Chapter 150: The Loyal Ka'Bandha Has Completed His Mission (Patreon)

This time the swarm had gone straight for a war of attrition — mass warfare, no less. That was genuinely surprising news.

Heydrich had no idea what had provoked them into fighting him to the death, but since it was already happening, something had to be done.

He even suspected their main target might be his War Engine itself — that they meant to destroy it through a Boarding Action.

After all, the thing was nearly the size of an Emperor Titan. With that much aerial strength in the swarm, they could hardly have missed it.

So...

"I'm planning to deploy two War Forges when the time comes — you and I can each take one and hold it ourselves. Otherwise, if we let those things run loose, the losses will be too heavy."

Heydrich had decided to change his plan: put out two decoys. Give the Tyranids a target — otherwise, if the swarm launched a full assault, the mortals' defensive line would never hold.

It would be punched through in no time, and their Space Marine numbers weren't exactly high to begin with. Azrael hadn't called up a large host of Dark Angels this time — just a few hundred men. The Blood Angels had brought a fair number, over thirty thousand. As for the Ultramarines, all that was here was the hundred-odd men of Titus's Tyranid War Veteran Company.

Heydrich, needing to guard his own homeland, had brought only a little over six thousand troops — hardly enough even to help the mortals hold the line, let alone anything more.

So it was better, for now, to give the swarm a few precise targets to charge at, while organizing a second wave of Imperial fanatics to convert into Voidrangers.

It wouldn't match the mass detonations of the early days, but trading a few Voidrangers for even a single Tyranid Warrior was still a profitable exchange.

After all, the Tyranid Warrior was a Space Marine-tier unit, and a minor synapse creature in its own right.

Each one cost the swarm an absurd amount to produce, and biomass recovery was hardly efficient. Normally, a single Tyranid Warrior leading a pack of Hormagaunts and Termagants could quietly kill a Space Marine.

And compared to the Tyranids' elite units, Imperial lives really weren't worth much.

Either way, if Heydrich and the others couldn't hold the line, these people were going to die regardless. Given that, it was a profit no matter how you looked at it — especially since these converts had such a terrifying self-destructive streak.

They could even run the meter backwards, so to speak, spawning more troops the more they burned through the power of the Path of Destruction.

If Heydrich really let loose and converted more than half the planet's population into Voidrangers, the swarm might as well give up fighting.

But Heydrich figured he'd have to be out of his mind to actually do that. It simply wasn't necessary.

"How expensive is it to build your War Forges? If it's not too costly, bring all of them out as bait."

The Lion mulled it over for a moment. The swarm would surely charge straight at the War Forges. Bringing all of them out meant forcing the swarm into an all-out assault on this position — and a decisive battle wasn't a bad thing at all.

Besides, he could build his defensive positions around them as an anchor.

"These things are much cheaper than Titans. No problem."

Heydrich wasn't worried about it. Most creations of the Path were fairly cheap — or rather, the material cost was modest, though they did draw on the power of the Path.

So War Forges weren't expensive to produce this way; Heydrich could crank one out in just a few days.

That sunk cost was nothing compared to the expected payoff, and it meant they could force the swarm to fight for its life.

"There's no point reinforcing Ka'Bandha now, and the original defensive line we planned won't work anymore either. I need to redraw the front. Do you need my help?"

Hearing that, the Lion felt his energy return.

If it was going to be a positional battle, then they could set up their own defenses properly. Since the area they needed to defend wasn't very large this time, the Lion planned to bring in a whole stack of void shields — enough to shut down the ranged attacks of a huge number of Tyranids, Hierophant Bio-Titans included.

There wasn't much time, but it was still enough for him to accomplish a great deal, especially given the current situation.

"Of course not. Now, kid, let's see you perform."

Heydrich shook his head at that, then walked over to his Palace Guard and clapped him on the shoulder.

This was the Iron Warrior who'd been promoted into the Palace Guard, and right now he was seething with pent-up fire. Mainly because Heydrich had arrived too late, giving him no chance to prove himself.

Now he finally had his chance to shine — his unshakable resolve and unmatched skill would finally have room to prove themselves. And more precious still was his master's approval, watched with envy by his three brothers, especially Kumir, their Marshal.

