"Fire."
The order rippled through the noosphere.
Volcano Cannons screamed as they discharged, lances of star-hot energy ripping across the battlefield and slamming into the Gargants' crackling force fields. The impact was apocalyptic—air ionized, the ground glassed, shockwaves tearing through the ruins like a hammer blow.
Yet the fields held.
Crude energy barriers flared violently, glyphs blazing as they drank in the punishment. The force fields flickered, distorted, warped—one staggered for a heartbeat—but none collapsed. The Gargants bellowed in triumph, their engines roaring louder as they answered with a storm of fire.
Shells the size of hab-blocks thundered toward the Warlords. Kustom Mega-Kannons spat unstable beams of green lightning. Rokkits screamed through the smoke in obscene numbers.
Void shields flared across the Warlords, overlapping auroras of blue and gold as they absorbed the return fire. One shield dropped. Then another. Warning runes bloomed across command thrones—but the god-machines did not falter.
Mankata's smile widened.
"Good," she said, voice sharp with satisfaction. "At least they wont died so easily."
Her hands moved across the command interfaces with ritual precision.
"All Princeps," she voxed. "Shift fire. Overload the fields first—then we gut them."
Plasma reactors howled as primary weapons charged once more. Macro-Gatling Blasters spun up, their barrels whining with murderous intent. Apocalypse missile racks locked and cycled, machine-spirits chanting for release.
A second volley thundered forth—not focused, not restrained, but overwhelming. Volcano Cannons struck again and again at the same points, hammering the Gargants' shields until the air screamed. Gatling fire stitched across barrier nodes, chewing through exposed emitters. Missiles detonated in layered patterns, shockwaves stacking upon shockwaves.
One Gargant's field collapsed in a violent implosion.
For a split second, the Ork war-engine stood naked.
Two Warlords armed with Sunfury-Pattern Plasma Destructors reacted instantly.
Their plasma reactors surged and they discharged in unison. Twin lances of sun-hot annihilation tore across the battlefield, slamming into the exposed Gargant with the force of a stellar eruption. The air ignited. Metal vaporized.
The plasma bolts turn into miniature sun as it hit the Gargant's chest and exploded, turning its internal structure into a white-hot inferno. Armor ran like water. Pistons liquefied. The Ork machine let out a deafening, distorted bellow as its reactor overloaded.
A heartbeat later, it detonated.
The exchange continued as both sides closed the distance, god-machines advancing through fire and ruin. Legio Solaria claimed another three Gargants in rapid succession, their coordinated fire tearing through shields and hull alike. In return, the Orks managed to cripple two Warlords, void shields collapsing under sustained punishment and armor plates peeling away under brutal impacts.
Still, the Imperial line did not break.
"Prepare for close combat," Mankata ordered, her voice steady and predatory.
Within the command thrones, Moderatii Primus responded at once. Power was diverted—away from secondary systems, away from excess weapons—channelled instead into reinforced void shields and the Titans' close-combat weapons.
Power claws flexed. Power fields crackled and howled.
The distance between them vanished in moments.
A Warlord of Legio Solaria crashed into the first Gargant like a falling city. Its power claw snapped shut with a thunderclap that flattened nearby ruins, crushing layers of scrap-armor as if they were tin. The Gargant howled, its klaxons blaring in defiance as it swung a massive chain-blade the size of a hab-tower.
The blade struck.
The impact bit deep, shearing armor plating from the Warlord's shoulder and sending it crashing to the ground in molten slabs. Warning runes screamed across the Princeps' vision.
"Hold," the Princeps growled, voice merging with the Titan's wrath.
The Warlord drove forward, pistons screaming. Its claw tightened, power fields shrieking as they tore through the Gargant's torso. Steel screamed. Cables snapped. The Ork machine staggered, leaking fire and oil as the Titan wrenched free a chunk of its chest and hurled it aside.
Nearby, another duel unfolded.
