No Honor

"The Red Corsairs are attacking Fortress Twelve."

"Those Blood God cultists have driven Vengar's people to charge."

Two latest combat reports came into the command center.

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

Kao was the first to have this thought and also looked at the veterans.

The latter two immediately realized they should go provide support.

"Chapter Master, let me go too."

A recruit stepped forward to request.

Then, twenty-one other recruits stepped forward, not repeating their request, just waiting for Lu Jin's permission.

Before the war began, the Fierce Angels had selected twenty-two recruits. After their augmentation, they were left on Manros without even receiving training.

If these individuals were thrown into the war, they would likely be annihilated by the cunning and experienced Chaos Space Marines upon their first encounter.

Therefore, Lu Jin shook his head without hesitation: "No."

"Will this war end in our victory?" the recruit who had requested stepped forward again. "If we have to die... no, consider it practical combat training. Lord of Retribution, let us fight to the last moment like true Fierce Angels."

"I will, but not now." Lu Jin denied him again.

The recruits fell silent.

In the time it took to exchange a few words, new combat information was relayed.

"Vengar's followers have all fled the battlefield and defected to the enemy." the communications officer reported after listening to a Space Marine's roar.

"You can't call it defection; they were Red Corsairs to begin with." Lu Jin was not surprised.

Ten minutes passed.

"Manros Gendarmerie..."

The communications officer used this designation for the Blood God cultists.

"They engaged the enemy alongside ordinary soldiers. After three minutes of fighting, they suffered twenty casualties. Among the soldiers defending the barracks below Fortress Twelve, twenty thousand surrendered after the first defensive line was broken."

The communications officer heard the Space Marines, who enjoyed roaring and howling, curse the weakness of mortals viciously.

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

The information received here was limited. In about ten minutes, the mortal soldiers' defensive line was broken.

The first defensive line.

Perhaps it was the entrance to the underground barracks, a position deployed in vast, towering corridors.

Even though the mortal officers didn't know much about Space Marines, they could imagine that after the mortal soldiers were routed, the Space Marines found themselves isolated and unsupported in an instant, and twenty of them died while fighting a fighting retreat.

The Blood God cultists were bloodthirsty and warlike, but not fools. After all, they weren't idiots who would fight to the death without reason. Lu Jin also felt that the mortal soldiers had likely screwed them over during their retreat.

"Mortals."

Kao walked up to the officers, gripping his chainsword and growling.

"Figure out who has to fight alongside you."

"Why do your front-line soldiers act as if we've forced you to be here?"

"Do you think that as long as you honestly pay tithes, the flames of war won't reach you? Your Manros can't afford tithes at all! When your resistance leadership submitted the relevant documents to us, didn't they let you Manros people see them?"

The officers remained silent, shamefully lowering their heads.

However, the Marshal killed by the Gastralin Terminators had indeed not widely publicized the inability to pay tithes.

"I'm sorry."

The mortal officers were preparing to face Kao's fiercer attitude and reprimand, but they suddenly heard an apology.

They looked up at Kao.

Kao sat down: "I shouldn't blame you... In the final analysis, the Inquisitor came to Manros to hunt us, and if we hadn't appeared on Manros, perhaps the war wouldn't have broken out later."

"That can't be said, sir." one officer spoke. "I think... from my mortal perspective, everything was beyond expectation. That damned Inquisitor wasn't deliberately led to Manros by you; what could he do if he chased after us himself?"

"Furthermore, if you hadn't come to Manros for this war, the old nobles would still be ruling Manros. How could the Imperium and the Maelstrom be fighting a war because of us?"

"In the final analysis..."

The officer's features contorted, looking more painful and ugly than crying.

"They are fighting on Manros, what does that have to do with us Manros people? No one needs to ask our opinion..."

Another officer added in a deep voice.

"But I have to say, the war we fought with the Mercy Emissaries was indeed related to you... At the time, I also thought that if it weren't for you, perhaps we wouldn't have had to fight the Mercy Emissaries and wouldn't have ended up being hit by virus bombs."

"But the Marshal didn't tell us that he hadn't mentioned our inability to pay tithes... We've fought against the nobles for tens of thousands of years. Would we choose to starve billions to death to pay tithes? In the end, wouldn't we still have to fight the Imperium?"

"As for my previous opinion, and the matter of tens of thousands of soldiers abandoning their positions just now..."

The officer's expression was filled with sorrow.

"We are but mortals, sir... we are such insignificant and lowly beings."

Kao fell silent.

He had just felt overwhelmed by pressure for a moment, leading him to blame these mortals.

Now, he didn't want to say anything, only to gloriously await the most likely outcome.

Lu Jin remained silent, contemplating the entire situation.

No matter how he thought about it, he felt he truly shouldn't have allowed the Manros people to be sacrificed.

Just like how Ahriman, after meticulously preparing and executing the ritual, was ultimately thwarted by Khorne, who then annihilated Ahriman and the Tzeentch daemonic legions before meeting with the mortals Lu Jin favored.

