Chapter 188 Very Strong

Gormek was formerly a planetary factory belonging to the human empire. It had long been drifting outside the light of the Astronomican. Affected by the Warp, Gormek has now become a demonic planet completely dominated by the Word Bearers.

The Word Bearers used Gormek as a military factory and frontline base for the Black Crusade against the Empire in the Maelstrom Segmentum, and the entire planet was shrouded in evil sorcery cast by the Legion’s wizards.

In this unusual area where the real universe and the warp overlap, the effects of witchcraft are amplified by the Chaos God, and its defensive capabilities are greatly enhanced. Orbital strikes from space battleships will be distorted and weakened by the power of the warp to a large extent, and will not cause effective damage to important military equipment such as the Demon Furnace on the surface.

But again, in the face of absolute firepower, all the bells and whistles are in vain… If they don’t work, then it must be because the firepower is not strong enough.

Although it seemed like using a knife to slay a dragon to kill a chicken, under the continuous bombardment of the tachyon light spears, the ancient orbital defense system of Gormek was soon miraculously destroyed, and the 6th Expeditionary Fleet was able to launch an orbital strike directly on the planet’s surface.

Antimatter bombs, storm torpedoes and other weapons of mass destruction are continuously released into the atmosphere, destroying the heavy industrial facilities on the surface and the devil’s furnaces buried deep underground with surgical precision; the hot plasma ignites the industrial dust deposited on the surface of the planet and the clouds that constantly show all kinds of strange illusions, turning the surface of Gormek into a sea of ​​fire.

Looking at this flaming planet burning in the starry sky, it feels like looking at a miniature star.

The difficult attack on the heavy artillery and huge warships has achieved gratifying results, but it also raised some questions:

“After enduring the heavy firepower of an entire expeditionary fleet for such a long time, a normal planet should have been completely destroyed in the plate collapse caused by the destruction of the geological structure and a series of chain disasters…but Gormek was only burned a layer of skin. Not even a layer of skin has been completely burned.” Oguma stared at the burning Gormek in front of him with a frown.

Should we say it is indeed a demon planet? It really cannot be judged by common sense.

Plumeria noticed his worry and decided to give him some more: “Not only that, remember when we first arrived in Gormek? – Those two Chaos Cruisers were conducting orbital bombardment of the planet.”

Even with the terrifying firepower of the 6th Expeditionary Fleet, the damage caused to this demonic world was extremely limited. What could the pitiful artillery of two light cruisers do?

Everything was too strange, so strange that if this was a trap set by someone, Plumeria would definitely strongly doubt the IQ of the person who set the trap.

At this time, the door of the control room of the Vicious Woman opened automatically, and Inquisitor Camus walked in from outside. His dark close-fitting armor was stained with blood and bits of solidified fat. The strong smell of blood followed his footsteps into the control room, causing the Vicious Woman to frown.

“We have made progress in interrogating the cultists. Although more than 5000 of the approximately 4900 captives were tortured to insanity or death, we still managed to pry out the necessary intelligence.”

Kamius said, pointing with his left hand at the real-life model of the planet in the center of the control room: “The reason why they were able to carry out an effective orbital strike on the demon planet with two light cruisers is because a powerful Word Bearer named Kor Phaeron led a raid on the important Gormek city, the Heart of the Mek.”

“The Word Bearers captured dozens of devout Ecclesiarch priests and nuns from outside the Maelstrom. They used the blood of the Emperor’s fanatics to pollute the Chaos spells and tore a small hole in the Chaos Shield that covered the entire planet of Gormek, allowing the warships in orbit to bomb the Heart of the Maykr through this hole.”

…But Gormek was originally a planet controlled by the Word Bearers. Why did the Word Bearers launch an orbital bombardment on their own planet, and the bombardment was on the most important industrial hub: the ‘Heart of the Mek’?

“Did you find out why Kor Phaeron raided the Maykr’s Heart?” Plumeria asked.

Camus shook his head: “For some reason, there are only some cultists and low-level mortal slaves on the ship. They have no way of knowing more information about the Word Bearers.”

“Then kill all the remaining captives. They are a waste of space. The evil-mouthed woman doesn’t like to have filthy cultists staying in her ship.” Plumeria said:

“According to the current progress, Gormek’s atmosphere will burn out in about 72 hours. I will order the fleet to launch more atmospheric incineration torpedoes to speed up this process. Get ready, we are about to carry out an airdrop to the central city ‘Heart of the Mek’.”

