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

At this moment, the Imperial Dragon Legion and the Ninth Legion once again showed their fangs, with heavy bombs and micro missiles bombarding the area surrounding the factory. This time, they no longer felt the fierce resistance.

The molten weapons burned the fleeing dwarves alive, turning them into ashes. Some of the Ninth Legion's Astartes, caught up in the frenzy, even began picking up and gnawing on the mangled corpses of the dwarves.

The members of the Imperial Dragon Legion wanted to say something, but the words stuck in their throats. The Ninth Legion's genetic defects were too great; even after Saint Gilles' return, their thirst for blood remained severe.

Given that they were all on the same side, the Imperial Dragon Legion really couldn't say anything about this phenomenon.

The battle on this planet ended quickly. Even though the defenses here were indeed strong, Bai Qi still ended the war in three days. There was no other way; on the main battlefield, heavy firepower reigned supreme; and in urban warfare and skirmishes, heavy firepower was king of kings.

Before the dwarves' reinforcements arrived, the place had already fallen. However, Bai Qi and the various fleets had already suppressed the news at this moment. The last message sent to the dwarves was: under heavy enemy fire, requesting reinforcements.

This is Bai Qi's strategy. Simply opening up the situation is not enough. It is more effective to kill more of the enemy's manpower. Kill them until they have no one left to use. At that time, no matter how strong their technology or how amazing their command ability is, it will be of no use.

"Send orders to all fleets to conceal their forces and to begin constructing arsenals and shipyards on the surface as soon as possible. We need enough fleets and weapons to snipe the enemy reinforcements."

"Yes, Marshal."

"Brother, I'm leaving this place to you. Let's go."

Han Xin's voice came through Bai Qi's communication channel. He didn't say much, nor did he leave any information about the fleet. They all trusted their brother.

"rest assured."

Bai Qi replied casually, but it reassured Han Xin and the others that the dwarves who came to their aid were probably in for a bad time.

The outcome of this war in the river region is already largely decided. The Qin front is steadily advancing, and once they break through this breach, the other dwarven defenses will soon collapse.

Not to mention that the Qin Dynasty had a steady stream of logistical and fire support from the rear, allowing every soldier on the front lines to charge forward without any worries.

The dwarves remained stubborn, but this could no longer conceal their inevitable defeat.

Chapter 41 Now you want to run away? Too late!

After capturing this defensive planet, which the dwarves called Kasok, the breach in the River Heart region was opened.

The marshals launched a fierce attack on the main battlefield, giving the dwarves no time to rest.

With their ferocious firepower and fearless boarding and assault tactics, the dwarves truly considered themselves a resilient and powerful race, and that was indeed the case.

But they discovered that, not to mention them, even the Ironborn had no chance against these Space Marines. Dark Star weapons were no match for their green-glowing power weapons.

The defenses were already under siege; no defense could withstand the relentless firepower of more than five hundred capital ships, plus at least three thousand escort ships and cruisers.

Not to mention that the Qin Dynasty possessed at least twenty such fleets.

They really couldn't win. Dwarves are generally stubborn, vengeful, and petty, but they were truly helpless in the face of the Qin army's might.

Even though the dwarves had tried their best and fought bravely against the Qin army and the other four legions, their defeat was inevitable.

The reinforcements to rescue Kasok arrived quickly, but unfortunately, they faced not the Qin army, which was locked in a fierce battle, but the Bai Qi fleet, which had been lying in wait for a long time.

Their routes had long been thoroughly investigated by Bai Qi's reconnaissance troops, who had also deployed numerous reconnaissance devices along these routes. The location of the dwarf rescue fleet was completely exposed to the Qin Dynasty's divination instruments.

When the first wave of dwarven fleet reinforcements arrived, they did not see the Qin fleet launching a fierce attack on Kasok, but rather a "meteor shower" composed of macro cannons, torpedoes, light spears, and nova cannons.