A Gargant slammed its Ripper Fist down upon a Warlord's carapace, bitting into the armor and destroy one of the Apocalypse missile launcher. The Titan answered with its power claw, it crash deep into the Gargant's leg. The weapon punch through pistons and struts, sparks and molten metal spraying like blood.
With a tortured roar, the Gargant collapsed to one knee.
The Warlord stepped in without hesitation.
Its Macro Gatling Blaster spun up and unleashed a storm of mass-reactive fire at point-blank range. The Gargant's head vanished in a hurricane of shells, armor and crude augmetics torn apart in seconds. The war-engine sagged, utterly crippled, before detonating in a dirty fireball that rocked the street.
Elsewhere, an Ork Gargant lunged, grappling a Warlord in a brutal embrace. They crashed together, ground buckling beneath their combined weight. The Gargant's klaw punched through the Titan's side armor, rupturing internal compartments.
Inside the command throne, the Princeps screamed—not in pain, but in fury.
Kill it.
The machine-spirit answered.
The Warlord surged, overloading its reactors beyond safe limits. Power flooded its limbs. With a roar that drowned out all others, it drove its power claw straight through the Gargant's core.
The explosion was immediate.
The Gargant detonated point-blank, the blast engulfing both machines. When the fire cleared, the Ork engine was gone—reduced to a crater of slag. The Warlord still stood, armor ruined, void shields dead, but unbowed.
Across the battlefield, the pattern repeated.
Steel against scrap.
Machine-spirit against madness.
Precision against brute force.
One by one, the Gargants fell—ripped apart, crushed, gutted, or blown open at arm's length. Ork war cries faded into static and fire.
Legio Solaria still stood.
But standing came at a cost.
Of the ten Warlords that had marched into the fire, three had suffered catastrophic damage. Their god-machines remained upright only through stubborn machine-spirit defiance, armor split open, reactors unstable, systems gutted. They would require years—perhaps decades—of labor to restore, if restoration was even possible.
Two Warlords were lost entirely.
Their hulks lay scattered across the battlefield as molten wreckage, their banners burned away, their engines silenced forever. Yet, by some miracle, both Princeps and their Moderatii had survived—dragged from the ruins by their Tech-Adepts. Experienced minds remained, veterans of a war no training chamber could ever replicate.
If the Legio were ever granted new god-machines, there would be hands worthy to guide them.
But none among the Princeps truly believed that day would come.
Not soon. Perhaps not ever.
While there's many forge worlds within Imperium, there's not many that have ability to repair and maintain one, even building a new one.
Mankata sighed softly as the report finished scrolling across her display.
"Inform command that the Gargants have been destroyed," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
She paused, resting one gauntleted hand against the command throne as the Titan's reactor thundered beneath her, a steady, comforting heartbeat of steel and fire.
"If they require us elsewhere… we are still operational."
Across the battlefield, the warhorns of the surviving Warlords echoed through the ruins once more—not in triumph, but in commemoration of the fallen engines.
===
Atharion set the datapad aside, the final report from the Captain of the Sons of Guilliman still lingering in his thoughts.
The battle itself no longer concerned him. That outcome was decided.
His thoughts now rested on Legio Solaria.
He had long intended to speak with Princeps Maximus Mankata—to persuade her to return with him to Camelarion, to offer the Legio something they had been finding since the fall of Tigrus, a home.
Though the forge world that Atharion envision hasn't been fully constructed as it's still a industrial world, but with time, Atharion sure that it will work out well.
Indeed, Atharion have plan to have another forge world build within Camelarion, one that build upon one of the moon satellite Camelot.
While Thoros under Nine and Legio Argentum Fulgur had served him faithfully—providing everything he required so far—Atharion knew better than to rely on a single pillar. Both Thoros and the Legio ultimately answered to Nine, not to him. And if the Twelve ever decided that Atharion had outlived his usefulness, they would not hesitate to make a martyr of him.
He would not put all his chips on them—especially not with how certain members of the Twelve reacted to him.
