Shelling

The battlefield suddenly fell silent.

Witnessing their boss die in such a brutal manner before their very eyes, the reckless, death-defying madness in every Ork Boy's gaze gradually faded, their eyes turning much clearer in expression.

As Lucia slowly stood atop the vehicle, her cold gaze sweeping the surroundings, many of the originally ferocious Ork Boys even plopped down on their rear ends, eventually scrambling away in all directions.

This was precisely the common flaw of the Ork race.

The moment the Ork Boss serving as the "Waaagh" energy node died, all the Ork Boys would completely lose their will to fight, instantly switching from fearless to cowardly, their combat morale becoming extremely fragile, focused only on fleeing in panic.

This fatal weakness also made Orks one of the races in the universe most afraid of decapitation tactics.

But then again, was there really any race in this universe that wasn't afraid of decapitation tactics?

Rowan mused to himself.

However, as the saying goes, strike while the iron is hot. Seeing this, all the Astartes immediately advanced their lines, pursuing and slaughtering the fleeing enemies.

Bolters and Assault Cannons poured out barrages in unison, various plasma beams and even Melta rays cutting through the air, slaughtering the enemies fleeing with their backs turned at an efficiency far exceeding before.

As for the Orks, they naturally weren't completely unresponsive.

At the rear of the battlefield, atop a colossal battle fortress festooned with cannons of all sizes, a more massive Ork Boss, also the commander of this battle, Galia, stood up and peered out the observation window.

He reached out with a thick finger, scratched his chin, and asked the Orks around him, "What's goin' on?"

But after listening to his underlings' jumbled answers, his expression grew more bewildered.

"What's that? What d'ya mean Zaliya got squished by a gold shrimp with a big wagon?"

That sounded way too ridiculous, even by the chaotic and disordered standards of Ork cognition, it was too abstract.

Galia suppressed the urge to immediately swing a fist the size of a clay pot and beat the speaking Ork into a pulp, starting to think of a solution instead.

"Gork and Mork above..."

That shrimp ship in the sky still hadn't been dealt with. He was just figuring out how to dodge the Lance blasts—those massive, thick beams could easily tear anything apart.

Earlier, when the enemy had taken the initiative to come down and fight, he thought they had some fighting spirit, were pretty "Waaagh," a good opponent. He didn't expect them to be able to fight, but this was just too much.

Still, Galia quickly made a decision.

"You, get over here!"

He pointed randomly at an Ork Boy: "You, what's-his-name... forget it, name don't matter. You go organize them scared Boyz for a counterattack right now, hold them humans down tight, set up a line, block 'em off!"

As he spoke, his gaze swept outward, and finally Galia's eyes lit up. He grabbed a Mekboy from the mob: "And you, yeah, you! Get that mega-powerful Megabooma of yours out, shout loud for me, gather up all the big, tough mega-units—them Grot Tanks, Fear Tanks, and all kinds of tanks, bring 'em all over!"

"Zaliya, that git, ain't fit to be a Blood Axe! Either schemin' with some shifty tricks all day, or just thinkin' about fightin', not a bit 'Waaaaagh'!"

"Today, I'm gonna set up a super awesome, super unbeatable, super 'Waaagh' formation, clench it into a fist, and grind them stinky shrimps into dust! By the time our 'Gork's Fist' smashes into their lines, even if their fleet's Lascannons are blazin', they won't dare fire!"

"That's right, that's it! I'm the sneakiest!"

On the other side, Rowan, who had been advancing and firing alongside the Astartes company, his ears filled with the roar of battle, suddenly stopped.

He turned to look at Sibyl and asked, "Is the intel accurate?"

Sibyl nodded, a pale blue glow of Emperor's Psychic power lighting up in his eyes: "Correct, I can already sense those Xenos gathering their armored units, trying to increase troop density, then crush us in one blow."

"Oh, is that so?"

Rowan pondered briefly, "That does seem a bit troublesome."

He quickly understood the enemy's intent.

They planned to use the Ork Boyz' lives to slow his advance, while they gathered their forces, then strike him down with overwhelming momentum.

After all, earlier, the Adeptus Custodes and the Living Saint could carve through the enemy ranks because the heavy weapons on those vehicles, which could threaten them, couldn't track their speed with their gun barrels.

And the "little water pipes" in the hands of the Ork Boyz following the tanks posed no threat to them at all, not even requiring dodging. That was why they could move freely through the enemy horde.

But if the enemy concentrated all their armored units, formed a dense formation for a wall charge, and smashed into them like an iron fist, the situation would become a bit trickier.

After all, even a Greater Daemon capable of easily corrupting an entire planet and sparking war across a whole sector wasn't completely immune to vehicle units.

The most famous example was, of course, a certain Great Unclean One, who shall remain nameless, that got sent back to the Warp by being rammed by a Land Raider.

"But, what are they thinking?"

Rowan muttered in exasperation as he drew the Solomon's Ceremonial Sword from his hand, pointing it at the sky.

Through the connection of the Emperor's Psychic power, he once again established clear contact with the Machine Spirit of the Strike Cruiser in the sky, ready to launch a new round of orbital bombardment at any moment.

True, Rowan wasn't keen on using orbital bombardment.

But that didn't mean he couldn't.

Just as Rowan was about to give the order, a series of sharp shrieks cut through the air, interrupting his thoughts.

Artillery!

Rowan immediately became alert, layering another shield over himself.

"When I teleported down, didn't I already blow up most of the Ork artillery?"

However, he quickly realized that the thunderous roar rolling across the sky wasn't aimed at them, but at the Ork horde.

"BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—!!"

One high-explosive shell after another, as if guided by eyes, detonated right in the midst of the Ork horde that had just begun to organize. Shrapnel tore through bone and flesh, blossoming into sprays of blood among the enemy ranks, mowing down large swaths of greenskins like wheat before a scythe.

This barrage was terrifyingly precise, instantly disrupting the rhythm the Orks had just managed to establish, scattering their formation into chaos once more.

And as a result, Rowan and his group's advance speed multiplied several times over.

"...What pinpoint artillery."

Rowan and Sibyl were both taken aback.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Astra Militarum knew that, due to the Imperium's rigid bureaucracy and abysmal management, most infantry regiments had only infantry, artillery regiments only artillery—such divisions were painfully rigid.

Coupled with the constant attrition of personnel and equipment from years of interstellar campaigning, the Astra Militarum generally suffered a severe shortage of heavy indirect-fire artillery units. Moreover, many officers were unfamiliar with this kind of real-time artillery support.

This was hardly surprising. In most campaigns, they got spun around like tops by the Tau.

One side still fighting with World War I tactics, while the other had long embraced integrated fire and maneuver—under those conditions, winning would be the real anomaly.

"This Astra Militarum regiment... they've got something going for them."