Dantiok's lungs were burning.

Nothing can save me, nothing can save me from this hell.

Once again, he was clearly aware of it, and he began to run. According to the predetermined plan, if the First District is lost, then anyone who is still alive – or if there is a chance to live – will do the same.

Evacuate, that's all.

Evacuate to the rear of the line, go back, turn around from the remains of your brothers, and start running to the laughter of the traitors.

It's taboo to turn your back on the enemy, but what if the enemy doesn't care if you're leaving?

They weren't a disciplined army, and in fact, Danteok was even beginning to wonder if these posing things were even human beings under their skins.

He glanced at one of the Bearers, and there was no emotion in the man's dead gray eyes, only a muddy, filthy fanaticism, as if he had been born from them, not human flesh and blood.

The war blacksmith felt a chill in his heart for no reason at that moment, this war had come to this point, but he could still learn something new from it.

A few hours ago, he had noticed that their genetic father was rubbing a flower of steel. And now, he knew that the Bearers were no longer the legion he knew they were.

Even if they were traitors, they were still sane traitors long before Robert Killiman's Five Hundred Worlds were burned. They kill with hatred, and what about these things now?

They have nothing, nothing.

Dantioc stopped, leaned against a low mud wall, and turned to look. He saw Gunzovreid, the captain of the Imperial Fist, being dismembered. Two men pressed him, shaved open his chest with daggers, and tried to cut off his head.

Captain Gonzofried was still trying to fight, he still held the blaster in his left hand, but he didn't have a chance to shoot, he had lost that strength. His fingers were on the trigger, but he couldn't pull it down, only trembling.

The traitors laughed at him.

It was all so terrible, and so unfortunate for this warrior. However, the god who was in charge of fate seemed to be a little merciful, and he did not take all the luck of the captain after all.

In the last moments before he died, Guntzoffred saw Dantiok.

This incident was the only luck he could have, and the greatest misfortune of the war blacksmith.

The captain nodded imperceptibly.

His heart was slowly pulled out by a pair of hands after this jaw and held high, and someone praised the so-called Chaos Gods with a loud voice.

The war blacksmith retracted back into the mud wall and pressed somewhere on the armour, pressing very hard. If it doesn't, it won't start.

As soon as he had done this, he regained his footsteps, without any desire to stay.

He resisted the urge to kill back, and the sound of war that did not belong to the war spread behind him, like the arms of ten million monsters, trying to drag him back, into the darkness.

War is the sound of gunfire and blades colliding, the sound of artillery bombardment, not the way it is now. Laughter was everywhere, savage roars, mad screams, and the ubiquitous sound of praise to the gods.

Dantiok used his willpower to cut off all those arms, and then began to work as a deserter.

After running for eleven seconds, a bright and fierce wave of flames rose from behind him. The flames didn't get past the power armor's defenses and hurt his back, so Dantyok didn't feel its temperature, not at all, he could only feel a chill.

Every nerve in his head was trembling, but his thoughts were still as cold as ice.

He ran around the next corner and slapped his right arm again, or rather, hammered.

The inaudible or visible lead began to burn slowly, and after another eleven seconds, the explosion rose again. Five hundred meters was nothing to an Astarte, but Dantiok took nearly a minute to slowly leave.

Now, he stopped at the border between the first and second districts, and lowered his head to check the weapons on his body. A pitch-black shadow cast overhead, and the severed head of the deceased stared blankly at him.

Shaped by the Iron Warriors and the Fist of the Empire, the walls of Kyoto continue to attract the attention of enemies, and Conrad Coetzes is right to say that the carving of the Imperial Aquila is useful.

These walls should be fragile and can be vandalized by traitors, but the Imperial Aquila changes everything. This meaningless symbol made them cringe, even cowering and shivering. They had to find another way to enter the trenches and fight them to the death.

And Perturabo and Roger Dorn had already thought of this, so those options began to be ruled out, and only one remained, the last one that was deliberately set aside.

An exit, or an entrance.

The only one.

Want to kill? Come on in. Under the gaze of the heads of your dead companions, in the shadow of the Imperial Aquila, come and fight us.

Dantiok looked up and began to take a deep breath.

Does he remember them?

Gunzofreid, Fasathone, Toraros, Ennery Marnock he kept reading, and kept reading, until he blurted out a name when he saw Fricks 'behind the wall' in the second district.

"Gunzofreid." Said the war blacksmith.

