Above Ronker Town, the smoke and dust from the orbital strike had not yet dissipated when an even denser whistling sound pierced through the murky sky.
Dozens of airdrop pods, resembling black meteorites, trailing plasma plumes, forcefully pierced the thin atmosphere at near-vertical angles, precisely striking the pre-calculated open areas and key nodes within the town.
Upon impact with the ground, the airdrop pods emitted a dull thud from their cushioning devices, and the external armor plates of the pods rapidly snapped open under hydraulic pressure.
The first to step out of the cabin were the Imperial Guard soldiers.
They wore standard dark red armor, carried electric rifles or arc weapons, and the optical sensors behind their masks gleamed with a cold red light.
Following closely behind were even larger intelligent mechs—the Undead Mechs leaped out with agility, their weapons rapidly spinning to warm up; the Fortress Star Mechs, on the other hand, strode out with heavy steps, their heavy weapons locking onto any hostile targets the moment they appeared.
They encountered almost no effective resistance of any significant scale.
The paralysis of external defenses and the internal chaos caused by the explosion of energy nodes reduced the organization of the family guards to its lowest point.
Sporadic laser gun fire erupted from behind cover, leaving only faint burn marks on the Guardians' armor or being deflected by the armor plates of the AI-controlled mechs.
The response to these attacks was an even more ferocious barrage of firepower.
The charged particle beams fired from the Streamer Rifle carbonized the guards behind cover along with their cover; the barrage of bullets from the Revolver Bolt Gun tore apart the squads that were trying to regroup; and the scorching jets from the Melt Gun melted the solid alloy fortifications into boiling molten metal.
The missionary forces and the intelligent machine gunners quickly formed a standard assault wedge formation.
Mechs act as mobile fortresses and firepower pillars at the front, their heavy armor withstanding most attacks and clearing obstacles ahead with overwhelming firepower.
The Imperial Guard soldiers followed closely behind, precisely eliminating enemies attempting to approach from the flanks, and using their specialized equipment to blow up blocked passages or reinforced entrances.
Their advance route precisely followed the path planned by Osiris through Elias' intelligence, avoiding potential traps and heavily fortified areas, and went straight to the main underground entrance located at the bottom of the huge ship's bow wreckage in the center of the town.
The entire process was efficient and ruthless, like a hot knife cutting through grease.
Although the family guards' resistance was valiant, it proved futile and fragmented in the chaos of losing unified command and energy support, and being attacked from both inside and outside.
The assault force moved at a steady pace, leaving a trail of broken bodies, melted equipment, and burning debris in the street as it rapidly approached its target.
——
Meanwhile, deep within the complex network of underground tunnels, Osiris' massive mechanical body was leading an elite squad consisting of two Death-class mechs and four Fortress-level mechs equipped with heavy melee weapons forward.
This squad pierced through Ronker Town's last line of defense like a chisel.
The route they chose was not the main road, but a maintenance shortcut marked on Elias' blueprints, which bypassed several defensive nodes that were still putting up a stubborn resistance.
The heavy isolation gates were torn apart like paper by the phase claws of the Deathbringer or the hydraulic punches of the Fortress Starship.
The elite guards of the family who attempted to hold off the enemy through the narrow passages were often shot in the head by Osiris as soon as they showed their faces, or were completely overwhelmed by the heavy firepower of the mechs.
The air was filled with a mixture of ozone, gunpowder smoke, and the smell of blood.
The passageway's lighting system flickered due to the previous overload and battle. Under the flickering light, only the hum of machinery, the explosions of weapons firing, and the brief wails of the dying formed a symphony of destruction.
Finally, they reached the end of the passage—a massive alloy door, far heavier than any they had encountered before, its surface engraved with intricate family crests and ancient warning runes.
This is the final barrier to the core secret chamber of STC.
The relatively open area in front of the gate became the final battlefield.
The family head, Van Sauer III, stood before the gate, clad in an ancient power armor that had clearly been meticulously modified and shimmered with azure energy veins.
He was surrounded by his last eight most loyal bodyguards, who were also well-equipped and had a mad, desperate look in their eyes.
They formed their last line of defense by relying on the makeshift shelters temporarily erected on both sides of the gate.
"Blasphemers!" King Van Sauer III's voice boomed through the helmet's speakers, filled with suppressed rage and a barely perceptible hint of despair. "You will not lay a finger on the legacy of our ancestors!"
Almost as soon as he finished speaking, the mechanical tentacles on Osiris' back rose up, and the "Arc Disaster" transmitter on it was instantly fully charged.
He had no interest in responding to nonsense, and the destructive arc of electric energy lunged at the enemy's position like a twisted python.
The guards fired fiercely, laser beams and explosive shells striking the armored Death-class mechs charging ahead, sending up dense sparks, but they could not destroy them instantly.
Two Fortress Star-level mechs, with an agility disproportionate to their size, flanked the enemy from the flanks. Their phase claws tore through the air, easily shredding the guards, armor and all, who tried to block their way.
The battle escalated rapidly.
As King Van Sauer III watched his personal guards dwindle rapidly under overwhelming firepower, a glint of madness flashed in his eyes.
He took a sudden half step back, and the armor plate of his right power armor slid open, revealing a hidden control interface underneath. His finger quickly pressed a scarlet button—the final command to activate "Final Oath" and overload the STC core and all energy nodes!
However, just as his fingertip was about to touch the button, the confirmation rune on the control interface screen suddenly started shaking violently and displaying garbled characters, and the progress bar froze strangely just before reaching its end.
Elias' miniature jammer, installed at the B-12 control substation, is now stubbornly interfering with the transmission and confirmation process of this final command at its maximum output power.
This fatal delay was less than two seconds.
But for Osiris, that was enough.
In the instant that Van Sauer III was momentarily stunned by the failure to immediately execute the order, Osiris' massive body had already unleashed a speed disproportionate to its size.
His heavy mechanical feet pounded the ground, and the hydraulic system on his back roared in a low voice, instantly bridging the less than twenty-meter distance between them.
Van Sauer III, a seasoned veteran, reacted swiftly, immediately abandoning the self-destruct mechanism and raising the ion cannon mounted on his arm to attempt to fire.
But Osiris moved even faster. One auxiliary mechanical arm precisely parried the raised muzzle of the opponent's cannon, while the other main arm, holding the Om Messiah Axe which was humming with a power field, had already drawn a deadly arc.
The axe blade precisely cleaved into the seam of the Van Sauer III power armor's neck.
The built-in disintegration force field collided violently with the ancient alloy, producing a piercing tearing sound.
The powerful kinetic energy and energy field instantly destroyed the power transmission and life support systems below the neck.
Van Sauer III's body stiffened abruptly, the raised ion cannon drooped limply, and the light in his helmet visor quickly dimmed.
Osiris drew his power axe, and Van Sauer III's body fell heavily to the ground with a thud.
The remaining guards were also completely wiped out by the Death-class and Fortress-level mechs at the same time.
The passageway fell silent for a moment, with only the faint hum of the mech servo system and the distant, faint sound of an explosion.
Osiris' gaze passed over the corpse on the ground and landed on the tightly closed alloy door engraved with the family crest.
The STC system is right behind the door.
He raised a mechanical tentacle, gesturing for the accompanying tech priest to step forward and begin breaking down this final barrier.