far away a moment ago, yet now he was so close—
Close enough to see every understated pattern on the armor, every exquisite purity seal.
Schwing!
In the next instant, his head flew.
The sound of the blade slicing through his neck armor was absurdly crisp, like cutting a hollow metal pipe.
His perspective rose several meters in an instant, allowing the Obliterator to look directly down at the great plain below the highland.
The Obliterator saw it.
Iron Warriors.
Their allies were advancing behind a mobile bulwark. This wall was nearly five kilometers long, composed of metal plating stripped from bastions and mounted on a sturdy adamantium frame. Behind it were salvaged void shield generators and massive engines pushing the wall forward.
Sparks and flames crackled from the friction of steel plates against the ground and the rotation of heavy turrets on the backs of transport crawlers.
The Iron Warriors were pushing a fortress wall forged from ruins toward the front line, toward the next target to be conquered.
Behind the wall, closest to it, were the Iron Warriors' siege troops. They and their mortal slaves waited in silence, closely following the advancing high wall.
Further back, the Iron Warriors' artillery and heavy tank units began their bombardment. Rolling barrages systematically struck the strongpoints and trenches outside the bastion, while low-velocity projectile launchers hurled high explosives at the void-shielded fortress.
Every volley shook the earth, shockwaves throwing up waves of concrete mixed with shrapnel.
Considerable firepower was deliberately poured onto the open ground in front of the bastion to clear the mines laid by the Cadian defenders.
Even further back, in an area where visibility was too low for the naked eye, traitor Warhound Titans emerged from the smoke, swaggering into view.
These nineteen Titans belonged to the traitor Legio Mordaxis. Advanced power plants from Incaladion allowed these highly mobile machines to accelerate, their modified war-horns emitting ear-piercing shrieks.
Behind them, a somewhat cumbersome Emperor-class Titan moved slowly forward.
The two sides were closing.
Once their void shields overlapped, the bloodiest close-quarters combat would begin.
The walls of the bastion began to tremble, seemingly passive in the face of the impending impact.
Whoosh~
His head spinning in the wind, the Obliterator experienced a clarity of consciousness he had never known before. His gaze shifted to the other side with the rotation.
The Obliterator saw it. Behind the Knight was a surging black tide, composed of over a thousand Astartes.
The Ravenwing. The Dark Angels' Ravenwing.
The Obliterator had seen their prowess ten thousand years ago, galloping across the lands of the Pan-Pacific Empire, crushing everything.
Compared to those unpredictable white barbarians, these warriors were more orderly, more obedient to orders, and possessed more advanced weaponry.
They were approaching.
While the troops focused on the siege and the influence of Chaos paralyzed the unblessed wargear of both sides, the Ravenwing launched their assault.
The moment before touching the pale purple film of the void shield, the black tide paused abruptly.
Then came the charge!
A charge that vanished in a flash.
The first riders reached the enemy formation only an instant slower than the bolter rounds fired from their power glaives.
When they tore through the Iron Warriors' flank, the bodies sent flying by the bolter impacts hadn't even hit the ground.
This sudden attack ripped open the enemy formation. Crashing into those blocking the way, gravity fields instantly crushed the mortals beneath into pulp. Glaives, having emptied their ammunition, began to swing, drawing countless trails of blood.
Then, the Ravenwing, maintaining their momentum, left the enemy's broken formation behind. The Iron Warriors scattered in disarray, while enemies in other sectors fired at the Ravenwing penetrating their formation with equally exaggerated reaction speeds.
The Obliterator saw a Ravenwing warrior pass by an overturned chariot.
Beside the chariot, an Iron Warrior with a plasma pistol had taken aim at him.
The Ravenwing warrior dipped his body, his weight pulling the jetbike into a sharp tilt, dodging the plasma bolt. Then his glaive thrust out. Before the Iron Warrior could swing his power axe, the glaive, crackling with blue arcs, sliced into his head.
Vroom~
The jetbike spun in place, the scorching exhaust from its tailpipe eliciting screams of agony from the surrounding mortal traitors. The Ravenwing warrior eased off the throttle slightly, used the momentum to straddle the saddle again, and continued his charge forward.
A kill executed in one smooth motion.
Not far away, a Titan wailed.
The Ravenwing's fierce offensive tore through the Dark Mechanicum's Skitarii, breaking the line composed of slaves who had dedicated their souls to evil beliefs.
Decelerate. Pass through the void shield.
Accelerate. Hurl the spear loaded with a massive shaped charge.
The sharp spear tip pierced the Titan's vulnerable leg joint, triggering a series of explosions. The Titan toppled.
It was like a drill practiced a thousand times.
An untimely nostalgia rose in the Obliterator's heart.
This was a pure duel between Legionary and Legionary.
A glaive carved a cold arc, slicing through a grey helmet and the head within. An ancient thunder hammer fell with the fury of a millennium, shattering a black breastplate, pulverizing bone and muscle in the shockwave, turning heart and organs into blood mist under the power field's oscillation.
A Ravenwing warrior suddenly convulsed violently, a black, serrated spear piercing his chest from behind, lifting him off his speeding bike. He clawed futilely at the air, falling like a broken-winged raven.
An Iron Warrior's tactical lens flashed red with a warning just before being hit head-on by a speeding bike. The moment he hit the ground, the blue light of the overloaded force field flattened him and his armor into a thin sheet of flesh.
Shattered armor plates flew like metal rain. A dislodged eye lens spun in the air, refracting bloody light. Severed limbs rolled away, still clutching weapons, some fingers even pulling triggers in neural reflex.
Sprayed blood flew everywhere, interweaving with the pouring rain.
In the center of the battlefield was the Knight Lord, fighting. His presence was almost unshakable, a focal point for the traitors' rage. He dared to come among them, deep into the center of the line.
