Chapter 516: If You've Got the Stones, Call Someone Who Can Actually Fight!
The curtain wall that had stood for millennia finally groaned and collapsed into the dirt.
The fortress, spanning nearly ten thousand square kilometers, was protected by a dual-layered defense grid. The Wall of Gork formed the outer perimeter—a massive, bloated structure of jagged scrap and crude ferro-concrete, designed to absorb kinetic impact through sheer bulk.
The Wall of Mork stood behind it, bristling with fixed weapon batteries. It housed oversized "Shokk Attack" arrays that only the most deranged Big Meks could conceive. Towering over the outer wall, it allowed the greenskins to rain heavy ordnance down upon the breach and the killing fields between the two barriers.
But at this moment, the true masters of this world—the Astartes, the Imperial Navy, the Collegia Titanica, the Armageddon Steel Legion, and the Workers' Vengeance Cadres—moved to reclaim their heritage. They sought to overturn the fortress with a fury born of the primal right to exist, reducing every obstacle to cinders.
The collapse of the outer segment signaled that the throat of the Palace of the Beast was finally exposed.
A thunderous cheer erupted from the Imperial ranks as the first breach was forced. Morale surged through the lines, though it was quickly reined in by the regimental Commissars, who forced the men back into the cold, disciplined execution of their orders.
They understood the mission. They knew the target.
The Astartes were the scalpel—decapitating the Warbosses and shattering the command nodes.
The specialized cadres, including the Vindicare and Callidus assassins, moved through the interior to sabotage the Orks' power cores, ensuring the greenskins couldn't "will" the terrain into a tactical advantage.
The mechanized heavy divisions followed the breach, utilizing their sheer mass to tear the defensive grid apart. They drew the enemy's attention into a series of catastrophic urban engagements, grinding the xenos threat into the rubble.
Providing the absolute weight of the strike were the warships of the Imperial Navy and the God-Machines of the Titan Legions, which had already liquidated the Ork "Stompa" clusters.
BOOM!!!
Lance-strikes rained from the heavens. Brilliant flashes of energy ignited across the summit of the fortress and the inner wall.
The first salvo was a masterstroke of precision. Every impact was a massacre.
The forward wave of the Ork defense—a surging tide of meat and scrap—disintegrated. Bodies were bisected by the shockwaves or folded backward, tripping the ranks behind them. The Warbosses at the center of the mobs were simply erased. The Ork line buckled in the center, its flanks overextending into the vacuum left by the dead.
On the ground, the Commissar of the 88th Armageddon Steel Legion barked a directive. The regiment's mobile artillery surged into the gaps opened by the Baneblades, widening the fire-zone to incinerate the Orks' exposed flanks.
The heavy batteries on the Wall of Mork roared in response. A mutual exchange of total annihilation began, soil and scrap-iron flying in a storm of kinetic violence.
The Ork counter-fire was a chaotic, ragged thing, yet it remained potent. Slugs and scrap-rounds hammered against Imperial aegis-shields and the reinforced plate of the tanks. High-tier "Nobz," empowered by the Waaagh! field, delivered more precise fire, their weapons gifted with a crude but effective predictive logic.
Guardsmen at the absolute front had their helms vaporized or their chests torn open. Survivors endured the bone-shaking impacts against their hulls, rotating their turrets to vent their remaining magazines before their armor finally failed.
Smoke roiled.
The 88th pressed into the shadow of the Wall of Mork with suicidal resolve. But faced with a secondary mountain of guns, even the steel-clad elite of Mankind began to feel the weight of the attrition.
From the other side, despite their horrific losses, fresh mobs of Orks emerged from the haze in a state of terminal frenzy.
"Shokk-Snotlings"—projectiles launched from the massive Warp-cannons—materialized within the Imperial ranks. Some detonated instantly; others fused physically with the steel of the tanks or the bodies of the soldiers, causing mutations and structural failures that defied medical logic.
"Hold or withdraw, Colonel?" the Commissar asked over the vox.
