Heavy dark clouds.
Countless drop pods streaked across the sky with long trails of fire, like a rain of flame.
Thick lances of light occasionally pierced the sea of clouds, turning hordes of greenskins on the ground into ashes.
Though the traitors and the loyalists had many conflicts, they were highly united on one thing: fighting xenos.
There was nothing more to say. When dealing with xenos, aside from Bolter fire, neither side of humanity could think of any other viable means of communication, even if they racked their brains.
Now, after the arrival of Chaos, the entire Alert Star was completely engulfed in planet-wide warfare.
This was no longer a chaotic melee where the Imperium faced external greenskins and internal Genestealers, but a four-way free-for-all between the Imperium, Chaos, greenskins, and Genestealers!
If you added the Aeldari hiding in the corners, the factions in the chaotic battle on Alert Star had now reached five.
Amidst this chaos, while the greenskins grew increasingly excited for their brawling carnival, the Chaos forces began fervently performing various blasphemous rituals. Atop a Hive City spire that no one paid attention to, a Chaos Warband that had charged over gleefully now stood in silence.
Black Skull stood in place. Neither the heavy power armor on his body nor the long string of human and xenos skull trophies on his back could bring him any pleasure now.
He simply stood there silently, silently watching ahead, silently counting the exchange ratio of this battle.
Until another Astartes from his Warband fell, Black Skull's mutated brows twitched violently.
"Th... thirty?"
Seeing the exchange ratio not only fail to widen but actually shrink further, Black Skull finally jolted out of his silence.
After confirming what he saw was definitely not some illusion of Tzeentch, Black Skull abruptly straightened up and instinctively looked at the equally stunned Warband Captain beside him.
"The Corpse Emperor's blessing!"
"The enemy must have the Corpse Emperor's blessing!"
After thinking for a long time and finding only this answer, Black Skull couldn't help but exclaim.
Because even if it were fifty Imperial Guardsmen for one Astartes, that could already be called a miraculous victory.
Yet, in just this short while of fighting, Black Skull saw that every exchange was a miracle!
Faced with such a series of miracles, the only explanation Black Skull could think of was the one seated high in the Terra Imperial Palace.
Only a personal blessing from Him could allow Mortals to achieve such an exaggerated combat record!
Black Skull stood there in disbelief. Among the row of equally dumbfounded cultist leaders behind him, an unnoticed horned man in the corner wore an expression not only of shock but also of extreme, stifled speechlessness.
Even among a crowd of frenzied cultists, this horned man's face actually showed a look of wanting to cry but having no tears.
He really should want to cry. After all, Blasphemous Horn had finally managed to send off the great deity Sith and had been anxiously waiting for the savior constantly preached by the missionaries.
But then, following them out with great excitement, he hadn't gone far before discovering that Sith, whom he had just bid farewell to not long ago, was now running straight into him again.
And in just these few months, the 'club' that had already beaten him until he howled had now been upgraded to a'spiked mace,' and one with barbs at that!
Now, Blasphemous Horn had no doubt about Sith's combat power. After all, even the saviors were being knocked down one after another. The only thing Blasphemous Horn felt Fortunately about now was his lowly status, which kept him from being noticed by Black Skull, sparing him from having to face Sith and his group of evil spirit.
However, Blasphemous Horn's relief did not last long. As another Chaos Astartes was taken down by a group of suddenly charging Stormtroopers at the mere cost of ten men, Black Skull's heart turned completely cold.
Unlike the loyalists, replenishing Chaos Astartes was quite difficult.
For an ordinary Chaos Warband, every Astartes in the Warband was truly one less when dead.
Blasphemous Horn kept his head down, shrinking in the corner, but Black Skull's voice still sounded right in front of him.
"Mortal, it is time for you to prove your loyalty to the Gods."
Blasphemous Horn's body trembled. He looked up at Black Skull, then at the 101st Stormtroopers 'dancing' on the Chaos Astartes in the distance, and finally at the rebels behind him whose faces had already turned pale just from hearing these words. After a long while, he pointed at his own dumbfounded self:
"Huh?"
"Me?"
Dissatisfaction appeared on Black Skull's wrinkled, mutated face. Seeing this, Blasphemous Horn's heart quivered. Not daring to Make complaints how absurd this was, he quickly straightened up:
"For the Gods!"
