Victory.

Only, victory.

When he took over the authority of the Legion in the depths of the endless forests of Caliban, in the palatial fortress of the Order, he was told, he knew.

All the empire needs is victory.

Other than that, everything doesn't matter.

Sacrifice is not important.

The cost is not important.

process, not important.

Even the victory itself is not important.

Empire, it is only needed, victory.

……

The scarlet light pierced the miasma and world for tens of millions of light-years, mercilessly illuminating the solemn countenance of the Caliban lion.

Every crimson is a collapsing fleet.

Every light is a world in the making.

Every flickering flicker of light and darkness is a legion, a hundred companies, a thousand armor, ten thousand angels, a million or ten million warriors, silently roaring in the cycle of loyalty and death, frantically struggling, killing their opponents with all their might, or fleeing.

Johnson looked up at the flickering star map in front of him: thousands of scarlets scattered across the galaxy, at every moment, at every second, they never stopped, just like the thousands of stars he had seen hanging in the sky in the middle of the night in Caliban: only this time, they were no longer pure dreams, but blinding blood light.

In front of him, projected the Holy Terra and the star fields north of the Maelstrom, projected half of the territory of the empire, half of humanity's galaxy.

At this time, everything was in front of his eyes, full of holes and falling apart.

How many are there......

100,000, 100,000, 100,000, million......

Far more than that.

……

Empire, it is only needed, victory.

Empire, not needed, victorious.

……

From the Eye of Fear to the Maelstrom.

From Medusa to Prospero.

Every world is burning, every land is strife, like a never-ending curtain of iron and blood, brutally cutting the entire galaxy at its half, and behind this curtain of blood and fire are a million worlds and galaxies that have been turned to hell in groaning and wailing.

Every hour, a new war report clogs up all the communication networks.

Failure, failure! Fail!!

Every minute, more messages and cries for help passed through the thousands of stars, piled up at his feet.

Fall, fall! Fall!!

Every second, a new scarlet flashes in the star chart, in his pupils, in an unnamed galaxy or world far away, and that means a lost confrontation, a helpless retreat, a loyal and noble act, or an outright despicable act.

Crash, crash! Go to pieces!!

"Bang!"

The steel armor slammed into the table with the star map display, and the cracks and sounds wandered through the room, but they didn't attract any attention or pause.

The legion is numb.

There is only the electronic torrent of constant reporting and processing, only the sound of wings constantly returning and departing, only tens of thousands of living beings are becoming steel, parts, and perfect cogs of a pure flesh mill in infinite numbers and sad wails.

No one was stunned.

Nobody cares.

The war continues.

No one can stop it.

——————

Because, victory is meaningless.

Because in this galaxy, only war, hatred and death will last forever, and only ignorance, gunsmoke and revenge will be honored.

Victory is meaningless.

Victory is everything.

Legions are bleeding, battle lines are crumbling, thousands of stars are turning into a burning purgatory in abandonment and anger, wolf smoke makes hundreds of millions of throats let out a hoarse roar of fear, fleets are turned to ashes in the light of the stars, fortresses are crashing to the ground in the flames of siege, every hour and every minute of every day, there are worlds abandoned, there are battle lines being breached, and there are legions being killed.

But despite this, it was still, victory.

The Empire can only [win].

Only victory can be accepted.

You can only go for victory.

Only...... Go to victory.

Do whatever it takes.

And all they can do.

Only perseverance.

There is only silence.

Only forward.

Only......

——————

"Prepare for battle!"

I don't know whose roar exploded in the public communication platform, tormenting the eardrums of every unfortunate person alive, and the furious cry was like a sudden shout in a thunderstorm night, and in a short moment it was drowned in an endless wave of even greater roars and orders.

It's like this battle: chaotic, chaotic, immense, crazy......

Despair.

As far as the eye can see, everywhere is burning, everywhere is mourning, everywhere is flowing a torrent of iron filings and blood, like the rush during the flood season wantonly swallowing the low-lying after the bloody battle.

At first glance, this was not a close battle, it was hardly even a contest, hundreds of Angels of Death and a hundredfold number of mortals were scattered in this little defended place, they were not from the same army, they had never known each other even before, and after this, they would not have known that they had fought side by side.

Silver, purple, iron-gray, black, and blue glow as far as the eye can see, emitting one of the few reassuring lights in the midst of endless darkness, these powerful angels of death are surrounded by an army of mortal auxiliaries of varying numbers to form the only line of defense eager to contain the xenomorph frenzy.

Among them, some were survivors of the collapse of the front, following the last remnants of the organization to retreat into this nameless world; Someone was a member of the original reinforcement fleet, and was displaced by the double interference of the alien attack and the Void Storm, and came to this burning battlefield by chance; Others are confused escapees, whose fleets have just barely broken out of the long subspace storm, and have not had time to know the situation in the real universe, and have been drawn into this ruthless bloody battle.

Hecht, on the other hand, was like that.

The Nova of the Second Legion gasped and ran, clutching the strange green blade that had just been repaired, and he was speeding forward in the endless smoke and wail, his silver figure skimming through countless hills and ruins, like a bright star piercing the long night, like a clipper riding the wind and waves in the roaring sea.

A myriad of hideous roars were trying to delay him, to take his life and hope: most of them were ragged and pathetic slaves, armies of cannon fodder driven by their more powerful masters, and in their endless waves hidden the truly formidable adversaries.

His brain was running at breakneck speed, his muscles were expanding and expanding, his two hearts were pumping like thunder and lightning in the middle of a summer day, making an unsettling loud sound.

