Soldier Dassault struggled to get up from the ground, his brain in disarray, humming and screaming ruining everything and making him almost unable to think.

Burning metal crackled around him, and the silvery ground turned charred and covered in blood. Several shattered corpses surrounded him horribly. It took a few minutes for Soldier Dassault to clear his mind and realize that he was still inside the spire.

The minaret of Harcosus I, a symbol of honor, sacrifice and dedication. And now it has been invaded, by a horde of monsters that have fallen from the sky——!

The realization of this almost made the soldier Dassault angry, but he did not let the anger affect him. In fact, he remained calm. He hadn't actually fought before, not once, but years of training was meant to come in handy at this time.

He quickly checked himself and it turned out well, he was not injured. The torn combat uniform protected him at the cost of his own fragmentation. He took off his torn combat uniform and tapped on the full combat helmet.

It buzzed to tell him that it could still be used. Soldier Dassault's mind tugged at him, and he linked to the 'runes' built into his helmet, as the battle manual said. His mind sank into a sea of silver.

He went deeper, eager to communicate—he needed to find a superior, anyone who could tell him what to do next. Soldier Dassault's search was fruitful, and he found a whirlpool in the silver ocean.

Then, he immediately crashed into it with his mind. In the next second, frantic and irritable words immediately rushed into his brain.

They are questions, questions, requests, and emphasis. It was the endless screams and screams, the fear that swept over them, and the voice of one man was the most violent in it, almost drowning out almost everything else.

Soldier Dassault recognized the owner of the voice, it was Officer Tower-C0-1, who was screaming in his head.

Minaret attacked, minaret attacked! Repeat, the minaret is attacked! They are falling from the sky and we are being slaughtered! Oh my God, bless me with fire!

The phrase was repeated over and over again, and Soldier Dassault wanted to reply, but he couldn't. The voice of Officer Tower-C0-1 was too large for him, and they were given divine rights by the fire, so even their voices appeared so intense in the whirlpool.

Dassault humbly pleaded, hoping that Officer Tower-C0-1 would be a little quieter. He needs to answer, he needs to be ordered. He tried several times, but without success, so he had to exit the silver ocean and open his eyes.

His ability to think had been restored, and through the vision provided by the battle helmet, he could clearly see the corpses in the ruins. The number of dead was much more than he thought, and he began to recall that the data logging function of the combat helmet helped him.

From the complicated data, the soldier Dassault realized that the battle had actually begun half an hour earlier, and that the enemy was raining fire from the sky, and they smashed the minaret, fell into it, and launched a terrible attack.

He couldn't help but wonder - if there were more fires falling on residential areas?

With the fire on top, he wanted his family to be safe. The thought was thrown out of his mind after a few seconds.

Soldier Dassault moved his tongue and licked his parched lips so that he wouldn't be too nervous.

Gripping his battle rifle tightly, he walked over to the dead soldiers and took their replaceable ammunition magazines.

It took him some time to do this, and time was never his own. While he was busy picking up ammunition to improve his chances of survival, as stated in the battle manual, burning wreckage fell from the sky and landed on the ground with a terrible loud noise.

Soldier Dassault shook his body and turned sharply, his battle rifle already aimed at that side. He was well trained, and he was also one of the guards of the Minaret. It was a glorious duty, and the fire gave him the right to shoot.

Soldier Dassomer read these words, hoping that they would give him a little bit of insignificant courage. He looked up, glanced at the wreckage, and immediately recognized what it was.

It was one of tens of thousands of combat robots installed inside the minaret, and he saw the iconic metal beak, these fighting machines about six meters tall provided Harcosus 1 with a rare peace on 2 and 3. And now, it's a twisted pile of scrap metal.

Dassault didn't see what it was destroying, but he could sense a deep chill.

Fear ensued, and for no apparent reason, the soldier Dassault began to let out a shattering roar into the darkness as he began to fire—at enemies he didn't know where he was.

He knew, of course, that he was just bluffing. But as mentioned in the combat manual, this can sometimes be effective, and this is the first time that Soldier Dassault has used it.

He achieved results, and the combat manual did not fail him.

There was something in the darkness, but it wasn't the kind he wanted to see.

What came out of the darkness was not the 'enemy' he wanted to face, but a ghost, a tall, walking ghost. The cold blue fire burned quietly in the hollow eye sockets, and all the noise around it was far away at this moment.

The ghost stared at him, and the soldier Dassault's eyes widened, throwing away everything from the battle manual. He fell to his knees, his face contorted with fear constantly changing under his combat helmet.

He began to scream, even though the ghost had not done anything yet - and before he died, his last thought was: Will the fire bless my soul?

"No, it won't." The ghost said, then raised its arm.

With a gentle movement, Karil removed the combat helmet from the head of the Nahar Kosuss soldier, and the face under the helmet was distorted, tears flowed down his face, and everything became a mess, but it was not difficult to tell that he was a young man.

A pulsing flame rested on his forehead, now glittering with a silver glow. This is not a tattoo, but a deep imprint in the flesh.

He stared for a moment at the sign belonging to the Harcosus Flame Chamber of Commerce and shook his head.

What chamber of commerce needs to brainwash soldiers with means that belong to religion? Or even call this an act of 'flame into the body'?

He saw many images and emotions in the unguarded mind of the soldier named Dassault, and there was a lot of evidence that the Flameburners were brainwashing the Harcosus with religion and faith.

And herein lies the problem, this is undoubtedly a cult.

Carlil shook his head thoughtfully, and bent down to pick up his helmet—half a finger to be exact.

