Desperate Resistance

Eastern Front.

Genos piloted the gunship to the front line. Everyone disembarked after it landed.

The Fierce Angels saw the Mortal soldiers retreating.

They were currently at the entrance to the passage leading from Underground Barracks No. 12 to Underground Barracks No. 11.

Seeing these dispirited routed soldiers retreating in formation, the Fierce Angels realized that the Mortal soldiers' morale had already collapsed while they had been on their way here, and the entire line had fallen apart.

Barracks No. 12 contained industrial production lines that supplied the garrison's food and necessities.

That meant there were civilians here.

And during such a massive, rapid rout, the soldiers would inevitably be unable to look after the civilians.

An entire barracks, tens of thousands of prisoners, plus an equal number of civilians—they had likely all fallen into enemy hands.

"Get back there and fight!"

"Fight!"

The Space Marines in blood-red armor roared beside the column.

There were only eighty-eight Blood God Cultists left.

The Mortals' large-scale retreat had screwed over the Blood God Cultists again. There had been fewer than two hundred of them at the time, and they had become the rearguard standing before those thousand-plus Space Marines and the well-trained Mortal forces of the Red Corsairs.

"Cowards!"

"All of you are cowards!"

The vast retreating column seemed deaf to their roars.

Because of the rules Lu Jin had established aboard the Ragefang, none of the Blood God Cultists killed any Mortals. They merely shouted and roared.

"Go beneath First Fortress!"

Kao strode toward the Blood God Cultists.

The Ironclad Terminator he wore still retained the Black Carapace control system, because most of its transmission mechanisms had been designed by the craftsmen around the original framework—or rather, it was an outer shell fitted over an inner lining.

But on Kao, this suit of armor was unbearably heavy.

When the Fierce Angels disembarked from the gunship, the Blood God Cultists had already realized that the one in armor was not Lu Jin, so they had not paid them any attention at all.

The Mortals in full retreat did pay attention to the Fierce Angels.

But though they mistook Kao for Lu Jin when they saw him, they were not encouraged. They merely felt ashamed of their cowardice, lowering their heads and not daring to look at him.

At that moment, the Mortals were no different from statues of the Emperor with their eyes closed.

Kao considered what Lu Jin would have done, then said nothing. He simply lowered his head and walked in the direction opposite everyone else.

Genos looked at the Blood God Cultists. "I'll take you over there, then come back."

The Blood God Cultists glanced at the gunship, then turned and followed Kao.

They had already figured it out. Wherever they went, they would fight until they died. It was better to have a satisfying fight somewhere nearby.

Genos truly had no idea how to persuade people who worshipped the Blood God, so he could only follow Kao toward the front line.

As one Mortal from the retreating column brushed past Kao, he could not help saying, "Our entire line has collapsed. If you go over there, no one will fight alongside you. Those heretics will probably capture you..."

"..."

Kao said nothing and continued forward with his head lowered.

The soldier who had spoken stopped and looked back at the Fierce Angels.

Several nearby soldiers stopped as well.

But as the people behind them shoved them a few times with their heads lowered, they continued on their way. In the end, they did not have the courage to catch up to Kao and the others.

A vehicle came speeding toward the Fierce Angels.

"My lord!" A person with a camera hanging from his chest leaned out of the vehicle and shouted. "Don't go over there! There won't be any living people left! The heretics are slaughtering prisoners and civilians!"

This military reporter-looking man had quite a loud voice. Some nearby soldiers heard his words as he shouted.

Everyone who heard him stopped.

Before the rout, the enemy had said that anyone who surrendered would not die.

Before the entire line collapsed, the enemy had said that as long as armed personnel retreated, they would not kill any civilians.

Although there had been speeches from high-ranking officials after the armored battle on the plains, saying, "They want to use us as ritual materials," no one knew what the hell that ritual actually was.

Hardly anyone could understand the explanations of the ritual blaring from vehicle-mounted loudspeakers.

But even if these routed soldiers knew everything about the ritual, and knew that becoming ritual material meant an end more terrible than death, they might not have stayed to fight.

They believed the enemy's propaganda not because they were stupid, but because they wanted to survive too badly.

The Manrosans' history of struggle against the nobility had made them tough and resilient, but those tens of thousands of years of struggle had also left them with a terrible curse: a habitual way of thinking and belief—so long as they submitted and compromised briefly, the nobles would not exterminate them all. A few decades later, they could raise another batch of rebels and keep fighting.

At this moment, that mental inertia could even overwhelm reason and logic.

"..."

Kao and the Fierce Angels continued onward with their heads lowered.

The war correspondent continued shouting himself hoarse. "Lord of Retribution! You can't..."

"Don't call me Lord of Retribution." Kao finally responded. "The time for cleansing old grievances has passed. If there is anything I still wish to teach you, to pass on to you, it is valor."

After hearing that, the war correspondent pondered briefly and raised his camera.

He photographed the back of "Lu Jin" walking in the direction opposite the enormous column of routed soldiers.

