At the core of the Royal Court Plaza, Tax Bro's position.
"Did you all see the Regional Chat?"
Tax Bro asked in the Crimson Dawn veteran player channel, simultaneously crushing a Dal heavy shock-trooper's skull with his power fist.
"We saw it," White Scars' voice crackled back, the roaring of his chainsword and the shrieks of the Dal echoing in the background. "Those greenhorn rookies... are finally starting to grow a spine."
"Casualties?"
"On our end," [Have You Been Loyal Today?] reported coolly, "seventeen Astartes players KIA. All of them are currently respawning aboard the Light of Dawn."
"The respawn fee is 1.5 million Imperial Coins per head. Repurchasing all that specialized wargear is going to be incredibly expensive... it'll sting for quite a while."
"Fortunately, their dropped gear is still on the field. We can salvage and repair it later."
"Dreadnought losses?"
"One Contemptor suffered critical leg damage. It's been pulled from the frontline."
"The Tech-Priests are conducting emergency field repairs right now."
"And the Terminators?"
"Zero losses."
"Their armor is simply too thick. The Dal energy weapons need to land five consecutive shots on the exact same spot to penetrate it."
"And since Terminators are far more mobile than Dreadnoughts, the Dal aren't getting those chances."
Tax Bro spat a glob of blood.
He had just watched a player in Ultramarines livery get focus-fired by ten Dal elites...
The energy beams had struck the exact same spot on his breastplate. The fourth shot melted through the ceramite, and the fifth punched straight through his torso.
As that player fell, his final words in the regional chat were: "Dammit... respawning is too expensive... Brothers, kill a few more... help me make my money back..."
"Our advance is way too slow." Tax Bro glared at the tactical map. "The original plan was to secure the Royal Court Plaza in three hours. It's been thirty minutes, and we've only pushed four hundred meters."
"The Dal are plugging the gaps with bodies," White Scars replied. "For every ten meters we advance, they trade fifty lives."
"Then let them trade." Tax Bro bared his teeth in a savage grin. "Let's see what runs out first: their bodies, or our bolter rounds."
He switched over to the global vox-channel:
"Attention all units! Shifting tactics!"
"Astartes squads, stop trying to kill every single enemy! Punch through! Tear them open! Drive straight for the Royal Court pyramid!"
"Dreadnoughts, lay down a rolling barrage in a frontal arc! Blow a path right through them!"
"Terminator squads, push to the absolute vanguard!"
"Show me you actually know how to pilot those suits!!"
"If you can't hack it, strip off the Terminator armor and let another player take the helm next time!"
"Tech-Priests, break out every explosive you've got! Bring down the buildings! Block off the streets! Sow absolute chaos!"
"Dawn Defense Force! Consolidate the conquered zones! Establish defensive lines! Do not let the Dal flank us!"
The moment the orders went out, the momentum of the battlefield shifted violently.
When the twenty-five Terminator players heard Tax Bro threaten to reassign their armor, they absolutely lost their minds. Those suits were their lifelines, their most treasured possessions. There was no way in hell they were giving them up.
They immediately kicked their tactical maneuvering into overdrive, ruthlessly steamrolling the frontlines.
Their massively thick armor tanked the Dal energy beams head-on. Every swing of their power fists and power swords completely cleared out swaths of the enemy lines.
The second a suit approached its structural threshold, they flawlessly rotated, letting a fresh Terminator take the brunt of the fire.
Behind them, the Astartes players stopped bogging down in drawn-out firefights, opting instead to drive straight into the weak points of the defense like a searing scalpel.
The shriek of jump packs filled the air as the White Scars launched aerial dive-bomb attacks. The Imperial Fists carved a path with overwhelming heavy firepower, while the Raven Guards slipped into the shadows to execute decapitation strikes.
The Dal command structure rapidly unraveled into chaos.
"SCREECH-GAAAH!"
That sharp, piercing shriek erupted from the apex of the Royal Court pyramid once more.
--
In orbit, on the bridge of the Light of Dawn, 00:45:12.
Paul stood before the observation viewport, his dark gold eyes locked onto the sprawling blossoms of explosive fire scarring Dal's surface.
On the data-slates, the real-time tactical maps constantly refreshed.
Blue represented the Crimson Dawn's control zones, red denoted the Dal sectors, and yellow marked the active kill-zones.
Currently, the blue zones only accounted for 3.7 percent of the entire Royal Court city, but they were expanding at a steady rate of 0.2 percent per minute.
The Dal armies from across the entire planet were converging on the Royal Court in an absolute frenzy. Under the command of generals like Roger and Ruhl, a large number of Dawn Defense Force divisions had been redeployed to optimal choke points, actively ambushing these incoming Dal reinforcements.
"Casualty ratio," Paul asked calmly.
"Currently 1 to 58," Helovia reported. "For every soldier we lose, the Dal lose fifty-eight."
"But their total troop count outnumbers ours by a factor of thousands."
"Indeed." Helovia nodded. "This is a war of sheer attrition."
"We are grinding down their living forces, but they are steadily draining our ammunition reserves and our soldiers' stamina."
Paul remained silent for a few seconds.
His psychic senses washed over the battlefield below. He could physically feel the emotions of every soul down there: Chris's burning rage, Jeremy's peaceful acceptance, and the quiet, iron-clad resolve radiating from hundreds of thousands of Dawn Defense Force soldiers.
