Warhammer, I really didn't intend to form a second empire!

As Bai Qi charged through the breach with overwhelming force, advancing rapidly towards the core area, artillery support on the defensive platform of that line became sluggish.

The tactical panel on Bai Qi's flagship "Wu'an" displays a 3D scan image of the front.

At the entrance to the core region of the river, the edge of the star system is dotted with numerous modified mining facilities and orbital platforms, each equipped with defensive weapons, but most of them are positioned outwards.

After all, the purpose was to defend against external invasions, and no one expected that this defensive line would be breached. Therefore, the guns here were all pointing outwards, rather than to deal with enemies who had already broken through the outer defensive line and were cutting in from the side and rear.

"Each ship formation should maintain its attack column, without dispersing or slowing down, with its target directly at the enemy's fortress core ahead."

Bai Qi issued the first order on the battlefield, and the fleet passed over the orbital platforms that were firing from the flanks in a high-speed formation.

A few frigates were hit by fire during the crossing. The Void Shields flickered a few times before stabilizing again, and none of them slowed down or broke away from the formation.

The dwarven mobile defense formations finally redeployed as Bai Qi's fleet passed the fourth orbital platform, emerging from the shadows of the asteroids on either side.

Their ships were short and square in shape, covered with thick, irregular armor plates, which was completely different from the streamlined outline of the imperial warships. However, their firepower was extremely concentrated, and the weapon array at the bow unleashed a volley of fire at Bai Qi's formation within a very short range.

Bai Qi did not order a counterattack. His fleet continued its high-speed advance, and after taking some damage from the salvo, it crossed the interception line of the dwarven mobile formation and rushed straight into the orbital range of the core area.

Bai Qi stood on the bridge, watching the gray sphere getting closer and closer, his eyes devoid of any emotion.

"Charge all ship main guns and conduct a round of saturation fire on the surface industrial area at maximum power."

His voice remained steady, but it had already sealed the fate of these stubbornly resisting dwarves.

"Then, we started the login process."

Chapter Forty: Encirclement and Reinforcements

The moment Bai Qi's fleet crossed the heavily defended lines of the dwarves, the entrance to the entire river region was completely exposed to the might of the Qin army.

The main defensive lines are already under heavy attack by the Qin army. If this breach is opened and the Qin army begins to pour in, the dwarves will be powerless to turn the tide.

Therefore, Bai Qi was certain that the dwarven resistance he was about to encounter on this planet would far exceed that of the past, and that their reinforcements would continue to pour in from the rear.

But it doesn't matter, Bai Qi is least afraid of the enemy having a large number of people.

He doesn't want to fight this war because there aren't many people around!

Outside the observation porthole of the Wu'an, the planet, whose surface was mostly covered by gray alloy, was rapidly magnifying in the field of view.

Bai Qi stood on the bridge, his gaze sweeping over the dense array of turrets and sensors on the orbital platform, his eyes devoid of any emotion.

He didn't actually enjoy killing; he just didn't feel anything for the enemy.

Even if the hatred between enemies can be eliminated after the war, it will take a long time to resolve. Moreover, there is a high possibility that a group of remnants will remain and might stab you in the back in the future.

Bai Qi disliked betrayal, so he always struck first to eliminate any potential threats.

But his behavior seemed increasingly terrifying among his brothers.

Because these kinds of people are really ruthless when they become butchers and killing gods!

Putting aside everything else, even his proud cousins ​​from other legions would involuntarily lower their heads when they saw him.

The Holy Blood Angels, who had been branded as ghouls at the beginning of the Great Expedition, seemed to have their thirst for blood calmed down when facing this marshal.

During this period, the war-loving sons who always liked to stir up trouble whenever they disliked someone would obediently follow military discipline and orders upon seeing Bai Qi's fleet arrive.

Even Xiang Ji, who had always enjoyed killing his enemies, felt a strange chill when he saw Bai Qi.

Even the usually unruly young generals, including Huo Qubing and Li Wenzhong, who were second only to Zhao Zheng and the other marshals, were as timid as quails when they saw Bai Qi.

