The Emperor’s Angel of Death

As the fleet accelerated its maneuvers, all the weapons in orbit of Amara Prime entered a state of readiness. It now had a full eight combat space stations, although four were temporary, even modified from ships, but all had been reinforced. In particular, the void shields were prioritized. Each combat space station was guaranteed to have at least battleship-level void shield capacity, even with multiple layers stacked, to withstand enemy attacks. In addition, over fifteen hundred fighters of various models were ready to launch; they could be considered the last elite aerospace forces of the Orpheus Sector, originally scattered across various planets but now all gathered here.

On the ground, piercing alarms echoed through the skies and reverberated through the lowest levels of the hive cities. All garrison troops moved into bunkers, while civilians tried to go as deep underground as possible – the remaining population of Amara was less than two-thirds of what it once was, as a significant number of residents had been evacuated to the rear long ago.

For a full three months, under Sorskyan's orders, numerous bunkers were built around the four key hive cities of Amara Prime. They were characterized by being buried deep underground and being sturdy enough to withstand orbital bombardment. In addition, many facilities and bunkers were secretly built in the mountainous areas away from the hive cities, partly to hide more important support units and partly as a fallback in case the hive cities proved untenable, allowing the troops to retreat to these topographically complex areas to continue resistance.

In short, the task of the Amara ground forces was to resist, to resist as much as possible, to draw the Necrons' infantry forces, and to ensure that their tomb ships had as few defenders as possible.

"Will it attack Amara? Or... here?"

On the busy bridge, Sorskyan stood with his arms crossed, his eyes fixed on the star chart.

Before, he was playing the Necron against Asterion, feeling the opponent's unease and despair, but now he was in Asterion's position. Could he do better than the other?

At this time, only Saul and Amnak were by his side. Talos and his company were stationed on the planet, serving as the overall commander of the planetary defense forces. Sorskyan trusted his friend and brother, confident that he would have no problems with his abilities.

"Sentinel Station One reports! Unknown energy signatures detected!"

"Sentinel Station Two reports! The void shield is under intense energy bombardment!"

Before the ships were even in sight, the reports arrived. Hearing the information gathered from various facilities on Amara Prime, Sorskyan realized that the enemy had arrived.

He guessed right. The Necrons would definitely attack Amara Prime first. They looked down on humans and never considered any delaying tactics; they just wanted to take out the human ground forces and fleet together.

Good, he wanted that kind of arrogant attitude from them.

"Order Amara Three's rapid response fleet to begin a far-point maneuver around the star system, moving towards Amara Prime from sector E3. Notify the Minotaurs Chapter to maneuver their fleet to the right flank of the main fleet."

But Sorskyan did not intend to support Amara immediately.

Since the Necrons wanted to attack there, let them attack and see how good their teeth were.

"Report! Enemy fleet sighted!"

Soon, a huge holographic image appeared on the star chart in front of Sorskyan. Against the backdrop of Alamanar's roaring star, a black fleet appeared in the void on the star-facing side of Amara Prime. Sorskyan immediately judged that the opponent should have entered from the top of the star map. Their numbers were currently unknown, but the two crescent-shaped giant warships were particularly conspicuous, resembling two evil crescents in the light of the star.

"They're finally here..."

"Report! Sentinel Station Three has been destroyed!"

The Necron fleet was very fast. Just a moment ago, they were in an extremely distant position, and almost in the blink of an eye, they had approached Amara Prime. At the same time, bursts of gold and emerald light flashed across Amara's orbit.

In response, all combat space stations and orbital defense weapons opened fire at full power. Lasers, plasma, kinetic rounds, missiles... Amara Prime was like an angry beehive.

But their weapons did not pose as great a threat to the Necrons as imagined. The massive tomb ships approached with a contemptuous posture, and then the Evil Moon unleashed its gaze of annihilation. Green arcs tore through layers of void shields, easily evaporating a small portion of a combat space station with a single strike.

But even with this result, Sorskyan could accept it. Void shields were already the most effective means for humanity to fight the Necrons. To this end, he had not even added extra armor to those combat space stations, but instead increased reactor power so that they could carry more void shields.

The layered void shields proved Sorskyan's idea was correct by preventing the space stations from being destroyed by a single enemy strike.

"Communication request from the Daedalus!"

"Accept!"

Asterion then sounded on the bridge.

"Aren't we attacking now?"

"Wait a little longer."

"Amara Prime's orbital defenses won't last long."

"I can see that."

"Report! Sentinel Station Two has been destroyed!"

Sorskyan looked at the time; thirty-seven minutes had passed.

At this time, Amara Prime's orbit was filled with burning wreckage, and the shipyards were collapsing, but the remaining combat space stations were still resisting. Menak's fleet was clearly visible, and their numbers were finally scanned.

143 ships...

2 tomb ships, 30 harvester ships, 111 raider ships

More than Sorskyan estimated. This was not good news, but there was nothing to be done. War never had a script.

After clearing some obstacles, the two tomb ships ignored the "harassment" and directly approached the planet to begin bombarding the surface, using the huge portals on the tomb ships to deploy deadly troops to the planet's surface.

On the planet's surface, the large plasma turrets and laser arrays guarding the various hive cities, as well as the missile silos hidden beneath the planet's oceans, began to fire frantically at the low orbit above, but their firepower was difficult to pose an effective threat to the huge tomb ships. The solid living metal shell absorbed all the firepower from below, and the occasional scratches quickly healed themselves.

But the ensuing bombardment was different. In New Vasburg, the main hive of the planet, the nobles living in the upper hive watched in horror as dark and supernatural storms churned in the sky and were torn apart by dazzling, lightning-like electric orbs, followed by scorching green beams descending from orbit, causing the hive's void shields to flicker and go out like a grand fireworks display. The other areas of the hive, which did not have void shields as thick as the upper spires, flickered a few times before going out, but the lightning did not stop, striking down like divine punishment, turning tens of kilometers of buildings into nothing. The districts that once housed millions of people were instantly reduced to fine white ash and molten slag.

Similar bombardments occurred in almost all of Amara's hive cities.