[500PS!]
Now, alarms echoed across the entire Baal warzone.
The piercing wails sliced through the nerves of Drenin and his comrades like icy blades. Instinctively, they stood, gripping their weapons and assuming alert positions.
But they quickly remembered—without new orders, they were not allowed, nor required, to act.
Days of intensive training and combat drills had reshaped these former Astra Militarum soldiers—now clad in power armor—into disciplined warriors, obedient to the commands of the Storm Group Army.
Drenin glanced around and noticed that most of the power-armored troops in the mess hall remained seated, calm and steady. Only a few, like himself, had stood on reflex.
Clearly, the ones who stayed seated were veterans of the Storm Group. The rest, like him, were newly integrated Astra Militarum recruits.
Even the cooks in the kitchen didn't flinch. They kept stirring, grilling, and cooking, enveloped in clouds of fragrant steam.
Their job was to cook—until new orders arrived, even the end of the world wouldn't stop the meal prep.
The Savior's troops and support staff had long internalized the doctrine of absolute obedience, and had cultivated unshakable calm under pressure.
More than that—
These people had been raised from childhood within the Savior's domain, where universal education was the standard. Alongside the elite-trainer Loyal Sons Academy, there were countless specialized institutions.
From vocational tech colleges to logistics academies, each trained countless skilled personnel.
While the Loyal Sons produced elites and leaders, these specialized academies nurtured the essential backbone of society.
But no matter where they studied—
All citizens underwent rigorous Savior loyalty education and character screening, which filtered out the weak-willed and unstable.
Those who remained were unwaveringly loyal and mentally solid. Obedience was etched into their bones.
Everyone understood:
Only by following orders and doing their part could things run smoothly—and they trusted that others would do the same.
Even the cooks believed: the Savior would never abandon any life, the Savior's warriors would protect them, and everything was being managed in a rational and orderly way.
When it was time to retreat, orders would come.
And they had accepted the danger before even arriving. Each of them had volunteered for this mission.
Only the most loyal and exceptional personnel from each department were even allowed to apply.
According to the Savior Codex, every individual's contribution would be rewarded accordingly.
If they died in battle, their souls would be blessed by the Savior, and their families would receive generous compensation—enough to ensure their children could attend a Loyal Sons Academy affiliate.
So their children could rise even further.
"Bit embarrassing. Let's sit back down…"
The Catachan warrior muttered, voice subdued for once.
The Cadian veteran lowered his readied weapon. "You're right. We'd better get used to this discipline."
That's when they all noticed the legendary Krieg soldier—still sitting, quietly eating.
The Death Korps trooper had memorized all the Storm Group's codes and conduct—and followed them to the letter.
That's just how the Krieg were.
Commanders loved them. They never disobeyed, never feared death. If you ordered them to march into hell carrying a melta bomb—they'd do it without blinking.
Even a second's hesitation disqualified you from being a true Krieg trooper.
Drenin and the others took one last look around, then sat back down and continued eating.
No new orders meant they followed old ones.
Unless their command network collapsed, they were not permitted independent action.
Hisss~
Faint alien screeches echoed from outside the mess hall.
Some of the cooks winced, then calmly donned headphones and took mild psycho-stabilizers.
Then, as if receiving an update, they pulled out more ingredients and continued cooking.
Even amid alarms and xeno shrieks, the mess hall remained calm. Order prevailed.
Gradually, the alarms ceased—and a solemn hymn of the Savior's Choir rose.
Upon hearing it, everyone immediately adopted a respectful expression and listened intently.
They knew this sacred music preceded a message from Him.
And then, in a powerful, composed voice, the Savior addressed the entire warzone.
He told them: Leviathan had deployed more swarms in an attempt to devour this world.
The war was escalating. Danger was rising.
But he urged everyone—soldiers and support staff alike—not to despair.
"Remember—we are not alone. We are an unbreakable force. The sword and shield of the Imperium.
We are not prey—we are the hunters. Let our weapons shine in the flesh of our foes. Let our roars echo in their terror!"
