The urban combat in Laer City is like a frenzied meat grinder.
Those specially augmented Laer warriors displayed a combat style completely unlike typical xenos.
Scout troops darted out from the shadows of the ruins, their leg muscles bulging to the absolute limit, sprinting so fast they left afterimages burned into the retina.
The power swords in their hands could pierce the armor joints of an Auxilia soldier in less than a second, and they would vanish behind another pile of rubble before taking their next breath.
But the reaction speed of the Emperor's Children was equally swift.
The moment a Sergeant of the Third Company was ambushed simultaneously by three scouts, his power sword swept out in a wide arc, slicing two of them clean in half at the waist.
In the exact instant the third scout's dagger pierced his pauldron, the Sergeant had already pressed his bolter against the alien's skull and pulled the trigger.
Green plasma and crimson blood mixed together, splattering across his handsome face.
He didn't bother wiping it off; he simply turned around, scanning for his next target.
Over in the Solar Auxilia trenches, the situation was far more gruesome.
Those hastily conscripted Imperial Auxilia soldiers were like wet paper against the Laer ambushes.
An entire platoon of soldiers had just advanced into a street when dozens of green energy beams erupted simultaneously from the windows of the buildings on both sides.
Out of thirty-plus men, only five managed to fall back alive.
Two of them were dragging their own shattered legs, leaving two horrifying trails of blood across the ground.
When the medics rushed up to them, they were still muttering through bloody teeth: "The Emperor... Long live the Emperor..."
And then, they closed their eyes forever.
[Worthy of Sanguinius's Blood] witnessed this exact scene with his own eyes.
The barrel of his lasgun was searing hot. Twelve hours of continuous fighting had left even a heavily enhanced player like him feeling completely exhausted.
But when he saw those true human soldiers fall in pools of their own blood, he suddenly felt that his exhaustion wasn't even worth mentioning.
In the Imperial faction channel, his voice was heavy.
"Bros, I just died three more times."
"But those real Auxilia soldiers... they don't get a chance to respawn."
"Once they close their eyes, that's it forever."
The channel went quiet for a few seconds.
[I Eat Tomatoes]: "Fuck, don't say that."
[For the Regent Yellow Guilliman]: "Which is why we have to try even harder, at least make ourselves worthy of the blood they're shedding."
[Sanguinius Is My Husband]: "Damn it, these Laer are absolutely insane. They have zero fear of death, they don't fight like intelligent creatures at all."
[Loyal Battle Sister of the Imperium]: "Because they know if they lose, their entire species is extinct."
--
The players in the Chaos faction were also taking heavy casualties.
[Konnichiwa Slaanesh-chan] was cornered in a dead-end alley by three Laer scouts, and an energy dagger punched seven holes straight through him.
His final words left in the channel were: "Fuck it, a death is a death, I've got plenty of Imperial Coins anyway!"
Then he was sliced into pieces.
[I Just Like Sleeping In] had it even worse. He took a direct hit to the head from a green energy bolt fired from eight hundred meters away.
In the split second his helmet exploded, the very last thing he saw was a four-armed Laer sniper reloading on the roof of a distant skyscraper.
He left a final message in the channel: "666, nice shot."
Fifteen minutes later, he slipped back into the battlefield wearing a completely unfamiliar face.
[I Just Like Sleeping In]: "Bros, I'm back, baby!"
"The Avatar Reconstruction Service in the shop is too damn good. I literally just copy-pasted the face of a dead Auxilia soldier, and nobody noticed a thing!"
Honestly, any player who had survived this long had enough savings for dozens of respawns in their pocket.
Because of this, they didn't fear death in the slightest. Instead, they were far more focused on the thrill of racking up kills and the immersive rush of completing their designated faction quests.
Crimson Dawn was taking losses as well.
[Selling Cola at the Terra Palace Gates] was covering a squad of advancing Emperor's Children when he took an energy bolt to the back fired from a sewer grate.
The melta charge punched straight through his power armor, blowing a fist-sized hole directly through his chest.
He struggled to type out one last message in the channel: "Flatbread Bro... remember... you gotta finish... telling me... that story..."
[Selling Flatbreads at the Terra Palace Gates] stared at the message in silence for three seconds.
Then he replied in the channel: "Hurry the fuck up and respawn. I'm holding onto your gear, I'll finish the story as soon as you get back."
A little while later, [Selling Cola at the Terra Palace Gates] respawned and materialized back in the squad.
"Flatbread Bro, I'm alive! You promised to finish that story about the 36D MILF, you can't back out now!"
[Dragon Bro Never Yields] chimed in from the side: "You two are made for each other."
--
A full day and night slowly passed.
All the forces of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet engaged in a grinding, bloody slaughter against the Laer aliens for a full twenty-four hours.
When the sun of the second day crested the horizon of Laeran, this once-glorious capital had been reduced to a burning wasteland of ruins.
Those formerly majestic coral structures were now nothing more than charred husks and crumbling, shattered walls.
Gunsmoke blotted out half the sky, flames danced through the rubble, and the air was thick with the acrid, choking stench of burnt meat.
Green plasma and crimson blood mingled together, flowing through the broken walls in countless winding, macabre streams.