Pure bliss...

"I will stand with this position to the death!!!"

As the top graduate of Heydrich's military academy's fortress-defense program, tempered further by his experience across countless battlefields—

his experience ran deep. Now, at last, he could lay his talents before his master's eyes. Just thinking about it made steam practically pour from his nostrils.

Of course, none of that showed through his helmet, but to be personally clapped on the shoulder and encouraged by his master — did the Custodes get treatment like that?!

"No wonder they're Victoria's Secret handpicked white-feathers — every one of them's basically a nuclear-powered mule."

Watching his Palace Guard stride off with tigerish energy, Heydrich's eye twitched. His reason for choosing Kumir, the Ultramarine, as the Marshal of his Palace Guard was simple: he needed a workhorse to handle his paperwork.

Pearl handled the bulk of his administrative affairs, sure, but plenty still landed on his own desk. That's why he needed a paperwork workhorse — and that's why he'd chosen Kumir.

You'd think the Marshal of the Palace Guard would be some glorious figure, striding at his lord's side with an imperial sword of authority — but in reality, the job was just processing paperwork.

Heydrich's reasoning for choosing these particular men was simple: each was a workhorse who saved him effort in some specific area.

Take defensive fortifications, for instance — left entirely to his own devices, this one wouldn't manage a flawless job. But he was one of Heydrich's own star pupils, and for positional warfare specifically, Heydrich had arranged mentors from the Silver Skulls, the Shield of Ultramar.

Everyone said the Silver Skulls' Colonel was Trazyn, but in truth this Chapter had always been stationed in Ultramar.

It had been founded during the Second Founding, and its gene-seed likely traced back to the loyalist Iron Warriors once exiled by Perturabo — the very group led by Dantioch. So having them explain positional tactics posed no real problem.

After all, while the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar still had a handful of Imperial Fists, there were far too few to matter. If Heydrich wanted instructors, the Silver Skulls were his only real option. And as the best of the graduates, they were exactly who Heydrich meant to develop further.

So over the past ten years, he'd sent them off to be tempered on all manner of complex battlefields. Even the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, distant from the Great Rift and thus something close to paradise on Imperial standards, still saw constant fighting.

Especially after Abaddon the Despoiler made his big mess at Macragge. He'd pulled back himself in the end, but he'd still weakened the shield over the entire Ultramar sector, and several worlds caught in the fallout saw outbreaks of Chaos, small but not negligible.

Of course, these outbreaks were quickly put down. Take, for instance, a few dim-witted troops from Heydrich's own forces who stumbled straight into a Slaanesh sacrificial party — the group of them ended up wiping out an entire Slaanesh cult. It counted, in its own way, as... a suppression of rebellion.

With these nuclear-powered workhorses on hand, Heydrich no longer had to worry about fortifications. Everyone had their specialty, after all, and compared to defense, he much preferred Boarding Actions — landing right on your face.

...

Meanwhile, across the hive-cities of the Netherworld, as Heydrich and the Lion urgently reworked their strategy—

the Astra Militarum and Planetary Defense Force troops, who had been bleeding it out against the swarm for over a week, began gradually pulling back from the front line. They weren't without orders, of course.

Their task was to tighten the line and increase fire density, making sure the front wouldn't collapse in an instant. All non-military personnel across the entire Netherworld Star were also being gathered up at this time — this war wasn't going to last much longer.

So this kind of large-scale mustering was something they just had to endure for a while. Either way, Heydrich had no intention of handing the swarm even a scrap of biomass.

Only...

"Colonel, look how new their gear is..."

Just then, the Astra Militarum and Planetary Defense troops who'd pulled back from the front line found themselves somewhat startled — a well-equipped force they'd never seen before had apparently arrived on the Netherworld without anyone noticing.

Their numbers weren't huge — about five hundred thousand in all — but their gear was so lavish that even the Cadians, who sat at the top of the Imperium's supply priority list, would have called it extravagant. Every single one of them gleamed.

Clearly these were newly arrived troops — because Heydrich had brought in his own army.

What lay ahead was more pressure than an ordinary Astra Militarum unit could handle, and these five hundred thousand of Heydrich's were nothing like cannon fodder.

