Beneath the stars, two giant man-made constructs were positioned extremely close to each other; from a distance, they almost seemed to be pressed against one another.
To deploy boarding parties, the engagement distance drastically shrank from tens of millions of kilometers to just hundreds of thousands.
At such ultra-close range, the power of the artillery was unleashed to its maximum; there was no need for precision aiming, for the target was right before them.
Beyond the interlacing Light Spears and torpedoes, the gravitational fields of both sides clashed violently under the laws of physics, tearing out a region of space-time turbulence.
"Deploy the boarding parties." The Rangdan Warlord was weary of the artillery; under the protection of super-sized shields, Light Spears and plasma weapons could only cause massive light pollution, serving no practical purpose beyond that.
The command was transmitted via psychic waves—a natural talent of the Rangdan race. Though not telepathy, it was swifter than converting human verbal commands into data.
Suddenly!
The Battle Moon opened fire with all its might. Within a single second, this behemoth forged from heretical technology displayed its ferocity and violence.
In an ordinary battlefield, the power released in an instant would be enough to destroy a small-to-medium fleet, but it had encountered the equally powerful Phalanx.
The violent firepower stirred up waves of energy, and the Void Shields flickered rapidly; not a single physical threat could penetrate their protection.
The Warmaster was not surprised; the sole purpose of unleashing such firepower was to provide cover for the boarding craft.
At the moment of full fire, the Battle Moon's flight decks opened completely, and dense formations of boarding craft swarmed out like bees leaving a hive.
"Weapon arrays fire, eliminate the Rangdan boarding formations."
Dorn remained calm in the face of danger; he was a heavy mountain, so how could he be shaken by a few wisps of breeze?
He hadn't unleashed the Phalanx's full firepower; he had been waiting for this very moment!
The Phalanx's weapon arrays fired in unison! The weapon arrays, resembling a forest of steel, emitted a light so dazzling that it illuminated its towering, unceasing form.
It was so powerful; the weapon arrays carried the glory of the Golden Age, pouring out the wrath of extinction upon the enemies of mankind.
Super-large caliber Light Spears swept across, annihilating large numbers of boarding craft. The Rangdan elites on board met their end among the stars, returning to the cold and heartless void.
The sharp strike succeeded; except for some fast boarding torpedoes, most of the Rangdan elites were vaporized by the dense cannon fire.
As a true master of defensive warfare, Rogal Dorn was adept at finding opportunities—counterattacking from a passive position and striking the enemy's weakest point.
The Imperial Fists Legion inherited the tactical thinking of their Primarch.
Defensive warfare was only the part they excelled at most. Striking out from a defensive stance, seizing a fleeting opportunity, and then clenching an iron fist to strike the enemy hard—that was the full extent of the Imperial Fists Legion.
Without a doubt, this charged heavy blow left the Rangdan Warlord utterly devastated!
In the Battle Moon's command center, the Rangdan Warlord's biological armor trembled violently. Psychic fluctuations caused command overload, and high-temperature steam billowed from the exhaust vents on its back.
"Rogal Dorn!!!" Its intense emotions turned into a roar; inside the armor, its eyes were blood-red, and its arm struck the holographic sand table under the stimulus of emotion.
The Warmaster was enraged and grieved!
If warships sank or servants perished, it wouldn't feel a flicker of emotion; even if the Battle Moon fell, the Warmaster would not feel any heartache.
Those were external things. Technological creations like warships were built by enslaved races and were inherently consumable goods; the factories just needed to run at full capacity to produce more.
Even the Battle Moon, a creation that challenged the limits of physics, had technology derived from the controlled greenskin race—the Orks.
The Rangdan high command never begrudged the consumption of anything plundered from the outside.
This war philosophy of not fearing attrition was the secret behind their conquest and enslavement of one race after another.
Only the elite warriors belonged to the Rangdan race itself; they were true racial compatriots and were not considered consumables.
