"All of you, die..."
Before the Greenskin Big k died, it suddenly let out a hoarse laugh.
Subsequently, with its last breath, it transmitted a remote signal.
What followed imdiately was a violent tremor of the earth. To Soshyan, it seed as if everything beneath his feet was about to fall apart.
"This Xenos must have activated so self-destruct sequence. We need to leave quickly!"
Just as Sol spoke, the ground beneath their feet began to twist and deform.
The steel floor, several ters thick, was torn apart like paper. Violent, greasy steam shot out from every crevice in the floor. The sturdy walls of the hall began to collapse inward, and large chunks of debris rained down from the ceiling.
Seconds later, the ground began to crack. Greenskins who had lost their balance fell into the massive fissures, plunging toward the blazing core of the shattered world.
"Hurry! All units, retreat! Retreat to the landing zone!"
Knowing the situation was dire, Soshyan imdiately led the squad back the way they ca. No matter what that Xenos had done, this nest of theirs was bound to be destroyed.
If not by themselves, then by the fleet in orbit.
While moving, the earthquake grew increasingly severe. Were it not for the Mag-locks on the Astartes' boots, they would have been unable to stand long ago.
But even so, their movents appeared staggered and unsteady.
While running, Soshyan saw the surrounding tall towers acting as field generators collapsing one after another like toppled building blocks, also smashing the structures below them to pieces.
A long ti ago, he had witnessed a multi-layered slum undergo explosive demolition.
That tall, pyramid-like hive city area was simply a mountain-sized landfill. It had stood in that river valley for sixty generations, and the residents and protesters entrenched within were finally driven out completely by the Planetary Governor.
An extrely valuable refinery would take its place.
Through the efforts of engineers, targeted demolitions turned the entire massive structure into a landslide. Countless buildings abruptly collapsed, and layer upon layer of edifices piled up like playing cards.
That earth-shaking destruction and deafening roar left Soshyan, already an Astartes, dumbfounded.
But what astounded him the most was the massive amount of dust kicked up when the slum was annihilated.
However, that scene was simply not worth ntioning compared to the present.
It seed as if the entire continental plate had begun to crumble, spilling trillions of tons of rubble and wreckage into the abyssal fissures.
Noise and vibration rged into one, inextricably linked, joining forces to sar their field of vision into a hazy blur.
Orange-yellow bricks and pillars explosively shattered with loud booms, exploding into clouds of flour-like dust that blotted out the sun, forming a curtain wall in the sky.
Even Sol felt this life-threatening urgency, quickening his pace with a heavy expression.
To ensure the squad could leave safely and quickly, Soshyan had Sol take the lead while he brought up the rear to prevent any accidents.
The squad sprinted toward the few tall buildings they had previously stayed in.
Their forr path of return was rapidly turning into a vicious collapse trap; everything was forced to retreat into that terrifying, bottomless pit.
Suddenly, another violent tremor struck, and Soshyan, caught off guard, almost fell.
When he looked up, he found the ground ahead tilted high up, turning his posture into one of climbing a slope.
Amidst the deafening roar, a massive boulder that had once belonged to so building hurtled right toward his face; presumably, it was this colossal object that had made a significant contribution to the ultimate collapse of this section of the ground.
Facing the Unstoppable boulder, Soshyan hurriedly leaped up to avoid being crushed into a long streak of blood on the floor.
He barely managed to land atop the boulder, tightly gripping a broken base of a stone carving with both hands. Although this also overburdened the base, he was at least able to gain a foothold.
The boulder continued to slide down.
He steadied his footing and leaped once again, landing on the slanted platform behind the massive rock.
To prevent the platform from continuing to overturn, he scrambled to his feet in a flurry. The warriors who had already reached a relatively safe area looked at him nervously.
They were still shouting sothing, but the noise was too loud, and Soshyan couldn't hear a thing.
Fine rubble constantly hamred his shoulders and helt. The force of one such piece of gravel was quite considerable, leaving a patch of cracks on the left side of his visor and making him dizzy for a mont.
The earth-shattering roar gradually reached its climax. Like a headless fly, he violently crashed into sothing, subsequently discovering it was a wall.