Backed by the powerful education system he'd built over the years, any one of them could be dropped into most Astra Militarum units and instantly serve as a fine squad or even platoon leader.

Their personal quality was top-tier, practically rivaling the Imperium's true mortal ace troops, the Scions. Mind you, even the Scions were the washouts of the Scion academies — but a washout by Scion standards still fell short of what it took to be a commissar.

They were like the underachievers of a top-tier university — being an underachiever was only relative. That is, unless you counted the ones who cut loose entirely after enrolling and stopped studying altogether.

The personnel standard was benchmarked against the Scions, sure, but for equipment, Heydrich went with the standard of the Solar Auxilia. Add in the fact that their daily training was conducted alongside Space Marines, and it made sense that Heydrich would deploy his true loyalists on a battlefield like this one.

After all, the tavern door's transport capacity was too limited, and with the shape of the war still uncertain, Heydrich hadn't wanted to move his core forces prematurely.

But now that the swarm was fighting him to the death, there was nothing left to discuss. He wasn't some bald-headed 'ally' who sat frozen while his comrades bled.

Of course, if these men suffered heavy losses, Heydrich would ache over it enough to shudder.

After all, his own army was in a different category entirely from the Imperium's cannon-fodder Astra Militarum. If he'd been willing to sacrifice quality for sheer quantity, he could have added a zero to that number. The reason he hadn't was simple: there was simply no need.

First, without a Star Rail, relying solely on the Warp for transport was limited. Second, on genuine Imperial battlefields, the Imperium was never short of troops to fill the line — what it lacked were spearhead units capable of kicking down the enemy's door.

Solar Auxilia gear certainly wasn't cheap — though it still couldn't compare to the 'tin cans,' of course.

"They must be that Dragon Emperor's troops. Did you notice — every single one of them has a dragon insignia on top of the Imperial aquila."

The colonel who'd once seen Heydrich transform into his draconic form to pull the main force free from the swarm said this to the man beside him. Having witnessed Heydrich's dragon-shape with his own eyes, he recognized the sign at a glance.

Of course, so far these lower and mid-ranking soldiers only knew that Heydrich had arrived — they had no idea the Lion was the one truly in command.

"If only I had gear like that..."

Not a few of them felt a stab of envy, though that was as far as it went. After all, under Heydrich's command, the better your gear, the more dangerous your posting. These new troops hadn't stayed with the regular line at all — they'd gone straight to reinforce the positions held by the Space Marines. Everyone knew exactly what that meant.

That wasn't a privilege. It was a near-certain death sentence.

Meanwhile...

"This is all the mortal troops I've got. If you dare use them all up, I'll wipe you out myself."

Heydrich looked across at the Lion. With fewer than forty thousand Space Marines between them, it was plainly not enough. So Heydrich had brought in his own aces — or rather, once he'd realized just how frenzied the swarm was becoming, he'd rushed to move troops through the tavern's door.

Rushing as fast as he could, he'd finally gotten them moved. He split the force into three: two hundred thousand each to the positions he and the Lion were holding, with the remaining hundred thousand kept in reserve — ready to reinforce whichever side buckled first.

Given the Lion's history of reckless choices causing needless casualties back in the Great Crusade, Heydrich figured now was as good a time as any for a pointed reminder.

These were the real foundation of everything he'd built. Beyond the regular troops, that five hundred thousand included some Pathstriders — and even by Heydrich's own standards, every single Pathstrider was precious beyond measure.

"This is the Solar Auxilia. I can't believe you actually kept this formation alive. Don't worry — as long as I'm breathing, I'll do everything I can to keep their ranks intact."

The Lion's eyes lit up at the sight of Heydrich's army — he knew a force like this all too well. And somehow, he couldn't shake the feeling that these soldiers, in both equipment and raw quality, surpassed even ordinary Solar Auxilia — rivaling the elite of the elite.

"Good. Manpower shouldn't be a problem this time. The rest depends on how the Tyranid swarm plays it out... Hm. Ka'Bandha's finished."

Just then, with one final roar of fury, Ka'Bandha was finally buried under the sheer weight of the swarm.

Loyal Ka'Bandha!!!