The breath in the drop pod was suffocating enough, except for the wall lamp overhead that emitted a temperatureless glow, like a dim star.

Passing through his helmet, Hector smelled a foul smell: a pungent bitterness and a fishy smell of steel, a feeling of congestion, and the air beside his lips turned into a few lumps of viscous semi-liquid: blood and slurry that they hadn't had time to wipe away.

Hector didn't like them, but he had learned to get used to them, just as he had adapted to the tiresome raging flames of war: beside him, trusted Ajax and Chiron each took over one end, muttering different things to relieve the fatigue and mental stress of continuous combat.

As a technical sergeant, Ajax naturally recites the red tape from the Casting World of Reza, and he seems to particularly like the part about the connection between plasma and armored vehicles, which he sings back and forth several times at a time: by now, even Hector can recite this passage backwards.

On the other side, the Terra veteran Chiron whispered a long list of names of his fighting brothers who had fought alongside him and who had now died, and in this way he remembered these warriors who had sacrificed everything for the Empire: at first, there were only a few Terra names that Hector was not familiar with, but later, every name in the prayer brought back thousands of memories of Morgan's proud son.

Before he knew it, he had lost so many of his fighting brothers: although the Second Legion had always had a much lower casualty rate than most of the Astarte Legions, the losses of each company were also quite striking after two successive apocalyptic wars.

Hecht's 23rd Dalian was a good main company: the casualty rate was just over one-tenth, and the proportion of Terra veterans and new blood from the Far East was about equal.

As a result, they were dropped on the extremely ominous Silent Star as the second batch after the Vanguards, along with hundreds of drop pods carrying soldiers from the four legions: according to the optimistic estimates of the High Command, half of them should be able to evade the planet's anti-aircraft fire and make it to the battlefield on the ground alive.

At any time, a surprise airborne landing of this magnitude is destined to be pleasing to the eye, and will make any onlooker unforgettable for the rest of their lives, but Hecht did not have such a beautiful view, after all, the almost completely sealed drop pod not only obscured the magnificent spectacle that should have surrounded them, but even the light that those stars penetrated was intercepted one after another, leaving only those strange vortices of unknown origin lingering in front of them, burning their eyes and hearts: it was another product of subspace, It is another proof that the sea of souls is chrysalis chrysalis here.

The vortex was almost torture, but thankfully they didn't have to endure it long: after about three minutes, a heavy tremor reached everyone's mind, and the sound of dozens of tons of steel falling to the ground was like a shattering sound, allowing everyone to concentrate their attention for a moment.

The airborne landing was successful.

Before he could take the next breath, Hector got up first, and the rest of the people lined up behind him: the number of passengers in this drop pod was a little smaller than that of its other brothers, because Hector alone had to occupy three or four positions.

But it doesn't matter, his strength is more than enough to make up for it.

The sound of the parachute descending the iron door was heavy and piercing, but soon another sound of fear drowned out the roar of metal, and Hector couldn't tell what the monster-like roar was, but he soon had to accept a symphony of thousands of cannon fire and the screams of the sirens, the first things to enter through the crack, and with it the same screeching wind.

Sticky and bitter: this was Hecht's first breath of air in the world, and before he could see more, he took the lead and rushed out of the drop pod, and the bright light began to invade his vision with impunity, along with the greeting from the battlefield: almost as soon as he stepped out of the drop pod, a fiery blue beam pierced the iron plate at his side, and the splattering light scratched the shoulder armor of a warrior, and a series of explosions in the distance told them that the battle on the ground was not too good.

Nearly every instrument in the armor was shouting alarms, and the air flowing into their mouths smelled like burning metal, and bursts of deadly light swept across their sight from the sky, and then vanished in the blink of an eye: a mixture of blood, fear, and light, with its weightless stumbling and crashing, everything on the battlefield.

