Twelve hours passed.
With only three hours remaining before the Navigation Tower was corrupted, every Ritual Node on the planet had fallen.
Lion mapped out a route for the armored forces, so they could get the other ground troops to the area around the Palace of Thorns faster.
Lu Jin was attacking the Palace of Thorns from within and had already taken down several Void Shields.
Lion thought things had gone just as he had calculated. A direct assault on the Palace of Thorns was indeed more efficient than attacking the Ritual Nodes one by one.
But there was a problem: the ground forces couldn't simply gather at the Palace of Thorns and immediately begin the siege. Necrons and Orks were clashing across the only route there.
The Greenskins had the Necrons tied down. It was hard to know whether to thank them for holding the Necrons at bay or curse them for forcing the Imperials to fight both the Greenskins and the Necrons at once.
Lion reached the frontline with the ground forces.
The acting Chapter Masters, officers who were poor at command, and those who had joined the battle in person gathered around Lion.
They stood atop a mountain, looking down at the battlefield.
The Alliance ground forces had assembled and were beginning to form ranks.
Not far away, on the vast plain at the entrance to the Palace of Thorns, the Necrons and Greenskins were locked in a brutal stalemate.
"
"
Lion fell silent.
Everyone thought he was considering their strategy. In truth, there was no strategy left to consider in the final stage of this war. What tactics were there beyond concentrating their forces and breaking through every enemy in their path?
Lion was thinking about himself—about why he had appeared on this planet.
During