Storm Gathering

Just as the bloody battle inside the Steel Temple reached its most brutal stage, a different color appeared in Viridia's dark crimson sky.

Dozens of dazzling, meteor-like trails tore across the smoke-shrouded heavens.

They were Astra Militarum drop pods.

The Imperium's first wave of reinforcements had finally arrived.

Leading them was the 17th Siege Regiment of the Death Korps of Krieg. It was a legendary force renowned throughout the Imperium for its tenacity, ruthlessness, and near-pathological thirst for sacrifice.

The drop pods slammed down like raindrops onto the vast plain outside the Steel Temple, long since occupied by the Orks. Their hatches blew open, and Krieg soldiers in gas masks and heavy greatcoats, their faces hidden from view, surged out like Ghosts crawling up from hell—silent and efficient.

Their commander, Colonel Grim, was also masked, identifiable only by the commissar at his side and the banner flying nearby. The moment he stepped out of his drop pod, the sight before him made him pause.

Beneath his boots lay not the Ork-occupied ruins he had expected, but a... battlefield that could only be called "clean."

Ork corpses, wreckage, and destroyed war machines lay everywhere. Their numbers and density were simply appalling. It was as though an astonishingly large massacre had taken place here just before his arrival.

"What happened?" Colonel Grim's voice, muffled and distorted through his gas mask, sounded over the communications channel. "Wasn't the intelligence report that the defenders were a second-line unit on the verge of collapse? How did they accomplish all this?"

"Perhaps... it was a miracle from the Emperor, Colonel," the commissar beside him guessed. Friedrich, a stern middle-aged man, spoke with a tone full of doubt.

"A miracle?" Colonel Grim snorted. "I don't believe in miracles, Commissar. I believe in trenches, artillery, and bayonets."

He pointed toward the Steel Temple, which loomed in the distance like a mountain range of iron.

"I can hear fighting still going on inside. Order the troops to advance on the target area immediately! Let's see what this so-called 'miracle' really is."

The Death Korps of Krieg truly deserved its reputation as one of the Imperium's most elite forces. They wasted no time, immediately forming a textbook-perfect combat formation on the spot and charging toward the Steel Temple with unstoppable momentum.

Along the way, they encountered several bands of Orks trying to block them. But those scattered stragglers were utterly helpless before the Krieg soldiers' cold, efficient web of fire. The Krieg soldiers made no wasted movements; they simply advanced, fired, fixed bayonets, and continued advancing.

In the Orks' simple, straightforward logic of war, there was no such word as "scheme."

When Iron Jaw Bonecrusher Grak saw from his massive mobile command tower that those stubborn little runts, like stones in a latrine, had suddenly collapsed along the defenses of Grain Silo District 7, only one thought passed through his brain, scarcely larger than a walnut:

"Ha! Dem weak-legged runts finally couldn't take it no more!"

"Boss is brilliant! Boss is mighty!" squealed the Gretchin most skilled at groveling beside him. "It was Boss's kingly aura that scared da guts outta dem little runts!"

Grak let out a satisfied laugh. He liked this feeling—the feeling of watching his enemies crumble before his absolute strength.

"That idiot Mog got himself piled to death by trash like this. What a disgrace to me!" Grak spat disdainfully. "Pass on my orders! All da boyz, charge into dat biggest breach! I saw da black-clothed little runt boss! He's hidin' in dat iron hut at da very back!"

"I want him alive!" He pointed his enormous Power Klaw at the distant central control room, barely visible through the chaos. "I'm gonna yank him outta dat turtle shell myself and crush him into a pile of meat paste in front of all da little runts! I'm gonna let 'em know that in front of Iron Jaw Grak, their pathetic resistance ain't worth a squig's fart!"

WAAAGH!!!

The warlord's command flooded every Ork brain like the most potent stimulant. They no longer paid attention to the scattered pockets of resistance still desperately holding out on the flanks. Instead, like floodwaters finding a breach in a dam, they gathered into an unstoppable green tide and surged madly along the passage the 99th Regiment had "given" them, toward the heart of the Steel Temple.

Thousands upon thousands of Orks packed the broad transport corridor. Beneath their feet lay thick grain dust piled like dunes. Above their heads rose the enormous silo ceiling, like the dome of a cathedral. Roaring in triumph and brandishing their weapons, they rushed headlong toward the final target they believed was about to be crushed.

Sergeant Orik was leading the remnants of his men in a desperate stand along the final defensive line outside the central control room. Their ammunition had long since run dry. The blades of their Chainswords had become scorching hot from prolonged overload, and had even begun to chip.

"For the Emperor!!"

The instant his Chainsword stalled, a Kasrkin veteran unhesitatingly grabbed an Ork boss trying to break through the line and detonated the last grenade on his body.

The blast wave threw Orik to the ground. He struggled back to his feet and wiped blood and brains from his face, only to see even more endless greenskins flooding over his defensive line.

"Big brother..." he murmured, turning toward the sealed alloy door behind him. His mission was complete. He had bought the commissar the last moments he needed.

He bared his teeth in a relieved yet grim smile, raised the Chainsword that had ceased its roar, and charged into the oncoming green tide.

Inside the central control room, Colonel Valeus watched it all silently through the surveillance screens. He saw Orik's final charge, saw him swallowed by more than a dozen Orks, saw him use his own body to provide the door with its final barrier.

He turned to look at Alexander.

The young man stood before the massive floor-to-ceiling bulletproof window, his back to him, silently gazing at the green ocean outside, now wholly consumed by madness.

Countless Orks had completely surrounded the central control room. With huge cleavers and Power Klaws, they hacked and hammered furiously at the thick bulletproof glass, producing deafening booms like the tolling bells of doomsday. Spiderweb cracks had already spread across the glass.