The Transport Shuttles easily evaded the much weaker-than-expected Anti-Air Fire... In fact, after the Valkyries had dropped their troops and taken off again, there were very few functional anti-air assets remaining in the enemy positions.

While it could be said they evaded, it was more of a perfunctory maneuver.

Soon, guided by the flares ignited on the ground, massive ships began to land within their control area.

Following that, a powerful music burst forth.

At first, Zhang Ge, like countless other soldiers, thought he had misheard, but looking towards the source, he realized it was indeed a genuine sound spreading across the battlefield.

A large contingent of Titan Guard members resonated with the Liturgical Hymns from their mechanized bodies, and as they disembarked from the Transport Shuttles, they charged directly toward the enemy fortifications with the support of armor.

Though they numbered only a thousand, their advanced equipment and an average of one vehicle per squad made them a highly mechanized force capable of fighting alongside Titans. Thus, even in small numbers, they pierced through enemy defenses as easily as a hot knife through butter.

Indeed, after witnessing the Titan disappear from the storage facility, and under the debate, prayers, and cries that ensued, the Tech-Priest Yakolan had stated his perspective clearly.

Was it possible that the Titan was fine and had just used some method unknown to them to reach the planet's surface early?

With no other options, after some simple discussions, the Tech-Priests reluctantly accepted this theory and relayed the message to the Titan Guard Commander, who was overseeing the pre-battle prayers of the troops.

In summary: it seemed that the Titan had manifested; it was likely on the surface. Of course, they could only speculate, but the discussion revealed that they could do little in the face of other situations. This was the only effective response they could muster.

Then, after the Titan Guard's serious demand for a direct meat-space orbital drop with Grav-chutes was rejected, the Commander had to revise their original plan of joining the mechanized infantry in the second wave and forcibly commandeered a portion of the first wave's Transport Shuttles.

Confusion, worry, and a hint of sadness at feeling abandoned by the Titan—these emotions, which should not have surfaced, dissipated as the shuttles breached the clouds and relayed the visuals gathered through their external sensors, revealing the Titan soaring through the air, wielding its might.

In the vast database, there were no prayers grand enough to describe this moment; only through their actions and the blood of their enemies could they convey their fervent prayers.

This created the current spectacle: over a thousand fervently ecstatic Titan Guard soldiers resounded with the sacred music as they plunged into the midst of enemy forces.

Of course, subsequent waves of troops appeared far more ordinary; aside from the Titan Guard, the other dropped units were primarily huge batches of tanks and APCs from the Cadian Armored Regiment.

According to the original plan, these heavy vehicles were meant to eliminate the heavy firepower anticipated to suppress the vanguard forces. However, seeing that the enemy's heavy firepower had already been severely diminished, the commander of this contingent decisively changed their objective to annihilating the enemy forces as efficiently as possible.

Furthermore, a small group of Transport Shuttles exhibited some differences; after breaking free from the cloud cover, they peeled away from the main formation and ultimately landed atop the Land Battleship.

This group was carrying Yolanda, along with the Combat Servitors she had brought.

The Land Battleship had previously been unmanned, which explained why its artillery had not opened fire while disconnected from its mainframe.

Now, that situation was changing.

Over a hundred pieces of heavy artillery, each with a caliber of over two hundred millimeters, were unshackled and began bombarding the trenches below, effectively augmenting the already devastating firepower of the Land Battleship with additional artillery support.

With every crashing blow, the already fragmented positions were further crippled. As the war machines rampaged, the remaining Chaos Cultists discovered that they were utterly helpless.

In desperation, they could only offer their final sacrifices to the gods of the Aether, yet the entities summoned by those sacrifices merely hastened their obliteration.

Previously, it might have taken a thousand artillery shells to destroy ten thousand Cultists, but now to eliminate a hundred Lesser Daemons, perhaps only a hundred rounds were sufficient.

Struggles, prayers, and even desperate inquiries as to why their gods were no longer protecting them quickly drowned in the roaring Engine Roar of the machines.

Second wave, third wave, fourth wave...

By the time the first wave of Cadian soldiers had been fully deployed, the ground had already entered the stage of battle cleanup.

However, the awkward situation arose that aside from repeatedly cleaning the battlefield, they seemed unable to do much else.

The pace of the battle was too rapid, far beyond even the most optimistic plans.

As a result, while every batch of Transport Shuttles flying back carried messages of urgency for the next wave to be sent early, there was still a significant interval before the mechanized infantry's main force would drop down.

And due to communication jamming, they were unable to call for reinforcements.

Of course, relying on the forces they had might be enough to break through the rest of the enemy defenses, but what would happen after that?

While their losses weren't catastrophic, from an original thirty-one thousand troops, only about twenty-five thousand remained. This number was certainly insufficient to hold a long line of defenses.

With no way around it, they could only prioritize the more important actions: consolidating their existing beachhead.

And that was the primary reason contributing to the current awkward situation.

While they were solidifying their position, the enemy had no plans to launch a counter-landing; what would they do?

One couldn't even blame the Iron Warriors for being overly cautious. After all, in their eyes, the opponents they faced had the military resources to send both a Titan and a Land Battleship as their initial force, who knows what else was behind them?

Even maintaining their current positions was fraught with uncertainty, let alone the urgency of contacting reinforcements, so they had little energy left to organize forces for a counter-landing.

Finally, as the casualty figures for both sides were nearing finalization, the Transport Shuttles carrying the second wave of troops finally emerged in the eager eyes of those below and swiftly landed at various previously secured areas.

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