Artillery Barrage

The three heads of the Lord of Change and Mystery turned toward Alru's forces at once, while the arcane devices in its nine hands glimmered with eerie blue light.

"Caspar Alru..."

Ren's voice beside him held the glee of a scheme coming to fruition. "The merchant guild's watchdogs... They finally caught the scent of blood and came running..."

"Just as well..."

The eyes on one of the Lord of Change and Mystery's heads suddenly burst, transforming into a swirling nebula. Reflected in it was the real-time state of the entire battlefield:

Fifteen Leman Russ Tanks advanced in a wedge formation, their cannons continuously spitting flames.

Five Hellhound Flame Tanks provided heavy fire support from the rear.

Twenty Sentinel Mechs stalked and hunted along the flanks, while eight thousand infantry surged forward like a tide...

Meanwhile, inside the industrial district, artillery fire was slowly chewing through the defensive line the Siclaman Rebels had built among the ruins.

The Khorne Cultists and that Bloodletter had already engaged Alru's vanguard, the collision of flesh and metal erupting in a shower of blood.

Its own Tzeentch Horrors wove a field of interference in the sky. Alru's soldiers kept getting hit by friendly stray rounds for no apparent reason as space warped around them...

"Everything is going according to plan..."

Ren murmured at the same time. "Eighty years lying low... infiltrating... waiting..."

"Starting tonight... the winds of change... will sweep across all of Aurelian..."

On the other side of the battlefield, Caspar Alru stood beside the command vehicle. The red light of his mechanical eye swept across the battlefield thirty times a second.

Data streamed down the left half of his visual display like a waterfall:

[Target identified: Siclaman Rebel main force, approximately 3,300 combatants, equipment rating: 3.2]

[Target identified: Heretical corruption units, approximately 540 combatants, mutation level: 47%]

[Target identified: Heretical corruption units, approximately 110 combatants, psyker readings: high threat]

[Special target: Heretical entity, threat level: 7]

[Special target: Heretical entity, threat level: 6]

"Threat level seven..."

Caspar lightly tapped the hilt of his command saber with his mechanical fingers, producing a rhythmic click.

"Looks like those useless fools in Intelligence got at least one thing right."

He raised his mechanical right hand, five metal probes pointing through the air. Each gesture opened a new communications channel:

"Tank Companies One through Three, maintain wedge formation. Main guns prioritize rebel fortifications."

"Companies Four and Five, circle around the left flank and suppress the charge routes of the red heretics."

"Sentinel Mech squadron, advance in a dispersed formation. Use your mobility to tear open the area covered by the heretic force field."

"Infantry Battalions One through Four, follow up and clear the area. Leave no survivors."

"Psyker squad..."

He paused and looked toward the thirty figures clad in purple robes.

"Activate the Mind Weaver. Target: blue heretics. Disrupt their casting stability."

The orders reached every combat unit within 0.3 seconds.

The Alru forces' advance instantly changed from a surging tide into the precise interlocking of gears.

The fifteen Leman Russ Tanks split into three spearheads, their main guns firing steadily once every five seconds.

Their shells were aimed with meticulous precision—not to maximize casualties, but to dismantle the rebels' defenses, collapse their cover, block passages, and create walls of fire.

The main guns of the five Hellhound Flame Tanks locked onto a more troublesome target.

Their turrets turned slowly, sights fixed on the three frantically spinning heads of the Lord of Change and Mystery.

"Range: 1,200 meters."

"Wind speed: negligible."

"Target's psyker interference level: high."

"Calculating ballistic correction... complete."

The gunner pressed the firing button.

"Boom!"

Two specially designed psyker-interference shells streaked toward the target in near-straight lines, trailing eerie purple flames!

The three heads of the Lord of Change and Mystery turned toward the shells at once, and one of the mirrors among its nine hands rose into the air.

The mirror reflected the shells' trajectory, and then... the path began to twist.

The shells, which should have hit, suddenly veered away in the final fifty meters, skimming past the demon and crashing into the ruins of a warehouse behind it, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Tsk."

Caspar's mechanical eye flashed red. "So it doesn't work after all."

He switched channels. "Psyker squad, execute Plan B."

The thirty purple-robed figures raised their heads in unison.

Eerie light suddenly brightened beneath the blindfolds covering their eyes.

Another kind of psyker energy began to fill the air—not Tzeentch's capricious, ever-changing power, nor Khorne's frenzied bloodlust.

It was a cold, mechanical sense of order, so precise it made one's scalp crawl.

These computational psyker thralls, modified by the Cult of the Machine Thought, had long since had the emotional centers of their brains removed and precise computational arrays implanted.

Their psyker abilities weren't meant for combat, but for... deconstruction.

Thirty invisible threads of psychic energy reached out together, piercing the energy structure of the Tzeentch field with the precision of surgical blades.

Rather than meeting force with force, they sought its nodes, analyzed its frequencies, calculated its points of resonance...

Then interfered.

"Vmm!"

The blue force field covering half the factory district suddenly began to fluctuate violently!

The spatial distortion grew unstable, strengthening and weakening in turns.

The tracks of the three trapped Leman Russ Tanks sank hard into the ground, and their speed recovered by thirty percent!

"Mechanicus creations... always so... boring."

The three heads of the Lord of Change and Mystery let out furious shrieks at once.

The staff in one of its nine hands rose and pointed toward the psyker squad as it began weaving a new spell.

But it was too late.

"Holy shit! This artillery! This barrage! Is this really what a newbie village is supposed to look like?!"

Did White Scars speed today was crouched behind a hastily raised barricade, watching a tank shell explode thirty meters away. Shrapnel kicked up by the shock wave clattered against the metal crate above his head.

They were now at the entrance to the Raw Material Transport Tunnel in the northwest corner, which had originally been a relatively safe area.

But the Alru forces' bombardment and firepower were simply too intense.

Some shells strayed from their intended targets, while stray rounds flew in every direction. Worse still were the projectiles whose trajectories had been twisted by the Tzeentch field—you never knew where they would go.

"Quit talking and hurry up!"

Wang Zhong kicked a worker who was too terrified to enter the tunnel in the backside, sending him tumbling inside.

"Everyone behind him, move! If you don't want to get blown to pieces, get in there!"

A long line had already formed in front of the tunnel entrance. More than four thousand workers, organized by the players, were crawling one by one into the metal pipe, which was one meter in diameter.

But they were still moving too slowly.

The inside of the pipe was cramped. Only five people could crawl through at a time, and some sections were at risk of collapsing, so the players had to leave people inside to shore them up along the way.

At this rate, it would take at least another half hour for everyone to get through.

And the Alru forces clearly weren't going to give them half an hour.

"Thud!"

A dull sound rang out.

A middle-aged worker at the very end of the line suddenly stiffened and looked down at his chest.

A bowl-sized hole had blown open in it, its edges charred black. Light was faintly visible through the other side.

A stray round had come from somewhere and hit him by sheer chance.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but only bloody froth bubbled out.

Then he fell straight to the ground.

"Ahhhhh!"

The workers around him erupted into chaos!

Panic spread like a plague. The line fell into disarray as some people tried to push forward, others ran back, and many more collapsed to the ground. Cries and screams blended together.

"Don't you fucking panic!"

Tax Brother raised his shotgun and fired into the air. The deafening bang temporarily silenced the uproar.

He bellowed at the top of his lungs:

"If you want to live, stay in line! You'll die faster if you run around!"

"Those at the back, drag the body away! Don't block the passage!"

"You lot!"

He pointed at several players. "Go pick up the ones frozen with fear! Throw them inside!"

Violence was, at times like this, the most effective solution.