Chapter - 43

Bella was hovering above the horde and froze in place, her eyes settled on Anastasia's figure, terror grasped her heart as the memories of the great crusade resurfaced in her mind, the memories of Him slaughtering her people. She had to warn her queen and so she turned around started flying back to the Babylon tower.

The horde lost lots of its members, the bodies which were not immediately vaporized by the heavy weapons started to accumulate faster than they could return to the immaterium. Their advance came to a halt as their leader was no longer with them. The beasts started retreating towards the tower leaving only the scorched earth, the air filled with the smell of something similar to stone melting, incinerated trees and a thin layer of fog created by the pulverized snow.

"They are retreating!" Siegfried shouted as he looked around himself in shock while Cecilia tried to understand why they were behaving like this, it was like they were scared by something.

"FIX BAYONETS!" Someone suddenly shouted causing the guardsmen to place bayonets on their lasguns

"Are these people crazy!?" Siegfried said in shock "They are normal people! They can't fight them!"

"Silence!" The guardsmen next to him shouted enraged "Only in Death Does Duty end! And As long as the Empress stands! Even death is a victory!"

Both of Siegfried and Cecilia were shocked at those words which sounded like pure madness

Anastasia removed the sword from the ground and pointed it at the retreating horde "IT IS TIME TO RETURN THE FAVOR! MEN! CHARGE!"

A roar from men and machines spread out from the trench line as a reply to those words. The Empress started running towards the retreating horde followed by all of her forces. The titans' footsteps caused the earth to shake, the engines of the tanks turned to life before they started moving forward, their guns blazing and aimed at the back of the horde.

The Astartes and Adepta Sororitas climbed out of the trench line with their chainswords and power weapons in hand followed by the guardsmen who bravely charged at the enemy with their bayonets.

"FOR THE IMPERIUM!" some shouted

"FOR THE EMPRESS! FOR TERRA!" other roared

"GLORY TO THE FIRST MAN TO DIE!"

The artillery still fired its shots in order to reduce the enemies' number and possibly cut off their retreat while the aircrafts gave chase to the flying beasts.

The Valkyries of Schicksal and the Anti-Entropy troops were in awe, some of them thought that what they were witnessing was the ultimate form of bravery while others saw this charge as proof of absolute madness.

Siegfried grabbed his two handguns and looked at his wife with a smirk on his face "well...this is crazy" he said "Together?"

Cecilia smiled and nodded before both of them jumped out of the trench and started running in the direction of the Honkais

As they run closer to their enemies, time seemed to have slowed down, everything was moving in slow motion. Cecilia spotted Anastasia in the vanguard of the charge, she was launching lightning from her clawed hand at one fifteen meter Honkai while with the other hand she was about to swing her sword. The Valkyrie watched as the mighty sword came down on the enemies of man and with that single blow a large group of them was utterly destroyed opening a gap within their ranks.

The Legio custodes rushed inside the opening opened by their empress and with a great display of discipline and strength, they started crushing their enemies with unrelenting determination.

The guardsmen, on the other hand, did not rely only on their weapons...no, they relied on their overwhelming numbers, whenever an Honkai was busy impaling a guardsman, five of them will attack keeping the monster from recovering from its previous attack

The Adeptus Astartes used their jump packs to get in the heart of the enemy formations before starting swinging their nightmarish chainswords and power weapons while some of them simply used their powers fists to lay down their enemies

The Adepta Sororitas were also among them, being created from Anastasia's blood they didn't to worry about defending themselves because their vectors blocked all the incoming threats and crushed them, they used their bolters and power swords to cut through the opposition and reach their Empress.

Among these, The Spartans of the UNSC fought their way through the battlefield in squads, their movements were methodical and tactical unlike those of the guardsmen, they were aware of the battlefield conditions and took upon themselves the role of support for the main forces. Thanks to their enhancements, they were able to give accurate and precise radio feedback to the imperial army commanders who would either order the guardsmen to focus on a certain point of the charge or order the ships above to offer some support

But those who dominated the battlefield were without a doubt the machines and the mighty titans.

The Fellblades and Baneblades literally crushed the honkais under their tracks, the cannons fired non-stop their rounds and lasers, they opened the path to victory for the guardsmen who used them as battering ram.

The mighty machines of the mechanicus targeted the biggest honkais on the battlefield, the Imperial Knights and the Warhounds being the relatively faster than the others titans were marching alongside the charge, the knights had started attacking the 'false' Emperor-class honkai with their reaper chainswords while the warhounds stomped and shoot down the enemy with their turbo lasers and mega bolters.

The Reavers, while slower compared to the warhounds, were still able to tear apart the Honkai formations in order to drastically reduce the number of enemies waiting to fight the incoming charge.

But the titans who really devastated the opposition were the Warlord-class and Warbringer class titans, their weapons were too powerful to being fired in the vicinity of the vanguard but fortunately, the ocean of targets within the vanguard and the Babylon tower gave them plenty of opportunities to put down their enemies, each shot of their weapons made the earth tremble and the air to be filled with the loudest of explosions, they were single-handedly responsible for dealing massive blows in the enemy ranks both on the ground and the air as the titans used their carapace mounted weapon to shoot down the flying Honkai Beasts and used their Nemesis Quake Cannon to shoot down the battleships projected by the Herrscher's power.

In the middle of all of this, the Frontier-Class Titans piloted by the Tactical Dolls were charging along with the vanguard, their weapons might not be as strong as the weapons of the Collegia Titanica but they were still be able to offer support and thanks to their more articulated frames were able to help out the tanks who got stuck or to simply grab and crush whatever Honkai beast was unlucky to be on their path.

The Tactical dolls inside of them were able to analyze better the battlefield than the normal guardsmen and were able to calculate where they were more needed or where the formation was weaker, thanks to their constant report of the battlefield conditions and the connection within them, the Mechanicus Titans, and the other mechanized troops, they were able to mark targets that they needed to be rid off as soon as possible.

In the middle of all of this, The Schicksal A-rank and S-rank Valkyrie were fighting side by side with the Astartes, among them there was Cecilia, who was living up to her name as strongest Valkyrie of Schicksal, each of her attacks struck down several beasts with ease but sometimes whenever she needed to advance in order to keep pushing the vanguard, she would throw a glance in the back of the formations and see how the lower class of Valkyries were holding up.

Unfortunately for them, some of them were paralyzed on the spot, they were not used for such intense warfare and the extremely powerful noises produced by the Titan-grade weaponry, some of them outright fainted upon hearing the Volcano Cannons. Cecilia couldn't blame them though, even herself was having a hard time getting used to those blasts.

The Anti-Entropy mechs, on the other end, felt a bit left out due to the fact they were placed next to the armored divisions of the Imperium, meaning that they were fighting side by with the Leman Russes, Baneblades, Fellblades and the Astartes armored vehicles which meant that they were always on the move and had to be careful to not be in the way of the turrets of the other vehicles. Despite this, they still offered protection to the guardsmen and focused their fire against the enemies which were being targeted by the others

From her tower, Sirin watched the fight unfold with rage and disgust, Bella had come to warn her but that army but She wasn't particularly worried about that...until she saw the one who was leading. The person who resembled the man that once dared to stand against her God...she will have to take care of her...but first she'll send her a message.

She then looked behind her and smirked when her eyes laid upon a small group lead by Otto Apocalypse...