At 4:30 AM, all forces had finished mustering. The massive army began to mobilize.
Swarms of Thunderhawk gunships lifted off from the camps, converging in the sky into a torrential river of steel. They angled their trajectories toward the final floating platform on Laeran... the Laer City.
Down on the ground, tens of thousands of Imperial Auxilia soldiers formed tight phalanxes, marching forward to the rhythmic cadence of their officers' barks.
The roar of the armored divisions was deafening. The treads of Leman Russ battle tanks crushed deep trenches into the coral ground.
And within the Astartes columns, five hundred silver-grey figures stood out starkly. The cold, brutal power armor of the Iron Hands contrasted sharply with the extravagant purple and gold of the Emperor's Children.
This colossal army stretched on for miles, coiling like a massive dragon.
Fulgrim stood atop a towering coral spire. His purple and gold power armor radiated a magnificent light. His long white hair fluttered gently in the wind, and his perfect face was entirely devoid of expression.
Standing behind him were Eidolon, Julius Kaesoron, Vespasian, and the rest of his Lord Commanders.
Stretching out before him was a massive legion composed of over eight thousand Emperor's Children Astartes, half a million Solar Auxilia, and over a million Imperial Auxilia troops.
Further out, in orbit above Laeran, the 28th Expeditionary Fleet's hundred-plus warships had completed their line-of-battle formations. Every single macro-cannon battery was aimed squarely at the azure planet below.
Fulgrim slowly raised the Fireblade in his hand. That weapon, forged personally by Ferrus, burned with an unquenchable, roaring flame against the backdrop of the night.
"Warriors."
His voice wasn't loud, yet it echoed clearly in every single person's ears.
That was the power of a Primarch, the absolute majesty of a demigod.
"I, Fulgrim, said we would conquer this xenos civilization within a month."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the colossal legion laid out before him.
"I said it before."
"Only humanity is perfect."
"Any xenos species that possesses its own ideals and technology rivaling that of humanity is a blasphemy against our very existence."
His voice abruptly soared in volume.
"Therefore, there will be no peace!"
"The Laer must be exterminated!"
The million-strong army roared in unison.
"The Laer must be exterminated!"
The soundwave caused the floating platform beneath their feet to tremble faintly.
Fulgrim pointed the Fireblade straight toward Laeran.
"Twenty-three days have passed."
"We will achieve this goal today!"
"For the glory of the Imperium!"
"For the glory of the Emperor's Children!"
"For the God-Emperor!"
"Charge with everything you have!!!"
"For the Imperium!!!"
"For the Emperor!!!"
The furious roars of a million men merged into a torrential tidal wave of sound, sweeping across the entire platform.
[Worthy of Sanguinius's Blood] complained in the Imperial faction chat: "Fuck, my throat is completely hoarse from screaming."
[I Eat Tomatoes]: "Can't help it, the vibe is just too good. You just look out of place if you don't scream along."
[For the Regent Yellow Guilliman]: "Did you guys notice? That [Paul Dawn] is just standing there completely still like a statue."
[Sanguinius Is My Husband]: "Duh, that's just the Iron Hands aesthetic."
[Loyal Battle Sister of the Imperium]: "Stop chatting and get ready to fight!"
Before she even finished typing, the sky lit up.
In orbit above Laeran, over a hundred warships opened fire simultaneously.
The roar of the macro-cannons punched through the atmosphere, transforming into a continuous, deafening thunderclap.
Thousands of blindingly white pillars of light pierced straight down from space like divine punishment, smashing accurately into Laer City.
Under the orbital bombardment, the massive city looked like a fragile toy.
The pale green energy shields held on for a mere three seconds before shattering spectacularly.
The city walls took direct hits. Sections of the wall hundreds of meters long were instantly reduced to powder in the explosions.
The gatehouses collapsed in a sea of fire; debris flew everywhere as smoke and dust shot into the sky.
Buildings inside the city were struck one after another. Skyscrapers crumbled in the flames, and streets were blasted into massive craters.
The culmination of thousands of years of Laer civilization was torn apart like wet paper.
The explosions merged into a continuous sea of fire, bathing the entire city in a hellish orange-red glow.
Standing in formation, [Selling Flatbreads at the Terra Palace Gates] watched this unfold, his mouth hanging open in a perfect 'O' shape.
He couldn't help but speak up in the Crimson Dawn channel.
[Selling Flatbreads at the Terra Palace Gates]: "Holy crap... is this the true power of an entire Imperial Legion fleet?"
