The Stormblade is one of the most powerful main battle tanks of the Imperial Guard. Equivalent to the Baneblade super-heavy tank, it weighs a staggering three hundred and ten tons. Its primary armament is the massive Plasma Blastgun, a weapon capable of firing streams of plasma at temperatures reaching millions of degrees—easily vaporizing the armor of standard Imperial main battle tanks. It is a literal "heavy armor killer."
Flanking the ten Stormblades stood an entire company of Sisters of Silence and the Ventrillia Praetorian Guard. The Sisters, clad in black power armor and wielding power swords and storm shields, radiated an agonizing psychic pressure that felt like suffocation. The Ventrillia Praetorians were Dominic's personal forces—battle-hardened elites equipped with the finest weapons and armor available.
This was the final line of defense Dominic had prepared for Ragnar. A true wall of death.
"It seems that shrimp really isn't as simple as he looks," Ragnar said, his voice low and heavy. "Having so many of these powerful tanks..."
Ragnar had seen the power of a Baneblade before, but during the entire campaign for Dorito, such tanks had only appeared two or three times. Though he didn't recognize these specific models, he could tell they were just as dangerous as the Baneblades.
"Boss, what do we do?" a "Taste-Great Big 'Un" asked tentatively, his voice trembling as he stared down the ten gaping barrels of the plasma cannons.
"What do we do?" Ragnar sneered. "We charge through and grind them into paste! We've come this far; there is no turning back! Once we cross this hall, we reach the bridge! If we kill the shrimp leader, we win! Wrecking Ball squad, hear my command! Full speed charge!"
Over forty Wrecking Balls ignited their engines simultaneously, hurtling across the ballroom toward the far end. They rolled across the polished marble floors with a thunderous roar.
"Fire!" the line commander, Ralph, gestured coldly to relay the command through a Novice Sister.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ten Stormblades fired their Plasma Blastguns in unison. Ten blinding bolts of blue plasma streaked toward the Wrecking Ball squad like falling stars. Where the plasma passed, the very air was distorted by the intense heat.
"Watch out! Evade!" Ragnar roared, his face pale with shock.
But it was too late. The hall offered no cover. The Wrecking Balls had nowhere to hide.
The first plasma bolt struck the leading Wrecking Ball. Millions of degrees of heat melted the thick alloy armor in a heartbeat. The entire sphere, along with the Big 'Un inside, was turned into gas instantly. Not even a scrap of debris remained. Seconds later, other unlucky Orks were hit and vanished into ash. The power of the Plasma Blastguns was simply too terrifying—a single hit meant immediate annihilation.
"AIEEE!!"
Screams echoed through the hall as Wrecking Ball after Wrecking Ball was blown apart. The wide-open terrain, which should have been an absolute advantage for their momentum, had become their greatest weakness. They could only watch the plasma streams fly toward them with nowhere to run.
In less than a minute, the squad of forty had been whittled down to fewer than twenty. They had lost more than half their numbers—the heaviest loss the squad had ever sustained since its creation.
"Blast it!" Ragnar snarled through gritted teeth. His giant sphere had also been grazed on the side by a plasma bolt. A large section of armor was molten, belching thick black smoke. But he did not retreat. Instead, he accelerated even faster toward the line.
"Keep firing! Do not stop!" Ralph signaled wordlessly.
The Stormblade crews frantically reloaded. The second volley arrived. Three more Wrecking Balls were destroyed. By the time Ragnar reached the line, less than a hundred meters away, only ten spheres remained behind him. Even his signature "Throne Cauldron" was gradually melting and warping under the continuous barrage. The runes and graffiti on it were scorched away, turning the massive iron pot into a twisted piece of scrap metal.
Ragnar didn't care. He knew that even if the pot were destroyed, as long as he made it back to Dorito alive, the Great Gulp would make it reappear before his throne. That was the Great Gulp's promise to him.
CRASH!
Ragnar's massive sphere slammed violently into the frontal armor of a Stormblade. The colossal impact forced the three hundred and ten-ton tank backward several meters.
"Break for me!"
Ragnar leapt out of the sphere, brandishing a massive power axe as he hacked at the tank's cockpit.
CRACK!
The power axe easily split the armor. The gunner inside was cleaved in two. The remaining five Wrecking Balls also reached the line, engaging in fierce close-quarters combat with the Ventrillia Praetorians and the Sisters of Silence. The hall rang with the screech of metal on metal.
Ralph stood silently at the rear of the line, watching the melee with cold eyes. Suddenly, her brow furrowed. Something felt wrong.
