Sigismund knelt before the Primarch, looking up into his face. His steady, fiery voice pierced through the rain curtain, leaving Dorn and the Imperial Fists warriors stunned.
Clenching his right hand into a fist, he pressed it against his heart in a warrior's salute, speaking with solemn gravity: "I hold a profound debt of gratitude toward you."
"Please accept this thanks."
Under the bewildered gazes of everyone present, he reached for his neck, drawing out a necklace from the seals of his power armor: "You may not know this, but under the light of your grace, my friends in the waste survived."
The necklace swayed in the rain—a strand of oily, braided twine threaded through molars, finger bones, and bits of scavenged wasteland debris to form a crude talisman.
It was by no means refined, rough enough to appear assembled at random.
"What is this?" Blazkowicz asked, showing no disdain for its crude nature. He took the simple necklace, laying it across his palm to examine it closely.
The molars and finger bones were smooth and oily, clearly rubbed and handled over many years; the chrome-plated wasteland scraps gleamed dully under the rain, their rusted edges speaking of harsh history.
It was abundantly clear that while the necklace was simple and unrefined, it had been carefully curated over a long time.
"Back then, my companions and I were struggling to survive in the wastes. Your fleet brought food and clean water, saving us from starvation and marauders."
Sigismund spoke softly, the rims of his eyes reddening slightly: "We survived, and our hearts remained full of gratitude."
"They strung this gratitude together, along with these trinkets, into a necklace—hoping that one day, through me, it might be presented to you."
A subtle stir rippled through the Imperial Fists standing guard around the outpost, their eyes fixed on the scene.
Though duty kept them at their posts rather than on their knees, they rendered the warrior's salute, quietly expressing their gratitude to the King of Warriors.
The Astartes of the Imperial Fists did not hail solely from the Primarch's homeworld of Inwit; the Emperor had granted the Seventh Legion special dispensation to recruit directly on Terra.
Before their transformation into Space Marines, many of these warriors had come from the barren wastes and the deepest hive-bottoms, where basic survival resources were desperately scarce.
Yet one day, soup kitchens and water stations had appeared across countless sectors, bringing the spark of life to a starving populace.
Though it had not touched every corner of Terra or spared the Throne World from famine entirely, it had genuinely saved countless lives. To common mortals, a single bowl of grain porridge in hand was ten thousand times more real than an abstract, distant future.
Sigismund's words struck a deep chord.
Many of the Imperial Fists Legionaries had, directly or indirectly, benefited alongside their families from the grace bestowed by the King of Warriors.
Though the Primarch himself cared little for the benevolence he had once casually extended, to these former commoners turned Astartes, it had been the sole beacon of hope that kept them alive on Terra.
Listening to Sigismund's tale, a faint, almost imperceptible smile crossed Dorn's face.
Though the gentle nuance was swiftly masked by the falling rain, the admiration and warmth shining in his eyes were unmistakable.
From his son, he saw a fierce, uncompromising sincerity in honoring a debt of gratitude, as well as an unwavering remembrance of a dark past.
Such a man was equally worthy of being remembered by others.
"So that is how it was," Blazkowicz said, closing his fist gently around the necklace, the freezing rain unable to wash away the warmth woven into it.
The necklace was crude, yet to the wasteland dwellers, it was the absolute best they had to offer.
The sentiment it carried could never be measured by raw material or craftsmanship. This pure, unvarnished truth was the finest gift of all.
Blazkowicz had never imagined that a casual act of mercy from so long ago, performed without expectation of reward, would find its way back to him today through such deep roots.
"This gift is deeply precious," he said, accepting the mortals' gratitude with solemn reverence, committing it to memory.
"You delivered this gratitude into my hands—plain, unvarnished, and true. It is far purer than any flowery praise."
"When I return to Nour, I shall pass this humble gift along, sharing its story with the Regnar Rogue Trader House. That is where it truly belongs."
"Thank you, my Lord," Sigismund said, nodding with quiet relief as he bowed deeper from his half-kneeling posture. "That is a most fitting home for it."
