Desperate Resistance

East front.

Xenos piloted the gunship to the front line, and everyone disembarked after the gunship landed.

The Fierce Angels saw the mortal soldiers retreating.

The current area is the entrance to the passage connecting Underground Barracks No. 12 to Underground Barracks No. 11.

Seeing these demoralized troops in orderly retreat, the Fierce Angels realized that by the time they arrived, the mortal soldiers had already lost morale and were in full rout.

Barracks No. 12 had an industrial production line to maintain the sustenance of the garrison.

Therefore, there were civilians.

And in such a large-scale and rapid rout, these people would inevitably be unable to protect the civilians.

An entire barracks, tens of thousands of prisoners, plus an equal number of civilians, must have all fallen into enemy hands.

"Get back and fight!"

"Fight!"

Space Marines in blood-red armor roared beside the ranks.

Eighty-eight of these Blood God cultists remained.

During the mortal army's large-scale retreat, these Blood God cultists were once again betrayed; they were less than two hundred at the time and became the rear guard blocking the path of thousands of Space Marines and well-trained Red Corsairs mortal troops.

"Cowards!"

"All cowards!"

The vast retreating army seemed not to hear the roars.

Due to the rules Lu Jin had previously set on the Ragefang, none of the Blood God cultists killed any mortals, they only shouted and roared.

"Go to the base of Fortress No. 1!"

Kao strode towards the Blood God cultists.

His Terminator armor, in the Iron Cavalry pattern, still retained the method of control using black carapace, as most of its drive structures were designed by artisans based on the original structure, or rather, using inner lining shells.

But this suit of armor felt incredibly heavy on Kao.

When the Fierce Angels disembarked from the gunship, the Blood God cultists realized it wasn't Lu Jin wearing the armor, so they paid them no mind.

The mortal soldiers in full retreat, however, did notice these Fierce Angels.

But upon seeing Kao, although they thought it was Lu Jin, they were not inspired. They merely felt ashamed of their cowardly actions and lowered their heads, not daring to look at him.

At this moment, mortals were no different from a statue of the Emperor with closed eyes.

Kao thought about what Lu Jin would do at this moment, and then, without saying anything, he walked in the opposite direction of everyone else.

Xenos looked at the Blood God cultists: "I'll take you there and come back."

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

These people had already figured it out: no matter where they went, they would fight to the death, so fighting to their heart's content nearby was better.

Xenos really didn't know how to persuade these Blood God believers, so he could only follow Kao to the front line.

As a mortal soldier in the retreating ranks brushed past Kao, he couldn't help but say, "We're in full retreat. There will be no one to fight with you if you go there. You'll likely be captured by those heretics..."

"..."

Kao said nothing and continued to advance with his head down.

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

Several soldiers nearby also stopped.

But as the people behind them nudged them, they continued on their way, ultimately lacking the courage to catch up with Kao and the others.

A car sped towards the Fierce Angels.

"Sir!" a person with a camera hanging on their chest leaned out of the car and shouted, "Don't go any further! There won't be any survivors there! The heretics are slaughtering prisoners and civilians!"

The voice of this person, who looked like a war correspondent, was quite loud. The words he shouted were heard by some soldiers nearby.

Those who heard them all stopped in their tracks.

Before the rout, the enemy had said that if they surrendered, they would not die.

Before the full rout, the enemy had said that as long as the armed personnel retreated, no civilians would be killed.

Although after the armored battle on the plains, there were high-level speeches about "they will use us as ritual materials," no one knew what this ritual actually was.

Few people could understand the explanations of the ritual broadcast from the car's loudspeaker.

But even if these retreating soldiers knew all the knowledge related to the ritual, and knew that those who became ritual materials would suffer a fate worse than death, they might not have stayed to fight.

They believed the enemy's propaganda not out of stupidity, but out of a desperate desire to survive.

The history of the Manros people's resistance against nobles had made them tenacious and resilient, but that history of tens of thousands of years of struggle had also left them with a terrible curse, a mental inertia and concept—as long as they temporarily submitted and compromised, the nobles would not kill them all. In a few decades, another group of rebels would emerge, and the resistance would continue.

This inertia of thought could even overwhelm reason and logic at this moment.

"..."

Kao and the Fierce Angels continued to advance silently.

The war correspondent continued to shout: "Lord of Retribution! Don't you..."

"Don't call me Lord of Retribution," Kao finally responded. "The time for purging vengeance has passed. If there is anything I want to teach you, to impart to you now, it is valor."

The war correspondent pondered for a moment after hearing this, then raised his camera.

He captured the back of "Lu Jin" walking in the opposite direction of the massive fleeing crowd.

