For the next two months, Rhodes' ork army swelled to a terrifying three billion, with hundreds of billions more orks flocking to join from the wilds!
A massive wave of ork bosses, boyz, painboyz, mad dok, and mekboyz joined Rhodes' forces.
On the surface, they appeared to be waging war on the Tyranids under the leadership of the super-invincible, mighty ork Gromm. But in reality, they were all fighting to carve out an empire for Rhodes.
Two months passed, and through ceaseless warfare, Gromm gained a new title, evolving from an ork warlord to the Overfiend of the orks.
In Octarius, the highest title in the Ork Empire is the Overfiend—a title every ork warlord dreams of.
Who the previous Overfiend was doesn't matter—he failed in battle against the Tyranid Hive, and orks have no sympathy for losers, let alone follow them.
In just over two months, Gromm waged a mad campaign, liberating over a hundred ork worlds and slaughtering an unimaginable number of Tyranids.
Moreover, Gromm and his orks possessed a formidable technology: the corpses of slain Tyranids would vanish entirely.
These slain Tyranids left behind no corpses, and with no corpses, the Tyranids couldn't reclaim the biomass, so they were unable to recycle their fallen and hatch new ones.
This tactic drastically reduced the fighting strength of the Tyranid Hive. At the beginning of the war, orks were reluctant to deal with corpses—be they their own or the enemy's.
Orks reproduce in an unusual way; after reaching maturity, they constantly emit spores, but this is slow. The real rapid method is death—when an ork dies, every cell, every drop of blood, every bit of flesh becomes a new ork seed, growing mushrooms that orks love to eat.
Orks' favorite mounts—squigs—are also raised from these, as are their preferred meat and battle squigs! So in ork culture, corpses are just nutrients, never needing to be cleaned up. Even enemy corpses, by their usual thinking, become fertilizer for the next generation.
But the Tyranids taught the orks a lesson: corpses must be dealt with quickly, or else any organic matter—ork, Tyranid, plant, or animal—will be converted into biomass for the Tyranid Hive, and new swarms will rise endlessly.
So orks began to make flamethrowers, trying to burn up as many Tyranid corpses as possible after battle.
Normally this would require a lot of ork manpower, but those who joined Gromm's army didn't need to worry: with the blessings of Gork and Mork, the Tyranid corpses seemed to be devoured by the two ork gods—at least, that's what the orks believed.
Thus, at Rhodes' direction, Gromm proclaimed to all orks he was favored by the two gods. Loved by countless orks, he was crowned the new Overfiend of Octarius, ruler of the entire Ork Empire.
Today, they finally captured the planet Octarius, the heart of the Ork Empire, a strategic core world that has produced countless ork heroes.
Though exalted as Overfiend, Gromm had never gone through a formal coronation ceremony—until today. Surrounded by adoring orks, he finally ascended his throne.
Orks worked overtime to build him a massive iron throne.
"Overfiend! Overfiend! Overfiend!"
"WAAAGH!" "WAAAGH!"
Countless greenskin orks raised their weapons high, cheering and roaring in excitement.
It was a great moment—a legendary Overfiend was born.
At this point, even without transforming, Gromm stood at a terrifying 6 meters tall, rivaling the legendary Beast of old. In total combat power, he surpassed even the Beast, and if he transformed, his super-beast form reached a staggering 85 meters.
He saved all of Octarius, reclaimed most ork territory, and won the adoration of countless orks. Gromm's own WAAAGH field evolved to a whole new level.
This was a power beyond words. With this immense power of WAAAGH, Gromm could alter certain rules of reality, turning things that made no sense into reality, making fortune real and misfortune a dream. This move was taught to Grom by Rhodes. Such an awesome ability should be used flexibly; the psychic energy of hundreds of billions of orks together…
It could even change a planet! Worlds once barren and stripped by the Tyranids teemed with life again, becoming habitable.
Rhodes looked at the orks with new respect. These guys were just too OP. Rhodes even suspected the Aeldari were just a bunch of pretty trinkets created by the Old Ones—perhaps even designer pets, like humans breeding dogs or snakes.
They might look nice and build a huge empire, but their breeding is fragile, more like artificial life than the products of nature.
