My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 393: A Light Skirmish
Above the firmament spread a piercing gray-white expanse. Between the drifting clouds, strangely rippling bands of prismatic light gazed down upon all things in the world.
A cold wind howled past.
The thunder of armor tore across the continent. Treads crushed sand and soil, grinding them into the earth with a harsh crunching sound. Upon the flat desert, a deep iron line—stretching beyond the limits of sight—advanced steadily forward. Layers of fine sand were thrown into the air, yellow dust smearing against polished steel, yet the rapidly moving Iron Warriors showed not the slightest hesitation.
A tearing roar split the sky. The bladed wings of Stormbirds cut through the air, casting countless blurred silhouettes of aircraft against the gray-white heavens. Looking far into the distance, those black-and-gray specks extended endlessly backward, with no visible end.
The sand trembled, then was violently thrown upward. Enormous god-machines of steel strode forward. Upon their layered dark-gray hulls, not a trace remained of the original Titan Legion banners—those insignia had been corroded, erased, and finally stamped over by the greedy Lord of Iron with his own legion's heraldry. These were now Titan houses belonging solely to the Iron Warriors.
At the feet of the Titans, the massive forms of Knights seemed almost diminutive. They wove nimbly through the shadows of the god-machines, providing support to the giants of steel.
Hades stood in silence atop a small rocky rise before a blackstone pylon. He frowned as he tallied Perturabo's forces, while at the same time the auspex data scanned by the Silent Sisterhood's Thunderhawks flowed smoothly into his mind.
He's surrounded on all sides.
Based on earlier estimates of the Iron Warriors fleet, Hades judged that at least eighty thousand Iron Warriors were stationed on this planet, along with innumerable armored formations and Stormbird squadrons.
Watching those steadily advancing figures, Hades frowned.
No, something was wrong.
He pondered the scene. The traitors' marching rhythm was far too uniform. In the realms of sound waves and electromagnetic signals, this vast army was utterly silent—like a host of the dead. No orders were being issued, yet every unit advanced as though following a perfectly synchronized plan.
Hades had originally intended to open with electronic warfare, severing the enemy's communications. But this eerie sight forced him to reconsider.
At least on the physical level, he detected not a single signal. The enemy did not require communications at all…
It seemed that only close contact would reveal what was truly happening.
That thought aside, the immediate priority was surviving the Iron Warriors' opening barrages. He could already hear the slow rotation of artillery arrays, hear the brutal energies building toward full charge.
The advancing army's pace clearly slowed. Long columns of armored vehicles began to raise their gun barrels—data calculating, targeting—
Hades timed it precisely. He first ordered the reconnaissance Thunderhawks circling overhead to withdraw from the area at once. Though the Silent Sisterhood's Thunderhawks were more advanced than the Iron Warriors' Stormbirds, sheer numbers made the difference—these small birds would not suffice against such overwhelming mass.
The Thunderhawks vanished from Hades's sight. For the moment, air superiority over this region was left vacant. If Hades failed to fill that void, the Iron Warriors' Stormbirds would soon claim it.
But for now, Perturabo would not deploy them. Hades knew this well—because the Lord of Iron was about to commence a scorched-earth bombardment.
Hades took several deep breaths. Pale green arcs of electricity manifested with his breathing, crackling like faint static—but the distance was too great. Perturabo had deliberately maintained a sufficient gap, clearly aware that distance would weaken Hades's power.
Hades considered the terrain. The blackstone pylon occupied by the Silent Sisterhood stood at the boundary between a sandy wasteland and low rocky hills. Within the sandy desert, three additional blackstone pylons stood sparsely, arranged in a triangular formation. Beyond the hills, however, no such alien structures were visible.
Yet regardless of direction, one could see the Iron Warriors' army from afar. The nearest formation to Hades was an armored company in the sandy wasteland. Its steel-edged silhouette halted not far from the closest desert blackstone pylon.
The good news was that the Iron Warriors who had previously garrisoned the pylon had left behind defensive trenches. The trenchworks were dark and deep—Iron Warriors construction, solid and reassuringly sturdy.
Hades smiled faintly. For a brief moment, he recalled his past cooperation with Dantioch of the Iron Warriors Trident. Had he managed to break away from the Iron Warriors in time? Hades remembered that in the original account, Perturabo had exiled that valiant Iron Warrior to another front, and it was precisely that reassignment which allowed Dantioch to escape disaster.