The Astartes had already breached the interior. The Orks likely lacked the momentum to retake the Wall of Gork. There was still time to fall back to the outer ruins and fortify.
"I'm tired of hearing them scream," the Colonel replied, his voice like grinding gravel. "I'm petitioning the command hub. We either stand and bleed, or we go in and rip their noisy heads off."
The Colonel, having secured his sector, transmitted his status and a request for heavy reinforcement.
BOOM! BOOM!
Exactly thirteen minutes after the Command Center confirmed the breakthrough, the blue radiance of teleportation flared across the ruins of the Wall of Gork.
Creak—
A sound like a world-tree snapping echoed through the air. The massive cables holding the fortifications groaned as the remains of the wall finally gave way.
Several sky-blue silhouettes emerged from the smoke. Warhound Titans.
The 88th, preparing for the assault on the Wall of Mork, swarmed around the feet of the God-Machines, assuming the role of Secutarii to drive back any Ork "Tankbustas" attempting a suicide run.
Six Warhounds of the Legio Astroman, hailing from Forge World Lucius.
The Titans of Lucius were currently the only God-Machines in the galaxy capable of surface-teleportation. Their unique machine-spirits and displacement-tech remained a guarded secret, even after the Dawnbreakers had forced the "Open-Source" protocols upon the Priesthood.
But their utility was undeniable.
As the six Warhounds accelerated into a predatory sprint, a slower, more massive shape emerged behind them. A Warlord Titan, its silhouette outlined against the sun, casting a long shadow over the dust.
The ground began to shake.
They reached the inner works, crashing through the broken masonry of the curtain wall.
Then, a symphony of crossfire tore reality apart.
The Warhounds' turbo-lasers acted as a conductor's baton, melting through the fortifications and turning the Orks within—and their fixed guns—into pillars of ash. Holes the size of hab-units appeared in the Wall of Mork in a rhythmic sequence.
Then, the Warlord's Quake Cannon struck the foundation. The hundred-meter wall simply detonated.
Debris flew. The path for the 88th was cleared. The Colonel led his host into the forty-meter-wide breach.
Under the direction of the strategic hub, the Titans shifted into a defensive pattern. Four Warhounds stepped onto the rubble, firing downward to clear the wall of anyone attempting to scale the heights. Another Warhound used its ion-shield to screen its brothers while continuing the suppression.
Ork corpses began to pile at the base of the wall like fallen leaves, half-buried in the mud and the toxic sludge of the fortress.
The charge was broken. The Orks were in full retreat, their morale shattered by the arrival of the God-Machines.
It was a display of absolute, crushing power.
"What's your tally, Tu'Shan?"
The Salamanders followed the Space Wolves into the heart of the ancient fortress. Their primary directive: eliminate the command nodes and prevent the Orks from reforming.
Noticing the breach in the rear, a gore-drenched Ragnar Blackmane voxed the Chapter Master of the XVIII. "Three hundred to one?"
The kill-ratio.
"Three-fifty. Perhaps four," Tu'Shan rumbled back. His hammer, Storm-caller, collided with a Warboss's power-claw. The blue discharge of the disruption field sent a shower of blinding sparks into the air.
Around them, the Space Wolves moved in wild six-man packs, but the bulk of the advance was composed of Salamander companies.
The emerald-clad giants were not in a rush to claim heads. They were methodically clearing the sectors the Wolves had breached, cauterizing the Ork reserves and ensuring the following mechanized columns had a secure "Hole" to expand from.
If we must die, we die so that those who follow may see the dawn.
"The Commissar is winning," Ragnar noted, swinging his frost-axe to split a Mega-Nob from crown to greave. The frost-enchantment instantly froze the gore into a macabre statue. Ragnar grinned.
"I hope he wins bigger," Tu'Shan replied simply. He used his massive Cataphractii pauldron to tank a blow from a Boss's claw, then swung his hammer in a two-handed arc, driving the xenos' head into its torso.
Every strike was lethal.
In truth, the Chapter Master's heart was full of a righteous, burning anger.
