[In the cold void, the Necrons' World Engine seems utterly unprepared for the Tempestus battle barge's insane maneuver.]
[Its main weapon battery, those massive Gauss arrays that have destroyed dozens of Imperial ships, hasn't fully adjusted its firing solution. The targeting calculations come a fraction too slow, unable to provide the necessary obstruction in time.]
[The massive metal hull of the Tempestus battle barge crashes forward with unstoppable momentum, slamming heavily into the World Engine's superstructure.]
[Deafening sounds of friction and collision echo across frequencies that shouldn't exist in vacuum, transmitted through metal and energy fields. The shriek of tearing ceramite and adamantium fills your helmet speakers as hull plates buckle and tear.]
[The Tempestus battle barge, its entire forward section engulfed in flames that roar orange and white despite the void, forcibly penetrates the World Engine's atmosphere. The silver shield resists for a microsecond, energy crackling and flaring, before the sheer kinetic force punches through.]
[The dying ship plummets toward the alien structures below, where massive black pyramids stand in geometric perfection across an impossible landscape. Dark metal edifices rise like mountains, their surfaces crawling with green veins of energy.]
[In that terrible instant, the Tempestus battle barge, its hull torn almost completely in half along the keel, crashes heavily onto the apex of the largest black pyramid.]
[The impact unleashes a series of continuous explosions, each one feeding into the next. Plasma conduits rupture. Reactors breach containment. Ammunition stores cook off in cascading detonations. Terrifying shockwaves spread outward in expanding rings, pulverizing everything they touch.]
[In the dozens of seconds before impact, more than a dozen drop pods had already detached from the battle barge's deck with explosive force. They scatter like seeds into the wind, falling deeper into the World Engine's alien geography, their occupants sealed inside and praying to the Emperor.]
[But due to the lack of sufficient drop pods, most warriors couldn't escape the coming collision.]
[You and the majority of the Astral Knights can only rely on your power armor's structural integrity and the battle barge's metal framework to withstand the incredibly terrifying impact. There's no other choice. No backup plan.]
[Even with your magnetic boots locked firmly to the metal deck, the clamps engaged at maximum strength, you feel as if you're tumbling endlessly inside a high-power washing machine. The world spins and lurches. Up becomes down. Left becomes right. Your inner ear screams in protest.]
[Something strikes your helmet with tremendous force. The world flashes white, then red, then nothing.]
[You briefly fall into unconsciousness, awareness flickering like a dying lumen strip.]
[When you think death has finally claimed you, when you're certain this is the end, you suddenly wake from the darkness.]
[Your metal helmet has suffered irreparable damage. Violent alarm hums pierce through your skull like ice picks. Sparks continuously flash across your field of vision, the helmet's systems shorting out in cascading failures. Warning runes blink red, then die entirely.]
[You can no longer see clearly through the cracked visor. Can no longer trust the failing sensors.]
[You rip off the nearly shattered helmet with both hands, the seals breaking with sharp hisses of escaping pressure. You tear it away and fling it aside, hearing it clatter against metal somewhere in the smoke.]
[You violently spit out a large mouthful of blood, the thick fluid already rapidly clotting thanks to your enhanced physiology. It spatters against the dark ground, steaming in the alien atmosphere.]
[Looking around through the clearing smoke, you realize with shock that you've been thrown clear of the main wreckage. You lie on a large piece of deck plating that was torn free during the crash, now resting on the black ground perhaps fifty meters from where the battle barge came to rest.]
[The Tempestus's remains burn in the near distance, flames licking up from multiple breaches. Secondary explosions continue to bloom across the shattered hull like dying flowers.]
["Assemble!" Your voice erupts in a raw roar toward the direction of the battle barge wreckage. "Assemble on me! Battle-brothers who are still alive! Objective reached! We are one step away from victory!"]
[You drive your power armor, which is now covered in hairline cracks that spider across every plate, to stand quickly. Servos protest with grinding sounds. Warning indicators flash across your vision, but you ignore them. The armor still moves. That's enough.]
[The storm bolter that was clutched in your hand is completely gone, torn away during the impact. You don't waste time searching for it.]
[Instead, you reach back and pull a power axe from your backpack mounting. The weapon hums to life in your grip, its energy field crackling blue-white along the blade's edge. The iron halo mounted on your armor's collar flickers with protective energy.]
[You stride forward, each step heavy and purposeful despite the pain radiating through your body.]
[Soon after, Astartes begin emerging from the smoke and flames. Their power armor is covered in cracks and scoring, ceramite blackened and torn, but their weapons and equipment remain relatively intact. They move with the disciplined urgency of warriors who know time is precious.]
[They gather before you quickly, forming up in combat squads without needing orders. Old habits and training assert themselves automatically.]
[After you and several surviving company captains conduct a rapid headcount, the numbers painted in blood on the ground between you, the truth becomes brutally clear.]
[This single hard landing has cost the entire Astral Knights Chapter nearly two full companies of battle-brothers. Two hundred warriors, gone in seconds. Brothers you've fought beside for decades, reduced to scattered atoms or crushed beneath twisted metal.]
[If you include those scattered within the ship's burning wreckage, warriors trapped in collapsed sections, or those severely wounded and unable to reach your position, as well as the battle-brothers who detached early in drop pods...]
[Fewer than four hundred Astral Knights now stand before you. From over eight hundred who began this charge, half are already dead or missing.]
[More critically, with the complete destruction of the battle barge, the siege vehicles you'd intended to deploy are also utterly destroyed. Razorbacks crushed. Predators shattered. Vindicators broken.]
[Regardless of what battlefield situations await you deeper in the World Engine, you can only rely on each other. These battle-brothers. Your weapons. Your faith.]