Camelot would be built through the combined contribution of three forge worlds:
Zhao-Arkkad, Arachnus and Graia.
Other than Graia, both Zhao-Arkkad and Arachnus have both suffer heavily in the Horus Heresy which both hasn't been able to recover.
Zhao-Arkkad after conquer by the Imperium in Great Scouring, they are heavily censured by both Terra and Mars, even after they have serve loyaly since them. Legio Xestobiax that set their home on the forge world have reaccepted the Imperium's authority and was pardoned. However, the Legio had to promise to decommission all of its Titans which used the Eldar-influenced psycho-reactive iron cores.
Officially, Legio Xestobiax complied with this order, but in truth it did not destroy the heretical Titans. Instead, they were entombed in caverns under Zhao-Arkkad's surface. Though these Titans wont be discovered until around M41
This resulted them, both the Tech-priests or the Princeps wish to find a helper that will bring them both back to their height during the Great Crusade. the Tech-priests wish to gain more raw materials that will not only fulfil the tech-tithe but also to increase their own power. While the Princeps wish to that with the new raw materials enter the forge world, they would be able to gain new engines for their Legio.
While Arachnus simply want to rebuild their forge world, since their world got obliterated during the Horus Heresy and during the conquest of the world by the loyalist, they have not gain any helps from Mars as they still look at them with distrust, and the Adeptus Custodes, who they have loyaly supplie them with their specialized laser technology, they have not receive any helps from them in the aftermath, probally due to the Adeptus Custodes Edict of Restraint which confine them within the Imperial Palace.
When Atharion presented his proposal, both Zhao-Arkkad and Arachnus accepted immediately. Camelot offered them something they had been denied for millennia: a chance not only to rebuild their worlds, but to secure an ally close at hand—one with the strength and authority to shield them from predation and political erasure.
With these two, Atharion held the advantage. Their need was great, their options few, and thus he was able to secure their cooperation at a comparatively low cost.
The same could not be said of Graia.
For the forge worlds, Atharion had no such leverage.
To secure their cooperation, Atharion had no choice but to pay.
As Atharion needed Graia expertise to construct new Titan engines and space fortresses. In return, he handed over technology he had personally improved—knowledge he had not shared with the Nine.
There were only two such offerings.
The first was a new plasma generator compatible with all Titan classes. The design increased efficiency by 21% compared to existing models. It also allowed slightly longer operating time while maintaining the same heat-dissipation rate as previous patterns. In effect, Titans could fight longer without increased risk of reactor overload.
The second was a void shield harmonization protocol. By adjusting how overlapping void shields interacted, the system reduced energy loss between shield layers. This allowed Titans to sustain their shields longer under continuous fire and improved shield recovery rates after collapse.
Other than these technological offerings, Atharion also promised a permanent stationing of fifty Astartes upon Graia Crown. They would be placed under the command of the Archmagos Dominus overseeing the Crown, serving not only as a garrison to protect it but also as a tactical force to assist Graia whenever the Crown was deployed.
A small price to secure Graia's aid—especially since it opened the door to far deeper cooperation in the future.
Not just trade, but also trust.
The forge moon itself would not belong solely to the Mechanicus. Alongside the three separate Mechanicus factions established there, Atharion ordered the Armoury to construct a fortified bastion to serve as a permanent Dark Knights base. Within it would lie a dedicated manufactorum, operating under the direct authority of the Armoury rather than the local Magi.
According to Atharion's plan, Legio Solaria would be stationed upon this forge moon as well. From there, he could keep a close watch over the Legio, while ensuring it remained within rapid striking distance of Avalon—capable of reinforcing the system on short notice, should war on the capital world.
But for now, beyond the promise of the forge moon itself, Atharion was uncertain how he might convince Princeps Maximus Mankata to accept his offer.
A possible deviation of the plan might have to be implement, and he actually have a hint on how to proceed if he's unable to convice her.
Atharion think as he look at the holographic display that currently displaying a world, a forge world.