Roya slightly raised his hand, suppressing the overwhelming praise from the crowd.
“Get up.” Roya swept his gaze across the Space Marines covering the ground, his eyes lingering on the newly reborn Elder Darrell.
“Save your strength to deal with xenos and heretics.
Our next goal is to retake the entire Hephaestus Hive.” He walked toward the metal table in the center of the position, his fingertips gliding across the tactical projection.
“Apothecary, continue using bread to rapidly mature the new recruits; production must not stop.
James and his batch of men, go to the armory immediately to get and wear the Mk VII Power Armor.” Roya tapped the projection.
“Karn and Titus, the two of you lead the team.
Take James and the others to make up a force of four hundred.
Directly slaughter your way from here into the Mid Hive, pushing all the way to the Upper Hive.
Bring plenty of ammo crates, and when you encounter Orks, flatten them directly with Bolter firepower—there’s no need to conserve, understand?” Titus struck his chestplate heavily with his right fist, producing a muffled boom: “By your command, my Lord!” Roya shifted his gaze to Foros: “Foros, take three hundred brothers and head down.
Clear out the scattered Orks in the Underhive, clean up those Nurgle Walking Corpses in the bottom hive, and nail the defense line down at the sewage treatment hub for me.” Foros knelt on one knee: “The Lamenters will not fail this mission!” The personnel quickly dispersed.
Heavy boots trod upon the metal decks, and the crisp metallic sound of bolts being pulled echoed across the defense line.
Roya glanced at the emptied position, turned around, and picked up an iron pickaxe.
He had to dig a deeper space downward.
He needed a large number of slimeballs to craft sticky pistons in order to build a true redstone automation assembly line.
And slimes only spawned at extremely low altitudes in specific chunks.
Roya was now leading people to build a slime farm.
…
Mid Hive.
Thirty-First Avenue Hub Plaza.
This was the last unfallen sanctuary in the Mid Hive.
The defense line was piled high with abandoned armored personnel carriers, sandbags, and corpses.
The remnants of the Astra Militarum 89th Cadian Infantry Regiment and soldiers of the Planetary Defense Force (PDF) lay prone in the trenches, the barrels of their lasguns already glowing red-hot.
“For the Golden Throne!” A Mid Hive noble count stood on high, waving the energized power sword in his hand.
His ornate ballistic armor was stained with dark green blood, his right eye was grazed by a stray bullet, and blood smeared half his face.
Deafening battle cries rolled in from the darkness ahead.
“Waaagh!!!” The Orks, like a green tide, vaulted over the outer blast walls.
The Ork Boyz waved crude choppas, shattering the sternums of the front-row Astra Militarum soldiers.
Crude large-caliber bullets flew wildly across the position, kicking up patches of flesh and blood.
The mortal defense line was riddled with holes and on the verge of collapse.
Laser beams striking the berserk Orks could only leave charred holes behind, utterly failing to stop the charge of these xenos.
The communications soldier beside the count trembled all over, tightly hugging the radio: “No signal…
Upper Hive is out of contact, Underhive is out of contact.
We’ve been abandoned…” The count gripped his power sword tightly, his teeth clenching until they bled.
He knew that everyone here today would have to go meet the Emperor.
Just at the moment when the Ork army was about to wash over the final blast wall.
The towering alloy dome overhead suddenly burst with an extremely sharp metallic tearing sound.
“Boom!” A massive load-bearing wall was directly shattered by violent kinetic energy.
Countless boulders and metal wreckage smashed into the dense charging formation of the Orks, crushing over a hundred xenos.
Amidst the flying dust, the muffled thuds of combat boots landing caused the entire plaza to tremble.
Tall, hulking Astartes battle-brothers with brand-new armor paint jobs poured in from the breach like gods descending from the heavens.
Leading them, Titus held a Bolter in one hand and drew a monomolecular combat knife with the other.
Karn followed closely behind, his Chainsword erupting with a piercing roar.
Behind them were a full four hundred fully armed Space Marines.
James and the newly converted recruits wore scratch-free Mk VII “Aquila” Power Armor, their eyes beneath their visors exuding absolute bloodlust and obedience.
