Clam up.

Conrad Coetze gently twisted a thin sheet of paper with the index, middle, and thumb of his right hand.

On the face of it, it was not much different from all other similar papers, with intricate patterns sparkling around the edges - so what was so special about it that deserved to be taken so seriously by the Lord of the Eighth Legion?

According to the investigation of the third company, each of the five nests has its own embryonic laboratory. For the most part, they still follow the same mode of production, differing only in the minutiae. Production has now been urgently halted, but a large number of embryos are still in the culture stage. ”

Phil Zaloster finished the sentence with a blank expression, and a vague anger flashed across his face, but it was not obvious.

Like most normal people, he was able to control his emotions - after all, he had already vented once before returning to the Nightfall.

"Cultivation stage?" Conrad Coetzes asked softly. He controlled his emotions very well, and even made Fair a little anxious out of nowhere.

"Yes." He replied in a low voice. "There are thirteen thousand two hundred and forty-one."

"People." Coetzes corrected. "Thirteen thousand two hundred and forty-one."

He leaned back, leaning back in his chair and breathing calmly.

Paperwork is now very handy for him, and officials who have adapted to his style are starting to work with double efficiency. Because of this, he almost didn't look like himself when he sat in this chair.

"Primordial, those machines have been shut down." Fell said in a low voice. "These people are ripened before they even come out of the tank."

"I know, I've read the report you submitted, otherwise I wouldn't have asked you to come and talk to you about this, my third company commander."

With a soft sigh, Conrad Coetze calmly repeated the words on the piece of paper.

"There are three age stages, eight, sixteen, and twenty. According to the 3rd Company, eight-year-olds were usually good-looking and sent to the mansions of the nobles. Sixteen-year-olds are conditioned and thinner, but they need very little nutrition. Twenty-year-old adults were the strongest and were sent to the private training camps of some nobles. ”

"I've seen it all, Fell." Conrad Coetze shook his head calmly. "So, what do you think should be done?"

"I have no experience with this kind of thing, Primordial."

Fell Zaloster did his best to keep his tone calm. "However, according to the laws of the empire and the relevant documents, these people should be properly settled."

"That's what I thought, Fair, but here's the problem. It will take fifty days for the logistics fleet to arrive properly, and Nostramo is still in a state of re-establishing social order."

Coates rubbed his brow and didn't continue.

He was silent and did not speak again for a long time. Fell knew very well that his original was thinking—just like he was.

Re-establish social order.

For Fair Zaloster, this was the most unbelievable thing he had encountered during his long sixty-four years of war.

In the past, the Eighth Legion was just a judge. They will kill the wicked, remove the cancer from the crowd, and then they will leave.

They are not responsible for everything that follows. Nostramo's situation at the moment is also the first for him. Nostramo is the home planet of the Protozoa, and if nothing else, it will also become a new recruiting ground for the Eighth Legion in the future.

No one in the Legion objected to this, especially after everyone knew about Nostramo's Adamantite Gold production.

- The fact that the Eighth Army is not involved in politics does not mean that they are not politically sensitive.

Adamantite is always as much as possible for the Empire, not to mention, this is still the Adamantite of the original home planet.

The profits from the duty-free trade routes are staggering, and as soon as the logistics fleet is renovated, the planet will be able to trade with the merchants in no time. Nostramo is also close to the Extreme Star Field, and everyone knows that the Ultramarines are very rich.

Fell snapped into his back molars.

The Eighth Legion rarely teamed up with their cousins, and the Ultramarines were one of the few to do so with great success. However, no one in the Eighth Army liked them.

In the words of Siani of the First Company, the Ultramarines are a bunch of 'proud and boundless people who are completely unaware of it, and if you bring it up, they will seriously declare themselves extremely humble and nasty with that damn aristocratic accent'.

Siani's words, while bad, are not lacking in fact.

"I have an idea, Fell." Conrad Coetzes said slowly. "However, this idea requires me to ask our instructors."

