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Chapter 984, The Siege of Terra (Part 2)
Zhao Zian and his regiment are in dire straits.

But it seems that fate always takes a turn at such times.

When their last remaining plasma weapon destroyed the demon engine-driven battering ram once again in a desperate overload salvo, vaporizing a large circle of enemies in the process, the massive casualties seemed to finally shake the bloodlust-filled minds of the Khorne cultists.

The subsequent surge was not as frenzied and fearless as before, especially when they discovered that those stubborn points on the city wall were still spewing out deadly fire sporadically.

The frenzied Blood God followers retreated temporarily like a tide, leaving behind mountains of corpses and nearly ruined fortifications on and around the city walls.

Panting heavily and aching all over, Zhao Zi'an had only one thought in his mind:
"Won?"

Why did the enemy retreat?
He couldn't quite understand it.

Clearly, if those Khorne followers were to be beaten any further, they wouldn't be able to hold on.

There are clearly still many of those enemies.

As for morale... Khorne's troops do experience periods of morale collapse, but it is relatively rare.

At least not right now.

Could this be the favor of fate? The protection of the emperor? Their courage that repelled the demon's attack?

Despite his many doubts, he decided to take a break first.

Zhao Zian slid down to the ground against a section of broken wall, his helmet automatically detaching, revealing his face covered in blood and deep exhaustion.

He scanned his surroundings and found fewer than ten soldiers still standing, or severely wounded soldiers leaning against cover who could still pull the trigger. He tried contacting the various companies via communicator, but received only a handful of responses.

All told, of the entire elite guard regiment he led, three thousand warriors, perhaps only a hundred remain now.

A regimental commander was demoted to company commander.

The air was filled with a nauseating stench of charred flesh, flowing blood, and thick gunpowder smoke.

The moat below the city wall no longer flowed with stagnant water, but with a thick, filthy stream of blood and gore, containing countless severed limbs of both sides.

“Counting the number of people… bandaging the wounded…” Zhao Zian’s voice was dry and hoarse, but it carried a hint of relief at surviving a disaster.

But that relief was short-lived.

Fate played a really big joke on us.

The terrifying onslaught of the Khorne followers was indeed repelled, but...

The soldiers on the city wall were calling to him.

He climbed to the top of the city wall and could see into the distance at a glance.

The billowing smoke wasn't all dust and gunpowder from the fierce battle; the surviving Khorne followers were being slaughtered.

Their angry roars, carried far away, were no longer clear. They were fighting desperately.

But those who attacked them were definitely not reinforcements.

On the devastated battlefields left behind after the temporary retreat of the Khorne believers, a new, thicker, more suffocatingly foul, yellowish-green smoke was billowing and spreading from the depths of the earth.

The earth rotted.

On the muddy ground, staggering figures with swollen, festering bodies fought against Khorne's followers. Countless swollen pustules rolled and burst beneath the skin, oozing foul-smelling pus; the stench of decay even overpowered the original blood and smoke of the battlefield.

On those festering bodies hung tattered fragments of the Sun Legion's uniforms, mixed with countless coarse clothes belonging to the commoners of the Nest City.

It was the ghouls of Nurgle! Their numbers were like an endless tide of maggots surging from a swamp of decay, covering the mountains and fields, with no end in sight, far exceeding the Khorne Legion that had just wiped them out!

After 'devouring' the Khorne remnants, whose numbers were far fewer than their own, they continued their mighty march toward the walls of Terra Palace.

They held guns in their hands, and behind them were filthy, foul-smelling Nurgle siege machines and plague cannons.

despair.

A despair even deeper and thicker than when they faced the Khorne followers gripped the hearts of every surviving guard.

Were the followers of Khorne driven back by them?

It seems that's true.

These new enemies that emerged from behind them were probably the reason why the Khorne followers collapsed and retreated.

Now, their battered remnant army is facing an even more powerful enemy than before.

Zhao Zian smiled bitterly and put his helmet back on.

……

Meanwhile, inside the Terra Palace's command center, Yan Xinzhen was enduring an ordeal no less agonizing than those on the front lines. The massive hemispherical dome was divided into countless flickering light screens, each representing a node in the outer defense zone of the palace. The Anvil - Third Gate segment, representing Zhao Zian's regiment, had just been covered by a glaring blood-red trap marker. Only seconds later, the monitoring signal for that area was completely extinguished after intense interference, leaving only darkness and a piercing busy tone.

"Pressure surge in the 'Diamond Barrier' main gate section! Titan-level biosignal detected approaching!"

"Large-scale teleportation detected in Wing C of the 'Wall of Sighs'! Confirmed to be the Tzeentch Wizard!"

"The 'Crown of the Emperor's' observatory artillery positions are being subjected to saturation bombardment by a cluster of aerial demon engines, and the air defense network is severely torn apart!"