To protect their own warriors, the Home World Council did not hesitate to consume massive resources to forge advanced biological armor, ensuring their survival in fierce combat.
A single volley from the Phalanx killed nearly ten thousand elite warriors, naturally making it hard for the Rangdan Warlord to suppress its heartache, leading to its loss of composure.
"Cease fire!" Its synthesized voice was saturated with hatred as it screeched at the artificial intelligence: "When the humans deploy their boarding units, let them taste this as well!"
The frontal fire density of the Battle Moon decreased; like the Phalanx, it began to build up power, waiting for the Imperial Fists to deploy their boarding formations.
"Deploy the boarding parties." In the Phalanx's high tower command hall, Dorn ignored the Battle Moon's posture, his amethyst eyes calm and unruffled: "Defensive units, take note: guard the main thoroughfares and strike any Rangdan boarding forces that enter the Phalanx."
Under the Primarch's command, the Phalanx opened its flight decks and torpedo tubes, and boarding units filed out, charging toward the Battle Moon without looking back!
As expected, as soon as the human boarding parties emerged, the Battle Moon's cannons roared, shooting down landing units in swaths.
"Continue." Dorn's voice was calm and powerful as he issued the command again, seemingly oblivious to the casualties, continuing to project more boarding craft.
Wave after wave, as if the Primarch was blind to the casualties, sending his Gene-sons to fill the enemy's fire.
Rangdan landing craft arrived; Melta drills punched through the Phalanx's weak points, and elite warriors rushed into the corridors and hallways, beginning their rampage of destruction.
The Imperial Fists were well-prepared; they excelled at defensive warfare and held the geographical advantage within their own warship.
Legion Warriors raised their boarding shields, using the ultra-defensive Cataphractii Terminators as anchors to build a defensive system to block the offensive.
On the other hand, Legion Warriors equipped with Saturnine Terminators led their blood brothers in proactive clearing operations to weaken the xenos forces invading the Phalanx.
Though boarding warfare was ancient, it was extremely effective. Even a Primarch had no good way to counter boarding specifically.
Slaughter, slaughtering in the ship's corridors, was the only way to resist boarding.
Plasma fired from guns melted Ceramite, and Bolter rounds shattered biological armor; both sides attacked face-to-face, fighting to the death with no way out.
The Battle Moon deployed boarding parties again, reinforcing the vanguard that had entered the Phalanx at all costs.
Although more boarding craft were shot down, some still slipped through the fire lines and entered the Phalanx's interior, clashing fiercely with the Imperial Fists.
"The time is right." Dorn remained expressionless throughout; this Primarch was like a piece of cold rock.
He turned to the messenger and said: "The Rangdan have deployed a large number of boarding parties, leaving the Battle Moon's internal defenses weak. Notify Sigismund that the Templar Brethren can now strike."
"Understood!" The messenger responded and began to deploy the Gene-Father' command.
As the order was given, two cruisers docked at the rear of the Phalanx quietly detached and circled to the giant ship's belly.
"Engines to overload! Charge toward the Rangdan Battle Moon!"
"My blood brothers, all the actions of the Gene-Father were to allow us to strike a lethal blow!" Sigismund held his greatsword, pointing it at the lower belly of the Battle Moon, letting out an excited roar: "For the Primarch! For your glory and the glory of the Master of Terra!"
"For the Primarch! For your glory and the glory of the Master of Terra!" The Legion Warriors struck their chests with their right hands, their warrior salutes clanging against their breastplates, as they declared their resolve with the Legion's war cry!
The cruisers' engines overloaded, bursting with incredible speed, and with a momentum of no regrets, they transformed into swords piercing toward the xenos creation.
"Two human warship silhouettes have appeared below the visual plane!" The artificial intelligence quickly reported, displaying all kinds of data: "They have not slowed down; their speed exceeds normal combat speed and is still increasing."
