Takahashi panted, ducking under the ruins as he listened to the horrified screams of his fellow soldiers being butchered. Those...extradimensional xenos - entities that he had heard some of his more superstitious platoon mates refer to as "daemons" - had set upon them, warpflames incinerating men he had served alongside for decades.
Even the vaunted Legiones Astartes were no match for them. The Space Marines of the Imperial Fists Legion, the stalwart VIIth, had marshaled in strength to defend the wall, but they had been slaughtered. The last Takahashi had seen of the yellow armored warriors was a single Breacher Sergeant, set upon all sides by the Horrors and a monstrous fiend.
Takahashi squeezed his eyes shut, trembling uncontrollably. The Imperial Fists had sallied out to meet the extradimensional entities, their boltguns firing ceaselessly. A Spartan assault tank had lumbered, its lascannons firing at the monstrous creature, only for the beams to be deflected by shimmering fields of empyric energies. It had bellowed and carved apart the Spartan with its daemonic axe, blowing it up into a colossal fireball that had incinerated Nijima.
The other squads had followed in the wake of the Imperial Fists, their volkite weapons laying down incendiary beams at the creatures. Red, hooved fiends with crude yellow swords had been incinerated, along with swarms of...diseased little creatures, burned to ash by the volkite culverins of squads 1 and 2. Takahashi's squad had also laid down a volley of las-fire with their blast chargers activated, annihilating a shrieking flock of winged creatures that rained down flickering flames upon them.
A Rhino was smashed aside, even as the Phalanx Warders within were carved apart by the red-skinned creatures and shambling, rotting humanoids that were then wiped out by the Breachers' fusillade, supported by more volkite fire from squads 1 and 2. Sergeant Sato and Sergeant Sasaki were directing their units to fire lances after lances of ruby beams, deflagrating the hooved and rotting creatures alike. The second unit of Phalanx Warders were ambushed by cavalry, similar red-skinned and horned creatures riding bullish monstrosities and slaughtering the venerable warriors. Sato and Sasaki redirected their squads' firepower, the volkite culverins humming as they blasted apart the cavalry, supplemented by a hail of burning beams from the volkite chargers.
To the side, the Marshal who led his Tartaros Terminator command squad to the front were butchered by brutes and fiends alike, while the Cataphractii Terminator squad from within the Spartan weathered their assault, wiping out the Brutes in return while also killing a cackling priest-like creature surrounded by its attendants. But even the heavily armored Space Marines could not withstand the might of the towering winged monstrosity, whose axe cleaved through their terminator armor brutally, as if the layers of ceramite and adamantium were nothing more than paper.
The Leman Russ Executioner tank, Tallarn's Woe, was destroyed by a second winged monstrosity, who set upon Sato's squad. Sasaki's squad was tied up with the stragglers of the horrifying, fleshy creatures that spat fire, before being wiped out in combat, leaving just the Breacher Sergeant.
In a matter of hours, the defensive force was annihilated. The remnants of Takahashi's squad were all that remained, cowering behind the ruined fortress walls and awaiting death while their comrades were butchered to a man.
"It's over," Takahashi whispered. For all the advanced technological weapons they had talen from the Armory of Old Night, even the Draconians were no match for these...these daemons. Never mind the mortals, the vaunted Astartes were exterminated so easily it almost seemed like they were nothing more than vermin. The two Contemptor Dreadnoughts had also been wrecked by the winged monstrosity, leaving smoking metallic hulks in the battlefield.
Holy Terra was going to fall. Takahashi could feel tears leaking from his eyes. There was talk that the Emperor's protection was fading, which was why these extradimensional xenos could manifest so close to the holy palace. The walls had fallen to the guns of Legio Mortis, and the Eternity Gate had been shut by Lord Sanguinius himself, leaving the tattered survivors of retreating units abandoned outside.
Units like his.
Takahashi gripped his lasrifle tightly and gestured to his surviving men.
"Let's go," he said. "There's not much more we can do here. Let's fall back and regroup with other units. Perhaps we can do more good elsewhere."
"Hit and run?" Harima asked. Takahashi nodded.
"Yeah. Hit and run. We've tried hitting these...these things, but it takes a lot to kill them. I suggest we pull back for now. Maybe we can salvage something."
No one argued. Nobody wanted to stay behind for a lost cause. They were aware that they were dead, that it was only a matter of time before the enemy found them and killed them.
But by the Emperor, they were going to sell their lives dearly.
Leaving the valiant Breacher sergeant to his fate, the four men of squad 3 quietly slipped away from the carnage, vowing to strike elsewhere to deal as much damage to the archtraitor Horus Lupercal's forces as they could before their threads expired.
As long as there was still breath in them, they would delay Terra's fall by even a second longer. Until the XIIIth and Ist Legion arrived to relieve the siege.
Until then, they would continue fighting to their last.
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