He was stunned for a moment, obviously. Frix looked at him with the hammer in his hand, not commenting, just waiting. It took several seconds for Dantiok to get back to normal.

"The first district is lost." War Blacksmith reported. "If nothing happens, I'm the last one alive."

"No surprises, we see the fire." Fricks said. "You held out in the trench for forty-two minutes at five hundred meters, and that's enough. Go get the ammo, Dantiok. ”

"Understood." The War Blacksmith answered Frix in a straight manner using his old habit when he was not yet a member of the Trident.

The Breaker looked up at the towering walls of flesh and blood, and suddenly smiled a slightly cruel smile.

He said, "You know what? Horus's dogs retreated after the first defeat, retreating to a short distance, handing over the battlefield to the cannon fodder they had found, their habits still the same, but I wonder when they will remember to have their own artillery. ”

Fricks' smile faded into silence.

"Five hundred meters, Dantiok, five hundred meters. Let's see how many we can kill. ”

The war blacksmith nodded silently and turned away.

An hour and fifty-one minutes later, he and Faffnir Rann of the Fist of the Empire dragged Frix, who had lost an arm and had been punched through the abdomen, back to the third sector.

They were followed by a detachment of six men, nine in all, who were the last surviving defenders of the 2nd district. It's a lot better than Zone 1, but it's still an unacceptable number, at least not to Faveniel Rann.

Dantiok leaned against the dirt walls of the Third Sector and stared at him through the hollow of his helmet, and it took a moment for the Imperial Fist to make a second sound other than a low roar.

"We can't hold it." He said. "The third district will also be lost, there are too many of them."

"It doesn't matter." Dantiok said. "Where's your explosives?"

Rann looked up and tapped his chest.

"Remember to detonate." He said succinctly.

Dantiok didn't say anything, just tapped his chest.

Seven minutes later, their enemies began to rush from the second district, which was still blazing, towards the third. The five Imperial Fists on guard were the first to spot them, and they immediately began firing.

The trench was actually not narrow, and the width of twelve meters was enough for an armored vehicle to pass through it. However, for the enemy, these twelve meters are not so gentle.

They began to fall, their heads were shattered, their bodies pierced, and they were burned by flames. Flesh and blood splattered, and the defenders began to kill them in the most modest way, just pull the trigger and not think about anything else.

They didn't have much ammunition left, so they decided to run out of them. The scarlet corpses on the border of the second and third districts began to pile up more and more, until the entire floor of the pavement turned into another piled up Kyoto.

More inferior objects in scarlet armor climbed from behind it, trampling on the corpses of their companions, their faces covered in blood, munching on fresh meat from nowhere. They were also smashed, flesh and blood flew everywhere, and then someone began throwing fragmentation grenades.

It will always be the number one choice for lethality in confined areas, and Dantiok has read a lot of books, and he knows that this design has been around since long before Terra was unified.

It is an enduring and efficient law of killing, like a blade, hammer, and spear.

And axes.

Fafnir Rann chopped one of the Whisperers with an axe, the other slashed at him with a chainsaw sword, and Dantiok killed him with a hammer. They looked out for each other, fighting back to back in the blood-soaked trenches.

Everything slowed down, and the air was filled with the foul smell of the corpses being burned, just as they were going through now.

The ammo was gone, the grenades were thrown, and the spiked traps and trick mines around the corners had killed some of the Whisperers, but that still didn't stop them from continuing to rush over the corpses.

Then everything will fall into place.

The Iron Warriors and the Fist of the Empire tacitly do this, taking care of each other. Iron ash and bright yellow flickered alternately in the blood-soaked trenches, and corpses were soon crowded everywhere.

And Dantiok, the blacksmith of war, felt that his friend Fafnir Rann had lost the function of speech, and that all he had left was a growl or a muffled grunt after being injured.

He was a little distracted by the thought, he thought, is Faveniel Lane really my friend? In Zone 2, we played side by side, but he and I had only just met

He paid the price for the stunned god who didn't take a second to die, and a spear pierced his flank. Rann swung his axe to his rescue and pulled him up, making a third sound.

"Take it easy, idiot!" He scolded. "Remember to detonate!"

Dantiok smiled behind his helmet.

"Comrade-in-arms." He slurred the word, a mouthful of blood swallowed by him. "I refuse to accept it."

"What did you say?"

"I don't want to be the guy who pressed the detonation button." Dantiok said clearly. "I've pressed it twice, let's press it a third time. I also have a copy of explosives. Your Imperial Fist is never short of engineering explosives, isn't it? ”

Fafnir Rann strode on the corpses of the two Whisperers and glared at him, then began to smile.