Because the War of the Beast had been so abrupt, the final battle of Vulkan on this world had been fought by the Ultramarines and the Crimson Fists. The Salamanders had never been granted the honor of standing beside their Father at the end. They hadn't been there to stop his fall.
Now, eight thousand years later, they were walking his path at last.
"As a tribute, friend... you give the word."
Ragnar, sensing the weight of the moment, gestured toward the legions entering the breach behind them.
"Proceed."
"Very well, Wolf-Lord."
Tu'Shan raised his hammer. He felt the suit's target-logic synchronize with his own transhuman senses. He locked onto a structural weakness in an advancing Ork mob.
He ignored the Boss's crude feints. His instincts, tempered by a century of war and the collective wisdom of the Magi Biologis, saw the path.
"FOR HUMANITY, MY BROTHERS!" he bellowed.
The Warboss was sent flying by the impact.
"FOR HUMANITY!" the host roared back, surging into the palace behind the giants.
The breach felt like a fluid dynamic—a constant stream of men and machines flowing through a static opening.
They didn't know this was once the throne-room of a High Warlord. They didn't understand the tactical gravity of the room. Like those around them, they only knew the Order.
To secure a better tomorrow, the enemy had to be unmade.
Under the glare of a thousand lance-strikes, the walls of the Beast vanished.
"We cannot let the Humies have their way."
In the rear of the Ork lines, Ghazghkull stood before the emergency extraction terminal, his voice grave as he addressed Orkimedes.
"We ain't just hoppin' into the Web-Eye. The Humies are cookin' summat."
"Tellyporta ain't ready," Orkimedes shook his head. He gestured to the erratic energy readings.
He could jump the fleet, but local extraction was "Glitchy."
BOOM—
A massive explosion shook the deck.
Below them, a group of Mekboyz repairing the primary reactor suddenly descended into anarchy. They began brawling with one another for no apparent reason.
It started as an argument. Then a fist-fight.
Then, as three of the "Orks" were revealed to have melta-charges strapped to their chests, they rolled into the core. A second later, the reactor detonated.
Another power-node was lost to the history books.
Ork infighting was standard, but this level of coordinated sabotage was an anomaly.
"..."
Watching the "Callidus-Orks" vanish into the smoke after wrecking his hard work, Orkimedes didn't even have the energy to curse.
These "Faker-Humies" were a blight.
"I remember when they couldn't afford to send 'em like this," Ghazghkull muttered, his mind heavy with a rare fatigue.
"Them Fakers used to be rare. Now they're just 'Special Ladz' everythin' we turn 'round. Like they got 'em for free."
Orkimedes looked away. Their greatest error had been underestimating the resources the Humie-Boss could command.
In the past, the Imperial departments fought each other as much as the xenos. Now? They were a single, hungry predator.
"Gotta wake the Beast up," Orkimedes said, gesturing to the ten-meter iron shell.
Snotlings were being shoveled into the furnaces as fuel. The 22 Warbosses had been wired into their respective control-nodes. Their brains were being slaved to the Waaagh! field, their consciousnesses merging into the echo of the High Warlord who had broken Vulkan. A chorus of howls rose from the machine.
"I know. Just wait for the Cans to show up. We gotta hold 'em here."
Ghazghkull tossed a brawling Gretchin aside.
The Astartes' relentless breakthroughs were the primary obstacle. He needed to lock them down before he could initiate the jump.
The dream of reclaiming Armageddon was dead. Orkimedes couldn't fix the cores fast enough. This "Beast-Mech" was a rush-job. And the Humies were clearly hiding a larger "Secret" behind their assault.
Ghazghkull stared at the machine.
A fusion of Orkimedes' genius and the raw, violent essence of 22 of the meanest Bosses in the sector. It was the ultimate combat variable.
Time to give the Humies a proper send-off.
Ghazghkull's small, red eyes narrowed as he looked down at the entry-ramp.
Speak of the Humies, and the Cans appear—
BOOM!
A shockwave slammed into the platform.
Not from the ground. From above.
Ghazghkull looked up.
