Anruida fired three las-beams, each burst hissing through the air with a high-pitched whine, the searing energy slicing molten gouges into the fortress barrier.
The wall trembled, sections bubbling and liquefying under the immense heat.
His pace slowed momentarily, only for Vendis to surge past him, discharging his scatter-laser at the enemy before following up with a triple burst from his shoulder-mounted plasma cannon, obliterating the nearest sentry post.
Then came the next Thunderborn.
Grey, unarmored and without heavy weaponry, had no firepower to bring to bear.
Instead, he moved like a spear tip, a blur of kinetic fury, an unstoppable force carving forward at breakneck speed.
In less than four seconds, the formidable Wall of Koy had been breached, its mighty battlements groaning and collapsing inward, its once-impenetrable defense reduced to a yawning gap.
But Grey wasn't concerned with this breach.
The Wall of Koy was never his true objective.
Without hesitation, five Thunderborns stormed through the opening, their golden armor blazing with the fiery glow of destruction as they advanced. Their target lay ahead: the command fortress.
Perhaps anticipating a teleportation incursion, the internal and surrounding fortifications were bristling with far heavier firepower than the outer walls.
Heavy bolter turrets roared, vomiting mass-reactive shells at a relentless pace.
Streams of hellgun fire and lasblasts crisscrossed the air, forming a blinding lattice of death.
The sheer volume of incoming fire was staggering.
Explosions rocked the corridor, plumes of shrapnel and debris choking the battlefield in smoke and flame.
Yet, even in the choking smoke, the Thunderborns pressed forward, unstoppable and undeterred.
The defenders had encountered them before.
They knew the strength of Thunderborn armor.
And they knew that brute force alone wouldn't be enough.
On the second level of the command fortress, a heretic psyker in ornate battle robes leaned out from a reinforced firing slit, his armor etched with profane symbols that shimmered in unnatural hues, his eyes locking onto the golden warriors below.
The Thunderborn had already closed half the distance, only a kilometer remained.
Muttering incantations in a tongue twisted by the Warp, the psyker turned and sprinted deeper into the fortress, dark energy snapping like lightning around his fingertips.
The distance placed him beyond the reach of the Thunderborn's anti-psyker fields, they couldn't neutralize his power from this range.
He still had time to act.
But the Thunderborns had no patience for sorcery.
Beam cannons locked onto the fortress windows.
Scatter-laser bombardments raked the upper levels, their searing blasts chipping away at reinforced ferrocrete.
Most shots dissipated against the fortress walls, as the psyker's incantation reached completion.
A distortion rippled through the battlefield.
The Thunderborns' gravity shields wavered, momentarily disrupted by the psyker's warp-infused assault.
Though their anti-psyker countermeasures dampened the effect, the brief collapse was enough for the enemy to react.
Four elite shock troopers, clad in carapace armor and wielding hellguns, charged toward Vendis, their visors glowing red behind plasteel masks, their weapons primed to take advantage of his momentary vulnerability.
Yoan had never faced hellguns in live combat.
But Qin Mo had described them in gruesome detail.
He understood just how deadly those weapons were at close range.
No one had time to react. Fortunately, no one had to.
Because the grav-shields rebooted almost instantly.
The moment the gravitational field snapped back into place, the shock troopers were caught mid-stride, and were crushed.
Their bodies collapsed inward with a hideous crunch, bones pulverized, organs ruptured in an instant. Their weapons clattered to the ground, nothing more than shattered remnants of their futile assault.
From another firing slit, the psyker peeked out again, his face pale beneath the warpaint, contorted in shock and rage, before he began to channel another incantation.
〈"ℜϖℵℑψϖ—"〉
Two seconds later, Grey heard the scream.
"My head—my HEAD∼! AHHHHH∼!"
The psyker howled. His warp powers spiraled out of control.
His eyes bulged, dark tears streaming from them, veins blackening as uncontrolled psychic energy surged through his mind like a collapsing star.
"BOOM∼!"
A muffled detonation echoed from the second floor.
A sickening spray of blood, brain matter, and shattered bone erupted from the firing slit, splattering onto the scorched earth below.
The Thunderborns, now at the fortress's foot, stepped through the gore without pause.
Their shoulder-mounted cannons blasted four gaping breaches into the command fortress walls.
