After speaking with Olivia, Zhang Ge discovered that rather than her awakening those four Warhound Titans, she had instead extended herself into those Titans, incorporating them as parts of herself.

These extensions couldn't drift too far from Olivia; otherwise, they would enter a state of inactivity until a pilot came to operate them or Olivia drew close and reconnected with them.

During their conversation, after waiting for a while and seeing Olivia seemingly uninterested in the Knight Armiger wrecks, Zhang Ge finally exhaled a sigh of relief.

Whether Ascalon was simply uninterested in units lesser than Titans, or for some other reason, Zhang Ge had no intention of probing further, nor the desire to ask.

Some questions demanded resolution after they are posed; remaining somewhat confused seemed to be the better option for him.

Of course, the fact that the Knight Armigers were not revived did not dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd, especially not the enthusiasm of the Tech-priests. Though most had already finished their brief celebration and returned to their positions to rest, they continued to offer prayers even after Olivia left.

That night,

A Transport Shuttle descended from the sky and landed at the temporary beachhead.

It was the same ship that had earlier been used to transport these various legions. After completing its task of deploying the landing forces, it had returned to Sky Eagle Port and, now based on the previously established schedule, returned loaded with supplies and reinforcement personnel, guided down by the ground forces.

Currently, this timing had a discrepancy of about ten Terran hours from when they truly broke through the enemy lines—this still accounted for the post-landing operation when the senior commanders optimistically assessed the follow-up situation.

A large quantity of ammunition, fuel, medical supplies, and personnel were unloaded from the ship, while heavily injured personnel, wrecks, messengers, and others ascended aboard.

Soon, the short resupply phase concluded, and with a roar from the thrusters, the shuttle took off once more.

This also marked the end of their resting period.

As various forces prepared to advance, the Adeptus Mechanicus finally reached a preliminary conclusion in their discussions and relayed it to the commanders of the Astra Militarum—primarily Zhang Ge, as he was inseparably tied to the issue of the Titans... at least as it stood in the viewpoint of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Holding the attitude that it's best not to disturb a program if it's running well, the heightened importance displayed by the Titans only encouraged the Tech-priests to be more cautious in their actions. Currently, their stance was that they greatly respected Zhang Ge's standing in relation to the Titans.

Speaking of their conclusion.

In summary, the Adeptus Mechanicus had already dispatched individuals to Northspire Sector to request reinforcements. Prior to this, the Skitarii, who were originally intended to escort the Titans after salvaging them, would alter their plans to accompany the Astra Militarum until reinforcements arrived, or the troubles in the Deadwood Sector got resolved.

What other option was there? Forcefully intervene with Titan operations? Or demand that the Astra Militarum and Space Marines abandon their plans to protect the Titans?

Most of them spoke directly and didn't overly concern themselves with others' feelings, but they certainly weren't foolish. Moreover, until they clarified whether the miracle was caused by the Titans themselves or by some action involving them, who would dare to make arbitrary changes?

If altering the proposed actions of the Titans led to complications, then what would happen then?

This kind of thinking was not uncommon; in fact, it was quite classic. Switch it out for any standard procedure: what if altering some process caused mechanical failures in the outcomes? What then?

Upon seeing this message, Zhang Ge quickly understood the implications.

He had been somewhat worried that the priests might produce some sacred tools from thin air and, without warning, teleport a bunch of people over, forcibly dragging him and the Titans off to hide somewhere.

Now it seemed, putting aside the matter of intervention, their communication methods hadn't exceeded recognition; in the face of electronic jamming, they still opted to send personnel through to relay messages.

Given that, the round trip would naturally take quite some time; by the time the Tech-priests' reinforcements arrived, Zhang Ge would have likely had an extensive back-and-forth dialogue with the Iron Warriors, preventing it from impacting his plans too severely.

Not long after, directed by the Chapter Champion, a grand force of nearly two hundred thousand elite soldiers, including a Warlord Titan, a half-damaged Reaver Titan, four Warhound Titans, and six Knight Armigers, set out on a sandy path toward the rear of the Iron Warriors.

The Traitors had already breached the outer defensive walls and were embedded within the rear positions. If all went well, their main forces would likely still be entangled with the defenders of the Deadwood Sector.

If they could land a decisive blow from the rear at this critical moment, even if they ultimately didn't win, they would surely relieve some significative pressure off the defending forces.

However, in contrast to the eager advance of several regiments, the Iron Warriors on the other side were feeling rather uneasy.

A grand battalion leader was energetically directing his forces to attack the Imperial Fists' positions—note that, with the traitorous Space Marine Chapters inheriting the Legion system, a grand battalion or company could vastly outnumber later traitor groups or standard standard chapters' squads, making their leaders far stronger, potentially equivalent to the leaders of the average regiment.

Just after this grand battalion commander issued a seemingly satisfactory order, news arrived from behind his position: dozens of thousands of elite adversaries and a Warlord Titan were approaching.

Before he even had a chance to confirm the news for himself, the subordinate who had reported it returned defeated, having only brought a tiny number of surviving Space Marines back, with almost all heavy equipment lost.

The simultaneous occurrence of the two situations initially led him to suspect whether the enemy had indeed suffered a catastrophic loss and were exaggerating the numbers to save face.

