The streets were thick with the stench of cordite and blood, intermingled with the foul, unmistakable musk unique to the Greenskins. Shattered ruins and mangled wreckage littered the ground, churning the avenues into a filthy, tallic sludge.
Warboss Hakk Fang of the Blood Axe Clan strode aggressively through this chaos, heading directly toward his destination.
His heavy iron boots rcilessly crushed the rubble beneath his feet. His colossal, nearly three-ter-tall fra was incredibly conspicuous, rendered all the more terrifying by the thick, blackened tal plates bolted directly into his coarse skin.
It was blindingly obvious that Hakk Fang was in an exceptionally foul mood.
Catastrophic news was arriving in an unending cascade.
First, the dozen-odd blocking positions and kill-zones he had so ticulously established had lted away beneath the humies' armored spearhead like morning frost under a blazing sun.
Minefields, pillboxes, subterranean tunnel networks, razor wire, anti-tank trenches... absolutely nothing had managed to halt the inexorable advance of that rolling tide of Imperial steel.
Although he had crossed blades with that kunning humie commander previously, Hakk Fang had never anticipated the enemy would be this ferocious. The humies had executed perfect tactical counter-asures against every single defensive stratagem he deployed, refusing to let their montum be delayed for even a single second.
Then ca the Speed Freeks mob, upon which Hakk Fang had placed considerable hope. That boastful Mad-Wheels had sworn up and down that he would exact glorious vengeance upon the humies.
And the result? They failed to inflict even a microscopic dent in the humies' armor. Mad-Wheels had died like a worthless Grot, accomplishing absolutely nothing.
Following that disaster, Hakk Fang had imdiately rallied a massive flock of Stormboyz, ordering them to dive-bomb the enemy formations from a tactical vantage point and crack open the vulnerable top armor of the Imperial tanks.
However, the airburst fragntation rounds from the humies' Hydra flak batteries were as thick as a monsoon rain. The Stormboyz, soaring through the air on their volatile rokkit packs, were swatted from the sky in droves, raining down upon the battlefield as a shower of burning, shredded at.
Reflecting on all this, a volatile mixture of profound confusion and searing fury burned within Hakk Fang's chest.
By Gork and Mork!
Why?!
When he first led his Waaagh! to conquer this Hive City, it had been so laughably easy it made the Orks chuckle.
With just a few basic feints and kunning tricks, the so-called "Planetary Governor" had been terrified out of his wits. The coward had sealed the upper spires and completely surrendered the Underhive, allowing the Blood Axe Clan to establish a massive foothold and multiply effortlessly.
When his fully mobilized, overwhelmingly massive Waaagh! finally stord the spire to take the Governor's Palace, the pathetically weak humie defenders shattered upon first contact. Hakk Fang had effortlessly ripped the Governor's head from his shoulders to claim as a shiny new trophy.
At that ti, he truly believed that Greenskins were the absolute masters of the universe.
But now... these humies were eradicating his defensive lines with terrifying, chanical efficiency. Their armored tide sliced through his Orks like a searing hot knife through squig-butter. Their synergy was flawless, their firepower impeccably precise.
Hakk Fang genuinely found himself doubting whether this invading army even belonged to the sa species as the previous defenders.
Just as the Warboss fell into deep, furious contemplation, another Ork Boy stumbled over, frantically delivering the latest piece of catastrophic intelligence.
[Da humie army has broken into da Upper Hive! Dey're pushin' straight for da Void Shield Generator!]
This report violently snapped Hakk Fang out of his stupor.
The Void Shield!
If that generator was compromised, the humies' massive voidship hovering in orbit would be free to rain apocalyptic fire down upon the Hive City.
That was absolutely unacceptable!
Not a zoggin' chance! Neva!
"Every Boy who can still hold a choppa, wif !" Hakk Fang roared, his voice booming like rolling thunder. "Let's show dese humies wot a real Waaaagh! looks like!"
