The Myriad-class cruiser slowly ascended, its silver-gray hull glinting coldly under the starlight. The particle laser gun array at the bow began to charge, and a deep blue energy gathered at the muzzles.
"Target locked," the mechanical adjutant calmly reported. "Bethel II hive city, ork warship construction yard."
Noah returned to his governor's Palace. The rest could be left to the warship. With the Zhixin combat AI, the warship could operate autonomously and deal with these orks.
If Noah hadn't been so poor at the moment, and didn't want to bear the cost of terraforming a planet, he would have simply cleansed this planet with laser guns or cyclone missiles, and the orks would have been dealt with.
Poverty influenced Noah, forcing him to constantly consider what was most valuable in the early stages, rather than mindlessly using force to cleanse everything.
The cruiser slowly arrived in orbit above hive city 2. The main laser gun cannon was fully charged, and cyclone missiles were ready.
Cyclone missiles would not be used in this operation, as firing them at the planet would likely destroy it.
However, the main laser gun cannon was different; by simply controlling the output power, precise strikes could be achieved.
Inside Noah's governor's Palace, a tactical holographic projection clearly displayed real-time footage of hive city 2.
The orks were celebrating around their crudely built space warships, completely unaware that the scythe of death hung over their heads.
"Main laser gun cannon charged, output power limited to 0.0003%," the mechanical adjutant reported. "The strike is expected to create a precise vaporization zone 1.2 kilometers in diameter, without causing crustal shifts."
Noah sat on the throne in the governor's Palace, watching the real-time footage transmitted by the cruiser on the holographic screen in front of him. He lightly snapped his fingers: "Fire."
In an instant, a blue-white beam of light descended from the sky, like thunder thrown by a god.
The celebrating orks didn't even have time to look up before they were instantly vaporized in temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees. The crude ork warships melted like popsicles in the scorching sun, and the surrounding buildings were erased like pencil drawings by an eraser.
When the light dissipated, all that remained in the central area of hive city 2 was a perfectly circular lava lake. The surface of the lake was smooth as a mirror, and its edges were as neat as if cut by the most precise instrument.
"Strike effect assessment: Target completely cleared," the mechanical adjutant reported.
Watching the orks' initial attempts to reach space completely eradicated, Noah felt a little better.
At least he had curbed these green creatures' first step into space, preventing them from causing him more trouble. However, the ground operations against the orks also had to be hastened; there was no time to wait for the PDF to continue training.
"Order the First Legion to assemble and prepare for attack. All PDF units will follow behind the First Legion to assist in combat, purge the orks, and liberate this planet."
The speed of the orks' development made Noah feel uneasy. He didn't want to wait any longer. He couldn't imagine what stage the war would reach after his PDF completed its preparations.
At least for now, he had to launch an offensive to slow down the orks' development and continuously eliminate them.
The Mechanical Legion could now launch a war.
In the dark night of the hive World of the Bethel I, Noah issued the order to attack.
This order was not only for the Mechanical Legion but also for the Astra Militarum forces.
This army of the Imperium naturally had to be utilized.
Noah knew very well that this Astra Militarum legion would never defect to him.
He had already understood the situation of the Krieg Death Korps. Since they couldn't be used by him, they could only be sacrificed.
At least they were sacrificing for their race.
Noah did not want to kill these ordinary people; he wanted them to achieve their ideals.
To atone for their God-Emperor on the battlefield—this was the greatest mercy he could grant the Krieg Death Korps.
The artillery of the Basilisks began to fire, while the cruisers in orbit had already started orbital bombardment against the orks below.
Massive numbers of low-intensity laser guns were continuously fired, delivering devastating blows to the swarms of orks.
On the ground, numerous gauss rifles also unleashed their attacks. The unprepared orks were caught off guard, but they were orks after all.
"Waaagh!"
The orks around the hive city merely roared this, and then began to counter-charge the attacking forces!
The laser guns of the orbital bombardment lashed the ground like the whips of a god, turning swarms of orks into plasma dust.
Yet, the orks kept coming, fearless and relentless in their charge.
Their sole purpose was to attack Noah's PDF or the Mechanical Legion.
The artillery of the Basilisks never stopped, and tanks had already launched their charge. The orks' war machines were also deployed, and their vehicles moved out.
One human legion after another entered the battle, and the orks did likewise.
Their forces from various locations were continuously reinforcing the area.
Due to the terrifying numbers of the orks, the front line became deadlocked for a time.
Who said numbers were useless? When numbers are as vast as the orks, and there's also some quality, then indeed they can hold their ground.
Noah's PDF had, after all, too little training time.
His ability to launch an offensive against the orks primarily relied on the federation's robot forces.
Of course, this refers to the batch he brought from the federation, not the ones he manually created.
Most of the Mechanical Legion's combat power was only about one or two times better than the Astra Militarum.
The truly invincible ones were the bodyguard-type robots; they charged into the ork hordes like gods of war, going on a rampage.
They mowed down every charging ork like cutting grass.
The battlefield was extremely bloody, and such fighting made Noah's eyelids twitch. He absolutely could not continue fighting like this.
"Locate the ork Warlord's position, lock onto it, and eliminate it with a laser gun to collapse ork morale and trigger an internal war!"
Although Noah was not a professional military officer of the federation, he wasn't foolish. He had previously sent bodyguard-type robots to attempt to decapitate the ork Warlord, but it had failed.
The data left by the Imperium clearly stated that for creatures like orks, their morale would be extremely high when their Warlord and Warboss existed.
However, they only had one leader. After eliminating one, the morale of some orks would collapse.
They would retreat like a tide, then fight amongst themselves to elect a new leader.
For Noah at this moment, he was not fully prepared for war, and this attack was a last resort. Therefore, he had to identify that Warboss and eliminate him.