This is actually very bad. Zhao Zheng had tried to persuade this son many times, but it was clear that it was difficult to change his mind.

Bai Qi was aware of his own problems, but this innate personality became even more obsessive after becoming an Astartes. It is very difficult to completely change a person's underlying code.

Fortunately, he just liked to do things cleanly and without leaving any loose ends, and he wasn't really a bloodthirsty person. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't have been the only one who made his brothers a little scared.

The firepower from the dwarves' orbital platforms came with tremendous speed, and the fierce shells rained down on the fleet.

The void shields of the cruisers at the forefront were weakened by almost a third in an instant.

But Bai Qi was no pushover. The Wu'an and subsequent battleships opened fire at the same time, unleashing their cannons and light spears at maximum power on the orbital platforms.

Countless light spears and cannons flashed across the sky like a meteor shower, but the dwarves on the ground watched the dazzling spectacle in the sky, which bloomed like fireworks, without appreciating it at all.

Because they knew that once this place fell, they would not be met with the Qin Dynasty's gentle treatment.

They knew what became of their compatriots who were forced to surrender and seek opportunities; now, the corpses of those Furnace People still floated in the starry sky, frozen into large lumps of ice.

Needless to say, the Ironborn, by the standards of the human empire, are abhorrent intelligence!

It goes without saying what kind of treatment humans would receive for abhorring intelligence.

The firepower of the Qin fleet is really fierce. Because of the living metal, the Qin fleet has basically never had to worry about the problem of overheating of the cannons.

The cannons were always plentiful, the light spear array was never overloaded, and torpedoes were being hurled at the dwarves' orbital platform in bulk, as if they were free.

Can you imagine what it means to install a full four electromagnetic nova cannons on a cruiser? As long as they are preheated, they will not aim at them, but will just fire in any direction they see, without caring about any additional damage.

If it were just an occasional, extravagant barrage of firepower, the dwarves could understand it, because this hard-fought battle was crucial and concerned the future course of the war.

But what puzzled the dwarves the most was why the Qin fleet had maintained such high-intensity firepower since the start of the attack!

Do you have so much kinetic energy cannon and energy reserves? Don't your cannons ever overload? Or is your national power so great that you can replace your entire fleet just to win a war?

This is what drives the dwarves crazy the most; they can't even scratch an enemy like this!

But dwarves are dwarves, stubborn mules with bad tempers. With years of experience surviving in the middle of the river and the black technology of their ancestral core, their pride and desire for revenge are exceptionally strong.

There's no way around it; races that are disunited, stingy, and have good tempers and gentle natures would have been devoured long ago in the heart of the river. Almost every race that survived was like the dwarves.

Subduing them was far too difficult, so after the war began, Zhao Zheng no longer restricted his descendants from slaughtering these dwarves who were once his fellow humans.

Aliens are just aliens; there's no need to even leave a seed. In the end, they're just a bunch of miners.

The dwarves who survived the intense artillery fire on the orbital platform attempted to launch a counterattack, but their firepower proved utterly ineffective against the overwhelming firepower of Bai Qi's fleet.

After completing the three rounds of orbital strikes, Bai Qi began to relay orders to the landing forces.

"Prepare the drop pods. Under the cover of orbit, Stormbird, Thunderhawk, Banshee and other aerial forces will provide initial cover. Deploy Odin, Thor and Golia mechs to quickly open up the land battlefield."

"Then the heavy assault team prepared to land first, ensuring that there was no interference at the ground landing point, and the subsequent armored units landed and immediately joined the battlefield."

"The preferred landing site is located on the north side of the industrial zone, less than 500 kilometers from the dwarves' main stronghold."

Bai Qi's orders were quickly relayed to the landing forces and air support.

The aircraft that had been parked in the hangar for a long time began to break away from the fleet and head towards the ground, aiming to suppress the landing area with fire and gain air superiority before the airdrop pods were dropped.

The giant drop pod crashed directly onto the planet's surface from space, its unparalleled impact tearing apart many of the dwarves' defensive fortifications.