"Multiple sensors in the Hugonghe River embankment system have failed! It is suspected that scale corrosion is damaging the basic structure!"

The warning sounds pounded on everyone's nerves like a rapid drumbeat.

On the entire panoramic battle map, warning red lights representing intense fighting spread like a plague. More than 70% of the outer defense nodes of the palace lit up with orange-red lights representing "crisis" or "imminent collapse". The golden bright spots in the center representing the reserve mobile force of the Imperial Guard were pitifully few, and most of them were busy jumping around on the map, rushing from one crisis point to another fleeting crisis point. Each intervention was like a drop in the ocean.

A combat staff officer's voice trembled almost imperceptibly: "Marshal! 'Anvil' has fallen. The Nurgle Plague Legion is flanking 'Rockhold' through this breach! The B wing of 'Wailing Corridor' has been attacked by a blasphemous wizard, and some of the defenders have mutinied under the influence of evil magic, causing us heavy losses! Half of the outer defensive energy grid generator nodes have been destroyed or corrupted by the plague into pieces..."

These messages were telling Yan Xinzhen a painful truth that caused him and all the imperial guards immense suffering: the imperial palace walls they had defended for millennia were about to fall on a large scale.

A cruel choice, like an icicle piercing his heart, was then spat out of his mouth.

He had no choice but to abandon the vast outer defensive perimeter, which had been cultivated for millennia and was engraved with countless legends and epics, and to confine the limited and precious Imperial Guard forces to the inner ring of the palace walls.

No, it might not even be possible in Central.

He was short of troops and generals. Facing an enemy of such scale, if he insisted on defending areas he could not hold, he would only be diluting his strength in vain and then be defeated everywhere.

He couldn't hold onto Central either.

For a long time, the Imperial Guards looked down on the Golden Knights, who were stationed with them in Holy Terra.

It wasn't that they had any issues with the Gold Knights; they simply looked down on all Space Marines equally.

But now, how he wished the Golden Knights were here.

Although adding a thousand more Space Marines wouldn't change the situation, it would be good to alleviate some of the pressure.

Giving up the outer ring, the middle ring, a total of sixteen intricate ring walls and countless fortresses, and surrendering them to others was an extremely difficult decision.

But Yan Xinzhen still did it.

He must consolidate his scarce military forces and place them within the inner city walls of the palace, which are smaller, have better defensive conditions, and are far more important than the outer walls.

He really wished he were dead.

In the past ten thousand years, which imperial guards marshal has ever managed to lose 70% of the palace area?
shame!

He had to reflect on whether the traditions he had led his troops to uphold during his thousand years as the commander of the Imperial Guards were wrong.
The Imperial Guards should just stay in the palace, right?

Without an empire, what would be the point of a palace?
This should be a perfectly obvious truth. So obvious that even a three-year-old could understand it, let alone the Imperial Guards who considered themselves perfect humans.

But they have been sticking to this tradition of staying at home for ten thousand years.

Their arrogance prevented them from ever imagining that this scene would actually happen.

Now, it's time to pay the price.

After a brief moment of shock among the entire command staff, the order to abandon the position and retreat was relayed.

Yan Xinzhen knew how humiliated and resolute the faces of those blood-soaked warriors on the outer layer must have been when they received orders to retreat with their backs to the palace walls or to hold their ground and delay the enemy.

He had no time for sentimentality.

He no longer cared about honors or pride.

He connected to the highest-level encrypted communication channel with the moon.

Once the screen flickering stabilized, Robert's resolute face, now shrouded in fatigue and anxiety, appeared.

"Your Highness the Regent," Yan Xinzhen's voice was devoid of any pleasantries, "the outer defenses of Terra Palace are crumbling. I have ordered the abandonment of the outer defensive perimeter, and it is anticipated that the middle ring will also be abandoned subsequently, and the core defense line will be contracted."

Robert's pupils contracted sharply on the other side of the screen.

The background of the operations command center behind him was chaotic, clearly indicating that the fierce battle on the rails and preparations for the multi-point ground landings were still underway.

"...So fast?" Robert's voice was filled with sorrow.

"The enemy has been planning this for a long time." Yan Xinzhen spoke rapidly; time was of the essence. "Khorne has torn open the first gaping wound, and Nurgle's army is pouring out from the corpses and plague, far outnumbering Khorne's legions. Tzeentch's sorcery is creating distortion and chaos within the ranks and at communication nodes, and Slaanesh's whispers are shaking the will of the remaining defenders... Your Highness, we need your legions!"
"No matter the cost, we need you or the Alliance's legions to arrive at Terra Palace immediately!"

"The inner ring of the palace where the Emperor's golden throne is located must not be lost."

(End of this chapter)