But orks completely defy this—they can survive for millions of years as drifting meat and spores in space, until they find a planet to take root.
Rhodes' conclusion: The Aeldari are just the Old Ones' pretty pets—the real weapons of war are Orks!
A Gor-Rok stands about 12 meters tall. In power armor, they can match Primarchs. Imagine thousands of them! No wonder the Necrons went into hibernation after winning the War in Heaven—they hoped time would wipe out the ancient orks.
But they only half-succeeded. The proto-orks vanished, but the happy greenskins were born!
The coronation lasted three days—every ork world and all recently-liberated planets erupted in celebration.
Everyone feasted on squig barbecue and green mushroom dishes, celebrating the birth of the Overfiend and the impending defeat of the Tyranids.
Rhodes, meanwhile, watched silently from the shadows.
"Master, the young master is about to be born—within the next two days. You'd best hurry back." Tartarus came to inform Rhodes.
According to the due date, his first wife Elena's child was about to be born—Rhodes' first child! Born a Primarch—no, beyond a Primarch, a super life-form!
The entire Imperium awaited this child with inexpressible anticipation.
The Imperium had already declared him to the public as a third-generation royal, grandson of the Emperor himself—a new life born from two mighty Primarchs. His birth meant more to the Imperium than even the original Primarchs.
"I want to go back, but I still don't know what the Tyranids are up to. I have a feeling they're up to something." Rhodes sighed.
In two months, Rhodes' orks had swept almost all Tyranids from Octarius, liberating half the ork worlds. The remaining worlds were under attack by his forces. Rhodes' system reward points had hit 20 million! Just one more upgrade and he'd unlock the advanced system shop.
Rhodes planned to save up another 10 million system coins, then upgrade the advanced shop and do a long-awaited hundred-pull draw.
But more important than all that was figuring out what the Tyranids were doing. Rhodes still hadn't found out, despite destroying countless Hive Ships.
Recently, the Hive Ships he'd destroyed were empty—no biomass, just hollow shells.
It was strange. Two months and no clue what the Tyranids wanted. Rhodes was uneasy.
He even suspected the Tyranids had discovered him!
Rhodes had hidden all his mecha-beasts, cosmic phantasms, and other monsters—even Gromm hadn't used his super-beast transformation.
But was this really enough to fool the Tyranids? Rhodes considered: whenever his army killed Tyranids, no corpses were left.
Once or twice, the Tyranids might not notice. But again and again, after every battle, no Hive remains—very unusual.
The Tyranids aren't stupid. They can observe what happens on a planet via their hive ships. They could clearly see it wasn't the orks burning the bodies.
The only time they'd ever failed to reclaim swarm corpses was in battles against Rhodes. Recently, the Tyranids had even sent out decoys to obscure their movements.
Rhodes became certain the Tyranids knew he was here—and were trying to lure him elsewhere. They were plotting something!
"Don't worry, Master! Leave the war to me! You, Tartarus, and Mefilas should go home. I'll clear every last Tyranid from Octarius!" Gromm came to Rhodes' side, promising.
His strength had multiplied in this time—hundreds of billions of orks' WAAAGH energy had powered him up massively.
He even felt, a bit mischievously, that he could challenge his own master! Whatever the Tyranids were plotting, his invincible green tide would smash it!
"If the Tyranids really have a scheme, you can't hold out without my help." Rhodes shook his head.
Gromm was very strong, his army huge and growing, but in terms of numbers, greenskins couldn't always outnumber the swarm.
"Master, you should go! If anything happens, your system will alert you instantly, and I can open a portal for you at any time to reinforce Octarius." Tartarus advised.
Once the master returned, aside from the birth of the child, there was still a hidden Void Dragon C'tan shard on Mars to deal with!
If the Tyranids really had a plot, Tartarus could reach the battlefield instantly.
"Very well! Gromm, I now give you full war authority over all of Octarius. Your mission is to wipe out every last Tyranid. If you meet an unbeatable foe, I allow you to use your super-beast form—no need to hide it anymore!" Rhodes declared.
The enemy comes, the general stands fast; the flood comes, the dam holds—why worry? Right now, going home for the birth was the priority, and the coins for the advanced shop were ready.
With the advanced monsters, even if the Tyranids pulled something, Rhodes was confident he could crush them.