The artillery fire shook the heavens and the earth. The Armored Assault Group, supported by the Adeptus Astartes and Knights, beca a marching iron flow that forcefully tore apart the Green Tide and the fortresses within it that stood like coastal reefs.
"Are you the person in charge of this sector?"
Arthur asked, standing before the Commissar.
The intensity of the war on this Planet was high, but there were no true masters. Having Karna slaughtering on the frontlines was enough, so he had been dispatched to deliver the goods.
"Yes, my lord!"
The Commissar nodded, putting away his last will and testant.
Because the navy was too full of vermin, before the war even began, the Astra Militarum high command along with the Imperial Navy High Command were wiped out entirely in space.
Fortunately, the ground-based arrays were effective enough to blast the Orks' Big Trash right out of the sky. Combined with the Orks being quite foolish—ramming their fleet directly down—the battle, though currently a ss, had bizarrely held on for many years.
Of the millions of Imperial Guardsn left on the Planet, the highest-ranking officer besides him was the captain standing by his side.
"Do you know how to operate armored vehicles?"
Arthur asked the captain.
"No!"
The captain declared loudly.
"Do you know how to fly aerial vehicles?"
"No!"
"..."
'There is really no need to be so loud,' Arthur thought.
Arthur looked at the surrounding Imperial Guardsn. Many of them were even using outdated lasguns, and their standard-issue armor was incomplete.
After all, not all Astra Militarum were Cadians.
The Commissar imdiately spoke up, answering earnestly, "They are the local Astra Militarum from Prairie World Elks, along with the Escodia Fire Guards from the neighboring Sector. They excel in cavalry charges and the use of heavy artillery."
"Where is the artillery?"
Arthur was surprised. This Planet had completely devolved into a war of attrition. Tens of millions of Planetary Defense Force troops and Astra Militarum were engaging in fierce firefights across the globe against the Orks and Chaos. The intensity was terrifying, yet heavy firepower weapons were exceedingly rare, resulting in all three sides slowly bleeding each other dry.
"Gone."
Heavy firepower was generally the responsibility of the navy to deploy, but the Imperial Navy personnel were already dead. Even the regint the Commissar was currently commanding wasn't originally his responsibility; his own regint was still drifting in outer space.
The Commissar felt a pang of agony just thinking about it.
It was supposed to be a simple suppression of a rebellion. The Imperial Navy only needed to cautiously deal with the Ork fleet from a distance, then fire a round of macro-cannons at the polar portals, and the matter would be settled. Even the local Planetary Defense Force and Astra Militarum could have finished the cleanup work on their own.
Yet it had turned into this ss.
"My lord, our warriors are the currency forged in the fires of war. We will fulfill the mission The Emperor has bestowed upon His subjects. Please give the order."
The Commissar had so foresight. With such an exaggerated deploynt of Adeptus Astartes and armored forces, the battlefield they were about to enter would be grand beyond asure. Putting aside whether they could win, even if they did, they likely would not survive.
"You can use self-propelled artillery, correct?"
Arthur ignored the Commissar's readiness to die, pressing his communicator to notify Romulus before turning back to the Commissar.
"How many n are left in the troops capable of operating artillery?"
"Four hundred thousand."
The Commissar replied imdiately.
"Have them assemble."
"Yes."
Although doubts lingered in his mind, adhering to the principle of asking less and doing more, the Commissar quickly went to consolidate the troops.
With the help of the Adeptus Astartes, the pressure on the frontline plumted, making it easy to withdraw troops.
"Commissar, look!"
The reaction speed of the Imperium's frontline was quite impressive; at the very least, the frontline troops possessed the professional capabilities they were supposed to have.
Following the captain's direction, the Commissar looked up to find that in the newly cleared skies, countless super-heavy transport aircraft were descending. These fragile but fully loaded strategic transport units were typically only deployed before a battle or after gaining air superiority.
To state a counter-intuitive piece of common sense, in the vast majority of battles fought by the Imperium, the Imperium was the side holding air superiority.
"My goodness—"
The Commissar stared at the self-propelled artillery rolling endlessly out of the transport aircraft.
Basilisk self-propelled artillery, a relatively common model used by the Imperium.
But wasn't this quantity a bit too exaggerated?
Furthermore, those cannons did not seem quite right either.
"Can you use them?"
Arthur asked.
The crusade was perfectly designed to let the Transmigrators create a snowball effect and earn their initial funds. Dantioch had made simplified designs for the cannons and chassis, keeping the costs exceedingly low.
The Transmigrators all had contingency plans to mass-produce basic equipnt through the materialization of Souls; they possessed the technological reserves to save on Souls in this regard.
"Absolutely, my lord."
The Commissar swallowed hard, his mind constantly guessing just what exactly they were going to face in the future.
"Imdiately organize a regional artillery barrage. Here—and here—I will issue combat orders to you in real-ti."
Following Romulus's directions, Arthur quickly began mapping out the battle plan for the Astra Militarum.
"My lord, you seem to be aiming for a swift victory?"
The Commissar astutely saw through the tactical planning.
Achieving a rapid victory through overwhelming military superiority, seemingly without considering whether the enemy had additional reinforcents.
"Yes."
Arthur cast a sidelong glance, noticing the last will pinned to the man's collar with a pen cap.
"This Planet is only a part of the battlefield. We must crush the enemy in the shortest possible ti. You need not worry about any post-war purges."
"In other words, we will achieve victory soon?"
The Commissar realized that this Adeptus Astartes lord was unusually easy to converse with.
"Correct. When the sun rises over this Planet for the second ti, we will be greeted by the glory of victory and the bones of our enemies."
Arthur nodded seriously.
"I understand, my lord."
