The Emperor’s Angel of Death

“Don't underestimate the Tyranids, stay focused.”

While chatting with Fehton, Hayes scanned around with his binoculars. Outpost 7 was a large fortress located southwest of Snow Palace, at an altitude of over 4,000 meters. It was originally a family estate, but after years of construction, it covered a large area, almost like a castle. Normally, it housed over three thousand servants of various kinds. After being requisitioned, it underwent rapid expansion and the construction of two defensive walls. Even from Hayes' perspective, it seemed impossible for any normal person to attack this place. It was flanked by cliffs, backed by mountains, and only had a gentle slope in front that could be climbed.

With such terrain, only a thousand people were needed to defend it, and tens of thousands of troops might not be able to do anything for a while, especially with such a high altitude.

But the Tyranids were not "people" after all.

Therefore, Outpost 7 actually had six divisions stationed there, about eighty thousand people. Hayes' division happened to be among them, which Hayes thought was a bit unlucky, but his men were quite optimistic, obviously thinking that gene-stealers were nothing special, and that the Tyranids were probably not much either.

Hayes had tried to educate them many times to no avail. Some things they could only learn on the battlefield themselves.

His company was responsible for a section of the first defensive wall, about two hundred meters long. There was a machine gun tower within the area, which could deploy two machine guns inside. The wall also extended backward with some platforms for mortar squads to use. Between the first and second defensive walls stood some temporary gun turrets, with hemispherical metal covers housing automatic cannons.

Considering the threat of large Tyranid creatures, heavy plasma cannons were also deployed on the wall, but his company didn't have any. The company next to them did. In addition, a large number of mines had been laid on the only accessible slope, so preparations were quite complete.

But Hayes was still a little worried. He looked up at the twisted shadows in the clouds.

The fleet had left, and in a sense, half of their bodies were in the enemy's mouth. He didn't know Solzhenitsyn's deployment and could only pray that this great hero had a solution.

Just as he was thinking, a sharp siren sounded.

“Air raid alert! Air raid alert!”

Hayes reacted immediately.

“Everyone, watch your heads!”

When he looked up, he saw a large cloud covering the entire Saint Crown Mountains, consisting of hundreds of millions of gargoyles and Tyranid flying creatures.

The Hive Mind quickly discovered the abnormality of this world and sensed the area with the most biomass concentration, instinctively sending out flying units more suitable for attacking mountainous areas, and in extremely large numbers. After all, the human side currently only had a limited number of Hydras for air defense.

Using solid ammunition, the Hydra might be effective against fighters, but against gargoyles that outnumbered bullets, it was somewhat inadequate. The biggest weakness of this type of air defense weapon was its poor firepower sustainability, and its most feared enemy was this type with an overwhelming numerical advantage.

Soon, the howling gargoyle swarms rushed towards various outposts, including Snow Palace, their speed allowing them to easily pass through the void shields.

“Everyone, find cover!”

Hayes ran along the wall, giving orders. At this time, the entire outpost seemed to be plunged into darkness, with membranous wings and claws blocking the only sunlight. Many recruits had never seen this scene and were directly frightened, even trembling.

“Hurry! Grip your weapons, find cover!”

There were temporary shelters on the wall for the soldiers to avoid threats from the sky. Hayes kicked and shoved them into the shelters one by one, while some soldiers began shooting at the sky out of nervousness.

“Are the Basilisk ready?”

In the command post of Outpost 7, Bahram, the commander, stared at the approaching gargoyle swarm with his binoculars, estimating their altitude, and noticed that there were some larger ones among them, which should be the so-called Harpies.

Jacob next to him replied:

“Captain, they are ready. They will fire as soon as the targets enter the predetermined altitude.”

After a pause, Jacob whispered:

“Captain, what exactly is the Basilisk? Why is it so mysterious?”

Bahram put down his binoculars and looked at him.

“A targeted weapon temporarily developed by the Tech-Priests based on Tyranid characteristics.”

“Why is the weapon so secretive?”

“Because it involves a series of very complex laws and procedures within the Mechanicum. This kind of modification is, in a sense, illegal, without the consent of Mars.”

Just then, the light next to Bahram lit up, which was a signal. He immediately walked out of the command post, which was the location of the noble manor, and looked at an open space in the outpost.

Four unique armored vehicles were parked there. Their chassis looked like Chimeras, with a slightly flattened turret on top, but without a main gun. Instead, there were two long, large launch nests, each filled with rockets.

Whoosh——

With a sharp whistle, the rocket launch nests began firing. The four armored vehicles fired all their rockets in almost five seconds. These rockets, spewing plasma flames, flew towards the sky and dispersed randomly. Seeing something flying over, the gargoyles instinctively dodged, but their speed could not compare with the high-speed rockets. At the same time, the number of rockets did not seem large, and most gargoyles did not dodge, and then...

Boom boom boom boom boom——

Dense explosions staged a grand fireworks show in the air. Each rocket, upon exploding, would spray out a large number of small bombs in all directions, and these small bombs would spray out an even larger number of metal fragments upon exploding. Almost in the blink of an eye, the entire sky turned into a hell filled with high-temperature metal jets.

Tyranid flying creatures often sacrificed defense for flight. Gargoyles were even more fragile individuals than hormagaunts. When those tiny metal jets hit them, they would not only tear their wing membranes, but also shatter their carapaces and penetrate their bodies.

Countless fragmented remains fell like rain towards the ground and the outpost, and slammed heavily on the ground.

Even those Harpies could not escape such dense bombing. Because of their size, they suffered even more damage, all spinning and falling down, and those who were not dead at the time crashed to death on the ground.

Watching all this, not only did Hayes open his mouth in surprise, but even a Space Marine like Jacob was shocked.

“This is the Basilisk?”

Then he realized what Bahram had said before.

This thing was not in the standard Imperial armory at all, in other words, it was an illegally modified product. But he was a little curious, didn't it take a long time to manufacture a weapon? This seemed to be the first time the Chapter had come into contact with the Tyranids, so how could they have manufactured such a targeted weapon in advance?

More updates requested~!