However, as he caught sight of the pulped body of a Traitor Astartes before him, having blown the towering cranium open and consumed its brain's contents, he realized the foe was starkly underestimating their own problems.

Cadians, Ultramar Auxilia, Titans, and unknown Land Battleships.

Though there were hints of a nameless grunt legion involved, if one disregarded that, the remaining elite forces still numbered immensely.

It was an interesting and significant opponent, but he didn't view them as threatening enough just yet.

After conducting another mental assessment, the grand battalion leader found himself pondering warily.

As the highest-ranking officer in this area, he had ample manpower at his disposal. In response to the approaching enemy legion, he decided to dispatch two hundred Space Marines and six million Cultist auxiliaries.

This force was outfitted with regular heavy equipment, but additionally, they'd receive further support from a super-heavy tank battalion, which would include two Shadowsword Super-heavy Tanks that dated back to the Great Crusade era.

Each of these tanks wielded a Volcano Cannon as its main armament, able to deliver devastating attacks that could effectively damage a standard Warhound Titan in a single shot. If they both fired in unison at a direct hit, there was even a potential to outright destroy a Warhound Titan in one strike.

This kind of lethal potential posed a significant threat, even to Warlord-class Titans.

Such was to be expected, given that Shadowswords have historically been used as Titan killers, and since these two had fallen to Chaos, the warp interference further amplified their power.

Paired with an experienced crew, even absent support from other super-heavy tanks, both Shadowswords would still be sufficient to challenge a Warlord Titan's initial volley.

With two hundred elite Space Marines, six million auxiliary troops, a battalion of super-heavy tanks, and a reliable officer to lead them.

The grand battalion commander truly could not fathom how this legion would fail against a mere handful of foes, even if they had a Warlord Titan in their ranks.

However, regrettably, such a scale of mobilization would also impact the offensive against the Deadwood Sector, allowing those stagnantly gold-tinted turtles a bit more time to live.

Pondering this, the grand battalion leader hesitated for a moment, considering cutting back on his mobilization, but ultimately dismissed this irrational idea.

With a command, within the Iron Warriors' positions, a large regiment corresponding to the paper calculations rapidly mobilized, and besides the forces already present, many demons joined the ranks, further augmenting their strength.

In the deserts, two legions—one grand and one small—were marching towards each other, both firm in their conviction of victory.

Nonetheless, their confrontation would not first take place on the ground but would quietly unfold in the sky.

Above both formations, Chaos aircraft and Phantom Interceptors launched an assault against what appeared to be an easy target in the enemy formations.

Yet after an initial unraveling of the enemy, they quickly recognized problems brewing.

Why were their advance attacks being thwarted, only to witness their detection command aircraft and data nodes being shot down by an unknown enemy?

Where the hell were the escorting fighters?

It was just that those escorting aircraft could no longer respond.

Most of the time, when the escort fighters detected that radar-evading enemy planes had emerged, they were already annihilated, having barely taken down two or three enemy planes in those unbelievable shots, which was a catastrophic loss for any small escort formation.

What's more terrifying was that even upon realizing the threat, the remaining three or four aircraft would typically meet the same fate in the opening rounds as well.

Despite the subsequent increase in escort formations to twelve or even sixteen aircraft, nothing changed for the better; it merely futilely augmented the number of aircraft lost with each engagement.

Finally, after the escort force bolstered their ranks to over twenty aircraft, they were able to partially stem the tide of losses... but they were still leaving their primary target targets vulnerable to the surprise strikes of an unknown enemy.

However, after a while, the Chaos side no longer had to worry about this issue, as tragically, the value of their large command aircraft was exceedingly high, and the way they operated resulted in their obliteration.

Under these circumstances, the majority of Chaos fighters essentially blindfolded themselves, and after engaging in combat with the comparatively fewer loyalist aircraft, they somehow ended up in a standoff—a standoff that meant the Chaos side suffered far greater losses than the Imperial side.

Simultaneously, this also produced a secondary effect:

The Iron Warriors were unable to leverage their air force to relocate their Space Marine troops... though not that they couldn't, but rather that they wouldn't dare.

There had been an Incident involving a stealth-infiltrating Thunderhawk Gunship that had been shot down, for reasons unknown. That Thunderhawk had been transporting over thirty Space Marines and at least one Dreadnought... the exact number was uncertain, but the last person to inquire about this issue of the commander ended up becoming two pieces of slightly less peaceful corpses.

To have lost more than a tenth of their brothers before even engaging the enemy, with their air force gaining nothing, was not a good sign.

Yet despite the bad news, the Iron Warriors were still extremely confident about their eventual victory.

The losses in the air were regarded merely as not having seized the advantage... even considering that, those pesky bugs weren't the only ones who were worthy of recognition.

It was better they remained in the background and observed as the Imperial battle for glory was secured, so they could return and receive promotions as they basked in success.

Such thoughts lingered until the scout forces dashed back in terror to the battalion, bearing news that the previously dispatched ten thousand elite cultists had returned with barely a tenth of their number.

According to their intel, the enemy had initially deployed at least six Titans.

Watching the footage and consuming this news, the commander felt his vision darken, leaving him with only one thought:

Who's trying to set me up?

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