Slaughter!
Within the public channel, the torrent of curses and clamor abruptly ceased, leaving behind only an oppressive, dead silence.
What the onlookers witnessed was not a fierce struggle, but a one-sided crushing—a massacre met with absolutely no resistance.
The power displayed by the Doom Marines had long since shattered all prior assessments.
The mortal generals were forced to slow the footage down a hundredfold, switching to a frame rate their sluggish flesh-and-blood eyes could actually track, just to grasp the horrifying truth:
Even then, the movements of the Doom Marines remained as swift as phantoms, while the surrounding Rangdan elites, bio-armor, and splashing blood hung suspended like frozen sculptures.
The elite Rangdan warriors could not react, their attempts at retaliation frozen in grotesque, incomplete postures.
Those with discerning eyes spotted the anomaly: though the alien biosensors had detected the danger and attempted to fire the bionic nerves, by the time the command was delivered, the nervous system was already incapable of responding.
The sensor's order had been sent, but the physical pathway was simply too slow to act.
As for the Rangdan pilot units, they had perished without ever realizing what had occurred.
The silence in the public channel was deafening, yet on the battlefield, the smoke did not clear, and the killing never paused.
The Legion veterans tore through the enemy lines, while the scouts and neophytes guarded the flanks of the Iron Men, advancing in tight infantry-armor cooperation.
Though the neophytes lacked the terrifying power of the veterans, they still far surpassed ordinary Astartes. Armed with spears or greatswords and guided by smart-targeting systems, they delivered precise, lethal strikes.
Unseen to the naked eye, the neural psychic link responded instantly, providing perfect covering telemetry for every brother in the Legion.
Individually, their combat capability was horrifying; tactically, they operated as a single, unified mind.
The neophytes constantly monitored psychic communications from the veterans, their power armor's systems tightly integrated with the Iron Men to call down pinpoint fire support.
Furthermore, the hyper-efficient chain of command and multi-angle battlefield telemetry made the Legion warriors completely unstoppable.
With advanced artificial intelligence integrated into their power armor, every single Legionnaire operated as a high-level tactical hub.
Data exchange was flawlessly precise; within the armor of the charging veterans, holographic displays constantly mapped out high-priority targets.
From soul to flesh, and from flesh to cutting-edge technology, every member of the Doom Marines Legion was armed to be absolutely flawless, inside and out.
They were the ultimate instruments of destruction.
With every strike, their sheer might sent shockwaves across the theater of war.
The battle-hardened veterans carved into the Rangdan ranks, acting as black grim reapers harvesting lives, their blades composing a death overture.
In less than three seconds, over a thousand elite Rangdan warriors lay dead. They died from the sheer helplessness of being unable to resist, slain by a strength they could not touch even when exerting every ounce of their power.
The dimensional blades flared with light, tossing up the foul, dark blood of the xenos.
To those who dared obstruct the resurgence and unification of humanity, only thunderous, absolute eradication awaited.
Witnessing this, the public channel plunged into a tomb-like silence as both the Rangdan and the humans tacitly ceased all transmission.
"So weak! So pathetic!"
The Legion Swordmaster spun his double-headed light-saber, his contemptuous words cutting through the air as his weapon tore Rangdan warriors to shreds.
John Wick, the Swordmaster of the Doom Slayers Legion, was by far the most aggressive.
His shield projector hung deactivated at his waist; instead, he spun his twin-bladed sword with both hands, deflecting incoming projectiles and carving a path of pure carnage with unmatched martial skill.
He roared, he taunted!
Yet not a single Rangdan warrior spoke up to answer his highly insulting provocations.
For before they could even form a thought, their corpses had already hit the dirt. How could they answer a human?
Right behind the Second Captain, the Company Ancient followed closely, one hand raising high the company's banner of honor, the other gripping a massive dimensional greatsword.
Cleaving, hacking, parrying, sweeping—the Ancient's strikes were unadorned, utilizing simple movements to execute the art of slaughter, slaying any encroaching Rangdan xenos to ensure the banner remained standing tall.
The Apothecary, armed with twin rapiers, held his position in the center of the formation, neither pushing too far forward nor lagging behind.
His eyes scanned the entire field, his ears tuned to every frequency, constantly monitoring his brothers for injuries and prepared to move in for immediate extraction.
Mounted on his medical backpack, a mechanical arm brandished a mutation-inducing injector gun, firing physical darts into biological armor to trigger instantaneous, catastrophic cellular corruption in the targets.
He possessed the heart to heal, but also the ruthless means to destroy.
One hundred veterans tore directly into the heart of the enemy host, rampaging at will, reducing a conflict of vast numerical disparity into a one-sided slaughter.
Armed with absolute weapons, their charge was completely unstoppable.
The Doom Marines cut through the ranks, driving straight into the armored columns to face the war engines head-on.
Only black silhouettes could be seen darting around the steel beasts, their azure light-sabers slicing through the armored hulls from the flanks, bringing the massive war machines to an abrupt halt.
The exteriors of the vehicles remained perfectly intact, but their cockpits were transformed into slurry—the crews inside cleanly diced by the light-blades.