"The ships of the Regnar House carried countless hopes of survival as they sailed between the Imperium and Nour."
"Rise," Blazkowicz said, storing the necklace within his dimensional space before reaching down to pull Sigismund to his feet. "We are on an active battlefield, and the tactical situation remains fluid."
"Do not act out of impulse in the future, lest it invite suspicion and misunderstanding."
"Understood!" Sigismund crossed his arms over his chest, rendering the Aquila salute before stepping back to his gene-father's side.
He opened his mouth to say something more, but Dorn raised a hand to stop him. Though delight lingered in the Primarch's eyes, his face remained stern: "Heed my brother's counsel. Do not act rashly going forward."
Sigismund nodded in silent obedience, locking his helmet into place and taking his stand behind his Primarch with drawn sword.
Several Templar Brethren rushed forward, clearing away the table shattered earlier by the Primarch and replacing it with a fresh alloy map table.
Astelan stepped up to the edge, activating the tactical projector. A cool blue light flared in the pitch-black, rainy night, rendering a consolidated intelligence map sourced directly from the combat fortress.
"We remain on the defensive, then?" Dorn asked, leaning both hands against the table as rain soaked his pale hair, his tone stiff with suppressed frustration.
"We await the proper moment," Blazkowicz nodded slowly. "We are cut off from external comms. Beyond holding our ground, we cannot afford reckless moves."
Speaking of external communications, Blazkowicz felt a faint touch of regret.
He should have detailed a squad of Doom Marines to stay by Perturabo's side, using telepathic links to maintain a continuous line of communication.
Yet unexpected variables always arrived unannounced.
Blazkowicz had originally assumed that given Perturabo's rigorous, methodical nature, he would follow the initial framework with strict precision.
He had simply underestimated his brother's sheer resolve.
To ensure absolute, total control over the ultimate victory, Perturabo had cast aside conventional protocols, making a deliberate deviation from the original deployment.
"And when is this precise moment?" Dorn asked, his brow furrowing as he marked tactical sectors on the projection, seeking the exact window for the decisive engagement.
Cut off from the fleet, the war-world was operating entirely outside the grand strategic feedback loop.
In a campaign of this magnitude, having two Primarchs and their Legions desynchronized from the broader war effort carried severe risks.
Blazkowicz looked up into the dark, storm-wracked sky, letting the cold rain wash into his eyes as he spoke in a long, quiet tone: "When the sky catches fire."
Dorn nodded in silent comprehension, his fingers tracing complex defensive lines across the tactical interface to further fortify their positions against the Orks' frantic onslaughts.
His brother's words were clear: when the sky burned once more, it would signify Horus's arrival in the sector, granting humanity the naval superiority needed to launch a system-wide counter-offensive.
With the bulk of the Ork fleet surrounding the war-world, the ensuing void battle would inevitably send burning starship hulls crashing down through the planetary atmosphere.
That would be the definitive signal for the final battle!
In truth, Blazkowicz possessed another method to gauge the timing of the final strike.
Within his telepathic awareness, the psychic soul-beacons of Li Tang and the Legionaries were growing steadily sharper as they rushed toward the system alongside the reinforcement fleet.
Once the Nour fleet arrived, the reckoning with the Orks would begin instantly!
Their Waaagh! campaign was destined to reach its bloody conclusion in this nameless system.
At that thought, Blazkowicz's eyes narrowed sharp as a blade. He pointed to a mountain pass at the edge of the holographic grid: "Before the final assault, we clear out the unstable variables first."
The tactical display shifted and magnified, revealing three jagged peaks forming a mutual defense triangle, standing firm amidst the endless green tide.
"The Khrave, the Worm-men, and the Rangdan remnants," Blazkowicz stated, identifying the xenos species entrenched across the peaks.
"The Khrave?" Dorn snapped his head up, selectively ignoring the Rangdan and Worm-men to repeat the name of the alien threat.
From high-level classified Imperial archives, he knew of these terrifying xenos—nomads of the deep void who fed upon the psychic minds of a thousand species.
