Hammond Walker lay prone behind a jagged piece of cover, watching the carnage with a slight frown. He had seen Knights in battle before; three years ago at the Cadian Gate, he had fought alongside the Legions and various Knightly Houses for three grueling days.
Those Knights were mighty, but the machines of House St. Gallus before him seemed... different. It wasn't a matter of firepower, but defense.
He watched as several Deff Dreads unleashed their rokkit pods at the silver-grey Knight. At least a hundred rokkits slammed into its chassis. Based on Hammond's experience, such a concentrated volley should have caused the Ion Shield to fluctuate violently, if not overload it entirely. But the St. Gallus shield only rippled slightly, its integrity decaying at an unnaturally slow rate before returning to its peak state almost instantly.
Those rokkits were like pebbles tossed into a deep, dark pool—they splashed the surface and then vanished without a trace.
"The unique technology of Brevis..." Hammond muttered to himself. He had heard rumors that the St. Gallus family possessed a singular technological secret originating from the depths of this world. It appeared the rumors were true.
The appearance of the Knights had stabilized the line. They were the Imperium's ultimate ground assets, and their presence acted as a massive stimulant to the soldiers' morale. For the next six hours, the defenders managed to hold the breach by the skin of their teeth.
Aiden's Knights became mobile fortresses of fire, sprinting wherever the pressure was greatest. His Gatling Cannon ran dry three times, and each time, his Armiger squires covered his retreat to the rear for rapid resupply. But the Greenskins were endless—so many that it bordered on despair.
By noon the next day, the breach was on the verge of total collapse. Undeterred by death, the Orks launched wave after wave. No one knew the body count anymore. All that was certain was that the piles of corpses would plug the breach, only for a fresh explosion to clear the path for more Greenskins to pour through.
The coalition forces began to shatter. Leo tried to organize a counter-charge, but his chain of command had evaporated. The soldiers were at their breaking point; seeing the unending green tide, their last reserves of courage were failing.
"Young Master!" Aiden's voice roared through the vox. "Withdraw! Now!"
Leo shook his head. He stood at the very lip of the inner defensive line, with fewer than ten bodyguards left at his side. In the distance, three Ork walkers approached, followed by thousands of screaming Boys.
"Get out of here," Leo said to his remaining guards.
"Sir!"
"That is an order!" Leo revved his chainsword. "Go back and tell my grandfather..." He paused, his gaze hardening as the green tide closed in. "Never mind. There's nothing left to say."
He stared down the lead Ork vehicle and took a deep breath. But today was not destined to be his day of martyrdom, for a new sound began to rise from the southern horizon.
It wasn't the mechanical roar of a Knight or the guttural howl of a xenos. It was a dense, rhythmic, and terrifyingly intense thunder. It was the sharp whistle of heavy artillery splitting the air, the hiss of high-output las-beams, and the tectonic growl of thousands of engines.
Leo looked back. An endless sea of steel was stretching across the horizon.
First into view were thousands of Leman Russ Battle Tanks, advancing in perfect, disciplined rows. Their hulls were painted a cold blue-grey, emblazoned with the Imperial Aquila.
Then, the shells fell—a true saturation bombardment. The entire kill-zone behind the Sector C8 breach was instantly swallowed by a wall of promethium and high explosives. The charging Ork army was hit as if by a titan's hammer; the front ranks were vaporized instantly, the middle was shredded by shrapnel, and the rear was tossed aside like leaves in a hurricane.
Next came the Chimera armored transports, their heavy bolters and multi-lasers singing a song of death, reaping the Greenskins like wheat. Finally, the Basilisks and Wyverns opened up, their salvos capable of scouring entire grid sectors clean in seconds.
At the heart of this steel phalanx moved a colossal machine: the "Cold-Front" Super-Heavy Tank. It was a behemoth manufactured by the Industrial Alliance based on the legendary Baneblade chassis. While perhaps lacking some of the ancient Martian rites of a true Baneblade, its power was nonetheless staggering. Its primary armament was a massive Plasma Blastgun, flanked by four lascannons, heavy bolters, and twin-linked heavy stubbers.
The vehicle was painted a deep, regal blue. A banner bearing a golden eagle on a blue field fluttered from its turret—the personal standard of the Governor.
Eight specially modified Leman Russ Executioners surrounded the Cold-Front. These tanks boasted reinforced composite armor and oversized plasma cannons. Atop their turrets stood soldiers clad in high-precision carapace armor—the Iron Guard, the Industrial Alliance's most elite formation, a force that rivaled the best of the PDF.
This was Chairman Trevor's ultimate show of loyalty to Raynor: a super-heavy tank and ten thousand elite guards.
Standing atop the hull of the Cold-Front was a man: Raynor. He wore master-crafted carapace armor, a dark blue cloak billowing from his shoulders. In his hand, he gripped a sanctified Bolter, its barrel etched with golden wings. He surveyed the battlefield as his guns spoke in a continuous, deafening chorus.
The Orks were momentarily stunned by the sudden iron rain. But after a few seconds of confusion, the Greenskins' eyes lit up at the sight of so many "big toys" to fight.
"WAAAAAAGH!!!" They pivoted, abandoning the broken coalition forces to charge the armored vanguard.
They were about to learn the meaning of "Overwhelming Firepower."
What does it look like when five thousand war machines fire in unison? Even Leo, a scion of a Great House, had never witnessed such a spectacle. Countless tracer rounds and deadly beams of every color intertwined into a web of absolute lethality. The Ork vehicles at the front were physically erased, blown into scrap before they could even rev their engines.
The armored formation continued its advance—slow, heavy, and irresistible. The Leman Russ main guns picked off Ork walkers with surgical precision, while the Chimeras used their heavy bolters to sweep away the infantry.
The Cold-Front was always at the tip of the spear. Raynor stood on the turret, firing his bolter with unerring accuracy; each shot saw an Ork's head vanish in a spray of green mist. When a Greenskin attempted to ambush the tank with a crude rokkit-launcha, he was cut down by the Iron Guard before he could even take aim.
What shocked Leo most was the morale of the vanguard infantry. Their eyes were filled with a religious fervor as they screamed, "For the Governor! For Brevis!" They charged the xenos without a shred of hesitation.
Why? Leo found the answer quickly.
It was because Raynor was always at the front. Wherever the Cold-Front went, he was there.
One massive, heavily armored Ork Nob managed to break through the hail of fire and reached the base of the super-heavy tank. Without a word, Raynor leaped from the turret. He engaged the beast in a blur of motion, his power sword singing through the air.
There were no flashy feints, only the pure, brutal efficiency of superior stats and skill. The Nob didn't even see the strike before his head was severed from his shoulders.
The soldiers erupted into a deafening cheer as Raynor held the xenos trophy aloft.
"That," Leo whispered, watching with mesmerized eyes, "is what a real leader looks like."