It took Hector a moment to get used to all the madness, and then, he raised his head and looked to the sky, looking for his comrades: hundreds of drop pods were drawing a blazing trajectory in the atmosphere, and the fierce artillery fire, the monstrous beams of energy, and the huge frictional heat captured them without hesitation, and the unfortunate ones turned into powder in an instant, and fell in a boiling explosion with a bang, while the rest smashed into this artificial plain, Can't wait to spit out those deadly passengers.

Hector counted: after counting about the two hundredth of his fighting brothers who had died in the firmament, he finally stopped this senseless act, and lowered his head, catching a glimpse of the behemoth out of the corner of his eye.

It was a skyscraper that had been inserted into the surface of the earth, and it was also a giant beast that once roamed the void, its dead body merged with the world, and behind it was a vast sea of hot fire, and almost ten brothers who had fallen with it in this crimson hell, this is how the Calibans broke through the planet's defenses and dropped the first landing army, tough and effective.

"Hecett!"

Someone called him on the other side, it was his men: Hecht's squad responded, and a team of several hundred men soon gathered on the burning plain, they stepped over the pillow corpses and the sound of the approaching crash, freed the brothers trapped in the malfunctioning drop pod, and in their busyness, the skies were also playing out more and more brutal battles.

Ships are falling, drop pods are alternating, and the aircraft of both sides are flying up and down, catching and fighting, or flying along the low altitude, strafing the enemy on the ground: explosions and shocks rob all normal hearing at the beginning, and fierce fire rains will fall from the sky at any time and place, like the gods crushing the sand in their hands and scattering them on earth.

It took Hector a few minutes to assemble and report, and his team began to make their way to the front line, not far away, just at the other end of the hill, but the sight along the way was enough to make people live for years.

He saw a transport ship docked too low explode high in the air, the flame-wrapped corpses and fuel captured by gravity, and soon turned into a batch of pure white meteors.

He saw a cache of molten rock, the remnants of a dozen Astarte warriors who had fought to the death against an opponent a hundred times his size, their lives permanently frozen in the moment of victory and defeat by an accurate plasma cannon.

He had rounded a former minefield, for the smell was unbearable: perhaps an entire army of mortals had strayed into it, and then every inch of flesh had been scorched alive by the cone-shaped flames of the mine's explosion.

He saw death, death, and death: everywhere he looked, there was more death.

Having crossed these deaths, he reached the very end of the line, where another Daybreaker company commander and his company looked like they had just taken a break from their shifts, and he nodded to Hecht before pointing out where the battle was most important.

Hector also returned a silent salute, and he walked in that direction without hesitation.

Right now.

He's going to challenge death.

——————

"Do you think we're going to die here?"

As the artillery position roared a new barrage of steel barrage toward the sky-high towers of flesh and blood in the distance, Riemannruth suddenly looked at his brother beside him and asked the question in a low Fenris voice.

"Instead of caring about that, you should care about the next round of battle: after all, it is the one that involves death, and even if it is a slight mistake, we will have to sign at least a few hundred more death notices."

Johnson snorted, and instead of looking at his brother, he was preoccupied with the position in front of the headquarters, and the fortress in the distance: there, nested Void Shields were like sets of glittering balls, hiding all sorts of strange fortifications, and the flesh cannons inside the fortress were spewing lethal energy like walls of fire and endless cannonballs towards the heavy cluster of the Empire's heavy troops, deadly anomalies.

"I never sign that kind of thing: the warriors of Fenris will only let Mokai's fangs decide their life and death, not a meaningless piece of paper that will only be recited by people, which is itself a desecration of sacrifice."

"Don't peddle your earthy beliefs in front of me, Riemann."

"Look at what you said, is your Caliban pure and unblemished? So who explains the existence of the Black Wardens: the elves are not on any list of mutants recognized by the Empire, and the formalism you believe in will not save their lives. ”

The Wolf King smiled defiantly, while Johnson withdrew his gaze and looked at his brother with cold pupils, his stubborn face illuminated by the occasional light, a phenomenon caused by the distant thunder that crackled in the atmosphere, the phenomenon caused by the overload of the Void Shield on the fortress due to the dense offensive fire.

