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After the Chaos Captain was repelled, it seemed that the resistance in this area had notably weakened as well.
This was not an illusion; he had essentially made the decision to abandon this area, thus withdrawing the backbone of his forces and leaving only a handful of expendable troops for rear-guard actions.
The demons that had occasionally surged forth were nowhere in sight, leaving only the traitor militia on the defensive, desperately trying to block the advance of the Leman Russ with automatic rifles, lasguns, or even their bare fists.
They showed no signs of retreat in the face of their dire circumstances, instead becoming even more frenzied.
However, mere madness could not stop the armored might of the Imperial forces.
They had been unable to hold back the assault before, and now, further weakened, along with the 1st Mechanized Infantry Regiment riding high on morale, the armored units surged through the enemy's last defenses like a hot knife through butter.
Soon, the leading vehicles could see the wide avenue that was their target.
This road served as the enemy's logistical artery, and cutting it off would mean that the entire offensive line would lose its supply capability. By rights, it should have been heavily fortified, but now the hastily constructed defenses were only manned by scattered resistance.
After all, those who were supposed to defend it had now become craters of pulped flesh.
Though the lasers firing from various cover seemed almost pitiable as they skimmed off the armor, the attack showed no signs of stopping or easing.
Suddenly, a piercing wail came from the distance.
Overhead, rockets screamed through the air, almost brushing the tops of buildings.
They fell in a parabolic arc, disappearing into the shelter of the structures ahead, out of sight.
However, as the convoy continued moving and was about to reach the road, they would reveal their presence in a far more intense way.
Countless rockets hit the ground, landing on the roof of the Chaos Logistics Base just a block away.
The explosions blended into a near-continuous roar, though this merely resulted from the relentless sound waves roaring past the eardrums, creating an illusion of an unending series of detonations.
The warheads laden with explosive materials eagerly collided with the makeshift structures piled together.
Were one to be within, it wouldn't be hard to feel the layered sense of explosion and heat among the many blasts, while also experiencing the artistic process of being shredded into an abstract artwork by the countless fragments flying in from various directions.
Following the explosions, aircraft soared through the sky.
Due to the rapid advance of the ground forces, the anti-air network on the Chaos side had been completely shattered. According to the preordained plans, the replenished squadrons returned to the battlefield as scheduled.
Now, even non-specialized ground support aircraft could freely prey upon the surface targets.
Although the onboard weaponry was less powerful than that of dedicated artillery, what formidable defenses could Chaos possibly erect in just a few hours? They could only dig down into whatever earth they could find.
Those hastily constructed sandbags and corpse barriers were torn apart effortlessly by the shockwaves. The improvised cover, which had been laboriously assembled, was of no use against aerial bombardments, merely serving as a background now splashed with prominent bloodstains.
Even hiding within the buildings, the ones fortunate enough to survive could not escape the follow-up assault — the aircraft flew this closely for no trivial reason.
With cockpits already opened, belts strapped down on the overlapping aerial bombs, the pilots pressed buttons to release the clasps just as they approached the logistics base.
The squadrons, which had been flying level, immediately turned skyward, aligning vertically to the ground. Countless aerial bombs dropped from their rears.
In the night, the unremarkable aerial bombs went unnoticed at first, but soon the enemies within their range had no time to care about such trivialities.
A Valkyrie could easily carry dozens of 500 kg aerial bombs.
In face of these unassuming black dots, most artillery could only be mocked as small steel needles; even the ancient Gorgon 800mm artillery's high-explosive shell, known for its ferocity, was only in the 500 kg range.
When faced with hundreds of these shells raining down, even well-constructed fortifications risked being reduced to rubble, let alone the makeshift structures that could barely withstand even the rockets!
Time and again, explosions that were far stronger and more vivid than rockets spread outwards, and even a whole street away, the convoy could feel the shockwaves rippling outward.
The area that had been occupied by a sizable base returned to its former state, clean as if nothing had ever come through.
But this was just the beginning.
Amidst the rising dark mushroom clouds, the Archeopters dove into the fireball that had ignited all combustible materials around.
After slowing to a hover with short-range thrust, over twenty Tempestus Scions leaped from the obscuring haze inside the bread-and-butter of the Archeopters.
The heavily modified Scions mounted the cyber-equine steeds underneath them, leaping directly from the cargo bay to crash into surrounding buildings, landing amidst shattered glass and dust.
The sharp metallic hooves of the steeds echoed with their hurried thuds as the burly warhorses burst into any room still showing signs of life, flamers in hand that could easily cover dozens of meters.
Aside from the few Blessed Ones, most of the enemies within the range of that newly cleared space were already dazed and unable to fight back, waking only when the searing flames wrapped around them, inducing extreme sensations of pain just before their demise.
Meanwhile, on another side of the ground, the leading armored units had just rolled past the defenses along the main avenue, arriving at the intersection.
When Zhang Ge arrived at the intersection and surveyed the remnants through the dissipating smoke, he hesitated briefly about whether to send fewer forces with the airborne strike team to conclude the engagement.
After a moment of contemplation, he ultimately made no changes to the planned strategy.
A branch separated from the roaring vehicular flow, but the main force continued to press forward after crossing the avenue — they decided to execute a flanking thrust to bisect the Chaos front line.
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