The Warmaster's biological tentacles fluttered as it opened the holographic image and began to analyze what the humans intended to do.
"Warmaster." While it was thinking, the clearing force sent a message: "The human boarding craft and boarding torpedoes are empty."
The holographic sand table popped up intelligence; the human boarding units that had pierced the Battle Moon only carried some Automated Machine Soldiers controlled by human Servitors.
The Warmaster's thoughts lagged for a moment, and its body erupted in a sudden jolt, its distorted voice letting out a sharp screech: "Ship intelligence!"
"Aim all firepower at the human warships and destroy them with everything we have!"
The artificial intelligence faithfully executed the order; all the Battle Moon's cannons turned toward the two cruisers and began to build up firing energy.
"Boarding teams, depart." Dorn acted accordingly, starting the next step of the plan as the Phalanx deployed boarding formations once again: "Fire the inquiry flare."
The Phalanx's Macro-cannons aimed upward into the void and fired a multi-colored flare; the meaning was simple: "What will you choose?"
He laid the choice out in the open and then asked in a provocative posture, pressuring the xenos Commander's mindset.
The Rangdan Warlord was furious and immediately made a deployment: "Divert firepower to attack the boarding teams, and shoot down the warships as quickly as possible."
Having absolute confidence in the Battle Moon's firepower, its answer was simple—choose both.
The light was as dense as rain, streaking past the first cruiser and firing toward the second cruiser positioned at its stern.
Although they had long been prepared, the Space Marines inside felt their scalps tingle at this moment.
Two cruisers were linked bow to stern, the rear vessel pushing the one in front, accelerating to their absolute limit as they charged toward the Rangdan Battle Moon.
The Legion Warriors aboard held their breath; Dorn's unconventional decision had saved two thousand warriors.
The Battle Moon poured its firepower onto the rear ship—by common logic, the ship in the back was more likely to be carrying the boarding troops.
But Dorn had made a decision that defied common sense; the Legion Warriors were hiding in the lead ship, out in the open, using a bold decision to raid the enemy vessel.
Subsequently, the Phalanx released boarding craft and sent out provocative signals, a series of interlocking tactics all designed to cover the Legion's final approach to the Battle Moon.
The cruisers' engines overloaded, their speed far exceeding combat velocity, as they neared the Battle Moon with an unstoppable momentum.
The second ship was covered in wounds, its shields quickly overloading, its outer armor melting, and internal components flying out amidst explosions.
It was like a wounded giant whale, letting out a death knell; even though its adamantium spine was shattered, it did not bend in the slightest.
"Activate the impact decomposition field!" Sigismund ordered with calm composure. The xenos fire shifted, attacking the boarding craft released by the Phalanx; the opportunity was right before them.
Just as the Rangdan Warlord was feeling triumphant, the ship thought to be mere "cover" suddenly activated its ship decomposition ram at point-blank range.
Impossible!
It was struck with horror, yet it still held a glimmer of hope, thinking it was a pre-set program and that the real boarding forces had already been destroyed.
But the scene that followed shattered its internal delusions.
The first cruiser's ram flickered with decomposition lightning, slamming directly into the shields. The massive decomposition field tore at the shield's structure, disrupting its field integrity.
Inch by inch, the overloaded engines bloomed with determination, pushing the hull bit by bit into the shield like a lethal armor-piercing shell gouging through a rampart.
The second cruiser, having completed its mission of cover, drifted with its remaining inertia and slammed into the stern of the front cruiser, delivering the final push.
The warship vibrated as its bow broke through the shield's resistance, and the forward half of the hull entered the shield's interior.
"Primarch above! For your glory and the Master of Mankind!"
Letting out their battle cry once more, the cruiser fully entered the shield's interior and made one final turn, aiming for the Battle Moon's docks.
They possessed intelligence that Custodes and Doom Slayers were in the dock area, giving them an advantage in their operation.
Boom—!
