”Let me go! I am an ascendant!”

Nyon turned around and found himself staring at one of the ascendants under his command. Two supplicant zealots dragged him here. His weapons were stripped and his arms were put in chains. Instead of floating in the air proudly like what he normally did, the ascendant seemed beaten down.

“My master, we found him trying to steal a transport. Killed two zealots on the way.” One of the supplicants saluted and explained.

The captured ascendant was the one that led the attack on the terran lines. His warriors were gone, but he managed to survive, barely, with an emergency warping system he secretly installed for himself.

As soon as he got out, he realized he needed to get out of there right now. In the Tal’darim world, unless there was a proper reason for it, or unless he or she was still useful, defeated ascendants would either be executed or be put through an extremely painful modification and be stuck into vanguard armors to die to redeem their honor. The ascendant knew some ascendants would accept that fate, but he wasn’t one of them. As soon as he could, he tried to grab a transport and escape this planet. If he could go to the territory of another ascendant who didn’t know what he did, he might be able to start over again.

Let’s just say things didn’t go as planned. The transports, especially in this intense time, was guarded by Nyon’s supplicants. These warriors obeyed Nyon and Nyon alone. Without the Sixth Ascendant’s orders, the ascendant failed to convince them to move with his threats and promises. When he went desperate, he attacked and killed two supplicant guards, but the rest quickly overwhelmed him. Wounded and alone, he didn’t stand a chance.

“Please, my master. Allow me a chance to redeem myself…” The warrior begged for Nyon’s sympathy. Unfortunately, Nyon didn’t have any sympathy.

The Sixth Ascendant merely smirked as the lower ascendant begged. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed onto the ascendant by his neck and lifted him up into the air.

“Tal'darim! Hear me!” He screamed with the ascendant still in his grip, and every Tal’darim warrior within his vicinity assembled to around him. When the audience was in place, Nyon finally spoke.

“For millennials, Amon has entrusted his creation to us! It is our duty to ensure it remains in the hands of the Forged!” Nyon lifted the ascendant up even higher. “This piece of filth is tasked with destroying the terran thieves. He was defeated! If he chose to die for Amon, then his sin would be gone. Yet, he chose to flee! What should we do with him?”

The Tal’darim crowd screamed in anger. Some of them wanted the ascendant dead while others wanted something much worse.

Realizing the situation and understanding he was done, a vicious look appeared in the ascendant’s eyes. His bane blade was stripped away, but he was an ascendant, not a common zealot. Without any warning, he formed a psionic orb in his right fist. Just as he was about to throw it out at Nyon, he saw a smile on the Sixth Ascendant’s face.

Before he knew it, a red blade appeared by Nyon’s arm, and he swung the weapon and cut off the captured ascendant’s arm that was holding the psionic orb.

The ascendant screamed in mind shattering pain, but Nyon showed no mercy. He brutally tossed the ascendant on the ground. “Make him suffer.” He ordered quietly, and four blood hunters emerged from the shadows and dragged the ascendant away. The Tal’darim warriors quieted down. They were aware of the perverseness of the blood hunters. These covert warriors did things that would make Tal’darim falter on a daily basis. If the coward was in their hands, he would suffer a fate much worse than death.

And that was exactly what should happen to cowards. Perhaps the ascendant did nothing wrong, but he was weak, and in this world, weakness alone was a sin.

Seeing the morale of his warriors was at its peak, Nyon pointed at the terran fortification. “Go! Destroy that fortress and execute every terran you see! The work of god shall not be desecrated!”

3600 Tal’darim charged at the terran line like a crimson flood.

This time the Tal’darim struck from both sides. The protoss outnumbered the terran ten to one. More points of contact meant more Tal’darim could get on in the action at the same time while the amount of terran firepower remained the same.

“All units fire at will.!” Jean ordered calmy through the radio. If Nyon was a raging ball of fire that would consume everything in his way, then she was a wall of steel that could never be defeated. Overwhelmed, maybe, but never taken down.