As for the Worm-men and Rangdan, the former were unheard of, and the latter were defeated foes.
Compared to the Khrave—a psychic race capable of suppressing Primarchs in combat simulations with just three to five individuals—the Worm-men and Rangdan were hardly worth mentioning.
"How many Khrave?" Dorn's face darkened with gravity, his tone dropping low: "How do we strike them?"
As Dorn's query hung in the air, the Templar Brethren and the Huscarles standing behind him stood at full attention, awaiting their Primarch's call.
Within the Imperial Fists Legion, the Primarch maintained two distinct honor guards.
The first was the Templar Brethren, comprised of over a thousand elite warriors chosen through rigorous, multi-tiered trials to shield the Primarch across the most lethal warzones.
The second was the Huscarle Terminator Guard.
They were the most indomitable warriors in the Legion—the first to swear allegiance to Rogal Dorn upon his return to the Imperium.
The Huscarles walked at their Primarch's side like an impenetrable wall, intercepting every strike directed at him.
In recognition of their supreme honor and devotion, every Huscarle's name was carved into the high walls of the Temple of Oaths aboard the Phalanx.
Hearing that their Primarch intended to purge the Khrave, these glorious warriors stepped forward without a moment's hesitation, eager to follow their gene-father into the breach.
They were the Honor Guard—the Primarch's ultimate line of defense—and they would never retreat a single step in the face of peril.
Yet this time, they were turned back.
"What do you think you are doing?" Dorn barked, his face dark as iron as he sternly reprimanded his sons: "This is not your place."
"Those are no ordinary xenos," he said in a low, heavy voice, pointing at the tactical display. "A few hundred Khrave ambushed the Ultramarines Expeditionary Fleet, and under their silent assault, the entire fleet was wiped out.
"Every mortal perished in terror, their souls shattered, and five thousand Space Marines met the same dark fate."
"Your courage is commendable," Dorn added, his eyes sweeping over the Astartes as his tone softened slightly. "However, do not act out of impulse.
"Should the need arise, I will summon you."
Though Dorn's words were rigid, his harsh reprimand was merely a shield to mask his care. He warned them of the grave danger while affirming their bravery and devotion.
Hearing their Primarch's command, the two Honor Guards bowed their heads in silent obedience, retreating to their guard posts to resume monitoring the movements of the Ork horde.
"Brother," Dorn said, his finger lightly tapping the holographic projector to magnify the three jagged peaks while his brow furrowed in gravity. "How do we eradicate the Khrave?"
Over a thousand Khrave posed a threat far greater than ten thousand Astartes. He knew they had to be eliminated to prevent unexpected variables in the upcoming battle.
Yet how to clear them out remained a daunting puzzle.
The Khrave were naturally powerful entities, highly adept at weaving various psychic sorceries. How could they be wiped out without deploying an overwhelming, massive force?
"Relieve the line," Blazkowicz declared, slicing through the tactical map to reassign half the display to the primary battlefield. "The Imperial Fists will take over the wedge engagement sector and fortress defense.
"As for us," he pointed to himself, then to Dorn, "you and I.
"We will take the bulk of the Doom Marines and launch a strike against the Khrave. We use an elite strike force to end them fast and clean."
"Agreed," Dorn replied, accepting the plan with a fierce, lethal edge in his voice. "We execute as stated!"
Tricked by Perturabo, he carried a deep, burning anger that a swift, violent clash would serve well to vent.
"Begin the shift."
The two Primarchs moved with lightning speed, their fingers blurring over the holographic displays as they redeployed their respective Legions.
Relieving a front line was no simple matter; it required managing supply allocations, redeploying troops, and handing over countless major and minor defensive nodes.
Driven by the overwhelming will of two Primarchs, the exchange moved with fluid efficiency.
The Imperial Fists moved into position, establishing a fortified defense grid, while the Doom Marines were liberated from line duty to prepare for the strike.
"We have exactly five minutes," Blazkowicz noted, keeping his head down as his finger pulled up a risk-index projection. "Regardless of whether the assault succeeds, we must withdraw back to the fortress five minutes after engagement."
