Chapter 134: Manipulating Terrain
Rogal Dorn was rarely happy when he heard his brother imitate him closely, and he asked directly, "I'm a bit surprised that the Alpha Legion would adopt trench warfare tactics. Don't they have their bombing tactics available?"
Captain-General Valdor glanced at the Emperor, sensing that the Alpha Legion was being somewhat conservative intentionally.
He said calmly, "It's probably not the right time yet. We'll gradually witness their bombing tactics unfold!"
"The Imperial Fists are the most solid fortress, and my brother Alpharius will know what true defensive warfare is!" Rogal Dorn said with renewed excitement, then ordered the Imperial Fists to land immediately.
Captain-General Valdor smiled calmly, not mentioning Rogal Dorn's current inefficiency in space combat operations.
The Imperial Fists' landing operation was extremely fierce. Space Marines needed to secure a ground base, then undertake large-scale construction of military fortresses to rely on for positional defense.
This relied on the strategy of "defend when the enemy attacks, defend when the enemy retreats," stubbornly holding one place firmly.
This method was very effective against the warlike Orks: once they learned of such a fortress, they would mobilize large-scale forces to rush in and keep going until the fortress was breached.
Three Legions successively established war bases on Celestian Star, and the elite Legion led by the Emperor also forcibly landed.
In the northern wasteland of the planet, three massive war bases gradually took shape, but there were many Ork bodies scattered on the flat wasteland, and green tides surged from all over the planet like waves.
The Alpha Legion never stopped their bombing attacks every single day, and the powerful nuclear ordnance allowed the war bases to be successfully constructed.
The remaining scattered Orks gathered from all directions around the Alpha Legion positions. The three war bases engaged in fierce combat, relying on the solid defenses of their fortresses, and countless Orks fell on the plains below.
The war bases never stopped building, becoming taller and thicker, and the strong energy shields firmly defended against the Orks' attacks.
In the command room high up in the base, Omega was genuinely surprised when he received Bright's detailed data report.
The Legions of the Emperor, Horus, and Rogal Dorn all used orbital bombardment sparingly and more often engaged in direct combat with the Orks on the ground, so the war was fierce, and countless soldiers fell on the battlefield.
The Mechanicus's God-Machine Titan Legion was used on a large scale, exerting a huge combat effect.
Especially the monster-level Emperor-class Titans, like war beasts towering above. Omega was shocked to see this nearly 100-meter-tall Titan for the first time. This war showed him many things clearly.
The Data Repository had already marked tens of millions of coordinates on Celestian Star.
Omega looked at the countless Ork green tides on the wasteland, turned to Skor and the other company commanders present, and calmly said, "Order the bombing units to carry out global bombing operations. Don't use thermonuclear warheads, use conventional missiles!"
"The missile units will carry out large-scale long-range bombing, constantly reducing the number of Orks for me!"
Upon hearing that thermonuclear warheads were not to be used, everyone nodded in understanding.
It was indeed not good to go too far in front of the Emperor, and they did not expect the Emperor to adopt a combat method of fighting the enemy on the ground directly.
Large numbers of the Alpha Legion's missiles began long-range strikes, and countless missile torrents streaked across the sky, landing on the ground with a rumbling sound.
At the same time, millions of bombers began to drop missiles and bombs on pre-designated bombing coordinates across the entire planet.
For a time, the entire planet was filled with endless explosions.
Horus, who was fiercely fighting the Orks in an Ork city, easily wiped out a large number of Ork Boyz and paused. He looked up at the warplanes flying across the sky above.
Abaddon, who had a towering topknot, looked up at the large number of warplanes flying past overhead, then saw warplanes dropping missiles in the distance.
He approached and said, "Primarch, the Alpha Legion has deployed millions of bombers and is bombing globally!"
"Except for signs of thermonuclear explosions in the northern wasteland, these bombers are dropping entirely missiles and bombs, and the quantity is extremely vast!"
Horus understood Omega's thoughts upon hearing this and laughed loudly. "Hahahahaha, my brother Alpharius is still reliable!"
On a plain, the Emperor's massive elite Legion fought a bloody battle with the Orks. The battlefield, spanning hundreds of kilometers, was filled with war and smoke. Suddenly, dense warplanes flew from the distant sky.
Captain-General Valdor looked up, and only when he saw that they were human warplanes in the distance did he relax.
The number of warplanes in the sky was so vast, covering the sky and darkening everything, that even the fighting Custodes and Sisters of Silence were surprised and looked up. Then the warplanes flew across the sky at high speed.
A vast deluge of bombs and missiles, as if endless, poured down into the formations of tens of millions of Orks below.
After one wave of pouring, although the Orks had anti-air capabilities, the number of bombs was too great.
Boom boom boom!
Millions of dense bomb explosions continuously sounded, and smoke and dust rose into the sky, covering the clouds and sun. A wave of air blew from a distance, shocking the Emperor's Legion with the bombing scene before them. It was truly terrifying.
After one wave of bombing, bombers could still be vaguely seen in the distant sky, also dropping bombs and missiles.
With the sound of explosions filling his ears, the Emperor saw that the Orks before him had suffered countless casualties and their formations were in disarray after a wave of bombing.
He shouted and led his army to charge forward.