And there, standing silently before the rapidly massing horde of Greenskins, was a towering, colossal chanical monstrosity forged from a mountain of scrap tal.
anwhile, on the Imperial front.
"It appears our advance is proceeding quite smoothly. The Greenskins are locked in a total rout," Rowan remarked thoughtfully.
Inside the command cupola of the Fortress of Arrogance, Yarrick cast a sidelong glance at the enigmatic man. Rowan hadn't even bothered to utilize a periscope or observation slit, yet he spoke as if he possessed an omniscient view of the battlefield outside.
"Indeed, your assessnt is correct," Yarrick replied. "However, it is a fundantal impossibility for this montum to remain uncontested. Based on my extensive experience fighting them, it is precisely at this critical juncture that these damned xenos pull so catastrophic, unpredictable stunt."
As if the universe itself sought to validate the Commissar's words, the earth abruptly began to tremble.
This was not the localized shaking caused by heavy artillery impacts; this was a profound, systemic seismic tremor echoing across the entire sector.
THUD... THUD... THUD...
Deafening, rhythmic footsteps reverberated across the warzone, as if so unimaginable behemoth was taking heavy, deliberate strides toward their position.
In that exact microsecond, every single Ork Boy currently retreating across the battlefield halted, turned, and unleashed an apocalyptic, unified roar.
Fanatical bloodlust surged violently through the green tide once more, and they threw themselves into a completely suicidal, frenzied charge against the Imperial lines!
"FOR GORK AND MORK!" "WAAAAAGH!" "TEAR 'EM APART!"
Naturally, this brazen assault was entirely futile. The terrifying, overlapping kill-zones established by the Armageddon Steel Legion and the Adeptus Astartes effortlessly tore the charging Orks to bloody shreds.
Yet the Greenskins kept coming, wave after wave, showing absolute disregard for casualties. Bizarrely, even Orks who suffered horrific, undeniably lethal wounds refused to die quietly, desperately dragging their mangled bodies forward through the mud to inch closer to the Imperial lines.
"This behavior..."
Rowan and Yarrick both frowned slightly, imdiately deducing the tactical implication.
Orks were a genetically engineered biological weapon; a species entirely addicted to warfare. They derived imnse joy from fighting, but this also ant that when they were subjected to a relentlessly one-sided slaughter where they could inflict zero damage, their morale would inevitably shatter.
Previously, under Yarrick's flawless command, the Imperial Guard had utilized overwhelming, asymtrical firepower to effortlessly crush everything in their path. Consequently, the surviving Ork Boyz had actually begun exhibiting signs of combat fatigue and terror.
Their aggression levels should not have spiked this dramatically.
The manifestation of this highly abnormal fanaticism clearly indicated that the enemy Warboss had just deployed a strategic asset of such terrifying magnitude that it instantaneously reignited the Waaagh! energy across the entire horde.
Naturally, Rowan quickly discovered exactly what that asset was.
Sharing Cybia's psychic auspex from her concealed vantage point, Rowan beheld the colossal leviathan lumbering toward the battlefield.
It was an apocalyptic walker, appearing to be cobbled together from thousands of tons of scrap tal and salvaged armor plating. Standing dozens of ters tall, it was slathered in a crude, eye-bleeding coat of red paint. Its chassis was marred by rust, jagged weld lines, and aggressively bolted adamantium spikes.
Extending from its massive torso were two horrifyingly oversized weapons: a colossal rotary chain-cleaver and a gargantuan macro-cannon boasting a terrifyingly wide bore.
And mounted upon the "head" of this towering monstrosity was a crude, brutalist tallic visage of an Ork.
And it was wearing a zoggin' grin.
Swarming around the feet of this chanical titan was a massive armada of Ork tanks belching thick black smoke. These ramshackle engines of war, kit-bashed from looted industrial machinery, had massed in unprecedented numbers to escort the behemoth.
"...It is an Ork Gargant."
Rowan opened his eyes, his voice remaining perfectly calm and composed.
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