Even setting aside personal beliefs, as a cold, calculating machine of profit and loss, choosing to resist the ritual was necessary when the ritual threatened to bring the Blood God back and left no other options for the Fierce Angels and others.

Killing Abaddon and refusing the sacrifice – Lu Jin had considered these actions carefully in an instant.

Thinking back on all his previous decisions, deciding to get involved with Manros, fighting the Mercy Emissaries... Lu Jin felt that even if he were a machine of profit and loss, if he hadn't gotten involved with Manros, the hatred between the Fierce Angels and the Mercy Emissaries would have driven them to interfere anyway.

By the time of the Plains Armored Battle, even if the Fierce Angels had become machines of decision, choosing to leave, Huron wouldn't have let them go, just as he had used both soft and hard tactics on the Fierce Angels before.

Lu Jin felt...

It was as if from the moment he first met the Fierce Angels, no matter what choices he made, he was ultimately forced by circumstances. There was no such thing as a choice between heaven and hell.

Ultimately, it was a matter of being few in number and weak in strength.

Lu Jin wanted the Fierce Angels to gradually expand to their original size, to become strong, so that this respectable Chapter could endure... but now, it seemed there was likely no opportunity for that.

"Chapter Master?"

Kao called out softly.

Everyone, including him, looked worried.

Just as Xenos and Kao had conspired to conceal the Chapter's genetic flaws, tearing out the records of the bloodthirsty and savage gene defects from the Chapter's archives, they had done so out of fear that Lu Jin would not lead the Chapter according to the previous Chapter Master's dying wish.

Now, they were also afraid Lu Jin would abandon them... The Chapter Master's pensive expression and silence at this critical moment made them fear he regretted his decision to stay with the Fierce Angels.

"What is it?" Lu Jin asked, raising his head with a smile.

Kao had intended to say that even if everyone died, they wouldn't regret following the previous Chapter Master's dying wish, and that at this point, they absolutely couldn't give up.

But on second thought, he felt it was too despicable, like a form of blackmail.

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

"Where else could I have gone if I hadn't stayed with the Fierce Angels? To some Imperium world, to some ship, to continue being a slave who couldn't even protect a child?" Lu Jin said. "You accepted me, you treated me kindly... not to mention I've always kept my word. If I said I'd see it through, I'll see it through."

Kao's expression was complex.

"Pull yourselves together."

Lu Jin's expression was resolute.

"I believe our end will be destruction, but we can choose a final fate worthy of us."

"Manros people, I believe the thoughts you had earlier, which you considered shameful but were actually normal, were because beyond resisting the nobles, there was no other consensus to unite you and us."

Lu Jin said, looking at the officers.

The evidence was that the Manros people believed in a prophecy that Lu Jin would cleanse their grievances, and they thought a beautiful era would follow. Instead, the flames of war had arrived.

Now, this desperate situation was both a shared test for two grasshoppers on the same rope and an opportunity to forge a new consensus.

"Mortals are not inherently base or lowly, at least not all of them."

"Regardless of the fate of this war and everyone on the entire world of Manros, we will fight side by side until the very last moment."

"For Manros."

Lu Jin placed his right hand over his chest and saluted the mortals before him.

"For Manros." The officers placed their hands over their chests and saluted. "For the Fierce Angels, for the Lord of Retribution."

The Fierce Angels sensed something and gathered together.

Lu Jin looked at them. "Go reinforce the underground barracks of Fortress Twelve. Your only objective is to ensure the evacuation of the people from the six underground barracks, counting from the east, to the deep nest."

He decided to commit all his forces.

The two veterans previously deployed were like a drop in the bucket; they could only serve to boost morale as potential commanders on the front lines. This was real support.

Although a total of thirty-seven Fierce Angels, including twenty-two veterans, were like a drop in the bucket on the eastern front, they would likely only create a ripple in a large-scale war.

Lu Jin looked back at the mortal officers. "Command is handed over to you. You will select personnel to form a command headquarters and order a contraction of the defense line, ordering everyone to the deep chao."

"Command is handed over to us? Then if you aren't here to oversee..."

"I will go to the western front. I will personally go there to ensure the evacuation of people from all the underground barracks, counting from the west, to the deep nest, evacuating as many as possible to the deep nest."

Lu Jin's strategy was clear.

It was to concentrate forces to defend the deep nest, and after a general contraction, if the enemy intended to capture the deep nest, they would engage in urban warfare-like defensive battles.

"Kao."

Lu Jin turned to look at the person he believed was also suitable to be a Chapter Master.

He walked over slowly and began to dismantle his vambraces, then his pauldrons.

"You'll only serve to boost morale there. Wear my armor. They'll think you are me, and the Lord of Retribution will appear in two places at once, fighting alongside the locals."

Kao wanted to refuse.

Lu Jin didn't give him a chance to speak: "If we perish on Manros, you who fought the Chaos Space Marines will be seen as not having turned to Chaos. Someone will vindicate you in the future."

Kao was speechless for a moment.

This parting in the command center might be their last.

"No Honor." Lu Jin took off all his armor pieces. "For the Fierce Angels!"

"No Honor." The Fierce Angels softly uttered the battle cry exclusive to their Chapter.