"Pain…is Father Nurgle / Nurgle's…caress! Your…purification…is futile!" Another Fallen raised a swollen, deformed arm, ending in a massive corrosive nozzle, and aimed it at the fiercely firing Gravis heavy squad.
It opened its fanged maw and hissed mockingly, "Feel…new life!"
A thick, dark green stream of acidic pus, emitting a deadly stench, sprayed out like a high-pressure water gun!
"Acid spray! Evade!" the Gravis squad leader warned sharply, while simultaneously moving his heavy Power Armor sideways with full force.
The viscous torrent of acid grazed his heavy shoulder guard, splashing onto the smoking remnants of an air-dropped pod behind him, instantly emitting a violent "hiss"—the thick adamantium armor plates were visibly corroding, smoking, and dissolving into massive pits!
"For Dorn! For the Emperor! Crush them!" the squad leader roared, his visor glowing red with fury.
Several Gravis heavy warriors immediately turned their Bolter, and the dull roar of heavy Bolters and the blinding, scorching stream of multi-barreled meltaguns instantly engulfed the acid-spraying Fallen!
The immensely powerful heavy Bolter rounds brutally tore through the rotted flesh, growths, and rusted plate armor covering its body, exploding into splashes of foul pus.
A searing white melta beam, like divine punishment, precisely struck the root connection of its mutated spray arm, and the superheated, vision-distorting temperature instantly melted it off!
The Fallen let out a painful, distorted, utterly inhuman shriek, and scalding, foul blood and swirling steam gushed from its severed arm.
However, it did not fall; the intense pain instead ignited an even more ferocious savagery, and with its remaining weapon and mutated limbs, it uttered even more malicious curses and launched a more violent attack on the Ash Knights, its extraordinary tenacious vitality astonishing!
Just at this critical moment, a low-altitude shriek pierced the polluted air.
Several Thunderhawk Gunships, like enraged steel raptors, with long blue exhaust trails from their engine nozzles, swooped down from the rolling toxic clouds.
The twin-linked autocannons under their wings sprayed a dense rain of bullets, precisely raking the hordes of walking dead attempting to outflank the Ash Knights and the surrounding mire where the Fallen were, exploding into death blossoms of mixed rotting flesh, foul blood, and putrid mud.
Missiles slung under their bellies trailed smoke, whistling as they slammed into the blasphemous constructs writhing in the distance, preparing to launch foul projectiles, and violent explosions instantly turned them into burning wrecks.
The gunships' broadside guns also joined the suppression, their searing ammunition belts like precise whips, violently lashing at the relatively fragile joints and armor connections of the Fallen, splashing out large quantities of rusted fragments and foul tissue fluid, effectively disrupting their movements.
Immediately thereafter, judgment from the heavens descended!
High above in orbit, from the side of the Gabbro, a blinding, pure destructive energy-infused Lance beam, like a punitive sword cast by a god, precisely tore through the thick yellowish-green miasma clouds of Aigē VII Planet, instantly piercing down!
The target was directly at the coordinates called in by the Master Sergeant—the Lambda-9 Boiling Rot Marsh!
"Boom——————!!!"
A terrifying roar, beyond description, shook the entire battlefield, as if the planet itself was wailing!
The Lance's impact point instantly transformed into a boiling furnace of destruction, hundreds of meters in diameter!
Blinding white light devoured everything, followed by an overwhelming shockwave and a colossal mushroom cloud rising skyward, mixed with scorching steam, boiling sewage mud, fragments of rotting limbs, and utterly vaporized matter!
The mire in that area, like a boiled abscess, was instantly evaporated, melted, and turned into a deep, bottomless vitrified pit emitting a pungent scorched smell!
All the surging walking dead and any other Fallen potentially lurking, along with the blasphemous land itself, were utterly obliterated by this Imperial wrath from beyond the stars!
The shockwave generated by the explosion even spread to the edge of the entire landing zone, blowing away the outer walking dead and causing the fiercely battling Fallen to momentarily falter. The lingering power of the orbital strike, like an invisible giant hammer, bought precious breathing room for the hard-pressed Ash Knights.
Under the tenacious resistance of the Terminators and Gravis heavy units, the low-altitude precise strafing of the Thunderhawk Gunships, and the world-destroying support of the orbital Lance, the first wave of the Fallen Astartes' assault was forcibly halted.
Although they were like unkillable monsters, each severe blow only enraged them further, the Ash Knights' stable line, exquisite coordination, and destructive support from the sky and ground prevented the enemy from advancing further.
The landing zone's perimeter was slowly expanded through the fierce battle of iron and fire, Lance and acid.
The scorched rocky ground was covered with the foul remains of Nurgle's minions, mixed with traces of purification flames and massive radial cracks caused by the orbital strike.
The Ash Knights' black and white Power Armor was stained with foul pus and blood, scorch marks, acid-corroded spots, and splashed mud, but their line was as unyielding as a reef.
The pre-designated "Purification Point Alpha" landing zone, after a bloody battle, was finally seized inch by inch and secured.
"Landing zone secured." Hathor's voice resonated in the highest command channel, calm, clear, and extremely penetrating, instantly overriding the battlefield's explosions, engine shrieks, and the whispers of Chaos psychic interference.
"All units, proceed along the predetermined routes to the primary objective, Purulent Fortress." Her command was concise and powerful, without the slightest hesitation, directly pointing to the final goal.
Following this, her instructions cut into critical nodes with surgical precision: "Librarian Ahriman, maintain psychic suppression intensity, prioritize suppressing enemy sorcerers; Loken, evaluate the first phase of unit coordination effectiveness, focusing on analyzing the Fallen threat level and abnormal resilience."
"Received." Loken's low voice sounded beside her, completely unruffled.
His gaze beneath his faceplate was as sharp as a hawk's, coldly sweeping across the battlefield below: whether the coordination between firing points was seamless, whether commands were quickly understood and perfectly executed; the units' reaction speed and tactical responses to Fallen assaults; the fluidity and suppressive power of heavy units and Terminator assault squads in combined operations; the precision of orbital artillery support timing and its destructive effects; the actual suppression efficiency of Thunderhawk Gunships' low-altitude intervention…
All details were under his cold scrutiny.
What weighed even heavier on his mind were the characteristics displayed by Nurgle's creations—their bizarre resilience to attacks, the unsettling speed of wound healing, and that twisted yet incredibly tenacious vitality.
His observation particularly focused on the Fallen Astartes: they ignored light weapon bombardments, could directly clash with Terminators, and even after enduring heavy firepower and the lingering effects of orbital strikes, they could still maintain a furious counter-attack posture.
For this reforged blade, the true test had only just begun. Their ultimate goal was the core of the fortress, hidden deep within the plague-ridden land, emitting an even stronger stench of decay and blasphemous psychic energy—Purulent Fortress.
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