He paused briefly, then concluded:
"Take up your courage. Grip your weapons. Go win the final victory!"
As the speech ended, only static from the speakers filled the air.
"For the Savior!"
A unanimous cry burst from the hall. Morale surged. The atmosphere visibly lifted.
"Let's eat up—gonna kill more bugs after this!"
The Catachan shoved chunks of meat into his mouth, then spotted something—a servo-skull delivering more food.
It was extra rations—high-energy supplies. A temporary meal upgrade.
He blinked. "Huh? Extra food? Now?"
From experience, the Catachan knew: when war escalates, you tighten your belt. Food rations shrink. Sometimes they stop entirely.
Either because the supply lines were cut, or just to conserve—it'd be a waste to feed troops who'd die within hours anyway.
After all, in the old Imperium, Astra Militarum soldiers were expected to die just to delay the enemy a little longer.
"War's escalating—logistics are keeping pace. Makes sense."
Drenin calmly accepted his ration, unfazed.
He was getting used to it.
This former Conqueror Storm Trooper was beginning to understand the Savior's way of war.
In short?
Wealth. Insane wealth. A logistics system bordering on the absurd.
This was an Apocalypse-tier battlefield.
And with these conditions? Drenin believed most humans in the galaxy would fight to join the Savior's army—and give their lives for it.
Compared to the hellish misery they came from, this was heaven.
...
Several Days Later.
Sector 2 – Fire Support Zone.
The ground was littered with shattered metal shards and flesh dust, coated in deadly radiation.
The Savior's nuclear weapons had turned this region into a radiated wasteland for weeks.
Clearly—
This zone had been repeatedly nuked.
Hisss—
As chitinous limbs skittered forward, clouds of radioactive dust swirled into the air.
Even radiation couldn't stop the Tyranids. A new avalanche of bio-forms poured from the sky and ground toward the fortress walls.
A sudden flash of white consumed the horizon.
Chemical flares blanketed the sky. Thunderous firestorms rolled along the edges of the battlefield.
Artillery clusters locked onto swarm vectors with surgical precision, eliminating as many as possible before they reached the bastions.
But the Tyranids quickly adapted, shifting their tactics. More of them slipped through the fire curtain.
Their invasion pattern was refined, evolving constantly amidst the war.
Yet the Savior's artillery evolved faster—and struck back harder.
Each wave was met with swift countermeasures, tailored precisely to break their momentum.
Yes, the Tyranids were evolving.
But the Savior's army was never stagnant.
Multiple institutions—especially the Tyranid Research Institute—had heeded the Savior's call and deployed to the Baal warzone.
Numerous bio-scholars worked day and night to analyze Tyranid behaviors and weaknesses, constantly producing fresh intel.
These minds, and the knowledge they gathered, were sustaining the war effort.
Sector 2354 – Minor Defense Point.
Anti-air arrays roared, as bloody spores and bio-pods rained down.
Tyranid drop-pods exploded on impact, releasing gore-slicked xenos, pouring from shredded entrails in wave after wave.
Thousands of Tyranids launched an assault on this position.
Drenin remained calm—he'd seen this dozens of times.
He raised his heavy bolter, loaded up, and pulled the trigger—laying down a steady stream of death on the approaching Hormagaunts and Termagants.
As the machine gunner of his squad, Drenin's job was simple—shred the small ones.
Beside him, hundreds of armored soldiers joined in, their weapons blazing.
The sudden eruption of firepower flattened the swarm. Artillery and bullets created a moving wall of death, impenetrable and relentless.
BOOM—
The Digga Maw burst from the ground with a thunderous crash, swallowing several power-armored soldiers in a single sweep. The Cadian veteran was unfortunately caught within its attack radius—and disappeared into the beast's maw.
But before it could fully devour him, multiple melta beams pierced its hide.
They came from the squad's designated sharpshooters.
One lucky soldier even crawled out from the Digga Maw's ruptured innards, drenched in gore.
"Thanks! If you'd been a second slower, I'd be Tyranid paste!"
