Warhammer: Filial Piety Makes Power

Chapter 344 Guilliman is the MVP, Baal is just an easy winner!
The protracted war, which lasted for two and a half years, turned the entire starry sky into a graveyard, with death and numbness permeating the souls of every living being.

Each charge and counter-charge was far more intense than an apocalyptic battlefield.

In the first year of the war, both the Baal defenders and Leviathan were relatively restrained. One side did not want its homeland to be reduced to ruins, and the other side did not want the two precious samples to be lost.

But as the war intensified, both sides descended into hysterical madness. With the gradual loss of reason, the two founding mother groups pulled out their most powerful and secret weapons.

The Dark Angels' arsenal was opened one by one, and they wreaked havoc on the battlefield using the battle planet of the Great Stone Fortress. A large number of Extinction Remnants were deployed in a targeted manner, and the Blood Angels also released the blasphemous creations from the depths of the underground planet of Balmum.

Even Zarasuza, who was just there to make up the numbers, sent out his few Death Mark Archers and Wild Scorpion Lords, along with the crescent-shaped Death Scythe fighters unique to the Space Necromancers, to be sent to their deaths.

Meanwhile, the Zerg fleet also began a desperate struggle, completely abandoning cold data calculations and starting to proliferate like cancer cells in the nearby asteroid belt.

Perhaps the Hive Will's operation method was too brain-dead, and it was not as reliable as automatic attack. The Life-Shaping Queen immediately rebelled and decisively took over the command.

He also criticized the Zergling Will for being unplayable, saying it was like playing against a human, and that it would be better to just turn it on fully automatic.

Yes, you heard right. Although individual Terran individuals are more like some kind of insect-engineered intelligence and do not have true autonomous will in essence, the Hive Will as a swarm intelligence does have emotions.

Moreover, not only do they feel joy, but their feelings are even stronger than those of ordinary intelligent life. After all, the swarm is also a living organism. It feels happy when it eats something delicious and angry when it is beaten down by an enemy.

This often results in battles where the Hive's own micromanagement is less effective than those fought on full auto.

To address this drawback, the Hive Will created self-aware forward commanders, such as the Queen and even the Hive Tyrant, to serve as its external brain.

As expected, with the Queen of the Shaper taking command, the war situation changed instantly, and the small Tyranids, who were originally cannon fodder, completely disappeared.

On the contrary, the rarely seen Executioner, Cannon Bug, Licat Axe Bug, and even the degraded version of the Hive Tyrant are all the rage, and the Samurai Bug is the most cannon fodder.

The Life-Shaping Insect Queen has realized that sending low-tier units to their deaths is simply aiding the enemy. Rather than mindlessly wasting resources, it's better to improve their quality and use them to weave in and out.

As for Scourge units like Mordred, the Queen directly deployed a Zerg mothership to conduct targeted orbital bombardment against them.

Don't think that sending only one Zergling is a sign of disrespect towards Mordred. On the contrary, the Zergling mothership is not much smaller than the Glorious Queen-class battleship.

This mothership had undergone special modifications; its blazing plasma bio-plasma never stopped blasting Mordred, and anyone that showed its head would be blown in two on the spot.

This tactic solved Mordred's problem—a gluttonous and incompetent unit that could eat even more than the Zerg Swarm—forcing Mordred to abandon his map-clearing abilities and reduce him from a mindless turret to a hero unit constantly putting out fires.

But this leads to another problem: even if they are covered by artillery fire, once they reach the ground battlefield, no matter how many insects are planted, they will be killed by humans who appear out of nowhere.

The monastery, which was originally an outpost fortress, was destroyed, and all 13 regional defense lines fell. The entire city of Baal was completely reduced to ruins, and the capital was split in two. However, these ruins provided the human defenders with more hiding places.

Only if the Life-Shaping Insect Queen is an insect, otherwise she would definitely be cursing why the stone is moving.

Neither side could defeat the other, and there were even abstract operations where both sides exchanged bases and then pushed back again.

By the second year of the war, Baal's orbital fortress was completely destroyed.

