He took a deep breath, his voice dropping to a near-whisper, yet sounding all the more terrifying:
"That Intelligence Officer and his subordinates—regardless of whether they are dead or have turned traitor—find their families. Parents, spouses, children. Send them all to the Aru Group Biology Division. Tell them this batch of 'voluntary experimental subjects' can be used for any high-risk project."
"Y-yes, sir..."
The operator recorded the order, his face deathly pale.
"As for the current situation."
The bald Director looked at the increasingly unfavorable battle report on the screen, emphasizing every word:
"Order the Aru Group Defense Division to immediately deploy Guard Battalions One through Ten. Full heavy equipment loadout."
"I want to see at least fifteen Leman Russ battle tanks, five Hellhound flame tanks, twenty Sentinel walkers, and every operational armored personnel carrier we have."
"Also, notify the Consortium's Psyker Detachment. Draft thirty combat Psykers to accompany them."
He paused, then added:
"Tell Commander Kaspar that I don't care about casualty numbers, and I don't care about ammunition expenditure. Within five standard hours, I want to see control restored to every factory sector in the Redblaze Wasteland. I want to see the head of every rebel mounted on spear tips, arranged in the shape of the Imperial Aquila."
"And if he fails to do so..."
The bald Director smiled. The smile made the temperature in the entire command center plummet ten degrees.
"Tell him to stuff and mount himself right alongside them."
The orders were relayed within thirty seconds.
Around Aru City, piercing alarms blared simultaneously across six military bases.
Garage doors roared open, and heavy tracks crushed the concrete floors.
Leman Russ battle tanks, painted in the Aru Group's deep blue and silver-gray livery, slowly rotated their turrets. Their main cannons gleamed coldly in the morning light.
The larger Hellhound flame tanks produced engine roars so violent the ground trembled.
Drivers of the bipedal Sentinel walkers—equipped with heavy bolters or lascannons—were running final system diagnostics.
Further away, on the mustering grounds, eight thousand fully armed soldiers formed neat formations. The flak armor they wore was no longer the crude gear used by the factory overseers, but proper military-grade equipment with ceramite trauma plates, the Aru Aquila stamped on their shoulder guards.
Standing quietly to the side of the formation were thirty figures draped in dark purple robes with hoods obscuring their faces. The air around them warped slightly, and light refracted into abnormal colors—the energy field subconsciously emitted by Psykers.
"For the Consortium! For order on Aurelian IV!"
Standing atop his command vehicle, the Commander bellowed his pre-battle roar through a megaphone.
"Crush the rebels! Leave no one alive! Move out!"
A river of steel began rolling toward the Redblaze Wasteland.
–
Inside Refinery No. 3.
The central cooling tower was a pile of rubble. Refinery Furnace No. 2 was half-blown apart. The raw material warehouse, once piled high with mountains of ore and semi-finished products, had been swept entirely clean.
[Fugitive Cogboy of the Mechanicus] stared at the final number popping up on his terminal, his breathing hitching for a second.
[Total Recycled Value: 1,587,600 Imperial Coins]
"Brothers..."
His voice trembled with a rare emotion in the regional channel. "We... we robbed 1.58 million."
There were no cheers in the channel.
Everyone was panting heavily, staring at the skyrocketing numbers in their own accounts.
Zeke and the squad leaders had distributed the Imperial Coins based on contribution. The average payout per person came to 319 Imperial Coins.
Some got more—like the demolition and tech squads—while some got slightly less, such as those on guard duty. But even the lowest payout was over 280 coins.
This was a massive sum of wealth.
A sum large enough to instantly transform five thousand miners into an elite light infantry company.
"That's enough..."
Looking at the 400+ coins in his account, Zeke grinned. "We've broken even."
Right at that moment, deafening explosions echoed from the direction of the factory entrance, followed instantly by tidal waves of battle cries and even denser gunfire.
"The rebels have breached the gates!"
