Deployment

Chapter Master Affos and the other Battle-Brothers repelled the enemy attack once again. This was already the seventh day they had held their ground since landing on the planet.

It had been a week.

The Imperial reinforcements had said half a month, but given their efficiency, it might well take a whole month.

Three days had passed since they abandoned their original position and came here to hold the line.

During those three days, aside from occasionally shouting a few words over the communications, Quan Tiehua had sent no further information.

Meanwhile, the Blood Angels had long since been ordered to deliver the final airdrop of supplies and leave the star system.

That preserved the final spark of life for their chapter.

Looking at the more than sixty wounded Battle-Brothers sitting on the ground, some replenishing their ammunition and others staring blankly into space, Chapter Master Affos felt only grief. At the same time, he could not help praying that the Emperor seated upon the Golden Throne would bless the Blood Angels and allow them to leave the star system safely, preserving a spark of life for their chapter.

"Chapter Master, Chapter Master, can you hear me?"

The sudden burst of electronic static instantly shattered the heavy atmosphere within the chapter. Quan Tiehua's slightly exhausted, breathless voice rang through the entire battle channel.

For a moment, every surviving Battle-Brother inexplicably felt a glimmer of hope.

"What is it?"

"Chapter Master, can our Tech-Sergeants modify our Power Armour backpacks into nuclear bombs?"

Chapter Master Affos had been slightly excited as well, but just as he was about to ask another question, those words left him completely dumbfounded.

At the same time, the lively atmosphere among the other Battle-Brothers instantly fell silent. They all turned to look at the chapter's seven remaining Tech-Sergeants.

For some reason, the seven Tech-Sergeants instinctively stood back-to-back in a circle. As they faced the eager gazes of their brothers, they silently swallowed beneath their helmets.

After a long while, Chapter Master Affos tried to speak, only to discover that his dry lips had stuck together. "W... Well, I'll ask."

He was not sure either, and could only look doubtfully toward his chapter's Tech-Sergeants.

The seven Tech-Sergeants remained somewhat wary as they watched their brothers around them. When they saw the Chapter Master's questioning gaze, they exchanged a few looks before nodding. "We'll give it a try."

After receiving their affirmative answer, Quan Tiehua said without hesitation, "My Power Armour backpack is damaged. I need to find a spare and replace it."

Chapter Master Affos merely glanced at the bodies of several Battle-Brothers who had fallen dead nearby before answering without hesitation, "Come over immediately. I'll have the Tech-Sergeants start preparing now."

As he spoke, he suddenly turned his head. The seven Tech-Sergeants immediately understood and nodded in unison, beginning to dismantle the Power Armour backpacks from the fallen Battle-Brothers.

"Chapter Master, cover me. There's a large group of enemies behind me."

In an instant, all the Battle-Brothers flipped to their feet and took up their respective positions, aiming their weapons outside the fortifications as they waited for the enemy to arrive.

Sure enough, less than ten minutes later,

the heavy stamping of Power Armour boots against the steel floor rapidly approached from the distance.

At the same time, the sounds of various weapons firing and Chainswords roaring rose and fell one after another.

A moment later, an Astartes clad entirely in crimson armour with gold patterns and trim came charging over.

"Open fire!" Quan Tiehua shouted over the communications.

That Astartes was none other than Quan Tiehua, who had just shouted over the communications.

The firepower along the defensive line erupted like a dam suddenly releasing a flood.

The enemies pursuing him were instantly blasted into pieces. The demons and Chaos Astartes had not failed to receive word that the Blood Angels had occupied this place and established defensive fortifications.

However, their main task at the time had been to pursue Quan Tiehua with all their might. Even the summoned Warp Khorne demon Papatyr had voluntarily shrunk its body in an attempt to enter and capture him.

But the Genestealer Cult in that area had blocked most of the Khorne demons, Chaos Astartes, and Papatyr at the defensive line.

Moreover, because the place was close to the underhive, the Slaanesh demons roaming the wastelands outside the hive city had also surged through the various passages into the hive city.

The Four Gods of the Warp had never gotten along, and frequently fought one another to the death.

Now that all four were competing for the same target, they naturally became even more hostile upon meeting.

Without bothering with anything else, they simply drew their weapons and started fighting.

This directly gave the Blood Angels precious breathing room and eased the pressure on their defensive line.

Quan Tiehua leaped and dove into the defensive line. The Tech-Sergeants, who had long since prepared themselves, rushed forward with a Power Armour backpack and various tools, immediately beginning the replacement while Quan Tiehua was still lying on the ground.

The damaged Power Armour backpack was dragged to the rear of the defensive line the instant it was removed, where the Tech-Sergeants began dismantling and modifying it.

They removed the outer casing, pulled out the wiring harnesses, and added the dismantled bolt shells and propellant, carefully loading and connecting everything.

With the power restored to his Power Armour, Quan Tiehua hurried to the ammunition pile and replenished the weapons and ammunition that were nearly depleted on his person.

However, because the Power Armour backpack being used was incompatible, some functions of his Mark Ten Power Armour could not be fully restored.

But it was enough.

Kneeling before the ammunition crates, he made a point of hanging all the Melt Bombs and grenades he could carry onto himself.

"Chapter Master!" Quan Tiehua turned his head and shouted.

"Hold the defensive line. Delay them as long as possible." Chapter Master Affos did not turn around. Instead, he fired bolt after bolt, sending demons back into the Warp.

Seeing this, Quan Tiehua had nothing more to say. He went straight to the ammunition resupply point, loaded various bombs into a crate, then picked up one in each hand and quickly went to the bodies of the Battle-Brothers whose gene-seed had already been extracted.

Without a word, he seized a Chainsword and hacked the Power Armour on the corpses into pieces.

He did not even have time to control his strength. Sometimes, when he swung too hard, he tore huge gashes in his brothers' bodies, exposing their organs.

Quan Tiehua ignored the corpses of his Battle-Brothers. Instead, he grabbed the shattered Power Armour, pulled various cables from the damaged sections, and stripped them one by one, extracting the thinnest wires inside.

After pulling out a large handful, he carried them along with the crate full of explosives and sprinted toward the rooms behind the church.

Who cared whether the trick was old-fashioned? The only question was whether it worked.

When he reached the Tech-Sergeants modifying the Power Armour backpack, he threw them a small handful of wires without a word. "Modify it so it explodes after a delayed trigger."

Then he hurried toward the other rooms, opened the crates, and began setting them up one by one.

He twisted the wires together, connected them to various pieces of furniture, threaded them through the grenade pins, and secured the grenades in place.

This was a trap-setting method he had learned from war movies in his previous life. Although he understood it only superficially,

it was extraordinarily useful in a world like Warhammer 40k, where the power of these weapons far exceeded the norm.