All five stormed inside, beginning a brutal purge, splitting up, each warrior claiming a separate floor in an orchestrated slaughter.
Screams echoed down the stairwells, silenced almost as quickly as they began.
Within thirty seconds, the entire command fortress was cleared.
Outside, enemy reinforcements rushed forward, desperate to reclaim their stronghold, only to watch in horror as beam fire erupted from within.
The fortress wasn't theirs anymore.
Grey, unarmored but no less lethal, descended to the fourth floor after clearing the upper levels.
"Look out!" Anruida's voice rang through his mind.
Grey barely registered the warning before Anruida blurred past him, a streak of gold and blood-red motion, leaving only a flickering afterimage in his wake.
Where Anruida had been, an enemy now lay in ruins, his chest cavity a smoking void.
Anruida smirked. "That spinal augment is really something."
Grey ignored the remark.
"How's your mission coming along?" he asked instead.
"I've planted several teleport beacons on the left side of the upper hive. Haven't started on the right," Anruida replied, drawing a line in the air. He gestured toward the cityscape beyond the fortress. "The central parade avenue splits them, left and right."
"I know." Grey lowered his head in thought.
Anruida waited silently.
A moment later, Grey looked up. He had made his decision.
"Forget the right side. We strike now, before the enemy has time to reestablish their command structure."
"Understood." Anruida nodded, his fingers dancing across his forearm console as he initiated teleport preparation.
"Everyone, get ready to teleport," Grey ordered.
They activated the teleportation sequence simultaneously.
And in an instant, they were gone.
The hellish warzone vanished, replaced by the peaceful heart of New Kato.
Yoan frowned, something clutched in his gauntleted grip.
"The hell did this come from?"
Everyone turned to see him holding a perfectly severed arm, the cut too smooth to be natural.
Apparently, it had come through the teleporter with him.
It didn't matter.
Grey ignored it, already opening a vox-channel to Qin Mo, briefing him on the situation and suggesting a plan:
Strike immediately, before the enemy could reassemble command.
Qin Mo's response was two simple words:
"Begin war."
....
"Wake the hell up!"
The Regimental Commander's orders boomed through every barracks and trench line, the vox-speakers crackling with static as his voice surged like a thunderclap.
"By order of the Lord Commander, every soldier is to prepare for battle!
The entire regiment is moving! We're storming the Upper Hive! Kill those traitor-born mongrels!"
Sergeants sprinted through the halls, barking commands.
To Creed, the First Legion seemed undisciplined.
Even the Cadian Shock Troopers among them thought they were more like a militia than an army.
But one thing could not be denied:
This army was made up of two kinds of soldiers: those who survived a suicide war, and those from the Lower Hive's most hardened militia, veterans of brutal urban warfare.
The new recruits from the Underhive were still training, they wouldn't be deployed yet.
This was a war for the killers.
Despite their chaotic nature, the troops responded with terrifying efficiency.
They were used to sudden deployments. Their muscle memory kicked in before their minds could catch up.
Within moments, soldiers across every regiment sprang awake, assembling at the armory to don their Praetorian Pattern power armor, take up lasguns, and run full equipment diagnostics on their dimensional teleportation stabilizers.
Leman Russ tank crews rolled out onto open ground, their commanders climbing into position.
As infantry and armor converged on the staging zone for mass teleportation, autonomous war-machines were already assembling.
Artillery rolled out. Gravity-shield drones hovered to their assigned regiments.
The war engine of New Kato was waking.
Once preparation neared completion, Grey's voice echoed across the entire legion's vox-channel.
"Twelve regiments will teleport in first, forming a battle line for a frontal push.
In the teleport beacon-heavy western sector, forces will teleport behind enemy lines.
In the east, where few beacons exist, we'll grind forward the old-fashioned way.
The Lord Commander once said: 'I place no faith in brilliant tactics or lucky gambits. I place faith only in superior weapons, overwhelming firepower, and unbreakable armor.'
The Thunderborns have paved the way. Now we deliver the final blow.
The Lord Commander watches over us. We will crush the heretics!"
A deafening war cry echoed through the vox-network.
Every soldier felt it, as if Qin Mo himself was gazing down upon them.
And indeed, he was.
From his command center, watching through drone feeds, Qin Mo saw the army ready for war.
With a single command.
He activated the mass teleportation sequence.