The cyber-familiars climbed onto Anacharis Scoria's right shoulder, marking the enemy surging across the bridge-like towers supported by pillars.
[Program code upload progress: 4.91%, 4.93%...]
Anacharis's data-engines processed the Olamic Quietude data obtained from the orange-yellow data storage device. His logic engines calculated fire plans.
As the number ticked up to 4.94%, two of the eighteen mechadendrites on Anacharis's back rose.
Gravity implosion cannons boomed. Two shells screamed skyward.
The trails of their exhaust plumes froze rapidly in the frigid air, like frost forming on glass.
Boom! Boom!
The two hyper-dense bombs slammed into the two areas with the highest concentration of Super-Elite Warriors.
Dozens of Astartes-sized forms were crushed against the ice, flattened like stones pressing down upon them.
A string of orange runes scrolled across the cyber-familiar system's feedback interface.
It took the Olamic Quietude's social network thirteen seconds to complete an emergency analysis and formulate a counter-strategy.
The code he and Arkhan Land had developed was effective, slowing the response speed of the network's links.
Boom! Boom!
Two more hyper-dense warheads screamed skyward, striking two densely packed red rune clusters at the three o'clock and eight o'clock positions.
Bang, bang, bang...
After the Elite Warriors' energy fields were adjusted to counter the threat, the pressure from above was reduced. Their silver-white armor vibrated in unison on the ice.
Crack!
Gravitational waves and energy impacts hammered the ice, spider-webbing it with cracks.
Boom!
The ice sheet shattered. A dozen Elite Warriors plunged into the void.
The Super-Elite Warriors' holographic masks remained impassive. The minds behind them had long been stripped of humanity.
Thump, thump, thump...
One Elite Warrior after another ignored the gaping chasm, falling into the ice hole. Only fifteen seconds later did they begin to skirt the opening.
Anacharis's second mechadendrite rose, spewing a green plasma beam before the Olamic Quietude's social network could iterate again.
Zadkiel, raised his archaeotech pistol, firing a beam collected from the radiation layer of the planet Kur, the world of Monarchia. It pierced the hood of an Elite Warrior, one covered in silver circuits, and melted its brain.
He directed his Honour Guard members, forming them into five-man fire teams to defend against the silver-armored tide.
The roaring barrage of bolt shells brutally shattered the delicate, man-shaped shells.
The Olamic Quietude's social network kept adjusting, but still found no effective means of defense.
The purifying storm of bolt shells swept down Elite Warriors in droves.
Yet the killing efficiency of the twenty Honour Guard members still paled in comparison to the Archmagos's terrifying firepower.
Mechadendrite after mechadendrite rose, joining the attack.
Rotary autocannons swept across the field. Maxim-pattern boltguns roared. Phase-plasma beams detonated within the biomechanical bodies...
The Archmagos's strategos array reaped a bountiful harvest of enemies.
Zadkiel turned his gaze to the other Archmagos, the one who had been arguing with Anacharis just moments ago. Arkhan Land raised his organic arms.
Blazing star-rays shot forth: one, a ray of grey starlight, pierced silver armor, leaving a blurred, bloody hole.
Another ray of starlight shattered a holographic mask, and the expressionless face beneath visibly aged.
Elite Warriors fell in droves, as if afflicted by a stellar curse.
'The power my Lord has granted Arkhan.' Zadkiel's eyes gleamed.
'Though strange, and not lacking in lethality, it is far less fearsome than Anacharis's firepower.'
'Hmm, judging purely by firepower, he is more terrifying than my entire Honour Guard.'
Boom!
As Zadkiel mused, he felt a violent tremor beneath his feet. He looked towards where his tactical display showed an Honour Guard member had vanished.
A building encased in ice exploded. A hammer whistled down, striking an Honour Guard member. His grey armor shattered.
A blue giant, as massive as a Dreadnought, clad in heavy armor.
Upon his broad shoulders, two heads sprouted, each covered by silver circuits and a holographic mask.
Two pairs of arms, each wielding a power maul and an acceleration hammer.
Four Word Bearers fell back steadily from the collapsed building, their boltguns roaring against the Super-Elite Warrior's armor, similar in design to an Ultramarine's.
Diamond-hard shells were torn apart by the personal force field. The explosive energy left scorch marks on the blue armor.
But the Super-Elite Warrior did not fall. His protection was stronger than that of the common troops.