The helmet has an interesting appearance, the back half of the helmet is a standard round, silver, shiny, non-metallic material, but much tougher than normal metal.

The front half is slightly bizarre, with a sharp, beak-shaped respirator positioned at the forefront, topped by two silver eyepieces. Similarly, the silver-rimmed black-bottomed pulsing flame danced quietly at the top of the helmet.

Ignite a fire

Carlil dropped his helmet and turned away, leaving the ruins.

With a few jumps, he made it from the bottom of the spire to the twelfth floor, and the airborne chamber sometimes created unexpected paths. Interestingly, the building, known as the Minaret, is also really sturdy.

Its basic structure was not damaged in any way, even if it was knocked from the twelfth floor to the lowest floor by the airborne pod.

The twelfth floor was very different from the dark and burning ground floor, where the most basic lighting was still preserved, and the silver ground was covered in blood. There was a low, continuous hum on the other side of the wide hallway.

It was the sound of the guns of the people of Harcosus. Their guns are interesting, and their combat robots are even more interesting.

Using his agility to dissect six combat robots in battle, Carlil came to the conclusion that the mechanics of these things were identical, and even the dimensions of the parts were identical.

This means that they are creations produced on an assembly line, not machines made by meticulous hands by craftsmen.

They're nuclear-powered, their shells are resistant to explosive bombs, and attacking weak spots should be effective, but these six-meter-tall machines aren't bulky, they're actually very agile. It's not as good as Astarte, but it's enough.

Not to mention the firepower they possess, the rifles of the average Harkosus' soldiers are a threat to power armor when they are set on fire, and the shoulder-mounted guns of these things are even more exaggerated, with a rate of fire and firepower. There is no doubt that they are definitely tricky opponents.

So—what chamber of commerce can come up with these things?

Nuclear-powered combat robots, and the physical-enhancing combat uniforms that can be found everywhere on ordinary soldiers, Carlil knows that these are just the tip of the iceberg. He saw more weapons in the memory of soldier Dassault.

Are these things really something that a federation that hasn't even studied long-distance travel can have?

Carlil didn't have an answer, but he wasn't going to find out about it. He's tired of decryption.

The blue light flickered through the hallway, and the cloak wrapped around his armor like a ghost, making him look like he was floating rather than running. Six seconds later, Carlil arrived at the gathering place where the gunfire was converging.

A group of Harcosus soldiers gathered here, relying on the firepower of three combat robots to temporarily resist the upward advance of the Eighth Legion.

Carlil sank to his knees, jumped slightly, and jumped into the crowd. The soldiers of Halkosus, staring at him dumbfounded, did not realize what was happening at first until Karil stretched out his right hand.

The shadowy beating blue blade flickered, creating several headless corpses. Blood splattered, and they even jumped on the ceiling, and only then did they wake up from a dream. The muzzle fire was immediately reversed, and they had lost the opportunity to shoot.

There's no way they can shoot in the crowd - what's more, the premise of shooting is aiming, and Carlil keeps flashing.

In the third second of the start of the battle, he approached the first combat robot. The heavy machine that glowed with silver light was apparently unaware of his arrival, and was still pouring fire down the hallway on its own.

With a wave of his right hand, Carlil's blade stabbed deep into the machine's waist and abdomen, and then it swelled violently. The power of psionic energy turned the short knife into a long sword in the next second, and Carlil spun his wrist and swung it upwards, slicing it in half.

Some blue liquid spilled between the broken lines, hissing on the metal floor. The second battle robot finally turned its head at this moment, its metal beak open, and a dangerous red light was gathering in it.

Ignoring it, Carlil simply kicked a dangerous blue light component from the machine with his foot, and then immediately disappeared in place. Half a second later, a violent explosion was created among the Halkosus.

Death has come, and the killer is gone.

By the time the Harkosuz man had died in a series of explosions, he had reached the other end of the hallway. Here, six Astartes in gloomy dark blue power armor are gathered.

One of them was tying three armor-piercing grenades together using a special technique. Clearly, they already have a solution to the recalcitrant Halkosus.

"Good idea," Carlil said softly. "However, I'm afraid armor-piercing grenades need to stick to them to have some effect."

"I'll do it." Enric Barbatos said. "As long as you don't turn them into scrap metal."

Carlil chuckled, of course he knew that Enric Barbatos could do this, but that didn't stop him from helping them. He turned his head to look at the other end of the hallway, assessed the scene of the explosion he had caused, and asked in passing.

"How's the battle going in the Eighth Company?"

"We've advanced to the twenty-eighth floor, and we're currently clearing down from the twenty-eighth floor—"

Enrique Barbatos shook his head. "—but it doesn't work well, these Harcosus are intimidated by fear, but they always rally and launch a counteroffensive against us."

"Religion."

"You know that?"

"It's too obvious." Carlil turned his head. "If it is simply a lack of fear of death, it may be interpreted as the basic quality of a battle-hardened army. But these people are clearly not, and"

"Moreover, they will shout the word fire and charge back at us." Anrique Barbatos said his armor was still bleeding downwards.

"Well, let your Eighth Company pay more attention, Company Commander Enrique." Carlil nodded at him, the skeletal armor distorting his voice into a terrifying echo, but Enric didn't feel fear, even reassurance.

"I'll follow the plan and head to the top of the spire, we'll see you there."

"Yes, instructor."

The commander of the eighth company bowed his head slightly as a sign of respect. By the time he lifted his head again, Carlil was gone.

There is one more chapter

(End of chapter)