Chapter 269: Diversionary Action

The once beautiful sky in Loander has turned gray-green. The poisonous and greasy rain will harm the world for thousands of years. Mixed with the suffocating evil filth, the world is hopeless. At least any Imperial person will do that. feel.

The light of stars crawled out from behind the planet along the endless metal mountains. The place that once operated and hosted tens of billions of people now became lifeless and terrifyingly silent.

The thick tracks of the Chimera armored vehicles and the boots of the infantrymen, together with the muddy flesh and blood, stepped across the Gothic-style bridge built by alloy. The ground, which was stronger than concrete, could have been used for ten thousand years according to the Mechanicum's estimation. Ruming was hit like cheese with holes by the crater that leaked out thick juice.

The thin, pale-faced Imperial Guardsman used a simple fully enclosed gas mask, a device commonly known as a "pig nose" and a few pieces of blessed filter cotton and charcoal to maintain heavy and uncomfortable breathing.

The light of stars has just fallen on the ground. According to Terra time, tomorrow is only about four o'clock in the morning. But now, the sun in Loander comes very early, accompanied by poisonous fog, biochemical weapons and spiritual toxins used by heretics, ticking It falls on people.

Lieutenant Zesk looked out from the window of the command vehicle. The mighty legions were moving forward like lifeless corpses wrapped in the Emperor's faith. However, the Space Marines did not appear beside them, so they could use maneuvers. A more reliable method, such as several Thunderhawk gunships, or a more effective method to get closer to the enemy.

When Zaiwei thought about that, he realized that those giants were now or would be doing more efficient and greater things than them in the future, and used this as the cornerstone of their loyalty to the empire.

Can he do it? If not, can he be so selfless and "brutal" to the world? The captain's thoughts were complicated, but he did not realize how great their actions were. It was due to their wrong belief in the emperor that was deeply rooted in their bones. It was not wrong for them to do things or work, and they were born as imperial people. Is this a reality that is difficult to resonate with people in other worlds, or is it the most cruel reality that is wrong for them?

The sky was now awakening in a daze, and Lieutenant Zesk hoped that the enemy would not wake up. They were prepared, but there was not much time. Tiredness and illness broke out in the body one after another, and he asked the soldiers to get it. Before the battle, collect the elixir that can temporarily suppress pain.

Are those medicines suppressing the blessing of the spirit virus, or are they supplements that all Imperial Guards have, or are they not as great and powerful as people think, are they using stimulants to increase metabolism and blessings to suppress the virus? Commanders look healthy because they are usually far away from the battlefield and have relatively complete defense equipment.

Now those viruses are accumulating over time, making Zaiwei's body feel sore and painful, so they don't have much time.

The effect of the stimulants was getting worse and worse. He even felt that his blood was full of those red bitter medicines. The military doctor recommended that he switch to injections. Bu Nao no longer asked for injections. Zaiwei looked at the long and wide breasts in front of him. The road began to become so narrow that even armored vehicles could not pass side by side, and the viaduct obviously could not move forward.

The captain blew out a smoke ring, then pressed the cigarette against the solid steel of the car body to extinguish it, then carefully tied half of it with a rubber band and put it in his pocket, as he had learned when he was a scout, he shouted. "En masse, they went from the fork to the east bridge and then to the fort via the road close to the ground."

An hour after arriving from the east, they marched smoothly. They naturally passed through the entire city, watching the once familiar place turn into a mess in a no-man's land. If it was a kind of psychological warfare, then that war was successful. And failed, because after depression and pain, what is ignited is anger, not fear.

The soldiers stepped on the poisonous soil, the ground was rotted and strange plants grew, the collapsed shops, or the twisted bodies that were eaten less by flies, the swollen corpses filled their mouths with maggots spraying from the wet places in their mouths, but otherwise Nothing compares to not being in the central square of the city, but having the 20-meter-tall emperor statue being bombed by mortars, half of which was already on the ground.

His flaming divine sword and Emperor Huang Dog Sword could no longer be found, his broad legs and arms could no longer protect the believers, and his piercing eyes could no longer look at the people there, so those soldiers became inexplicably angry.

Their pace was faster and their will was stronger. Those restless emotions drove the Emperor's children to burst into anger like the enemy. The vehicle engines roared. They took out various potions and began to march forcefully, and stuffed them into their mouths like adding gasoline to the car. They carried shriveled, unpalatable green-brown starch lumps and drank less clean drinking water.

The urban area passed quickly, and the Imperial Guard also ushered in the end of peace. It was turned into a fighting area, and the enemy had been waiting for them for a long time. Captain Zai looked at the war zone from his car in Genji with binoculars.