In just the first round of attacks, the dwarven support fleet was caught completely off guard and took almost all the artillery fire. Without any defensive measures, it lost more than 30% of its fleet.

The remaining forces quickly reacted and began to retreat, but unfortunately they were caught up by Li Xin and other generals. The dwarf fleet was either blown up or smashed to pieces by the huge adamantite and living metal prows.

Of course, the dwarves weren't stupid; the rescue fleet arrived in three batches.

The second support fleet attempted to outflank the Qin fleet from the other side, but clearly, this tactic was too rudimentary.

Although the entire Warhammer universe operates on this style of combat, lacking any high-tech elements, this very approach allows Bai Qi and others to fully utilize their command abilities.

The dwarves' warfare tactics were far too rudimentary. Bai Qi simply ambushed a fleet, and it was enough to catch the reinforcement fleet off guard.

With just a few rounds of high-intensity shipborne fire, the supporting fleet was decimated and forced to flee in disarray.

The third fleet was the most ferocious and the largest.

Nearly four hundred capital ships charged forward, unleashing their full firepower without holding back. From the moment they appeared, they went all out to try and create a breach in the Qin-blocked shipping lanes, intending to compensate for their numerical disadvantage with sheer numbers.

Unfortunately, they didn't know that Bai Qi's favorite type of fool was those who stupidly charged into his defenses, especially such a large group of fools.

Shortly after entering the perimeter of the orbital defense platform, the defenses and preparations that Bai Qi had long ago laid out immediately came in handy.

The defensive platforms atop those fortified asteroids and orbital platforms directly aimed their cannons at them.

Those firepower platforms, modified by the Qin engineering team, became deadly traps for these dwarves.

After all, no one could have imagined how the Qin Dynasty could solve such a huge project in such a short time and use these defense platforms so easily.

So as soon as they got close, the dwarf commander sensed something was wrong: why weren't these defensive platforms defending against the Qin fleet?

But they soon understood why.

Their charging formations were like sitting ducks in front of the defensive platforms' artillery arrays, not only completely defenseless but also utterly unprepared for these platforms.

Who would have thought that "one of our own" would betray us?

This isn't actually their fault, because the dwarves were outmaneuvered by the information gap, which is fatal on any battlefield.

Ultimately, one of their support fleets was completely annihilated, while the other two fleets escaped in panic with only a few remnants remaining.

At this point, the dwarves had exhausted their fleet, which they could mobilize on a large scale in their own core area.

Their outer defenses in the core region of the river will be vulnerable for some time to come, and the various legions under the Qin Dynasty will quickly take advantage of this window of opportunity to extend their advance lines forward by several star systems.

Han Xin judged that before the Wotan Alliance could reorganize the next wave of organized reinforcement fleets, they would have at least a month to fully advance towards the core of the Wotan Alliance in the deepest part of the river.

At this moment, the marshals also began to dispatch their fleets to penetrate directly into the breach opened by Bai Qi.

The dwarven strongholds that were still resisting along the way were cleared one by one, the defensive platforms were dismantled layer by layer, and the depth of the river center area was being compressed at a steady pace.

The Qin fleet swept through the river region with unstoppable momentum, ruthlessly crushing the aliens and dwarves along the way without any mercy. They were either sent to mines as slaves or chopped into mincemeat and sent back to the agricultural planets in the rear as fertilizer.

The Qin Dynasty's approach was actually quite merciful. In accordance with the practices of empires with unstable logistics, these aliens and dwarves would be killed in the morning, enter the factory in the afternoon, and turn into pieces of corpse starch by evening, which would be delivered to the auxiliary army and onto the Astartes' nutrient tables.

The Qin army advanced rapidly into the heart of the river region.

Those dwarven defensive planets that once took weeks to conquer saw a significant drop in resistance after the Wotan Alliance's lines were flattened and their populations depleted.

