"Retreat! We must retreat!"
General Varnes' roar echoed through the Command Shuttle, his eyes bloodshot, fixed on the land outside the viewport that had become a slaughterhouse. There, his Dominion Soldiers, the pride of the Dominion, were being harvested by invisible psychic blades.
Their will was collapsing.
Their sanity was burning away.
Their front lines were being completely engulfed by a tide named fear.
Reinhardt did not respond to him.
He simply stood there, like an ancient statue, his gaze piercing through the veil of blood and fire, precisely locking onto the five coordinates on the map that glowed with an ominous purple light.
Psyker Brain-Worm.
The source of all this chaos.
"Madman! You madman!" General Varnes completely lost control. He rushed to Reinhardt, grabbed his collar, and roared, "Do you hear me? Your sacrifices are almost all dead! Your damned holy ritual is about to run out of an audience!"
Reinhardt slowly, slowly lowered his head. There was no ripple in his golden eyes as he looked at Varnes' face, distorted by anger and fear.
"General, quiet."
His voice was light, yet it carried an undeniable authority.
"The ritual... has just entered its climax."
"The true gods are about to descend."
With that, he gently pushed Varnes away and turned to face the empty void.
He performed no further rituals.
He simply closed his eyes.
His soul, blessed by the Emperor and burning like a star, sent out an incredibly clear, incredibly majestic command to the other side of time and space.
A summons that, on a soul level, was enough to make all things tremble.
"In the Emperor's name."
"Descend."
The next moment, the sky of the entire planet changed color.
The dark red canopy, composed of sulfur and ash, was torn open by an invisible force, creating a huge rift.
Accompanied by a ear-splitting roar, like that of a giant beast, several huge, metallic-glowing black dots broke free from the shadows of orbit.
They were not aircraft.
They were meteorites.
They were meteors of steel, descending from the heavens with the Emperor's wrath!
"What... what is that?!" In the Command Shuttle, the radar officer shrieked in terror, "Unidentified ultra-high-speed incoming objects! Falling towards the center of the battlefield! Cannot intercept! Repeat, cannot intercept!"
General Varnes stared blankly at the black dots, trailing long fiery tails, whistling down. His mind was blank.
Reinforcements?
Or a new enemy weapon?
No, neither.
It was a pure, unreasoning violence, descending from the sky.
"Boom—!!!"
The first Drop Pod accurately smashed into the center of the position guarded by the five Psyker Brain-Worms.
It did not explode.
But the shockwave, comparable to a small nuclear explosion, instantly pulverized all Xenos within a radius of several hundred meters. The earth was plowed into a huge crater, and magma surged from underground.
Then came the second, the third...
Several Drop Pods, like iron spears thrown by gods, shattered the Xenos swarm formation that the Brain-Worms relied on for self-preservation.
The din of the battlefield paused for a thousandth of a second.
Both the frenzied Xenos and the collapsing humans instinctively looked at the steel coffins still smoking.
"Hiss—"
Accompanied by the piercing sound of hydraulic rods releasing, the heavy alloy hatch of the Drop Pod burst open outwards.
From the smoke and flames, the first figure emerged.
A... "man."
A "man" over three meters tall, wearing incredibly heavy, ultramarine Power Armor, forged from what seemed like the midnight sky and royal sapphires.
On his shoulder pad was engraved a white, inverted Omega Symbol.
In his hand, he carried an absurdly large, crude, and ferocious weapon.
He was like a mobile fortress, a demigod from myth, born for war.
Then came the second, the third.
A squad of ten emerged from several Drop Pods, standing silently in the hell composed of Xenos corpses and magma.
They did nothing.
But just by standing there, they seemed to firmly hold the entire battlefield's center of gravity under their feet.
An indescribable aura, named "majesty," instantly enveloped the entire land.
"Ultramarines..."
In the Command Shuttle, Reinhardt looked at the ultramarine figures and softly uttered the name.
The Emperor's proudest, most steadfast sons.
The Imperium of Man's sharpest, invincible, merciless iron hammer.
"Buzz—!!!"
The four surviving Psyker Brain-Worms seemed to sense an unprecedented threat from these uninvited guests.
They let out psychic roars ten times stronger than before!
Four substantial, purplish-black psychic storms, like four furious giant pythons, swept towards the squad!
This was a deadly attack capable of instantly turning an armored unit into scrap metal and boiling the brains of tens of thousands of soldiers!
Facing this earth-shattering blow.
A figure stepped out from the ranks of the Ultramarines.
His blue armor was adorned with golden runes. He held a sword in one hand and a Power Staff, inlaid with a huge Aquila at its tip, in the other.
He wore no helmet, revealing a resolute and stern face, like a marble sculpture.
He was the Chapter Librarian.
Master of psychic powers, guardian of will.
He looked at the four sweeping psychic storms, his face devoid of any expression.
He simply, slowly, raised his staff.
His eyes glowed with a pure golden light, more brilliant than the stars in the firmament!
"In the Emperor's name, heretics, burn!"
A slender, golden Psychic Spear, seemingly composed of pure will, shot out from the tip of his staff.
It made no sound.
Yet it easily penetrated the four raging psychic storms.
It accurately struck the ugly, constantly writhing massive body of one of the Psyker Brain-Worms.
There was no explosion.
That Brain-Worm, like an ice cube thrown into the sun, began to burn from within.
Golden flames erupted from its every cell, completely incinerating its massive body, along with its defiled soul, in a mere second.
Only a pile of glistening, glass-like ashes remained on the spot.
With its death, a quarter of the psychic pressure that had enveloped the entire battlefield and driven countless Dominion Soldiers to madness instantly vanished.
Many soldiers who had been clutching their heads and rolling suddenly stopped moving.
