Steel & Oil: Warhammer 32K

Why did that sentence sound somewhat familiar?

For a moment Lin couldn't quite work it out, and Gadda had no intention of giving Lin time to think.

He lunged ferociously at Lin. Though the near-scrapped giant kan could no longer pose any real threat to Lin, Gadda had no intention of attacking at all.

He simply used his sheer advantage in build to pin Lin down. No matter how Lin attacked, he stood immovable.

Even wrecked, this six-meter-tall kan was still dozens of tons of scrap iron!

Lin was left somewhat dazed by this rule-flouting tactic. He tried to break free, but Gadda, having staked everything, would not give him the chance.

The battle had now become a ludicrous contest of brute strength, the two mechs tumbling together on the ground in a tangled heap. In the midst of the struggle, the corner of Lin's eye once again caught that point of light that had earlier cast its shadow over them. It was moving so fast that the Lin of this moment could now, with the aid of his equipment, finally make out just what that thing was.

It was a thick, massive laser beam.

To be precise, a lance of light.

To be even more precise, a lance of light whose point of impact was right here.

Lin's eyes snapped wide.

At last he understood just what that Ork warlord had been guiding a moment ago.

This fellow had probably realized that conventional firepower couldn't take down that Warlord-class Titan, and so he meant to use the lance of light to deal with this great enemy.

This was a play to perish together with the foe!

Seeing the astonishment Lin couldn't keep from his face, Gadda grinned smugly. Satisfied at having turned the tables and played the one across from him, he gave a triumphant, snarling roar:

"Heheh, I'm gonna win for sure!"

Even if this method meant killing a thousand of the enemy at the cost of a thousand of his own, he wouldn't hesitate in the slightest!

The outer defensive line was already teetering under the assault of the rest of the greenskins, but compared to winning the overall battlefield, Gadda cared more about his duel with Lin right here and now.

If he were kicked down from the position of Ork warlord after winning, then even if the war was won, he would be a thoroughgoing loser.

He would never accept his own defeat!

Gadda's earlier plan had been simple and clear—since that Titan was the runty gits' biggest toy, then so long as he had the Gargant tie up the Titan and then used his Zzap Gun to skewer the two of them together into a kebab, he would win a victory all the boyz would acknowledge.

Besides, without that big thing, what could the runty gits use to contend with Gadda's great army?

So long as he could win against the Titan, he would naturally win big on the frontal battlefield.

But the way things developed did not go as this Ork warlord wished. First he was held up by the Astra Militarum's melta charges, then run down by the Space Marines, and in the end he failed even to triumph in his duel with Lin...

But at the very last moment, he had used his own proud masterwork to find a chance to snatch victory from defeat.

With this lance of light, he would cut down this loathsome runty git before him together with the Titan!

Lin began desperately trying to break free. He jettisoned his exoskeleton armor, meaning to slip away whole like a cicada shedding its shell, but Gadda—who had likewise opened his own cockpit—would not give him the chance. Having grown a size larger earlier made Gadda's movements not so convenient; only after shedding the miscellaneous gear all over himself did he climb out from the cockpit.

He grabbed Lin in one hand, and a fist the size of a clay pot came crashing down at Lin.

"You can't get away, human!"

Lin grappled with Gadda, and Gadda used his advantage in build to pin Lin down. But Lin, twisting his body to the side, fired the thrusters on his back and carried Gadda along with him out of the lance of light's direct line of bombardment.

The lance of light's bombardment arrived in an instant!

The moment the laser beam touched the atmosphere, a violent ionization of the air formed a dazzling pillar of light within the sky. It pierced into the clouds like a sharp sword, and sank into the ground right beside Lin.

The earth was mercilessly cut as though it were a mirror, and a deep pit stretching dozens of meters formed in an instant.

Around this terrifying fissure, soil and rock were vaporized in an instant, turning into a ring of pale-blue vapor. The high temperature reduced everything it touched to nothing, leaving behind only scorched traces.

The struck ground began to crack, and fine fissures spread rapidly in every direction, like the scars left on skin by a red-hot branding iron. Those soils not vaporized rapidly lost their moisture under the high heat, becoming a dry, loose powder.

