Praetor Talis stared at an approaching warp prism. Twenty adepts stood behind her.

Under the order of executor Selendis, what was left of the Daelaam were spread across the planet. As experienced as Selendis was, she knew perhaps converging her forces wasn’t the best idea when the enemy had a fleet in orbit, completely unchallenged. Scattering her forces into smaller groups could minimize bombardment damage.

Talis and her forces were one of the smaller groups. She was under the order to destroy enemy warp prisms, thus dealing as much damage to the invading forces as possible.

Feeling her glaive cannon, Talis’ red eyes radiated hatred. This life is full of pain, and only Amon could end this endless cycle of torment. Why would someone want to stop him? Why? Doesn’t matter. She, along with her brothers and sisters, would make the invaders realize how foolish they were. When the battle end, when the invaders finally win, they would understand the pain of life.

The warp prism got closer and closer. Talis expertly calculated the distance and when she could fire, but just before the prism got close enough, it suddenly stopped.

“What…” Talis frowned.

In the purifier flagship, Jean smiled as Nova entered full commander mode. In commander mode, Nova was linked to ever purifier unit just like how Jean was linked to every zerg unit on Char. This granted the commander as much information to process with as possible. In comparison the terran commanding gadgets were really inefficient.

Jean give Nova command of the Warden fleet as well. Nova ordered a few scans of landing sites. The result was unsurprising. The surface of the planet was heavily defended. Nova decided to make that lighter.

“All ships: Full bombardment of landing sites. Maintain firing until the landing site is clear. Open fire on my command.”

The combined fleet moved to designated positions. Purifier warp prisms were deployed to transfer troops, and the attack could be delayed if the prisms were sniped. Neither Jean nor Nova were afraid of sacrificing foot soldiers, but sacrificing them for nothing was just inefficient. If the purifiers were to die, they must die after doing the maximum damage.

Thus a bombardment was deployed to cover the landing.

Battlecruiser air to ground laser batteries were directed toward certain locations. Carriers, now modified with a solar beam for anti air and a series of orbital cannons for anti ground, readied their weapons. Motherships charged up their purification beams.

And then the order came.

“Open fire.”

Talis suddenly sensed an extremely dangerous feeling from the air. Her battle instinct immediately took over. Not having time to say a single word, she activated her psionic projector. A transparent figure left her body and sped away quickly.

“Templar, evacuate this area...” The female praetor tried to warn her sisters, but before she could do anything a hundred light beams dropped down from the sky. Talis closed her eyes sadly as she and her forces were consumed in flames. At the split second she was able to disappear and reappear at where her shade was, therefore dodging the bombardment from the orbital ships. Her forces weren’t as lucky as they perished.

The firing continued for three minutes. At the end all of the landing sites were cleared. Nothing on the ground, not even the strongest hybrid, could survive three minutes of intense bombardment from the combined fleet.

When the bombing ended, the warp prisms entered the designated locations and entered phasing mode. Purifier light beams started to solidify on the ground.

All alone, Talis aimed her glaive cannon at one of the purifier zealots, a sentinel. She fired, and a small round projectile flew toward the sentinel and shaved his mechanical head off.

Talis smirked bloodthirsty, but the next second the sentinel’s body twisted and turned. A backup piece of metal appeared at the wound and formed a new head, replacing the lost part. Now completely warped in, the sentinel charged at Talis.

The hero adept was surprised. The purifiers were ancient. Really ancient. Due to their dark past only the highest level of the Daelaam knew about them. As a rather young field commander Talis had few knowledge about the ancient race, and she certainly didn’t know purifier zealots could regenerate, but her battle instinct was still there.

Taking a step to the side, Talis got out of the way of the mechanical zealot. The sentinel returned from energy form to physical mode, only to face a charged and ready glave cannon next to his head.

This time the sentinel didn’t regenerate. Talis not only took off his head but also blasted his body to pieces. Reconstruction could repair minor losses, but when the body was physically apart there was nothing to reconstruct off.

Unfortunately, Talis’ victory was a negligible one. Not all defenses were made up of experienced templar, and not all were able to carry on their mission. In fact, even in the case of Talis, she wasn’t in a great position as she was surrounded by a dozen sentinels with more on the way.

For most of the defenders the first wave of bombardment was the last thing they saw. Forget about the feral, even most templar failed to escape the sudden flames from above. Under the superior air advantage, the only difference between the hybrids and a random zergling was that the hybrid had a few seconds to scream whereas a zergling would be evaporated instantly.

The bombardment took out most of the defenders around the landing site. Therefore most of the warp prisms were able to provide force fields and warp in units almost without having to worry about protecting themselves. When fresh troops were dispatched to the warp prisms, they were met with newly warped in purifiers.

Across the planet two sides clashed. Amon’s troops tried to push into and destroy the warp prisms, therefore cutting off reinforcements and eliminating the purifiers already on Aiur. The purifiers intended on defending the warp prisms. The longer they could hold, the more reinforcements would arrive.

Amon’s forces were the best of the best. Those that were here have lived through all the battles and military disasters before Aiur. None of them were weak. The weaks were already dead.

In comparison the purifiers were relatively weaker, but they were endless. One sentinel fell, eleven would rise again. Ten of them were reinforcements and the last one was the sentinel that fell and repaired itself. On the other hand, one zealot that fell meant one less zealot under Amon’s command.

This battle could only end in one way.