“We need to capture the Word Bearers leader named Kor Phaeron alive and find out what happened here.”

“Understood.” Oguma and Kamu responded in unison.

Under the Valkyrie, the fire covering the entire planet was still burning fiercely. Most of the ships of the 6th Expeditionary Fleet had completed their bombing missions and were silently on guard in the surroundings. Only less than 100 ships were still shuttling back and forth in the planet’s near-orbit, continuously dropping more compressed promethium to make the already scarce atmosphere burn even more fiercely.

When the fire that engulfed the world finally died down, several main battleships, led by the Malice, had already taken up their positions above the planet.

The hatch opened, and tens of thousands of Exocet transport planes loaded with mortal soldiers flew out of the hangar one after another, like a dark cloud covering the sky of the central city of Mek’s Heart.

A sudden downpour began in the black cloud as countless drop pods were ejected from the underbelly of the Malice, carrying fully-armored, super-heavy untouchables, the Night Knights, towards the ground.

Due to the physical limitations of the untouchables and the weight of the aircraft, the airborne capsule needs to be equipped with a complete shock-absorbing device. There is only one knight in each drop of rain, which results in the absolute number of airborne capsules being so large that an unprecedented torrential rain has fallen on this completely burned world.

Hard raindrops slammed into the demon towers. Mechanical angels spread their armed wings in the ruins. Night Knights walked out of the drop chamber holding platinum giant swords. This was the first word that the 6th Expeditionary Fleet said to the Word Bearers.

If Kor Phaeron looked up at the sky and saw the rain of steel, he would surely also be able to hear the Order of Truth’s friendly greetings to him:

——We know you are here, we are here.

“They know I’m here, and they’re coming!”

In the basement of the central city of Maykr’s Heart, a tall Astartes with a shriveled face and full of anger said to the guards around him in a low voice: “The Imperial troops should not come to Gormek at this time. Whether it is Badab’s Astral Claws or other Overwatch Chapters, even if they all unite together, they cannot have the power to go deep into the Maelstrom and launch an expedition of this scale.”

He was wearing a set of custom-made Terminator armor, which was called a Terminator Armor. This ancient armor was not only equipped with huge lightning claws and flamethrowers, but also had a full set of life support facilities and a complete medical system built in to keep the wearer’s aging and shriveled body running.

Because the man inside the Terminator armor was really too old. He had been a captain of the Word Bearers since the Great Crusade tens of thousands of years ago. This veteran who had fought for 10 or even 9 thousand years was named “Kor Phaeron”.

He is the adoptive father of Lorgar, the Primarch of the 17th Legion, and one of the first Astartes to fall into Chaos. Today, Kor Phaeron is a loyal supporter of Chaos known as the “Dark Bishop”.

It was precisely because he regarded the Chaos Gods as omnipotent true gods that Kor Phaeron was so angry now. He could not understand where such a terrifying Imperial fleet came from, and why they chose to attack the Word Bearers at the weakest time of Gormek.

The most important thing is, when such a disaster is imminent, why can’t he get any inspiration from the God of Chaos?

“They came anyway.”

Next to Kor Phaeron, a Word Bearer warrior wearing a gorgeous beast helmet with long horns and taller than the other Terminator guards, like a giant, said in a deep voice: “No matter what, we must fight.”

Kor Phaeron was silent for a moment, then turned around and said, “You are right, Badar. We must fight, and we have no choice but to fight.”

Behind him was a demon furnace flowing with brass and flames, buried deep underground in the central city of Maykr’s Heart. The demon furnace’s bloody mouth, flowing with liquid brass, remained open all the time. On a huge fang that looked like a doorpost, a circle of blood-stained chains bound a strange creature.

Those were enchanted chains inscribed with countless Chaos spells, and not even the most powerful Space Marine Terminator veterans or the most fearless Dreadnoughts could break free.

However, after wrapping around and around like this, the chains could only barely bind the strange creature under the mouth of the demon furnace, and the enchanted chains kept making creaking sounds under the heavy load.

Kor Fallon trudged past the shattered armored corpses and approached the huge mollusk that looked like a giant slug.

The armor on these corpses all had the Chaos Octagon and the Word Bearers logo on them. It was obvious that they were all brutally dismembered by their opponents while working together to imprison this giant “slug”.