[Selling Cola at the Terra Palace Gates]: "It feels like their firepower is more than just a little bit stronger than our Crimson Dawn First Expeditionary Fleet..."
[Have You Been Loyal Today?]: "No shit, how long have we even been developing?"
"Twenty-three years, using the industrial output of a single planet, to crank out five strike cruisers, fifteen frigates, and over a hundred transport ships is already insane, alright?"
[Have You Been Loyal Today?]: "This is the Emperor's Children 28th Expeditionary Fleet. Even for a Legion personally led by their Primarch, Fulgrim, they still had to rack up countless military merits before they were granted an expeditionary fleet of this scale."
[Have You Been Loyal Today?]: "Just the combat vessels alone—including the flagship, strike cruisers, and battle barges—number over a hundred, and there are literally thousands of transport ships."
[Have You Been Loyal Today?]: "And the sheer astronomical military budget burning behind all of this..."
[Have You Been Loyal Today?]: "Only the Imperium of Man, with its countless human colony worlds scattered across the galaxy, could ever afford it."
"And they squeeze every single drop of it out of the Imperial citizens through the Tithe."
The channel went quiet for a second.
Many players suddenly remembered when they first spawned on Aurelian IV—the miserable citizens in the small towns, the emaciated miners in the lowest depths of the underhive.
[Dragon Bro Never Yields]: "Never mind, I suddenly feel nothing for this fleet."
[Selling Flatbreads at the Terra Palace Gates] recalled the Imperial Auxilia soldiers he saw outside the Tenth Company camp last night, wearing their uniforms with hollow, dead eyes.
They were probably just cogs in this massive Imperial war machine. Screwed into place, dying, breaking loose, and ultimately being completely forgotten.
All the Crimson Dawn players silently closed the channel, saying nothing more.
Over in the Imperial faction chat, however, it was a completely different story.
Watching the sky-filling flames, [Love Eating Grox Cans] was so hyped his voice was shaking: "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!!"
"This game is so fucking awesome!!"
[I Eat Tomatoes]: "This is literally a 100% simulation! I want to cry right now!"
[For the Regent Yellow Guilliman]: "Isn't this way more realistic than any 3D Star Wars movie??"
[Sanguinius Is My Husband]: "I literally peed a little. My mom is asking me why I'm playing the game on my knees."
[Worthy of Sanguinius's Blood]: "The visuals are definitely insane, way more breathtaking than playing on a PC. You can even smell the faint scent of gunpowder, it's absolutely unmatched!"
The Chaos faction chat was just as lively.
[Konnichiwa Slaanesh-chan]: "So satisfying!! These visual effects, the sound design, the explosions! Totally worth the price of admission!"
[I Just Like Sleeping In]: "I just want to know what those Laer hiding underground are feeling right now."
[Number One Handsome of the Soul Hall]: "Heh heh heh... what are they feeling? Pure despair, obviously."
[Blue Pigeon Knows Nothing]: "Enough talk. Once the battle starts, stick to the plan."
--
The orbital bombardment lasted for a full fifteen minutes.
When the light of the final macro-cannon round faded and the smoke gradually cleared, the true state of Laer City was finally revealed.
The shields were shattered.
The walls had collapsed.
The defensive fortifications on the walls were blown to absolute pieces.
Those meticulously constructed artillery batteries, bunkers, and trenches were like wet tissue paper against the firepower of the Imperial Navy.
Over a dozen massive breaches had been blown into the city walls, scattering rubble and Laer corpses everywhere.
But the city still stood.
The skyscrapers were heavily scarred, but their skeletal structures remained intact.
The streets were blasted full of craters, but they were still passable.
Beneath these ruins, countless Laer were waiting in the darkness.
Inside the subterranean fortifications, specially augmented Laer warriors had completed their final combat preparations.
The pilots operating various Laer war machines, wired directly into their control systems via bionic neural uplinks, were waiting tensely for orders.
The aquatic combat units had already activated their gill-like organs, ready to launch ambushes from the city's waterways at a moment's notice.
The scout troops had their leg muscles extremely modified, allowing them to sprint as fast as a Land Speeder.
And the gunners had their visual systems radically enhanced, allowing them to pinpoint the armor joints of an Astartes helmet from miles away.
Every single Laer warrior had four arms.
Their lower limbs were typically equipped with gauntlets that fired green energy bolts, while their upper limbs wielded power swords crackling with electricity.
Right now, tens of thousands of these warriors were hiding in the city's underground bunkers, sewers, and civilian residential tunnels, waiting for the exact moment the invaders set foot inside the city, and then...
They would use their flesh and blood to exact a bloody toll.