"I won't ask what that idea is, Primordial. But. Don't you think the instructors have been a little too busy lately? Phil asked cautiously.

It's normal for him to be busy."

The Lord of the Eighth Legion turned his head and stared at his walls, which had neither windows nor paintings, with a serious expression. "Instructor of the Eighth Legion, how can you do it if you are not busy?"

Fell decided not to answer the sentence.

——

Slowly and calmly, Carlil lowered the training sword in his hand, but Leonard, who was standing across from him, was not. The captain of the Blade of Punishment was trembling with both hands at the moment, not because of emotion, but because he had endured too many collisions in a short period of time.

"How?" Carlil asked.

"I can handle it, instructor."

"Don't lie." Carlil said softly. "Unless you want to try to act with me again."

"I learned a lot from that operation, my lord."

Carlil smiled.

Benefit? He chuckled and shook his head, not revealing Leonard's remorseful but still stubborn face that night.

More than a week had passed that night, and as an instructor of the Eighth Legion, who was now more and more powerful and responsible, he had already walked back and forth throughout Nostramori several times with these squads, which had been separated from the eight Dalians.

Few people can get his approval, and few people dare to look at him for a long time. The mistake of the first night never happened again, but that doesn't mean Carlil would be relieved about it.

Those mistakes didn't happen because he took them with him, and that's it.

These squads made up almost a third of the Eighth Legion, a total of 6,400 men. If it is divided into a squad of twenty people, it can even be divided into three hundred and twenty squads. Undoubtedly, this is a huge number.

However, there are not many squads with names.

This form of organization was originally proposed by veterans who had differences with their brothers in terms of tactical concepts, and it was only after a meeting of the company commanders that it was officially approved.

In the beginning, there were only eight squads with names, but as the number of people increased and some new recruits joined, the squads increased to twelve.

The Blade of Punishment is the most special of these, it does not recruit recruits for training like the other eleven squads, its total number will always remain at twenty, and the reason for this is to ask Leonard.

Or rather, the former adjutant of the 1st Company, Leonard.

"If you really think so, I'll be happy, Leonard." Carlil said.

"That's exactly what I really think." Leonard said in a deep voice. "There is no falsehood."

"Perhaps." The instructor of the Eighth Regiment shook his head noncommittally, stretched out his hand, and opened the door of the iron cage.

After confirming the expansion of the training ground, the number of dueling cages was increased to thirteen. These dreaded metal cages have also been a little better than before.

For example, the door of the cage is attached to a biosensor, and in the event that neither of the two insiders falls, only a biometric signal from Legion instructor Karil Lohals can open the door.

In other words, his actions at the moment represent a hint.

"I can still hold on, instructor." Leonard said, unwilling to float and flicker on that weather-beaten face. "It's far from my limit."

Carlil didn't speak, just stood calmly by the open iron door and looked at Leonard's hands. His gaze was as sharp as a knife, stabbing Leonard's insistence hard.

"I see." He lowered his head and walked out of the cage in silence.

"Next!" Towards the audience, Carlil shouted. Soon, a man with a training sword entered the cage, but his appearance surprised Carlile a little.

"Van Cleef, I didn't expect you to come."

"You're an instructor, what's wrong with me coming here to ask for advice?"

Carlil chuckled, "Don't do this, Van Cleef. You just wanted to talk to me about Leonard. ”

He's not worth the trouble I have to go to, instructor. Leonard is no longer the first to be in the first row. ”

"Really? But I went to check, and his name is still hanging among the honorary non-commissioned officers of the First Ranking. You didn't completely erase his traces. ”

"I can't erase his past exploits because of his current mistakes, instructor."

Van Cleef spoke very quickly. "Furthermore, Leonard was not kicked out of the first company, the squad system was the result of the joint discussion of the eight company commanders, and we agreed that this system was necessary."

Necessity.

Carlil didn't speak. For the time being, he didn't want to debunk the false façade of the system that Van Cleeff and the other seven company commanders had painstakingly made.