Intricate trenches and fortresses have replaced the steel forest of reinforced concrete. The enemy's infantry is separated by five meters per person and every fifty meters by team. This means that there will be a logging gun every 100 meters!

Damn barbed wire and sandbags were stacked in front of those trenches. The Loanders were not good at attacking, so they felt that they were in trouble. However, the captain did not see anti-vehicle weapons, so he did not relax. To be precise, the enemy was absolutely wrong. There was no shortage of those things, and he actually knew the location very well.

Those bunkers, made of fine gold, were used to stabilize the battle situation at alternating positions in the trenches. The entire trench was in a small, large X-shape. From left to right, there were 15 bunkers. They were dark and begging for their lives.

He returned to the car and his adjutant said. "They can bombard the enemy from there."

The lieutenant picked up the communicator and asked the Space Marines for communication, but there was no response. A trace of strangeness flashed across his face, but he answered without hesitation. "No, let me think about it. If they advance step by step, the trenches with a depth of about 5 kilometers will delay them for a long time. They have less than three days. The artillery must be in place in one step!" He rejected the safe method. The Imperial Guard clearly needed not victory, but time. If they could not break through there, they could not threaten the outside of the Fortress at all, let alone attract the enemy's core forces.

The trenches in his eyes became thorny and painful, but his battle plan was clear from the beginning. He needed a breakthrough. Although the three staggered trenches were terrible in depth, they lacked heavy firepower. If the heavy bunkers were destroyed, things would be easy.

"Three fortresses, he needs three of those things to disappear to occupy the advantageous terrain, and now he needs a charge, Lemanus and Chimera armored vehicles cannot be there, the soldiers must disarm, and they have no self-propelled artillery, no missile vehicles, and air force..." The lieutenant muttered, and everyone knew that many brothers would be lost in that war.

"Split into two echelons and move forward. The first echelon has most of the infantry and suppresses forward. The second echelon detours to the outside to bypass the enemy's reconnaissance. It doesn't matter if it takes a long route. He needs the main gun of Lemanus to be intact."

"Sir, should they wait for the Space Marines?" an officer asked.

"Space Marines, Space Marines, if they rely on angels for everything, then they will have nothing. He admits that faith alone cannot defeat the enemy, but the Emperor will not like children who rely on others..." Although the captain said that, he also knew that the Space Marines did not contact them, which meant that they did not expect to fight together. Otherwise, they would hide themselves in tactics and have other plans. In any case, he would believe it...

The decision was cruel, but sacrifice was inevitable. When the roar of the engine mixed with the harsh sound of the tracks rolling over the concrete road, the attack began.

Bang! Bang! Bang! At the beginning, the smoke grenade launcher fired dozens of smoke bombs into the trench, and the smoke was immediately filled, opening a lifeline for the soldiers on the battlefield. Then the defenders began to shout sporadically and a few empty gunshots began to appear.

"Charge, charge, charge!" The staff officers were so arrogant, and the infantry of Loande charged forward without hesitation until they were completely in the smoke, and then the half-track armored vehicles Chimera and grenadiers followed closely until they completely attracted the firepower of the entire front line.

When the flanking troops smashed a howitzer belonging to Lemanus into the fortress ten minutes later, it made a muffled sound like an explosion, violent tremors, and a brief wail of steel when the 35-centimeter-thick rolled adamantine armor was torn apart. The soldiers inside were instantly cooked. The high temperature generated by the explosion alone was so powerful, and of course the accurate shooting of the crew was indispensable.

Then her turret was lifted high by the huge fireball produced by the splash detonator of the armor-piercing fragmentation missile launched by the enemy fortress in the distance, and then fell to the ground due to the effect of gravity.

The parts of the tank flew everywhere with the explosion, and the communicator that had been open could now hear the "crackling" sound of fragments rubbing against the surface armor, until a flat hatch penetrated the armor of the side turret, completely silencing the sound of the communicator, and a Lemanus died.

At the same time, the first fortress was completely destroyed by the high temperature of the Imperial howitzer. It was hard to say whether such an exchange was of the same price, but as an attacker, the Imperial Guard had no choice.

And the sad thing was that the Space Marines had actually arrived long ago, and they did not want to be discovered by the enemy so early. They were lying in ambush on the nearby metal mountains like eagles, and they were waiting with thousands of servants on the huge raised base of the nest city.

They had been operating in that area for a long time. Since the fourth captain's raid, the Space Marines had been attacking the enemy there, but the positional warfare made it difficult for those super soldiers to move, so the soldiers who had experienced the landing battle were wary of the trenches there.

But if they join, it will not be difficult to attack the fortress. If it goes according to plan, the Imperial Guard will not suffer any losses, but will there be brothers who die?