The predictive models were unambiguous: once the two Primarchs and the Doom Marines vacated the line, the Ork Warbosses would inevitably seize the opportunity to launch a massive Waaagh! charge.
Given the Orks' speed of mobilization, five minutes represented the exact window before they reached the defensive perimeter.
Beyond five minutes, the Primarchs had to be back; otherwise, the Astartes of the Imperial Fists would be unable to hold against over a dozen Ork Warbosses on their own.
Dorn offered a brief nod of agreement, rapidly constructing complex defense lines and repeatedly checking for tactical gaps.
Once the strike deployment was finalized, the two Primarchs took turns slipping away from the forward lines while the Doom Marines rotated out of position.
Silently and seamlessly, realistic hololiths took the places of the Primarchs and their warriors.
To all outward appearances, the Primarchs remained at the forward post, directing the battle from the open-air command station, while the Doom Marines continued their patrols along the perimeter without the slightest anomaly.
These lifelike projections maintained the deception, continuing to deter the Ork horde.
Inside the combat fortress, the strike team assembled. The warriors draped themselves in optical cloaks, while anti-grav vehicles engaged stealth fields, melting noiselessly into the dark, rainy night.
Unnoticed by the Ork Boyz' spyglasses, a hundred cloaked craft slipped into the rain curtain hundreds of meters above, leaving the Adamant Hollow behind.
Beyond the hollow lay endless mountain ranges where the green tide churned without pause.
The three jagged peaks stood in mutual defense, relying on heavy artillery and psychic sorceries to hold firm against the surging Ork tide.
Having lost their Primordial, and betrayed by their allies, the Khrave had retreated deep into the mountains, waiting for voidships to extract them.
However, the planetary orbit was choked with Ork fleets; no voidship could approach, let alone dock and wait for troops to embark.
Weighing their options, they had no choice but to join forces once more with the betrayers, entrenching themselves in the peaks to hold off the Orks—hoping to slip away in the chaos once the humans and the Orks had bled each other dry.
Suddenly, the Khrave Elder sitting at the center of the ritual array felt a sharp tremor in his soul. Horrified, he whipped his head up toward the pitch-black rain curtain.
That feeling had returned!
A psychic black hole was rushing straight toward him!
"Prepare for battle—"
Before the word "battle" could be fully screeched aloud, a thousand missiles tore through the sky, dragging trails of silent ruin as they slammed into the psychic barrier!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The detonations drowned out the thunder, blasting into clouds of deep, unnatural black fire.
The anti-psychic missiles detonated in unison. Ash from the Soulbound, mingled with the sticky rain, rained down upon the shimmering surface of the psychic shield, producing a sharp, corrosive hiss.
The defense held for only a fraction of a second before the barrier shattered entirely. The psychic shield over the Khrave's primary peak dissolved into weak, scattered sparks, completely eroded away by the Soulbound ash.
"Waaaaaagh!!!"
The Orks let out a wild roar, caring nothing for the cause, only knowing that the stubborn shell blocking their path had finally cracked.
Baring their fangs and howling in excitement, they launched a ferocious charge up the mountain.
The Khrave instinctively began weaving psychic incantations to counterattack, but a second volley of anti-psychic missiles arrived, saturating the entire peak!
As bone ash rained down continuously, the anti-psychic field stabilized, dampening the glow ofwarp energy to a dim flicker.
Even the Orks' fanatical Waaagh! aura lost much of its bloodthirsty frenzy under the absolute suppression of the null-field.
"A worthy death!"
Furious roars echoed from the sky as the stealth transports revealed themselves. Three hundred Doom Marines leaped into the abyss, jump-packs roaring to life.
Boom! Two towering figures rode bolts of blazing lightning, dropping from hundreds of meters in the sky, their divine presence unleashing a thunderous roar through the storm.
"Kill!"
Dorn let out an earth-shaking roar. He ignited both of his dimensional power swords and became a streak of golden light, charging fiercely toward the panicked Khrave.