The massive Odin and Thor mechs emerged first, unleashing terrifying firepower upon the front lines.

The Golia armors followed closely behind, using their mobility to act as guards on either side of Thor and Odin, while the aerial formations provided continuous fire support.

In less than half an hour, large areas of the landing surface had been cleared to create a vacuum zone.

Titan-level war machines are the absolute kings of ground warfare. Unless there is an orbital strike, a sequence of armed strikes capable of destroying planets, upgraded versions of Odin and Thor are the nightmare of every ground soldier.

There might be survivors under Astartes' heavy bombardment, but Odin and Thor's heavy firepower and loaded volcano cannons and electric cannons are no joke.

Even if it wasn't within the attack range, the sheer force of the shockwave was something no ordinary person could withstand.

The dust rising from the ground was indistinguishable from the ashes of the dwarves' remains.

Bai Qi did not stay on the fleet to continue commanding. The outcome of the naval battle was already clear, and taking this place was only a matter of time.

He arrived at the hangar of the Wu'an via the elevator shaft. The dedicated Stormbird had completed its final surprise inspection, and the engines were already roaring to life.

"Take this orbital platform as soon as possible and organize a defense while we wait for our reinforcements to arrive. Enemy support will arrive soon, so be careful."

Before boarding the Stormbird and heading to the ground battlefield, Bai Qi spoke to his adjutant, Meng Ao.

"Understood, Marshal."

The Stormbird quickly entered the atmosphere. Bai Qi stood by the window, looking at the defensive measures of the dwarves below the surface.

The gray alloy armor that had been covered by the Legion's full firepower had been completely melted, flowing across the ground like lava lakes. It even penetrated directly into the dwarves' underground defenses, completely blocking some entrances and exits, and burning many dwarves who were preparing to launch an attack below.

The rest of the region was also engulfed in smoke and fire, with the corpses of dwarves lying haphazardly on the ground, limbs and torsos flying everywhere, and blood and flesh scraps scattered all over the place.

Spaceships and transport planes landed one after another in the sky, while the Imperial Dragon Legion and the Fourth Legion, with their heavy armored forces, relentlessly crushed the dwarves' defenses.

The massive Odin and Thor mechs have gone completely berserk across all defensive lines.

These massive war machines, which could be produced in the arsenal with a little time, truly provided great convenience to the various legions.

Frick and his companions no longer cared about how the Primarch created these weapons of war; all they wanted was to acquire powerful weaponry on the battlefield, greatly reduce casualties, and gain immense honor.

This is the true home of the Space Marines!

Why should someone who forces them to advance under the enemy's fiercest artillery fire, yet refuses to give them even a good batch of equipment, and tries to take away even the last bit of honor after the war, be allowed to lead them?

Now the Space Marines of the four legions have all realized that following His Majesty the Qin Emperor means there will be plenty to eat!

So when Bai Qi's Stormbirds descended to the surface, the dwarves' battle lines had already been pushed back by 70%, and only some core industrial areas were still putting up a stubborn resistance.

As soon as Bai Qi stepped onto the surface, he could smell a pungent odor of gunpowder, as well as the residual heat from the bombardment by Odin and Thor's volcanic cannons and electric cannons.

Bai Qi strode across the scorched earth, with his guards following closely behind him, occasionally stepping on the remnants of the dwarves.

He actually hates these things because he has obsessive-compulsive disorder about cleanliness. He didn't have it before, but later he developed this condition for some reason.

The entire Emperor Dragon Legion has this problem to some extent, seemingly because of Zhao Zheng. But this is a minor issue and doesn't matter much, because once the sound of gunfire rings out on the battlefield, many things are subconsciously suppressed on a psychological level.

The dwarves' core industrial areas are complex, and they have built tall fortifications to protect these areas.

It must be said that these dwarves are indeed formidable militarily, as they are worthy of surviving the Golden Age. If any other legion had come here, even with the Primarch leading them, they would have had to pay a heavy price to take over the River Heart region.