"Signal the transport squadrons." Paul finally spoke. "Deploy the second wave of reserves... the 3rd, 6th, and 9th Legions. Three hundred thousand men."
"Then signal the hangar decks. All Thunderhawk gunships are to prep for immediate launch."
"Once Tax Bro and the vanguard tear open the outer perimeter of the Royal Court pyramid..."
He paused, the glowing energy conduits tracing across his golden Aquilon Terminator Armor flaring slightly.
"...I will personally make planetfall."
Helovia turned to look at him. "Brother Paul, you are the supreme commander, you shouldn't..."
"Precisely because I am the commander."
Paul cut her off, the five stars in his dark gold eyes accelerating their rotation.
"I must let my soldiers know... that I am standing right there beside them."
"The Light of Dawn is temporarily under your command."
He turned and strode toward the bridge exit, the heavy thud of his Terminator armor echoing against the metallic deck.
"Tell Tax Bro to hold the line for twenty-five more minutes."
"In twenty-five minutes, I am taking the Grey Knight companies and smashing straight into King Charles's throne room."
"And then..."
Paul stopped at the bulkhead doors, casting one final look back at the planet Dal.
"I will personally wring that ape's neck and mount its head on the prow of the Light of Dawn."
"To honor the spirits of all our fallen brothers."
The blast doors slid open, then sealed shut behind him.
Helovia stood in the center of the bridge, watching the intensifying clusters of explosions on the main viewscreen. She gently tightened her grip on her staff.
"For the Dawn," she whispered softly.
--
Down on the surface of Dal, the war was entering its absolute bloodiest phase.
The entire planet had been swallowed by total war. Artillery fire tore the sky apart, smoke blotted out the sun, and an endless tide of blood soaked the earth.
Tax Bro could already see the energy shield covering the grand gates of the Royal Court pyramid.
Three hundred meters.
Only three hundred meters left.
"Brothers!" he roared into the comms channel. "Paul drops in fifteen minutes!"
"We need to sweep the path totally clean before he gets here!"
"Let these simian bastards learn..."
He raised his bolter, squeezed the trigger, and blasted a Dal officer into chunky salsa.
"...what the Dawn of Steel truly is!"
"...what a wall of flesh and iron looks like!"
Answering him was the deafening roar of hundreds of bolters firing in unison, the savage shriek of chainswords tearing through meat, and the thunderous battle cries of the charging Dawn Defense Force.
[Wings of Freedom Regional Chat]
[How Many Floors Can You Carry a Sack of Rice]: "I just respawned! Goddammit, I've died three times already! I'm down to 800 Imperial Coins!"
[Optimus Lemme Pilot You Real Hard]: "I died once too... but I swapped my loadout for a heavy bolter! This is fucking awesome!"
[Have You Been Loyal Today?]: "Attention rookies! The System shop has a War Bundle on sale for 100 Imperial Coins! It includes five power cells, two frag grenades, and a stimm-injector!"
[Execute Old Man the War Criminal]: "Report! Some rookie just redeemed a Leman Russ! He's literally driving the tank right over the Dal while blasting them to hell!"
[Grandfather Nurgle Loves All]: "Not bad, that kid's got talent. By the way... where the hell did he steal eighty thousand Imperial Coins from to buy that?"
[Paradox Players Aren't War Criminals]: "According to my calculations, if we maintain our current rate of advance, we will engage the main host of the Royal Court defenders in four hours and seventeen minutes."
[The Imperium's Last Gambler]: "Just kill them all! For Jeremy! For all our fallen brothers!"
[Crimson Zealot]: "I'm on the east side of the plaza. I just dropped four more Dal elites."
[Crimson Zealot]: "Corporal Jeremy, that makes five."
[How Many Floors Can You Carry a Sack of Rice]: "Woo-hoo, this feels so good! I just spent a grand in Imperial Coins on a clunker buggy, then stuffed it with over two thousand coins' worth of explosives."
[How Many Floors Can You Carry a Sack of Rice]: "I went full suicide-truck on these damn simian xenos. Successfully leveled their artillery nest!"
[Schrödinger's Loyalist]: "Paul will personally drop onto the Dal Royal Court with the Custodian Guard in fifteen minutes."
[Schrödinger's Loyalist]: "All units, push with everything you have. Secure the drop zone."
[Schrödinger's Loyalist]: "For anyone KIA in this battle, the Crimson Dawn Chapter's public funds will cover fifty percent of your respawn fees."
[Schrödinger's Loyalist]: "All salvage and loot belong entirely to you. The Chapter will not take a single cut."
[Blood Angels' Second Emperor]: "Brothers of Crimson Dawn, let us use the blood of these Dal xenos to water the first blooming flower of humanity's dawn."
[Blood Angels' Second Emperor]: "Let the Flower of Dawn bloom upon this world that reeks of sin against mankind, and purge every atrocity committed against our species."
[Blood Angels' Second Emperor]: "Gentlemen... for the light of Crimson Dawn!"
[Blood Angels' Second Emperor]: "Slaughter every xenos in your sight. Human Supremacy."
[Blood Angels' Second Emperor]: "Human Supremacy!"
[Blood Angels' Second Emperor]: "Human Supremacy!!"
[Blood Angels' Second Emperor]: "Human Supremacy!!!"