He destroyed the void shield generator, beheaded the Warsmith.
Every swing was precise and lethal. Where his sword pointed, flesh and steel tore like paper. The offensive carefully constructed by the traitors crumbled before him.
But this fearlessness would eventually exact a price.
The eyes of the enemies burned with twisted desire. They never thought they would have the chance to end this legend with their own hands.
And now, fate had thrown this opportunity nakedly before them—
How could they not go mad?
They surged like a pack of bloodthirsty beasts, roaring and howling, filling the air with the filthiest curses and most vicious oaths.
They swarmed him.
They did not care if they died.
BOOM!!!
The noise ceased.
The roar surrounding them stopped abruptly.
Seconds after the Ravenwing pierced the Iron Warriors' line.
Silence.
Then the Obliterator could hear a hum in his ears.
Low at first, then gradually louder, like a sound coming from next door.
The Obliterator perceived his perspective rising higher. The tremors caused by the heating and shock of the atmosphere were blowing him higher and higher.
His head spun upward.
Sound came rushing back.
Twenty kilometers from his line of sight, a large section of the bastion's impregnable wall vanished.
Just vanished without a trace, leaving only jagged steel edges and twisted adamantium skeletons, still glowing red with heat.
BOOM!
Dozens more streams of molten metal struck the cooling Emperor-class Titan from different directions, dozens of kilometers away. After an instant flash, a massive mushroom cloud rose. He felt the air buffet him, more debris falling like rain. A beast made of ten thousand tons of steel began to tilt slowly, then collapsed like an avalanche.
Finally, an endless heat wave hit him.
The Spear of Retribution fell.
He couldn't see anymore.
The Obliterator's consciousness finally lingered on the clouds ahead, illuminated crimson by the light of the rift.
If one were to follow the perspective from Arthur's battlefield upwards, through the clouds polluted by toxic smog, into the planet's orbital space, one would see.
[Orbital bombardment complete. Initiating evasive maneuvers.]
A massive Strike Cruiser began to climb, its steep angle of ascent scraping up vast amounts of atmosphere, burning its armored prow red-hot.
BOOM!
A traitor Apocalypse-class battleship locked onto the cruiser that had broken formation to maintain the bombardment. Dense lance batteries spat flashes blessed by the warp, piercing the void shields after a ten-second stalemate.
CRUNCH!
Unable to adjust its attitude, the Strike Cruiser did not dodge. Its crimson ram, scourged by the atmosphere, plunged straight into the flank of a Desolator-class heavy cruiser attempting to seize spoils.
Chaos and the Imperium were slaughtering each other. Dense clusters of warships, large and small, were squeezing every ounce of power they had, aiming ship-borne weapons at any enemy in sight. Lances occasionally aimed at the surface, firing down upon densely populated areas.
In the outer orbit of Cadia, a planetary ring composed of warship wreckage was slowly forming.
The Iron Warriors retreated, leaving behind several Titans and a trail of corpses.
Watching the fragments of warships falling from the sky, annihilated into nothingness by surface anti-air fire, Arthur sheathed his sword, which radiated a faint golden glow.
"My lord, shall we pursue?"
Sammael, Master of the Ravenwing, shook the filth off his Corvac plasma cannon and asked Arthur, who had appeared at the edge of the bastion.
Behind him, Ravenwing riders rushed out of the rolling smog one after another. More and more, though not all had survived, the number was still astounding.
Over eight hundred returned, the cavalcade accompanied by the parting shots of the enemy remnant.
Some riders were injured; some carried wounded comrades. The wounded were either strapped to their seats or placed across the empty space in front of their comrades.
Arthur looked away from the burning corpse of the Obliterator.
Obliterators were usually Chaos Space Marine Warpsmiths infected with a techno-virus called the Obliterator Virus, a fusion of self, armor, and daemon.
They could absorb any weapon held for too long into their bodies and produce ammunition from their flesh by consuming materials and promethium. In battle, they could suddenly morph weapons from their flesh to fire.
This bizarre mutation was usually more common among Iron Warriors Warpsmiths, but for some reason, surface combat units had found this mutation in Khorne Berzerkers more than once.
"No pursuit. Maintain elastic defense," Arthur ordered.
Annihilating the remnant army was indeed a glorious thing for a war.
But right now, it was unnecessary.
"Yes, my lord."
Sammael ordered his troops to return to the bastion in an orderly manner, without question.
Who knew how many conspiracies awaited in those wastelands occupied by Chaos?
Khorne had expended a Greater Daemon—one who had created the first Obliterator during the Heresy, the daemon born from the first weapon created in the universe—to open rifts on the surface and launch the first assault.
Consequently, on the surface of Cadia, almost all unblessed precision instruments failed.
Who knew if He would throw more chips onto the table?
Arthur could certainly go forward and close those rifts.
But Romulus's decision was to ignore them, not to take the bait, and focus on defense. Given the current casualty ratio, the enemy was much more anxious than they were.
Watching the enemy leave under the gloomy sky, Arthur turned.
His figure disappeared into the wind and sand, heading for the next battlefield that needed him.
1st Day, 11th Month, 774.M41
Click~
Rubble fell.
Defenders were repairing the breach in the bastion, while workers below replaced the overheated core of the void shield.
Patrol units returned to the bastion, resupplied, repaired equipment, and then headed to the next battlefield.
The Battle of the Cadian Gate passed its first month in endless fire.
Three bastions had fallen. Blackstone pylons destroyed.
Rifts spread across the earth; teleportation portals opened one by one.
The seemingly endless tide of Chaos began to crash against the next reef.
One thousand two hundred and ninety-seven bastions remained.
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