The Emperor’s Angel of Death

"This... this is unacceptable. What exactly is that thing?"

Bamon's eyes were completely glued to the horrific scene on the screen. He couldn't even bring himself to care that the Saintly Hall's gates had already been breached—gates that even tens of thousands of Guardsmen had never set foot near. Now, those gates were occupied by the ominous banner of the Black Sun.

Due to internal enemies, the defenders didn't have enough firepower to threaten the main attacking forces. Their super-heavy tanks drove up close and bombarded every strongpoint, after which infantry poured out of armored vehicles.

Furthermore, they were using massive land-based war fortresses, like land-faring ships (something the Iron Hand exchange student had made, and left behind when he went to study elsewhere). Their existing weapons were completely useless against such things, and they could only watch helplessly as they drove right up to the gate.

But none of this was enough to shock the Bishop so much. After all, what could be more shocking than a giant in armor slaughtering the Pureblood Angels, the Order's most elite fighters, like livestock?

"My Lord?"

The banner-bearing acolyte beside him asked cautiously, but Bamon didn't answer his subordinate.

Instead, he turned away from the screen. He had seen enough. Wave after wave of Purebloods and Half-bloods were being butchered by the enemy.

With the appearance of such an enemy, the war was already without suspense.

And he had already used up all the warriors that could be sent to the killing field. There were no more reinforcements to call up. There was fighting everywhere.

"My Lord."

The banner-bearing acolyte unwisely tugged at the sleeve of Bamon's robes to get his attention.

"You must leave. We must go into the tunnels and take you to safety. This place can fall, but we can—"

"No!"

Bamon slapped away the clawed hand.

"There will be no retreat. No withdrawal. It's already... over. The Order will pay the price for its poor choices."

"But my Lord, if you stay, the faithful will not be able to defend you. There are few troops left. There is no time. No reinforcements..."

"What good would leaving do? Where do you think we can retreat to if we lose the Crimson Saintly Hall? Once this place falls, the entire line will collapse completely. The enemy will pour in and strangle us all. Can we retreat underground? The underground passages have even been blown up by our own people, out of fear of those metal monsters, or retreat into that radiation-filled desert, and let the slave soldiers riding mechanical warhorses chase us and slaughter us? There is no choice. If we lose this place, we lose everything."

As soon as he finished speaking, there was a loud bang, and the hall's doors were smashed open. The massive body of the Abomination Overlord, with its arms chopped off, leaving only one, fell backward onto the ground. A long weapon was deeply embedded in its mutated head. Then, a magnificent figure strode in. Behind him lay the corpses of Abominations, hacked in half or beheaded, strewn all over the place. These gatekeepers hadn't lasted long, and a squad of Terminators, some still firing, followed their commander inside.

Seeing the enemy, the banner-bearing acolyte hurriedly drew his pistol.

Bamon, however, was very calm. He simply issued a psychic command the moment the other party prepared to pull the weapon out of the Abomination Overlord's head.

In an instant, two "statues" above the doorframe disappeared from their original positions.

At the same time, two ghostly figures had already appeared to the left, right, and above Sorshian, positioning their twin blades in an X shape in front of their chests. The scepters behind them emitted a ripple. Their speed was almost comparable to that of the Eldar Aspect Warriors—

This was the Bishop's last trump card, his personal bodyguards.

The bodyguards, possessing unwavering willpower and inhuman patience, could transform from somber statues into blurry afterimages in the blink of an eye. This sudden, deadly burst of speed was like a Lictor leaping out of the shadows, beheading its target in a flash of lightning. The bodyguards' twin blades shimmered with an unsettling cold light in the silent haze, eagerly yearning to taste spurting blood. Even faster than Genestealers, their martial skills were comparable to those of the Eldar. Whether in war or negotiation, the Order's bodyguards faithfully fulfilled their duties.

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The greatest characteristic and ability of the bodyguards was that they didn't leak the slightest bit of aura or hostility before acting.

The scepter behind the bodyguards was a complex neural disruptor, meticulously crafted by the Bishop. The unstable energy waves it emitted could shatter the enemy's mental barriers.

However, the mental interference from the bodyguard's scepter was useless. Immediately after, Burning Heaven, moving even faster than them, slashed through, splattering the Abomination Overlord's brain matter. One bodyguard tried to dodge, but it was too late. The instant Burning Heaven slashed through, large chunks of cooked meat fell off its bones.

The other, before it could swing its blade, had its head grabbed by the opponent's large hand and slammed hard into the ground. Its only counterattack was to scratch a shallow mark on the opponent's arm armor with its scorpion tail—twin blades were not the bodyguards' only weapons; beneath their robes, they concealed a strangely shaped poisonous tail.

The two bodyguards could be said to have been instantly killed. The banner-bearing acolyte's mouth was agape in shock, while Bamon seemed to have anticipated such an outcome, and sighed softly before asking:

"Who are you?"

"Astartes, your destroyer."

Sorshian answered the Bishop in a loud voice, and kicked the bodyguard's corpse on the ground.

"You still have such warriors. A little more powerful than I imagined."

Bamon didn't respond to this, but squeezed out a sinister smile.

"Astartes... Don't think you have victory in your grasp. The Order's existence is rooted in the brutal oppression of the Machine Slave-Masters. As long as such oppression exists, the Order will never die!"

"Ha, kill the Patriarch and you will die."

Hearing the other party mention the Patriarch, Bamon's expression changed drastically. He didn't expect the other party to understand their structure so well.

Then he must not let it live!

The Bishop raised his exquisite Star Scepter, and a psychic pulse accumulated from the crystal embedded in the scepter's tip, about to burst forth. This was his last resistance, detonating the destruction weapon buried underground. This was something they had found in the Machine Slave-Masters' secret armory, marked as the highest level of hazard, its power possibly extremely terrifying, and it was now buried beneath his feet.

All it needed was a psychic command...

"What..."

However, the psychic sparks on his scepter extinguished in the blink of an eye, without even emitting a sound.

When he looked up, the other party's shadow had already enveloped him. The banner-bearing acolyte's bisected corpse twitched on the ground. He didn't even know when it had happened—

Less than an hour after the start, the Bishop's body was hung on the outer wall of the Saintly Hall. The defenders in the Crimson Saintly Hall sensed the Bishop's death at the first moment. This psychic tearing caused them to collapse completely, and they were quickly annihilated by the combined forces of the Space Marines and auxiliary troops.

After occupying the Crimson Saintly Hall, Sorshian immediately ordered the energy supply to be cut off. Then, the army swept all the way straight to the key nodes of the enemy-occupied area. In less than nine hours, the Black Limb Order's garrison in Trevnick City was completely defeated, leaving only scattered small units conducting desperate guerrilla warfare in the city ruins, but the Mechanicum had completely sealed off the area until the last alien was eliminated.

And just as the battle of Trevnick quickly ended, the two companies of the White Chapel sent to the Slag Mountains encountered an unexpected situation—