The warship, like a giant spear, broke through the outer defenses and plunged deep into the internal structure of the Battle Moon.
Under the effect of the decomposition field, more than half of the hull was buried within the Battle Moon, shaking the behemoth and pushing the entire structure back dozens of meters.
The force released by this collision made the entire megastructure tremble, jolting the shocked Rangdan Warlord back to its senses.
"Purge Squads, push forward," it barked out orders to counter the human Space Marines' raid.
Those gene-enhanced warriors were particularly lethal; they could not be allowed to spread out and break through their lines, causing more damage to the Battle Moon.
"All ship batteries, open fire! Draw their attention away from the boarding teams." Dorn sat steadily aboard the Phalanx, his clenched fist loosening slightly as he breathed a silent sigh of relief.
He was not a heartless man; now that his scions had safely reached their destination, the anxiety hanging in his heart finally settled.
The cruiser came to a halt, leaving the engine tail exposed, looking much like a ship normally berthed in a dock.
His superhuman organs dispelled the discomfort. Sigismund shook his head, pushing himself up from the floor by the wall, shaking away the chaos in his mind.
"Open—" Another violent explosion occurred, and he nearly fell again. He grabbed a steel pipe to maintain his footing and raised his hand to activate the warrior terminal on his arm.
"Fire!"
Sigismund snapped into full alertness and issued the final command before the cruiser's engines could suffer a sympathetic detonation from the overload.
The warship, inserted like a dagger into the Battle Moon, fired its already loaded macro-cannons, its broadsides erupting with a muffled roar.
The Battle Moon's alarms blared urgently. There was no peace within the megastructure as violent explosions echoed and shockwaves swept through the dense corridors.
Firing at point-blank range, the massive macro-cannon shells tore through internal decks, plowing into the Battle Moon's interior along both sides of the cruiser.
How terrifying was the impact of macro-cannon shells flying at one-tenth the speed of light when launched within an atmospheric environment?
A close-range macro-cannon salvo was incredibly bold, and the destruction it caused was equally staggering; the reward was more than enough to justify such a mad, risky move.
The armor-piercing shells penetrated layer after layer of decks, and the shockwaves tore through field structures. The Battle Moon was severely damaged, and most of its lighting systems failed.
The internal space shook violently as an unprecedented earthquake struck; water from the river on Park Avenue surged out of its channel, and energy conduits sprayed sparks everywhere.
The Warmaster steadied its body, leaning against the command console. The holographic images flickered in and out, struggling to remain operational.
"Order the troops to push forward," its voice was ugly and malicious, revealing an unprecedented hatred: "Find those human rats! Destroy them at all costs!"
"Com—complying with your directive." The AI's mechanical voice stuttered, its internal data streams in disarray as damage reports flooded in like a tide.
Inside the cruiser, the engines were destroyed by the overload. Before the Cogitator array fell into its final silence, it reported the specifics: "Affected by the impact, forty percent of the macro-cannons responded to your command. Other components are predicted to be destroyed."
"All—all decks—decks have opened. The ship will—fall into slumber."
With that, the Cogitator's bionic face froze as if dead, showing no further movement.
The Legion Warriors recovered from the vibrations of the impact and bombardment, boarded their boarding craft, and fanned out across the Battle Moon along the paths cleared by the macro-cannon shells.
They had only one objective: to disable the xenos Battle Moon and capture this mobile fortress.
The two thousand Legion Warriors formed into various squads, ranging from ten to a hundred men, scattering like stars as they deployed into their mission formations.
Sigismund led the Templars, sword in one hand and boarding shield in the other, following a servo-skull forward. Their target was the Rangdan headquarters.
"Enemies approaching." The servo-skull sent back information as the Auspex scanned Rangdan warriors.
An Indomitus-pattern Terminator stepped forward, holding a massive shield. His heavy footsteps never faltered as he shielded the Legion Warriors' advance.