Black Skull lowered his already raised right hand and then gestured with his head towards Blasphemous Horn.
Helpless, Blasphemous Horn mustered his courage and looked at the 101st Regiment's position ahead, especially at Sith behind the front line, who was both being attended by Stormtrooper bodyguards and being briefed on the overall battle situation.
His eyelids and face twitching wildly, Blasphemous Horn led his men forward while frantically scanning his surroundings.
As long as he didn't have to face Sith directly, he would be twelve thousand times willing to convert to the Emperor right now!
However, there was no chance to convert to the Emperor, but a nearby gate, severely deformed by repeated blasting, caught Blasphemous Horn's attention.
Behind the 101st Regiment's position, the most elite Stormtroopers serving as bodyguards were wiping Sith's power armor, doing their best to clean up various minor scratches.
Standing by the map, Bruno kept pointing at the huge sector map and explaining:
"Chaos has committed too much force at once; the exact numbers It is impossible to count."
"We only know that almost all Imperial and xenos strongholds are under simultaneous attack."
"Furthermore, air superiority has completely fallen into Chaos hands. Our logistical aisle to Hyberia has been completely severed."
Bruno kept pointing around the map, while Sith glanced at the map and then lifted his eyes to look at the utterly bewildered Chaos Warband ahead.
"What about Hyberia?"
Hyberia was the core. As long as Hyberia held, the situation wasn't too dire.
However, upon hearing this, Bruno's face showed speechlessness. Though he didn't dare to scold outright, his dissatisfied was evident:
"Because the previous propaganda was exposed by the enemy fleet, the water purification station we just recaptured was destroyed again."
"Incited by cults and Genestealers, the entire Hyberia Hive Sector has fallen into internal riot."
seem afraid Sith didn't understand the scale of the riot, Bruno even added:
"Lord Calgar even mobilized a full half-company of Astartes to suppress the riot."
Bruno didn't even bother mentioning the numbers of Mortal troops. The mere fact that a full half-company of Astartes was deployed showed that the riot by hopeless civilians was no less severe than a frontal assault by Chaos!
A look of speechlessness also appeared at the corner of Sith's eyes. By now, his power armor had received its final maintenance. Though the Stormtrooper bodyguards could only perform simple cleaning, and real repairs would have to wait until after the battle when Ana could handle them, Sith still placed his hand on the hilt of his power sword.
Seeing Sith finally focus his attention on the front line, Bruno also Too lazy to say more. After getting past the initial panic, once Bruno confirmed he could Completely affordable, all he felt towards the Chaos forces opposite was the desire to pull the trigger.
But as a group of soldiers followed Sith's gaze to the front line...
Black Skull, who had been arrogant towards the cultists, now faced these gazes with only uncontrollably twitching eyelids. He even instinctively glanced back at the transport aircraft originally intended for transporting troops and supplies.
However, before the thought of whether to retreat could even arise, the first place to explode was actually a massive passageway outside the The two sides exchanged fire.
The gunpowder smoke cleared.
Sith and his soldiers frowned as they looked. Black Skull also looked at Blasphemous Horn with a puzzled expression.
Even the endless Genestealers who had been laid back behind the passageway now looked with stunned expressions at the passageway that had Surprisingly opened at this moment.
Three parties were stunned. Only Blasphemous Horn felt a huge wave of relief in his heart. He even turned back to look at Black Skull with great excitement, his face full of 'fighting spirit'!
"My lord, there are Genestealers here! I am willing to hold off the Genestealers for you until the last moment!"
Blasphemous Horn declared with 'righteous indignation.' To avoid facing Sith, he was even willing to start a fight with Genestealers.
Meanwhile, Black Skull, who was so furious behind him he almost wanted to convert to Khorne on the spot and start cut even his own men, looked at the endless sea of Genestealers gradually rising behind the door, his body trembling with rage.
In contrast, the Genestealers behind the door glanced at each other. Faced with this completely different group of enemies, a brief Confuse appeared in their eyes.
The Confuse came and went quickly. Once the Genestealers Sure the outside forces were not their own, they directly raised their weapons.
"I don't care who you are!"
"If you're here, you all get fought!!!"