Emperor, I Will Become a Firefly

The Heavy Stubber's commissar enforcement had indeed worked, but the result was completely different from what Elias had expected.

The instinct to survive was powerful, and the wisdom of the lower-hive thugs often showed itself in such crooked ways. As the saying went, where there were policies from above, there were countermeasures below.

The Cultists driven back by death soon discovered an excellent "loophole" after charging forward for a short distance. After a stray round grazed one Cultist's scalp, he stumbled in fright and fell flat on the ground. To his horror, he discovered that once he was lying down, most of the Lasgun barrage fired from the opposing trenches whistled over his head, greatly reducing its hit rate!

Better still, as long as he did not get up and run backward, the Heavy Stubbers of the enforcement squads behind him would not treat him as a target either!

He immediately lay there without moving, clutching his head in both hands and pressing his body tightly against the bloodstained ground like a frightened ostrich.

This genius discovery was swiftly copied by the others.

Thus, an utterly absurd scene appeared on the battlefield. After paying a small price, the Cultist army that had originally surged forward like a tide all flopped down. They lay in patches across the open ground a hundred-odd meters from the players' position, as if performing some bizarre ritual of worship. They neither advanced nor retreated, merely wriggling on the ground. Every now and then, a few unlucky ones were taken out by the players' frag grenades or precise shots, but the large-scale casualties were indeed curbed.

Taking the players' position? That had become even more of a pipe dream. The entire offensive had ground to a halt.

Watching this from above, Elias trembled with rage, feeling as though his lungs were about to explode.

Casualties were the least of his concerns. What he wanted was victory, overwhelming force, forward momentum! Not to watch his army play dead on the ground like a pack of terrified maggots!

"Trash! A bunch of damned cowards!" His shrill, grating curses echoed across the command platform. "Wretched filth! You think you deserve the attention of the Dark Gods? You are not even qualified to be sacrifices!"

He unleashed a torrent of venomous curses at the believers lying on the ground, but they either could not hear him or dared not move even if they could.

After venting, Elias's cold rationality regained the upper hand. He realized he could not count on this pack of trash. If he wanted to salvage his dignity and seize this damned position, he could only rely on himself.

"A pack of insects, and you dare defy my will?" he hissed. Purple psychic flames rose around him. "Then I shall enter the fray myself and teach you ants who still believe in the Corpse Emperor what true power is! The will of the Dark Gods cannot be defied!"

Before his words had faded, Elias transformed into a streak of purple light and leaped fiercely from the platform!

Like a meteor, he slammed into the center of the players' position, cracking the ground beneath his feet. A violent psychic shockwave erupted outward from him, and several players at the center of it were sent flying with blood pouring from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth before they could even react.

The sudden turn of events left every player stunned for a moment.

But Elias gave them no chance to catch their breath. He raised his staff high as purple lightning danced wildly in his eyes.

"Die!"

A twisted bolt of purple lightning descended from the sky and struck a player who was trying to raise his weapon. In an instant, the player became a smoking human-shaped lump of charcoal, along with the Lasgun in his hands, which melted into molten metal.

Then Elias swept out his hand, and three shrieking Psyker Missiles formed out of thin air, screaming toward another firepoint where players had gathered. A violent explosion sent smoke and dust soaring into the air. The cover, sandbags, and several players there were all blasted into ashes.

In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen unprepared players had been killed, each in a different gruesome fashion. The sight was horrifying.

Looking at his handiwork, looking at those "Astra Militarum" soldiers who were so fragile before psychic power, the pent-up frustration in Elias's heart vanished completely, replaced by incomparable exhilaration. Spreading his arms, he laughed wildly. "Dogs of the Corpse Emperor! Suffer! Wail! Then die!"

As for the players' reaction...

"Holy shit, why did this BOSS suddenly come down here?"

"It opened with zero startup frames! Not even a cutscene! Shouldn't it be giving some pretentious speech up on the platform first, then jumping down after we're ready?"

"Fuck, why did it have to hit me with psychic lightning? My Lasgun and bulletproof vest that I just exchanged merits for are gone again! How long am I gonna have to grind to earn those back?"

"Bro, you're dead and you're still worried about your gear?"

"Of course! If I die, I'm a hero again ten seconds later. But if my gear is gone, it's really gone!"

Elias was immersed in the thrill of slaughter. He waved his staff as though conducting a symphony composed of death and destruction. Purple lightning and explosive firelight reflected off one another, turning this small position into a mortal hell.

Yet after killing for a while, he awkwardly discovered that something seemed wrong.

The scene he had anticipated—his enemies collapsing, fleeing, crying for their mothers and fathers—never appeared. After the initial chaos, these Astra Militarum soldiers not only showed little fear of him, but... the way they looked at him was filled with an emotion he could not understand at all.

It was neither hatred nor despair, but a... longing mixed with greed and excitement?

As if a pack of starving wolves had spotted a slab of fat meat falling from the sky.

Then a powerful shout tore through the din of the battlefield: "Kill the BOSS! Claim merits! Trade for Venom Blade!"

The atmosphere across the entire battlefield changed in an instant.

"Fuck! Bro, that rhymes so well, are you taking the grad school entrance exam?"

The players who had just been chased into disarray by Elias laughed as they shouted slogans he could not understand. At the same time, they all instantly swung their gun barrels around and aimed every weapon capable of firing at him.

"Pew pew pew—"

"Bang bang bang—"

Lasers, solid rounds... hundreds, thousands of attacks poured in from all directions like a raging storm, instantly swallowing Elias's figure.

A layer of purple psychic shielding sprang up before him, like an indestructible eggshell. Dense attacks struck the shield, setting off rings of dazzling ripples, yet they could not harm him in the slightest.

Elias snorted disdainfully. The shield's strength filled him with boundless confidence.

However, when he saw the Cultists who had only just mustered a shred of courage to charge alongside him decisively duck their heads again after witnessing that terrifying concentrated fire and continue playing dead on the ground, the anger he had just calmed flared up once more.

"A bunch of trash!" he roared toward the Cultists, then bellowed at the players, "Your attacks are meaningless against me! I've blocked them all!"

He had thought that such a powerful declaration would crush the enemy's morale, but what he received in response was the players looking at him as if he were an idiot.

That look set alarm bells ringing in Elias's heart. Sensing that something was wrong, he abruptly turned around.

There, he saw a figure who had somehow slipped silently behind him and was standing in the blind spot beyond the psychic shield's coverage.

It was [Ruthless Assassin]. His body was covered in frag grenades bound tightly around him with tape and rope, while two magnetic anti-vehicle bombs hung from his chest. He looked like a walking armory.

At that moment, he was clutching a large handful of fuses that had just been pulled from the grenades.

The instant their eyes met, Assassin grinned, let out a roar, and pounced on Elias. "Emperor, I will become a firefly!