Hades glanced at the trenches deeply carved around the blackstone pylon. Beside him, the Titan lowered its solid left arm. Hades stepped onto it in silence. There, the Psi-Titan's distinctive Sinistramanus Tenebrae reflected a dim glint of sunlight.
At present, he commanded two Psi-Titans and a detachment of Freeblade Knights. Aside from the blanks required to guard the blackstone pylon itself, Hades had not deployed many Blank warriors to the field.
The Titan rose upright in silence, its immense steel frame shuddering slightly. Hades casually tapped its shoulder; a dull, resonant sound echoed out. As if sensing something, the Alpha-grade psyker forcibly confined within the Titan—used as a living power cell—seemed to tremble.
A Warlord-Sinister-class Psi-Titan, belonging to the Ordo Sinister. The notoriously stingy Malcador had ultimately allocated two of them to the Silent Sisterhood. Each required three psykers to provide power, and one male Blank to serve as pilot. Yes, before the Silent Sisterhood was formally established, female Blanks were inducted into the Sisters of Silence, while male Blanks were secretly trained by the Imperium to pilot these behemoths.
Only… the Warlord-Sinister-class Psi-Titan beneath Hades's feet had no blank pilot inside it.
Pale green arcs of electricity flared to life. Silvery-white liquid flowed silently through the nutrient vats imprisoning the psykers. The true "pilot" of this massive machine now stood outside the cockpit. Hades directed the Titan, aligning it toward the distant armored formations.
In Hades's jet-black eyes were reflected those dark-gray advancing lines.
Did Perturabo think he would retreat into the trenches for cover? No, no, no. Since Perturabo himself was the architect of those trenches, Hades was certain the Lord of Iron knew exactly how much artillery it would take to completely erase them.
And although the Silent Sisterhood possessed advanced close-in defense systems, Hades believed that hastily deployed installations would still be insufficient against saturation bombardment.
So… the choice before him was obvious.
Engines roared. In an extremely short span of time, Hades's forces warmed up to peak combat readiness.
A smile curved Hades's lips. Perturabo—who only knew how to hold ground, seeking stability and precision—would likely never imagine the choice he was about to make.
By habitual thinking, Perturabo would assume that he would rely on the trenches and lead his troops in defending the newly seized position.
And that was precisely why… why the Lord of Iron army was still too close to him.
Perturabo was cautious—he knew to keep his distance from Hades. But he was also arrogant enough to believe that this distance was sufficient to stop the scythe of the Lord of the Underworld.
The Lord of Iron believed that Hades would never dare take such a risk—never challenge the Iron Warriors' long battle line with so few troops, with no reserves behind him.
That would be nothing short of smashing an egg against a rock.
But he underestimated Hades. And in any case, Hades only needed to hold on until the Iron Hands arrived.
Gray-white mist drifted weakly. A faint scent of gunpowder brushed past the nose.
The Lord of the Underworld gripped his scythe. The butt of the shaft slammed into the ground, and a distant, resonant horn call echoed across the land.
In an instant, black blades charged toward the line of steel.
At the same time, tens of thousands of shells screamed into the sky, black trajectories weaving a vast spiderweb overhead.
. . .
In the strategic chamber behind the battle line, Perturabo sprang to his feet, glaring furiously at the front.
What were they doing? What were they trying to do?!
Were they… were they planning to die here outright?!
Artillery thundered. Earth and stone were flung skyward. Blazing explosions slammed violently into the ground—but the charging Knights did not slow even a single step, as if they had foreseen the landing point of every shell in advance, leaping with uncanny precision over each freshly blasted crater.
The bizarre Titan advanced fearlessly in great strides. At roughly two meters from the god-machine, its void shields flared into brilliant white ripples. Unlike the agile Knights that could evade and weave, the Titan charged straight into the incoming fire. Shells struck it head-on, only to detonate and scatter into fiery blossoms against the luminous barrier.
Without realizing it, Perturabo had already clenched his teeth.
Fire. Bombard. Bombard again!
A Titan's void-shield reactors had limits. As long as the enemy's shield energy could be drained, effective damage would follow… or else, the Iron Warriors would need to commit armored forces capable of matching that aberrant Titan.
Behind the armored battle line, colossal silhouettes—once used purely as long-range fire support platforms—began to advance slowly.
The smoke of the first main bombardment started to disperse. But Perturabo never wasted an opening. Faster-cycling guns had already begun transition fire. Yet after absorbing the first wave of artillery, the enemy—clearly aware that the Iron Warriors would need to adjust their firing solutions—began altering their movement routes. The charging formation was accelerating instead of slowing down.