But a young sergeant who was questioned by the sergeant suddenly asked the senior veteran with doubts. "Shouldn't they help the Imperial Guard? Brother!"

But the commander of the Destruction Eagle, to be precise, did not trust mortals, he asked. "If they take the area in front of them, they can move forward without any loss. One brother is worth as much as the infantry of their entire regiment. Just hope they are not stupid enough to destroy the Lemanus and the Earthshaker, then any bullets they lose to the enemy will not help their attack."

His words chilled the sergeant's heart, and he was not there. In fact, the people who should have been in command in that battle were the fearless mechas, but the mental problems caused by fearlessness made those living ancestors unable to make decisions, but they did not have no rights...

The sergeant looked at the two huge mechas next to him. Those warriors with honor in their bodies condoned such brutal behavior!

And he cursed. "What am I talking about, ancestors, what are we doing? The sergeant will not let them do that!"

"He?" the current commander asked. "Do I think those mortals are worthy? There is neither Ghost Peak nor Skadi, and they are madmen who believe in the Emperor crazily. If they die for the Golden Throne, if they hope all their lives, he will let things happen. Everyone becomes satisfied!”

He didn't trust those soldiers, especially their dilapidated bodies, and a few smoke bursts, and the charge to the east of the hillside had begun. As space warriors, they could see clearly even without telescopes. The soldiers' flesh and blood were exploded on the battlefield, and even soon they were One Lemanus was penetrated by an armor-piercing missile and turned into a chaotic flame. Fortunately, the loyal crew destroyed a fortress.

But the smoke is also dissipating, and the situation is becoming increasingly unfavorable. The crossfire and high-intensity depth of the trenches form a wall of death made of war machines. Endless meat grinders require many sacrifices in exchange for a Lemanus bombardment, and In the case of missing the observation hole, it is not enough to destroy the bunker.

Even though the powerful howitzer stopped the attack inside, the outside of the bunker was bombarded. The cultists were stunned and turned their weapons, and the armor-piercing missile group locked onto another tank on the side.

the Space Marine sergeant cursed. "He's lost his sight! If that denies my desire to live to death, then he will ask me to duel him!"

That sentence made the atmosphere there change. Although the cultural style of the Doom Eagle was similar to that of the Space Wolves, dueling was not allowed at a time when there was an obvious status gap and such a high demand for command.

They were not Guilliman's children at heart, and they still worshiped unity, order, and tactical coordination, which the officer obviously would not accept. "He refused."

"I am disgraceful to my honor..." the sergeant replied.

"Honor? They must not pursue honor, death and war at that time. If he asks, the brothers will be responsible!" the commanding officer yelled.

"Even if he accepts it, if I get the red helmet and step back ten thousand steps, my brothers will not accept the task of supporting mortals!"

The sergeant looked helplessly at his brothers, but saw the evasive eyes. They became timid, being attacked by rune warriors, spiritual wizards, and being forced to die again and again...

he asked helplessly. "Is he the one who joined the battle group? Brothers? Are they just hiding there to join the battle group?"

"It turns out that without the company commander, sergeant major, and adjutant, are they cowards?"

His words instantly ignited the honor and anger of the Space Marines, but they could not refute. After experiencing too much, they became more and more separated from the illusory beliefs of the Chapter. Otherwise, those rules and regulations had buried the seeds of honor in their bones. Now the sergeant The wound opens...

"That's enough!" The Dreadnought mecha, which was already wavering, suddenly walked out, and the veteran of the two veterans strode out and cursed. "I said that. If they don't attack, it would be too much. Boy, I did a good job. If he doesn't deny me, he will become a coward!"

The other one answered. "No, I remind him of the young Yuezi, who was born to die...the eagle of destruction, the natural disaster!"

The sergeant nodded and bowed. "Born to death, fearless ancestors!"

The words spoken by the two of them represented a change in the hearts of the Legion.

They said to the commander. "Brother, they are very sorry. My tactics were rejected because they are not in line with the values ​​of the group!"

The commander could only nod, unwilling to compromise in such a situation. Therefore, the Thunderhawk gunships of the Space Marines began to buzz and roar, just like their slogan, natural disaster is coming!

That's not a matter of good or bad, it's a matter of values. I will let the Space Marines and my battle brothers who the empire spends tens of millions to create work hard for a few mortals, or take risks to protect mortals, and use Lemanus and Mortal servants can do the same things as the earth-shaking cannon.

The essence of that thing is very contradictory. If you reduce the sacrifice, you will have to make a greater sacrifice. But in fact, some people have forgotten that the value of life does not exist, because whether it is a Space Marine or an Imperial Guard, in the end it is no. The people's army is not the darkest irony of Warhammer, nor is it the terrifying romance of militarism.