The detachment independent of the company was not so much a discrete tactical cluster with a high degree of freedom as a disguised exorcism used to isolate the soldiers who had been dehumanized by the war from the rest of the Eighth Legion.

That's all, otherwise what else could it be? Could it be true that someone would dislike the large number of people in the company and set up a squad system to disperse the original cohesion and combat effectiveness? Impossible.

"It's useless to talk too much, Van Cleeff—are you going to fight with a sword today?"

"Yes, Sergeant Richter of the Eighth Company said that you have fully mastered and improved his swordsmanship, so I intend to come and ask for a lesson or two."

His rhetoric is getting more and more exaggerated.

Carlil shook his head and stepped forward, holding the sword in one hand in his right hand, the tip of which was casually pointed at the ground.

"Come on." He said.

In the next second, Van Cleef waved his hands violently. Unlike Carlil's casual and calm stance, he used the standard two-handed sword stance.

Ancient swordsmanship spanned countless years and was reproduced in the body of a company commander of the Eighth Legion. He spun his wrist with a swift twist, causing the training sword to spin non-stop. The steps are light and eerie, like some kind of wild bee waiting to sting your enemies.

Carlil furrowed his eyebrows, realizing that the company commander had clearly come prepared.

However, this is not enough.

During these days of fighting, both he and his 'cadets' realized one thing.

Even if Carlil Lohals did not use any strength and reflexes beyond the level of Astarte, the Astartes of the Eighth Legion would almost completely be unable to gain the upper hand in a simple sword fight.

Because, in addition to these two things, Carlil also has a terrible instinct.

He was able to strike his opponent in the most terrifying path between the swords and blades, and his opponent would not even notice that he had such a big flaw before he was hit.

Richtenar of the 8th Company was thrilled by this.

- Yes, not frustration, but excitement.

It's been a long time since he's met an opponent in a pure sword fight, and Carlil is the only one in the Eighth Legion who can stir him up.

And, most crucially, Richter knew that Carlil would not use more power than a normal Astarte.

For Richter, this was his hope. A formidable enemy makes his fighting spirit soar.

However, he didn't know that Carlil actually wanted him to win.

He hoped that all of them would beat him.

"Well done, Van Cleef!" Carlil exclaimed. "Keep it up, I'm going to attack!"

The commander of the company silently gritted his teeth, ready for the storm. He still swirled his wrist, causing the blade to form an impenetrable wall.

The wind whined, and in between the intersections was a dull and dangerous melody. Van Cleef knew that if he was attacking, he wouldn't have much chance of winning, but defense was different, and defense could allow him to-

"Bang!"

With a muffled sound, a burst of pain came from Van Cleve's hands. His sword spun and flew out, landing on the ground of the ring, and with a few jumps, it returned to calm.

What happened?

"It's a good choice to use experience, memory, and swordsmanship to defend and counterattack, but you shouldn't be distracted by me."

Carlil whispered, patting him on the shoulder. "The enemy on the battlefield won't tell you they're attacking. You shouldn't have listened to me, Van Cleve. ”

After a long silence, the company commander nodded, and said angrily, "Understood, instructor." ”

Carlil smiled at him, his smile full of approval and encouragement. Unconsciously, the haze of failure dissipated from Van Cleef's heart. He calmly picked up his sword and walked out of the dueling cage, only to find their instructor walking out with him.

"That's it for today's sparring session." Carlil exclaimed. "Free practice, I'll check the progress one by one during the day tomorrow, especially you, Siani, you've been stuck at fourteen steps for two days."

In the corner of the training ground, a sweaty man answered in a sullen voice.

"Instructor? You seem to have ended your day a little early. Van Cleef asked suspiciously, wiping his sweat.

"Not sooner, Van Cleaf."

Carlil shook his head and walked towards the exit of the training room.

The others didn't notice, but he could tell at a glance that behind the open door to the training room, Conrad Coetze was staring.

Carvin, I'll do it today.

I've got to sort it out, and it's been tougher lately

(End of chapter)