"Yes, madman." He said. "Okay."

Someone screamed and rushed at them.

——

Melos reached out and tried to pull Ur Person up from the ground, but the veteran refused. He lay on the ground and slapped the pharmacist's hand away with the butt of his gun.

Melos could certainly see his exhaustion, and as a mortal, Orr Person had been firmly behind him and Alastor Rorschach for the past few hours, sometimes walking a little slower, but he never fell behind.

He was tired, and he could tell from his trembling legs that he was at the end of his crossbow. Melos knew all of the above, but she reached out again.

Ur Person didn't refuse this time, he slowly stood up, his whole face twitching faintly.

Without words, they continued to walk. The 'crow' walked at the forefront, leading the way.

He said he had some knack for identifying footprints and could help them get back to where they came from. Other than that, he didn't say anything, never mentioning how he came back from the dead - yes, Melos still thinks he came back from the dead.

It was impossible for him to make a mistake in his diagnosis at that time, and it was impossible for the medical arm armor to be wrong, and the crow guard was dead, and the meninges of feigned death did not work. However, there is one thing worth noting, and that is his calmness.

He didn't seem surprised by this.

Melos wondered what he saw.

They began to move on silently and silently, in the same direction as the Great Wing of the Raven Guard, the direction of Hell and Death.

This request was made by Ur Pesson, who stubbornly believed that he had to go back, and that he was going to go to Constantin Valdo, the marshal of the Praetorian Army, to be more precise, and what Ur Persson said at the time was: "I am going to save him." ”

Melos felt a little ridiculous at first, a mortal who said he wanted to save a Praetorian soldier? But Orr's expression made him realize that the veteran was completely serious.

He tried to convince the veterans, which was simply impossible, but in the end, it was he who was persuaded by Ur Pesson.

"You don't understand, Blood Angel." The veteran looked up at him and said, his right hand clasped tightly to his chest, as if he was holding something, but he had nothing in his hand. "It's not about whether it's impossible, it's about whether we've done it."

Melos felt like she should have been glaring at him, Rorschach remained silent, and Ur Pesson continued.

"The universe expands, have you ever heard of this interesting and ancient theory? It expands, then it collapses, it goes back to the beginning, back to its original shape. When this cycle passes, it will expand and collapse again. ”

"The cycle goes on and on, and when it re-expands, everything will repeat itself, so whatever mistake you make, it won't get a chance to be corrected. And I can't make mistakes, Melos. I can't bet that Constantin Valdo's death won't affect what I'm going to do in the future, I can only do what is right. ”

But how do you know what's right and what's wrong? Melos asked.

Ur Person didn't answer, just smiled dryly.

And so now, they walked together, in the mist that seemed to have escaped in the early morning, next to each other, like savages in the age of savagery.

Hordes of humans were no threat in those days, one man could not make the climate, two people could hunt wild beasts, and three people could make wolves abandon the idea of hunting. And if there are more than ten people, no matter how powerful the beast is, it will have to weigh whether it can carry the minions of these two-legged hairless naked apes that can fly in the air.

There was no sound coming from all directions, only silence, as if the people they were looking for had died completely.

Melos felt a slight uneasiness, a feeling that made him clench his sword. Coincidentally, their 'crows' also tensed their muscles, and as they walked, they took on an ambiguous state of distancing themselves from the ground, ready to respond to any possible attack.

Paradoxically, Ur Persson is at peace with this.

Only he knows why.

They walked and walked until they were exhausted. Inevitably, the Blood Angel became a little suspicious of what they were doing, and he asked, "Are you sure we're not on the wrong path, Rorschach?" ”

Raven turned around and shook her head at him.

"But where did they go?" Melos asked. "We."

As he spoke, he suddenly stopped. He crouched down and began to dig through the ground that had been completely frozen with the captured power sword. After a while, he dug out a helmet.

It was the Ravenguard's favorite style, their gloomy scarlet eyeglasses still stained with dirt, as if they were self-aware, staring at them all. Melos shook off the dirt and handed it to Rorschach.

The latter checked it and put it on, and it was fastened to his armor as if it belonged to him.

"We're not on the wrong track." Raven said in a gloomy tone that had been altered by the breathing grille. "That's the best proof of that."

"But what about them?" Melos asked sincerely. "I didn't hear anything—"

A noisy, sudden sound interrupted his words, and a cold breeze rushed into their ears.

