Good Brothers Eat Shit Together

Slash, slash again!

Heretics must be slashed, xenos must be slashed, but the demons—where did the demons go?

I don't care about the why or the how, I'm just going to slash, slash, slash!

One is a fair trade, two is a massive profit; none of you things are human anyway, so I'll just send you off to become maggots in a sea of filth!

Arthur, currently in the middle of a profitable streak, listened to the sound of his disruption field tearing through flesh. Although he subjectively felt a sense of horror and disgust, he didn't actually feel fear or tension; he simply felt that not thinking about anything and just slashing people was quite nice.

There was no need to ponder a nebulous future, no need to dwell on a terrifying reality; he only needed to hack and slash at those monsters and demons that lacked even a shred of humanity, using a sharp blade and a sturdy shield to tear a hideous hole through the surging flesh.

In this moment, you are the master of everything around you.

Suddenly, he could understand the thought processes of the Orks and Khorne.

In this universe, being able to slash people with a high-spirited mood might just be a blessing.

Arthur didn't even bother to wonder where his exquisite combat skills came from. He focused on the enemies before him, his swordplay—a seamless blend of offense and defense—becoming increasingly fluid in the narrow corridor. He found the numbers growing in his field of vision as he killed to be quite thoughtful.

Wait, have I really killed that many people?

The brief moment of doubt quickly faded. As his blade, which had been weaving through the enemy ranks like a work of art, paused in mid-air, Arthur had to face a new problem.

A stranger had appeared before him.

It was a Space Marine clad in master-crafted blue Power Armor. He was similar in height to Arthur and held a Multi-melta connected to a backpack ammunition box. On his power pack, an Iron Halo embedded with an Omega Symbol shimmered in the dim corridor.

At that moment, he was holding a one-handed parry stance. The blade had stopped just one centimeter from his gauntlet, the turbulent blue arc of the disruption field lightly grazing the paint on his armor.

"..."

The two looked at each other simultaneously.

Bang!

The Multi-melta erupted with a surging stream of metal, clearing a large area of the corridor.

The Power Sword grazed the Iron Halo. The Chaos Sorcerer, who had used strange magic to close the distance, was pinned to the wall. Arthur raised his hand to strike upward, slicing through the sorcerer's body while simultaneously cutting a Genestealer in two.

Clang!

Plasteel collided as the two stood back-to-back.

"Arthur?"

The Ultramarines asked in Chinese. The language of the Ancient Kingdom of the Dragon brought clarity back to Arthur, whose mind had been mostly occupied by slashing people.

His superhuman brain allowed Arthur to process a great deal of information in a short time. He recalled the attire of the Ultramarines behind him, blocked a jumping strike from a heretic with his shield—the rippling impact shattering the livers and gallbladders of several mortals nearby—and then tentatively spoke.

"Romulus?"

Romulus was Arthur's good brother with whom he played Warhammer, fighting together from Darktide to Space Marine 2, from Fantasy to Warhammer 40k. Moreover, the two had known each other since they were children.

In the game, the paint scheme Romulus favored was exactly this one.

"Yeah."

The Ultramarines replied softly, then tapped his arm a few times, and a 3D terrain map appeared in Arthur's field of vision.

"You lead the way, I'll provide cover. Follow the corridor straight ahead, and be careful not to fall to the lower levels."

"Got it."

Both parties, understanding what this universe was composed of, tacitly refrained from calling each other by their real names. Arthur stepped forward.

Romulus tossed the Multi-melta in his hand aside, and as he raised his hand again, a heavy Bolter appeared in his grip.

"Have you been blessed by a Chaos God?"

Noticing the Bolter rounds grazing past him with precision as he dealt with the tougher enemies in the pile of monsters, Arthur couldn't help but ask.

Anyone with a bit of knowledge about Warhammer knew that pulling gear out of the Warp void like this was clearly the work of a Chaos God entity like Vashtorr, who walked the path of malicious craft. What kind of Space Marine could swap weapons like that?

"Blessed?"

Romulus couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"You can just buy them for thirty minutes; you should try it too."

"Huh?"

A line of bullets flew toward them. Arthur frowned and pulled Romulus in front of him.

"Haven't you noticed your own anomalies?"

Romulus tossed a Krak Grenade, sending the machine gunner in the bunker ahead to his end, and then continued.

"A safe zone located in the Warp, numbers in your vision that grow as you kill sentient beings, and haven't you noticed that the demons you slash are permanently extinguished?"

Arthur was stunned. He suddenly remembered that after he had finished off a few demons at the beginning, only xenos and heretics had surrounded him. Those demons seemed to have stayed far away from him.

It was common knowledge that demons existed in the Warp. Aside from the mutual consumption of Warp entities, there was almost no way to kill a demon, nor was there anything other than death that would make a demon feel fear.

"Uh."

As the two continued to advance, the face inside Arthur's helmet couldn't help but reveal an awkward expression.

"I was just thinking about hacking people, thinking that since I'd ended up in this shithole, I might as well drag a few down to swim with me—you know, for someone transmigrated into Warhammer, not crying like a Gretchin is already a sign of a strong mental state, alright?"

He explained his actions with some embarrassment; it definitely wasn't his fault.

"...Khorne would surely love you."

Romulus couldn't help but sigh, then proceeded to explain.

"I haven't fully researched the specifics yet, but the known information is that we have a domain in the Warp, something like a safe house. Hunting beings with souls strengthens our power, which manifests as numbers under the influence of our subconscious. We can then spend these points to interfere with Realspace, such as creating objects out of thin air."

"Buddy, don't tell me I've become one of the Warp Demons?"

Arthur slashed down an Ork climbing up from the lower level, his face twitching as he watched his numbers jump up a bit.

This certainly didn't rule out his suspicions, but the information obtained so far was that he had transmigrated, landed in a decent state—though he was a Fallen Angel, he was at least a Space Marine—and then acquired something that looked like a cheat code.

To be honest, given the nature of the Warp, this so-called cheat might even be related to the evil creatures of the Warp. It would be hilarious if he blindly pinned his hopes on it, only to run into a Blank once he got out and find the cheat disconnected.

He even suspected that his good brother might be a demon in disguise, acting as a mission-guiding tool to achieve some evil purpose.

Well, such a situation wasn't impossible.

His grip tightened slightly on his sword, and Arthur couldn't help but grow a bit more vigilant toward the good brother behind him.

Come to think of it, the fact that he could accept such a bloody scene right after transmigrating, and could fight his way in and out of a den of monsters without feeling much disgust, was also full of anomalies. He had to be on guard.

"Who knows? We'll have to get out of the Warp before we can know for sure."

Romulus shook his head. From a rational perspective, he felt that being able to exchange a few kills for a Space Marine body was something even the Chaos Gods couldn't pull off; otherwise, Realspace would have been carved up long ago.

But now was not the time to discuss this.