The Cadian veteran wiped the grime from his visor and nodded in gratitude to the Krieg troopers and the other snipers who saved him.
Suddenly, the squad's scanner operator picked something up.
A faint beep-beep-beep echoed in his helmet—the armor's monitoring system had detected something abnormal, and the data lit up on his visor.
He immediately broadcast a warning:
"Alert! High-risk unit detected! Bearing 45 degrees, distance approximately 1.5 kilometers!"
Alongside the warning, he also transmitted an immediate support request.
Moments later, a Hive Tyrant—large and unmistakably lethal—entered visual range. It was far beyond what a power-armored infantry squad could handle.
Any misstep, and they'd be annihilated.
"Cover fire!"
The Cadian veteran turned to the towering Catachan heavy among them and barked the order.
The big man responded instantly, raising the launcher mounted on his back and firing a salvo of micro-missiles.
Explosions peppered the Hive Tyrant, who let out a furious screech.
Unfortunately, its thick chitinous armor proved too strong—none of the missiles could penetrate.
However, one missile released a specialized powder, forming a thick smoke cloud that temporarily blinded the beast's sensory organs.
It was enough to buy precious time.
As the Hive Tyrant thundered toward Drenin's squad, support arrived.
A Thunderhawk Gunship roared overhead. From its ramp descended several warriors clad in pale yellow power armor—the Angels of the Emperor.
"For those we cherish, we die with glory!" came the thunderous warcry.
Marakin, clad in luxurious relic armor, led his squad of Terminator-clad veterans straight into the fray. With relentless, saturated firepower, they hammered the Hive Tyrant into submission.
Finally, he drew his master-crafted power weapon, the Spear of Victory, and delivered the killing blow—cleaving the Hive Tyrant's head clean off before purging the remaining Tyranid swarms around them.
Clutching the beast's severed head, Chapter Master Marakin nodded solemnly to the mortal soldiers before him, then turned away, leading his warriors in retreat—leaving behind only his dignified silhouette.
To Marakin, this campaign against Leviathan might be the most glorious moment in his Chapter's history.
Even on an Apocalypse-class battlefield, they were fighting effortlessly.
In truth, it might be the easiest war he'd ever fought.
At that moment, he wanted to scream:
Long live the Savior!
By the Emperor, this was incredible—the Weepers had never fought a war this well-equipped.
In the past, every deployment had ended in disaster—ambushes, warp storms, or overwhelming enemies left them crippled before they could even fight.
They barely had a chance to achieve anything before being reduced to a remnant.
But ever since encountering the Savior, their tragic fate had turned around. They'd been armed to the teeth, commanding powerful vessels and devastating weapons.
At last, the true strength of the Weepers could be seen.
The kill count from this single battle already eclipsed their past campaigns combined!
Marakin fired his jump pack and rejoined his Thunderhawk, urging the pilot to rush toward the next combat zone.
There were still warriors awaiting the Weepers' salvation.
And it wasn't just about saving lives—
This was the perfect time to farm glory.
They might never get another chance like this.
Defense Post #2354.
Drenin and the others watched the retreating Angels with awe and reverence in their hearts.
But the moment passed quickly—another Tyranid roar shattered the air.
The squad snapped back into formation, and another round of fighting began.
Time blurred.
Eventually, Drenin felt the toll—the creeping exhaustion dulled his movements and thoughts.
If this continued, he'd slip up. And on this battlefield, that meant death.
Thankfully, a familiar signal crackled over comms—
Rotation orders.
Fresh squads arrived to reinforce the line, bringing new waves of suppressive fire.
Once the position stabilized—
Drenin and his squad, like shift workers clocking out, left the frontlines to rest, eat, and recover their strength.
They operated on a strict three-shift rotation.
BOOM!
An earth-shaking blast caught Drenin's attention.
He looked toward the horizon.
A few kilometers away, Titan-class God-Machines clashed with Tyranid Bio-Titans, each step rattling the ground.
One Titan fell—its destruction triggering a massive explosion.
Drenin frowned, but remained calm.