“This monster’s power is so strong that it can distort the laws of physics,” Kor Phaeron murmured. “Without any subspace power, it is just pure physical strength, yet it can be so strong…”

The lightning claw on his left hand crackled, and Kor Phaeron made up his mind: “We must hold on until the main force returns, no matter what the cost. Whether Erebus catches that guy or not, the secret of the ‘Complete Code’ must not be leaked.”

Especially, it cannot be leaked to the Human Empire.

Chapter 189 Imperial Elements

Because the majority of the Word Bearers had been taken away by Chapter Chaplain Erebus to hunt down “that guy”, only a limited number of Word Bearers remained on Gormek.

Coupled with the previous round of saturation orbital bombardment and the devastating atmospheric incineration, all the mortal slaves and some weak warp creatures on the planet were slaughtered, so that the Word Bearers did not have enough living sacrifices when they wanted to summon demons to help them. The situation was extremely bad.

Fortunately, this is Gormek, a demon world drifting in the whirlpool. The believers of the evil god are like fish in water here, and the evil spells of the chaos wizards can also be greatly enhanced. They can finally fight against the countless mortal troops descending from the sky, and it is not a completely one-sided despair.

……Really?

Taking advantage of the home advantage of being more familiar with the city’s terrain, Chaos Champion “Col Badar” led a team of elite Terminators known as “The Anointed” and quietly came to the surface through a hidden secret passage.

On the ground, the Knights of the Night who had completed the airborne landing quickly set up teleportation beacons in various places in the city. With the milky white light frequently lighting up, War Titans over a hundred meters tall walked out from the teleportation light. The mortal armored troops on the transport plane were finally deployed, following the War Titans and the Knights of the Night and began to advance towards the city in front of them, which was only left with ruins.

Kor Phaeron led a team of Word Bearers wearing light armor and quietly climbed to the top floor of a ruined tower, looking at the huge figures walking from the open area of ​​the city to the densely built area.

Damn, how many Titans do they have?” Cole Phaeron’s tone was already gritting his teeth. In just the few minutes since he climbed up the tower to scout the situation, he saw no less than 40 giant Titans that were meters high.

However, 40 Titans were not the entirety of the enemy’s Titan power. The transmission beacon was still flickering, and more and more Titan mechs continued to walk out of the light, marching towards the Heart of the Mek with earth-shaking heavy steps.

Kor Phaeron was already somewhat numb. He couldn’t understand, he absolutely couldn’t understand why any Warlord-class Titan was a precious treasure for any Forge World. Even in an Apocalypse-level war, it was rare to see Titan units numbering in the hundreds.

However, at this moment, the war machines that came out of the teleportation beacon seemed endless, even approaching the number of people attacking some Astartes regiments to carry out the extermination operation against the heretics.

These crazy guys are using Titans as Astartes…

A loud noise woke Kor Phaeron from his numbness. Looking at the direction of the noise, he saw a towering spire being destroyed from the root, its towering body collapsing with a loud bang, raising a cloud of burning dust so hot.

Millions of mortal armed forces, led by the Knights of the Night, invaded one decaying tower after another, which were inhabited by demons and various strange creatures of the Warp. Their numbers were so large that they quickly searched every corner of the building like ants crawling into a drawer, then withdrew and sent the coordinates to the Titan Legion.

The spire whose coordinates were sent out was marked with the word “demolition”. The terrifying concentrated fire of hundreds of Titan machines destroyed the adamantine foundation that supported the hive spire for thousands of years, and brought these twisted buildings that had been corroded by the warp for many years to their knees. Then they were crushed and flattened.

The “search” continued in the densely packed buildings surrounding the Titan Legion.

Every second, hundreds of Warp creatures that parasitize this corrupted city die tragically under the reckless bombardment of mortal armed forces, and countless weak demons scream and dissipate under the influence of the Untouchables.

The few mutants and surviving mortal slaves hiding deep in the buildings were hunted out one by one and brutally massacred. The towering ancient buildings were cleared out and knocked down one by one, and razed to the ground under the Titan Legion’s insane firepower.

Wherever the Night Knights pass, there is death; wherever the Titan Legion steps, there are ruins, making people wonder whether they are here to arrest people or to demolish houses.

The landing force of the 6th Expeditionary Fleet steadily advanced into the central city “Heart of the Mek” on the surface of the planet, like a swarm of locusts passing through.

“They are searching for something… or someone.” Looking at the advancing Titan army and the endless mortal army like locusts, Kor Phaeron’s voice became heavier: “A landing force of this size would require at least two to three Forge Worlds to be completely emptied before it can be put together – not including the Titans.”