The Emperor's Children Astartes Legion, after weathering the initial chaos, finally displayed their truly flawless military discipline. Utilizing impeccable formations and overwhelming force, they formed an unstoppable, crushing steamroller.
They stopped chasing elegant sword dances, stopped caring whether their kill-shots looked perfectly aesthetic.
They simply crushed every single Laer that entered their line of sight with cold, ruthless efficiency.
The fleet in orbit provided precision orbital strikes every single hour, guided by coordinates fed by the ground troops.
Those Laer warriors hiding in subterranean bunkers were often sent into eternal darkness by macro-cannon shells before they even had a chance to surface.
The artillery regiments of the Solar Auxilia had established one hundred and twenty-seven firing batteries.
150mm artillery shells poured down like a torrential rainstorm, flattening every single suspicious building to the ground.
The Imperial Auxilia soldiers, armed with lasguns, conducted a brutal, grid-by-grid sweep through the ruins.
Every cellar, every sewer line, every conceivable corner that could hide a living being was flooded by a sea of grey uniforms, followed by the roar of bolter fire and the screams of dying Laer.
Throughout Laer City, the corpses of countless aliens littered the streets.
Some were blown to shreds by bolter rounds, their remains scattered across the debris.
Some were reduced to charred husks by melta blasts, frozen forever in their final, agonizing death throes.
Some were sliced cleanly in two by power swords, their internal organs spilling from their wounds and rotting under the harsh sunlight.
The Emperor's Children Legion had also paid a staggering price.
Over three hundred Astartes were confirmed dead, and over two thousand more were severely wounded and combat ineffective.
The losses taken by the Solar Auxilia were even more horrifying.
Dozens of full-strength regiments were now reduced to less than a hundred thousand men still capable of standing.
And as for those Imperial Auxilia...
No one even cared how many of them had died.
They were just numbers, expendable resources, mere stepping stones paving the road of the Emperor's Great Crusade.
At this moment, the survivors were converging on the plaza in the dead center of the city.
Purple power armored figures moved slowly through the ruins.
The silver-grey figures followed closely behind; the warriors of the Iron Hands maintained their cold, ironclad silence.
And the Auxilia soldiers, clad in various uniforms, washed over the blood-soaked earth like a rising grey tide.
In the center of the plaza, the massive Laer temple still stood tall.
Its dome radiated a faint purple glow. By Fulgrim's explicit command, it had been preserved through an entire day and night of orbital bombardment and brutal slaughter.
The heavy doors of the temple were shut tight. The gates were engraved with intricate Laer script and murals, narrating the 6,666-year history of their civilization.
Fulgrim stood before the temple gates.
His purple and gold power armor gleamed magnificently in the morning light, his long white hair fluttering gently in the breeze.
A faint, serene smile graced his flawless face.
Behind him stood Eidolon, Kaesoron, Vespasian, and the rest of his Lord Commanders in silent reverence.
Behind them stood a dense sea of Emperor's Children Astartes, along with the four hundred-plus silver-grey warriors of the Iron Hands.
Further back, tens of thousands of Auxilia soldiers were arrayed in rigid phalanxes, packing the entire plaza so tightly that not even a drop of water could squeeze through.
"Warriors."
Fulgrim spoke slowly. His voice wasn't loud, yet it echoed clearly across the entire plaza.
"Twenty-four days."
"In twenty-four days, we have utterly annihilated this civilization that dared to reject the glory of the Imperium."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the blood-soaked warriors before him.
"Through your actions, you have proven..."
"That only humanity is perfect."
"That only the Emperor's Children are the warriors closest to absolute perfection."
He turned back around, looking at the temple radiating that faint purple glow.
"And now, within this temple, lies one final secret."
"The very last remnants of the Laer are cowering inside, trembling in fear."
"And that perfect sword..."
A brilliant gleam flashed through Fulgrim's eyes. "...Lies in the deepest sanctum of this temple."
"It will belong to me."
"It will belong to the Emperor's Children."
"It will belong to the Imperium of Man."
He slowly raised his Fireblade in his right hand, the litanies inscribed on the steel shining brilliantly in the sunlight.
"Charge into the temple and exterminate every last xenos!"
"Bring that sword to me, completely intact!"
Fulgrim was just about to order the final assault when...
Creaaak...
A side door of the temple slowly groaned open.
Every single warrior raised their weapon simultaneously. Bolters, lasguns, meltaguns.
Countless crosshairs instantly locked onto the slowly opening door.
From within, a group of figures slowly walked out.
Fulgrim furrowed his brow slightly, slowly lowering his raised hand.
Once the side door fully opened, over twenty figures filed out.
Leading them was an elderly Laer priest. He wore luxurious, flowing ceremonial robes, his head covered by a jewel-encrusted hood, his face deeply lined with the trenches of age.
Behind him followed over twenty Laer warriors.
These warriors were covered in scars, their armor in tatters, but they still gripped their weapons tightly.
And in the very center of this group of Laer, two warriors were dragging a bruised and bloodied human.
The man wore a shredded Imperial Auxilia uniform. His body was densely packed with wounds; some were so deep bone was visible, while others were still actively seeping fresh blood.
He was being dragged along like a dead dog by the two Laer warriors.
His head hung low, seemingly completely unconscious.
Everyone present could clearly see his face.
It was a completely ordinary, Western-looking face, currently twisted in pure agony and weakness.