The three heads of the Herald of Tzeentch simultaneously turned toward the advancing Aru forces. The arcane artifacts held in its nine arms flared with an eerie blue light.
"Kaspar Aru..."
Rayne's voice, tinged with the delight of a successful scheme, drifted from the side. "The Consortium's hound... smelled the blood and came after all..."
"Perfect timing..."
The eye on one of the Herald's heads suddenly ruptured, transforming into a swirling nebula. Reflected within the nebula was a real-time, bird's-eye view of the entire battlefield:
Fifteen Leman Russ tanks advancing in a wedge, their cannons constantly spitting tongues of fire.
Five Hellhound tanks providing heavy fire support from the rear.
Twenty Sentinel walkers prowling the flanks on seek-and-destroy missions, while eight thousand infantry surged forward like a tide...
Inside the industrial zone, the defense line built by the Siclaeman Insurgency from the ruins was being chewed away piece by piece by the artillery barrage.
The Khornate cultists and the Bloodletter had already engaged the Aru vanguard. The collision of flesh and metal erupted into skies filled with blood mist.
Its own Blue Horrors were weaving interference fields in the sky above. Continuously, Aru soldiers were inexplicably struck by friendly fire whose trajectories had been warped by the spatial distortions...
"Everything is within calculations..."
Rayne murmured simultaneously. "Eighty years of hibernation... infiltration... waiting..."
"Starting tonight... the winds of change... will blow across all of Aurelian..."
–
On the other side of the battlefield, Kaspar Aru stood beside his command vehicle. The red light of his cybernetic eye scanned the battlefield at thirty frames per second.
Streams of data cascaded down the visual interface on the left side of his vision:
[Target Identification: Main force, Siclaeman Insurgency. Approx. 3,300 hostiles. Equipment Grade: 3.2]
[Target Identification: Heretical Corruption Units. Approx. 540 hostiles. Mutation Level: 47%]
[Target Identification: Heretical Corruption Units. Approx. 110 hostiles. Psychic Reading: High Risk]
[Special Target: Heretical Entity. Threat Level: 7]
[Special Target: Heretical Entity. Threat Level: 6]
"Threat Level 7..."
Kaspar's mechanical fingers tapped lightly against the hilt of his command saber, producing a rhythmic clack-clack sound.
"It seems the useless trash in the Intelligence Department managed to get at least one thing right."
He raised his mechanical right hand. The five metal probes tapped at the empty air, each tap opening a new communication channel:
"Tank Squadrons 1 through 3, maintain wedge formation. Main cannons prioritize rebel fortifications."
"Squadrons 4 and 5, flank left. Suppress the charge vectors of the red heretic units."
"Sentinel Walker Clades, disperse and penetrate. Use mobility to tear open the heretical force field zones."
"Infantry Battalions 1 through 4, advance and sweep. Leave no survivors."
"Psyker Detachment..."
He paused, looking toward the thirty figures draped in purple robes.
"Activate the Mind Weavers. Target: Blue Heretics. Disrupt their casting stability."
The orders were transmitted to every combat unit within 0.3 seconds.
The advance of the Aru forces instantly shifted from a surging tide into the precise interlocking of gears.
The fifteen Leman Russ tanks split into three spearheads. Their main cannons fired a continuous barrage at a rhythm of one shell every five seconds.
The impact points of the shells were strictly calculated. They weren't aiming for maximum casualties; they were dismantling the rebels' defensive network—collapsing cover, blocking pathways, and erecting walls of fire.
The main cannons of the five Hellhound flame tanks locked onto a much trickier target.
Their turrets rotated slowly, the crosshairs locking onto the three madly spinning heads of the Herald of Tzeentch.
"Distance: 1,200 meters."
"Wind speed: Negligible."
"Target Psychic Interference Level: High."
"Calculating ballistic correction... Complete."
The gunner pressed the firing stud.
BOOM!
Two specialized anti-psyker shells, trailing eerie purple exhaust flames, shot toward the target in near-straight lines!
The three heads of the Herald of Tzeentch turned toward the shells simultaneously. One of the mirrors held in its nine arms was raised.
The mirror reflected the trajectory of the shells, and then... the trajectory began to warp.
