A deafening roar echoed from the jungle.
The Orks, whose treasures had been stolen, had gone mad.
They gathered all their forces from the surrounding area and surged from all directions like a green tide.
“Take back the shiny!!” Countless bullets, grenades, and rockets rained down on the array platform.
“Defensive formation.” Tarkus’s voice remained calm.
He, Avitus, Thaddeus, and the remaining Blood Ravens recruits stood in a line at the edge of the platform.
There was no cover; they were the cover.
Avitus set up his heavy bolter, the massive weapon steady as a rock in the Astartes’ hands.
“Let them come.” The irascible warrior gave a grim smile.
“Let them die.” Alex drove the chimera to the flank as a mobile fire point.
He watched the defensive line formed by red power armor, a sense of indescribable shock surging in his heart.
It was a wall—a Wall of Sighs forged from faith, ceramite, and gene-enhanced muscle.
The green tide slammed into them.
Boom—!
Before the first wave of Orks could even charge up the steps, they were torn to shreds by a dense storm of bolter rounds.
Every roar of Avitus’s heavy bolter was accompanied by the disintegration of several greenskins.
The bolter rounds blew open their chests and heads simultaneously, sending severed limbs flying through the air in a foul-smelling rain.
Thaddeus guarded the left flank; any boy who tried to leap up was hacked back down the steps by his Chainsword, the serrated blade shrieking as it bit into greenskin bone.
Tarkus stood in the center, his Bolter picking off targets with precision.
He even positioned himself to block the shrapnel from grenades, ensuring the fragments hit his power armor instead of wedging into the gaps of the array’s base.
“mortal.
Suppress the left flank.” Tarkus ordered over the comms.
Alex sighed and pulled the trigger.
The multi-laser began its harvest once again.
He actually really wanted to raise the barrel slightly and intentionally let a few Gretchin carrying explosives through.
But the Astartes stood too firmly.
If Alex let any monsters through, they would only blow up against those red backs.
Can’t you just let a guy die?
Looking at Avitus’s backplate, which was nearly blackened by rocket fire, Alex’s finger unconsciously corrected the trajectory, precisely detonating the bomb-carrying Gretchin attempting a sneak attack.
Boom!
Shredded meat and tar-scented smoke exploded together.
These three minutes were a prolonged slaughter for the Orks.
No matter how they charged or howled, the red defensive line remained unmoved.
Corpses piled into small hills at the base of the steps, and blood flowed down the stone stairs, staining the ancient ruins a dark red.
Beep—!
A crisp notification sound.
The originally dim sky suddenly brightened.
A massive beam of light shot from the tip of the pyramid toward the heavens, piercing the thick clouds of Typhon and reaching orbit.
“Calculation link established.” Matellus’s voice was still mechanical, but held a hint of relief now that the process was finally smooth.
“Data is uploading.
Orbital communications restored.” In Alex’s helmet HUD, the originally flickering and blurred red threat points instantly focused into strings of clear coordinates.
Avitus stopped firing.
The barrel was still glowing red, but he didn’t even spare a glance at the remaining Orks who were still shouting.
He looked up toward the sky.
The clouds were dispersed by the beam, revealing a corner of a black ship’s silhouette.
It was the Doomsday, stationed in orbit.
“Do we still need to fight?” Alex asked over the comms.
“The power reserves for this vehicle are nearly empty; they need to be replaced.” “No longer necessary.” Tarkus stowed his Bolter and turned toward the array entrance.
“Watch the sky, Soldier.” Alex poked his head out.
In the sky, several tiny points of light were rapidly expanding.
This was followed by a screech that tore through the air.
Boom—Boom—Boom—!
Not drop pods—it was an orbital bombardment.
Several thick beams of light descended from the heavens, landing precisely on the Orks’ gathering point deep in the jungle.
The earth shook, and mushroom clouds rose into the air.
For that moment, the brightness even outshone the sun, and the heat wave felt like a dull punch to the face even from ten kilometers away.
The green tide, which had been so arrogant moments ago, was instantly turned to ash before this divine retribution.
Matellus’s emotionless voice came over the communication channel: “Orbital fire calculations complete.
Ready to strike at any time.” Alex watched the world-ending beams of light and swallowed hard…
Fine, you guys are truly brave for daring to bomb so close.
“If you had this capability, couldn’t you have used it sooner?” Tarkus walked past the chimera, his scar-covered face still expressionless.
“Without the array’s positioning, the orbital bombardment would have vaporized us as well.” He glanced at Alex.
“Well done, mortal.
You may rest.” Alex slumped in his chair, looking at the blinking orbital link icon above his head.
Rest?
I want to die, brother…
After a brief respite, the team continued forward.
The chimera’s tracks rolled over the last Ork corpse.
“Continue the advance.
Target: Typhon’s interior.
Gordian needs pure samples to manufacture toxins.” Pure samples.
And Typhon’s interior…
was the nest of the Tyranid Swarm.
And so, they pressed on.
The jungle’s color shifted from dark green to deep purple, and the plants changed from ferns to meat-like, writhing vines.
The air began to fill with a nauseating mix of methane and strong acid vapors.
Typhon’s interior didn’t seem like a jungle; it was more like the rotting stomach of a giant beast.
The chimera’s tracks churned through waist-deep black mud with difficulty, the engine letting out a suffocating roar.
The air was oxygen-deprived; methane, spore dust, and acid vapors coated the armor plating like hot soup, and the filters never stopped hissing.
Alex didn’t even dare open the hatch.
Several unknown insects, only the size of a palm but equipped with suckers and sharp teeth, were clinging to the observation window, trying to gnaw through the sealant strips on the edges.
“Stop here.” Cyrus’s voice drifted through the comms channel like a ghost.
You couldn’t see where he was; there were no friendly identifiers on the radar, and the thermal imaging showed only a chaotic mess of biological background noise.
Only a withered tree fifty meters ahead suddenly exploded—a spore mine hidden in the canopy was precisely sniped, acid splashing down like rain and sizzling as it corroded the ground.
“Frontal sector.
Dense minefield,” Cyrus’s voice said, still devoid of emotion.
“No infantry can pass through.” Alex looked through the turret’s wide-angle lens.
Hundreds of bloated organisms, looking like balloons, were floating in mid-air or half-buried in the mud.
They swayed gently in the breeze, tentacles trailing on the ground.
At the slightest vibration, they would pounce like a school of blood-scenting piranhas and self-detonate.
“Excellent.” Alex licked his parched lips, a glint flashing in his eyes.
Isn’t this the perfect place to die?
“I’ll clear them out.” Alex maneuvered the multi-laser turret to turn.
“Give me three minutes.” Zap—!
Zap—!
Red laser beams cut through the mist.
Every shot precisely detonated a spore mine.
Chain explosions sent waves of acid surging through the swamp, the firelight reflecting off Alex’s expressionless face.
He shot accurately—very accurately.
But he left one.
A spore mine that looked somewhat shriveled and dull in color was wobbling and floating right in the chimera’s path.
It was close to the tracks—close enough that if Alex “spaced out” for just a second and didn’t see it, it would hit the hull.
At this explosive yield, the chimera’s side armor definitely wouldn’t hold; the sympathetic detonation of the ammunition would send him sky-high.
“Everyone else get out.
I’ll drive and scout the way.” The chimera rumbled forward.
That spore mine was like a sluggish ghost, drifting slowly toward the vehicle.
Closer, closer.
No, I can’t laugh yet.