After he finished speaking earnestly, the officers below had no idea what had been said on the other end of the communicator.
But when the horned man turned around again, all his earlier contempt had vanished.
Compared with what he had witnessed himself, the scene his subordinate described frightened him far more.
And at the thought that the supply station really held over a thousand lunatics who had cut their way through the entire passage with blades, the horned man regretted coming out to take on such a hot potato.
But under the rebukes coming through the communicator, the regret in his heart turned into frenzy.
He raised his head again, his eyes filled with nothing but ruthlessness:
"Open fire with everything! It's just one infantry fighting vehicle! I don't believe he can drive back through all that fire!!!"
The horned man gave the order, and the officers below immediately carried it out. Under their shouted curses, the firing positions of every size, which had briefly fallen quiet, opened fire again.
Solid rounds, energy beams, rockets, and even bolts began weaving a web of fire through the air, hammering madly into the infantry fighting vehicle.
Dense bursts of sparks instantly engulfed the entire hull.
But although the sight looked spectacular, in the eyes of the horned man behind them, it gradually became terrifying after a brief moment of hesitation.
"Why... won't it blow up?!"
As it was an infantry fighting vehicle under his own command, he naturally knew it had its limits.
Under so much heavy fire at close range, the vehicle might hold out for a little while, but it could never withstand it for this long!
Yet not only had the vehicle withstood it, the horned man even felt-though he did not know whether it was an illusion-that it had suffered no damage at all. After firing for so long, the surrounding barrage had actually done nothing but clean the markings on its hull.
Only the rockets, which should have wrecked the vehicle with a single hit, barely left fist-sized dents in its hull.
"How is this possible?"
The horned man could not understand it, and what happened next made him go completely rigid!
The vehicle's mounted bolt machine gun began to roar!
The vehicle roared forward, and a barrage of utterly outrageous power and density swept straight through the packed crowd ahead.
Then, as the onlookers instantly turned deathly pale, the passage that had held at least a thousand people became a corridor of bloody pulp.
As far as the eye could see, the entire passage held nothing but splattered gore and human tissue that was utterly impossible to identify.
At the sight, the surviving crew members instantly collapsed to the ground. After exchanging looks, they reached only one conclusion:
"The Machine Spirit probably isn't just greatly pleased..."
The sudden appearance of an "Astra Militarum" infantry regiment had turned the Hive City upside down.
But at the positions on the outskirts not far from the Hive City, as another wave of Planetary Defence Force troops fell, the Astra Militarum officers supervising the assault from behind began mechanically executing the soldiers lucky enough to escape back.
And amid the successive sharp cracks of executions, reports confirmed by multiple sources lay on the desk at Astra Militarum headquarters.
The Commissar stood straight to one side in an ornate uniform, head held high and expression cold, while a white-haired general sat behind the desk before him, looking grim.
"So what we're facing isn't a roving band of rebels at all, but an entire Hive City?"
The Commissar nodded, and the old general suddenly slumped.
After all, this meant that every plan he had made had been nothing but a suicide mission from the very beginning.
And at the thought that all this fighting had merely been a meaningless march to their deaths, the old general felt a helplessness that seemed to drain all strength from his body.
It was not that he pitied the soldiers. After all, wherever they died, were they not serving the Emperor?
What left the old general helpless was that, with the situation on this planet worsening by the day, he had squandered so many troops for nothing.
Especially that elite unit, which had far exceeded his expectations-he had personally sent them straight into a Hive City full of rebels.
The thought left the old general feeling aggrieved at the loss:
"If only they could have been used somewhere else."
The old general was helpless. Seeing that he had accepted the situation, the Commissar waited a moment in silence before reminding him:
"Sir, should we halt the next wave of attacks?"
The old general came back to himself slightly and, after only a brief pause, nodded.
He was just about to raise his head and give the order when the door burst open!
Bang!
The old general and the Commissar immediately looked over. A panting messenger carrying a vox backpack was holding up a sheet of parchment toward them.
Before either the old general or the Commissar could reprimand him, the messenger spoke excitedly:
"The Hive City... an Imperial flag has been raised over the Hive City!"
The old general: "???"
The Commissar: "???"
The two exchanged looks. It was the Commissar who stepped forward to take the report and handed it to the old general.
At the same time, he turned straight toward the densely packed monitors to one side, scanned them, and pointed to one in the upper left:
"That angle. Enlarge it."
The technical officer immediately complied. Soon, the image was transferred to the main screen and enlarged as far as possible.
Then everyone from the Astra Militarum in the command post stared at the image, their eyes widening.
Over two thousand blood-drenched soldiers stood on a platform atop a Hive City tower. A huge Imperial flag had been raised again, and beside them stood a battered Chimera that had endured an unknown amount of fire.
Although the ordinary soldiers did not recognize the unit on the screen, when a conspicuous Tech-Priest appeared among them, the Commissar and the old general needed only a moment's recollection before recognition struck.
"They're actually still alive?!"
The old general was stunned, but immediately afterward, he shot to his feet behind the desk.
At the same time, he looked at the Commissar beside him and saw the same shock.
Because compared with Sith still being alive, another piece of information conveyed by the image was even more frightening.
"They... could they have..."
"Fought their way through the entire Hive City?"
The old general murmured in disbelief. Even the hard-hearted Commissar could not help drawing a deep breath to ease the shock within him.
The entire command post fell silent. Only after a long while did the old general sit down again, even greater helplessness on his face:
"What a shame."
The Commissar also lowered his head slightly, his expression subdued:
"If only it had been earlier..."
Neither finished, because just as they spoke, a sudden howl overhead brought a violent rumbling through the ground.
Immediately afterward, overwhelming antiaircraft fire filled the sky.
The old general regained his composure. Ignoring the dust shaken down from overhead, he straightened the report and moved the blue flags representing his own forces on the map before him a considerable distance back, away from the Hive City where Sith was.
Beyond the red flags that had originally represented the rebels were dozens of densely packed green flags, each as enormous as a city, and beyond those "cities," a green tide covered the entire map.
Only after finishing all this did the old general's gaze settle on the solitary little blue flag far from the main force. After a moment's hesitation, he still sighed:
"Send them a fighter and inform them of the situation. The rest is up to them."
Atop the Hive City tower, Sith watched the fighter scream overhead, drop a package, and turn back as though fleeing. His expression had already darkened.
Not far away, Brunok led several soldiers to retrieve the package. After opening it and quickly checking its contents, he returned to Sith with a small booklet.
First came a military report:
"A message from headquarters. It says another group of Xenos enemies has arrived, and our main force is pulling back the area under its control."
Xenos?
Sith froze. Xenos meant alien species.
And every alien species that had survived humanity into the forty-second millennium and remained active possessed "special talents." Encountering any of them could make humans smile sincerely, inside and out.
Except the T'au...
But Brunok showed none of Sith's gloom. Instead, he raised another small booklet, looking unconcerned:
"But from what I've read in the Departmento Munitorum's anti-Xenos combat manual, these Xenos aren't much."
Seeing Brunok's confidence, Sith frowned and took the booklet. Sure enough, it bore the Departmento Munitorum's official seal.
But when Sith opened it, half believing and half doubting, the very first sentence that met his eyes left him utterly frozen:
"When facing Orks in close combat, the brave soldiers of the Imperium can easily knock their opponents down with a shoulder throw..."
"Huh???"
Sith looked up with a frown, his eyes filled with nothing but bewilderment that words could actually be combined like this:
"Orks? Close combat? Shoulder throws???"