14. The Tenacious Alien, A Sudden, Tragic War.

During the Great Crusade, every legion possessed unique characteristics, yet they primarily functioned as the tip of a spear, maneuvering to gnaw through the toughest bones, while the bulk of the Great Crusade was always carried by the so-called Imperial Guard.

This inevitably led to a highly awkward problem: the dispersion of military strength.

When encountering weak xenos races or rebellious worlds, the Space Marines, acting as the spearhead, could easily reclaim the lost colony or planet. However, if they encountered a tough nut with technology rivaling Imperium, the losses would climb to an astronomical figure.

Two years of recuperation allowed the Blackwatch Legion to swell to over 17,000 troops, with nearly 400,000 ship-borne Imperial Guard equipped with T1 Individual Power Armor. They also possessed a full knight household and a Titan detachment for ground support, but compared to other legions with tens of thousands of warriors, it was still somewhat lacking.

Whenever a world requiring reclamation was discovered, the Blacklight would draw fire from the front, while other regiments would swarm from multiple angles like a pack of wolves, executing a pure grand-strategy encirclement.

They utilized long-range lance strikes in the early phase, armored torrents in the mid-phase, and individual soldier infiltration to sweep the battlefield in the final phase. They never dispersed their forces to attack multiple worlds simultaneously; even if the pace of the expedition slowed and Emperor was dissatisfied, Hogg remained adamant about not splitting his forces.

During the Great Crusade, humanity did not lack Primarchs capable of storming cities and seizing strongholds. According to the plan formulated by Hogg, every time a complete region was reclaimed, they would rest in place to consolidate the conquered colonial planets and guard the arrival of the Imperial Administration to establish the foundations of Imperial order.

Although the actions of Imperium were comparable to—or even exceeded—those of the historical dictators of the past, compared to the cesspit of the Warp, Imperium was paradise. The traitor Space Marines of later ages would fight to the death over a single drop of pure water in the Warp, smashing each other's brains out.

In the view of Hogg, the Great Crusade of Emperor was too impatient—perhaps for the sake of the future Webway Project—but this left hidden dangers for the rebellions that would follow everywhere. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

In six months, the Blackwatch Legion reclaimed seven rebellious human colonies in this star system, as well as every world except for the homeworld of the Light Lizardmen.

Using the Aiers system as their rear base, the Blackwatch Legion employed numerous Rogue Traders, and the massive amount of supplies plundered from conquered worlds was used to nourish the construction of the star systems surrounding Aiers.

Doing this was actually quite unethical, and the Administration was extremely dissatisfied, but no one could control Hogg; a noble scion of Emperor was equivalent to the presence of Emperor himself.

The reason Hogg did this was that in the near future, a planet would be teleported near Aiers. Its name was Ullanor, also known in later ages as Armageddon.

A brutal war against the greenskins would erupt there in the future. If Aiers could not be built into a perfect fortress world within this timeframe, countless greenskins would drown the nearby sectors, forming a massive Ork empire.

As for Aiers, the last unreclaimed world in this system, Hogg decided to go personally to let them witness what the power of a Primarch truly was.

As the king of the Light Lizardmen, Beost knew the history of his race.

In the distant past, the Light Lizardmen, then slaves, overthrew the local human rule and absorbed the technology left behind by humanity. Over a millennium of development, they had reached their current scale, but their former masters had returned.

A massive, deep-blue void shield enveloped half the continent of the Light Lizardmen's capital; even the massive lances dropped from the stars by the Blacklight could not pierce it.

Both sides were forced into a war of attrition. Once the outer perimeter of heavy weaponry was cleared, raw recruits were sent in to train by mopping up the remnants. The intensity of the frontline war was such that even Blackwatch veterans would face death if they were not careful. The xenos also possessed war machines comparable to Titans, and the Titan pilots of both sides began a frantic bombardment.

On the thunderous, fire-swept battlefield, Hogg saw at a glance that the shield he could not break was a product of the Dark Age of Technology, and it might even be powered by the Warp. To break this shield, one had to cut off the energy source, but the Blackwatch currently lacked the ability to shield the Warp conduits of an entire planet.

After long deliberation, Hogg decided to use the most classic method of attack: digging a tunnel.

A tunnel-boring machine used for planetary mining was dropped onto the battlefield by air units. As if sensing the intentions of Hogg, the xenos began even more violent bombardments and desperate attacks, hurling sky-obscuring plasma clouds at the positions. The Titan groups began to charge, with plasma and lasers melting the earth and carving out trails of death.

Casualties among the Imperial Guard began to surge, and knight mechs were scrapped in batches. The First Captain, Rossmanderson, ordered the previously captured lizardmen to be dragged up to fill the lines as meat shields; the old, weak, sick, and disabled of the alien race were forced by human soldiers to advance toward the front.

The xenos warriors who charged out could not imagine that humans would employ such despicable tactics. Some xenos soldiers collapsed, wanting to flee the battlefield, only to be executed by the rear-guard commissars.

Taking advantage of the interference from the xenos captives and the intensified bombardment, the Primarch, leading his personal guard—all clad in Terminator armor—started the drill in a concealed corner.

The plasma reactor of the drill began to roar, and the massive, high-temperature bit crushed soil and rock as countless combat engineers began reinforcing the tunnel from the rear.

Under the constant barrage of artillery fire, which consumed endless amounts of ammunition of all kinds—to the point that some gun barrels became deformed—the boarding party led by Hogg finally arrived at the foot of the royal city, where a layer of metal of unknown thickness guarded the underground.

The drill bit finally reached the end of its durability. Too late to replace it, Hogg jumped out of the cabin and touched the metal with both hands. Emerald lightning, thicker than ever before, surged forth as the laws of the metal were twisted.

"Open for me!!!" With a roar, the nearly hundred-meter-thick underground defense facility was torn open. The terrified heads of the xenos appeared before them.

"Kill! Crush them!"

The massive roar of the drill could not be hidden.

As the ground was breached, the lizardmen, who had already established defensive lines, began a fierce artillery strike. The Blackwatch, having just broken through the underground facility, were blasted in the face by various plasma weapons, and a Leman Russ tank was instantly melted.

But in that very instant, Hogg, wearing his Raider power armor, flew out of the tunnel. The fire platform mounted with missile-melta-gravity cannons began to overload, and in three seconds, the ammunition was completely exhausted. The defensive line in front was torn open, and at the same time, Hogg in the air drew all the fire on the scene as heavy plasma cannons began to focus on him.

Lyla Lynn, who had been unable to guard the Primarch in time, grabbed the chainsword at his waist and, along with 30 veteran guards in Terminator armor, teleported directly into the battlefield without a set destination, roaring:

"Protect the Primarch! Kill these xenos!"

Chainswords sawed through armor, power swords tore through flesh, and roaring bolters shattered one xenos after another, spraying green scales and bright red blood across the battlefield.

Hogg, having had one arm melted away by plasma fire, began to slaughter with his remaining intact power claw, while tree-root-like tentacles erupted from the cross-section of his severed limb, inserting themselves into the bodies of the xenos to devour their energy.

Watching his people being slaughtered by the monster in their midst, as more human troops swarmed from the ground, Beost let out a cry of despair. The future of the Light Lizardmen was gone.