Zadkiel roared, the humiliating memory of Monarchia flashing through his mind.
He had committed an act of blasphemy, forced to kneel before the false god, the Emperor.
The cobalt-armored Ultramarines stood behind the false god.
Zadkiel drew his master-crafted power sword and lunged at the enemy.
The Super-Elite Warrior's upper pair of arms raised their acceleration hammers, like a Chaplain conducting a ritual.
The acceleration hammers whistled down. The "Baron of Corruption" met them with his greatsword.
Boom!
Zadkiel's arm went numb. 'Such strength. Equal to my own when I was still a "Barbarian."'
The "Baron of Corruption" deflected the acceleration hammer. He twisted his waist and swung his arm.
The disintegration field screamed, tearing through the defensive field, carving through the detestable blue armor.
The blazing blade slid upward, shattering one of the heads.
As Zadkiel swung his blade to sever the second head, the progress of the program code upload in Anacharis's logic engines ticked up to 63.52%.
His cyber-familiars swept the area. Nine Super-Elite Warriors had broken through the fire line.
The memory of his argument with Arkhan Land aboard the Shadow-pattern Stormbird flashed through Anacharis's mind. His organic left arm raised the Vodian staff.
The ancient relic fired a blazing beam.
Rumble!
Where the blazing energy storm touched, four Super-Elite Warriors and over a hundred common soldiers were indiscriminately torn apart by the terrible energy.
The ice sheet was ripped open, a massive gash exposing warm, steaming water.
On the tactical displays of Anacharis and the Astartes, the temperature spiked by 12.6 degrees.
A wisp of smoke rose from the Vodian staff's head. A string of alarm runes scrolled through his mental space.
The massive, lantern-shaped gun batteries began to turn.
In Zadkiel's world, terrible threads of black rules swept towards him.
His expression shifted. From the intelligence provided by the Black Emperor, he knew that the Olamic Quietude's energy turrets could not be "twisted," even by a true "Baron of Corruption."
The "Baron of Corruption" glanced at his tactical display. A communication from Wilshire, Lord of the Shadows of Order Second Chapter.
'Drop has begun. Estimated time of arrival: forty-one point nine seconds.'
Zadkiel's eyes widened. Light, like a beacon, fell upon him.
The "Baron of Corruption's" spirituality surged. Layers of prisms formed around him.
Sssss...
Energy beams shot towards them, warping the very air.
Four Honour Guard members vanished in an instant, leaving only viscous, charred streaks upon the ice.
In the rising heat, the searing beams scattered across the layers of "Multi-Prisms."
Zadkiel's temples throbbed. As his spirituality ran dry, prism after prism shattered.
Boom!
The energy beam struck the Saturnine-pattern Terminator prototype armor, a gift from Lord Nareth during the Rangdan War, and the thermal dispersion field covering it.
'Twenty-four seconds left. Not enough time.' Despair filled Zadkiel. Then, Arkhan Land's voice sounded in his ears.
"Electromagnetic interference."
The "Astronomer," Arkhan, fired a "Stellar Curse" from his left hand. The ray of starlight punched through the two heads of a Super-Elite Warrior.
One was shattered outright. The other aged under the curse of senescence.
The "Astronomer" raised his right hand. Disordered starlight spread.
On Anacharis's cyber-familiar system, electromagnetic signals flickered chaotically.
His Vodian staff halted. He understood Arkhan's warning. Even at full power, his strategos array could not destroy the surrounding turrets.
Forty-seven energy cannons had locked onto this area.
Only the electromagnetic disruption caused by "False Astral Configuration," interfering with the Olamic Quietude's signals, could allow them to survive under such fire.
Anacharis abandoned his ideological dispute. His strategos array had been built with the Omnimessiah's blessing. The "Stargazer's" power was also a gift from the Omnimessiah.
The "Astronomer" raised his right hand. Starlight leaped upward, merging with the churning stellar light.
Starlight diffused.
Runes of electromagnetic anomaly flickered.
The forty-seven lantern turrets did not fire.
Cannon after cannon hummed, sweeping over their position again and again.
The turrets, as if without guidance, swept blindly.
Zadkiel, having survived by a hair's breadth, took a deep breath. He stared in amazement at the energy turrets that had, bizarrely, refused to attack.
'The power bestowed by my Lord is truly bizarre!'
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
A stream of black runes scrolled across his tactical display.
The Seond Chapter was about to arrive.
....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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