The perfectly synchronized attack whipped up violent turbulence across the ground. The entire area looked as though an invisible giant hand had brutally crushed it, leaving devastation everywhere.
Smoke, metal fragments, shattered pale Enslaver carapaces, and viscous blue-purple bodily fluids mingled with the scorch marks left by the explosions, turning this district of the Hive City into a filthy battlefield palette.
Perhaps the attack had been so shocking that the Ultramarines, Salamanders, and surviving mortal defense troops, who had been fighting desperately just moments before, all fell into a brief stupor.
The entire Hive City went silent, save for the low hum of engines and the crackling of burning debris.
Yet that brief silence was soon broken.
The vast aircraft formation did not pause after delivering its lethal strike. Most of the aircraft rapidly climbed, their sharp silhouettes tearing through the murky sky as they sped out of the atmosphere, leaving fading trails behind them.
The rest continued descending toward the ground.
Their metal bodies gradually contracted, the pulse engines at their ends shut down, and their shapes became slender once more.
Gravity Adjustment Devices operated silently, allowing these cold metal constructs to hover steadily above the Hive City as though weightless.
These remaining mechanical units swiftly and silently approached the Flesh Portals concealed beneath Void Shields.
Within the shielded areas were several newly emerged Enslavers and large numbers of mortal Planetary Defense Force soldiers.
Hissing greedily, the fresh wave of Enslavers that had just poured out of the Flesh Portals quickly took control of the mortal Planetary Defense Force soldiers left dazed and bewildered by their previous controllers' deaths.
Their eyes vacant, the soldiers moved stiffly like marionettes, trying to set up the heavy weapons inside the Void Shields again—Heavy Bolters and Melta Cannons, their muzzles turning toward the