"Up! Up!"
Sol's roar rang out. Soshyan instinctively reached up and indeed grabbed onto sothing.
Then he exerted a violent force, pulling himself up.
This was a relatively intact area, and the squad was right ahead, but there was an expanding fissure between them.
Soshyan didn't even pause to consider; he simply accelerated and jumped.
Right before one of his feet stepped into thin air, a powerful arm grabbed his pauldron first and hauled him up.
"Thanks."
Nodding at Sol, Soshyan looked back.
Most of the structure of the energy node where they had previously fought was entirely gone, leaving only so fragnted concrete interspersed with broken steel rebar and exposed cables.
The dust kicked up by this apocalyptic scene blotted out the sun, turning into a bizarre, flour-like haze in the air.
And the place where they were standing was rely the ruins of a platform at most two ters wide, allowing everyone to prolong their Lingering Last Gasps and stand upon it without falling into that bottomless abyss.
All the Astartes were crowded here, their armor covered in pale yellow dust.
"Thunderhawk! The Thunderhawk is here!"
Suddenly, Armin's excited voice rang out. Soshyan looked up and saw the Obsidian Legacy slowly descending from the sky, its hatch already open.
Ultimately, thanks to the Techmarine's foresighted preparations, all warriors safely evacuated the surface.
This was an extrely successful operation without any personnel losses.
Upon ascending into space, Soshyan noticed that the massive Void Shield had perished, which ant the fleet's destruction plan would be executed soon.
But with the Ork fleet harassing them, what would they do?
Soon, the fleet commander gave Soshyan an unexpected answer.
He planned to use the Greenskins' own weapons against themselves.
After the majority of the ground forces had evacuated, the detachnt fleet, using a series of substantial bombardnts, pushed a Greenskin teor Assault Ship that had basically completed construction out of its stable orbit.
Trailing a massive cluster of fragnted tal wreckage behind it, shining brilliantly amidst blinding, scorching light, it skimd across the surface of that vast, orange-yellow world like a miniature twin brother firmly tethered by the tentacles of gravity.
This crude weapon manufactured by the Greenskins only finally embarked on that inevitable path of destruction after orbiting eight tis.
The massive amount of wreckage spewing from its body had already left fine brown tracks around the planet, exactly like the graceful rings surrounding those giant gas planets.
Soon, the friction of the atmosphere ignited the teorite's surface, beginning to eat away at its overall structure.
Accordingly, it shone with light, just like an iron ingot in a furnace—first dark red, then turning bright pink, and finally becoming white-hot.
Whether it was the arced path of its fall or the steady shrinkage of its orbit, the sluggishness of it appetizingly kept everyone in suspense.
It was like a falling star.
After people had waited a sufficiently long ti, it smashed into the Greenskins' massive stronghold city with a boom.
A fleeting glow flashed abruptly, then turned into a rapidly expanding, blazing radiance, as if a star were slowly rising from beneath the literal strata.
Imdiately after, that radiance continued to swell, expanding in all directions like an blinding, scorching do that one could not look directly at. It instantly vaporized everything in its surroundings, uprooting the magnificent towers from their roots with the montum of Crushing the Withered.
That violent impact also generated a pulse of lethal infrared radiation.
Massive amounts of soaring dust and atomized sulfuric acid left a foul black cloud in the atmosphere. The blazing wreckage that burst and splashed when the fireball hit the ground subsequently rained down, adding the finishing touch to the firestorm sweeping across the land.
On the boarding deck of the Starfire, gathered around several giant screens used for broadcasting mission briefings, all the warriors who participated in the operation watched this fatal blow pierce into the enemy's body.
Servants and deck crew had also gathered around, so still holding tools or rags, or even weapons and firearms halfway through repair and cleaning.
While witnessing the slow fall of the teorite, it was almost completely silent all around, save for the occasional impatient mutter.
The mont the impact finally occurred, the Astartes suddenly erupted with vitality.
They forcefully stomped their armored feet and violently beat their chest plates with their fists.
"Purge the Xenos!!"
Nothing made them happier than seeing the annihilation of humanity's great enemy, and even Soshyan was no exception.
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