He breathed, he ran, he thought, his bodily functions were speeding up faster and faster, overloading more and more uncontrollably, generating a steady stream of emotions called "nervousness" and "anxiety".

And the more tense his body became, the clearer his mind became, and the genes in his vein, which were derived from the mother of genes, sheltered his mind at this time: every soldier belonging to the Second Legion had the advantage of keeping them unusually calm in an extremely tense environment, no different, or even better, than usual.

He charged forward, his broadsword swinging like a raging hurricane flattening the jungle of an island, and Hector walked in the storm of death and destruction, surrounded by a bright green dance of silence that would unleash a wave of blood in the waves of alien slaves.

Whenever such a killing song is played by the new stars of the Second Legion, the primal instinct reverberates in the hearts of the alien slaves, and for the next few moments, they fall into an instinctive confusion and retreat, which is long enough for any Astarte to continue to rampage through the endless sea of slaves, a bloody passage leading to the light in the distance.

But this wonderful time did not last long, for after the shortest hesitation, with the rebuke of the master of Randan, and the sound of more excitation currents, the courage of fear and pain would urge them to pounce on the fighting Astarte warriors once more, until they drowned him, and the slaves, who were still miserably cunning and thoughtful, crept around Hecht with the intention of throwing him into the endless waves.

But Morgan's heir never had to worry about it: he wasn't alone, and although he had been adrift in the inexplicable subspace for a long time, fortunately, his most precious treasure had not been lost.

"Watch the left! Hecht! ”

Salieri's brief reminder accompanied his psionic blade, the novice psyker now standing on Hecht's left hand, chainsaw swinging, psionic flickering, every word that popped out of his mouth was even more devastating to the alien than every swing he shouted, he chanted and shouted, fireballs and flashes of power burst out of his fingertips without stopping, and at the cost of his face being as pale as a dying man.

On the other side, on the right hand side of Hecht, back to back with Salieri is the [huge] Ajax, contrary to the usual impression of ordinary people, the tall Ajax is not a warrior who uses hand-to-hand combat as the main means of combat, on the contrary, his strong body makes him one of the few people in the legion who can move and fight with heavy weapons, and now, he is holding a heavy blaster gun, moving as fast as possible, while frantically pouring tongues of fire, through the heavy armor, Hector could clearly hear the sound of Ajax's arms constantly resounding with the sound of bones colliding.

In addition, at the end of the squad is the ancient warrior Chiron, the division commander of Hector, Salieri and Ajax, the old and spicy warrior who fights with a power sword and plasma pistol, he guards the end of the team, constantly cleaning those opponents who pounce again, his fighting methods seem so ordinary that no one notices that he is actually the one who kills the most aliens.

The team is advancing, killing, desperately eager to tear apart the blocking and killing of the alien wave, accompanied by the roar of chainsaws, the sound of explosive bombs, countless aliens are being mercilessly harvested, slaughtered, and cleansed, wherever they go, there is a boiling river of blood, where they point, where they will turn into ashes of bone and flesh, scattered in the scarlet sky.

"Hecett!"

In the midst of the fight, another anxious call came, and the son of Morgan did not bother to distinguish whether it was from Salieri or His Excellency Chron, he only raised his head and changed his perspective: even without the anxious reminder of the voice, he could already feel the rapidly approaching figure.

Randan's samurai, or Randan's overlord: for Hector now, there is no greater difference between the two.

Hector could see the approaching figure at high speed: the tall body, the hideous face, the profane weapon, he had seen enough in the last few years, and he had killed enough.

He pretended not to notice the approaching opponent, swung his blade, and continued to reap the lives of those cannon fodder, allowing the Rankan warrior to carefully observe his every move, allowing it to seize the opportunity and begin to hide in the chaotic wave of slaves, approaching Hecht's neck at high speed.

Frankly speaking, its speed is indeed very fast, and the swing of the blade is so vicious and just right, even Astarte has a hard time capturing every moment, and if it was Hector three or five years ago, it is very likely that he will suffer under its hands, and even pay the price.

But alas, three or five years of war can completely change anyone.

In the moments before it swung its sword, Hector turned around with great speed, and he keenly grasped the moment when his opponent opened and closed, and the Morgan's chosen imperial fangs did not hesitate to use the counterattack that best played to his strengths:

Strike.

He slammed into it, and in the next moment, he heard the sound of his opponent's bones shattering, and the powerful impact penetrated the heavy armor of Ran Dan's alien, and this vicious alien fell to the ground like a broken tree, splashing countless dust.

Hector didn't give his opponent a second chance, he rushed forward, the bright green light dancing, sending the ugly head flying high and tumbling down to nowhere, and then, pulling out the deflagration gun at his waist, pulling the trigger, and completely burning the alien's chest: just like every warrior who fought against Ran Dan was asked to do.

And at the moment when he completed all this, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart, compared to those terrible killers he had encountered in the past, the current Ran Dan alien had changed.

He's changed, too.

But now there was no time for him to continue to lament, and with the fall of his master, the wave of cannon fodder slaves finally slowly receded like cowardly rats, and Hector and his team did not continue to entangle: they had a more important task, a task more important than their lives.

They had to retreat, retreat to a safe place, and they, or one of them, had to report to the Empire what they had just seen.

That horrible monster, that weird alien, those chilling signs......

What they had just seen was so terrible, so terrible that it could reverse the darkness of this war, it could shake the entire galaxy, and they had to get the news back.

No matter what the cost.

(End of chapter)