In the death hive city where swarms ravaged and flesh flew, the appearance of that Warhound-class Titan was not simply deploying a new unit.
It was a deity dragging its colossal frame as it stepped onto the mortal battlefield.
Its designation was Scout Titan, but that was merely a humble term within the Imperial Titan Legions, relative to the larger Reaver-class, Warlord-class, and even Emperor-class Titans.
For everything on the hive city battlefield at this moment, whether the madly evolving Tyranids or the Mechanicus devotees driven by despair and fanaticism, it was a walking, irresistible calamity.
First was its size.
When its two mechanical legs, as thick as cathedral pillars, descended from the shattered dome and planted firmly on the main thoroughfare of the hive city's lower levels, wide enough to accommodate heavy vehicles, the entire sense of spatial scale was completely distorted.
It needed no stooping. The upper edge of its torso nearly brushed against the pipe networks and broken metal beams dozens of meters overhead.
The characters controlled by players, even the tallest Skitarii soldiers, appeared as tiny as gears accidentally rolled to a giant's feet beside its ankles.
Next was its texture.
This was not the standardized production, relatively smooth-lined armor of a Leman Russ tank. Every inch of the Warhound-class Titan's outer shell was filled with traces of sacred forging.
Heavy armor plates stacked layer upon layer, like a medieval knight's plate armor. The rivets at the seams were as large as millstones, and the surface was etched with densely packed mechanical runes and prayer texts of unclear meaning.
In some places, deep scratches and energy burn marks from past campaigns remained, never fully repaired.
It was not a machine, but a mobile steel shrine bearing the prayers and blood of countless tech-priest devotees.
Then came the sound.
It was not the roar of an engine, but a rhythmic, heavy pulsation from the depths of the earth's core that made even the air feel viscous.
It was the rhythm of the massive plasma reactor within its chest cavity. With each pump, visible heat waves erupted from the cooling fins on its back, scorching and distorting the surrounding air.
The metallic friction of gear assemblies meshing together sounded like ten thousand giant files grinding mountains at once, while the hissing of hydraulic systems in operation resembled imprisoned steel beasts gasping for breath.
These sounds mixed together, forming an overwhelming background noise that proclaimed its existence and instantly drowned out all gunfire, roars, and explosions on the battlefield.
Finally, and most importantly, there was its firepower.
It had no concept of shooting. Its attacks were manifestations of divine punishment.
The Inferno Cannon mounted on its left arm opened fire.
It was not even a beam, but a forcibly constrained liquid sun spraying forth. The thick, viscous, blazing white torrent silently plowed through an area several hundred meters ahead.
Tyranid Tyrant Guards that were directly hit did not even have time to cry out before instantly vaporizing, leaving only a scorched, deep furrow with glassy edges in the melted, collapsed ground.
Tyranid Warriors caught by the aftershock were like wax figures thrown into a steel furnace. Their carapaces melted through, organs boiled, and they turned into pools of bubbling organic residue while still running.
The turbo-laser on its right arm displayed destruction in a more "precise" manner.
After each brief charging hum, it fired a dark red beam only as thick as an arm, yet refined to the extreme.
This beam did not explode. It only cut and penetrated.
A hive tyrant attempting to pounce from the side at a high position, with a body size comparable to a light vehicle, was cut from head to tail by this beam. Its body was divided smoothly in half, like butter cut by the sharpest thermal knife, with the incision's carapace and tissue instantly carbonized.
The beam's momentum continued unabated, consecutively piercing through three reinforced concrete partition walls behind it before leaving a hole with molten edges in the fourth wall and slowly dissipating.
It did not walk quickly. Each step was heavy and slow, as if measuring this defiled land.
But with each step, it reshaped the battlefield.
The complex terrain the swarm relied on for ambushes was simply erased. When the Titan's giant foot descended, whether it landed on abandoned factories or mountains of containers, everything became flat, smoking metal and concrete debris.
The narrow passages and hidden nests the Genestealers depended on met a similar fate. One sweep from the Inferno Cannon, or a few shots from the turbo-laser, could completely erase an entire area along with everything alive within it.
Scorchwind, this top-tier player with peak personal skills, was now controlling his Assault Priest and closely following beside and behind this steel deity.
He abandoned most refined command, simply ordering the remaining Servitors and Skitarii soldiers to clean up those "fish that escaped the net," meaning enemies missed by the Titan's firepower or emerging from more cunning corners.
In his livestream, the previous anxiety and complaints had completely vanished.
Scorchwind's voice was filled with pure excitement that almost cracked:
"Holy shit! Holy shit shit shit!! See that?! Vaporized directly! That big bug didn't even leave ashes!"
"This laser! This cutting! Like cutting tofu! So fucking cool!"
"Leman Russ? That thing's just an advanced toy in front of a Titan! If it can take one shot from this turbo-laser without shattering, I'll call it quality craftsmanship!"
"This is the ultimate romance of men! Mechs! Giant cannons! Unmatched power!"
"Keep up, keep up! We're not soldiers now. We're the, uh, support infantry of the divine machine, specifically cleaning up the small bugs it's too lazy to step on!"
The chat had completely exploded, with exclamation marks and screams of "ahhhhh" flooding the screen:
"So fucking cool!!!"
"This modeling! These effects! Medici, I admit you've got something!"
"I want to pilot a Titan!! Please open up the pilot seat!!"
"Scorchwind: I used to be a king, until I started picking up kills behind a Titan."
"This sense of oppression! Through the screen, I don't even dare breathe loudly!"
The Warhound-class Titan, this "divine machine," demonstrated in the most brutal and direct manner to all players and to the audience of this virtual Warhammer universe what it meant to possess absolute power beyond the level of mortal warfare.
It walked upon the earth, and wherever it passed, the swarm retreated, flesh turned to ash, and only the brand of steel and fire remained, along with countless gazes lifted toward its form in stunned silence.