The Terminator's twin-linked bolters opened fire, the storm of bolts overloading the Rangdan personal shields and shredding their biological armor.
In the cramped corridors, few biological or mechanical entities could withstand a Terminator; it was a specialized design intended to enhance assault firepower and defense.
The hundred warriors were like wolves and tigers, treading over Rangdan corpses as they moved from the narrow passage into a main thoroughfare, where their vision suddenly opened up.
"Eliminate them," Sigismund growled, charging forward with his boarding shield raised toward the xenos massing in the wide hall.
A hundred Templars against a purge squad led by a Rangdan Overlord—this would be a bitter fight.
Instantly, the hall was filled with the roar of bolters, the metallic clinking of shell casings hitting the floor, and plasma erupting from muzzles, the high-temperature plasma flickering with containment lightning.
"Your opponent is me!" Sigismund bellowed, shield-charging toward the Rangdan Overlord to challenge the enemy Commander.
"Lowly human." The Rangdan Overlord indeed accepted the challenge. Its biological arms flipped, and blades slid out from its limbs, shimmering with decomposition lightning.
Its six omni-directional legs were swift, bringing it before the human warrior in an instant. It swung its claws down mercilessly, intending to shred the arrogant creature in a single blow.
Sigismund timed it perfectly, hurling his Storm Shield at the Rangdan Overlord and suddenly dropping low, his power armor throwing off sparks as it skidded across the floor.
The claws swept through the air, shattering the boarding shield into pieces, but the Rangdan Overlord's bionic eyes could not track the human warrior's position.
Bio-sensors blared an alarm; the upper cockpit had lost contact with the lower half.
In the moment they crossed paths, Sigismund had used the shield to mask his movement, executing a slide with high-speed momentum as his power sword sliced through the alien's waist.
He did not stop, knowing well that the only way to kill a Rangdan was to slay the primary body piloting the upper cockpit.
With one hand braced against the floor and his mag-boots activating to stop his slide, he rose quickly. Gripping his power sword with both hands, he thrust it through the back of the biological armor into the creature's heart.
The decomposition field around the sword's tip broke through the biological armor without resistance, boiling the internal fluids as it pierced through the chest.
He then wrenched the blade upward, splitting the entire biological armor open.
This was not the end; Sigismund's blade never stopped, delivering several more strikes in a fraction of a second to hack the biological armor to pieces, leaving the alien Overlord no chance of survival.
His longsword did not rest; spinning with the alien blood it had collected, it sliced open the skull of an elite warrior, crushing the dark green brain within.
One after another, the swordsman was unstoppable, wielding his great sword to slaughter the xenos.
By the time the battle ended, there were ten alien warriors lying dead behind him.
"Move!" Without a moment's hesitation, having slain a hundred obstructors, the Templars had no time to recover the bodies of their kinsmen as they continued their slaughter into the depths of the Battle Moon.
Just as the boarding action was proceeding with unstoppable momentum, a sudden variable arose in the theater of war.
On the external battlefield, the situation was not optimistic.
The boarding fleet had penetrated the Battle Moon, and the scales of victory were tipping toward the humans. Everything was going well, yet an accident arrived before victory could.
In the asteroid belt at the system's edge, a Rangdan fleet exited the Warp and entered the Real Universe, arriving behind the Imperial Fists fleet to form a pincer movement with the fleet already in the system.
In the command hall of the Phalanx, even the steady Rogal Dorn could not help but frown as he waited for the Navigator's report.
"Warp reaction at the Mandeville Point."
Acting on the Primarch's orders, the Navigator kept a constant watch on Warp fluctuations. The eye on his forehead closed, and after opening his other eyes, he delivered new good news.
A Warp fluctuation flared, and a Gloriana Queen warship entered the Real Universe with its shields raised.
A gruff, scornful laugh echoed across the public channel: "Rangdan filthy whelps, did you miss me?"