Weapons Are Paramount, Lives Are Cheap

Within the Player positions, this efficiently operating meat grinder inflicted unimaginable casualties upon the Cultists.

Perhaps this tiny position, tucked away in a corner of the Underhive ruins, was no more than a grain of sand in the vast desert of this Hive World's brutal battlefield. It would not even merit a mark on an Imperium general's strategic map, nor had the Chaos Lord ever regarded it as pivotal to his grand plans.

But to every Cultist caught here, such abstract notions were far too distant.

Lasfire scorching past their ears and leaving the air reeking of burnt flesh; bayonets piercing their comrades' chests and dragging out warm entrails; scalding blood splattering across their faces, mixed with chunks of meat and bone—these things were ten thousand times more real than the eternal rewards promised by the upper ranks of the cult, or the enormous casualty figures across the wider battlefield.

They could not understand.

These lowly believers, who had been promised a glorious future, had fallen into utter confusion.

They had received the blessings of the Dark Gods. They had been promised that their souls would be reincarnated in the Warp after death. So why... why were these lackeys, supposedly afraid of death and bound by their faith in the rotten Corpse Emperor, more frenzied, more violent, and more fearless of death than they were?

They seemed not to care about their own lives at all. Every charge carried the resolve to perish alongside the enemy. There was no fear on their faces, only a kind of... incomprehensible excitement.

Their already wavering faith began to crumble inch by inch before this mill of flesh and blood.

And when Chaos Sorcerer Elias ignored his subordinates' advice and stubbornly insisted on sending the troops into relentless, mindless assaults, that collapse accelerated. Faced with such meaningless, horrific casualties, the Cultists were completely shaken.

At last, after witnessing the final companion beside him have his head smashed apart by a flying club, one Cultist suffered a complete mental breakdown. He let out an inhuman shriek, threw away his weapon, and turned to flee for his life in the direction he had come from.

His action was like a stone cast into stagnant water, instantly setting off a chain reaction.

"I won't fight anymore! I don't want to die!"

"Devils! They're devils!"

More and more Cultists abandoned the attack and turned to join the fleeing ranks. The rout spread like a plague, and the already chaotic charging line became a frantic stampede to escape.

From high above, Elias Holmes took it all in.

His face had gone black as the bottom of a pot, and the knuckles gripping his staff had turned white from the force. He watched helplessly as the army he had been so proud of collapsed, fury nearly burning away what remained of his reason. Instinctively, he wanted to find someone to bear the blame and wrath for this failure.

He looked around, his gaze sweeping over the Cultist Warlords and subordinates whose faces were equally ashen.

But then a chilling fact surfaced in his mind.

From the beginning of the battle until now—from the first probing assault to the later frenzied charges—every order... had been issued by him alone.

His subordinates had perfectly obeyed every command he gave, even the order to "charge at any cost," which now seemed unbelievably foolish to him. They had faithfully carried out his will and driven the troops toward destruction.

In other words, if someone had to be held accountable after the battle, the only responsible party would be Elias Holmes himself.

He could not find a single person on whom to shift the blame.

At that thought, Elias could not help shuddering. It was not from the cold wind of the Hive City's lower levels, but from fear of the future. He knew very well that in the forces of Chaos, failures never met a good end. His superiors, the truly important figures, would never listen to any explanation. They would only punish his incompetence in the cruelest manner possible.

No! Absolutely not!

"Idiots! Stop right there!" Elias roared with psychic force, his voice seeming to explode directly inside the minds of every fleeing Cultist. He abruptly pointed behind them and gave the Warlords beside him an utterly cold command:

"Set up the Heavy Stubber! Any deserter dies!"

Several Warlords trembled, terror appearing on their faces.

Of course they had a Heavy Stubber. It was a heavy weapon commonly issued to the Imperium's military forces. Its large-caliber solid rounds could easily tear through the weak armor of vehicles, let alone mortal flesh. Yet since the battle had begun, this weapon of mass destruction had remained hidden in the rear and had never been deployed.

The reason was simple—this thing was an expensive asset. If it were destroyed on the front line, Lord Elias would certainly be punished by his superiors. As for those lowly believers, death was simply death. They could be cut down like weeds, only for another crop to grow; no one would blame a commander for their lives.

Thus, the true purpose of this powerful Stubber had never been to suppress enemy fire. It was to keep their own side in line.

The scar-faced Warlord hesitated, opening his mouth as if to say something. But after meeting Elias's murderous gaze, he immediately swallowed every word and shouted, "As you command, my lord! Quick! Aim the Stubber at those cowards!"

The heavy weapon was swiftly mounted on its tripod. Its dark muzzle, thicker than an ordinary man's fist, turned toward the fleeing direction of their own troops.

"Fire!"

"Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!"

The dull, horrifying gunfire echoed across the battlefield. This was not the piercing shriek of a Lasgun, but a thunderous boom like heavy hammers pounding drums. Every blast meant another lethal round had been fired.

A corridor of blood and flesh suddenly erupted through the fleeing mass of Cultists.

One Cultist's upper body was ripped cleanly in half by the immense kinetic force. Another seemed to have been kicked by an invisible giant, his whole body sent flying before turning into a hazy mist of blood in midair. Even after punching through three or four people, the round still had force to spare, gouging a deep trench into the ground.

The scythe of death swung from behind them, more efficient and even more hopeless than the slaughter inflicted by those mad Astra Militarum soldiers ahead.

This time, every fleeing Cultist froze.

They turned and saw the Heavy Stubber mounted on the high ground behind them, spitting flames. They saw the savage, cold faces of the Warlords.

A cruel reality lay before them:

Retreat, and they would certainly be riddled with bullets by their own blocking force, dying for nothing.

Keep charging forward, and face those fearless monsters. The odds of survival might be one in ten thousand, but perhaps they could still live?

The instinct to survive overwhelmed everything.

"Aaaaaaah—!"

The surviving Cultists let out screams more shrill than ever before. There was no fanaticism left in those cries, only pure fear and despair. They turned around and, like sheep driven by herding dogs, gritted their teeth and launched another charge at the Player positions.

Watching this desperate tide forced onward by death, Elias felt not the slightest guilt. There was only a sick, all-controlling satisfaction on his face. Using the blood of his own men, he had successfully built a dam to stop the rout.