Having completely gained air superiority, the Zerg fleet thought it was invincible again and immediately launched a reckless attack. Then, the ruthless Zhuang Sen detonated a Cyclone torpedo in the atmosphere of Baal.

After the Cyclone Torpedo exploded, it dropped four virus bombs, turning everything except the Nest City area into a death zone.

This devastating explosion depleted the Zerg swarm's biomass, completely erasing their previous advantage. The human alliance also fared poorly, barely clinging to life. Before the war, the two warbands combined numbered approximately 3; by now, only slightly more than 1 remained. Mortal support troops were dying in droves. In the end, the Baal, originally a population of 40 billion, was reduced to less than 12 billion, mostly the elderly, women, and children, huddled in the ruins of their half-destroyed hive.

Even so, the defense forces did not admit defeat, because the Tyranids were also on their last legs, and they still had a complete industrial base and two Primarchs. As long as they continued to wear down the swarm, the main fleet of the chapter could break through the swarm's defenses.

The main fleet, on which high hopes were placed, lived up to expectations. After two and a half years of back-and-forth fighting, it finally tore through the Zerg hive fleet's defenses and broke through the Tyranid signal blockade, making contact with the Baal garrison.

With increasingly clear and frequent signal transmissions, the morale of the Baal defenders soared. Everyone knew that the Battle of Baal was about to end and it was time to launch a counter-offensive.

The two Primarchs took the lead, guiding all the Astartes into the death zone filled with excessive radiation and deadly gas to hunt down the insect swarms, and then fought their way to the orbital starport platform.

Then the Ultra Warriors arrived.

The arrival of these Ultramarines, clad in brand-new armor and armed with ample firepower, was so sudden that no one had time to react. The Ultramarines, with their unparalleled numbers, overwhelmed the nearly dead Zerg fleet and relentlessly pursued the remaining survivors.

With the Primarch's superhuman vision, Mordred saw the massive fleet spanning the entire Baal orbit, and the blue Thunderhawks with toilet seat markings descending from the sky.

There is no doubt that the Baal crisis has been resolved, but Mordred is not happy at all. Moreover, not only Mordred, but almost all the garrison troops are numb, and an extremely absurd emotion is generated in everyone's mind.

Who am I? Where am I? What are we supposed to do? Why did reinforcements suddenly arrive? And why were they Ultra Warriors? Why didn't they come sooner? Why now of all times?

In a broken trench filled with debris, corpses, and some unknown junk, Mordred slumped to the ground, with Zhuang Sen sitting next to him.

Mordred was alright, since he wasn't wearing armor. His previous outfit had long been burned to ashes, and even his clothes were made of simulated flesh and blood tissue. He was practically running around naked, so you couldn't tell how badly he was hurt.

The Lion King, on the other hand, was in a much worse state. His armor was tattered and worn, with pieces missing here and there, dents everywhere, and patched up one after another. His cloak had two holes burned in it, and his longsword had a chipped edge. The only thing he could show for himself was the shield that the Emperor had given him.

It was covered in filth, its hair and beard were stuck together in a clump, and it was a black, messy, greenish mess that was hard to identify. In short, it lay sprawled on the ground like a disheveled, fat cat.

Two and a half years of continuous high-intensity warfare would be unbearable even for Space Marines. As for Johnson, he was even more unlucky. Not only was he a commander, but he also had to put out fires everywhere. He hasn't closed his eyes yet.

"Second brother, do you have a cigarette?"

"No, but I have two mushrooms here, do you want them?"

As two plumes of smoke rose, the two Primarchs, the demigods of the human Empire, simply lay back against the muddy, filthy trench.

No one spoke, but they all had something on their minds.

Zhuang Sen casually tossed aside the mushroom stalk in his hand and looked at Mordred, who in turn looked at him. Their eyes met, and Mordred finally spoke:

“I can smell Guilliman, and I reckon he must be very excited right now.”

"Yes, after all, it was such a great victory. I would be excited too, so?"

"Help me hold his legs down in a bit!"

"Okay, but let me hit his left cheek."

"can!"

(End of this chapter)