No Honor

"The Red Corsairs are attacking Fortress Twelve."

"Those Blood God Cultists have already driven Vengar's people forward."

Two successive reports from the front reached the command center.

"They can't be relied on." Lu Jin pointed toward the gate, his gaze falling on the two Fierce Angels veterans.

Kao had arrived at the same conclusion even sooner, and he too looked at the veterans.

The two immediately realized they were expected to provide support.

"Chapter Master, let me go too."

One neophyte stepped forward with the request.

Then the other twenty-one neophytes stepped forward as well. They did not repeat the request, merely waited for Lu Jin's permission.

Before the war began, the Fierce Angels had selected twenty-two neophytes. They had undergone their transformations but received no training before being left on Manros.

If they were sent into battle, they would likely be wiped out the moment they encountered those ruthless, battle-hardened Chaos Space Marines.

Thus, Lu Jin shook his head without hesitation. "No."

"Will this war really end in our victory?" The neophyte who had first spoken stepped forward again. "If we are to die in battle... no, treat it as combat training. Lord of Retribution, let us fight like true Fierce Angels until the very last moment."

"I will, but not now." Lu Jin rejected the request once more.

The neophytes fell silent.

After only a few exchanged words, new reports from the battlefield came in.

"All of Vengar's followers have fled from battle and defected to the enemy." After listening to a Space Marine's furious roar, the communications officer delivered the report.

"You can't call it defection. They were Red Corsairs from the beginning." Lu Jin was not surprised in the least.

Ten minutes passed.

"The Manros constabulary..."

The communications officer used that term to describe the Blood God Cultists.

"They engaged the enemy alongside ordinary soldiers. In three minutes of combat, they suffered twenty casualties. Of the soldiers defending the barracks beneath Fortress Twelve, twenty thousand surrendered after the first line of defense collapsed."

The communications officer heard those Space Marines, who loved to roar and howl, viciously cursing the weakness of mortals.

Several officers in the command center lowered their heads, not daring to look at Lu Jin.

The information received here was limited. All they knew was that in roughly ten minutes, the mortal soldiers' defensive line had collapsed.

The first line of defense.

It might have been the entrance to the underground barracks, a position deployed through vast, towering passageways.

Even though the mortal officers knew little about Space Marines, they could still imagine it: after the mortal soldiers collapsed, the Space Marines had suddenly found themselves isolated and helpless. They fought while retreating, losing twenty men.

The Blood God Cultists were bloodthirsty and warlike, but they were not fools. Since they had not been nailed down, they would not stubbornly fight to the death. Lu Jin also believed the mortal soldiers had most likely dragged them down while retreating.

"Mortals."

Kao walked up to the officers, gripping his Chainsword as he growled.

"Understand who has no choice but to fight alongside you."

"Why do your frontline soldiers act as though we forced you into this?"

"Do you think that as long as you obediently paid the Imperial Tithe, war would never reach your heads? Manros cannot pay the Imperial Tithe at all! When your resistance leaders submitted the relevant documents to us, did they not let you Manrosans see them too?"

The officers said nothing, merely hanging their heads in shame.

But the Marshal killed by the Justaerin Terminator truly had not publicized the fact that they could not pay the Imperial Tithe.

"Sorry."

The mortal officers had been preparing themselves for Kao's harsher attitude and rebukes when they suddenly heard an apology.

They raised their heads to look at Kao.

Kao sat down. "I shouldn't blame you... in the end, the Inquisitor came to Manros to hunt us down. If we hadn't appeared on Manros, perhaps war would not have broken out afterward."

"You can't put it that way, my lord." One officer spoke up. "I think... from my mortal perspective, everything was beyond anyone's expectations. That damned Inquisitor wasn't deliberately lured to Manros by you. He pursued you here himself—what could you do?"

"Besides, if you hadn't come to Manros, the old nobles would still rule Manros. How could the Imperium and the Maelstrom possibly have gone to war because of us?"

"In the end..."

The officer's features twisted together. He looked uglier and more pained than if he were crying.

"They fight on Manros, but what does that have to do with us Manrosans? No one ever has to ask for our opinion..."

Another officer continued in a low voice.

"But to be fair, the war the Mercy Emissaries fought against us really did have something to do with you... At the time, I also thought that if not for you, perhaps we would not have had to fight the Mercy Emissaries or suffer the fate of being hit by a Virus Bomb."

"But the Marshal never told us. He revealed that we simply couldn't pay the Imperial Tithe... We fought the nobles for over ten thousand years. Would we choose to starve billions to death just to pay the Imperial Tithe? In the end, wouldn't we still have to fight the Imperium?"

"As for what I thought before, and for the tens of thousands of soldiers who abandoned their positions just now..."

The officer looked desolate.

"We are mortals, my lord... We are such small and base creatures."

Kao said no more.

For a moment just now, he had felt himself being swallowed by pressure, so he had gone to blame these mortals.

Now he did not want to say anything. He only wanted to honorably await the most likely ending.

Lu Jin remained silent, because he was considering the entire matter.

No matter how he thought about it, he felt that he truly should not have allowed the Manrosans to be sacrificed.

It was like before, when Ahriman had painstakingly prepared and activated a ritual, only for Khorne to snatch the reward away. He had instead destroyed Ahriman and Tzeentch's daemon army, then met with the mortal he favored.