But among the routed soldiers, some who had heard the reporter's cries stopped. After a brief hesitation, they hurried after "Lu Jin."

Kao, clad in the Ironclad Terminator, continued forward. More than a thousand people had already gathered behind him.

Some who still did not know what the heretics had done saw these people and stepped forward to ask why they were fleeing in the opposite direction. Then those who had followed "Lu Jin" earlier told them what the heretics had done.

One spread it to ten, ten spread it to a hundred, and the despairing, enraging news gradually spread everywhere.

More and more people followed behind "Lu Jin." Though afraid, they still advanced toward the occupied barracks.

The barracks built by the World Eaters ten thousand years ago were exceptionally vast.

Aside from lacking a sky, these gigantic underground complexes were no different from cities on the surface.

Aircraft could even fly through the air above those massive buildings. If the passageways had not been somewhat narrow compared to the complexes, Titans could have fought within them as well.

Above the complexes were "sun lamps" that provided illumination. The Manrosans had studied them for ten thousand years and still could not understand the principles behind these ancient creations, which looked like miniature suns from the ground and brought daylight to the underground spaces.

When Kao, wearing Lu Jin's armor, led nearly thirty thousand people to the barracks beneath Fortress No. 12, he discovered that the cruelest fighting was already underway.

It was in an area where the roads were too narrow for armored vehicles to pass—an area that could be called an urban district.

The buildings in this district were extremely dense, clearly built to house the greatest possible number of Mortal soldiers.

Within these urban districts, Mortal soldiers and civilians used weapons left behind by routed soldiers to fight street battles.

At the very front, the attackers' claim that those who surrendered could live had been proven a lie after some Chaos Space Marines began slaughtering people uncontrollably.

Some civilians who had found themselves on the front line before they could react, along with some soldiers who absolutely refused to retreat, stayed behind. Once they realized there was no chance of survival, they resisted desperately.

The production lines in the barracks beneath Fortress No. 12 primarily manufactured explosives.

Things like Laser Rifles and automatic weapons could kill the attackers' Mortal soldiers, but not Space Marines.

So the resisters simply carried no firearms at all. They bound together the explosives being produced and strapped them to their bodies. Whenever the enemy targeted a road or building they defended, they charged out to launch attacks that annihilated both sides.

This method of fighting reeked of despair.

A group of Mortals crowded onto the roof of a high-rise building. Below them was the only passage into the defended area.

More than a thousand Mortals packed the rooftop, binding as many explosives to themselves as they could while watching below.

The Red Corsairs began their attack.

The Mortals stepped to the edge of the rooftop, shouted the names of relatives and friends who had been slaughtered, then leaped down.

Those without relatives or friends who had been captured and slaughtered called out for the Lord of Retribution before they died.

They fell, then exploded.

Simply throwing explosives down was ineffective. Those with little throwing experience could not aim accurately, and the Chaos Space Marines reacted swiftly enough to easily swat aside falling grenades and similar explosives.

What Kao saw was the result of Mortals accumulating experience and discovering new methods after realizing they could not survive.

The Space Marines moved quickly, charging into the urban district through the shattered Mortal soldiers.

After passing through the passageway, they came under fire from the buildings lining both sides of the road.

A group of people rushed from the buildings, swarming forward and lighting their fuses as they charged.

But even that accomplished little.

The sight left the Fierce Angels unable to say anything.

They accelerated into the area defended by the resisters and fought the Chaos Space Marines.

Only when the armor offered by the Manrosans to the Lord of Retribution, who had cleansed their grievances, appeared on the battlefield did a spark of life return to people's increasingly numb eyes.

"It's the Lord of Retribution!"

"He didn't abandon us! He came!"

"Praise the Lord of Retribution!"

"..."

Inside the Terminator armor, Kao heard the Mortals shouting this.

But after arriving, he did not hold back the enemy by his own strength. He did not possess Lu Jin's power, and could only hack and kill with all his strength every second of every minute.

Nor did the Mortals cease needing to resist the Space Marines by the most desperate means. Even the routed soldiers who had scattered earlier and returned had to resist in the same hopeless way.

Small-caliber firearms simply could not penetrate ceramite. There was nothing to be done about that.

The armored forces that had previously fought in the plains battle had fled even faster when they saw the entire line retreating. Even if they had stayed behind, without the Virus Bomb's effects, they might not have gained any advantage. Those incredibly swift Space Marines had plenty of ways to destroy a tank.

There was only one choice: fight for their lives.

Kao fought desperately. At some point, a new recruit beside him no longer appeared in his field of vision.

Gradually, he saw an old veteran take a shot for a recruit.

Beneath his helmet, Kao, masquerading as Lu Jin, wept.

There was only one thing he wanted now: to live long enough to see his sister Carly again.

Matters of the warbands, grudges, ideals, loyalty... they had gradually faded as he kept swinging his sword until he went numb.

Kao had only one thought left: he still wanted to see his only remaining blood relative.

Kao did only one thing: kill, and keep moving forward.