"You're spying on my home planet? Riemannian? ”

"It's not spying, after all, that's how you insure Caliban, far less than Dorne to his hometown: I'm just out of my duty, and with a little inquiry, I can hear a lot about Caliban, and even what I heard about Terra."

“……”

"Don't do this kind of thing, Riemann, you don't have the authority to do this to me."

"I don't really have power, after all, I'm just a knife-wielder: but I have a reason to do it, Johnson, and that reason is right before you and me right now."

Riemanrus's finger pointed to the end of their vision: as the shield faltered, the flesh-and-blood fortress began to turn to dust under the continuous bombardment of heavy artillery, splashing large puffs of eerie black fog that desecrated the shattered sky and flew wildly in a frenzied storm, making everyone alive a target.

"You see, Johnson, if we don't have an overseer among us, it's very likely that something like this will happen again, and who would have thought that man would be reduced to this before he betrayed his loyalty?"

"I used to see him as a sort of goal in life, and his military demeanor and calm demeanor were what I aspired to be: I wondered many times if I hadn't been left behind on Fenris, but had grown up on Holy Terra, if I would have been a meticulous soldier, and if I would have been like him."

"I'm pessimistic about this, Riemann: even if I seal you into the Imperial Fist, I'm afraid you won't learn the value of order and calmness, how are you my heir, I will let that pharmacist who is blind enough to admit people like you will be punished with a lifetime of confinement."

"That's a shame: I knew I was going to participate in the Dark Angel audition."

Riemannus grinned, unconcerned about Johnson's solemn face, half of the Wolf King's face was obscured by the blazing red, which came from the burning of the distant fortress: the impregnable fortress had turned into a sea of fire under the bombardment of the guns, like a huge firewood that had shrouded most of the sky in smoke, and it was only a matter of time before the black smoke and stench completely blocked the sunlight of the attackers.

With the collapse of the fortress, a large irreparable gap was torn in the ground defenses, and the commanders in low-earth orbit quickly reacted: a large number of transport ships emerged from the vortex above the atmosphere, and countless unmanned fighters also rushed out, their engines or engines were roaring with all their might, rushing like sharp arrows to those small anti-aircraft positions on the ground, locking on their targets.

The offensive continued to progress without exceeding the speculation of the Primitives, who were still a long way from the final fortress, but the remoteness of the landing site made it easier to fight in the early stages: now, Johnson was in no hurry to advance his line, but waited for the arrival of more follow-up troops in the track.

"So, like I said."

The wolf king of Fenris watched as the dense fleet completely filled the sky overhead, and thousands of thunderous explosions tore apart the grief of the fortress before it died.

"Just one of us betraying our father is enough to be able to make such a huge scene, and if those betrayals happen again, if they are on a larger scale, what the consequences will be, I can't even think of it, Johnson."

“……”

"Your statement is dangerous, Riemann, and I do not think that any of our brothers will betray the Empire, nor do I think that their betrayal will cause the same catastrophe: we cannot be unprepared after this time."

"I don't want to believe it, Johnson: I don't believe it until then."

The Fenris's face leaned in, and the smell of blood still lingered on his wolfskin shawl.

"But the current situation is that there is already a brother who has chosen to betray: treasures such as loyalty or the bottom line, as long as they are broken once, it will not be worth mentioning, betraying the emperor was originally unthinkable, but now, it is not only imaginable, it even happens."

"Since there is a first: then a second is not impossible."

“……”

"Who do you suspect?"

"Does that matter: what can you do even if I give you an authoritative list?"

“……”

Johnson didn't respond: he just silently clenched the scabbard at his waist.

"At least you are not wrong about one thing, Riemann: the empire will not be unprepared again, this bloodshed will avoid future bloodshed, and there will always be someone to do the right thing."

