The firmament was burning.
And above the firmament, fortresses were falling, burning, plummeting, turning into a rain of steel meteors, caught by gravity, smashing into the boundless desert.
The sky-borne fortresses were buried among the ground-based ones, and with their fall and death, the Randan army followed in relentless pursuit.
The last Imperial Navy fleet was gathering in orbit around this world. The defensive line, centered around two Gloriana-class Battleships from two legions the Unbending Truth and the Flaming Forge was unshakeable.
No xenos warship could challenge them. Supplemented by hundreds of tenacious war engines, impregnable void fortresses, defensive arrays, and hidden bombs from the First Legion scattered among asteroid clusters, this was a net specifically designed to bleed the Randan dry.
Giant beasts fought and struggled for their lives, countless aerial Void Reapers, each the size of a hive city, destroyed each other in the endless void. Any single one of them would be enough to easily subjugate an entire world in another setting, but in this bloodiest of steel graveyards, their lives and struggles were merely the most insignificant chips on the scales of war.
And now, such chips were everywhere on this battlefield, tens of thousands of beings piloting the smallest warships, shuttling and fighting in the shadows of countless void behemoths, like midnight moths drawn to a raging fire.
On this nightmare-level battlefield, they died ceaselessly, yet were continuously replaced by newcomers. Every flickering spark, no matter how tiny it seemed, harvested the lives of tens of thousands of warriors, crushed the hopes of tens of thousands of mothers, and sublimated into tens of thousands of undying heroic souls.
The slaughter continued, expanding, intensifying. Neither the Lion El'Jonson, Knight of Caliban, nor the Randan fleet commanders showed any inclination to retreat. Regardless of their inner thoughts, they had to hold steadfast to one belief: kill the enemy, destroy the enemy's fleet, crush the enemy's hope, annihilate everything belonging to the enemy.
At all costs.
Until death.
This was the command of two empires, the obsession of two races, the most direct clash of two destructive wills that could never reach any reconciliation or cooperation. Every spark struck between them meant tens of thousands of warriors and beings were casually expended, and every command issued was one that even the most powerful could not disobey: kill the enemy!
Thus, the war continued, blood still flowed, countless warships and steel engines turned into burning wrecks in the most minor of conflicts. Priceless war machines were wantonly squandered, to gain even a moment's advantage, to accumulate even a sliver of a chance at victory.
No one knew how long this war had been going on. The chronometer in the warp faithfully performed its duty, meticulously counting time, but no one paid attention anymore.
People only knew that all strength must be thrown into the front-line slaughter. Generals and sailors died at the same moment, battleships and destroyers burned in the same spot.
In the void battlefield, there was no longer nobility or lowliness, no longer importance or insignificance. In the face of burning destruction, annihilation and death were justly weighing every warrior and coward who stepped onto the battlefield.
People only knew that every command issued from the First Legion's Unbending Truth was still the calmest and most trustworthy. The Lion El'Jonson, Knight of Caliban, had proven his capabilities in just a few rounds of engagement, and in the long tug-of-war that followed, he had amply demonstrated that his success was not due to fleeting luck.
The Lion was like a god of war born for battle. Even on the endless void battlefield, which he had previously disregarded and was not proficient in, his performance remained unparalleled. The Lion El'Jonson, Knight of Caliban, seized every detail, every opportunity, every minuscule possibility that could sustain the Imperial defense and bring Imperial victory closer.
Lion El'Jonson's commands were clear and indisputable. Whenever his voice echoed through the exceptionally clear communication channels, even the noisiest officers would instinctively silence themselves, listening to his orders. Even officers from the Eighteenth Legion, who had never met him, would instinctively obey and execute these commands, only to be astonished by the immense results.
By the thirtieth round of fighting since the war began, everyone on the Imperial side, regardless of whether they were subordinates of the First Legion or had met the Lion El'Jonson, Knight of Caliban, personally, instinctively and based on what they had seen and heard, respectfully carried out every command from that voice, no matter how cold, how cruel, or how unbelievable it sounded.
Warships were dispatched, deaths were instructed, and fortresses frequently changed their positions in the constantly shifting battle. At one moment, a fortress would be the most critical point of the battle, worthy of any level of protection and sacrifice; at the next, it would fall out of favor with the sudden change in battle, forced to rely on its own strength for defense.