[Just as you prepare to reorganize the combat teams, assigning squad leaders and establishing fire teams, everything changes.]
[Extremely terrifying green beams of light suddenly pierce through the lingering dark smoke and heavy flames surrounding the crash site. They materialize like spears of emerald lightning, moving with impossible precision.]
[The beams strike rapidly toward the inside of your formation, targeting the densest concentrations of warriors.]
["Enemy attack!" You instinctively unleash a deafening roar. "Firepower saturation! Beware of the enemy's weapon beams!"]
[You alone drive your damaged power armor forward, raising the power axe high as you launch a terrifying charge toward the enemy ahead. If you can draw fire, your brothers can respond.]
[The intense roar of bolters erupts across the dilapidated black metal streets, the sound hammering against your ears even without a helmet. Shell casings rain down, tinkling against dark metal.]
[Countless bolter rounds, along with streams of meltagun beams that glow red-hot and the white contrails of portable missiles, appear for the first time in this Necron territory. The Astral Knights' counterattack force quickly unfolds, unleashing terrifying firepower saturation toward the enemy's incoming position.]
[The next second, countless Necron Warriors emerge from the smoke like ghosts. Their metal backs are slightly hunched, skeletal frames gleaming with an oily sheen. Each carries a Gauss rifle that glows with sickly green light, the weapons humming with barely contained energy.]
[They rush forward without hesitation, advancing toward your position with mechanical precision. No fear. No doubt. Just inexorable advance.]
[Astartes struck by those terrifying green beams fall heavily without even time to scream. Their entire bodies, along with their power armor, transform into scattered green atoms that shimmer briefly before dissipating completely into the air. Not even ash remains.]
[But the Necrons suffer too. Their black metal bodies are blasted apart one by one by the thunderous impact of storm bolters and searing meltagun beams. Skeletal frames collapse into silent component pieces, limbs separating, torsos shattering.]
[However, as the battle continues and bodies pile up on both sides, the Astral Knights discover something horrifying.]
[More Necrons keep appearing, seemingly rejoining the attacking force from nothing. Warriors you watched fall and shatter are standing again, their bodies reconstructing from scattered components. Even with repeated firepower saturation, even with your brothers pouring fire into the same positions, the enemy numbers don't decrease in the slightest.]
["Battle-brothers!" You roar while forcefully swinging your power axe, the blade cleaving through the air with a high-pitched whine. "Some of you form assault squad formations! Find their resurrection devices as soon as possible! Otherwise this battle will be endless!"]
[You forcibly chop through the necks of several Necron Warriors, your power axe's energy field slicing through living metal with showers of green sparks. Metal heads tumble to the ground, their eye sockets' glow fading to darkness.]
[You casually reach down and snatch up a Gauss rifle from the ground where a destroyed Necron lies. The weapon feels wrong in your hands, too light, too cold, but functional. You pull the trigger without hesitation, aiming at the Necron Warriors slowly surrounding your position.]
[Green beams lance out, disintegrating targets with molecular precision.]
["Only sufficient physical damage can destroy their metal bodies!" You continue roaring without turning your head, eyes scanning for new threats. "If ammunition is depleted, then engage in close combat! Or pick up the Necrons' weapons and continue attacking!"]
[The Gauss rifle you carry effortlessly disintegrates the metal bodies of the Necrons one by one, each shot reducing them to scattered components. The weapon's efficiency is terrifying, almost obscene.]
[You immediately swing the power axe in your other hand again, dual-wielding now, and continue charging toward the location where more Necron Warriors are pouring from what appears to be a structure entrance.]
[But then everything escalates.]
[A Skorpekh Destroyer, standing three meters tall with only three metal limbs supporting its lower body, suddenly rushes out from deep within the Necron Warriors' ranks. The construct wields powerful limbs equipped with hyperphase blades that shimmer with phase-field energy, each weapon capable of cutting through tank armor. It charges wildly toward you with shocking speed.]
[You don't hesitate. You drive your power armor to leap sideways toward a broken building structure, using the rubble for cover and elevation.]
[At the same time, the Gauss rifle you've been carrying fires streams of green light with extreme precision at the Destroyer's metal limbs. You aim for the joints, the connection points where articulation is necessary.]
[The next moment, just as the Skorpekh Destroyer's advance is suddenly arrested when one of its metal limbs severs completely, the construct falling heavily onto the ground before you with a metallic crash, you've already repositioned.]
[You readjust your landing trajectory mid-leap, boots finding purchase on broken building debris. The rubble crunches beneath your weight.]
[Your magnetic boots stomp heavily against the fragments, launching your entire body high into the air. You soar above the fallen Destroyer, power axe raised overhead in both hands now, the Gauss rifle discarded.]
[The power axe swings down with all your enhanced strength behind it, the energy field screaming as it cuts through the air.]
[The blade connects with the Skorpekh Destroyer's metal head with devastating force.]
[In an instant, a metal skull with its green eye-socket lights gradually extinguishing tumbles to the ground. It hits the dark surface with a dull thud, rolling twice before coming to rest.]
[You land heavily beside the destroyed construct, examining your weapon. The power axe's blade is completely curled from the impact, the edge ruined, the energy field flickering and dying.]
[You casually drive the ruined axe into the Skorpekh Destroyer's metal torso like planting a standard, leaving it there as a grave marker.]
[Then you forcibly break off one of the hyperphase blades from the construct's limb. The weapon feels perfectly balanced in your grip, lighter than it should be, thrumming with barely contained phase energy.]
[Your other hand retrieves the dropped Gauss rifle, the muzzle rising quickly to track new targets emerging from the smoke.]
["Astral Knights!" Your voice carries across the battlefield with absolute authority, cutting through the chaos. "Follow me! Attack!"]