The third artillery barrage arrived.
The shells, their firing parameters now corrected, did not blanket the enemy positions. Instead, they struck every marked fire point with precision.
The reconnaissance probe by a hundred thousand men had proved immensely valuable. One by one, even the deeply concealed fire points had been uncovered.
Several shells first smashed apart the overhead cover and blastproof layers. Then more shells burrowed inside, sending the men within skyward amid explosive fire.
Hidden bunkers were crushed one after another, while the infected Leman Russ tanks still roaming those positions were obliterated by the barrage.
This bombardment lasted an hour. Then Grenadier 19 gripped the trench wall with one hand, ready to vault over the moment he heard the charge whistle.
Beep!
The long-awaited charge whistle finally sounded, and every assault trooper of the second echelon across the entire position swiftly entered the battlefield.
No battle cries. No fear.
Breathing was war; silence was the horn.
Other than the sound of boots striking the ground, there was no unnecessary noise across the battlefield.
When Grenadier 19 and his men had charged halfway to the enemy lines, they heard the shriek of the fourth barrage tearing through the sky.
The shells followed the soldiers' charging footsteps, landing five hundred to eight hundred meters ahead of them—the closest distance at which their greatcoats and built-in ceramite armor could withstand shell fragments.
The coordination between Krieg infantry charges and artillery fire was without a single flaw.
The artillery battered the heart of the enemy's attempted counterattack, while the infantry charge would crush their final hope of resistance beneath its boots.
Under wave after wave of artillery cover and bombardment, the remaining combatants left on this first line could be said to have been utterly annihilated.
Tens of thousands of men dropped