Battle!

Tyberos nodded silently, accepting the arrangements made by Ramesses.

The Carcharodons dispersed with practiced discipline, seeking out the ancient warriors who were as taciturn as they were.

Nearby, Kahurangi carefully noted Ramesses' words. He discovered that this psychic master was obsessed with the number thirteen in everything he did, while making every effort to avoid the numbers six, seven, eight, and nine.

He pondered briefly, feeling it necessary to suggest to Lord Tyberos later that the Carcharodons' companies be expanded to thirteen, with each company consisting of one hundred and thirty men.

"Akia, and Shar."

Tyberos scanned the circle, locking onto the two most antisocial individuals before speaking.

"You two are not going."

"Huh?"

Akia, who had been flexing his muscles in anticipation, froze, looking at the Chapter Master with astonishment.

One of the ways Space Marine squads bullied their own: not taking you along for the fight.

"My Lord!"

Akia grew anxious instantly, crossing the distance through the ranks with incredible speed to stand before Tyberos.

"Two veterans from the First Company will take your places."

Tyberos answered him bluntly.

"You have not concealed your talents."

"..."

Hearing this, Akia could not help but feel a surge of frustration.

He had always taken pride in having overcome his instincts and not being consumed by his bloodline, never imagining that this very bloodline would now prevent him from stepping onto the battlefield.

"Let them follow me; I'll be making quite a bit of noise anyway."

Karna spoke gently.

He had never been fond of wearing a helmet, and his pale, handsome features were exposed to the light.

In Akia's eyes, that face looked like an angel.

"Just remember not to walk in front of me."

Akia and Shar nodded hurriedly.

Formation order didn't matter; as long as there were xenos to slaughter, they were satisfied.

The two First Company Carcharodons who had just left the squad retreated in disappointment.

"Are you ready?"

Facing the corridor submerged in shadows ahead, Arthur asked, activating the power field on his blade.

The Drukhari were clever; they had cut the power and sabotaged parts of the corridor to create a battlefield tailored to their needs, all without provoking the Archmagos into a rage.

They maintained this threshold perfectly; the Archmagos only wanted to send these troublesome creatures away, and the xenos preferred to achieve their goals without bloodshed.

This mutual compromise provided the transmigrator with ample time for preparation.

"Ready."

Shaking the water droplets from his hair, Romulus, finding the sensation bothersome, chose to put on his helmet.

Ramesses made a show of pressing his hands against the coffin, channeling the special psychic suppression of the Slaanesh daemon.

"Do not look at me."

Under psychic vision, pink mist—unsettling to even gaze upon—seeped from the seams of the iron coffin, held back by psychic pressure within the engravings on the surface, brewing with lethal fluctuations.

The corridor grew cold.

Immediately, the holographic projections compiled by Romulus were precisely transmitted to the receivers of every Carcharodon, each showing the path specific to their sub-group.

"Karna, assault the core area, tear open a gap in their defenses, and seize the opportunity. Tyberos and Arthur, proceed at high speed along the routes I have provided. Once you encounter the Drukhari Archon, immediately isolate and deal with their accompanying troops. Each group is to proceed according to their route; the veterans will use their Lasgun to indicate the direction of the enemy. Each group..."

Every warrior watched the data before them in silence, listening to the voice ringing in their ears.

The time spent reading the Codex had not been in vain; various tactical concepts flashed through their minds, then distilled into the briefest, most professional terminology transmitted to the Carcharodons who needed that specific information.

Such meticulous mission planning felt fresh to the Carcharodons, yet it brought an inexplicable sense of security.

In the past, the Carcharodons' command structure had never been this disciplined.

Target, location, then slaughter; the process was entirely left to individual experience and improvisation.

This was the first time Romulus had commanded a battle on a real battlefield, yet he did not feel overly nervous.

Wallhacks were active, simulations had been run, his domain skill was weakening the enemy's stats, and he had a detailed operational plan while monitoring the battlefield in real-time.

Theoretically, as long as he let the three strongest teams—Karna's group and the others—tear open three breaches as envisioned, and allowed the subsequent multi-group assaults to create localized numerical advantages, they could annihilate the vast majority of the enemy's fighting force before they could react.

After that, it would be a pure slaughter; as long as they didn't have the worst luck, Astartes could easily crush these "black thorns" in a fair fight.

Romulus believed in himself, believed in his comrades, and believed in the strength the Carcharodons had forged amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

All he had to do was point these killing machines toward the enemy, arrange every detail of the battlefield, and then transmit this absolute confidence in victory to every single one of them.

Because the warriors believed they were ancient war heroes, then they were war heroes now.

"This is my first time commanding a battle such as this. Please, let me witness your craft, let us learn from you, and I ask that you entrust your lives to my hands, without reservation."

The voice of Romulus rang in the ears of every shark, the shadows of the Warp obscuring their souls as they were surrounded.

There was no sound over the comms.

He felt a sense of calm.

The calm of the sharks was like a ticking clock with its needle dancing over a high-explosive charge; it was the violent storm about to descend from the gloomy sky.

Within the closed chests of every warrior, sharp fangs were grinding against one another.

This was the best answer.

Romulus knew what these warriors wanted to hear, and he was clear on what he needed to bring them.

"Then let us move forward. I will bring you victory, and the chance to seize yet another opportunity to offer triumph to the Emperor."

Since he had chosen to take up this identity, he had to bear its weight.

His voice was resonant and powerful.

"Let me see if the Carcharodons are still as formidable in battle as their ancestors from Terra."

A single short sentence was all it took to bring the morale of the squad to its peak.

The blessed skull flickered, and the vital facilities at the stern of the ark were obscured by steel structures that had crashed in from the other end of the warship.

"For the blood of Sanguinius!"

With a heroic roar, the deep-black angel took the lead, vanishing into the darkness at a speed too fast for even the Emperor's angels to track, sounding the horn of the assault.

An invisible shockwave, rendered deep pink in his psychic vision, rippled outward, passing through the equally invisible sharks.

Hum—

Chainblades spun as Tyberos lunged forward, dark shadows coiling around his body, rendering the sprint of that terrifying frame completely silent.

Hundreds of warriors breached the shadows at the exact same moment, following the guidance of the route, their eyes, covered by endless pitch-black, tinged with a ghastly pale light.

Let them slaughter the enemy in the swiftest, bloodiest way possible, and seize victory once more.

And this time, they were not merely fighting for survival, nor simply to annihilate the enemy.

They were also proving themselves to the ancient one who had been absent from this galaxy for ten thousand years.

They possessed the ability to defend humanity while surrounded by endless evil!