Unfortunately, this time they were facing Zhao Zheng, a player who was equally well-equipped with heavy weapons and artillery, and whose weaponry was no less impressive than the Dark Star weapons of the dwarves.

Odin and Thor's mech were incredibly powerful; they directly blasted down the outer defensive walls.

The commando teams formed by the brothers and the Astartes also began raiding the industrial area.

The Imperial Dragon Legion Space Marines, clad in Xuanwu-type heavy armor, charged in wave after wave. Large numbers of SCVs were also continuously produced from the armory and then piloted directly into the fray by their "brothers."

The dwarves set up dense fortifications inside the industrial zone, using almost every factory and pipeline as a stronghold for their street fighting.

However, when the Imperial Dragon Legion and the Astartes of the Ninth Legion stormed in, their means of resistance were almost entirely ineffective.

This was not a war on the same level at all. The dwarves realized that they had overestimated themselves. Even with the help of the Ironborn and the super database of the Ancestral Core, they still could not find any effective way to stop the Qin invasion.

On the contrary, many of the Hearthborn "crucibles" have been completely destroyed. Their race was not large to begin with, and they are no longer able to create this technology.

If they don't come up with a solution, even if they miraculously win this battle, they will gradually disappear from the river's central area.

But the dwarves in this industrial zone are still resisting fiercely. There is no other reason than that anyone would fight to the death to defend their homeland against invaders, even if it means sacrificing themselves.

The Nineteenth Legion's infiltration forces have assassinated many dwarven warriors at key junctures, but this still cannot stop the Hearthblood and Ironblood from charging forward wave after wave.

But it was clear that no matter how much the dwarves struggled, they had already lost the war, because the orbital platform had fallen.

If the naval battle is lost, then this planet is doomed, and it's only a matter of time before the dwarves are completely annihilated.

Bai Qi watched as screams and the roar of heavy bombs emanated from within, intermittently accompanied by the explosions of miniature missiles. He knew that in a few hours, this place would also become a mining world of the Great Qin Dynasty.

"Marshal, the Eastern Factory has been cleared out, the remnants of the dwarves have retreated underground, and the 19th and 13th Legions are leading their troops in pursuit."

Bai Qi nodded to the communications soldier. He was standing on a high ground, a position from which he could easily observe the entire battle situation, but it was also very conspicuous and could very likely become a target for enemy anti-aircraft fire. However, the dwarves no longer had the ability to organize a counterattack.

The armored forces of the Fourth Legion and the Emperor Dragon Legion have begun to directly bombard some difficult-to-advance areas with heavy artillery, gradually eliminating the last remaining resistance forces of the dwarves.

The only obstacle that was difficult to overcome was the dwarves' weapon manufacturing workshops and armories. These places were very dangerous, but the Qin Dynasty wanted these weapons and equipment to dismantle and study them, so the armored forces had not launched heavy firepower strikes against these areas.

After all, the dwarven Dark Star weapons were indeed valuable, and those Leviathan and Colossus heavy vehicles had already been transported back to Qin.

The current armory has successfully replicated these powerful ground vehicles, especially those equipped with living metal and adamantite. On the front lines, they outperform the original Leviathan and Colossus in almost every aspect, which is what makes the dwarves so uneasy.

So, my stuff got to your place, and now I'm considered a pirate?

The raider squads and the Xuanwu heavy armor assault team alone could not break through these factories in a short time. The dwarves had gathered almost all of their people in these places, and they were fighting against the Qin Dynasty with all their might.

"Let the 19th Army Corps infiltrate these places, carry out decapitation strikes to destroy their command centers, and send some armored units to blast open the gates of those factories. After that, don't let them rush to break through. Wait until the internal infiltration mission is completed before taking unified action."

"Yes."

Bai Qi's orders were swiftly carried out, and the ensuing battle unfolded as the legions had always known.

The Nineteenth Legion's efficiency never disappointed the brothers. Within fifteen minutes, signs of dwarf riots were clearly visible inside the various factories, while only a few words came back through the communication channels: "Mission accomplished."