They looked up blankly, feeling the incessant screams and whispers in their minds suddenly fall silent.
In its place was an unprecedented, empty silence.
"Purge them."
The leader of the Ultramarines squad, a non-commissioned officer with a red sagittal emblem on his helmet, issued a brief command.
The moment the order was given.
The definition of war was rewritten.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
That was not gunfire.
It was a dull roar, like giants beating drums, full of violent aesthetics.
Bolter.
The standard weapon of the Ultramarines began to roar.
They fired not bullets, nor energy beams.
But miniature drill-rounds with their own propulsion systems and high-explosive warheads.
A Bolter round accurately struck a massive elite Xenos.
It easily tore through the thick carapace, capable of withstanding artillery shells, and drilled into its body.
Then, it detonated.
"Boom!"
The giant beast, like a balloon of flesh and blood detonated from within, instantly exploded into a green mist of blood, mixed with shredded flesh and carapace.
And this was just the beginning.
Nine Bolters formed an unstoppable torrent of steel, composed of explosions and death.
They did not spray fire.
Every pull of the trigger meant the complete annihilation of a Xenos.
Their shooting was precise, calm, and efficient.
Like a cold program, clearing data.
The Xenos swarm's boasted numbers, for the first time, seemed so pale and powerless before these nine demigods.
"For Macragge!"
The squad leader roared, put away his Bolter, and drew a ferocious-looking weapon from his waist.
Chainsword.
He pressed the activation button.
"Buzz—!!!"
Accompanied by an ear-grating roar, like thousands of vengeful spirits, the alloy teeth on the sword began to spin at terrifying speeds.
The captain's massive blue figure, like a cannonball fired from a barrel, charged ferociously into the densest part of the Xenos swarm.
That was not a battle.
It was a one-sided, undisputed massacre.
Every swing of his sword brought a bloody storm of severed limbs and green blood.
The Xenos' claws and mandibles, capable of tearing steel, were as fragile as rotten wood under the roar of the Chainsword.
Any creature daring to stand in his way was instantly dismembered, cut apart, and turned into a blurry mess on the ground.
The Librarian was not idle either.
While using precise Psychic Blasts to pick off the remaining three Brain-Worms, he wielded his Psychic Greatsword, beheading approaching enemies one by one.
The space around him seemed to be enveloped by an invisible force field; no Xenos acid or bone spurs could get close to him.
This was a god's war, shocking to all.
"What... what is that..."
A surviving Dominion Lieutenant stared dumbfounded at the miraculous scene before him, his rifle slipping to the ground.
He saw a blue giant submerged by dozens of Xenos.
The next second, the giant roared, stood up from the pile of Xenos, and tore apart all the Xenos clinging to him. Not even a scratch was left on his blue armor.
"An... Angel..."
Another soldier mumbled, dropping his weapon and kneeling, kowtowing frantically to the blue figures.
His fear, at this moment, transformed into the most primal, most fanatical worship.
Not just him.
All the human soldiers, after witnessing this battle that transcended the limits of their comprehension, fell into a collective speechlessness and frenzy.
Fear, awe, fanaticism, worship...
Countless complex emotions intertwined in their hearts, ultimately converging into one word.
God.
They had seen the God of War walking among men.
General Varnes, in the Command Shuttle, looked at this scene that was enough to overturn his lifelong worldview, feeling cold all over, as if plunged into an ice cave.
He finally understood.
He finally understood the meaning of Reinhardt's words.
"War is a contest of wills."
Before the will of these blue giants, the Xenos' so-called "traps" and "tactics" were so ridiculous.
He also finally understood what kind of power Reinhardt represented.
That was not mortal power.
That was the might of a god.
And he had actually dared to bargain with a god.
"Con... convey my order..."
General Varnes' voice was dry, hoarse, as if he had used all his strength.
"All... all units, coordinate... coordinate with the Angels, launch a counterattack..."
"Pu... purify..."
When he uttered the last word, he seemed to have been drained of all his spirit and collapsed into his seat.
Because he knew.
From the moment he spoke that word.
He, and the entire Dominion, had been completely tied to Reinhardt's mad chariot, named "Imperium."
There was no turning back.
The battle had no suspense left.
When the last Psyker Brain-Worm turned to ashes in the Librarian's Psychic Flames.
The entire Xenos swarm's command network completely collapsed.
They were no longer an organized army, but a scattered mess.
After the Ultramarines, like a sharp scalpel, precisely removed the central nervous system, what remained was only a matter of time.
The human soldiers, their morale restored and even verging on fanaticism, launched a desperate counterattack.
The battle ended completely half an hour later.
When the last Xenos had its head blown off by an Astra Militarum Political Commissar with a Bolt Pistol, this burning land finally welcomed a long-lost silence.
The Ultramarines squad stood atop the hill made of tens of thousands of Xenos corpses.
They did not cheer, nor celebrate.
They simply, silently, wiped the blood from their Chainswords with sacred oil and reloaded their Bolters.
They were like a group of artisans who had just completed their daily work, cold, professional, without a trace of superfluous emotion.
A Command Shuttle slowly descended before them.
The hatch opened.
Reinhardt walked out.
He walked up to the ultramarine, mountain-like captain.
"Well done, Sergeant Andre."
Sergeant Andre sheathed his Chainsword. His massive body leaned slightly forward, and he heavily struck the Double-Headed Eagle Emblem on his chest with his right fist.
Emitting a dull thud.
"For the Emperor, my lord."
His voice, transmitted through the Power Armor's vocoder, was deep, resonant, and filled with undeniable loyalty.
This scene was deeply etched into the eyes of every surviving Dominion soldier around them.
They looked at their "Commander," who stood before a demigod yet remained composed.
An unprecedented flame, mixed with awe and fanaticism, was completely ignited in their hearts.