How could this be?!
Perturabo stared hard at the images relayed from the front. Not a single Knight had fallen behind. A strange silver-white metal spread across areas blackened by explosions and scorched craters, writhing slowly like a living thing.
What kind of sorcery was this…?
Perturabo thought grimly. Since when had his father hidden such bizarre entities among his forces? Compared to these cursed beings, even the psychic tricks Magnus had once demonstrated to him now seemed almost amiable.
But this was no time for reflection. Perturabo adjusted the angles of the gun batteries, eyes blazing with fury. If indirect fire couldn't deal with them—
The Silent Sisterhood was about to enter the Iron Warriors' direct-fire envelope. When that happened, the Iron Warriors' armored units would give them a very rude surprise—
A scorching, foul-smelling wind battered Hades high above. The Lord of the Underworld did not blink. Beneath him, the Titan ran forward, its massive strides causing violent jolts.
They were about to enter the armored units' direct-fire range, in other words, the Iron Warriors had already advanced in wedge formation straight into the Silent Sisterhood's firing envelope.
"Fire."
Hades spoke. At the same instant, an ominous glow flared from the left arm of the Warlord-Sinister Psi-Titan.
The damaged engine within the Sinistramanus Tenebrae shrieked with a spine-chilling scream. A distorted, pitch-black sphere of lightning writhed through space and hurled itself toward the armored company before Hades. From the moment the baleful black light ignited to the instant the shriek detonated, it seemed to take only a heartbeat.
A piercing scream erupted.
Within the Iron Warriors' formation, space itself was torn open by brute force, and uncanny light blazed from the rupture.
Like a small vortex existing within this reality, the once-proud heavy armor that Perturabo had so relied upon was torn apart as easily as paper. Steel twisted into fragments and was then swallowed by the whirlpool.
Hades watched in silence as the sudden rupture tore open within the Iron Warriors' formation. Their seemingly flawless array had now been physically ripped apart, and the vortex continued to expand, straining as it dragged more living beings away.
It resembled an enlarged version of the Vortex Grenade Mortarion had once employed—its principle the same: tear open a rift to the Warp, then let the distorted, intermingled space shred everything around it.
In the blink of an eye, the vortex shrieked. The armored units that had stood immovable moments before fell into brief confusion, as if they could not comprehend what was happening. But Hades would not grant them the chance to recover. At the very instant space was torn open, the thermal cannon fire from the Knights beneath the Titan struck their targets.
Just a little more, Hades thought.
"Fire."
As if by sorcery, with Hades's command two more vortices formed, effortlessly dragging every creature they touched down into the abyss.
At this point, the layers of artillery fire crashing down behind Hades's charging formation had become almost a joke. He did not even need to look back to know that the land behind them had already been blasted two or three meters lower in sand and soil.
Bzzzz—BOOM!!!
The first frenzied Freeblade Knight plunged into the enemy ranks. Its Reaper chainsword roared as it shredded metal, adamantine armor slamming directly into Predator tanks. It chose close combat with savage delight, swinging its chainsword in wide, brutal arcs.
The howl of the chainsword became the next horn call. Knights surged one after another into the steel formation, towering war-steps tearing apart the enemy line. At the same time, dark-gray Knights from the opposing side surged out from their layered ranks, attempting to bring their guns to bear, but Hades's Freeblades reached them first, chainswords cleaving straight into cockpits.
In the next moment, the immense silhouette of the Titan entered the battle line as well. Hades lowered his gaze. Around the Psi-Titan, invisible ripples suddenly spread, followed by a violent pulse wave that burst outward. Around the god-machine, the smaller armored vehicles were crushed from within, reduced to twisted scrap.
As the shockwave rippled outward, darkness descended. Savage pale-green lightning flared around every Knight and Titan. Fanatical litanies rang out over the vox. Silvery tears dripped onto the sand, spreading soundlessly across countless metal corpses, creeping up over the senseless dark-gray steel.
Hades frowned deeply.
"Withdraw."
A moment of darkness—then, in the next instant, Hades frowned as he saw that the figures struggling to counterattack the charging formation had all fallen into deathly silence.
No, did they have no souls?
The thought crossed his mind. Yet the Titan he commanded did not hesitate in the slightest. The god-machine charged straight toward the blackstone pylon embedded within the Iron Warriors' lines—
Perturabo slammed his fist down hard on the command console. Beside him, Vashtorr cast him a slow, measuring glance.
Out on the wasteland, the second blackstone pylon crackled to life with black lightning.
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