Hope is at the reach of the farthest in time.

Colonel Dwallus has deeply realized this sentence in the last two days.

Two days earlier, he and everyone in the station had witnessed an elaborate orbit-to-ground light spear bombardment. Magnificent and fiery beams of light break through the clouds from different angles in the sky and crash to the ground, connecting heaven and earth. Fatal blows from different ships hit in the same instant with ingenious planning, vaporizing the corrupted building and dropping the Emperor's hammer, much to the delight of everyone present.

From this, everyone can know that the Regency of the Empire has arrived. But for Colonel Dvorus, the regent did not come.

The enemy did not retreat because of this, but attacked more fiercely. During these two days, their front has been forced to shrink until today.

It's not that he thinks he can fight back today, but he thinks he's going to lose his first line of defense soon.

Walking corpses, poisonous clouds, buzzing poisonous insects, somehow working engines of war wrapped in tumors and pus, and—Chaos Space Marines.

Just looking at them is already a great test of mortal will.

Dvorus couldn't figure out how the big, shriveled, puffy, emaciated and horrible beings corrupted by the forces of evil could come alive. By any measure, they should have died of intense disease and decay, but they just didn't. Even Dvorus, who was hiding behind the line, could clearly hear their hoarse laughter, which was either corrupted by pus and phlegm, or broken by a leaky throat.

Restlessly, he tried to confirm for the third time in five minutes that his hazmat suit was in good condition. A tiny slit was enough to kill a plague warrior, and Dwallus knew that, of course, but he didn't usually act as neurotic as he did now. It's hard to explain, maybe the mission as a force commander is still too heavy for him, but ......

All in all, he had a subtle, indescribable premonition.

"We have to evacuate after the next round of shooting." He said to his communicator, not wanting to think about how many people were left in the link to hear his orders, "The damn cloud of poison is getting closer and closer, and it's about to rush under the line. We must abandon this place and retreat to the next fortification. ”

Several tired but excited responses rang out over the communicator. It sounds paradoxical, but on the battlefield of life and death, it is a fairly common state of mind, and Dvorus himself is probably not far behind.

He forced himself to pluck up his courage and once again poked his head out from behind the line to look in the direction where the enemy would attack. He then happened to see a group of walking corpses staggering forward trigger a trap on the perimeter of the line, and were swept in two by a logging gun like wheat harvesting.

It wasn't meant for them, but it was okay. Dvorus thought to himself. On the battlefield, it was rare to encounter something that was completely satisfactory, and he had long been accustomed to this. At the same time, however, he was pained to realize that the next rudimentary fortifications would not be as varied in terms of defensive measures as this well-laid line.

Not being able to bring the Emperor's enemies the death they deserve is a great shame, but Dvorus, as a mortal, knows deep that there will be an end to manpower. He cautiously held his breath and leaned against the wall, squinting his eyes, trying to see through the yellow-green poisonous fog not far away. As a commander, he had to find an opportune moment to give the order to "shoot" to repel the enemy's onslaught, and then take all his comrades who were still alive from here.

He waited with bated breath for a minute, two minutes—and then he had to shrink back behind the wall and take a deep breath of the stuffy, unpleasant-smelling air in his hazmat suit, but wouldn't let him melt the mucosa and trachea along with his mouth as he inhaled.

He never issued the order to "shoot". It's not right.

According to the rules they had already figured out, there would always be some more threatening units behind the small group of walking corpses. Or the Chaos Space Marines, or some kind of spew-spewing war engine that looks like a tank, or both. Only by knocking these things back can they be considered to have completely repelled a round of enemy attacks, and buy themselves a little respite before they can regroup.

But now, there is nothing behind the walking corpses, not even more walking corpses.

It's not right. Dvorus thought.

His subordinates apparently felt the same way. There was an uneasy noise over the communicator, and Dvorus had to take a moment to stop their misguided misrepresentation before climbing the wall again and looking in the direction of the enemy.

I don't know if it's his delusion, but he always feels that the yellow-green mist in front of him seems to be thinner.