Three minutes. One hundred against five thousand.
In any ordinary war, five thousand elite Rangdan would have annihilated a hundred Astartes within three minutes without a shadow of a doubt.
But the battle taking place now completely defied all established logic and reality.
John's black combat boot kicked down the final Rangdan warrior, leaving the dusk-shrouded battlefield in a desolate, quiet stillness.
Drenched in dark green blood, his posture remained perfectly upright, standing tall over the field of slaughter.
Having punched through the enemy lines, the Legion brothers began collapsing their formation, gradually rallying around the Second Captain.
There was no silence along the Rangdan defensive lines.
The remaining defenders and slave soldiers watched in sheer horror as the black-armored warriors walked calmly among the corpses of their comrades.
John glanced toward the edge of the battlefield, where the Titan war had also drawn to a close.
Eight Atlantis mechas, supported by thirty mortal Titans, had completely annihilated an entire Rangdan bio-Titan legion.
The Atlantis mechas suffered negligible damage, though nearly half of the mortal Titans had been lost.
While it was a total victory, resulting in the destruction of fifty bio-Titans of various classes, the price paid in mortal lives was heavy.
He scanned the post-battle summary provided by the AI; the losses for the Second Company were entirely acceptable.
Not a single veteran had perished, preserving the unbroken record of the Legion's finest. A dozen neophytes had sustained injuries, but all were out of danger after receiving treatment from the Apothecaries.
The Iron Men hulls, however, had drawn concentrated fire from armored units due to their high threat profiles, resulting in twenty units destroyed.
This was no cause for grief.
The neural cores of the Iron Men remained safe in the deep rear, directing the units via remote link; they had lost nothing but empty chassis.
Though complex to manufacture, mechanical bodies were ultimately industrial assets, and their numbers would eventually be replenished.
Sigh.
After reviewing the battlefield reports, John let out a long breath, finally letting go of the tension in his chest.
Though he had prepared himself to accept casualties, a result with zero brother fatalities was undoubtedly the best possible outcome.
From a personal standpoint, John did not want the first death of the campaign to occur within his Second Company.
He shook the alien blood from his hilt, retracted the light-blade, and clipped the hilt back to his belt, casting a cold gaze toward the Rangdan lines.
"The xenos are purged!" John's low growl boomed like thunder, causing the distant Rangdan remnants to visibly flinch.
"Ha!" the warriors roared in unison, forming ranks with perfect discipline, their boots slamming against the earth to declare victory.
No one answered from within the Rangdan lines; fear spread like a contagion through their neural networks, echoing in the depths of their souls.
"Fall back," John commanded, leaping onto the chassis of an Iron Man.
The six-legged machine lowered itself to the ground, deploying its tracks to crush the ashes and corpses beneath as they began their withdrawal in a tight, defensive formation.
The Titan legion followed, dragging the wreckage of their fallen comrades and scuttling any unrecoverable units as they marched warily back toward the secure zone.
Then, the war revealed an even more ruthless face.
During the retreat, the missile pods of the Iron Men slid open, launching several tactical nuclear warheads into the engagement zone, completely vaporizing the Rangdan corpses and armored debris.
As the mushroom clouds settled, every trace of the engagement was utterly erased.
Only charred, melted tank hulls remained, quietly testifying to the horrors that had unfolded over the past few minutes.
From the moment the Rangdan legion stepped beyond their defensive perimeter to the moment they were utterly wiped out, only fifteen minutes had elapsed.
The actual hand-to-hand clash had lasted a mere three minutes.
Though the engagement was brief, the shockwaves of the victory hit everyone's mental defenses like a tidal wave.
The Rangdan remained grimly silent, the stamp of defeat burned deep into their collective consciousness as they shared a silent, overwhelming terror.
The morale of the alien empire plummeted to the absolute bottom.
The human forces, after a brief, stunned silence, erupted into deafening cheers. This absolute, sweeping victory dispersed the long-standing gloom of the war.
As footage of the battle was broadcast to the front lines, the anxieties of the mortal soldiers were entirely swept away. Across every front in the system, cheers of victory rolled like an endless tide.
Invigorated by the triumph, the auxiliary forces launched fierce counter-offensives, repelling the Rangdan assaults whose morale had utterly collapsed.
The other Space Marine Legions, seeing their brother legion sweep through the enemy like autumn leaves in a gale, felt their blood boil with excitement.
They wished nothing more than to be the ones standing on that battlefield, silencing the xenos themselves.
While the morale of the Imperium of Man soared, a weary psychic wave rippled through the Rangdan palace on Planet Six: "Moribas Solas... from this moment forth, he shall be the Supreme Warmaster. He shall command the Rangdan Overlords and direct all military affairs along the Conquest Corridor."
The Rangdan Overlords remained silent, their gazes fixed on the silhouette standing in the center of the council chamber.
The Grand Overlord spoke, his strange tones carrying a hint of exhaustion: "I grant you this authority. Go, take your revenge upon the Master of Mankind. Do not disappoint me."
Solas placed a hand over his chest. His black silhouette masked any expression, and his cracked, grating voice replied: "Understood."