An Ork scrap city stood on the outskirts of the desert's central region.
It was a chaotic "city" built from all manner of scrap steel, wood, sheet metal, and even bones.
Ork excrement lay everywhere on the ground, mixing with the sand and sprouting clumps of Ork fungi.
Several "Squigs," little more than heads with legs underneath, hopped around these fungi. Then heavy footsteps approached, and the Squigs bounded happily toward them like puppies that had spotted their owner.
Then a huge steel foot kicked a Squig flying.
The other Squigs grew even more excited at the sight and hurried after their companion. They tore the unlucky creature apart in the distance, then hopped excitedly back with pieces in their mouths.
But their master had already left and walked into the densely packed Ork horde.
"Here, it's Waaagh enough!"
"Here, Orks have endless fights!"
The Ork boss towered over them. Ork Boyz were already larger than ordinary humans, yet before this boss, they looked like children beside a burly man.
Raising his enormous steel-pincer prosthesis, fashioned entirely from scrap steel, the Ork boss called Steel Pincer spoke, and the densely packed Ork Boyz below answered with frenzied cheers.
But the cheers had barely begun when Steel Pincer raised his hand again to stop them.
Looking over his endless Ork Boyz below, and the densely packed speeding bikes and scrap war vehicles around the perimeter, Steel Pincer breathed harder under countless frenzied Ork gazes.
"Dat human's Waaagh too, but..."
"Not as Waaagh as me!!!"
His voice suddenly swelled, a violent roar bursting from his enormous mouth.
The Orks below, whose excitement had been forcibly restrained, finally found release at those words. The Ork horde covering the landscape broke into a frenzied Waaagh.
Amid the frenzied, mighty Waaagh that shook the sand, Steel Pincer strode down from the platform, his body seething with anger.
Brutally shoving aside the Boyz in his way, his steel-clad body pushed through the Green Tide like a steel giant.
"Dat human's nearby. Let's go show him who's da most Waaagh around here!"
At Steel Pincer's order, the Ork horde, long ready to move, erupted in even more frenzied war cries.
Densely packed Orks, mixed with large numbers of motorcycles and war vehicles, scrambled to leave the scrap city.
Countless huge feet trampled the desert. Their frenzy for war made them jostle one another, even coming to blows over a place nearer the front.
Overhead, large numbers of single-seat helicopters cobbled together entirely from scrap, with almost no protection, charged out in a frenzy.
At last, all that restlessness and frenzy converged, piercing the sky as they charged toward the desert's edge.
And in the distance lay Sith's position!
In the direction of the Orks' frenzied charge, smoke rose from a flat stretch of desert, where scattered Ork Boyz fled in terror in every direction.
Where the Boyz had fled, hundreds of thousands of Ork corpses covered the ground alongside large numbers of wrecked motorcycles and war vehicles.
Scattered human soldiers walked among the corpses, leaning on their rifles, their bodies trembling with exhaustion.
Breathing in short gasps, their nearly unfocused eyes searched among the corpses for any comrades still alive.
Not far away, the wreckage of a Leman Russ burned fiercely, buried beneath surrounding mounds of Ork corpses, and erupted in a violent explosion.
The surviving soldiers instinctively looked over. In the firelight, a figure still stood atop another mountain of corpses.
At the sight of that figure, a little focus finally returned to the soldiers' eyes.
They had no strength left to cheer, but they still straightened slightly and cast reverent looks at Sith and the mountain of Ork corpses beneath his feet.
Black smoke swept across the ground.
Sith's chest had become a bellows, forcefully drawing in and expelling the acrid air. Every rise and fall brought a fierce burning to his chest.
He looked into the distance. The battle had only just ended, yet through the smoke, even louder Ork war cries seemed to drift faintly from deep in the desert.
Feeling the soldiers' gazes on him, Sith did not dare sit down. He drew his gaze back from deeper in the desert and looked at the soldiers still moving below the mountain of corpses.
Of the hundred thousand who had entered the desert, half were already gone.
And in the eyes of every soldier who had held on until now shone a ferocity and ruthlessness that could strike fear even into Orks.
Indeed, the Ork corpses covering the surrounding ground were proof of their fighting strength.
A motorcycle sped in from the edge of the battlefield. Moments later, with bandages wrapped all over his black uniform, Brunok gritted his teeth and mustered his last strength to reach the foot of Sith's perch.
"My lord, an even larger band of Orks is charging out from deep in the desert."
Brunok clenched his teeth hard, the muscles in his face twitching faintly. These Orks seemed impossible to finish off. Throughout their days in the desert, almost every time they killed one wave, another came.
No matter how many they killed ahead, more always poured out behind them.
As word spread and the Orks learned there was a particularly Waaagh band of humans here, even more, stronger Orks came rushing madly to fight.
They had even attracted Steel Pincer, who possessed an entire scrap city of his own and had already become an Ork boss.
Sith lifted his eyes briefly in the direction Brunok pointed, then looked away and leaped lightly straight down from the mountain of corpses.
Seeing Sith jump straight down from a mountain of corpses dozens of meters high, Brunok's eyes grew somewhat evasive as he looked at him.
For some reason, Brunok felt that his own combat strength had already been improving fast enough after killing Orks for so long.
Yet Sith before him was even more extraordinary.
In fact, after each Ork force they defeated, it never took long for Sith to become noticeably stronger.
Shhk~
His saber plunged into the desert sand. Sith took a deep breath, and his breathing steadied considerably.
"We're about to leave the desert. There probably won't be any more Orks after this group."
Brunok kept his eyes lowered, not daring to look directly at Sith.
"Then should we...?"
Brunok wanted to ask whether they should rest.
At that, Sith glanced around. Though his face retained a commander's cold resolve, he still sighed helplessly inwardly.
The soldiers' stamina had reached its limit. They truly needed a rest.
But Sith glanced at the soldiers, then at the sandstorm rising in the distance, and still did not relent.
Because Sith could see clearly that it was no natural sandstorm at all, but dust raised by the sheer number of Orks!
"Move out immediately. Neither the Xenos nor our supplies will give us much time."
The corner of Brunok's eye twitched. He looked at the soldiers around him, still drained of strength, then mustered his courage as Sith turned and took the lead in moving on.
"My lord, at least give the soldiers five minutes to eat..."
Brunok felt somewhat apprehensive after speaking, but Sith did not turn back. Only his calm voice came from ahead.
"They can eat compressed starch while walking."
Brunok: "..."
On the battlefield, the surviving soldiers quickly gathered around the last few supply vehicles and continued toward the main force.
Deep in the sea of sand, the sandstorm formed by the Orks slowly drew closer. Far away, the towering Hive City that pierced the sea of clouds also slowly came into view.
But at that moment, within the Hive City, eyes were drawn to the surging advance of Steel Pincer. Yet when they looked toward him, every gaze was soon drawn instead to a figure that should not, and could not, have appeared.
At that moment, deathly silence filled the Hive City's command headquarters. Monitors covering the entire hall were trained on one direction from every angle.
Because in that direction, a human army was slowly emerging from the sea of sand.
A horrified voice broke the deathly silence.
"They..."
"Fought their way through???"