The shells, which should have scored direct hits, suddenly swerved in the final fifty meters. They grazed past the Daemon's side and slammed into the warehouse ruins behind it, blowing up a massive cloud of dust.
"Tch."
Kaspar's cybernetic eye flashed red. "As expected, that won't work."
He switched channels: "Psyker Detachment, execute Plan B."
The thirty figures in purple robes raised their heads simultaneously.
The eerie glow beneath their blindfolds flared intensely.
A different kind of psychic fluctuation began to permeate the air. It wasn't the capricious, ever-shifting nature of Tzeentch, nor the frenzied bloodlust of Khorne.
It was an icy, mechanical sensation—a sense of order so precise it made one's scalp tingle.
These Computational Psy-Servitors, heavily augmented by the Order of the Omnissian Mind, had long since had the emotional centers of their brains excised and replaced with precision calculation arrays.
Their psychic powers were not used for combat, but for... deconstruction.
Thirty invisible threads of psychic energy reached out simultaneously, piercing into the energy structure of the Tzeentchian force field as precisely as surgical scalpels.
It wasn't a head-on clash of power. Instead, they sought out the nodes, analyzed the frequencies, calculated the points of resonance...
And then, they interfered.
Weng!
The blue force field blanketing half the factory zone suddenly fluctuated violently!
The degree of spatial distortion destabilized, alternately intensifying and weakening.
The three trapped Leman Russ tanks suddenly lurched forward, their treads gripping the earth as their forward speed recovered by thirty percent!
"The creations of the Machine Cult... are always so... incredibly dull."
The three heads of the Herald of Tzeentch let out an annoyed shriek simultaneously.
It raised the scepter held in one of its nine arms, aiming it toward the Psyker Detachment, and began weaving a new spell.
But it was too late.
–
"Holy shit! This artillery! This bullet hell! Are these really scenes meant for the beginner village?!"
[Did the White Scars Speed Today?] lay flat behind a makeshift barricade. He watched a tank shell explode thirty meters away, the resulting shockwave sending a hail of gravel clattering against the metal container above his head.
Their current position was the entrance to the raw material transport corridor in the northwest corner. This was originally supposed to be a relatively safe zone.
But the bombardment and firepower from the Aru forces were simply too overwhelming.
Some shells drifted off target. Stray bullets flew everywhere. But the most terrifying were the munitions whose trajectories had been warped by the Tzeentchian force field—you never knew where those things were going to land.
"Stop talking! Speed it up!"
Zeke planted his boot squarely on the ass of a worker whose legs had turned to jelly from fear, kicking him straight into the pipe.
"You in the back! Keep moving! Unless you want to be blown into meat paste, get your ass in the pipe!"
A long line had formed at the entrance to the corridor. Under the players' organization, over four thousand workers were filing one by one into the three-meter-wide metal pipe.
But the pace was still too slow.
The interior space of the pipe was limited; they could only advance single-file in groups of five, crouching as they moved. Furthermore, some sections posed a risk of caving in, so the players had to leave men inside to reinforce the route as they went.
At this speed, it would take at least another half hour for everyone to pass through.
And the advance speed of the Aru forces clearly wasn't going to give them half an hour.
THWACK!
A muffled sound.
A middle-aged worker near the back of the line suddenly went rigid. He looked down at his chest.
A hole the size of a bowl had been blown through him. The edges were scorched black, and light could faintly be seen shining through from behind him.
It was a stray bullet—who knew from which direction—that had scored a direct hit.
He opened his mouth to say something, but only bloody foam bubbled out.
Then, he fell backward, stiff as a board.
"Ahhhhhh!"
The surrounding workers instantly lost their minds!
Panic spread like a plague, and the line descended into chaos. Some tried to shove their way forward, some tried to run backward, while even more collapsed to the ground. Cries and screams merged into a deafening cacophony.
"Don't fucking move!"
Tax Bro raised his shotgun and fired a blast into the air. The thunderous BOOM temporarily suppressed the commotion.
He roared at the top of his lungs:
"If you want to live, stay in line! Running around blindly will get you killed faster!"
"You in the back! Drag the body away! Don't block the path!"
"You guys!" He pointed at a few players. "Grab the ones who are paralyzed with fear! Throw them in the pipe!"
In times like these, violence was ironically the most effective tool.