The Astra Militarum soldiers in the position were dumbfounded.
After a brief dead silence, hysterical cheers erupted from the mortal trenches.
“The Emperor’s angels!” “It’s the Astartes!
We’re saved!” The soldiers were moved to tears, their morale instantly ignited to its peak.
However, the noble count standing on high looked as if he had been struck by lightning.
His hand holding the power sword trembled violently, and his face, previously flushed red from the slaughter, was now as pale as paper.
Several surviving PDF officers excitedly ran to the count’s side: “My Lord!
Space Marines have come to reinforce us!
We’re going to survive!” The count completely ignored the officers, staring intently at the Astartes pouring endlessly into the plaza, his lips trembling: “Ten…
Fifty…
One hundred…” His legs went soft, and he actually slumped directly onto a blood-stained ammo crate.
“My Lord?” The officer was stunned.
“There’s no saving it…
Hephaestus is completely unsavable…” The count’s gaze was hollow, his voice carrying a despair even deeper than when facing the Orks: “Four hundred Astartes…
nearly half a Chapter’s strength…
For the higher-ups to deploy half a Chapter here means the threat level on this planet has broken its extreme limit.” In the common knowledge of the Imperium’s upper echelons, a single company of Astartes was enough to suppress a planetary rebellion.
When four hundred Space Marines appeared on a single position simultaneously, mortals usually didn’t even qualify to be cannon fodder anymore—the countdown to the planet’s shattering had already begun.
The count’s despair hadn’t even had time to spread.
The battle ahead had already shattered his common sense.
Titus didn’t give any tactical dispersal orders at all.
“Free fire.
Clear them out.” Titus spat out a few words coldly.
Titus had brought quite a few warriors converted into farmers this time, and their backpacks were packed full of gunpowder.
As for iron ingots, they were everywhere.
Once their Bolter rounds ran low, they could manufacture Bolter rounds anytime, anywhere.
Four hundred brand-new Bolters were raised simultaneously, their muzzles spitting half-meter-long tongues of lethal fire.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
This wasn’t targeted firing.
This was unreserved, fully automatic firepower pouring.
Every single Bolter round exploded inside the Orks, tearing the Ork Boyz into fragments of flesh all over the sky.
The hair-raisingly dense barrage formed an absolute quarantine zone of death in front of the plaza.
A massive Ork Warboss roared, attempting to break through the net of fire.
“Focus fire on him!” Titus roared.
Immediately, over twenty recruits took aim at the Ork Warboss and pulled their triggers relentlessly.
Before the Ork Warboss could charge a few steps, it went down.
These xenos, who only understood melee combat and wild shooting, slammed into an iron city wall capable of spitting infinite firepower.
Flesh and blood burned, and green pulp covered every inch of the plaza’s ground.
The Orks’ Waaagh Field completely collapsed in the face of such unreasonable slaughter.
The count sat on the ammo crate, blankly watching the scene before him.
There were no tactical maneuvers, no battles for positions.
Four hundred Astartes simply pressed forward directly against the tide of tens of thousands of Orks, ruthlessly plowing flat every living thing ahead with infinite Bolters.
“Wh—Which Chapter is this?
Why does their ammunition never run out?” The count’s cognition was completely shattered.
Titus blew apart the head of the last fleeing Ork with a single shot.
He raised his hand, and four hundred Bolters ceased firing simultaneously.
As the gunpowder smoke cleared, ahead lay nothing but a dead zone of severed limbs and broken arms.
Titus turned around, his gaze crossing the defense line and falling upon the dazed count.
The electronic vocoder of his helmet emitted a cold voice: “Reconstruct the defense line.
Hold this place.” Four hundred suits of Power Armor stepped over the ground covered in minced meat and strode toward other places.
As Titus and the others cleared out the outer hub of the Mid Hive, the experience points on the system interface jumped wildly like a waterfall at the bottom of Roya’s vision.
Inside the underground space.
Roya stopped the iron pickaxe in his hand.
The experience points broke through the milestone of level sixty.