In this moment he was no longer a commander who had to weigh every decision. He was simply a pure warrior launching a sudden assault.
The golden stream, trailing azure afterimages, displayed the full might of a primarch to the utmost.
Sword-light blazed. The dimensional blades split chitin, delivering more than a thousand cuts in a single second and claiming life after life.
Wherever the primarch passed, he left only scattered fragments of corpses.
The Khrave possessed flesh far stronger than that of the Custodians, yet without their psychic power they were equally helpless before the storm of blades the primarch had raised.
Like a berserker, Dorn vented his fury with dual swords and proclaimed the majesty of mankind with iron wrists.
Apart from that first roar he spoke not a single word. Silence itself became his weapon as he crushed every enemy that barred his path.
The Khrave raised their guns and fired venomous shards of the Warp. The projectiles struck the brilliant golden armor yet inflicted no harm whatsoever.
This suit of golden plate had been personally bestowed by the Emperor when Dorn was appointed Lord Commander of Terra, adding luster to his great charge.
Its material shared the same origin as the Emperor's own Armor of the Emperor. It possessed mysterious and incredible power.
The eagle-headed, winged pauldrons resembled those of the Armor of the Emperor and contained defensive force fields that effectively protected the wearer.
Because the materials were of the same source, the golden armor possessed the same qualities as the Armor of the Emperor.
It had an exceptional capacity to channel and conduct psychic energy.
Yes—the power armor worn by mankind's greatest psyker, the Emperor, served primarily to suppress and channel psychic force.
The Emperor was simply too powerful.
His psychic might stood at the absolute apex of the material universe, having reached a realm beyond ordinary imagination.
By all normal reckoning the Emperor should long ago have had his flesh burned away by that power, his soul entering the Warp to exist forever in the pure realm of energy.
Yet he remained in the material universe against all reason.
Remaining was not without cost. The Emperor's overwhelming psychic energy constantly scorched his body, forever striving to break free of its fleshly prison.
Without the Armor of the Emperor to channel and suppress that power, whenever the Emperor unleashed high-intensity psychic sorcery the sudden surge would instantly reduce his mortal frame to ash.
Therefore Dorn's golden armor possessed extremely high resistance to, and conductivity for, psychic energy.
When Warp-shards struck its surface, the purple energy poured in at the point of impact, was dispersed and conducted throughout the armor, and finally dissipated into nothingness.
The aliens' blasphemous fire only enraged Dorn further. He charged into them and shredded the offenders into fragments.
Suppressed, weakened psychic blasts that struck him caused not the slightest real harm.
He was Rogal Dorn, the most resolute of warriors.
Perturabo had once compared his brother to a cold block of stone. Dorn never contradicted the comparison; he accepted the metaphor without protest.
Dorn's temperament truly could be called that of stubborn stone. His face was forever stern and unyielding, ever on guard against every enemy of the Imperium.
His spirit was equally extraordinary. Once he fixed upon a goal he would expend three hundred percent of his effort to achieve it, never wavering.
What he had determined to do, no one could stop.
What he firmly believed, nothing could twist.
He was the stubborn stone standing upon the icy plains of Inwit—weathered by wind and rain yet never fading, never compromising.
Because he possessed such an indomitable will, even psychic sorcery faltered before him and submitted to his resolve.
Before that will, psychic flames became no more than warm radiance, lightning only a tingling numbness, and frost no different from an Inwit breeze.
He was the primarch of the Imperial Fists, and true to the Legion's name he was the Imperium's sharpest iron fist, mercilessly smashing the Khrave!
Filthy blood sprayed. Wails of agony rose.
The dying cries and torment beneath his blades could not shake that heart of stubborn stone. He only regretted that he was still not fast enough to extinguish completely the aliens' filthy voices.
Dorn whirled his power swords into afterimages, treading upon fear and pain, hewing the Khrave into broken remnants and drowning their courage.
Like a silent wall he rolled forward, annihilating everything in his path.
