Just as the bloody fighting inside the Iron Temple reached its most savage stage, a different color appeared in Viridia's dark red sky.
Dozens of brilliant, meteor-like trails slashed across the smoke-shrouded heavens.
They were the Astra Militarum's 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, a legendary unit renowned throughout the Imperium for its endurance, ruthlessness, and morbid hunger for sacrifice.
The Drop Pods slammed down like rain onto the vast plains outside the Iron Temple, long since occupied by the Orks. Their hatches burst open, and Krieg soldiers wearing gas masks and heavy greatcoats charged out, their faces hidden. Like specters crawling out of hell, they moved silently and efficiently.
Their commander, Colonel Grimm, was another masked man whose rank could only be inferred from the Commissar beside him and the fluttering banner. He had barely stepped out of his Drop Pod when the sight before him made him pause.
Beneath his feet lay not the Ork-occupied ruins he had expected, but a battlefield that could almost be called... "clean."
Ork corpses, severed remains, and wrecked war machines lay everywhere. Their sheer numbers and density were staggering. It was as though a massacre of astonishing proportions had taken place here just before he arrived.
"What's going on?" Colonel Grimm's voice, muffled and distorted by his gas mask, sounded over the comms. "Didn't intelligence say the defenders were a second-line regiment on the verge of collapse? How did they manage all this?"
"Perhaps... a miracle of the Emperor, Colonel," suggested the Commissar beside him, a stern-faced, middle-aged man named Friedrich. But his tone was full of doubt.
"A miracle?" Colonel Grimm snorted. "I don't believe in miracles, Commissar. I believe in trenches, artillery, and bayonets."
He pointed toward the distant Iron Temple, which loomed like a mountain range of steel.
"I can hear fighting in there. 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 lived up to its reputation as one of the Imperium's finest forces. Without wasting a moment, they formed a flawless, textbook combat formation on the spot and surged toward the Iron Temple with unstoppable momentum.
Along the way, they encountered several bands of Orks trying to block their advance. But these scattered stragglers stood no chance against the Krieg soldiers' cold, efficient fields of fire. The soldiers did not make a single unnecessary movement. They simply advanced in silence, fired, fixed bayonets, and advanced again.
In the Orks' simple, direct logic of warfare, there was no word for "conspiracy."
When "Ironjaw" Bonecrusher Grak looked down from his enormous mobile command tower and saw the defenses of those runts-as stubborn as stones in a cesspit-suddenly collapse in Grain Depot Area 7, only one thought flashed through his brain, scarcely larger than a walnut:
"Ha! Those weaklings finally couldn't take it!"
"Boss knows best! Boss is mighty!" A Gretchin beside him, the most accomplished flatterer of the lot, immediately squealed. "Your mighty presence scared the guts out of those runts, Boss!"
Grak roared with satisfied laughter. He loved this feeling-the feeling of watching his enemies crumble before his absolute strength.
"That idiot Mog got swarmed to death by trash like this. Made me look bad!" Grak spat contemptuously. "Pass on my orders! All the Boyz are to charge through the biggest gap! I spotted that runt boss in black! He's hiding in the metal building right at the 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 drag him out of that turtle shell myself and squeeze him into a puddle of meat in front of all the runts! I'll show 'em their pathetic resistance ain't worth a fart against me, 'Ironjaw' Grak!"
"WAAAGH!!!"
The warlord's command flooded every Ork's brain like the most potent stimulant. They ignored the scattered pockets of resistance still stubbornly holding out on their flanks. Like floodwaters finding an outlet, they converged into an unstoppable green tide and poured madly down the passage the 99th Regiment had "yielded," straight toward the heart of the Iron Temple.
Thousands upon thousands of Orks packed the broad transport passage. Beneath their feet lay thick drifts of grain dust, like sand dunes. Above them rose the enormous roof of the grain depot, like a cathedral vault. Roaring in triumph and brandishing their weapons, they raced one another toward what they saw as the final target, about to be crushed.
Sergeant Orik led the remnants of his men in a desperate stand at the last defensive line outside the Central Control Room. Their ammunition had long since run out. After prolonged, punishing use, the blades of their Chainswords had grown scorching hot, their teeth even beginning to curl.
"For the Emperor!!"
The instant his Chainsword stalled, a Kasrkin veteran threw his arms around an Ork "boss" trying to break through the line and detonated his last grenade without hesitation.
The blast hurled Orik to the ground. He struggled to his feet and wiped blood and brain matter from his face, only to see yet more Orks-an endless mass of them-already overwhelming his line.
"Elder brother..." he murmured, turning toward the sealed alloy doors behind him. His mission was complete. He had bought the Commissar those final moments.
His mouth spread into a grim smile of acceptance. Raising the Chainsword that had already fallen silent, he charged into the green tide rushing toward him.
Inside the Central Control Room, Colonel Valeus watched it all in silence through the surveillance screens. He saw Orik's final charge, saw him disappear beneath more than a dozen Orks, saw him use his own body to provide one last barrier before the doors.
He turned to look at Alexander.
The young man stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling bulletproof window, his back to him, silently gazing at the green ocean outside, now utterly consumed by frenzy.
Countless Orks had surrounded the Central Control Room so tightly that nothing could get through. They hacked and hammered madly at the thick bulletproof glass with enormous cleavers and power klaws, producing deafening crashes like bells tolling the end of the world. Spiderweb cracks had already begun to spread across the glass.
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