The terran line opened fire. All three siege tanks fired and reloaded as efficiently as possible. Their projectiles landing in the middle of the protoss flanks, killing several and damaging the shields of everyone in the blast radius with every shot. Marines and marauders unloaded on the zealots at the front. Goliaths added to the already impressive firepower.

But there was too much protoss. The holes opened up by siege tanks rounds or other projectiles was quickly covered by those from behind.

Twenty vanguards approached the terran bunkers in a tight formation. Vanguards were Tal’darim striders. Their pilots were ascendants defeated in battle but survived. As a punishment, these ascendants were placed in vanguards. Their only duty was to use their powerful yet short distanced scattered cannons to do as much damage to the enemies as possible before they die. The Daelaam immortals had hardened shells or barriers that could keep the strider and its pilot alive as long as possible, but the Tal’darim didn’t feel the need to do that. For an assault strider, vanguards had a relatively weak plasma shield and armor.

Tactically speaking this wasn’t ideal. Judging from the name, vanguards were usually sent as the frontline, which wasn’t the best place to be for artillery units. If Jean was in command, she would find a way to increase the range of the vanguards and scatter them among her other units so they could fire as much as possible before they die.

But then again to the ascendants, the main purpose of the vanguards was to die. If they could do some damage, great. If they died before being able to fire a single shot, then there was no loss either.

If anything, certain ascendants were even willing to actively choose to send vanguards to their death.

Nyon wasn’t one of such ascendants, but he didn’t bother to go against the tradition and keep the vanguards alive either. After he ordered the attack, the vanguards acted based on the usual tactic and charged forward in one tight clump.

Jean keenly noticed that opening.

“All siege tank units on the northern position concentrate fire on sector N8! Fire for three rounds and wait for further instructions!” Before the battle Jean divided the battlefield into different sectors so her men could receive, understand, and carry out orders as quickly as possible.

The two siege tanks turned their turrets away from the zealots and took aim of the vanguards. Suddenly, the bodies of the siege tanks were pushed back as the Crucio cannons sang.

Within less than a second, two cannon rounds landed in the middle of the vanguards.

The pilots screamed as the metal hull of the striders were obliterated. A few of them desperately opened fire, but their scattered cannons, despite being more powerful than most terran ground vehicles and being able to obliterate a bunker with a single shot, required them to get a lot closer to reach the line of bunkers. The result of these vanguards firing only led to a few zealots in front being melted by the not-so-friendly friendly fire.

When the smoke cleared, 3 vanguards were down and three times that number were wounded. Before the survivors could take a breath of relief, the siege tanks fired again.

And after that, again.

Nyon groaned, slightly frustrated, as he saw the vanguards being slaughtered, but he still wasn’t considering the possibility that the Tal’darim might lose this battle. Vanguards’ were relatively expensive, but to someone as powerful as he, the twenty casualties was still acceptable. The structure of the chain of ascension meant there was constantly casualties, which meant there was constantly ascendants being defeated and sent into vanguards.

The fall of the vanguards was just an insignificant part of the overall battle. Neither the protoss nor the terran paused for even a single second.

Zealots fell one by one, but eventually some of them lived long enough to reach the bunkers. The leading zealot let loose an ear piercing scream as he launched himself across the last layer of empty space in front of the bunkers. He could already feel his blades sliding through terran flesh and hear the screams of dying men.

The terran have fired at them for what seemed like forever and brought down countless warriors. It was time to return the favor.

But just before his red weapon could make contact with the first bunker, he felt something emerging from the ground. A lesser warrior would’ve been taken by surprise and backed off, but the zealot made the split second decision to keep charging and fight his way through whatever awaited him or die trying.

Which meant he smashed into thousands of degrees of inferno.

After realizing the zealots were getting too close, Jean ordered the five flamethrower turrets, courtesy of Chief Engineer Swann, to attack. They were previously hidden underground, waiting for their opportunity. Now that the order was given, they immediately rose up and set the unsuspecting zealots aflame.

The first zealot screamed. A more armored unit, like slayers or vanguards, would’ve survived a bit longer, but the zealot’s light plasma shield, already weakened during his charge, was no match for the heat. Immediately, the layer of defense was shattered into a thousand different pieces. The shield was gone, but the flame kept coming. It burned away the zealot’s armor and melted his flesh. In less than two seconds, the elite warrior was completely gone.

