Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 993

Chapter 984: The Siege of Terra (Part 2)

Zhao Zi’an and his regiment were trapped in a desperate situation.

But it seemed as if fate always turned at such moments.

When their remaining plasma weapons, in a desperate overload salvo, once again destroyed the Daemon Engine-powered battering ram, vaporizing a large circle of surrounding enemies, the massive casualties seemed to finally pry the bloodlust of the Khorne cultists into submission.

The subsequent surge was less frantic and fearless, especially when they discovered that stubborn points on the wall were still sporadically spewing deadly fire.

The frenzied Blood God cultists retreated like a tide, leaving behind a mountain of corpses and the wreckage of nearly destroyed fortifications.

Panting and aching, Zhao Zi’an had only one thought in his mind:

“Victory?”

Why did the enemy retreat?

He was puzzled.

It was clear that if the Khorne cultists fought again, they would not be able to hold out.

The enemy was clearly still numerous.

As for morale… Khorne’s troops certainly had their morale crumble, but it was rare.

At least not in the current situation.

Could it be that this was fate’s favor? The Emperor’s blessing? Was it their courage that repelled the demonic attack?

Despite his doubts, he decided to take a break.

Zhao Zian slowly slid down to the ground against a broken wall, his helmet automatically removed, revealing a face covered in blood and deep fatigue.

He glanced around, and there were less than ten soldiers who could still stand, or who were seriously injured and leaning against cover and still able to pull the trigger. He contacted the various companies using the communicator, but received very few responses.

In total, of the entire elite guard regiment he led, three thousand soldiers, perhaps only a hundred were left.

A regimental commander was beaten into a company commander.

The air was filled with the sickening smell of charred flesh, flowing blood, and thick gunpowder smoke.

The moat beneath the city walls was no longer filled with stagnant water, but a thick stream of blood, stained with countless limbs and severed arms and legs from both sides.

“Count the bodies… Bandage the wounded…” Zhao Zi’an’s voice was hoarse and dry, yet it held a certain sense of relief at having survived.

But soon, that relief faded.

Fate had played a cruel trick .

The terrifying onslaught of Khorne’s followers had indeed retreated, but…

the soldiers on the city walls called out to him.

He climbed to the top and gazed into the distance.

The thick smoke wasn’t all dust and gunpowder from the fierce battle; the remaining Khorne followers were being slaughtered.

Their angry roars, indistinct from the distance, fought with all their might.

But their attackers were certainly not reinforcements.

From the devastated positions left behind by the Khorne followers’ temporary retreat, a new, thicker, and suffocating yellow-green smoke was rising from the depths of the earth.

The very earth was rotting.

Across a swampy landscape, stumbling figures, bloated and festering, battled Khorne’s followers. Countless swollen pustules rolled and burst beneath their skin, oozing fetid pus. The stench of decay overwhelmed the blood and smoke of the battlefield. Shredded

upon those festering bodies were the torn fragments of the Solar Legion’s uniforms, interspersed with the crude clothing of countless Hive City civilians.

They were Nurgle’s walking corpses! Their numbers were like an endless tide of maggots surging from a corrupted swamp, covering the mountains and plains with no end in sight, far outnumbering the Khorne Legions that had just cost them near annihilation!

After devouring the vastly outnumbered remnants of Khorne’s army, they continued their mighty march towards the walls of the Terran Palace.

They clutched weapons, and behind them lay the filthy, fetid siege engines and plague cannons of Nurgle.

Despair.

A despair, even deeper and thicker than the one they’d faced against the Khorne cultists, gripped the hearts of every surviving guard.

Had they driven back the Khorne cultists?

Apparently, it wasn’t.

These new enemies emerging from behind them were likely the reason the Khorne cultists had collapsed and retreated.

And now, it was their turn, this pitiful remnant, to face an even more formidable foe than before.

Zhao Zian smiled bitterly and put his helmet back on.

…

And now, in the Terra Palace’s combat command center, Yan Xinzhen’s ordeal was no less arduous than on the front lines.

The vast hemispherical dome was divided into countless shimmering screens of light, each representing a node in the outer defense zone of the Imperial Palace. The Anvil, representing Zhao Zian’s regiment, had just been covered by a glaring blood-red fall mark. Mere seconds later, the surveillance feed representing that area was completely extinguished by intense interference, leaving only darkness and a piercing busy tone.

“Pressure surge in the main gate section of the Diamond Barrier! Approaching Titan-class biosignals detected!”

“Massive teleportation reaction detected in Wing C of the Corridor of Sighs! Tzeentch wizards confirmed!”

“The Emperor’s Crown observatory battery is under saturation bombardment from a cluster of Daemon engines, severely damaging the anti-aircraft firepower network!”

