MTLNOVEL Chapter 24: chapter 24
Chapter 24: Dead Titan
The sudden arrival of the Ultramarines reinforcements disrupted the Word Bearers' formation. The Shadowsword tanks fired continuously, sending detected Word Bearers' vehicle units into the sky.
There has always been a military consensus that anti-vehicle weapons can be devastating against infantry when used strategically. Even a Space Marine is no more durable than a mortal auxiliary soldier when facing a heavy tank that has already locked onto its target from an advantageous distance.
The loyalists' battle cries echoed across the war-torn battlefield. The losses of the Word Bearers mounted rapidly, forcing them to adopt a defensive stance and retreat temporarily. With the Space Marines withdrawing, the morale of the mortal followers of the Word Bearers collapsed. No matter how the leading cultists encouraged or threatened them, their chants for daemonic aid grew weaker. They began to flee in all directions, only to be cut down under relentless fire. Corpses littered the battlefield, mingled with the bodies of the civilians they had slaughtered.
"Captain Sidon! I've finally waited for you!"
Captain Remus Ventanus felt a surge of relief. He had held the line long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Elsewhere, Ultramarines were regrouping, rallying, and sounding the clarion call for a counterattack.
Calth had suffered horrific losses. The Ultramarines bled, yet they endured.
The reinforcements led by Captain Sidon were a mixed force—a combination of remnants from the 8th, 3rd, and 9th Companies. At this moment, they cast aside the rigid doctrines of Legion warfare and adapted, updating the strategies of the Ultramarines through the brutal lessons of war.
The Word Bearers had sought to exterminate the Ultramarines, believing they had already inflicted too many casualties. Yet their expectations were shattered.
From deception in space to ground-based ambushes, they had thrown everything at the Ultramarines—but failed to break them. Even with their careful estimations of the XIII Legion's strength, they had still underestimated the Ultramarines.
Worse yet, though the Ultramarines were battered and bloodied, they had been driven to the brink by pain and loss. Now, fury and vengeance burned across the entire Calth system. The Ultramarines' counteroffensive was shifting the battle's momentum against the Word Bearers.
Then, to turn the tide once more, a massive Titan war machine appeared 50 kilometers southeast of the Universal Museum.
The Ultramarines' air patrols quickly detected its presence. Even in the chaos of battle, the Titan's enormous frame was unmistakable.
"A Warlord-class Titan, with two Warhound-class scout Titans escorting it!"
Ventanus shouted. That was a Titan—a god-machine, the pinnacle of war on the surface of any world.
More than that, these were not mere reconnaissance Titans like Warhounds, but true war machines. The Warlord Titan was the most common and devastating of its kind, armed with adamantium armor and six void shield generators. Its volcano cannons and triple-barreled laser blasters could scour entire armies from the battlefield.
It had the firepower to breach the void shields of the Universal Museum and annihilate the stronghold from dozens of kilometers away.
"Where are our Titans?"
No one could answer. If any of the XIII Legion's Titans had survived, they had either been marked for destruction or were already hunted down.
"We cannot allow them to advance. If those Titans join the battle, even Space Marines will be vaporized in a single blast."
Ventanus turned his gaze toward the two Shadowsword super-heavy tanks that had just arrived in support. His mind raced, calculating the odds of using them to ambush the Titans.
The chances were slim. Even if the tanks could deliver a crippling blow, they would first have to overload the Titans' void shields—and they simply didn't have enough firepower.
Inside the Universal Museum
Bucky, who was tending to the wounded alongside the Salamander Apothecary Tassa, suddenly froze. A warning from his orbiting starship rang in his mind.
[Titan-class war machine detected.]
[Immediate evacuation is advised.]
Bucky was not entirely unaware of the battlefield's status, but he had chosen to remain neutral.
When he had awoken from his ten-thousand-year slumber and witnessed what humanity had become, his perspective had already begun to shift. His ship, an ancient relic entrusted to him as a Doomsday Ark by his predecessors, was an artifact of unparalleled technological power. If he openly intervened, the enemy might unleash some forgotten weapon capable of endangering even his starship.
The Word Bearers—traitors and heretics—were repugnant. But the Ultramarines and their Imperium were little better.
This so-called Empire was a dystopia of ignorance, feudalism, and anti-intellectualism.
And yet…
Bucky had observed these Astartes firsthand. They were not mere mindless warriors bred for slaughter.
Nikonna longed to see humanity's true homeland.
The Iron Father Weyland mourned the death of his Primarch, lost in grief.
The Salamander Tassa treated the wounded tirelessly, even caring for ordinary mortals.
And Ventanus—this captain he had met only briefly—had fought relentlessly to protect the innocent.
Bucky sighed. He knew the Ultramarines could not stop these Titans.
His ship contained powerful weapons, including vacuum implosion bombs capable of generating singularities. Any one of them could obliterate the Titans completely.
But such weapons did not distinguish between friend and foe. On this battlefield, where loyalists and traitors were hopelessly entangled, an indiscriminate strike would only doom the Ultramarines.
He pondered for two seconds, then chose a more subtle approach.
---
From orbit, the Red Alert starship silently descended. Invisible to all conventional scanners, it went unnoticed by both warring factions.
A small metallic obelisk, over three meters tall, detached from the ship and descended toward the battlefield. Its surrounding field generators negated air resistance, preventing it from streaking down like a falling meteor.
The Titan's footsteps made the earth tremble. Its void shields flickered as they absorbed stray artillery fire.
As Ventanus and his forces scrambled to stop its advance, the Warlord Titan turned, its targeting arrays locking onto the sources of enemy fire. Its volcano cannon began charging, glowing like molten lava.
Then, in a blinding flash, the weapon discharged—reducing an entire ruined district into a molten wasteland.
[Kill confirmed.]
Inside the Titan's cockpit, the Word Bearers' Princeps convulsed violently.
His limbs had been amputated long ago, his body suspended in an amniotic fluid chamber, neurally linked to the god-machine.
He was the Titan. His arms were its cannons. His skin was adamantium.
And yet, in that moment, something changed.
The obelisk near the Titan released an invisible pulse.
A devastating electromagnetic surge pierced through the void shields and overloaded the Titan's systems instantly.
The machine's soul screamed in agony. The Princeps and his entire control crew died in an instant, their nervous systems fried. Sparks erupted throughout the cockpit as the mighty war machine fell still.
The Warlord Titan was dead.
Without a sound or explosion—without even a battle—one of the Imperium's most feared weapons had simply stopped moving.
"What happened? Why did the Titan stop?"
Ventanus, leading his troops toward the massive war machine, watched in shock. The Titan's auspex lights had gone dark.
Had its crew been slain by their own malfunctioning machine-spirit? Had another force infiltrated its defenses?
Ventanus didn't know. But his instincts screamed that an unseen power had intervened.
A third party was at play on Calth.
Taking a deep breath, the Ultramarines Captain shifted his strategy.
The war was not over, but for now, they had been granted a brief, unexpected reprieve.
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