Chapter 356: End of the Road

"Want to leave? It's not that easy!"

In the hall named after Saint Saratan, the captain of the Imperial Fist, Hornthorn, slammed his hand heavily on the table of the holographic imaging platform.

After enduring a one-sided bombing for half a month, the soldiers and civilians of the entire Ophelia 7 star urgently needed a counterattack to boost morale.

And at this critical moment, the astropath brought them better news:

The reinforcements of the Empire have arrived!

A large-scale Imperial fleet is passing through the blockade of the subspace storm in an unstoppable manner. And as soon as it returned to the real universe, it fired angry artillery at the enemies from Chaos!

Although the signal station has been completely destroyed, the ground cannot receive relay information from the direction of space.

But from the description of the silver sword that traverses the galaxy by the astropath, Hornthorn still easily deduced the identity of the attacker.

The enemy's retreat also indirectly confirmed this inference-the offensive of the rebel legion in the front is weakening, and the Alphas who originally threatened the defense line of the Imperial Fist are nowhere to be seen.

Apart from the powerful fleet under the command of that lord, Hornthorn could hardly imagine who else in the nearby star region could put such strong pressure on these servants of Chaos.

Then, it's time to fight back!

Hornthorn met the eyes of the Ultramarines Captain Stuart and made up his mind to blow the horn of counterattack.

On the equatorial ring of the planet centered on the City of Grace, a series of anti-ship base weapons code-named "Hunting" were activated from hibernation...

"All personnel ready!"

On the equator of Ophelia, on a plain on the plateau of Lockhar Province. From the rock silo 5 kilometers deep underground, an electromagnetic gun barrel as tall as a tower was slowly raised by a hydraulic platform.

There are hundreds of similar anti-ship weapon base stations, which are secretly arranged by the galaxy defense fleet at a density of hundreds of kilometers on the equator of the planet and the poles of the planet's rotation axis.

In the early days of arriving at the galaxy, the Chaos Fleet had targeted them for key strikes.

Although the overall loss was heavy, the base where the anti-aircraft company commander Siegel was located was lucky enough to survive the bombardment of the battleship's macro cannon.

Two weeks ago, the last order they received was to prohibit firing and to hide and wait as much as possible;

Two weeks later, they finally waited for the opportunity to counterattack in painful torment.

The order from the City of Grace had arrived, and he was as angry as all his colleagues.

After eagerly unhiding the weapon base station, this huge weapon that required a full 300 people to operate officially entered combat status.

"Countdown 10 minutes!"

Siegel took out a data board from his arms. After fingerprint, voiceprint and gene testing, the imperial eagle emblem hanging high above the thorns appeared in front of him.

Siegel also had the same emblem on his chest. He knew that the thorns covered with spikes at the foot of the golden imperial eagle were the symbol of their mission.

Two complex data columns were under the eagle emblem, and a large amount of data was refreshed in real time.

Siegel stared at them closely. While ensuring the connection with the City of Grace and completing the timing procedure smoothly, he also controlled the various variables caused by the equatorial angle and the atmospheric environment on the angle of attack of the shooting.

Nearly a thousand meters below him, the huge metal warhead weighing 15 tons carried by the rail train was being operated by the soldiers responsible for loading under the command of the technicians and was lifted from the pallet by a huge crane.

The mechanical priests paid close attention to the progress of loading. After the warhead carrying destruction and hatred was loaded into the barrel, they used the mechanical prostheses behind them to unlock the key of the warhead, as well as the accompanying machine soul awakening and blessing ceremony...

"Pre-loading in place!" Seeing the warhead being put into the barrel, the crew leader responsible for loading reported to Siegel in the communicator.

"Countdown 7 minutes!" Siegel repeated the reminder in the communicator again. In the command system of the same level where he was, the first wave of attacks on the orbit had begun.

Looking at the artillery fire projected into space by anti-ship weapons in other positions in the servo system, Siegel's anger calmed down instead.

A voice sounded in the communicator beside his ear, which was the news that the energy battery pack and the electromagnetic orbital team were ready.

Seeing that the countdown was only 3 minutes left, Siegel turned around and took out a bottle of strong liquor from the storage room.

It was a gift from his comrade-in-arms, and his comrade-in-arms had died in the battle with the Alphas.

Countdown 2 minutes;

Countdown 1 minute;

Countdown 30 seconds;

Countdown 10 seconds:

Seeing the moment when the screen number returned to zero, Siegel pressed the trigger of this heavy artillery on time.

Amid the huge electromagnetic roar, Siegel watched the warhead go away. He smashed the bottleneck of the bottle on the corner of the table, and then drank it headlong without paying attention to the sharp glass of the bottle mouth:

"Go, say hello to you bastards for me!"

——

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The naval battle in space is still going on. Killing machines built for humans and consuming planetary resources are still projecting hatred for each other in space at a seemingly slow but actually fast pace.

Before the Chaos Fleet could endure a full-scale encirclement by Calvin's side, it received a targeted attack from the direction of Ophelia shortly after the battle line was formed.

Anti-ship weapons based on the planet itself naturally have a thicker caliber and longer barrel than the battleship macrogun.

Except for the narrow firing range caused by the rotation of the planet, its power exceeds the battleship macrogun in all aspects.

And now, the Chaos Fleet, which has just escaped from the gravitational bondage, is still assembling to fight the Imperial Fleet;

In the eyes of ground weapons, these are simply targets fixed above the orbit, which is exactly the best environment for these base weapons to play.

Dozens of warheads as big as locomotives were fired upward along the planet's equator, creating new chaos in the Chaos Fleet that had just completed the battle line.

The dense orbital artillery fire passed through the atmosphere and went straight to the target, exploding in the belly of the fleet flagship "Lost Truth" and other warships, quickly consuming their shields.

The latter had to adjust their positions awkwardly before fighting the Imperial Fleet to avoid continuing to withstand the continuous attack of these anti-aircraft weapons.

But the battleship turned so slowly that before the fleet could evade, Alpha's commander was horrified to find that after bearing the ground fire, the battleship's shield energy had been significantly depleted.

What to do? Alpha's commander was in a dilemma.

Facing the sudden attack from the ground, he could either choose to evade the entire fleet urgently, and the newly formed battle line would disintegrate;

Or he could choose to withstand all the attacks from Ophelia 7, but against the background of a large amount of shield consumption, he would face the strong attack of the Empire, which was also a dead end...

The precious time window was fleeting in his weighing, and his indecision about the war made him make the biggest mistake as a commander.

In his helpless and desperate eyes, the artillery fire in the direction of Ophia had just subsided, and the second round of salvos had just begun on the textbook battle line of the Imperial Fleet in the distance...

Second update, votes!