He was the primarch of the Imperial Fists. Marching beside that silent wall was the Khrave's deepest fear—Blazkowicz.
In the eyes of the Khrave, Blazkowicz possessed two utterly contradictory sensory qualities at once: brightness and deathly stillness.
The brightness came from the curse, the death-mark of two Primordial Ones; the stillness was his essence, a cold suppression of both psychic energy and soul.
At Dorn's side, the shoulder-mounted Death-cannon of the Death-bringer dragged alien souls of filth and packed them into soul-annihilating ammunition. Each shot spread a wide zone of absolute stillness.
Khrave flesh faded to ash-white and dissolved into muddy slurry in the rain; their souls were erased by the concept of death belonging to Azathoth the Night-bringer.
They were completely extinguished. No trace of their existence remained in either the material universe or the Warp.
Blazkowicz's left hand unleashed C'tan rays; his right hand fired a super shotgun.
Scorching beams never ceased; explosive gunfire never stopped. He blasted the aliens' souls to scattered fragments and carved a bloody path through the disordered ranks.
The two primarchs fighting side by side were unstoppable, unequaled!
Surrounded on every side, they instead became a "flower blooming in the center," trampling countless trails of blood as they reversed the assault and punched through toward the alien command post.
With their psychic barriers gone and the command post breached, the Khrave base fell into immediate chaos. Caught between the humans and the Orks in a pincer attack, it slid inexorably toward inevitable collapse.
Three hundred Doom Marines, agilely employing their jump packs, became shadowy reapers of the night, constantly leaping up and dropping down to combine their strength against the Khrave.
They fought in three-man fire-teams: two attacked from the front with shoulder weapons and blades, sharing the pressure of the Khrave's four arms, while the third struck from behind with dimensional weapons to sever the alien's head.
The Khrave were simply too strong. Even elite Doom Marines needed three working together to kill one with the safest and highest efficiency.
The aliens reacted to the shift in the battle with extreme speed, immediately forming their own squads to counter the human kill-teams.
These alien warriors stood back-to-back, leaning upon one another, using flintlock-style guns for suppressive fire and high-frequency vibrating blades to seal the space in front of them airtight.
At the same time they chanted amplitude-incantations from their drooling, hideous mouths, continuing to reinforce their own flesh.
The Khrave had roamed the cosmos for tens of thousands of years and accumulated combat wisdom far beyond the ordinary.
Since projecting psychic sorcery outward was useless, they turned it upon themselves. Though still suppressed, the enhancement to their bodies was visible to the naked eye.
After reinforcement the Khrave's aura surged. They beat the bat-like wings upon their backs and rose to meet the human warriors equipped with jump packs.
This was their stronghold; they need not worry about anti-air fire and so soared freely.
"Targets entering phase two. Commence fire interception."
In the void, the waiting stealth vehicles reactivated. Intelligent systems assumed control. Fierce combat scenes appeared upon spherical holographic projectors.
Both sides beat their wings and climbed high, chasing one another back and forth through the curtain of rain.
"Lock targets." With the synthetic mechanical voice, locking brackets on the spherical projections locked onto the high-speed flying Khrave and maintained continuous tracking.
"Fire." From within the empty vehicles came Astran's deep voice.
In the rain, the Khrave who had been pursuing the human warriors suddenly felt their hearts clench; a sense of crisis surged up at once.
It was the instinct of a higher life-form—the soul's premonition of danger when faced with mortal threat.
There was no time to think. Trusting that instinct never erred, they immediately beat their wings and executed emergency turns at the last possible instant.
"Damn humans!"
A sharp-eyed Khrave cursed aloud, having glimpsed, within the pitch-black rain, the occasional flicker of fine lightning.
That was the distinctive signature of electromagnetic railguns!
"Damned humans!"
The Khrave Elder screeched in bitter defiance. In sheer desperation, he raised his staff high, bolstering a thin, fragile shield within the anti-psychic null-field.
In the next instant, a thousand beams of death flashed from a hundred directions!
Zzz... zzz... zzz...