Under Lion El'Jonson's command, countless deaths occurred in every corner of the battlefield, and countless acts of abandonment and exploitation resonated equally over the heads of every Imperial soldier. Yet, it was precisely with these most cold and ruthless commands that the Imperial front line was maintained, and the Dark Angels consistently held a certain initiative.
Although on the surface, under the relentless pressure of the endless Randan fleet, the Imperial control zone had become increasingly constricted, and even some airspace over Tacus V had been firmly seized by the Randan.
A closer look, however, would reveal that the skies above the most important primary fortresses were always guarded by the First Legion's fleet, unyielding to even the fiercest assaults.
When the Lord of the Firedrakes and his sons raised their heads, the colossal figure shielding them bore the symbol of the Imperial Aquila, a sight that brought immense reassurance to any Imperial warrior: it was the First Legion's Unbending Truth.
Lion El'Jonson was upon it, personally defending the skies above his blood brothers. The only way to render this place unsafe was to defeat the Lion El'Jonson, Knight of Caliban, himself, an impossible feat everyone knew.
By now, the Imperial warships orbiting Tacus V and its nearby airspace were likely fewer than five hundred, while the vast Randan armada continued to pour in. In fact, it could be said that only at this moment did the true main Randan fleet finally appear in the light and shadow of this star system. Compared to these boundless adversaries, the Imperial reserve fleets, still lurking in the shadows, were like flimsy paper sailboats beneath a colossal wave.
Despite this, certain areas of Tacus V remained firmly in the grasp of the Dark Angels.
No one knew how these warriors of the First Legion accomplished this.
If one had to find a suitable reason, it would be:
They are the Dark Angels.
They are the First Legion.
But this did not mean safety. In other places, seized by the Randan with their absolute numerical superiority, Randan vessels transporting landing forces, braving the torrential firepower unleashed by the Imperial defenders, had reached the relatively safest drop zones. Most of them would be torn to shreds by the First Legion's artillery, but the few lucky ones that arrived still deployed the first wave of landing troops.
In an instant, rain fell upon Tacus V a rain of steel.
Tens of thousands of drop pods were rapidly jettisoned, these steel tombs, larger than their Imperial counterparts, successively transformed into twisted meteors amidst the overwhelming artillery fire from the ground defenses,
smashing into the ground, kicking up dust and smoke. Only a very few fortunate ones could break through these layers of obstacles to reach the parched surface of Tacus V.
Thus, the Randan Empire's first wave of landing troops, an army of millions, brought the war from the void to the ground. Before their artillery and heavy weapons could be fully deployed,
these impatient warriors furiously charged the nearest defensive lines and fortresses in their sight, using their firearms, blades, and even teeth and claws to inflict damage, to tear apart the bodies and wills of the human defenders.
Every soldier defending the surface of Tacus V was a seasoned veteran, a formidable warrior who had fought the Randan army at least three times. They left no time for shock or fear; bullets and artillery fire were their only response to the xenos' desperate screeches.
They opened fire.
And the ground began to burn.
——————
Everything was burning.
In the void, thousands of warships fought with suicidal desperation, igniting distorted souls of warriors, butchers, and executioners in the cold, unforgiving cosmos.
On the ground, wave after wave of Randan forces were deployed. Hundreds of thousands of xenos were mercilessly killed during their descent, while millions more landed on the surface. They would die from bullets, from artillery, from the defenders' rage, from every moment of this endless war of attrition.
And beyond the void and the world, and within souls and wills, on a third battlefield invisible to mortals, everything was burning.
Morgan was burning, wantonly reveling in what was theoretically her most powerful state: surging warp energy aided her, and ten years' worth of accumulated xenos souls were being furiously consumed. These two elements constituted the Spider Queen's terrifying ferocity. Invisible blood dripped from her lips, and countless wizards lay piled beneath her feet.
Yet, she remained unsatisfied.
She craved more.
More souls, more high-quality xenos souls.
She could devour them all, consume them entirely.
Anyway, at this moment, she didn't need to stop eating for fear of the bloating and nausea in her Sea of Souls later.
As for the problems that such gluttony would inevitably bring...
That would be a headache for her future self.
I tried to quickly skim through the war plot. The main character here in Tacus V is actually Hektor, and he will experience an adventure where I will depict the general demeanor of the Second Legion... I'll try my best.
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