Behind the steel battlements of the 72nd defense zone of the Terra city wall, Mo Cheng tilted his neck, and his dirty goggles reflected the figure of the behemoth on the track.

The silhouette of the Vengeful Spirit in the twilight was like a mythical beast, and the blue flames from its plasma thrusters dyed the clouds an eerie blue.

“What the hell…”

The sigh slipped out from his cracked lips with the unreserved tone of an Astra Militarum soldier.

Mo Cheng subconsciously touched the data tablet on his waist to take a photo, but he only touched the charging port of the standard laser gun. This action reminded him that he was no longer in the lighthouse.

The days of recording everything with an old camera had long disappeared along with the old world, so long ago that he no longer kept track of time.

"Shut up and build the heavy bomb position." Mark's voice came from behind the bunker, accompanied by the crisp sound of metal collision, "Otherwise, Political Commissar Hank will beat you again."

Mo Cheng turned his head and saw his old partner stuffing the magazine into the modified bolt pistol.

Mark's tactical gloves had worn through his fingertips, revealing the metallic luster of the mechanical prosthesis underneath.

Mark's arm had been chopped off by a green-skinned orc before, but fortunately the mechanical priest accompanying the army gave him a prosthetic limb.

"It's boring." Mo Cheng curled his lips and deliberately smashed the bracket of the heavy bomb. "Who knows if I can survive this month, what's wrong with joking?"

As he spoke, he pulled out a bullet belt as thick as his forearm from the ammunition box.

These M35 "Behemoth" heavy bombers are the latest product of the Martian Forge Temple, and each bullet is engraved with a small Mechanicus prayer.

Mo Cheng skillfully inserted the ammunition belt into the bolt. The sound of metal collision reminded him of the heavy machine gun he used on the lighthouse, but the power was at least twenty orders of magnitude less.

A storm suddenly swept up the nest under the city wall. Mo Cheng jumped towards the observation mirror as if by reflex, his finger already on the trigger.

"It's just the exhaust of the battleship."

"Relax, rookie." Mark put the bolt pistol back into the holster on the side of his leg and began to adjust the plasma grenade on his waist. "You will suffer when the real fight comes."

Mo Cheng didn't respond. His eyes swept across the defensive array on the city wall.

The automatic turrets every fifty meters were undergoing final calibration, servo skulls were shuttling between bunkers to deliver ammunition, and further away there was a whole row of "Hellhound" flamethrowers that had just been dragged out of the foundry.

"You said..." Mo Cheng suddenly lowered his voice, "Can those big shots really stop it? I heard that Chaos can even galaxies..."

His words were interrupted by a sharp mechanical hum. The lifting platform inside the city wall was operating, and three Leman Russ tanks were slowly sent to the defense position.

"Shut up and do what you should do." Mark glared at Mo Cheng and said.

........................

火星

Casting Base

Kalbo Har's mechanical feet sank deep into the red volcanic rock. Coolant seeped out from the cracks in the joints, evaporating into pungent steam on the hot rock.

The Forge-General's only remaining biological eye reflected the points of light in orbit - each flicker represented the fall of a warship.

His robotic eye recorded the carnage with even greater precision.

Thirty-seven point six percent of the Chaos fleet is breaking through the Martian perimeter, and 12.9 percent of the Imperial ships have lost power.

“So, these are your enemies?”

The sound came from behind, carrying the low-frequency vibration unique to metallic resonance.

Culbo didn't need to look back to know who it was - the scientist from Cybertron was scanning the battlefield with his unique single eye, and Shockwave's purple armor looked out of place on the red soil of Mars.

"Correction." A cooling mist blew out of Kalbo's speaker. "It's the enemy of the Empire and the entire universe."

His mechanical tentacles pointed at the holographic projection, zooming in on a section of the orbital battlefield. In the picture, a Thousand Sons strike cruiser was disintegrating, but what poured out of its shattered hull was not an explosion, but countless screaming blue demons. These Tzeentch horrors flapped their crystal wings and swooped towards the nearest Imperial warship in the vacuum, violating the laws of physics.

Shockwave's helmet-mounted optics zoomed rapidly, making a slight "sizzling" sound.

His single eye flashed with a calculating light, and streams of data rolled in his pupil like a waterfall.

"Unknown energy life form...moving autonomously in a vacuum environment..." His voice was filled with the enthusiasm unique to scientists, "This creature is very interesting."

"Warp creatures, they do not belong to reality." Kalbo interrupted him, while the Mechanical Magos on the other side used mechanical tentacles to access the control system of a nearby turret.

A group of macro cannons fired a salvo, blowing up the landing demon landing capsule. "They are not from the physical universe you are familiar with."

"What makes me even more curious is..." Shockwave suddenly pulled up a battle video, which showed Chaos Space Marines fighting each other, "Were these your compatriots?"

The pupils of Kalbo's mechanical eyes contracted. In the video, a plague warrior of the Death Guard was using a rotten chain saw axe to split the chests of several boarding team soldiers.

The power armor that once represented glory is now crawling with maggots and rust.

“It used to be.” General Casting’s voice suddenly became as rough as sandpaper, “Until they chose to betray.”

Shockwave's single eye narrowed slightly, and the expression looked particularly strange on his metal mask.

He called up another set of data, which was a file that the Mechanicus strictly prohibited from being disseminated to others, recording the technical parameters of each rebel legion during the Great Heresy.

Carlbo's mechanical tentacles suddenly stretched straight, but ultimately failed to stop.

"According to my calculations..." the Cybertron scientist's voice was filled with cold rationality, "their combat effectiveness increased by 247%, but their survival expectancy decreased by 89.3%. This exchange... is illogical."

There was a deafening explosion in the distance.

A beam of green-purple energy struck the southern slope of Mount Olympus, instantly transforming the entire area into glassy crystals.

Nurgle's plague bombardment begins to cover the outer defenses of the Forge Temple.

Carl did not answer immediately. He quickly entered a string of binary code and activated the defense protocol inside the mountain.

Hundreds of hidden volcanic cannons rose from the rock formations, pouring promethium incendiary bombs into the sky.

The explosion created a brief umbrella of fire in the thin Martian atmosphere.

"It's really interesting. I can't wait to conduct actual combat research with them."

Shockwave's right hand transformed into a cannon, and then hundreds of vehicles on the side were transformed into Transformers at the same time.