Toxic clouds crowded the sky.
Across a world of cracked, sandy earth, rolling yellow sand blew ceaselessly with the whirlwinds.
Outside the Hive City, an Imperial Army legion clad entirely in black uniforms stood amid a mass of vehicles.
Even when the rebels violently blasted the passage behind them into rubble, sealing themselves inside the Hive City and shutting Sith outside, the soldiers still wore bewildered expressions, unable to process what had happened.
At the very center of the legion, Sith looked at the Leman Russ before him, somewhat struck that the rebel leader named Dujiao had actually managed to get him a tank.
Although Sith's legion still fell short of Astra Militarum standards in heavy weapons, its equipment already far outclassed that of other Planetary Defence Forces.
A gust of yellow sand swept through the crowd.
Through the moaning cold wind, Ork war cries drifted faintly from within the sandstorm.
A soldier picked up some promethium fuel and covered all the tank's original, blasphemous rebel markings in black.
Behind the Leman Russ stood two more Chimera infantry fighting vehicles.
The Chimeras' new crews were racing to familiarize themselves with the vehicles. However, the Hundredfold Amplification that had once allowed Sith to weather heavy fire and fight his way through the Hive City vanished outright when he was not personally involved.
Now the infantry fighting vehicles only granted their crews hundredfold experience growth; otherwise, they were merely ordinary infantry fighting vehicles.
Sith did not find that particularly regrettable, however, because once the soldiers finished cleaning and repainting the Leman Russ, he climbed aboard as its commander.
Then an engine roar like a wild beast suddenly thundered across the parched earth.
It startled even Ana, who had just finished inspecting the tank, because in her memory, a Leman Russ engine could never have possessed such terrifying power.
A little more power, and it could even have served as the engine for a light Knight walker!
Just then, motorcycle engines roared from the other side. Brunok rode up from the distance with several soldiers carrying communications equipment.
Thick tires churned up rolling clouds of yellow sand from the gravel-covered ground.
Not daring to approach the black tank directly, Brunok stopped his motorcycle when he spotted Sith and hurried over on foot.
Brunok raised his hand in salute, his face flushed:
"All the supplies have been loaded onto the trucks. There's a little less food than originally planned, but the fuel tanks are all full, and they gave us an extra double allotment."
Sith, who had been familiarizing himself with the Leman Russ, stopped at those words and looked back from the commander's position toward the Hive City, now completely cut off.
Dujiao was terrified that he would stay outside the Hive City and refuse to leave as long as he had food and drink!
There was no time to waste on the Hive City now, anyway. After all, no one knew when Calgar would arrive.
Sith had to reach a safe zone before all the lunatics on Vigilus started treating extermination weapons as conventional weapons.
Without making any sarcastic remarks, Sith turned back.
Ahead lay an endless sandstorm that reached into the sky, and the Ork war cries within it grew ever louder. Facing all this, Sith gently pressed the accelerator.
The Leman Russ let out a surging roar. Looking at the rolling yellow sand awaiting him in the distance and the densely packed soldiers loyal to him at his side, Sith put on his commander's headset and waved a hand forward.
Brunok's motorcycle squad moved out first, charging into the rolling yellow sand as scouts.
Then the Leman Russ carved two furrows through the yellow earth. Sith's tank, enhanced by Hundredfold Amplification, led the way, with the two Chimera infantry fighting vehicles following behind, one on either side.
Behind them came an enormous force of twenty full infantry regiments, interspersed with large numbers of supply trucks.
Painted entirely black, Sith's legion resembled a black tide covering the ground of this parched world of yellow sand.
Then, accompanied by the roar of engines, the black tide entered the rolling yellow sand.
The yellow sand remained, and the barren world outside the Hive City sank into desolation once more.
Quiet save for the wind's moaning, the world seemed never to have held this human legion at all.
But after an unknown length of time, a sky-shaking Waaagh rang out from the sandstorm, where only yellow sand had roared before, and shook the earth.
A flash of fire pierced the yellow sand first, followed closely by the hundredfold-intensified boom of a tank cannon!
He raised his hand and fired.
Amid the sandstorm, where visibility stretched only a dozen or so meters, an Ork speedbike tumbled out of the swirling yellow sand ahead and into the crowd.
The nearby recruits immediately dodged with almost instinctive movements, but the violent explosion still took the lives of the nearest few.
Sith thrust half his body out of the Leman Russ's commander's hatch. Bracing against the fierce wind, he held down his headset, firing his sidearm ahead while continually shouting into the microphone.
The Chimera flickering in and out of sight in the sandstorm beside him fired bolts without pause. Two lashes of flame sprayed from the vehicle's secondary turrets, drawing streaks of fire through the yellow sand.
"No melee! No over-the-shoulder throws! Use ranged weapons to eliminate these Xenos whenever possible!"
Sith shot dead another roaring Ork brute and shouted orders to the soldiers around him.
At the same time, his orders traveled through the tank's communicator to every infantry regiment under his command.
With Sith's Leman Russ as its spearhead, the entire legion concentrated its fire as much as possible, pouring it forward through the yellow sand and mowing down the hideous Orks charging out one after another.
Occasionally, volleys came from the other side as well, often bringing down a few soldiers who failed to dodge in time. But compared with the casualties Sith inflicted, the casualty exchange between mortals and Orks actually favored the mortals for once.
These casualties only stirred the Orks' lust for battle to even greater fervor. As Sith killed more and more Orks, the number charging out of the yellow sand did not diminish-it grew!
Gunfire, tracks, Waaagh.
After advancing through the sandstorm for who knew how long, Sith felt as though those were the only three sounds left in his world.
The Orks seemed endless. The Leman Russ's cannon never stopped thundering for a moment, and its tracks were coated in blood and flesh.
Then, as Sith changed magazines again and raised his head to continue picking off any threatening Orks, the yellow sand that had covered the entire world suddenly vanished with a fierce gust!
The world abruptly cleared. It was not that some strange outside force had blown the sand away-Sith had actually fought his way through the entire sandstorm against the Orks!
Excited cheers rose from the soldiers around him. With visibility improved, the humans began unleashing even deadlier firepower on the Orks.
And after Sith casually put a bullet through an Ork leader's head, the Orks finally lost control and turned to flee into the sea of sand.
The sight encouraged the mortal soldiers even further, but their cheers had not lasted long when a motorcycle raced after the fleeing Orks at a speed far beyond anything before.
"Why did the commander charge out alone?!"
Once Brunok saw clearly, he hurriedly questioned the officers beside Sith, but they merely watched Sith catch up with the Orks, their faces filled with uncomprehending bewilderment.
"The commander said... he was going to ask the Orks a question..."
Brunok: "...???"
Had Brunok not seen that they all wore the same expression, he might even have thought too much sand had gotten into his ears and made him hear things!
Staring in astonishment along with the others at Sith charging into the distance, all they wondered was what question their wise and mighty commander could possibly need to ask the Orks!
Up ahead, beyond everyone's hearing, Sith used his motorcycle to surround a group of panicking Ork Boyz. Then, under the terrified gazes of the Orks, he pointed at himself:
"Tell me, do you lot reckon I'm the most Waaagh!!!"