Ragnar, who had been struck by several plasma streams, had his outer armor completely melted away. But not only was he still alive, an incredibly terrifying and violent aura was radiating from his body.
Ragnar stood beside the ruined Stormblade, his entire body glowing red like a piece of heated iron. Thick white steam billowed off him. His once round, obese body was shrinking at a visible rate as his excess fat burned and evaporated. His muscles became tighter and more defined. His formerly square, four-meter-wide frame had transformed into a lean, powerful engine of muscle.
The aura he emitted now was ten—no, a hundred times more terrifying than his Wrecking Ball form. It was a power that was pure, primal, and bent on total destruction.
Ralph's eyelids twitched uncontrollably. She tightened her grip on her power sword, her gaze fixed intently on the transformed Ragnar.
Chapter 301: Lower Your Proud Head (Part XI)
"Switch tactics! Power glaives ready! Form ranks!"
The Novice Sister translated Ralph's hand signals with precision, her voice carrying the command to every ear on the battlefield. Having witnessed Ragnar's eerie transformation, the veteran Sister of Silence Commander did not panic. She immediately issued the order to adjust their strategy.
The Ventrillia Praetorians and the Sisters of Silence fanned out, forming a standard spear-wall formation designed to counter large, single-target threats. They traded their bolters and power swords for longer power glaives, better suited for thrusting and bracing against a charge. The four-meter-long glaives shimmered with pale-blue disruption fields, their tips leveled at Ragnar, who stood atop the smoldering wreck of a Stormblade.
These glaives were specifically maintained to combat daemons and massive xenos. Their piercing power exceeded that of a standard power sword, capable of tearing through the thickest plating.
"For the Emperor! Charge!" a Praetorian roared, leading the way.
A dozen Praetorians and Sisters followed, lunging at Ragnar like a pack of lions. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, power glaives striking from multiple angles toward Ragnar's eyes, throat, heart, and other vital points.
Ragnar stood his ground, motionless. He looked down at his hands. The once-bloated palms were now broad and powerful, with defined muscular lines. As his armor had melted earlier, the molten metal had solidified around his hands, forming a pair of irregular metal gauntlets. The surfaces were uneven and still emitted faint tendrils of heat.
He clenched his fists, feeling the power surging through him. It was a gift from the Great Gulp—power he had traded one-third of his Supreme Mundzi to obtain, a strength capable of destroying everything in its path.
Watching the dozen power glaives thrust toward him, Ragnar bared his teeth in a grotesque grin. He didn't even bother to dodge.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
A rapid-fire sequence of metallic impacts rang out. A dozen power glaives struck Ragnar simultaneously. However, what happened next left everyone speechless. The power glaives, wreathed in disruption fields, failed to pierce Ragnar's glowing red skin. The tips left only faint white marks before being deflected away.
"What!?" a Praetorian cried out, his face a mask of disbelief. Even the ceramite power armor of a Space Marine would have been easily pierced by these glaives. How could they fail to even break the skin of an Ork?
In the moment they faltered, Ragnar moved.
His speed was staggering—a total departure from the lumbering, spherical figure he had been moments ago. He moved so fast he left blurred afterimages behind him.
BOOM!
A dull, heavy thud echoed. Ragnar's fist slammed into the chest of the nearest Sister of Silence. She wore Vratine armor, a composite of adamantium and ceramite designed to withstand most conventional weapons. But against Ragnar's fist, the armor was as fragile as glass.
CRACK!
The breastplate buckled and shattered instantly. The massive force bypassed the armor and surged into the Sister's body. Her ribs snapped, and her heart was pulverized. She flew backward like a ragdoll, slamming into a distant wall before sliding to the floor, motionless.
Ralph's pupils contracted sharply. That Sister had been one of her most gifted disciples, killed in a single blow.
[Kill him! Avenge our sister!]
The remaining Sisters and Praetorians, their eyes red with fury, charged again. But it was futile. Ragnar was like a tiger in a sheepfold. Every punch and kick carried devastating force.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
A Ventrillia Praetorian in master-crafted power armor had his head detonated by a single punch. A Sister of Silence in Vratine armor was kicked in the waist, her spine snapped clean in two. No one could withstand a single hit.
What filled them with true despair was that the Sisters' psychic suppression had no effect. The Sisters of Silence were the Emperor's chosen tools against psykers and daemons—they were "Blanks," psychic nulls that suppressed all nearby warp activity. But the power within Ragnar was not psychic in nature, nor was it the typical "Waaagh!" energy of the Orks. It was unaffected by the suppression, coursing through Ragnar's veins without restraint.