The energy shields over the palace had collapsed. The Waaagh! field protecting the summit had been torn like cheap silk.
In an instant, Imperial fire was lancing through the gaps. Heavy kinetic slugs hammered the battlements. Lance-beams from the fleet scoured the corridors and galleries. Orks were being tossed into the air by the secondary explosions.
THUNDER—
A plasma-lance beam carved through the palace ceiling, exposing the inner sanctum to the sky.
A Boss shouted an order, but his voice was snuffed out.
The head of the Boss tumbled across the floor.
Ragnar Blackmane flicked the blood from his axe and lunged forward.
Below, the main host of the Astartes had breached the interior. Orks tried to organize a defense, but it was too late.
In the void above, the Imperial Navy began launching "Siren-Claw" drop-pods—heavy boarding craft screaming through the atmosphere.
Some were deflected by the dying Waaagh! field. Others were ignited by the remaining flak.
But hundreds struck the palace roof. They smashed into the ferro-crete, creating craters upon impact, and deployed jagged anchors to lock themselves to the structure.
Some pods bounced or fell, only to hook themselves to the walls and begin a mechanical climb, or eject their contents into the breaches opened by the macro-cannons.
A cluster of pods slammed into the sanctum floors, mere meters from Ghazghkull.
CRACK!
The outer armor plates of the pods blew outward. They didn't contain "Cans." They held automated sentry-guns.
Hundreds of autocannon arrays unfolded, initiating a systematic purge of the room before the humans even set foot inside.
Astartes poured from the lower levels—grey-blue and deep-green plate reflecting the fires. They roared their battle cries, firing with clinical focus. The Mega-Nobz turned to face them, trading hammer-blows of bolter fire, but the xenos were being methodically outplayed.
Ghazghkull gripped his Big Shoota, firing bursts at the approaching Space Wolves.
A thousand Astartes in a coordinated decapitation strike. Saturation fire from the heavens. And the logistical backing to ensure the Astartes weren't vaporized by their own support-fire.
"START IT! ORKIMEDES! START DA BLOODY JOB!"
The Prophet roared. He admitted it now: the Humies had respected him too much.
Run. We just gotta run.
"CRUSH 'EM!"
"I'Z ON IT!"
Orkimedes kicked a sobbing Gretchin into the reactor-maw, his expression a mask of bestial cruelty.
"Let's show the Cans what a real Waaagh! looks like."
He slammed his boot into the Beast-Mech, engaging the primary power-port. The engine—capable of linking to the Empyrean and converting an entire xenos ecology into raw energy—began to howl.
"INITIALIZE!"
The War-Machine woke up.
Orkimedes didn't even have to shout. A singular, overwhelming will took control of the linked Warbosses' brains. The metal beneath their feet ceased its vibration and began a rhythmic, unnatural churning.
The steel wailed. Tens of thousands of tons of structural iron began to warp and stretch like taffy under the pressure of the Waaagh! field, before crashing down in a rain of molten fire.
The atmosphere was consumed. Even for the Astartes, every breath felt like swallowing burning charcoal.
BOOM!
Arks of Waaagh!-infused electricity surged through the room. The linked Warbosses' howls merged into a singular, earth-shaking vibration.
It was a war cry that every Ork on the planet recognized in their bones.
A roar from seven thousand years ago. The roar that had led a billion Orks to the walls of Terra. The roar that lived in the genetic marrow of the race.
The roar of the High Warlord Beast.
"WAAAAAAGH!!!"
The universe follows a pattern.
No matter how well the transmigrators built the Imperial framework—no matter how many modern tactical systems they implemented or how much they empowered the mortal soldier—reality remained "glitched."
In a galaxy of monsters and gods, every battle eventually reached a point where logic failed. A point where a singular, world-shaking power was required to turn the tide.
And by coincidence—
Standing upon the soil that was becoming physically hotter by the second, Ragnar and Tu'Shan looked at the towering giant emerging from the fire.
They felt no fear.
For in this era, Humanity was the ultimate beneficiary of the "High-Tier Duel" meta.
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