Blue electromagnetic sparks, crimson heavy-lasers, and searing plasma trails mingled together. Solid projectiles fused with energy weapons as a dazzling tapestry of death descended, denser than any torrential storm.
Solid rounds flying at a hundred times the speed of sound shattered the psychic barrier. Light-speed heavy-lasers left no avenue for escape, while plasma beams completely blanketed every retreat route.
A rain of death crashed down, shredding the wings of the airborne Khrave as mangled corpses and vile viscera rained to the earth.
The ground shuddered beneath the impact. Hyper-velocity rounds churned the soil into mud, which mixed with black blood and Soulbound ash to form a death-trap marsh that swallowed all life whole.
An absolute bombardment!
Like a raging flash flood, the barrage swept clean the mountain peak.
With the Primarchs launching the initial breach, the Doom Marines executing surgical kills, and gunships providing relentless aerial saturation, the entire peak was transformed into a meat grinder.
The Khrave howled in agony, the Orks roared in fury, and the human warriors maintained a cold, stoic silence.
When the Orks finally breached the outer defenses and surged into the Khrave's inner command compound, they caught sight of the towering human figures.
"Waaaaaagh!!!"
The Orks roared as one. Spotting the giant human warriors, their eyes gleamed with wild excitement. Abandoning their assault on the ugly xenos, they swung their weapons and charged headlong toward the Doom Marines.
"Da big humies?!!"
Yet amidst the battle cries, shock and confusion rippled through the green ranks. The Warboss leading the charge realized something was terribly amiss.
If the giant humans were right here before their eyes, slaughtering xenos... then who was standing inside the "dog bowl"?
Detecting the anomaly, the Warboss reckoned there was foul play afoot and immediately reported the news to the Boss of Bosses—One-Fang Gugu.
---
The Adamant Hollow—or as the Orks called it, the "dog bowl."
They named it so because the depression was perfectly circular, enclosed on all sides by surrounding mountains, resembling a giant feeding bowl from above.
Moreover, the warfare within the hollow was brutally horrific; like a meat grinder, it pulverized countless Orks into raw paste, looking for all the world like spoiled meat dumped out for squigs to devour.
Near the edge of the dog bowl, the command post had been turned into a swirling zone of green thunder.
With so many Ork Warbosses gathered in one place, overflowing Waaagh! energy coalesced into a pool of lightning that nourished dozens of brutal warlords.
The Orks had split two adjacent peaks, carving them into colossal effigies of Gork and Mork, using their glaring eyes to oversee this divine land.
The Chosen of Gork and Mork—One-Fang Gugu—stood at a towering nine meters tall. His limbs were impossibly thick, his face contorted like a wild beast, his tusks as sharp as cleavers, and green lightning crackling from his crimson eyes.
Beneath his trash throne adorned with massive tusks, the gathered Warbosses shifted with violent restlessness, yet they stood in two orderly lines, suppressing their brutal urges to bide their time.
The dual gods Gork and Mork had already delivered a divine revelation: the Orks would gather their strength, waiting for the precise moment to crush the human warlords.
"Avatar of Gork and Mork," a Warboss growled as it entered the fortress, sinking to its knees before One-Fang.
Though addressed as the "Avatar of Gork and Mork," not a single Warboss or warlord voiced an objection, tacitly accepting the title.
The mountain of muscle sitting upon the throne truly deserved such an incredible title.
It had transcended the bounds of a mere Ork Warboss, evolving into something far greater—a living vessel for a god.
"Speak," One-Fang rumbled. His hideous, gnarled maw twitched as he spoke in a deceptively soft tone, yet his voice carried a weight more terrifying than thunder or war drums, causing the entire hall to vibrate.
The reporting Warboss let out a cruel grin and offered its report: "Da scouts saw da big humies and 'is boys attackin' da ugly xenos' fort."
Boom!
The gathered Warbosses felt their vision blur as the massive mountain of flesh vanished from the trash throne at mind-boggling speed.