At first, he was just glad that there were no sudden and overwhelming changes on the battlefield during the time he was sliding down and arguing with the communicator. Immediately afterward, he realized from the pillar of the sign a hundred meters away, which had been completely engulfed by a thick poisonous mist, that "the fog seemed to have thinned" was not an illusion.

Immediately afterward, he realized that in the distance, obscured by the fog, there was a huge shadow moving.

He knew that he should try to distinguish the shadow of what it was, and then explain to his soldiers what he should use to greet the other side in order to achieve better results. But he couldn't do it - in the next moment after realizing the existence of the "shadow" in the fog, he was immediately drawn to the reason why the shadow was created:

It's light.

Lights that appeared out of thin air in the fog shone on something, casting their shadows in the mist. Dvorus didn't want to analyze the shadow of what it was, he just stared intently at the dim halo.

The yellow-green poisonous mist might dye everything in it the same color, but the light was stubborn. Colonel Dvorus was convinced of the divine gold in a flash of light, before it could clearly penetrate the thick mist. It was as if it was an instinct engraved in the human genes, a resonance in the soul, and the sixth sense had already informed them of the answer before the facts fell into the human eye.

It was obviously a very strange thing, and the vision of the battlefield was worthy of an alarm inside the defensive line, but no one did it—not even the communicators. Dvorus guessed that everyone who saw this scene at the time was as fascinated by the light as he was, even if the shadows that swayed and swayed in the upper stream of the fog were deformed and terrifying, even if they should have done their duty.

The light ignored them, it just grew on its own. It took only three seconds for it to transform from a dim small mass into a pillar of light capable of piercing through the thick mist, and then it took another three seconds for it to split its branches and spin to sweep away all the corruption around it—the light that blew away the poisonous mist like a storm, rooted like a tree on the rotten earth, washed away all remaining filth like flowing water, and scorched the stench of the void like a flame.

Dvorus stared at the sacred scene with his mouth wide open in his hazmat suit, but he didn't succeed in seeing the end. In fact, many of the Imperial soldiers within this line of defense were just as shocked as he was at the change in the golden beam, and they didn't see the end: the light, which had become too intense in a few breaths, quickly lost its fog, burning their eyes, and temporarily blinding all those who forgot to look away.

These few minutes were quite dark in every sense of the word. Not only did most of the soldiers panic because they had lost their sight, but they also fell into chaos abruptly because of the otherwise orderly trenches. Some cursed abruptly, some fell to their knees and wept as if they were emotionally broken, some forgot everything and only repeated the few prayers from the Word Book that they knew, and some even shot at the air in a frenzy despite the ban.

Dvorus admits that he did a terrible job in those few minutes: his own brain was messed up by the obvious anomaly of Fang Cai. It took him a full twenty seconds to fumble his grip on his communicator, but he didn't know what order to give to it. It was a minute and a half before the thought of "informing the commissar" slowly rose in his rusty mind, and then after another thirty-four seconds, he remembered that they had no commissar four hours ago.

In the end, he could only shout into the communicator in frustration, trying to reorganize the chain of command with his senseless anger and intimidation. He felt stupid, stupid, and made a mess of everything, but after a short period of time, he slowly and naturally regained his sight, and the soldiers inside the line finally had the appearance of an army again.

He blinked desperately at his irritated, still tearful eyes, and looked out of the wall once more—the yellow-green smoke was gone, and his still blurry eyes could easily confirm it. He couldn't see anything too far away, but he could tell by the shell-tossed dirt near the wall that the damn mold, sick plants, and disgusting pus were gone, and the ground showed only a healthy, normal brown color, unable to move or speak.

He didn't know exactly what was going on, but he thought at the time it was a good sign. Then, he wanted to take a closer look at the targets in the distance that were slowly moving towards the line, but it was too hard for him to keep his eyes back on normal.

At that moment, Dvorus could barely see a golden Aquila Scepter glittering in the sunlight that was rare in the war zone.

Miwoo (none).

What's wrong with the short! Baby seals are just short to be cute! (Creeping)

(End of chapter)