The Planetary Defence Force troops following behind the Mechanical Legion watched the swarms blanketing the landscape fall in swathes and, for the first time, felt an inexplicable sense of satisfaction. In just a few hours, these terrifying machines had advanced hundreds of kilometres without stopping.
Every Tyranid within sight had become a corpse littering the ground.
Nearly sixty percent of them had been burned to charcoal.
The air, once shrouded in strange clouds of spores, now held nothing but scorching heat.
All the mutated plants had been incinerated.
Along the way, they had repeatedly seen the enormous Synapse Creatures eliminated with ease.
Whether common Tyranid Warriors, rare Tyranid Primes, or enormous Carnifexes and Hive Tyrants, their fate was no different from that of ordinary Termagants and Hormagaunts.
Missile barrages thinned their numbers, while Heavy Drone Fighters drowned the larger units in plasma fire and overwhelming volleys of Missiles.
Even if they survived by chance, the gigantic tanks would shatter them with a couple of follow-up shots.
Numerical superiority seemed meaningless before these metal machines and their absolute superiority in quality. Under such powerful, concentrated fire, enemies that had once been difficult to deal with no longer seemed quite so formidable.
Yet the fighting was not without losses.
The Tyranids' ranged bioweapons did little damage to the machines. Their sharp monomolecular claws and blades posed a greater threat instead.
Iax had been carefully controlling the distance between his troops and the Tyranids to prevent these vast numbers of creatures from engaging his forces at close quarters.
The Heavy Drone Fighters hovering overhead also maintained clear targeting priorities.
The Acid Beasts mixed into the Tyranid swarms were his primary targets.
The powerful acid these units spat was not only extraordinarily corrosive but also highly flammable.
The moment it touched weapons kept on