Korhal IV.
During the era of the now-fallen Terran Confederacy, at its founding, it was renowned for its advanced scientific level and cutting-edge research institutions, contributing to many key breakthroughs in Terran military and technological development.
Until an internal political conflict within the Confederacy destroyed everything here.
Like all core worlds of the Terran Confederacy, Korhal IV became a vassal of the Confederacy and the corrupt old families of Tarsonis (the Confederacy's capital planet at the time). As time passed, the political situation on Korhal IV grew increasingly tense. Many revolutionaries began calling for Korhal IV's secession from Confederacy control.
Protests, demonstrations, and strikes against the Confederacy and the corrupt Tarsonis elite erupted one after another, escalating conflicts that ultimately led to political assassinations.
The leader of the secessionist movement, the energetic and highly respected Korhal senator Angus Mengsk, and his family—except for his son, Arcturus, who was away on a frontier world living an adventurer's life—were all massacred.
Thus ended the long-standing noble house of Mengsk.
Regardless of age or gender, every member of the family perished.
The brutal deaths of his family filled the young Arcturus with rage and grief. He became the central figure of resistance against the Confederacy, leading a massive and highly successful uprising that inflicted immeasurable financial losses upon Tarsonis' ruling Confederacy elite.
In response, the Confederacy chose the most direct, yet also the lowest and most disastrous method: a nuclear bombardment of Korhal IV.
That catastrophe wiped out millions—billions—of lives, turning the once-thriving planet into a nuclear wasteland covered in blackened glass.
Even though Arcturus Mengsk later overthrew the Terran Confederacy with unparalleled fury and cold resolve, exacting revenge by establishing his Terran Dominion and rebuilding Korhal IV as the seat of his new empire's government…
Destruction remained destruction. The once verdant, harmonious world was gone forever, just as Arcturus could never erase the loss of his family.
The Mengsk family had dwindled to only Arcturus and his son, Valerian Mengsk.
Korhal IV had transformed from a beautiful, rich, and natural planet into a steel jungle built upon dim nuclear ash.
The most powerful military world of the Koprulu Sector—this became Korhal IV's new identity.
Now, scarcely a few years since its purification and reconstruction, this war-torn planet once again faced the flames of conflict.
...
Augustgrad, the capital of the Terran Dominion.
Rumble—!
A deafening crash echoed through the pitch-black clouds, stirring shrieks sharp enough to freeze blood.
Artificial suns lit the heavens from time to time, yet they brought no hope to the people below. As an unknown, massive fleet bearing the double-headed eagle banner surrounded Korhal IV, the gloomy clouds overshadowed not only the orbital defense platforms but also the hearts of every Korhalan.
Doo-woo! Doo-wooo—!
Shrill, urgent war alarms resounded across every corner of the city, as though the entire metropolis was sinking into a suffocating madness.
The sudden arrival of the Astartes Third Legion, the Black Templars naval fleet had clearly exceeded the Dominion government's expectations.
Too sudden. Too fast.
War came without warning. One moment, the people of Korhal toiled in their daily labors, struggling for survival; the next—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—!
It was not a direct planetary assault by the invading fleet, but the wreckage of warships falling from orbital battles above Korhal IV—shattered fragments of orbital defense platforms, broken satellites, and destroyed strike craft raining down from the heavens…
Explosions followed in quick succession, hammering the ground with relentless force. After each thunderous blast, skyscrapers near the impact zones swayed and collapsed. The violent shockwaves churned into raging gusts, hurling steel fragments mixed with high-strength concrete debris into the sky, along with all manner of wreckage—splintered wood, shattered glass, even bits of crimson flesh…
Then, with a crash-crash-crash, it all fell like torrential rain.
Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt—!
In rapid-response mode, sentry turrets, anti-air towers, and fortress bastions scattered across the massive metropolis all activated at once. Auto-cannons and laser batteries unleashed near-endless barrages, streaking into the heavens. At their blistering rates of fire, orange-red tracer rounds and blue-white plasma shells stretched into lines that seemed to pierce sky and earth alike.