The destruction of the front lines not only took away most of the dwarves' mobilizable armed forces, but more importantly, it also severed the communication relay network between the Wotan Alliance and the outer defensive ring.

Commanders of various fleets and defense lines were left to fight independently after losing central command, resulting in a sharp decline in coordination efficiency.

After realizing this, Han Xin decisively reached a consensus with the other marshals and adjusted the tactical rhythm.

Instead of launching a full-scale breakthrough, they specifically targeted areas with relatively weak defenses and began a coordinated attack, gradually forcing the dwarves to retreat and exhausting their forces.

This piecemeal approach has made the dwarves' already scarce military strength even more limited. There are now more Ironborn than Hearthborn, and if this continues, the dwarves will eventually be wiped out.

The Wotan Alliance would not allow this to happen, so they made a decision.

Instead of surrendering, they tightened their external defenses to the worlds containing the ancestral cores and began concentrated defenses in those areas.

The Wotan Alliance's strategy of contraction was seen by the marshals as nothing more than a desperate last stand.

Doing this now would be tantamount to risking one's life to stop the Qin Dynasty. It is likely that they thought that even if they died, they would never let their ancestral core fall into the hands of the Qin Dynasty.

The ancestral core is indeed a being they revere as a god, but even at this point, they would never allow their god to be "tainted" by these outsiders.

The dwarves' defensive strategy made Qin's offensive in the river center increasingly smooth, but some aliens were indeed quite capable, and now part of their fleet was also tied up in the river center.

Fortunately, Qin's logistics were not a problem. Otherwise, given Qin's current size and the fact that it is a newly established empire, and considering the vast area of ​​the river region, the sheer size of the logistics routes alone would have turned this war into a massive war of attrition.

This is all due to the current strength of the Qin Dynasty. The Astartes in the rear are constantly filling the current gaps, and when the battle lines advance and encounter the dwarves with powerful firepower, they can directly bombard them back with heavy firepower.

Otherwise, this war would have almost quickly brought down the nascent Qin Empire.

In fact, the logistics of the Qin Dynasty are already at full capacity.

The region in the middle of the river is not small. This star field, which stretches along the inner edge of the Milky Way's spiral arm, spans more than a thousand star sectors and at least hundreds of thousands of star systems on military maps.

After several years of high-intensity advances, the Qin Empire's expeditionary fleet has stretched its battle line into an arc spanning thousands of light-years, and the pressure on logistical supplies is becoming apparent from all directions.

While reviewing the monthly logistics assessment report submitted by Kongming on the bridge of the Lishan, Zhao Zheng noticed changes in several key figures.

The Imperial supply depots are operating stably, but the Qin Dynasty's own supply chain has seen a slight slowdown in response time over the past three weeks. This is mainly due to the extended turnaround time for transport fleets on long-distance routes, with the storage capacity of some transit points nearing its limit.

He didn't say anything, but simply put the report aside and pulled up a map showing the troop distribution at the front.

The green marker on that map has penetrated deep into the middle section of the river's core region, about six hundred star systems away from the core of the Wotan Alliance.

Bai Qi's fleet maintained an offensive posture at the forefront, Han Xin's fleet followed closely behind to provide flank cover, Li Jing and Wang Jian's formations were scattered on both sides to suppress the area, and Sun Wu's fleet was responsible for the follow-up clearing of the remaining planets that had been skipped.

The formation was fine, but Zhao Zheng also noticed that every fleet at the front was losing men. Although the casualty figures were still within an acceptable range, the continuous advance was consuming the effective strength of each formation.

However, Zhao Zheng had already made preparations. With the addition of the Fourth, Ninth, Thirteenth and Nineteenth Army Corps, the ranks of the major marshals were expanded again.

Therefore, during the attacks on the central river region in recent years, the Qin fleet and its strength have not decreased but increased.

But what really caught Zhao Zheng's attention was that the defense of the Wotan League seemed to have undergone some unusual changes.