“Multiple sensors in the Palace River embankment system have failed! Suspected Nurgle corruption is damaging the infrastructure!”

Warnings pounded everyone’s nerves like a dense drumbeat.

Across the entire battle map, red warning lights signaling intense fighting spread like a plague. Over seventy percent of the palace’s outer defense nodes lit up in orange-red, signaling “critical” or “imminent collapse.” The golden glints in the center, representing the Imperial Guard’s mobile reserve units, were pitifully few, and most were frantically hopping across the map, leaping from one fleeting crisis point to another. Each intervention felt like a drop in the bucket.

A combat officer’s voice trembled imperceptibly: “Marshal! The Anvil has been confirmed to have fallen. The Nurgle Plague Legion is circling the Stone Fortress through the breach! Wing B of the Corridor of Sighs has been attacked by a blasphemous sorcerer, and some of the defenders have rebelled under their foul spells, resulting in heavy losses! Half of the outer city’s energy grid generator nodes have been destroyed or transformed into lumps of flesh by the plague…”

Each piece of news informed Yan Xinzhen of a truth that brought immense pain to him and to all the Imperial Guards: the Imperial Palace walls, which they had defended for millennia, were about to fall.

A cruel decision, like an icicle piercing his heart, was then ripped from his lips.

He had no choice but to abandon the vast outer defenses, etched with countless legends and epics, and withdraw his limited, precious Custodians’ strength to the central ring of the Imperial Palace walls.

No, perhaps even the central ring wouldn’t do.

He was short on soldiers and generals. Facing an enemy of this magnitude, insisting on defending an area he couldn’t defend would only futilely stretch his forces and be overwhelmed.

He couldn’t hold the central ring either.

For a long time, the Custodians had looked down upon the Golden Knights, who stood alongside them on Holy Terra.

It wasn’t that they had any problem with the Golden Knights; they simply looked down upon all Space Marines equally.

But now, he desperately wished they were here.

While a thousand more Space Marines wouldn’t reverse the situation, at least some relief would be appreciated.

Abandoning the outer ring, abandoning the central ring—a total of sixteen intricate rings of walls and countless fortresses—was a difficult decision to make.

Yet Yan Xinzhen still managed to do it.

He had to gather his scarce military forces and deploy them to the inner ring of the palace, which was smaller, more defensively equipped, and far more important than the outer walls.

He truly wished he were dead.

In nearly ten thousand years, which Imperial Guards Marshal had surrendered 70% of the palace while defending it?

Shame!

He had to reflect on whether the tradition he had led the Imperial Guards to uphold during his thousand years as Marshal was wrong. Should

the Imperial Guards simply stay in the palace?

Without the Empire, what would the palace be?

This should be a completely obvious truth. So obvious that even a three-year-old could grasp it, let alone the Imperial Guards, who fancied themselves perfect humans.

Yet, they had remained entrenched in tradition for ten thousand years.

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

Now, it was time to pay the price.

After a brief moment of shock among the command center, the order to abandon the defense and retreat was passed down.

Yan Xinzhen knew the expressions of humiliation and resignation on the faces of those blood-soaked warriors on the outer layers as they received orders to retreat behind the palace walls, or to hold their ground and delay the enemy.

But he had no time for sentimentality.

He cared nothing for honor or pride.

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

The screen flickered steadily, revealing Robert’s resolute face, now also shrouded in fatigue and anxiety.

“Your Highness, the Regent,” Yan Xinzhen said, without a trace of politeness. “The outer defenses of the Terran Palace are collapsing. I have ordered the abandonment of the outer ring. It is expected that the central ring will also be abandoned, and the core defenses will be contracted.”

Robert’s pupils on the other side of the screen suddenly constricted.

Behind him, the combat command center was in chaos. It was clear that the fierce battle in orbit and the preparations for the multiple landings on the ground were still in full swing.

“…So soon?” Robert’s voice was heavy with sorrow.

“The enemy has been planning this for a long time.” Yan Xinzhen spoke rapidly, time being of the essence. “Khorne has opened the first great gaping hole, and Nurgle’s army has poured forth from the corpses and plague, far outnumbering Khorne’s legions. Tzeentch’s sorcery is creating distortion and chaos within the interior and communication nodes, while Slaanesh’s whispers are shaking the will of the remaining defenders… Your Highness, Regent, we need your legions!

“Whatever the cost, we need your legions, or those of the Alliance, to reach the Imperial Palace on Terra, and immediately!”

“The inner circle of the Imperial Palace, where the Emperor’s Golden Throne resides, must not be lost.”

(End of this chapter)