The tremendous impact forced Hathor's heavy Terminator Armor to slide back several meters, its adamantium boot soles plowing two deep furrows into the putrid ground.
The Great Unclean One's strength far surpassed that of Grotesque; each of its attacks carried both a physical impact like a collapsing mountain and a soul-eroding psychic pressure of filth.
Amidst the heavy recoil from parrying the iron hook, Hathor issued a cold, clear, and undeniable command through her built-in communicator: "Gabbro! Target: Purulent Fortress core coordinates! All lance arrays, saturated coverage! Fire immediately!"
The fortress's physical and Psyker Shield were gone, and the path for orbital strikes was clear!
Almost simultaneously with the command, a dazzling evacuation signal lit up on Hathor's helmet's tactical interface.
"All units, attention! Psychic beacon activated! Countdown initiated! Prepare for forced teleportation evacuation! Repeat, prepare for forced teleportation evacuation!" Loken's cold voice echoed through the communication channels of all Ash Knights.
Across the battlefield, the surviving Ash Knights did not hesitate. Veterans of the Fifth Company, heavy weapon specialists, Techmarines, and members of the Terminator squad led by Kasim of the "Anvil" swiftly converged on the nearest flickering blue psychic beacon.
A strong psychic fluctuation and the smell of ozone permeated the air. Dazzling blue energy light instantly enveloped each warrior's adamantium armor. Their figures twisted and blurred in the light, and accompanied by a low hum of space being torn apart, they vanished in swathes from their original positions—teleported back to the safety of the orbital platform at the last possible moment before the lances descended.
Inside the Purulent Hall, Hathor's molten-gold eyes were fixed on the enraged Great Unclean One, Kugagou, charging towards her.
The greatsword and iron hook tore through the foul air, making a final lunge.
Her objective was crystal clear—to hold this blasphemous creation, ensuring it could not escape back into the Warp's sanctuary before destruction descended.
She did not immediately respond to the teleportation signal. Instead, she brought the World Breaker horizontally before her, and the emergency thruster nozzles on her Power Armor's back instantly glowed blue, adopting a stable defensive stance, pinning Kugagou firmly in place with lethal attacks and an unyielding defense.
Kugagou sensed the deadly threat from above, capable of utterly annihilating him, and let out a roar of extreme terror and rage. His bloated body erupted with vile psychic radiance, attempting to form a final resistance, but he was firmly held in check by Hathor's precise parries and counterattacks.
Suspended in orbit, the massive battleship Gabbro's main weapon array at the bow and side lance turrets, already fully charged, instantly erupted with destructive light!
Several colossal lances, many times thicker than before and condensing the battleship's entire firepower, like the final spears of judgment cast by a god, precisely tore through the thin and foul atmosphere of Aigē VII Planet, ionizing the air along the way, leaving scorching plasma trails.
The lances ignored the fortress's remaining physical structure, carrying pure matter-annihilation energy, and pierced directly downwards!
Their target was precisely the fortress's core energy node, provided by Hathor and locked on by the Librarian, and—the Great Unclean One Kugagou!
Just as the destructive white light was about to engulf the entire Purulent Hall, in the split second that Kugagou was completely locked by the lance energy, intense blue teleportation light suddenly flared around Hathor.
Her figure blurred in the interplay of vile psychic energy and the impending purifying flames, as if merging with the prelude to destruction. The next moment, the light flashed and vanished—Hathor's figure disappeared without a trace from her original position.
Almost in the same millisecond, the spot where she had stood, along with the entire blasphemous hall and the enraged Kugagou, was completely submerged and vaporized by the all-consuming lance energy!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom—!!!!
Terrifying explosions, a hundred times more intense than those in Lambda-9 Sector, erupted consecutively in the core area of the Purulent Fortress!
A blinding white light, like a supernova explosion, instantly swallowed Kugagou's massive, bloated body, engulfed the entire blasphemous hall, and consumed all the remaining core structures of the fortress!
It was a torrent of pure energy, a horrifying spectacle of matter being forcibly torn apart, pulverized, and converted into fundamental particles.
Solid corrupted rock instantly vaporized under super-high temperatures, skipping even the melting process; blasphemous metal structures instantly melted into splashing, boiling molten iron; and the writhing flesh creations had no time to even wail, instantly carbonizing and turning to ash!
A colossal shockwave, like a world-ending tsunami, spread outwards from the explosion's center at the speed of light, crushing everything in its path. The air in front was compressed to the extreme, emitting a piercing roar!
In its wake, the fortress's remaining walls, towers, and passages were utterly pulverized and flung away like fragile sandcastles, turning into dust!
The entire planet's crust groaned under this series of strikes.
A gigantic mushroom cloud, mixed with molten matter, purifying flames, foul steam, and deadly radioactive dust, soared into the sky. The violent force ripped open a massive, temporarily "clean" void in the perpetually swirling yellowish-green miasma clouds above Aigē VII Planet, revealing the cold vacuum of space beyond!
Inside the massive and bustling hangar of the Gabbro, accompanied by a hum of spatial tearing and dazzling blue light, Hathor's towering figure instantly appeared on the teleportation platform.
Her silver-gray wolf fur cloak fluttered slightly, and her ivory-white Terminator Armor was covered in fresh scorch marks, slag, and still-wet, foul-smelling Nurgle blood.
The first thing she did upon returning was to immediately fix her gaze on the massive, open launch bay at the front of the hangar.
There, through the thick energy shield, she and the newly teleported Ash Knights witnessed the world-ending scene on the planet's surface below: the destructive light gradually dimmed, the violent shockwaves subsided, and the Purulent Fortress, once standing like a planetary tumor, had utterly vanished.
In its place remained only a colossal crater, hundreds of meters deep, with molten glass and boiling sewage flowing along its edges, and its walls glowing with the dark red luster of high-temperature scorching.
At the bottom of the crater, charred and twisted demonic metal remnants and fiercely burning Emperor's purifying fire remained, like the eye of hell.
The air was filled with the acrid smell of high-temperature scorched rock, the pungent scent of ozone, and a chilling, blank silence, a result of everything being forcibly erased by absolute violence—all of this was clearly projected before the silent assembled personnel in the hangar through the ship's optical arrays and the open launch bay.
The Ash Knights silently watched this world-ending scene, their gazes beneath their adamantium faceplates filled with primal shock and awe at absolute power.
They looked at the figure beside them, who had just returned from the heart of the demonic battlefield, her armor still emanating the scent of foul blood and war.
Loken stood silently at the front of the formation, his helmeted head slightly turned, cold assessment data rapidly scrolling across his ocular display. Finally, all data reset to zero, leaving only a cold acknowledgment of ultimate violent efficiency.
The tempering of the forge, in the most direct, most violent, and most indisputable manner, declared victory. The ashes of the Imperium covered and purified the filth of Nurgle.
------------------------
I've posted 70+ chapters in advance on Patreon.
Webnovel updates will still be daily, as usual.
It might not seem tempting right nobut who knows what the future holds?
[email protected]/TripleCrown
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"