Chapter 463: Battle of the Four Titans
Once the two Knights touched down, they formed up with their respective retinues.
One Preceptor built for ranged dominance, one Lancer built for melee, four squire-suits, four Rogal Dorn tanks, and a thousand power-armoured infantry, together forming a devastatingly powerful strike force.
The force moved into combat formation, both Knights leading at the front, the squire-suits flanking and covering the rear, the four Rogal Dorns watching the flanks with turrets ready.
The thousand infantry advanced alongside, sweeping into the surrounding ruins as they went, taking up firing positions.
Kian's force pressed steadily toward the Gorkamorka Walkers, and the Gorkamorka Walkers, it seemed, had sensed their counterpart approaching too, closing the distance from the other direction.
"I feel it! Old Fart Kian! Old Fart Kian's here!!"
Inside the Gork Walker, Blackiron let out a furious roar, the Fist of Gork jabbing forward, pointing the way.
"There! Old Fart Kian's that way! Boyz, GO! Kill 'em all!!"
A crowd of five- and six-meter Ork mechs, clustered around the Gorkamorka Walkers, heard the order and surged forward with howling war cries.
Kian's force continued its advance when suddenly a mass of red contacts lit up the auspex display. Warnings went out immediately, every weapon system swinging to cover the street ahead.
They were deep in the hive ruins, collapsed buildings everywhere, visibility poor. The auspex could pick up the red contacts, but the surrounding rubble was blocking direct line of fire.
After a tense wait, the contacts, representing Ork mechs, finally found a path and circled around to Kian's front.
"WAAAAAAAAGH!!!"
Several dozen Ork mechs came charging out from across the street, firing as they came.
Kian raised a hand and fired a single Annihilator plasma shot without hesitation.
A ball of blue plasma flare streaked across the street and slammed straight into the Ork mech cluster, detonating with tremendous force.
The struck mech melted outright, and the surrounding Ork mechs, caught in the thermal blast, had their pilots inside burst like eggs left in a microwave.
One shot, and dozens of Ork mechs were wiped out in a wall of dust and debris.
Kian was about to laugh with excitement, but then he noticed a kill notification flash in the corner of his vision. Khorne's quest progress: 23/8888.
"Oh, come ON! That counts as a kill?!"
Kian's blood ran cold. He absolutely did not want to get force-fed another round of Chaos éclairs.
Sure, Khorne's Blessing came with real power, but nobody who got tangled up with Chaos ever came out the other end well.
He'd only just found a workable method to hold off the second-tier corruption. He was not about to let it advance to a third tier.
Just then, the smoke and dust from the blast began to clear, and another wave of Ork mechs mixed with infantry came howling in.
Kian wanted to fire again, but didn't dare, and instead barked an order at his retinue: "Fire!"
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!!
The retinue opened up at once. The Rogal Dorns fired large-caliber armour-piercing rounds, their twin cannons alternating shots, picking off Ork mechs with precision.
The squire-suits fired their plasma cannons, melting Ork mechs one after another.
The power-armoured infantry, grouped in squads of a dozen or so, formed a firing line through the rubble, laying down las and bolter fire.
The retinue's combined firepower was overwhelming. The Ork armoured push simply couldn't push through, and Kian didn't even need to fire.
He actually had time to spare, and used it to test the exact conditions triggering Khorne's quest progress.
Using the head-mounted lascutter, he started picking off individual Ork units one at a time.
He noticed that if he killed something Ork-mech-sized, tin-can scale, the Khorne counter ticked up.
But killing Gretchin killa-cans or Ork infantry did nothing to the counter.
Understood. He switched to targeting Ork infantry with the lascutter instead.
A tenth of a second of lascutter exposure, and an Ork infantryman cooked from the inside out and burst apart.
The two sides fought for five or six minutes, and the street filled up with the wrecks of Ork mechs.
Then, without warning, a nearby ruined building exploded outward ahead of Kian, the structure collapsing in a cloud of dust and debris, and two towering Ork war-machines strode out. The Gorkamorka Walkers.
"OLD FART KIAAAAN!!!!"
The Gork Walker spotted the gleaming Preceptor from a distance and, despite its shock at how much Kian had grown, took some comfort in the fact that it, too, had gotten a lot bigger.
"OLD FART KIAN!!!! This is our destined duel! PREPARE TO DIE!!!"
It seized a massive chunk of rubble off the ground and hurled it at Kian's formation.
Its aim wasn't great, though. The boulder slammed into one of the nearby Rogal Dorns instead, bending both of its main guns clean out of shape.
Kian's expression hardened, and he shouted:
"All units! Concentrate fire on the enemy totem walkers!"
With that, he fired an Annihilator plasma cannon shot, followed immediately by a heavy bolter burst, then unleashed all four lascutters at maximum output.
The squire-suits, tanks, and infantry all opened up on the Gorkamorka Walkers at once, a full concentrated barrage.
But the expected destruction never came. Instead, a flash of green lightning appeared, and nearly every attack was deflected outright.
Both Gorkamorka Walkers had a totem mounted on their heads, and behind each totem sat a ring of coiled hardware.
When the Annihilator's blue plasma bolt struck the Mork Walker's face, its totem flared with green lightning, wrapping around the incoming plasma ball and deflecting it aside, almost like a Tai Chi parry.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
A string of violent detonations rang out, energy blasts and solid rounds alike getting knocked aside, slamming into the ground around the Gorkamorka Walkers, never reaching their actual bodies.
As for the four beams of thick red las-fire streaming from Kian's head-mounted lascutters, the Gorkamorka's totem answered with four equally thick beams of green lightning, canceling them out on contact.
"Cease fire! CEASE FIRE!!"
Kian sensed immediately that something was very wrong, and called an urgent halt to the barrage.
These two Gorkamorka Walkers had somehow linked into the WAAAGH field of every greenskin on the entire planet, drawing on that planet-wide energy to project as a shield.
Kian analyzed the situation fast and shouted:
"Everyone, fall back! This fight is beyond what any of you can take part in. Pull back and hold our rear!"
The retinue obeyed instantly, retreating to a nearby street corner and establishing a defensive line, holding off any Ork units trying to flank around behind the Knights.
With their rear secured, the battlefield was left to the four titans alone.
The Gork Walker charged without hesitation.
"OLD FART KIAN! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!"
THOOM THOOM THOOM!
The Gork Walker's massive bulk shook the ground with every stride as it charged.
Kian turned to Luca. "Luca. He's yours."
The Lancer's ion shield flared to life, blue arcs of electricity crackling along its powered lance.
"FOR THE EMPEROR!!"
Luca roared, charging straight at the Mork Walker in turn. The two melee-focused titans slammed together in an instant, locked in combat.
Kian and the Mork Walker, meanwhile, sized each other up from a distance, eyes locked, neither one moving, like a pair of gunslingers waiting for the duel to begin.
Finally, the moment Luca's frame collided with Blackiron's mech in a screech of grinding metal, the two ranged titans moved as well.
Kian raised both Annihilator cannons and fired twin balls of plasma, while simultaneously unloading all four lascutters at maximum output, four thick beams of las-fire streaking toward the Mork Walker.
The Mork Walker answered in kind, its twin super-rotary cannons erupting in a torrent of fire, thousands of rounds screaming toward Kian in an instant, and the massive rocket pod on its head launched skyward, streaking straight for him as well.
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