Chapter 361: Akira's Trump Card
After completely purifying the commander of the Death Guard warship, Sigismund did not delay for a moment.
He contacted the nearest Imperial Navy patrol fleet in the sector via an encrypted channel, issuing an absolute command in the name of Primarch Dorn: drag all these tainted warships into the star system's stellar orbit and cast them into the core of the star to be completely incinerated. No blasphemous objects were allowed to remain in the world.
After accomplishing all this, the Black Templars fleet utilized the brief window to urgently repair their most severe damage.
The hulls of the warships were covered in traces of corrosion and artillery fire, and some compartments remained quarantined, but the core systems and thrusters had restored basic functionality.
The massive hull of the Eternal Crusader adjusted its direction once again. Accompanied by the roar of its engines, the fleet sailed back into the Warp, continuing its advance toward the Death World.
At the same time, the battle situation on the Death World was escalating.
Although the defense line initially established by Akira was solid, the Greenskins' offensive had undergone a significant change.
These beasts no longer relied solely on brute force and crude weapons to charge; their equipment had visibly "improved."
Crude yet immensely powerful artillery pieces were erected, bombarding the Skitarii positions; the originally chaotic armored vehicles became more threatening, and even clumsy creations resembling tanks appeared.
What was even more alarming was the appearance of exceptionally massive Ork Nobs on the battlefield, clad in heavy, cobbled-together armor. Wielding giant power klaws or roaring chainaxes, they bellowed commands to the beastly hordes. Their combat intelligence and ferocity were far beyond what ordinary Ork Boyz could compare to.
Akira calmly analyzed the situation on the battlefield.
Orks indeed possessed the bizarre ecology of "growing stronger the more they fight," continuously evolving through war. However, this usually required a relatively lengthy process and a sufficiently massive population base.
According to the Imperium's historical records, ever since the large-scale purges of the Ork empires during the eras of the Emperor and Horus, the surviving Ork tribes had mostly degenerated. It was highly difficult for them to spontaneously evolve combat forces of such scale and tier within a short period.
"This speed of evolution is abnormal." Akira's synthesized voice sounded within the command nexus, carrying a definitive judgment. "There are external factors catalyzing them, accelerating their process of martial evolution."
"The mastermind behind the scenes didn't just throw them here; they are also 'transfusing blood' to them."
He mobilized the orbiting frigate, intensifying the bombardment on suspected command nodes and weapon stockpiles in the Orks' rear. Simultaneously, he ordered the frontline troops to adopt more flexible defensive tactics, focusing on assassinating those Ork Mekboyz and Nobs who appeared to be "inventing" or "commanding," attempting to break this abnormal upgrade chain.
The base's defenses remained solid, but the pressure was continuously mounting.
Faced with the suddenly escalating pressure of the battle, Akira's computing core was not occupied by simple defensive logic.
A strange premonition, based on massive amounts of battlefield data and past experiences, was forming—he could not let himself be led by the nose by this unknown enemy.
If he merely defended step-by-step against the Orks' increasingly stronger waves of attacks, the final outcome would very likely be exhausting his strength in a war of attrition. At that time, what appeared would probably be more than just Greenskins.
He had to break this cycle and disrupt their deployment using methods beyond the enemy's estimations.
He halted the orders to send additional reinforcements to the defense line. His massive dark-red mechanical body turned, and a mechanical hand reached into a concealed interface in his chest armor, pulling out a black cube with a smooth surface and no markings whatsoever.
This was a dimensional storage device, holding certain ancient technological creations he had collected that were not yet fully analyzed or had been cautiously sealed away due to their risks.
After a series of rapid and precise operations, a faint light shimmered on the cube's surface, and a storage compartment slid open silently.
Akira took out an object from within—it was only the size of a fist, pitch-black throughout, with a surface so smooth it seemed to absorb all light. No energy fluctuations could be felt from it, nor could any interfaces or patterns be seen. Its material and underlying principles were completely alien to the Adeptus Mechanicus' current technological tree.
Akira did not hesitate. He performed a series of operations incomprehensible to outsiders on this black sphere, seemingly activating some sort of built-in trigger mechanism.
Subsequently, he summoned an absolutely loyal Skitarii soldier.
"Drop this into the center of the area with the densest concentration of Greenskins." Akira handed the black sphere to the soldier, his orders clear and icy. "Ensure an accurate drop, and then immediately evacuate."
The order was executed to the letter.
A shuttle rapidly lifted off, evading the sparse anti-air fire, and sped towards the rear core area of the Ork frenzy.
Below was the Ork legion, surging and roaring like a green ocean, massive in number and menacing in momentum.
Arriving above the target point, the hatch opened, and the inconspicuous black sphere was dropped vertically, falling towards the center of that clamorous green.
There was no deafening explosion, no heaven-piercing firelight, nor any ripples of energy impact.
The moment the sphere touched the ground, there was only an extremely brief flash of "black light" that seemed to devour even illumination.
Immediately following, a suffocating scene occurred.
With the point of impact as the center, a perfectly spherical area with a radius of five kilometers—along with the densely packed Greenskin Orks within, their crude weapons, vehicles, and even all the rock and soil on the surface—instantly vanished without a trace.
There were no fragments, no dust. It was as if they had been erased out of thin air by an invisible giant hand, or thoroughly excised from the coordinates of this universe by some power.
Only an incredibly smooth, perfectly hemispherical massive crater was left in its place.
The surviving Greenskins were clearly deterred by this strike that exceeded the scope of their understanding.
The physical destruction brought about by that perfectly spherical crater was not all; it was also a cognitive impact.
The originally surging green tide instantly lost its unified command and that fanatical momentum, becoming chaotic and hesitant.
Perhaps that black sphere had coincidentally erased the Warboss of this Ork force along with his bodyguard retinue from the world, or perhaps the instantaneous loss of so many of their kin and equipment exceeded the threshold this tribe could endure. The Orks' war system, maintained by the will of Gork and Mork and the collective WAAAGH! energy, experienced a cliff-like collapse.
Although the remnant Ork Boyz were still instinctively howling and firing sporadically, they could no longer organize an effective offensive.
They began to shove each other, even breaking into infighting to fight for leadership.
The battlefield situation took a sharp turn.
Akira did not let this opportunity slip by.
He calmly ordered the Skitarii and the Nearl Squad to take the initiative and strike, purging the remnant Greenskins.
The heavy footsteps of the Imperial Knights and the roar of the Skitarii's weapons once again became the main melody of the battlefield, but this time, it was a one-sided crushing and sweeping.
However, the troubles Akira faced did not end there.
(End of Chapter)