Normally, Pelson let go of the hand that gripped the jewel on his chest, the temperature of which had burned his palm. The fog suddenly lifted as soon as the sound sounded, and things around them began to change rapidly, and monsters from the deepest depths of hell appeared in front of them.

In the sky, on the ground, and even in the air – they fill every corner, everywhere.

The apothecary instinctively clenched his sword, holding Orr firmly behind him. It was an instinct, and of course he didn't know what Ur Pesson's mission was, but he could hear a voice from the deepest part of his heart.

The crow didn't do that, he just summoned the lightning bolts on his claws, and the disintegrating force field hummed endlessly. It was a declaration of war, but the demons ignored him as if they didn't exist. They went straight in the other direction.

Melos looked intently and saw the Raven Guard and their original form, Corus Corax, leap out of the darkness. It was a spectacle that few people could witness directly, and he was thrilled by it.

The apothecary raised his sword in one hand and slashed at a demon with a slumped body and hideous claws, and was about to declare his entry into battle. The blade slashed through its head with incredible precision, a fatal blow if it could have hit.

Melos was stunned.

Unbelievingly, he swung another sword before it left, and the sword still missed, creeping across the thing's back.

The Holy Blood Angel suddenly roared, turned to the other naked sheep-headed monster and stabbed it with his sword, it came out of its chest, but the thing didn't look at Melos, it ran straight by, and even passed through the body of the Holy Blood Angel, like an illusory shadow.

"In the name of the Emperor, what is the situation?!" The pharmacist growled. "We must fight!"

Rorschach shook his head slightly.

"It doesn't make sense." He said. "Don't waste your life that has survived so hard to present here, this is not a battlefield that can be changed by just three people joining, Holy Blood Angel."

The raven looked down at Ur Pesson.

"Can you find him?" He asked.

"Now you can." The soldier replied firmly. "I can already sense where he is."

"Take him away, then." Raven said in a grim tone. "The emperor has other uses for him."

A golden glow flashed through his scarlet eyepieces, and Melos was speechless.

The raven raised its head, bowed to him, and immediately fled into the darkness in front of them.

The dense crowd of demons all around them stopped moving in an instant, and tens of thousands—no, millions of pairs of cloudy eyes all turned around, staring at a dark raven guard who suddenly appeared in their sight.

Alastor Rorschach coldly raised his claws and declared war on them, with one enemy against ten thousand, did he win? Melos didn't answer, only saw him drowned.

Ur Persson turned around and walked in the other direction. Melos didn't even notice his departure at first, until a breeze blew in and he realized what was the most important thing to do now.

He hurried after Ear Persson and asked, "What's going on, Orr?" ”

"I don't know." The soldier said. "Don't expect me to explain this to you, I'm confused myself, and I hate the occult very, very, very much."

"But."

"Nothing more, Melos, it's already this time." The soldier looked up and said, letting go of his right hand clenched on his chest and pointing forward. "We're here."

He was right, and following his guidance, Melos did see a dim golden figure. However, even with Astarte's eyesight, it took Melos a while to tell that it was actually a Janissaries.

Their signature Shining Gold armor had been thoroughly stained with blood, which was why it looked dull, but that didn't stop him from fighting.

With just one hand wielding the spear, he could also stand tall in the demon tide, and the light bursting from the golden spear terrified those who were blasphemous and lifeless, and as soon as it was illuminated, it would immediately scream, and some of the weaker ones would even be burned to ashes by it.

The blasphemous flesh hissed endlessly in the light, and the fat and pus and blood poured out from under the fur, and their wails were so beautiful. The results were remarkable, but Konstantin Valdo still fought very hard.

There were too many of them, and he couldn't fight with all his might.

Orr and Melos could clearly see that at the back end of the demon tide, some huge demons were watching the battle. They can choose to join the battle directly, but they still have to watch from the sidelines.

The young apothecary immediately understood what they were doing, and he felt a chill down his spine and a little bewildered, and he lowered his head a little bewildered, and asked about the mortal.

"What are we supposed to do?" He asked, unaware that he had made Ur Persson his backbone.

Orr Person didn't answer, he couldn't answer for the time being, this powerless dilemma came from the jewel on his chest. In a world that Melos could not see, it was glowing, brighter and more blazing than the sun at noon.

+ They do not see you, but they see Waldo, Oranius. He is a very important part of my plan. They are trying to drain his humanity and get him back to that ruthlessness. I can't let that happen. +

Stop talking nonsense. Orr interrupted rudely. Tell me what to do.