By the time they reacted, a sonic boom swept through the hall accompanied by gales of wind. One-Fang was already standing in the center of the chamber, his giant right hand clamped onto the Warboss's chest armor, lifting it clean off the floor.
Standing at six meters tall, the Warboss looked like a frail gremlin under One-Fang's immense size and suffocating pressure.
"Is dis true?" One-Fang asked, his lips peeling back into a terrifying grin as a surge of grim joy churned within his raspy voice.
The green tide had been held back for far too long. They needed to unleash a wild rampage, using dakka and rusted choppas to vent the divine bloodlust of Gork and Mork.
The lifted Warboss showed no fear; instead, its grin grew even wider and more menacing: "Da blood flows, and death doesn't lie."
"In front of da dog bowl line, dem black big humies are just on patrol. Da whole line is bein' held up by dem yellow tin-cans, tryin' to stop da boys."
Its words made it crystal clear: the giant humans had marched out to hit the xenos, leaving the wedge defense sector wide open and vulnerable.
As for the yellow tin-cans? The Warboss ignored them entirely.
They weren't tough enough, weren't brutal enough, weren't cool enough, and weren't wild enough.
Hiding inside their yellow iron suits, firing noisy but unmanly shootas from afar—they looked weak and fragile.
"Good!" One-Fang released his grip, dropping the Warboss to the floor. His grin turned vicious and terrifying. "Launch da tide! Crush dem little yellow humies!"
"Waaaaaagh!!!"
The Chosen of Gork and Mork let out a deafening roar. A wild shockwave of sound erupted outward, visibly warping the air and spatial fabric around him.
"Waaaaaagh!!!"
The warlords and Warbosses roared in response, raising their weapons high as their collective Waaagh! bellow shook the heavens and the earth.
Green thunder raged and howled as the energy over the divine grounds exploded. Wrapped in the collective roars of the Ork commanders, it ignited the bloodthirsty frenzy deep within every Ork Boy.
"Waaaaaagh!!!"
Green lightning crashed through the rainy night sky. Without the Doom Marines present to suppress the warp fields, the green-skinned Orks felt their fervor reach unprecedented heights.
They felt it!
Gork and Mork were right up in the clouds, looking down upon them, eager to see their boys sweep across the entire galaxy!
---
"Hold the line."
At the forward posts along the engagement sector, the few dozen remaining Doom Marines stepped up to the perimeter, speaking in low, heavy tones to the Imperial Fists beside them: "The tide is coming."
The warriors of the Imperial Fists offered no verbal reply, silently checking their ammunition reserves, Tarantula automated turrets, and defensive artillery emplacements.
They could keenly sense that this coming Ork wave was entirely different from anything they had faced before.
Through the pitch-black rain curtain, the Legionaries looked through their tactical visors and saw the Ork tide surging forward across the central bulge of the defense sector!
Yes—surging!
The ever-stoic Imperial Fists used that very word to describe the sheer volume of the green wave, where rear ranks surged over the front ranks like crashing ocean waves.
The charging Ork Boyz pushed forward without a shred of hesitation. Before many could even react, they were trampled into raw paste beneath the boots of the faster Orks charging right behind them.
The Orks advanced like a tsunami, carrying an overwhelming, suffocating pressure as they crashed toward the human lines.
"All combat personnel to fighting positions!" Taking command of the defense, Sigismund drew his sword and roared: "We hold this tide!"
"For the Primarch! For the glory of the Master of Terra!"
The Imperial Fists roared in unison, racking bolt rounds into their chambers. Standing like stone statues in the pouring rain, their expressions did not flinch for a fraction of a second before the approaching green terror.
"We stand unwavering! Let the storm come!"
Amidst the furious shouts of the Astartes, boltgun fire erupted in a harsh, deafening chorus, merging into a roar like a tumbling avalanche.
Mass-reactive bolts slammed into the green wave, detonating into clouds of blood mist as shredded flesh and fiery explosions overlapped in midair.
"Walk the artillery out!" Sitting at the forward command base, four Chapter Masters called in fire support from the Whirlwind missile tanks and self-propelled artillery batteries in the rear.