Assembly

Quan Tiehua held a boltgun in one hand and a Chainsword in the other, carefully searching the wreckage nearby.

Behind him, a dozen Astartes in armor that was already somewhat scratched and grimy spread out warily, searching the area. Each of them was more than ten meters apart.

This was what Quan Tiehua had demanded! With the weapons of the modern world, even light individual weapons—and not even Barrett rifles—could hurt them! The so-called physical qualities of ordinary soldiers were laughable in front of Astartes.

Perhaps heavy machine guns, or even heavy anti-aircraft machine guns, could inflict some damage if they hit them. But the prerequisite was that you could actually hit them.

The moment you opened fire, I would react and dodge. Even if I couldn't, my thick Power Armour could still withstand your first few shots. With my running speed, I could cross a hundred meters and cut you down in less than five seconds after you opened fire. What use would firing those few rounds be?

Unless you had a powerful weapon—one that could pierce or penetrate armor! But we would definitely be in densely populated areas. If you used something like that, you would have to consider the harm it would cause ordinary people.

What was more, there was one crucial prerequisite: could you keep up with our reaction speed?

Of course, if you mobilized tanks, did you think my Chainsword and Power Sword were useless?

Hey, friend! This thing of mine... is a saw for cutting trees! It spins like a treadmill! If the saw teeth on it accidentally scraped your tank, it would be like scraping tofu—easy as pie!

So did Quan Tiehua have anything to worry about? Absolutely not!

Of course, if you wanted to use something like a nuclear missile, that was another matter.

"Baka!"

An angry shout instantly drew everyone's attention.

Quan Tiehua and the Astartes quickly ran toward the source of the sound, then stopped at the corner! Each person chose a piece of rubble to hide behind.

They then saw a group of little Japanese soldiers in dark green uniforms and America soldiers in brown-green uniforms exchanging passionate gunfire.

Unfortunately, they had already gone deep into the area within fifteen kilometers of the nuclear blast's center. Communications had most likely been disrupted by the electromagnetic field and had long since become intermittent, practically useless.

But he did not know whether they were truly unusable or not. After all, he was not very familiar with this world. He would have to see something familiar before he could determine that.

Without professional equipment, ordinary people who went within five kilometers of the center would basically be going to meet their great-grandmother in the next five years.

Quan Tiehua watched everything unfold but had no intention of getting involved. Instead, he notified the others over the comms, telling them to quietly take a detour and continue searching for their other brothers.

But in the next second, the Tech-Sergeant's voice came through.

"Brother, I've found the captain's position!"

"Where?"

"Only five hundred meters from us! And according to the Power Armour's feedback, the captain and the others are all unconscious. Judging from the battle between these mortals, it seems that these dark green-uniformed mortals found the unconscious captain and the others and were taking them outside when they were discovered by these light brown-uniformed mortals. The two sides then fought over them."

Upon hearing this, Quan Tiehua could not help frowning! After being steeped in Astartes ideology for so long in the Warhammer 40k universe, he had subconsciously come to believe that he was superior to ordinary humans.

Thus, when he suddenly heard this news, a nameless fury rose in his heart.

At the same time, he was certain that the captain and Gers had suffered serious injuries. Otherwise, with this group of ordinary people numbering fewer than a hundred in total, they would not even have been enough for Gers to kill alone.

But that was understandable. After all, the captain and Gers had stayed at the very rear to hold back Papatyr! When the nuclear explosion occurred, how far could they have run, no matter how fast the Astartes were?

"Kill them. Leave no one alive!" The instant Quan Tiehua's cold voice fell, the Astartes instantly left the cover of the ruins.

They began circling around the battlefield.

As for why they were being so cautious instead of charging straight in—

What if the enemy had heavy firepower?

More importantly, did they dare bet that all these people's communications had been cut off?

If they guessed wrong, countless troops from the army, navy, and air force would surround them!

A dagger suddenly swept past, and blood sprayed through the air! The killing experience the Astartes had accumulated through battle allowed them to slaughter these mortals without letting them make even the slightest sound.

The slaughter proceeded rapidly. But as the density of fire exchanged between the two sides decreased, their commanders quickly realized that something was wrong. They hurriedly searched for the cause, only to discover that their mission targets had appeared behind them and were secretly killing their troops.

The various movements of Quan Tiehua and the Astartes halted in place as they looked at the America and little Japanese forces that had already turned around, their faces filled with shock.

The next second, both sides attacked at once!

The mortal soldiers in the Astartes' hands were crushed flat by immense strength, while the ordinary soldiers' automatic rifles clanged against their Plasteel armor.

Quan Tiehua did not charge at the very front. After all, his shoulder armor was severely damaged, exposing even the bones beneath a large section of flesh that had been sliced away.

The roar of Chainswords rose and fell throughout the ruins, only coming to an abrupt stop after a mere dozen seconds!

The Apothecary stepped over the still-warm corpses and blood clots and quickly reached the captain, Affos, and Gers!

The two of them were grievously injured!

Gers's long hair had been burned to ash! The glowing red color of both men's Plasteel armor had also been burned away into dry flakes that had fallen somewhere unknown.

The captain, Affos, was in especially bad shape. He had been the last to retreat, and he was slower than Gers. Thus, the nuclear blast had injured him the most!

After painstakingly hauling the two of them out of the ruins, they carefully removed their Plasteel armor!

Gers was in somewhat better condition. Wearing Power Armour and running quickly had protected him. His entire body was merely red and blistered from the heat, with some respiratory-system damage caused by breathing the air. But it was not serious. Applying some medicine and resting for a few days would be enough for him to recover!

The captain's condition, however, was not good. The skin on nearly half his body had been scorched by the high temperature until it began to fester.

After hauling the captain out, they injected various healing medicines into his body, but he remained unconscious. Clearly, his internal organs had also suffered severe injuries.

It was very likely that the heat had even overwhelmed his helmet, allowing the superheated air to enter his lungs and burn both them and his airways.

"Find the other brothers immediately, then we'll withdraw!"

"Brother, someone's coming!"

An Astartes standing guard on the outskirts suddenly warned them over the comms.

When everyone heard this, they had no time to worry about anything else and immediately carried the two injured men away from the area!

"Hurry up! There was a chaotic exchange of gunfire here just now!" A familiar Japanese voice rang out! Quan Tiehua merely glanced in that direction before ignoring it.

They skillfully pulled intact grenades from the bodies of the soldiers they had chopped into minced meat!

Their own explosives were almost gone, so they had to collect some. If necessary, they could also lay a few traps along their retreat route to deal with their pursuers!

That would be excellent too!