After all, the Bio-Titan's head had already been torn off.
In the distance—
A new, bone-chilling shriek cut across the battlefield. Something sinister. Wounded. Furious.
Then space itself began to ripple.
A tiny black dot appeared in the sky—like a miniature black hole—sucking in the screeching Tyranids and their surrounding swarms.
High atop a fortress wall…
"Praise the Omnissiah. Our research was correct after all…"
Saru, Archmagos of the Urth Mechanicus, gazed at the anomaly with satisfaction.
Just moments ago—
He had unleashed a forbidden tech relic, creating a localized black hole that completely annihilated a high-priority Tyranid unit.
Proof that his research had borne fruit. His team had restored a portion of an ancient, forbidden machine—and even that fragment was enough to earn glory.
He couldn't wait.
Saru immediately uploaded the footage to the Mechanicus Forum, proudly flaunting his success.
With this post, he'd surely earn a shimmering gold badge, marking him as one of the forum's elite contributors.
Next time he got into an argument thread? He'd have proof.
Beneath his post, comments from grease-stained Tech-Priests flooded in—praise, envy, awe.
Behind Saru, his assistant adepts continued scanning the blast site, recording data on the relic's destructive force and environmental effects.
For this Baal campaign, many from the Urth Mechanicus had arrived.
As independent scholars, not soldiers. They wielded tech and bioweapons, helping the war effort on their own terms.
In short?
These Tech-Heads had come here to experiment—risking their lives in the name of progress.
Especially those from the Biotech and Weapons Institutes.
Why?
Because to them, war was the ultimate testing ground. Especially one of this scale.
Opportunities like this were priceless.
Even more—
Internal competition within the Mechanicus had grown intense. Everyone was desperate for first-hand data to get ahead.
Rumors spoke of a senior weapons professor who had brought his students to Baal—for their final projects.
Field tests. Real combat.
He even declared:
"Only war proves a weapon's worth. Lab results? I don't acknowledge them."
Many of his research projects were extremely dangerous, requiring deep-field operations.
Hence… his graduation rate was quite low.
Most students didn't survive long enough to finish their theses.
In this campaign, two more had died—sacrificed by their obsession with test results, pushing too deep into the swarm.
And yet—
The professor remained the most sought-after mentor in the Weapons Institute. Applications poured in.
All aspiring students wanted to learn under him.
There were even whispers that Archmagos Kaul himself wanted to come to Baal to test a forbidden prototype he had developed over decades.
But the Savior refused—worried Kaul might accidentally vaporize Baal itself.
He had done that sort of thing before.
Now?
Baal's battlefields were filled with active Tech-Priests—an enormous boon.
Some of them were powerful enough to rival entire legions on their own.
They livestreamed from the front, posting constant updates on Tyranid behavior and battlefield phenomena.
It was a massive boost for the Imperium's understanding of the Hive Fleets.
In truth—
Tech-Priests across the galaxy were itching to join the war. The perfect battleground, filled with data, swarms, protection, and structures galore.
After all, nothing damages terrain more than Apocalypse-tier wars.
Sadly, most were too far away—only a handful arrived in time.
Perhaps during the Savior's next grand campaign—
They could tag along.
Without doubt—
This was the most unique Apocalypse-tier war the Imperium had ever fought.
And thanks to a web of unlikely factors, humanity might actually win. Even capture or destroy Leviathan.
It could become the most inspiring victory in ten thousand years.
And yet—
Darkness lingered.
Leviathan's other tendrils still ravaged distant worlds.
The Imperium remained pessimistic about the Fourth Tyrannic War.
Terra itself dispatched several recently reactivated Custodian detachments to aid in resistance efforts.
One mission?
To convince planetary authorities to enact Exterminatus, creating massive isolation zones.
Even if it meant destroying worlds once sworn to Astartes protection.
...
The Void.
Leviathan Hive Ship – Central Chamber.
"SAVIOR!!"
The ancient insectoid Hive Mind burned with rage—
It had gone completely red-hot.
(End of Chapter)
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