The Emperor would not criticize a Primarch's tactics unless they were overly extreme, and this applied to Rogal Dorn's tactics as well as Omega's bombing tactics.
Without using thermonuclear-level or higher-level strikes on a large scale on Celestian Star, the human side accepted this shocking bombing method.
Then, in the next month, the entire planet never had a single moment of peace.
Countless bombing warplanes flew across the sky, and the entire planet was filled with explosions. Fifty million missiles and countless bombs were dropped, destroying over a hundred million Orks.
In addition, Omega attracted the Orks in the northern wasteland, periodically conducting orbital bombardment and thermonuclear bombing to eliminate hundreds of millions of Orks.
At this time, the war bases where the Imperial Fists were located had become massive war fortresses, and the incredibly solid Imperial Fists were engaged in fierce defensive combat.
Rogal Dorn held his greatsword, eliminating Orks one by one methodically.
The entire Imperial Fists seemed like an efficient killing machine, relying on solid fortifications for defense, killing one by one without any sense of urgency.
In the sky outside the war base, large numbers of bombers constantly flew past, dropping countless bombs with roars.
Sigismund, who had just taken down an Ork mech, held his sword and watched the departing warplane fleet, muttering exasperatedly, "It's been a full month of bombing, and it's still not over!"
Rogal Dorn stood nearby and calmly said, "From the war data, the Alpha Legion will drop at least a hundred million missiles and large-scale thermonuclear strikes in a large-scale war. The number of missiles dropped this month should not have reached one hundred million yet!"
Sigismund smiled in surprise and said, "No wonder Lord Guilliman would say that the Alpha Legion wastes too much ammunition, but I like it!"
All Legions were closely monitoring the global battlefield. Everyone was aware that the Alpha Legion had bombed globally for a whole month.
Although each Legion had its own air force, it was nowhere near the Alpha Legion's scale.
Most Legions were witnessing the Alpha Legion's bombing tactics for the first time, and after some time, they found it quite good.
Omega's tactic was global bombing to assist friendly forces. The Ork units did organize anti-air fire during this month, but only a tiny portion could do so, and the Orks scattered across the entire planet still could not avoid the bombing.
Several Legions fought together, plus Omega and the Emperor's initial orbital bombardment, reduced the number of Orks to around two billion.
Another whole month passed.
The Orks on Celestian Star were still endless, their numbers having dropped to around 1.5 billion.
The terrain around the Alpha Legion's war base in the northern wasteland, spanning ten thousand miles, had long lost its original appearance entirely.
Endless Orks covered the ten-thousand-mile area, accumulating a thick layer on the ground, but the Orks still surged like a tide from all directions.
The war fortress, built with steel walls reaching three hundred meters high and over ten meters thick, stood like a steel monster, firmly holding its ground in the wasteland, mercilessly reaping the endless Orks invading.
Omega, observing the entire area from the high command post of the fortress, inadvertently noticed that the ground in the distance seemed to have risen considerably.
The Orks were still charging on the ground below, and Omega noticed that the distant ground had risen considerably again.
He blinked, and being proficient in mathematics and calculations, he immediately sensed that something was wrong.
Omega turned from the viewport and ordered the Space Data Repository, saying, "Bright, monitor the terrain changes in front of me carefully. I suspect there's a problem with the terrain, and the Orks are behind it!"
"Understood!"
Soon, the Data Repository immediately sent a warning. There was a vast deviation between the terrain of Omega's war base and the original terrain, spanning thousands of kilometers. This was a contradictory situation.
After verifying a terrain problem, Omega immediately sent people to launch a thermonuclear strike. A loud boom rose into a mushroom cloud.
A large number of Orks on the surrounding ground were eliminated, and the uplifted terrain changes no longer moved.
A squad of Thunderhawk Gunships descended from the sky. Space Marines skillfully began to dig a hole, drilled a thousand meters deep, dropped a thermonuclear warhead, and then quickly left. With another loud boom, the entire ground exploded upwards.
Company Commander Orsh approached and reported the underground soil sample report from the top of the high command tower, saying, "Primarch, the deep geological layers drilled out indeed show signs of abnormality clearly!"
"Orks can also build underground cities?" Omega took the file and examined it in detail. The clearly chaotic geological layering and familiar fault lines reminded him of the ancient xenos constructions he'd studied.
After careful thought, Omega felt something was wrong. The noticeable uplift of the terrain over thousands of kilometers earlier was not something such constructions could naturally do.
Instead, it was reminiscent of the combat situation on the artificial moon, where Orks had a war method of manipulating lunar terrain changes.
The artificial moon in the sky was a super-large war weapon created by the Orks, so it made sense that the Orks could control it. But this Celestian Star beneath their feet was a real planet, not a war weapon created by the Orks.
Thinking of this, Omega believed what he had seen earlier.
Unless the Orks modified the Celestian Star entirely, they couldn't perform such miraculous operations of manipulating thousands of kilometers of terrain changes. The Orks were an illogical and miraculous race, and anything was possible.
Omega immediately ordered the entire Legion to continue fighting while also trying to drill and sample the surrounding terrain.
Any discovered fault lines were to be bombed with thermonuclear warheads immediately.
Afterward, Omega quickly transmitted this information to the Emperor, Horus, and Rogal Dorn.
[End of Chapter]