In just a few minutes, nearly half the company of Sisters and Praetorians were gone. Blood and gore splattered the white marble floors. The hall was littered with shattered armor and twisted weapons. The surviving soldiers stared at the demonic green figure with terror in their eyes. Their bodies trembled, but not one of them retreated.
BOOM!
Another Stormblade finished reloading. The gunner, teeth gritted, aimed the barrel directly at Ragnar.
"Die, you monster!" he screamed, slamming the firing stud.
A blinding bolt of blue plasma streaked toward Ragnar. But at the very last microsecond, Ragnar's body blurred to the side. His reaction speed was at its limit. The plasma stream grazed his side, missing him and striking the wall behind him.
KABOOM!
The massive explosion blasted a hole through the alloy wall. Metal shards and dust filled the air.
"How is that possible..." the gunner stammered, his face white with despair. He had never seen a creature with such reflexes. Even the legendary Eldar warriors were surely no faster.
Before he could reload, Ragnar turned into a green bolt of lightning and reached the Stormblade. He leaped high into the air and slammed his fist down onto the barrel of the plasma blastgun.
CRUNCH!
The thick barrel was hammered into a mangled curve by the raw impact. The muzzle buckled inward, completely deformed.
"Abandon ship! Get out!" the tank commander screamed.
It was too late. The plasma stream, already fully charged within the barrel, could not be expelled. It expanded violently inside the chamber.
ROAAR!!
An earth-shattering explosion ripped through the tank's interior. Millions of degrees of heat instantly filled the hull. The Stormblade's thick armor, designed to protect the crew, became a massive oven. The gunners and drivers were cooked alive in a heartbeat. The entire super-heavy tank became a burning iron coffin.
Ragnar leaped down from the smoldering wreckage. He brushed the dust off his shoulders, his cold gaze sweeping over the remaining Stormblades. The gunners inside swallowed hard as they met his eyes.
Seeing this, Ralph took a deep breath and unsheathed the power greatsword at her hip. This blade was a relic of the Silent Sisterhood, etched with holy runes designed to inflict extra damage on the unholy. She wore her custom Vratine armor, its black plating inlaid with silver sigils that glowed with a faint, holy light.
With a swift hand signal, Ralph led the charge. The remaining dozen Sisters unsheathed their blades and followed her. They were the Emperor's most loyal daughters; even if Ragnar had transcended their understanding, they would not retreat a single step.
Ralph was incredibly fast. She was the only one present who could even remotely keep pace with Ragnar's movements. Her power greatsword constantly sought openings, lunging at Ragnar's vitals. The holy runes on the blade shimmered brilliantly.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Ragnar used his metal gauntlets to parry Ralph's attacks, sparks showering the floor. Ralph's swordsmanship was exquisite, cunning, and lethal, aiming for every weakness. But Ragnar was faster. He blocked her every strike at the last possible moment.
Worse, his strength was overwhelming. With every collision, Ralph felt as though she were striking a mountain. The feedback rattled her bones, leaving her hands numb and aching. The other Sisters circled them, looking for an opening to strike, but they were little more than a nuisance to Ragnar.
Ralph knew they were merely clinging to life. Ragnar hadn't even unleashed his full strength; he was playing with them like a cat with a mouse. Before long, they would all be dead.
Sure enough, after another clash, Ragnar caught a flaw in Ralph's stance. He twisted his body, evading her horizontal slash, and threw his right fist like a cannonball.
THWACK!
The punch only grazed Ralph's abdomen, but the sheer force sent her spiraling through the air. She slammed into the floor, skidding several meters. Her breastplate was severely deformed, and the holy sigils on it flickered and dimmed.
The remaining Sisters moved to shield her.
[Don't! Hold the formation!] Ralph signaled frantically, struggling to stand. But her body refused to obey. The blow had snapped several ribs, and her internal organs were severely damaged.
Ragnar walked toward Ralph one step at a time, a cruel smile on his face. "Finally, it's your turn. The woman in black armor. You were the one giving the orders, weren't you? I'm going to rip your head off and use it as a drinking bowl."
He raised his fist for the final blow. Sisters tried to intervene, but Ragnar swatted them aside with casual punches. No one could stop him.
Ralph closed her eyes, prepared to sacrifice herself for the Emperor.
Just then, a tall figure appeared behind her. A hand reached out, gently supporting Ralph as she began to collapse. The hand was warm and strong, carrying a sense of familiarity.
Ralph looked up. Her eyes met a suit of blinding golden armor, carved with exquisite Imperial eagles and holy runes. Atop the helmet, a red plume caught the air, flowing like a banner.