...
The Hurricane—one of the Terran Dominion's latest military-technology advancements—was an intelligent, rapidly reactive combat support drone. Tirelessly, they filled the gaps in the air-defense network.
With exceptional performance and precision-guided Typhoon missiles under AI targeting systems, their twin honeycomb launchers fired like motorized turbines, spraying missiles in every direction. They shattered the massive falling wreckage of warships into smaller fragments the defenses could manage.
Boom-boom-boom!
Whrrr-whrrr-whrrr!
In an instant, countless micro-missiles bloomed like a peacock fanning its feathers—tails of exhaust and smoke trailing behind. Fireworks of iron burst in twisting arcs, interwoven with straight webs of gunfire, dense and brilliant as meteor showers.
If these were the defensive lines, then the fortress-mounted Yamato Cannons were the Dominion's ultimate guarantee that Korhal IV could stand as a military world.
Clank-clank!
Hydraulic supports larger than Siege Tanks extended from the great gun emplacements. With the gnash of metal gears and the roar of pneumatic valves, the massive "legs" locked into position. Then—Vrrrrr-BOOOOM—!
The heavens blazed.
Compared to this, the other defenses seemed like child's play. A single blue-white energy beam pierced the thick, dust-choked clouds above.
RUMBLE!
That tremendous energy blast ripped a hole in the sky. To the naked eye, one could barely make out the beam slashing across thousands of kilometers of planetary orbit, striking a mighty purple-and-gold warship that had dared to draw close to Korhal IV's defense platforms.
At last, sparks scattered across the void—the void shield defense arrays rippled for the first time.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—!
At the same moment, colossal energy beams arced skyward from fortress bastions across Augustgrad's sprawling metropolis.
...
This was the roar of the Yamato Cannons.
Built by the Terran Dominion to maintain peace and rule over the Koprulu Sector, these weapons were the main batteries of massive battleships and the strongest defensive armament of the Dominion's capital world.
...
Meanwhile, the roar of engines filled the skies. Vikings—equally capable of serving as ground-assault mechs or agile spacefighters—rose in tight formations, streaking upward in pairs and trios.
...
The whine of turbofans followed. Banshee gunships, forgoing high-performance engines for cheaper twin-turbofan drives, swarmed like industrious ants. They darted between barracks, sentry turrets, anti-air towers, and fortress bastions.
Their mission was simple: troop transport.
Learning from the bitter lesson when the United Earth Directorate's fleet briefly occupied Korhal IV, Arcturus Mengsk had, upon reclaiming his throne, massively reinforced the planet's defenses.
The immense strength behind these military installations was that they stored vast reserves of ammunition, food, and medicine—some even housing entire factories and repair workshops.
A blessing in disguise.
Korhal IV had once been annihilated by nuclear fire. Its barren surface meant that reconstruction from the beginning carried a distinctly militarized character. Many of the great fortress bastions were built directly upon mineral veins, specifically to prepare for moments like this.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—!
Crashhh!
At this moment, Korhal IV's near-orbit was like the final masterpiece of a surrealist artist—sky, earth, and space itself painted into a terrible canvas. Dots, lines, and planes, interwoven, twisting and colliding across a backdrop of devastation in every shade.
For the ordinary Korhalan, this was sheer cruelty.
Far beyond the terror brought years ago when the United Earth Directorate's fleet seized Korhal.
The thunder of colossal guns, the shrieks of crashing starships, the screams of dying humans, shells detonating against steel constructs, and endless explosions of Terran weaponry roared into the skies…
Shattered buildings, twisted wreckage of warships embedded into the cityscape, scattered vehicles, ruptured roads, and cratered earth.
The roar of destruction drowned the howling winds. Fires of every kind rose, dyeing vast swathes of the city orange. Then, under the flood of smoke from automated fire suppression systems and marine squads spraying down flames, the world became a vision of hell.
