Since the first communication with the fleet in orbit, the Heretics have launched two more waves of attacks on the Advocate Fortress.
Thanks to the joint efforts of the Space Marines and the Astra Militarum, the defense line was somehow maintained. They guarded the gates and wall battlements, although the former majestic walls had been gnawed away beyond recognition by artillery fire.
The second wave nearly broke through the gate and pushed them back into the inner courtyard, but the ferocious counterfire of Land Raiders and Predators finally turned the tide.
Ustad knew that the third wave of offensive would be the key.
He could already see a large group of demons swooping towards the gate that both sides had been fighting for for a long time, while another group was taking a circuitous route to the south, bypassing the defense line and launching an attack.
Their intention must be to keep the already stretched defenders busy fighting fires and then distract the forces from key areas.
But Ustad was convinced they would not succeed.
Compared with the confidence of the Space Marines, Yarrick is not so optimistic.
Although he was determined to fight to the end, he knew that the defense line would eventually collapse - this was foreseeable and unavoidable.
This has nothing to do with strength and courage, but only with numbers.
Even so, he still clung to a glimmer of hope.
The best of the Chapter who went on a mission can return and get here before it's too late.
But the planet's internal communications have been severely disrupted, and they have no way of knowing how well the mission was performed.
The rumbling drums sounded, and the final wave of offensive was about to come.
The cultists swarmed toward the parapets and trenches again, and the chanting became so loud that Ustad felt that the vibration of the sound and the collective gasps of countless people were enough to disperse the dense fog.
The enemy launched an even more intense bombardment of the walls with rockets, mortars and medium artillery.
The shells punched holes in the high ancient walls or fell into courtyards, sending artillerymen and reserve soldiers fleeing for cover.
There were reports of hearing the sound of tracks in the thick fog, which meant that some of the shelling came from enemy armored vehicles or self-propelled guns, but Ustad heard nothing - he had been in the thick of the battle. His hearing has long been dulled by the roar of the battlefield.
But he heard from Yaric that a considerable number of Astra Militarum troops had surrendered to the enemy, and they brought a lot of heavy equipment with them, and Yaric and his party also left a lot of equipment behind when they retreated.
These things will soon appear in their sights.
The demonic clamor became louder and louder, the heretics' charge trampled the barricade under their feet, and part of the main arch of the fortress exploded, collapsing in the flying dust and rubble.
The defenders prepared for the impact.
Winster cursed. He only had simple wound treatment, and his golden-red hair was stained with blood.
At this moment, a Chimera troop carrier emerged from the thick fog beyond the trench, turning its twin heavy bolters towards the gate and the western wall. The renegade Astra Militarum surrounded the armored body.
When the Chimera came to a stop, the sight on the turret jingled into position, and its side shields and armor were painted with eight-pointed star patterns and large pieces of what looked like distorted text.
"Kill it!"
Just when it was about to shoot, a scream of energy and pressure suddenly sounded, and subtle electromagnetic oscillations were transmitted at the same time.
In the blink of an eye, a thick beam of scorching energy cut through the thick fog and hit the Chimera personnel carrier.
The impact shook the armor, which weighed more than thirty tons, like shaking a tin toy.
It bounced off the ground in an instant and slid sideways. A dozen rebel soldiers died under the sudden displacement of the huge body.
The beam of energy made a loud noise when it hit the tank. Large pieces of armor plate flew in all directions, ejected into the air, and half the turret was annihilated.
Black smoke soon spewed out from the rear of the car body, and then slowly flowed outward from the damaged location. Even from a distance, the driver inside could be heard trying to restart the main engine that had been shut down due to damage to the car body. The engine roared.
But before it could move, a second beam of equally bright energy penetrated the thick fog on the battlefield and hit the tank several meters away.
It hit the ground, instantly digging a trench of high-heat molten metal and incinerating more than twenty heretics.
Cultists unlucky enough to be near the target area screamed as the secondary burn ignited their black robes and ammunition.
The third beam of energy that followed completely killed the Chimera personnel carrier.
It hit the car body directly, hit the bottom of the turret, and the armor exploded immediately.
For a millisecond, it resembled a tent, a wooden and canvas mock-up of a chariot used by the Imperial Army during basic training.
It was as if a gust of wind had penetrated beneath the canvas, lifting it from its supports and twisting the painted outline into a knot.
Yarick specifically ordered the two laser turrets not to fire in the previous battle, but to wait for the enemy armor to appear and then deliver a fatal blow.
Such tactics are obviously effective.
But immediately, the second and third Chimera appeared again, along with the Hydra anti-aircraft vehicle. Farther away, the outline of a basilisk could still be vaguely seen.
While the laser turret was busy intercepting frontline armor, the rebel self-propelled artillery also completed positioning the firepower point.
In the first round of coverage shooting, three laser turrets were destroyed.
This made Yarek very angry, and he immediately asked the artillery to counterattack.
But for the Space Marines, they have no time to worry about the enemy's long-range bombardment.
Because with the collapse of the gate, close combat has begun.
Ustad was busy fighting off two Slaanesh banshees, one of which stabbed him in the side while the other charged at him wielding a crab claw.
The relatively narrow space at the gate limited the advantage of numbers, but the banshee still killed two Imperial Army soldiers.
The squad soldier Katiro covered Ustad behind him, blocking the retractable whip with a weathered battle shield, and then thrust out his sword to fight back. The decorations on the shield had been completely annihilated, leaving only countless scratches, chips and exposed metal.
The two fought together back to back, Ustad's power sword colliding with the opponent's crab claws, and Catiro sweeping the demon's chest with his chainsword.
The demon was repulsed, but Catillo was also struck.
The whip bypassed his battle shield and struck the shoulder armor. Although it failed to bite through the armor and hit the flesh underneath, it damaged the transmission at the joints and affected the movement of the arm.
Catillo tried to recover, but he lost his balance.
As the enemy drew back his whip, he fell to the side involuntarily.
Therefore, he failed to dodge the second attack aimed at his chest.
With the sharpness of ultra-far physical laws, the crab claws cut open the power armor, and the wound suddenly dripped with blood.
The ferocious force knocked Catillo to the ground, as if the end of the entire pincer was buried in his chest.
In fact, his carapace absorbed the fatal damage, but the flesh was still cut, and the wound would bleed profusely before the blood could clot.
Ustad was unable to pull away to protect his fallen comrades, and the demon howled and rushed forward to finish off his opponent.
Suddenly, a pair of power punches hit the demon's head from the side, flattening the ugly head like a tinfoil box containing rations.
Winster arrived in time and pulled Catillo up, while the demon's body fell limply aside.