[Did the White Scars Speed Today?] peeked over a pile of rubble and immediately ducked back down. "There's a ton of them! Looks like several thousand!"
One faction, wearing mismatched armor and wielding various modified firearms, charged at the still-resisting overseers and guards. Though fanatical, they seemed relatively normal.
But the other faction alongside them...
"Emperor Above..."
Schrödinger Bro lay behind cover, observing through the scope of his lasgun, his voice dry. "Those guys... aren't right."
On the east side of the factory, horrific mutations had overtaken roughly six to seven hundred of the rebels.
Their muscles bulged unnaturally, tearing and warping their armor. Their skin had turned dark red, and their eyes burned with pure, unadulterated bloodlust.
They no longer used firearms. Instead, they swung massive axes and machetes—some even ripping heavy stubbers off their mounts to use as clubs—and crashed into the overseer ranks with inconceivable speed and strength.
Severed limbs flew and blood rained down wherever they passed.
Furthermore, under the influence of some eerie power, the corpses of those they slaughtered soon began to twitch and stand back up, joining their ranks. Though their movements were stiff, they remained deadly.
"Khorne..." Zeke murmured. "That second wave is Khornate cultists."
"So Rayne's side is Tzeentch, and this side is Khorne..."
Tax Bro scratched his helmet. "Aren't they going to fight each other?"
"The four Chaos Gods are mortal enemies, but when facing a common foe—like the forces of Order—they occasionally cooperate," [Fugitive Cogboy of the Mechanicus] explained quickly. "Although this cooperation usually involves backstabbing and scheming, on the surface at least, they will prioritize wiping out the non-Chaos forces first."
As if to prove his point, on the other side of the factory zone toward Rayne's warehouse, the spatial rift had expanded wide enough for something to pass through.
The first to pour out was a massive swarm of chittering, bird-beaked, blue-scaled lesser daemons—Blue Horrors of Tzeentch.
They swarmed the battlefield like locusts. Instead of brute force, they used claws to shred armor, screeches to shatter minds, or simply spat out miniature spells that warped reality.
Immediately following them, a massive claw covered in feathers and eyes reached out from the rift.
An indescribably colossal silhouette slowly squeezed its way through.
It possessed three heads: one calculating madly, one screeching with laughter, and one deep in slumber.
Nine arms wielded a codex, a scepter, a dagger, an hourglass, a quill, and a mirror reflecting infinite possibilities. Its lower half consisted of writhing tentacles and pus that dripped with arcane knowledge.
While it couldn't compare to a true Greater Daemon, this was absolutely one of the more troublesome Tzeentchian Daemons—a Lord of Change's lesser kin, a Herald of Tzeentch.
"Mother of God..."
[Soul of Cadia]'s jaw dropped. "A boss actually spawned..."
"More than one."
Zeke pointed toward the Khornate cultists.
Sure enough, amidst the Khornate Berzerkers who had slaughtered enough lives, the ground suddenly cracked open, and boiling blood spewed out.
Crawling from the gore was a four-meter-tall, muscle-bound monstrosity with giant horns, wielding a massive axe forged of flesh and bone—a Bloodletter, a lesser daemon of Khorne.
Yet on this battlefield, it was an absolute slaughtering machine.
Tzeentchian daemons, Khornate daemons, rebels, Khorne Berzerkers, and the still-resisting overseers and guards...
The entirety of Refinery No. 3 had completely devolved into a meat grinder of Chaos infighting, mortal slaughter, and daemonic rampages.
"Ah, the classic Great Warhammer Stew."
"Zeke, what are we..." [Did the White Scars Speed Today?] swallowed hard. "What do we do now? Fall back?"
All the players looked at Zeke.
They had money in their pockets now—over 300 coins each. They could afford to die and respawn over sixty times.
Zeke looked at the utterly chaotic battlefield, then at the Imperial Coins in his account.
"Fall back? Fall back where?"