The foundry's massive support columns groaned and snapped amid the explosions.
A strike from a Night Scythe reduced the vast factory's roof supports to drifting particles. The enormous Alloy roof, weighing hundreds of tonnes, collapsed with a thunderous crash, completely burying half a Cadian infantry squad and two Chimeras that had failed to retreat in time.
Billowing dust and flames mingled with metal fragments, spraying in every direction.
A surviving soldier of the Cadian Shock Troops had his thigh pierced by a fragment of collapsing metal, and blood seeped steadily from the wound.
He clawed futilely at the scorching, twisted metal impaling his leg, crying out in anguish.
Then a sweeping particle beam from a Doom Scythe erased him along with it.
Despair weighed heavily on every survivor's heart, like the thick smoke hanging over the foundry.
Nothing remained on the vox but chaotic static and dying gasps.
The bastions of steel were collapsing, and the bulwarks of flesh were breaking.
Anvil VII's final heartbeat seemed about to cease forever in this graveyard of steel and fire.
The mortal defensive line was on the verge of total collapse. Before the main entrance to the Forge Temple, Furnace's Heart, the final Alloy gate was being torn apart by the Phase Blades of a group of Scarab Destroyers.
The moment the Alloy gate collapsed, a Shadowsword Super-heavy Tank held in reserve opened fire from inside the temple.
It was a treasured possession of the local Adeptus Mechanicus Sage.
As this was a valuable Forge World, its Sages still had a few fine things tucked away.
Perhaps this world was unremarkable compared with other Forge Worlds, but compared with an ordinary Imperial World, its Sages clearly possessed considerably richer collections.
The enormous hull huddled inside the entrance beneath the temple. A single shot