Heat waves rolled and surged, mingled with vaporized matter gushing outward, blasting Lin's face raw with pain. But Lin, having sensed an even greater variable, ignored this bit of pain. He swiftly calculated the trajectory of this lance of light, and the answer he finally arrived at filled him with alarm.

Christina's Warlord-class Titan was also within this lance of light's strike range!

"Christina!" Lin roared over the comms. "Dodge!"

Christina had of course also noticed this lance of light racing toward her. She wanted to maneuver the Titan to evade, but there was no longer quite enough time.

"Shut down all systems except the locomotion gear! Maximize Void Shield output!" she commanded.

Even the energy of the lighting system was channeled into the Void Shield. The Titan's cockpit fell instantly into gloom, with only the instrument panel flickering a dangerous red light.

Christina communed with all her might with the Titan's machine-spirit; she could feel this Titan's fury and ferocity.

The raging lance of light sliced the Gargant standing before the Titan clean in two, then struck the Titan's Void Shield. The originally pale-violet Void Shield flared with a searing red glow, the piercing light illuminating the once-dark cockpit as bright as day.

A lance of light was, against a Void Shield, the weaker matchup—but that was premised on both sides having comparable output.

So long as the energy was great enough, any weapon could annihilate its target utterly!

"The Void Shield wasn't fully charged—it's only at 70% now, estimated to hold for three seconds!" the operator reported in a hurried voice on the Titan's condition.

"That's enough!"

Christina worked the Titan into an emergency evasion; her perfect communion with the machine-spirit let her maneuver this Titan more smoothly than any ordinary person. Three seconds was not enough for this Titan to fully clear the lance of light's bombardment range, but it was at least enough to let it avoid the vital areas.

The lance of light shattered the Void Shield, and the searing laser landed on the Titan's shoulder. Even though the cockpit was still some distance away from there, the crew inside it could feel the lance's astonishing energy through the metal that turned scalding hot beneath their feet.

It cut through the Titan's arm with effortless ease.

—Thankfully, it all stopped there.

The Titan's arm bearing the Volcano Cannon turned into a lump of twisted metal in the high heat and crashed to the ground, and the entire Titan, overloaded, fell into a shutdown—but the lance of light's bombardment of the Titan had already ended.

This lance of light, whose strike range had not been kept under control, continued to move along a straight line, finally vanishing into the distance beyond the horizon.

Lin let out a breath.

This was, of course, not the best outcome.

He hadn't expected that Orks, who had never carried out an orbital strike, would actually be hiding such a great weapon of slaughter up their sleeve. Had the Ork warlord truly gotten close to the Titan, then this Warlord-class would likely have been hard-pressed to escape this disaster.

Compared to outright losing a Titan, the present result was at least one he could accept.

He rose up from this scalding ground, and off to one side discovered the fallen Ork warlord.

Gadda had borne the overwhelming bulk of that heat wave a moment ago, and his back had already turned a charred black. Even by the standards of an Ork warlord's constitution, this absolutely counted as a grievous wound.

"Human, I ain't lost yet..."

Gadda gasped for breath. He could no longer rise, but he still glared at Lin with eyes brimming with fury. "Between us... there's still a fight... unfought...."

"No."

Lin responded coldly. He drew out his Plasma Pistol and aimed it at the head of this cunning Ork warlord.

"It's already over."

He squeezed the trigger, and the azure plasma punched through the head of this Ork warlord whose name he still did not know, blasting the foe's green skull to smithereens.

Following Tigrex, Bazelgeuse, and the Deputy Forge Director, this Plasma Pistol had now added another glorious entry to its record.

The Ork warlord's headless corpse slumped to the ground. A nameless energy, centered on him, swept outward toward all the greenskins around.

Every Ork that felt this energy sensed something in their hearts, and as one they halted their reckless, cost-be-damned assault.

First one, then a second, a third...

One after another, greenskins cast aside their weapons. Those who had almost reached the trenches now trampled over the corpses of their own comrades, retreating in disarray.

The Astra Militarum in the trenches, who had already fixed bayonets, stared wide-eyed; braced for close-quarters fighting, they watched this throng of retreating Orks, not understanding what had happened.

The rout of the Orks declared the end of this battle.

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