From the battle reports sent back by Sun Tzu, he discovered that although the dwarves' defensive worlds had fewer and fewer weapons, equipment, and vehicles, their resistance seemed to be becoming more and more bizarre.

It's impossible that those dwarves have started believing in Chaos, is it?

You never know, the mess in Warhammer always surprises you.

However, Sun Tzu also said that the dwarves seemed perfectly normal at the moment, and at least with his strength, he had not yet discovered anything unusual.

This was also Zhao Zheng's biggest worry, and he hoped that his words would not come true.

The war in the river region continues, with the marshals continuing to lead their troops forward. Zhao Zheng is not idle either; he is using some dwarven technology to restart research on the armor coverage of ships and applying it to the Qin shipyard to optimize the optimal armor thickness of the ships.

If Zhao Zheng were on the front lines, he would probably have destroyed the entire planet by now, instead of wasting time fighting these stubborn mules.

However, he knew that he was not fighting on the front lines, so it was best not to interfere too much in the battles there and to have enough trust in the marshals and soldiers on the front lines.

Zhao Zheng closed the front-line troop distribution map and tapped his fingertips lightly twice on the armrest.

The logistical pressures are becoming apparent, but he has no intention of slowing down the advance at the front.

The strategic value of the River Heart region is undeniable. Every day that is delayed gives the Wotan Alliance one more day to fortify its defenses or relocate the Ancestral Core, which he is determined to obtain.

He pulled up the monthly report from the Qiankun Star Central Research Institute and quickly scanned several key data points.

The production lines for living metal and bone have completed their fourth round of expansion, increasing capacity by nearly 40% compared to six months ago.

The smelting and manufacturing processes for adamantite and radiant gold have also made progress after absorbing some of the dwarven technology. Currently, stable mass production can be achieved. Although the output is not yet large enough, it has at least met the core component needs of the Thor and Odin mechs on the front lines.

At the end of the report, Zhao Zheng saw a note from Hua Tuo, which was the analysis conclusion of the dwarf biological tissue sample.

According to Hua Tuo, who has now accepted some of the research of the great biological sages of the Mechanic Church, the dwarf species is a pure clone species because their gene expression sequences are almost identical, and most of them even match human genes.

These are a group of Imperial demi-humans, not aliens.

After reading the report, Zhao Zheng made no comment and simply filed it.

He already knew that dwarves were a branch of humanity, but in this war, that identity would not change their fate.

Those who surrender live, those who resist die—it's that simple.

The Wotan Alliance's last line of defense lies deep within the river's core region, in a star system enveloped by a dense asteroid belt and nebulous radiation.

Han Xin stood on the bridge of the command ship, where the holographic tactical panel displayed the last set of images transmitted back by the forward reconnaissance units.

It's hard to imagine that dwarves could survive in such a hellish environment. Is there really enough water and other resources for survival here?

It should be noted that Zhao Zheng only wanted to take over the River Heart region because of its rich mineral resources and the ancestral River Heart; he never intended to relocate a large population to this area.

The environment is too harsh; this is not a place for humans to live.

Han Xin shook his head and turned his attention back to the dwarves' last line of defense above.

At the center of the image is a giant planet covered by multiple layers of gray alloy armor, its surface covered with turrets, anti-aircraft arrays, and defense platforms, in an unprecedented density.

Several colossal space station structures also float in the planet's orbit, each large enough to accommodate and maintain hundreds of warships.

This is the central fortress complex of the Wotan Alliance, their last complete defensive stronghold.

There are thirteen defensive fortresses that have been discovered so far.

Deep within these defensive structures lies the core of their ancestors, which they regard as deities.

Han Xin's gaze lingered on the dense gray armor surface for a long time.

The images on the panel zoomed in frame by frame, revealing the details of the turrets and anti-aircraft arrays to him.

The dwarves' last line of defense differs significantly in structure from the outer defensive planets.