The earth shook violently. The city trembled under humanity's power of annihilation, as though the entire world itself was warping.
Though Korhal IV's 6.3 billion people had rehearsed countless drills under Arcturus I's iron rule, when true war came—especially at this unimaginable scale—panic was inevitable.
Arcturus' government had massively bolstered his capital world's defenses. Yet this time, the invaders were far stronger than before.
As civilians poured from their workplaces and joined the evacuation under marine supervision, the sheer density of the metropolis revealed the difficulty of managing such crises.
Augustgrad's transportation grid collapsed into paralysis. Roads clogged instantly with vehicles, packed so tightly they could not move.
"Quiet! Don't push! Make way for the passage!"
"Let us out!"
"Waaah… mama, I can't find my mama…!"
"I need help! He's hurt! Someone save him!"
Civilians with families tried to flee to shelters. Soldiers needed to enter the city, hauling heavy weapons and supplies to defensive positions. Some tried to cross evacuation zones to search for family. Lost ones begged for aid. The wounded cried for rescue…
Conflicting needs collided. Though the Korhalans moved quickly, disciplined and cooperative, chaos was still inevitable.
Because Augustgrad's residents could already see it. Above, in the heavens, vast shadows spread slowly across the sky.
Descending into Korhal IV's near-orbit—lower, and lower still.
Gigantic shadows blanketed hundreds of kilometers. The sharp prows of steel warships pierced the thick clouds like blades, as though divine wrath itself was descending. Golden light seared into every eye.
At the fore stood a colossal statue of a goddess, cast entirely in gold. Feet planted upon a double-headed eagle, a blazing golden halo crowned her head like the sun. She held aloft a strange staff—part axe, part scepter, part warhammer—towering over the ship's prow, vast, domineering, impossible to ignore.
Her magnificent eyes—crafted from countless carats of pigeon-blood rubies, cut and polished by unknown craft—were flawless. Light refracted within them millions of times, amplified until a golden diamond-shaped mark glowed in the pupils, radiant beyond compare.
Where those blood-red eyes gazed, it was the gaze of a conqueror, cruelly appraising new lands to claim.
...
Sacred Selene Empire, Expeditionary Provisional Combined Fleet. Astartes Third Legion Black Templars. Second Grand Company Flagship—Meteor Devastation.
"Oh… no. This is nothing but a meaningless slaughter. You mustn't do this…"
"Kneel!"
BANG!
A dull, brutal impact followed.
Jim Raynor was slammed down by an Imperial Navy sergeant at his side, his head pressed hard against the deck.
"Huff—!"
Veins bulged along Raynor's neck as he thrashed like a cornered beast, every muscle in his body straining to rise.
Moments earlier, after being transferred from the Dominion's orbital prison through an Imperial teleportation array, Jim Raynor had been brought aboard the Meteor Devastation. As he passed the Gothic, floor-to-ceiling arched windows of the flagship's bridge, his eyes caught the sight: Arcturus' proud Terran Dominion fleet utterly crushed.
In Korhal IV's orbit, the painstakingly constructed defense network shattered like an eggshell, broken piece by piece.
Each of these massive warships was terrifying in scale, almost incomprehensible in size. They wielded defensive shielding like Protoss vessels, combined with the human style of countless weapon arrays and layers of heavy steel armor. In broadside duels, the Dominion fleet was nothing but moths hurling themselves into flame.
Raynor strained, twisting his neck, desperate to look out the window again.
But though his escort appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary officer—no towering gene-forged brute—the man's hand gripped him like iron pincers. No matter how Raynor fought, his muscles taut and his white vest drenched in sweat, he could not budge an inch.
Was all his hard-earned strength, all those years of training, a lie?
Snip—
The sharp click of nail scissors.
"Oh~, then… Mr. Jim Raynor, what do you think of all this?"
A drawling, taunting voice stretched unnaturally, every syllable oozing mockery.
—
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