Chapter 106: Chapter 106: Tithe Collection and Salamander Arrival
A creature with a pair of scythe claws was rapidly leaping across the battlefield using its powerful hind legs.
It also used the leap's momentum to swing its scythe claws, making its cuts even more deadly.
So soldiers who couldn't dodge in time were easily dismembered by these scythe claws.
Then it used its sharp teeth to further tear apart the target's body, feasting voraciously.
This thing was a Tyranid bioform called a Hormagaunt.
Before this Hormagaunt could finish eating its target, a beam pierced through its head.
Then a tank simply crushed over its body.
The tank's guns frantically poured out hellfire rounds.
These were different from ordinary explosive rounds—their core and warhead had been replaced with a small vial of mutagen acid containing thousands of needles.
When fired at target clusters, these needles would separate from the vial and inject the acid into targets to kill them.
These warheads were specifically developed by the Imperium to combat Tyranids.
These rounds fired into the wave-like swarm ahead, killing a large area.
However, this large area was quickly submerged by even more bugs from behind, giving the feeling of a stone dropping into the ocean, as if no damage had been done.
The PDF (Planetary Defense Force) soldiers following around the tank also fired their lasguns toward the bug tide ahead.
They followed the tank's advance fearlessly, determined to push the bugs back into their hives.
At the same time, countless heavenly fires were falling—fragments from the destroyed orbital fortress crashing toward this battlefield, conducting indiscriminate carpet bombing.
Facing such indiscriminate strikes, the soldiers completely ignored them. They only executed their current mission and wouldn't waste a single bullet or shell to intercept fragments that might hit them from the sky.
Their ammunition could only be used to kill the bugs ahead.
They also couldn't move from their current positions at will—this was their battle line.
Of course, seemingly rigid execution of such tasks didn't mean they were as silent as machines.
Over this frontline company's communication channel, quite a few soldiers' curses could be heard.
"These bugs sure know how to pick their timing."
"Right when the Imperial Guard units were just conscripted and left."
"Otherwise, our combat strength would be several times higher now."
"They also picked right after the tithe was just collected, and ammunition was requisitioned too."
"What kind of mess is this? Both tithes came almost together, damn it!"
Imperial world tithes often came in two types. The first was the military tithe—one-tenth of the planetary defense forces were handed over as new recruits for the Imperial Guard, overseen by the Departmento Munitorum.
The soldiers handed over as Imperial Guard were definitely the elite of the planetary defense forces.
The second type was the Exactus tithe, supervised by the Departmento Exacta under the Administratum.
On this planet, one-tenth of military supplies had also been submitted as Exactus tithe.
The weapons submitted as tribute were naturally the good ones.
The remaining nine-tenths of weapons were all of varying quality.
So the logistics officer managing this planet's weapons really wanted to flog the corpse—confirmed KIA.
Just how much had been embezzled?
"Really messed up... static!"
Like communications being jammed, harsh static noise rang out.
Occasionally clearer sounds emerged—sounds of flesh being torn by something, sounds of chewing.
Of course, there were also the firing sounds of M35 "Galaxy" lasguns or M36 "Kantrael" lasguns—provided you were a veteran familiar with weapons who could identify what model firearms were shooting.
Besides lasguns, there were also the sounds of solid round bolters, or artillery that seemed ready to blast the communication channel.
"Boom—"
This massive sound completely drowned out all the chaotic noise.
Under that twisted metal mass were many lumps of bloody pulp, mixed with ground sand and gravel into a mess.
Looking carefully, you could still see some obvious severed limbs. Human organs, severed hands, and fragments of Tyranid body parts were visible.
Both sides fighting together had been hit by meteors from the sky.
This situation wasn't happening in just one place—the entire battlefield was suffering indiscriminate bombardment from massive debris.
Among them, one special fragment was skipping like a stone on water, but doing so on the ground.
This skipping stone directly killed quite a few bugs.
"Lucky."
The figure emerging from the completely mangled fighter looked around at the surrounding bugs and fighting soldiers, muttering this quietly.
Lucky he wasn't sent deep into enemy lines.
As for the fighter, even with machine soul enhancement, it ultimately wasn't invincible and had crashed.
Not from being hit, but because the airframe had finally reached its limit.
The thing seemed satisfied, and he could vaguely sense such emotions before they disappeared.
Using the crash landing mixed among the massive debris to get a brief respite, he also briefly checked the livestream and discovered new features.
A recording function for livestreams had appeared, but this needed to be activated and cost energy coins.
Like cloud storage—initially you got just a tiny bit of space, but paying money could unlock large capacity space to properly store livestream videos.
Additionally, downloads were provided?
Unfortunately, his current environment didn't allow him leisure for such operations.
In the blink of an eye, he also picked up some items from the scene to disguise himself as a PDF (Planetary Defense Force) soldier and merged with various squads.
Why various squads? Because they kept getting consumed under relentless bug tide assaults.
The battle line hadn't been pushed back though. It was actually advancing forward, but this was all bought with lives.
At this rate of advance, it would take about three days to reach the hive's edge.
The location of his ship happened to be along the way.
"Hmm?"
A fully armed Thunderhawk gunship, focused fired and losing speed, was making a hard landing.
But that wasn't the point—Thunderhawks being shot down on this battlefield weren't rare. The point was that many human-shaped cans and a Dreadnought mech had jumped out of the Thunderhawk.
That insignia—Salamanders?
Immediately, surrounding unit communications were overridden with orders to coordinate with their actions.
The general mission order was to abandon the original defensive line advance and contract into a long triangular arrowhead formation, like an arrow shaft piercing straight through, heading directly for the enemy hive.
...
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