“If they were only dealing with us, the soldiers who stayed behind in Gormek, the combat power they sent out would obviously be excessive. No one would waste precious Titan power like this. There is only one explanation for this situation: they learned through some channel that there is something extremely precious here, which is worth them taking at all costs.”

As the conversation changed, Kor Phaeron’s demeanor became dull, like a sinister and poisonous snake that preys on its prey.

“Let me explain it more clearly.” Kor Phaeron looked around at the Word Bearers warriors standing around him and said grimly:

“There is an imperialist among us.”

Everyone was silent. If one had to say which rebel legion was the most extreme and thorough in its opposition to the Empire and the Emperor, it would undoubtedly be the Word Bearers.

The Primarch Lorgar, who once worshipped the Emperor as a god, developed a serious fanaticism after his conversion to Chaos, and this fanaticism also affected his legion. The Word Bearers Legion is more determined and radical than any other Chaos Astartes to oppose the Imperium, and is eager to use this to show its piety to the true God of Chaos.

Now Kor Phaeron said there was an Imperial hidden among them, which was undoubtedly the ultimate insult to the Word Bearers.

Fortunately, Cole Phaeron was still rational and did not say any nonsense like “pacify the country before fighting foreign enemies” when the disaster was imminent. He just planted the seeds of suspicion and then quickly began to make arrangements for the next course of action.

“After the reconnaissance just now, we have roughly understood the direction of the enemy’s troop deployment. They are advancing towards the city center of the Maykr Heart. If nothing goes wrong, they will soon find the demon furnace that imprisoned the ‘monster’…”

Cole Phaeron knew very well that with his current strength, it was impossible to compete with this crazy team that used Titans as cans, so he made a decision.

“The secret of the Complete Codex must not be obtained by the Empire… All remaining troops will be divided into two groups. One group will follow me to the northern outskirts of the city and leave the Maykr Heart; the other group will follow Badar and cross the Brass River in the north.”

“We must leave in a big way and lure them all away from the Maykr Heart. This is our only chance.”

Chapter 190 Jedi Counterattack

Strictly speaking, Cole Phaeron’s approach was actually correct. It was not shameful to choose to escape when the strength between the enemy and us was extremely different. It was a wise approach to temporarily avoid the enemy’s attack with the remaining forces and wait for our large forces to return for support.

But even for the most experienced officers, the prerequisite for making correct decisions is correct battlefield information. Now Gormek is in an extreme situation of information asymmetry.

Kor Phaeron and Chaos Champion Badar each led a team of men, driving the only remaining armored vehicles in the underground warehouse to break through the ruins, raising dust all the way and heading out of the city in two directions, hoping to use themselves as bait to attract the attention of the enemy’s main force and cover up the secrets of the underground core of the Maykr.

In the minds of this group of Chaos veterans, they had never thought that anyone could use the Titans as cheap troops. In previous statistics, Kor Phaeron found a total of 256 Titan machines walking around in the city, which made him more convinced that the enemy’s main offensive force was in the Heart of the Mek.

“As long as we leave the city and cross the brass river outside the city and enter the waste deposit zone, I can use chaos sorcery to create a large area of ​​war fog and disrupt their vision at the lowest cost… In this way, we will have the opportunity to hunt down enough mortal soldiers in the chaos, sacrifice blood to the Blood God, and summon the army of the Lord of Skulls to come to help…”

Kor Phaeron, wearing a Terminator, was planning the next famous operation to lure the enemy in a speeding armored personnel carrier. He knew the terrain outside the Heart of the Maykr city by heart. As long as he escaped from the firepower range of the Titan Legion in time, he would be like a bird in the sky or a fish in the sea, and there would be a large area of ​​scorched earth for him to do with.

In the name of the true God of Chaos, Kor Phaeron vowed to let the heretics who believed in the Emperor behind him witness the horror of him, the “Dark Bishop”.

So the fully armed Titan army came to him impatiently.

The roaring armored personnel carrier leaped out towards the dried-up sewage lake. With excitement, Cole Phaeron, who was sitting in the vehicle, had already prepared the chaos artifacts to be used in casting the next large spell. However, when the smoke and dust in front of him dissipated, what greeted him was a steel giant over a hundred meters tall.

How is that possible? “For a moment, Kor Phaeron thought the gods were playing a joke on him.

However, the heat wave coming from the front was so real, the bright light that was getting bigger and bigger in the field of vision and the crazy beating nerves were repeatedly emphasizing one fact – death was approaching.