+ Go and teach him how to be a hero to humanity, Oranius. +

How the do I know how to teach? And he already is!

+ No, it's not enough, he's still just fighting for me. This awareness is still not enough for what he is about to do. That's all I can say, my friend. +

The man who called him a friend sighed, his voice changed, and it sounded like he had suddenly returned to a bygone time, when he still had a name, not a cold, sacred pronoun.

+You're the best at doing it, aren't you? There have been countless people who have been inspired by you to break through themselves and become heroes they imagined impossible to become, and to become a banner that stands proudly in the wind and guides others. Do it again, Oranius. +

The sound dissipated, and the gem was so hot that it nearly melted his flesh.

Ur Pesson took a deep breath and returned to the harsh reality of the world in which he lived.

He looked up at Melos, and that look was not something that a retired soldier or farmer could have.

The amiable retired soldier Ur Persson could not see people with such eyes, and Ur Persson, who believed in a self-deconstructed Catholic deity, could not have behaved so sharply.

Only one person can.

This man was hidden in the chest of this ordinary soldier, hidden in his memory, and had been hiding for tens of thousands of years.

In the age when the man was still alive, people called him a war commander.

Melos froze, even in a faint sense of shock, and felt a tingle in the eyes that met Orr's eyes.

But the soldier ignored it, he just said, "Follow me." ”

He walked forward without hesitation, and compared to the entire battlefield, he was as small as dust. He was dressed in a military uniform covered in blood and dust, and his face was covered in dirt and had been stained blackened by the flames of war.

His weapons were nothing to the demons, and neither was his life, no demon would care about such a mortal, they only needed a flick or a look to kill him on the spot.

But his steps were as loud as thunder.

Neither his weapons nor his life mattered, because he possessed the oldest, most upright, and rarest qualities of mankind.

He had the courage to do it all.

A deep, loud thud spread from under his dirty boots, one after the other, shaking the demons. They cast their gaze at it, but there was no figure in sight, only a sun rising from the filthy flesh and dust.

They screamed.

Ur Person gripped the gem tightly and took a deep breath, his blood boiling and tears dripping uncontrollably. Melos looked at him strangely, and his eyes were full of awe, as if he had only now really known him, and only then did he really know who this soldier really was.

Oranius roared.

"Konstantin Waldo!"

The Janissal of the Praetorian Army, who was fighting in purgatory, heard the call, and he immediately determined who it was—it was the target of his mission, Orr Pesson, a man who was supposed to escape.

There is no doubt about it, it is not a false illusion, it is not a illusion of the devil, because they are screaming and melting. Billions of shadows melted here and now, and became puddles of mud, writhing in the mud like maggots.

Waldo didn't know what was going on, he couldn't even see where Ur Pesson was, in fact, he couldn't even see the sun.

Instinctively, Waldo asked his lord a question through the link, but there was no answer on the other end, only a whistling death wind.

It was only at this time that the Marshal of the Forbidden Army suddenly realized that there was something wrong in this 'link'—since the link was established, the warm and warm feeling, as if the missing place in his heart had been filled, disappeared.

Moreover, it has been gone for a long, long time. He didn't find out until now.

He clenched the Sun God's spear in his hand, holding its bloodless spear close to his cheek. The light that danced on it did not hurt him, but gently entered his eyes, bringing with it a voice that had not been heard for a long time.

Before he knew it, Konstantin Valdo had tears in his eyes.

+Valdo.+

Yes, I am, my lord.

+ Get out of here and go and win for humanity. +

"Konstantin Waldo!" Someone roared again, and the voice was extremely rough. "Come here!"

A hand grabbed his cloak and dragged him hard in front of a round of sun. Valdo barely opened his eyes to look at it, only to see a face stained transparent with golden light.

Ur Persson let go of his hand, stumbled back a few steps, and fell to the ground on his back. Valdo straightened up and walked over to help him up. A Holy Blood Angel watched them from the sidelines, not saying a word.

"Lead the way, you derelict one." Urr Pesson gasped and cursed. "Did you know that a soldier like you is going to be whipped?"

Valdo didn't know how to answer, his face twitching and contorting his head, trying his best to suppress the urge to smile.

He asked, "Can you still go?" ”

"Even if we can't, we'll do our part." A voice said.

Corus Colax walked slowly, surrounded by crows behind him. The gaze of the genoplasm was calm.

(End of chapter)