"Don't take this job from me, Johnson: I'm my father's executioner."

“……”

The lion king glanced at the wolf king and did not speak.

"So, what are you talking to me about all this, Riemann?"

"Actually, it's nothing, I just have an immature idea, and this idea touches on certain elements of politics and power: you know, I'm not good at these things, and just thinking about them makes me feel a pain in my head."

“…… Then you shouldn't look for me. ”

"I remember you were pretty good at the Holy Terra: you were very comfortable with the bureaucrats, Johnson, and many of them had a good impression of you."

"First of all, those mortals are completely different from the primordial, and secondly, proficiency does not mean proficiency, Riemann, just as being good does not mean being proficient: go find Morgan, she is the real master in this area."

"Having said that, I still want to talk to you: after all, this is also a matter of the commander."

“……”

"Say it: I still have some time."

Hearing this, Riemannus grinned at first, and he glanced at the work of his soldiers: the Dark Angel and the Space Wolf were leading the mortal sappers to form a semi-permanent defensive line around the landing field to prepare for the enemy's counterattack.

Almost instantly, special building materials created a large colossus of steel and iron bones, supporting the shell of the command center and logistics center, and then: foundations, roads, supply stations, communication stations, and anti-aircraft fire networks were also built at a speed visible to the naked eye, the triple macro cannon with a fixed firing circle was embedded in the outward-facing city wall, and the slender laser cannon barrel was the insidious killer during the embellishment, and on top of them, the quadruple anti-aircraft guns as thick as super-heavy tank guns were ready to fire at all times.

The Wolf King took a second to appreciate all this, to appreciate the direct embodiment of the power of the Empire's war: a rear core fortress like this may require a nest to squeeze all the inhabitants and continue to operate at full strength for several years before it has a chance of success, but in the hands of the Empire's legions, such a spectacle is just like a child's clay, a one-time product that can be kneaded and created at will, and it doesn't even need to be cared about too much.

In Riemanlus's view, this kind of calmness is more evident than the endless fleet, thousands of legions, and the so-called billions of artillery fires and hundreds of millions of dollars, the essential reason why the human empire was able to conquer the galaxy.

But while the Fenris Wolf King admired all this, he also felt a little melancholy, because he realized that such a power was actually being used by the various Astarte legions, and only the will of the genetic protoplasm could use this power unhindered.

And he also realized that on the other side of them, the blasphemous brother must be doing the same thing: when the Astarte Legions, who led the Great Expedition, desecrated their loyalty, the power of the Empire would in turn harm the Empire itself: and the stronger the power, the greater the damage.

After all, only these genetic prototypes and Astarte legions, who used to be the sharpest blades of the Empire, when they stabbed the Empire in turn, the wounds they poked out were the most deadly, and they could not even heal.

In this war, Riemannus realized this, and the bloody casualty figures made his mind and eyes very clear, but he was still in pain, because after realizing this, he couldn't think of a suitable solution: maybe he had been pretending to be crazy and stupid for too long, so long that it even interfered with his real reason and thinking.

Man cannot immediately return to civilization after treating himself as a beast, and although he is a civilized man at heart, civilization has never been a stubborn or loyal concept for individuals.

If not, the wolf king would not have come to Johnson to discuss this matter.

"The thing I want to tell you is simple, Johnson: as we have seen, any fall of the original will lead to such a bloody outcome, and we cannot guarantee that the fall will not happen again, and all we can do is estimate it in advance."

"But it is unrealistic to predict this matter, and if you want to prevent the possibility of this degeneration more efficiently, the real way to do it is to establish a system of supervision."

“…… Supervise? ”

Johnson frowned

"Yes, perhaps we can oversee all the primordial beings in order to prevent a new depravity from rising from them again: of course, among these supervised people is ourselves."

“……”

"An organization that oversees the primordials?"

Johnson's brow furrowed deeply, like a towering mountain.

