This is the bonus chapter for reaching 500 Powerstones.
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The sun of Aurelian IV had not yet fully crested the horizon.
At 5:47 AM, Kans Atens stood atop his command vehicle. The servo-motors of his Power Armor emitted their distinct hum in the freezing morning air.
On his faceplate display, dozens of tactical icons were pulsing.
"All units, report status."
A string of confirmations crackled through the channel:
"First PDF Cluster. One hundred and fifty-three thousand men. Deployment complete."
"Second PDF Cluster. One hundred and forty-seven thousand men. Deployment complete."
"Third PDF Cluster. One hundred and fifty thousand men. Deployment complete."
"First Knight Mech Armored Regiment. Seventeen Knight Mechs: one Dominus-class Castellan, three Questoris-class Paladins, thirteen Armiger-class Warglaives. Deployment complete."
"Skitarii Artillery Array. Sixty-three heavy self-propelled artillery pieces. Charge sequence complete."
Kans looked down at the holographic sand table. Over four hundred and fifty thousand PDF soldiers were spread out like an ant colony across an eighty-kilometer-wide arc on the perimeter of the industrial zone.
These Planetary Defense Force soldiers wore khaki-colored uniforms, and the lasguns in their hands were mostly the most archaic Mk I models.
Three kilometers behind them were the local guard forces of the four major factions.
Three hundred thousand men. Superbly equipped and in perfect formation. The barrels of their Leman Russ battle tanks gleamed coldly in the morning light.
Further back was the true elite:
The Knight Mech cluster of House Atens.
Seventeen Knight Mechs stood on the wasteland like metallic titans. Their ion shield generators were already active, projecting faint blue energy fields that flowed across their hulls.
The forces of the Mechanicus had established their positions at the absolute rear.
Hundreds of combat servitors were unloading lascannon and melta turrets from transport trucks, while the Tech-Priests of the Skitarii calibrated firing parameters with binary prayers.
"Data compilation complete."
Scoria Kane's mechanical voice echoed in the command channel. "Bombardment will commence at 0600 hours and continue for forty minutes. PDF forces will advance to the edge of the corruption zone within five minutes of the bombardment's conclusion."
"And the decapitation strike force?"
"Already inside the underground tunnels." Riley Conmo answered, "Six thousand four hundred and twenty-one personnel, including three hundred Psykers, are currently moving toward the heart of the industrial zone."
"Estimated time of arrival at the designated position is two hours and seventeen minutes."
Kans took a deep breath. If this failed, all four of them would lose everything.
Not just their power and status. That old fox Harrington would absolutely hand them over to the Adeptus Arbites to be sentenced to death.
"Pass down the orders." His voice echoed across the entire channel through the vox-speakers of his Power Armor. "0600 hours, bombardment begins."
"For Aurelian! For the Imperium! For the Emperor!"
–
6:00 AM.
The sound of the first shell tearing through the air was like the roar of a behemoth.
It was a Volcano Cannon shell fired from thirty kilometers away. The two-ton projectile streaked across the sky at Mach 3. The shrieking of its friction with the atmosphere as it plummeted made the very ground tremble.
BOOM!!!
The shell viciously slammed into the corruption zone. A split-second later, its internal chemical payload detonated. A tangerine-colored fireball erupted a hundred meters into the sky, and the shockwave flattened everything within a three-hundred-meter radius.
That shell was the signal.
The next second, sixty-three heavy artillery pieces fired simultaneously.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
The rhythm of the bombardment was like the heartbeat of a giant. Every booming roar made the earth shudder.
High-explosive shells, incendiary shells, cluster munitions... an endless variety of ordnance rained down on the corruption zone.
The flashes of explosions linked together into an unbroken sea of fire. Billowing smoke rose into the air, forming a thick, black layer of clouds across the sky.
Shockwaves radiated outward wave after wave. Even the PDF soldiers ten kilometers away could feel the blistering heat washing over them.
The bombardment lasted for exactly forty minutes.
When the final shell fell, everything within a three-kilometer radius of the corruption zone had been reduced to scorched earth.
The thick purple mist had been blown away, and every visible structure had been leveled. The ground was cratered like the moon, and the charred, severed limbs of daemons could occasionally be seen amongst the burning ruins.
"PDF forces, advance!"
The order was passed down through the officers to the ears of four hundred and fifty thousand soldiers.
The soldiers in the front rank swallowed hard, gripped their lasguns tightly, and began to march.
The ten-kilometer-wide frontline began to move forward. The footsteps of hundreds of thousands of men marching in unison sounded like a muffled, rolling drumbeat.
An ocean of khaki uniforms surged slowly but resolutely toward the scorched, artillery-baptized land.
The moment the front rank stepped onto the edge of the corruption zone, the anomaly occurred.
A thick, dark purple liquid began seeping from the ground, and a putrid stench filled the air.
"Enemy attack!!!"
When the first Horror burrowed out of the scorched earth, the soldiers didn't even have time to register what it was.
It was a blue creature roughly the size of a human, with a bird-like head, multiple eyes, and four arms. It was surrounded by a constantly shifting halo of light.
