The ornate Artificer Armor slammed violently against the thick wall, shattering its lavish decorations and revealing the raw, unadorned steel beneath.
"This is impossible!" Akarin coughed up blood, struggling to rise from the floor, a terrifying dent marring the thick power armor on his chest.
Even protected by the Artificer Power Armor, Corax's kick had directly broken his ribs. The power armor's built-in life support system frantically injected various precious medical agents into Akarin's body to maintain his vital signs.
"You are as weak and useless as your guards!" Corax commented without a hint of mercy.
Akarin had messaged his guards a long time ago, but apart from the Old Butler and a few bodyguards in the room, not a single person had rushed in to save their master.
The only passage to this room had already plunged into darkness. The short corridor, less than a hundred meters long, became the ultimate barrier preventing the private guards from reaching their master.
This distance was like an unbridgeable chasm, blocking everything.
Three enemy-piloted Sentinel Walkers stood firmly guarding the entrance. As for the private guards who attempted to sneak in from above the corridor, outside, people only heard a few bodies fall from a height before all sound ceased.
Evidently, the enemy had already sealed off this area.
"No more waiting! All personnel, launch a frontal assault in five minutes! Use the bodies of our fallen brothers to block the Sentinel Walkers' laser guns!" The face beneath Akarin's guard commander's helmet was ashen.
Out of a five-hundred-man guard, he had only managed to assemble a hundred; the rest were blocked by the enemy in various ways on other floors and couldn't arrive in time.
What infuriated him most were the three suddenly appearing Sentinel Walkers. They weren't equipped with boarding shields. Ordinary riot shields combined with their power armor could withstand concentrated laser gun fire, but they were completely useless against laser cannons, not to mention the terrifying Sentinel chainswords, which cut through their power armor like a hot knife through butter.
These three Sentinel Walkers were precisely the ones controlled by Swain. As for why they appeared silently at the entrance of this conference room, that was naturally Corax's doing.
If the Dark Raven Guard could perform stealth while wearing Dreadnought armor, then three mere Sentinel Walkers posed no problem for Corax.
It was only a pity that the machine spirits of these three Sentinel Walkers were not strong enough to maintain a constantly active autonomous state, so now three members of the Dark Raven Guard had to be assigned to operate them.
As for the space above the corridor, Saro Jin was naturally guarding it with his men; for the enemy to try and sneak past under Saro Jin's watch now, one could only say they were overthinking it.
Inside the room.
"Time's up. I gave you a chance, but unfortunately, you were useless." Corax watched as the projected building showed a spaceship, originally transporting iron ore along a predetermined route, instantly overload its engines, reaching the target area's sky in less than a second.
On Kiavahr, just as the anti-aircraft system locked on and before it could destroy these spaceships, the nuclear bombs were detonated.
"No!!!" Akarin could only let out a desperate roar, his eyes glazed over, as ten massive mushroom clouds rising on the screen consumed his entire consciousness.
"Even the sight of a nuclear explosion is so magnificent, how much more grand would the sight of 'burning glass' be?" Swain exclaimed from the Gravity Well, looking at the ten rising mushroom clouds.
"Burning glass" was just a vivid description; in the Imperial military, there was a more vivid and accurate professional term: "Exterminatus."
Exterminatus refers to the act of destroying an entire planetary biosphere and all life on a world.
This is generally only carried out when a planet poses a strategic threat of extermination level to the entire Imperium, or when it could potentially spread to other planets.
When the cost of holding or reclaiming the world is deemed too high, or the threat of mutation, plague, and Chaos spreading to other parts of the Imperium is too great and cannot be contained by conventional means, Exterminatus is issued as the Imperium's last resort.
There are several different ways to execute Exterminatus: direct orbital bombardment by warships, deployment of virus bombs, or the use of cyclonic torpedoes or bi-level torpedoes.
High-ranking military commanders usually adopt different methods according to different situations; the most common method is to deploy cyclonic torpedoes, directly igniting the entire planet's atmosphere, which is also the origin of the nickname "burning glass."
But generally speaking, the Imperium rarely issued such directives in this era; in the 30k era, Exterminatus was most frequently carried out against the Rangdan Xenos.
By the 40k era, the issuance of Exterminatus became increasingly frequent, and often, to curb these threats, the Imperial high command would directly drop cyclonic torpedoes onto their own planets.
Imperial citizens, eagerly awaiting Imperial reinforcements, instead received a gleaming cyclonic torpedo.
This was truly messed up!
For the high command, there was no sacrifice too great to bear.
However, those commanders who issued Exterminatus would basically die in various subsequent Imperial accountability processes.
Although it was messed up, it was indeed unavoidable; the Imperium ten thousand years later was already on the verge of collapse.
Whether high-ranking Imperial officials or ordinary citizens, their ultimate fate was the same; sacrifice was as common as daily meals.
For that distant era ten thousand years later, returning to the Golden Throne was already their greatest aspiration.
"Send a message to Kiavahr, demanding their unconditional surrender within half an hour and the disarmament of all weapons, otherwise a second round of nuclear explosions will be unleashed upon them without hesitation," Swain commanded.
Corax on the high tower had already opened communication permissions to the Gravity Well area, allowing the Gravity Well to communicate normally with Kiavahr.
Swain was not joking; if no message came from Kiavahr after half an hour, the nuclear-armed spaceships hovering in the sky would be detonated without hesitation.
He had no time to haggle with the slave masters on Kiavahr; half an hour was already a generous amount of time given the sudden nuclear attack on Kiavahr and the unknown number of high-ranking personnel who had died.
"Nekser, I'm leaving this to you." After giving these instructions, Swain set off for the top floor of the high tower.
Corax should have completed his mission as well; their plan was now complete.
Next was the reckoning for Kiavahr, which was simple: just follow the list and kill, replacing all management with Dark Raven Guard personnel. He believed Nekser would complete his task perfectly.
Undoubtedly, Swain's methods for Kiavahr were exceptionally brutal, but he felt no unease; reckless mercy would only sow more hidden dangers for the future.