'It looks like the lads will survive,' the Commissar realized.
The Knight's voice carried a quality that made one instinctively want to believe him. At the very least, the Commissar did not think this Angel of The Emperor would deceive him on this matter.
The Commissar let out a long breath, then shouted to the various commanders in the command center, "Did you hear that, boys?"
"Move! Get the troops and the artillery moving!"
——
"Open fire! Send these xenos to hell!"
Pedro Cantor, the First Company Captain of the Crimson Fists, loudly issued the command, his deep and sonorous voice echoing across the battlefield.
The Crimson Fists warriors beside him quickly responded, stepping out from behind cover. The bolters in their hands roared in unison. The dense storm of bolt rounds rained down like a tempest, instantly felling several rows of Orks charging up the narrow fortress path. Thousands of corpses, accompanied by blood and shattered armor, tumbled down the steep cliffs of steel, emitting heavy thuds.
A piercing whistle tore through the sky as artillery shells rained down heavily, almost entirely blanketing the fortress. The fiery light of explosions shot into the heavens, kicking up massive clouds of smoke and dust mixed with flesh and blood and dirt.
The sudden and ferocious firepower left these xenos, renowned for their resilience and adaptability, with no ti to react. The originally tightly packed charging Orks were blown to pieces, their formation instantly crumbling.
However, these hideous Orks did not retreat.
Over a dozen heavy-armored Ork Nobz quickly scrambled up the breaches in the fortress, attempting to block the assault from the outer ring of giant humie cans.
Standing at a vantage point, they dual-wielded las-miniguns and fired wildly. Crafted with the ingenuity of the kboyz—involving hamring in a few Grots or their own brains as living sacrifices—their armor was reinforced with Waaagh! energy fields and deflector shields, perfectly withstanding those feeble bolt weapons.
"I reckon I can smash the giant humies across from us."
Braving the artillery fire, the heavy-armored Nobz attempted to suppress the Crimson Fists' advance route with overwhelming firepower. Their battle cries mingled with the gunfire, sounding particularly harsh to the ears.
However, while standing high up certainly drew the envious gazes of the boyz and made them feel even more Waaagh!, it also turned them into pri targets.
Even though the explosive suppressing fire from the Orks' heavy-armored squad made it difficult for the Crimson Fists to raise their heads for a mont, the warriors behind cover did not panic.
They waited calmly until Valkyries swooped past the horizon, practically skimming the Stormbirds' void shields for a low-altitude assault. Countless hyper-combustion explosives were dropped, engulfing the heavy-armored boss along with his surrounding guards. Seizing this brief window, the Crimson Fists warriors swiftly rose up against the enemy's artillery fire.
The heavy-armored frag rockets rely left dents upon striking their frontal armor. The Firepower Supply Team quickly swapped their weapon modules to Super-Combustion Plasma. The blindingly white plasma, heated to its absolute limit, ignited the air itself and hurtled straight toward the Orks atop the boulders.
The slow-to-react heavy-armored Nobz were instantly vaporized, leaving behind only mangled limbs. anwhile, the quick-witted, sneaky brains hastily retreated back into the fortress, snatching the large teeth from the unlucky gits who still had their heads attached on the way.
"I reckon this ain't gonna work, I reckon it ain't gonna work!"
One by one, the heavy-armored Nobz scrambled back toward the interior of the fortress.
"Thwack!"
Casually kicking a Grot away, a kboy sneered as he watched those foolish gits throwing their lives away, unable to help but praise his own brilliance.
If the fortress fell, then it fell. These idiots only knew how to hack, slash, and blow things up. What did they know about the world-shaking wisdom bestowed upon them by Gork and Mork?
The Warboss chuckled. His physical stature was already imnsely towering, large enough to rival the bosses of the Ork warbands.
Over this period, the intense battles with the humies had earned him the adoration of the boyz and Grots, all because the weapons and gear he produced were the most Waaagh! and the most powerful.
Especially this massive war fortress. The interior was completely rigged with sliding iron blocks and shearing steel pincers. If those canned giant humies dared to step inside, the constantly shifting rooms and the heavy-armored Nobz lurking within would surely give them endless surprises!
"Thud!"
A group of fleeing Nobz stepped into thin air and tumbled down into a sealed room. A couple of unlucky bastards were mourning the loss of their own knocked-out teeth, but then imdiately started fighting because they eyed the bigger teeth of the guy next to them.
Before the war fortress was even breached, the interior of this massive structure abruptly beca extrely lively.
But that did not matter.
Fighting was good! Being able to fight was a great thing! His weapons were made precisely for this kind of clever, hard-fighting talent.
Power began to unlock within his genes, and inspiration exploded within his skull. The gaze of Gork and Mork was soon to descend upon him.
The Warboss kept pondering new flashes of inspiration and technology. The shield coils radiated light, and arcs of electricity lashed against his cranium, making him feel as though his inspiration was an endless fountain.
He thought, 'I reckon I can smash those giant humies,' reckoning that he could later turn this fortress into the toughest, most brutal mobile fortress around, and reckoning that he could turn these technologies into reality.
"Crash!"
Another unparalleled tremor struck. The Warboss slamd his fist down on a button, ready to put on a show for the humies with a super-transformation sequence.
"Rumble!"
The weaker upper section of the entire fortress was ripped clean off. A ray of sunlight pierced through the Rift, shining directly onto the Warboss's head.
"Eh, what's going on here?"
The Warboss lifted his head in confusion.
At that exact mont, a gigantic triple-barreled tube—one that he considered incredibly tough and brutal—thrust in through that Rift.
It was the triple-barreled flathrower of an Imperial Knight Dominus Valiant.
"?"
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