It opened its beak. What came out was not a roar, but a mathematical formula so incredibly complex it made the mind spin.
"α = β² + γ³ / δ..."
Dozens of soldiers in the front rank suddenly froze. Blood began pouring from their eyes as their brains failed to process the sheer magnitude of the information stream.
Three seconds later, seven of their heads exploded like ripe watermelons.
"Open fire! Open fire!"
Laser beams rained down on the Horror, but it simply raised one hand. A shield composed of swirling, glowing digits materialized in front of it.
The lasers struck the shield and were subjected to bizarre deflections, ricocheting back to strike the soldiers nearby.
This was only the beginning.
More daemons poured out from the scorched earth, the ruins, and the twisted rifts in space.
Blue Horrors of Tzeentch, red Bloodletters of Khorne, multi-headed Flesh Hounds, and floating Skull Cannons...
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!"
A Bloodletter charged into the PDF lines, swinging a burning great-axe. With a single sweep, three soldiers were chopped in half at the waist.
It bathed in the spray of blood, letting out a roar of ecstasy.
The PDF formations began to descend into chaos.
Most of these planetary defense soldiers had only received basic training. Many had never even seen a real daemon before.
Faced with this supernatural terror, discipline began to crumble.
"Those who retreat, die!!!"
The Commissariat and enforcer squads set up heavy stubbers in the rear and gunned down the first batch of soldiers who turned and ran.
But fear spreads faster than bullets.
–
Inside the command vehicle, Governor Harrington lowered his binoculars.
He sat in a comfortable command chair. The holographic screen in front of him displayed the frontline battle conditions in real-time.
Watching the PDF fall in droves, he merely frowned slightly, picked up his wine glass, and took a sip.
"Casualty rate has already reached eight percent," his adjutant reported in a low voice.
"Continue." Harrington said mildly. "Keep pushing them forward. Use their lives to pave a path of advance."
"But Lord Governor, if we keep fighting like this, the PDF might..."
"Might break?" Harrington sneered. "If they break, they break. These PDF troops are just a bunch of lowborn scum. They're just numbers."
He looked at the screen, his gaze falling on the forces of the four major factions holding their positions in the rear.
"These local warlords want to use the PDF as cannon fodder, so let them; wait until they and the Warp heresy mutually exhaust each other..." A shrewd glint flashed in Harrington's eyes.
–
Just as the frontline was devolving into a bloody meat grinder, the decapitation strike force was advancing rapidly through the underground tunnels.
This tunnel was an emergency evacuation route built during the era of the Blaec House, leading to a small storage facility near the industrial zone. It hadn't been used in eighty years.
The tunnel was thirty meters wide and twenty meters high—more than enough for Knight Mechs to pass through.
Riley Conmo walked in the center of the formation, her psychic perception extending forward like a spiderweb.
A formation of three hundred Psykers surrounded her, their psychic fields resonating with one another to form a barrier that shielded them from the Warp's gaze.
"Spatial anomaly detected eight hundred meters ahead,"
One of the Psykers reported in a low voice.
"Slow down." Busir Hysman raised his hand. Beneath his purple robes, his body was already drenched in sweat.
At the vanguard of the column, two Dominus-class Knight Mechs ground to a halt.
Their ion shields were fully deployed, and their assault cannons and thermal cannons were primed and ready to fire.
In the tunnel ahead, the walls began to seep a blood-red liquid.
The liquid writhed and warped across the walls, eventually congealing into a colossal human face.
"You have... come to die..."
The face spoke. Its voice sounded like thousands of people chanting in unison.
"Open fire!" Landon Atens ordered without a second of hesitation.
He was the second-in-command of House Atens for this operation.
The Knight Mechs' assault cannons spewed a blistering storm of high-explosive rounds, blasting the face—and the entire wall—into fragments.
But the moment the fragments hit the ground, every single piece transformed into a miniature blue Horror.
"A heretical trap!" Scoria's mechanical eye flashed violently. "Data correction: The tunnel has been corrupted! Recommendation: Accelerate and break through!"
"Full charge!"
Landon drew his Power Sword, activating the disruption field along the blade until it hummed loudly.
The elite force of over six thousand men began to sprint wildly.
Two Knight Mech regiments—thirty-four Knight Mechs—took heavy strides, their servo-motors running at maximum output. The Psykers ran while desperately maintaining the psychic barrier.
Daemons continuously sprouted from the walls, the ceiling, and even thin air.
Bloodletters swung their great-axes, Flesh Hounds lunged and snapped, and Horrors unleashed reality-warping psychic spells.
But this was a true elite force.
Every volley from the Knight Mechs' assault cannons cleared out an entire sector.
The psychic storms unleashed collectively by the Psykers tore throngs of daemons to shreds.
The Skitarii deployed lascannon turrets within the tunnel, weaving a dense web of lethal lasers.
"Casualties?" Busir asked as he ran.
"Seventeen Skitarii and thirty combat servitors lost." Scoria reported in real-time. "At current speed, we will reach the objective zone in one hour."
"Fast enough."
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Next Goal = 600 Powerstones.
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