As soon as he returned to the battleship, the battleship's artillery fire immediately struck, obliterating all the other cruisers except for his.
"Gulp," Garrosh swallowed hard.
At this moment, violent explosions still echoed around him, and in just an instant, the cruiser he was now on had become the sole surviving warship in the entire fleet.
There was no sound in space; he could only watch as the warships next to him were utterly destroyed, leaving nothing behind.
"Everyone, evacuate the warship immediately! Get to the planet's surface, and be quick about it!"
The naval warship was clearly no longer a viable place to stay; it would be mercilessly blasted into dust. Staying on the warship was now the most dangerous thing.
To survive, they had to reach the planet's surface!
Only by reaching the planet's surface would they have a chance to live!
After roaring the command, Garrosh quickly rushed into the shuttle that had brought him up and once again flew down towards the planet.
It was this action that allowed him to miraculously survive. Just as his ship was once again thrown towards the planet's surface, a thick ion beam struck his vessel.
Having narrowly escaped the attack range, Garrosh watched the scene unfolding before him from the Corrupted Thunderhawk gunship, filled with lingering fear.
The entire fleet had been completely destroyed before they even had a chance to do anything.
This was truly terrifying!
The Thunderhawk gunship accelerated once more, carrying him towards the planet's surface. Back on the ground, Garrosh patted his chest, still shaken.
Meanwhile, the PDF and Astra Militarum on the other side had already launched their counterattack.
What had happened in orbit had already alerted these PDF and Astra Militarum forces.
The direct annihilation of the massive Chaos warship meant that reinforcements had arrived, a conclusion the Astra Militarum and PDF firmly believed.
The arrival of reinforcements gave them hope, and these PDF and Astra Militarum soldiers launched another counterattack against the Chaos warriors.
The Astra Militarum and PDF erupted in a fervent cheer as they witnessed the Chaos fleet in orbit instantly vaporized.
"Reinforcements have arrived! For the Emperor!"
The remaining soldiers charged out from behind cover, laser guns and heavy bolters unleashing a torrent of fire upon the Chaos warriors.
A Leman Russ tank, its tracks blown off, still had its gunner stubbornly reloading, using the last shell to smash a Chaos warrior's head.
The daemon assault was actually forcibly halted by such an attack, and the forces of the Imperium even showed a tendency to push them back.
Garrosh stood amidst the ruins, the pustules on his corrupted power armor bursting with rage, yellow-green fluid dripping to the ground, corroding it with a hissing white smoke.
All of this indicated his current fury, and even a hint of impotent rage.
"You ants... How dare you resist the blessings of Grandfather?!"
He raised his putrid staff, Nurgle's blessings boiling within him. The side of his face grazed by the ion cannon quickly healed, but the twisted muscles remained exposed, like a grinning, decaying mask.
"Kill them all! Leave no one alive!"
Their warband's fleet had been destroyed. Without a fleet, the warband could no longer roam the galaxy.
Their only option now was to perform more acts that would please Nurgle, to make the Chaos God turn his gaze upon them, grant them more blessings, and even bestow upon them Chaos warships.
Otherwise, their fate was sealed.
A mysterious army had appeared here.
When their warships were destroyed, as the Warband Master, he hadn't discovered who their opponents truly were, but it was predictable that they were enemies.
Their Warband Master's command and the warships lost in orbit made these Chaos Space Marines understand the predicament their warband was in.
Because of this, they became even more frenzied.
Plague Ogryns stomped into the Astra Militarum lines with heavy steps, spewing toxic mist that instantly rotted the skin of entire rows of soldiers, their flesh peeling from their skeletons.
Blight Drone swarms swooped down, a rain of spores falling onto the PDF's defenses, melting the soldiers' eyeballs and growing fungi in their throats, causing them to choke and die in agony.
Nurglings crawled out of piles of corpses, gnawing at the wounds of the injured, transforming dying soldiers into twisted Chaos spawn.
The commander of the Astra Militarum 83rd Regiment cut down two Nurgle warriors with his power sword, only to have his spine shattered by a blow from Garrosh' staff. His corpse was trampled by the Chaos warriors, ground into bloody mud.
The last Baneblade tank of the Astra Militarum was overturned by a Plague Ogryn, and the gunner struggled to climb out of the hatch, only to be instantly melted into a puddle of pus by the sorcery of a Corrupted Sorcerer.
A Ministorum Priest raised his holy symbol, and the chanting of the Lectitio Divinitatus echoed amidst the mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, temporarily repelling the Nurglings.
An Astra Militarum soldier, riddled with bullets, detonated a melta-bomb, taking three Chaos Daemons with him.
But all of this was in vain.
The defenses were utterly shredded, and the core factory district defense line of the mid-hive fell.
The Chaos warband's attack far exceeded the governor's expectations; the mortal forces simply couldn't withstand an assault spearheaded by Space Marines.
And the supporting warships and fleets had not yet reached planetary orbit to provide orbital bombardment support.
Endless daemons could now penetrate the breached defenses and enter the mid-hive of the hive city to perform daemon rituals of defilement on the Imperial citizens, convert them, and completely seize the manufactorums here.
Perhaps due to the imminent victory, this small triumph brought some satisfaction to these Chaos Space Marines.
One of them even spoke to an Imperial civilian:
Plague Marine: "Do you believe in the Four Chaos Gods, madam?"
Madam: "If gods truly exist, then I must have been abandoned. Why must I endure such immense sorrow?"
She held a child in her arms, and both the woman's and the child's cries rang out at the same time, a choked sound.
Plague Marine: "Look at your body, you are blessed by Chaos, you are alive, you have been chosen, yet you doubt the Chaos Gods."
Madam: "I... I still believe in the Emperor."
"Hahahahaha..."
Perhaps out of disdain or some other final madness, the Chaos Space Marine did not directly kill the woman. Instead, he lifted her up and then placed her back on the ground.
"If that's the case, then run. Run and see if your so-called Emperor can save you."
The woman, released, clutched her child and ran frantically forward, shouting as she ran.
"Save my child! Save my child!"
As she ran forward, she glanced back at what the Chaos Space Marines were doing.
Nurgle's Space Marines did not open fire. They watched, playing cat and mouse, as the woman ran forward with her child.
Until a massive warship appeared in the planet's orbit, followed by a large number of drop pods projected from the warship.
The moment the drop pods opened, six Space Marines emerged from each one.
Noah's army had arrived. To eliminate these Chaos Space Marines, Noah had dispatched an army to this planet.
Over 100,000 Space Marines were drop-podded onto this planet to rescue its Imperial citizens.
"Your opponent is me, traitor!"