What made things worse was that flamethrower turrets did area damage, and the melee zealots had no way of getting close enough without being burned. Even if some extremely durable zealot could survive long enough to deliver a strike or two, they were ineffective against the heavy building armor of the turrets.

Screams covered the field, but the Tal’darim kept charging. A few wiser zealots wanted to wait for the slayers to take down the turrets before charging meaninglessly into death, but they were pushed forward by the rest of the crowd.

Yet, despite taking heavy losses, these protoss showed the Raiders the power of the combination of a group of fearless and experienced combatants armed with superior technology.

An ascendant held her fist together, and a bunker exploded. Two of the marines managed to get out of there and enter the safety of another bunker, but their comrades didn’t share the same luck as they were targeted down by half a dozen slayers. The amount of damage a dozen participle disruptor shots could do to two marines was brutal. The men didn’t even live long enough to produce a scream in the radio channel.

A squad of slayers made a daring move as they blinked forward on top of two bunkers. Their phasing armor temporarily protected them from the infantry firing and the siege tanks didn’t want to do friendly fire. This allowed them to unload on the bunkers.

The two bunkers were immediately in ruins. Most of the men inside were dead. A mercenary marauder barely got out of the door and was immediately shot in the back by one of the slayers. Amor melted and flesh disintegrated. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

A flamethrower turret was charged on by twenty zealots. Its flamethrower kept on unloading scorching damage onto the zealots, but one of the tougher zealots managed to push his blade into the turret before he was melted. Apparently the weapon was lucky and took down some major circuits, because the turret went silent. It didn’t stay silent for long, though, as it was immediately ripped to pieces by raging zealots.

“Sir, the line is falling!” A captain screamed desperately as he gunned down another zealot.

“Send in the reserves.” Jean said calmly. She kept a group of powerful units back because she wanted to use them as a card for potential Tal’darim tricks, but she had no choice but to use them right now.

Eleven vikings and 8 ARES came up from behind. Their cannons were shooting nonstop, and the Tal’darim advance was halted. A line of auto turrets came out of the ground from behind the bunkers and added to the firepower. Marines and marauders inside the bunkers pulled the trigger like their lives depended on it, because they did.

“My master, we have lost over 600 warriors.” In the back of the Tal’darim lines, a supplicant zealot walked up to Nyon and reported.

Nyon wasn’t taken back. His forces on this planet was reduced to three fourths of its former number, but so what? The army here was just a small portion of his entire fleet, which was scattered all over the sector. If he was to assemble every warrior he had, he could find himself with tens of thousands of combatants. As long as his own supplicant forces were intact, he could lose all the Tal’darim warriors here and still recover relatively easily.

Plus, the 600 warriors didn’t die in vain. Nyon could already see the terran line cracking under the Tal’darim tide. The terran commander fought well, but sometimes the difference in power level was too much to be made up by tactics. Nyon knew if the terran commander had an army as large as his, she would surely come up on top, but war isn’t fair.

Even in the Rak’Shir duel, the one with more support would usually win.

Nonetheless, this battle has gone on for long enough.

“Wrathwalkers, eliminate all terran. Obliterate their bunkers and annihilate their machines.”

Behind Nyon, three 50 meter tall striders with four long legs and red coloring walked up. They used to be colossus under the Aiur faction, but after the Tal’darim got hold of them, they made certain transformations to these mighty weapons. Thermal lenses were considered to be too weak to Tal’darim ascendants and were replaced by charged pulse blasters that could hit by ground and air targets over a long range. Their shots took quite a while to charge, but a single one of them dealt a significant amount of damage. If situation permits, a wrathwalker could take down a destroyer.

Obviously, these wrathwalkers were rare. Even Nyon, at the place of the Sixth Ascendant, only had three of them. He kept them back most of the time and only used them when he was confident he wouldn’t lose them. This time, he was willing to throw them out as a decisive card that would quicken the terran’s demise.