Even setting aside personal beliefs, if he were nothing but a cold machine for choosing interests, resisting the ritual would still have been necessary. The ritual might have allowed the Blood God to descend again, leaving everyone else, including the Fierce Angels, with nowhere to go.

Killing Abaddon and refusing the sacrifice—Lu Jin had carefully considered both in that instant.

Thinking back over all his earlier decisions—choosing to involve himself in Manros, fighting the Mercy Emissaries—Lu Jin felt that even if he were an interest-choosing machine, if he had not involved himself in Manros, the hatred between the Fierce Angels and the Mercy Emissaries would have driven them to get involved anyway.

By the time of the armored battle on the plains, even if the Fierce Angels had become decision-making machines and chosen to leave, Huron would not have let them go, just as he had used both threats and persuasion on them before.

Lu Jin felt...

It seemed that from the moment he had first met the Fierce Angels until now, no matter what choice he made, circumstances would force him toward the same end. There was no single thought that led to heaven or hell.

In the end, they were simply too few and too weak.

Lu Jin had wanted the Fierce Angels to gradually expand back to their former strength, to become powerful, and to allow this worthy Chapter to endure... but now, it seemed there would be no such chance.

"Chapter Master?"

Kao called softly.

Everyone, including him, wore worried expressions.

Just as Genos and Kao had previously concealed the Chapter's genetic flaw, tearing from the Chapter records the passages concerning its bloodthirsty, murderous flaw, they had done so because they feared Lu Jin would refuse to lead the Chapter according to the former Chapter Master's last wishes.

Now they feared Lu Jin would abandon them as well... Their Chapter Master was deep in thought and said nothing at such a critical moment. Could it be that he regretted choosing to remain with the Fierce Angels?

"What's wrong?" Lu Jin raised his head with a smile.

Kao had wanted to say that even if they all died, they would not regret following the former Chapter Master's last wishes. They had come this far; Lu Jin absolutely could not abandon them.

But on second thought, he felt it was too base. Wouldn't that be a form of coercion?

So Kao said, "Actually, the Fierce Angels are no different from these mortals... when it comes to the Chapter."

"Where else could I have gone if I hadn't stayed with the Fierce Angels? Run to some Imperial world or some ship and continue being a slave who couldn't even protect two children?" Lu Jin said. "You accepted me. You treated me well... Not to mention, I have always kept my word. I said I would see this through, so I will see it through."

Kao's expression was complicated.

"Pull yourselves together."

Lu Jin's expression hardened.

"I think all our endings will be destruction, but we can choose an end worthy of our final fate."

"Manrosans, I think the reason you had those thoughts earlier—thoughts you consider shameful but were actually normal—was because there was no shared understanding binding you and us together beyond resisting the nobles."

Lu Jin looked at the officers as he spoke.

The proof was that the Manrosans believed the prophecy said Lu Jin would wash away old hatreds, and that a glorious age would follow. Instead, war had come.

And this desperate situation was both a shared trial for two insects tied to the same rope and an opportunity to forge a new consensus.

"Mortals are not base or contemptible. At least, not all of them are."

"No matter what becomes of this war or the fate of every person on Manros, we will fight side by side until the final moment."

"For Manros."

Lu Jin pressed his right hand to his chest and saluted the mortals before him.

"For Manros." The officers returned the chest salute. "For the Fierce Angels, for the Lord of Retribution."

The Fierce Angels sensed something and gathered together.

Lu Jin looked at them. "Go support the underground barracks at Fortress Twelve. You have only one objective: ensure that the people from all six underground barracks, counted from the east side of the hive city, withdraw to the Underhive."

He decided to commit all his forces.

The two veterans sent earlier had been a drop in the ocean. They could only possibly raise morale as commanders on the front line. This was real support.

Though there were only thirty-seven Fierce Angels in total, including twenty-two veterans, they were still a drop in the ocean on the eastern front. In a large-scale war, they might only make a small splash.

Lu Jin looked again at the mortal officers. "I leave command to you. Select personnel to establish a command staff, order the defensive lines pulled back, and bring everyone down to the Underhive."

"You are handing command to us? But if you aren't staying here to oversee things..."

"I will go to the western front. I will personally ensure that the people in every underground barracks, counted from the west side of the hive city... withdraw to the Underhive. Get as many people as possible down to the Underhive."

Lu Jin's strategy was obvious.

It was to concentrate their strength and defend the Underhive. Once they had fully withdrawn, if the enemy intended to seize the Underhive, they would fight a defensive battle like street fighting.

"Kao."

Lu Jin turned to look at the man he believed was also suited to be Chapter Master.

He slowly walked over and began removing his vambraces, then his shoulder armor.

"When you get there, you will only be able to raise morale. Wear my armor. They will think you are me, and then the Lord of Retribution will appear in two places at once, fighting alongside the locals."

Kao wanted to refuse.

But Lu Jin gave him no chance to speak. "If we end on Manros, those of you who fight the Chaos Space Marines will be seen as having never embraced Chaos. In the future, someone will clear your names."

Kao was left speechless.

This farewell in the command center might well be their last.

"No Honor." Lu Jin removed every piece of his armor. "For the Fierce Angels!"

"No Honor." The Fierce Angels spoke the Chapter's exclusive battle cry in low voices.