Regardless of the nature and enforceability of this proposal, the phrase itself alone made the Caliban, as the genetic prototype, extremely uncomfortable: it had nothing to do with character, but the innate pride and extreme self-confidence of the emperor's bloodline, which led them to have the most instinctive malice and the most violent resistance to any imposed bondage.

"A funny idea, Riemann."

"Does this institution you are talking about have a purpose in its existence? Even if it exists, how should it be organized? And who should form it? Do these formers have the power and power to do all this? ”

"You'd better have thought about these questions and have an answer in your mind, Riemann, I don't have time to help you answer them, the war is still going on."

"I know."

Riemannus glanced in the direction where the flames of battle had rekindled, and that was where the third group of landing troops had arrived: as more landing craft and drop pods landed in the wreckage of the pioneer robes, the casualties of the Imperial army were replenished, and the fighting attitude of the Astarte warriors became active again, and countless reconnaissance teams composed of dozens or hundreds of people began to set off silently from their positions, and their figures soon disappeared into the billowing smoke and flesh-colored fog, Only a series of footprints were left that were quickly engulfed by the ground.

"I've actually thought about all the questions you know, Johnson, and the meaning is naturally the point I raised earlier: although it sounds like a bit of a fuss to monitor whether the original body is degenerate, but it is not difficult to accept to see how much blood it will cost the empire once it falls."

"As for how to form and form the personnel, we can consider it together, and my idea is that only the genetic prototype can successfully supervise the genetic prototype, and perhaps we should nominate a few people from among the brothers who can serve the public and are trustworthy to form this supervisory committee, and it is a big deal to carry out a rotation system."

Fenris's voice was a little indistinct, and it seemed that he lacked confidence in his own thoughts, and the Caliban Lions' response to this was very simple and straightforward: Johnson just snorted coldly.

"No one will agree with your whimsical idea, Riemann, no one should rule over us except the Lord of Mankind, even the position of War Marshal is only better for the service of the Emperor: War Marshal is the Emperor's sword hilt, so that he can better hold his blade, War Marshal should not have his own mind, any organization composed of genetic prototypes should be like this."

"Your idea is quite new, Johnson, but unfortunately I can't fully agree with it."

Riemanlus shook his head, his gaze swept over the exit of the headquarters to the side, and his finger was on the Dionysian spear leaning against the wall, it seemed that the Fenris had paid more attention to the battlefield than here.

"But I have an idea, so you should just listen to it."

"You should also know that Johnson, there have always been voices within the empire that oppose the establishment of a war commander, and this kind of voice actually exists in the gene prototype, because people are afraid of the rights and status of the position of war commander, and they don't want anyone to climb to the top of this position at the same level as the emperor."

"But if, I mean, if you put forward the theory of this supervisory committee at the same time when you are running for commander, and the first supervisory target of this committee will definitely be the highest-ranking commander, then will you break the mustard in the hearts of many people and even get more support?"

“……”

Johnson blinked, his face frozen for a moment, as if he was in a very serious and deep thought.

Riemanrus laughed.

"Well, this is actually just a whim of mine: this matter has been tangled in my heart, I just want to talk to someone before the war starts, otherwise I have always had a tangled feeling: those cubs of mine are not very suitable for this kind of thing, think about it, it is only you."

"Thank you for listening to me talk about these things, Johnson, it's time for me to go to the battlefield, my troops are probably already waiting for me, and they won't dare to launch the next charge without me."

"Goodbye."

“…… Ah, goodbye. ”

Johnson was stunned, and said goodbye to his brother with some hindsight.

Then, he looked at the complicated tactical map in front of him again, and thought in silence for a while, before he shook his head a little dejectedly, and forcibly threw some of the ideas out of his mind.

But just as he was once again focusing on military issues, a thought crossed the minds of the Caliban: like a cunning meteor.

Morgan, how long is it coming? I don't know what she thinks about this.

After all......

……

Riemanruth also has some point.

(End of chapter)