But within the fleeing crowd, some who heard the reporter's shouts stopped, hesitated briefly, and then quickly hurried to catch up with "Lu Jin."

Kao, clad in Terminator armor, continued to advance, with over a thousand people already gathered behind him.

Those who didn't know what the heretics had done yet saw these people and stepped forward to ask why they were fleeing in the opposite direction. Then, those who had followed Lu Jin would tell them what the heretics had done.

One told ten, ten told a hundred, and the news, filled with despair and anger, gradually spread.

More and more people followed behind "Lu Jin," and though fearful, they headed towards the occupied barracks.

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

These underground mega-structures were no different from surface cities, except for the absence of the sky.

Fighters could even fly and weave through the air above these large buildings, and if the passages weren't so narrow compared to the architectural complex, even Titans could battle within these structures.

Above the complex were "sun lamps" providing illumination. The Manros had studied them for ten thousand years but never understood the principle behind these ancient creations, which looked like miniature suns on the surface, bringing daylight to the underground space.

When Kao, wearing Lu Jin's armor, arrived with nearly thirty thousand people at the barracks beneath Fortress Twelve, he found that the most brutal fighting was already underway.

In areas with narrow roads where armored vehicles could not pass—areas that could be called urban districts.

The buildings in these urban districts were densely packed, clearly built to accommodate the maximum number of mortal soldiers.

In these districts, mortal soldiers and civilians fought street battles with weapons left behind by the fleeing troops.

At the very front, the attackers, referred to as surrendering individuals, were allowed to live. After some Chaos Space Marines began their uncontrolled slaughter, this was proven to be a lie.

Civilians who found themselves at the forefront of the war without time to react, along with some soldiers who firmly refused to retreat, remained. Realizing there was no possibility of survival, they fought to the death.

The production lines beneath Fortress Twelve primarily manufactured explosives.

Weapons like laser rifles and automatic guns could only kill the mortal soldiers of the attacking force, not Space Marines.

The resisters simply carried no firearms. They would tie together the explosives they produced, strap them to their bodies, and charge out in a suicidal attack when the roads or buildings they defended were targeted by the enemy.

This method of warfare was steeped in despair.

A group of mortals crowded the top of a tall building, with the only passage into their defensive position below.

Thousands of mortals packed the rooftop, strapping more explosives to themselves as they watched below.

The Red Corsairs began their assault.

The mortals walked to the edge of the rooftop, shouting the names of their murdered and captured loved ones, then leaped down.

Those whose loved ones were not captured and killed would shout the Lord of Retribution's name before dying.

They fell, and then they exploded.

Simply dropping explosives was ineffective, as those with little throwing experience couldn't aim accurately, and the Chaos Space Marines were swift enough to easily bat away falling grenades and other explosives.

What Kao watched was the result of mortals, after realizing they couldn't possibly survive, gaining experience and figuring out new methods.

The Space Marines were fast, charging into the urban districts amidst the shattered bodies of mortal soldiers.

After passing through the passages, they were met with resistance from the buildings lining the roads.

A group of people rushed out from the buildings, swarming forward, igniting fuses as they charged out.

But even this yielded minimal results.

Such a scene left the Fierce Angels speechless.

They accelerated their charge into the rebels' defensive positions, engaging in combat with the Chaos Space Marines.

It wasn't until the armor, a tribute from the Manros to the Lord of Retribution for purging vengeance, appeared on the battlefield that a flicker of light appeared in the increasingly numb eyes of the people.

"It's the Lord of Retribution!"

"He hasn't abandoned us! He's here!"

"Praise the Lord of Retribution!"

"..."

Kao, inside the Terminator armor, heard the mortals shouting like this.

But his arrival did not mean he single-handedly held back the enemy. He didn't possess Lu Jin's strength and could only fight with all his might every second.

The mortals still needed to resist the Space Marines with the most desperate means. Even the previously scattered and returned deserters had to employ the same desperate tactics.

Small-caliber firearms simply couldn't penetrate ceramite; there was no other way.

The armored units that had just finished the plain armor battle saw the entire line retreating and ran even faster. Moreover, even if they had stayed, they might not have gained any advantage without the influence of the virus bombs, as those astonishingly fast Space Marines had plenty of ways to destroy a single tank.

There was only one option: fight desperately.

Kao fought with all his might. At some point, a new recruit beside him disappeared from his sight.

Gradually, he saw a veteran soldier take a bullet for the recruit.

Beneath his helmet, Kao, who was impersonating Lu Jin, had tears streaming down his face.

There was only one thing he wanted to do now: to survive and see his sister Carly again.

The matters of the legions, the grudges, the ideals, the loyalty... these gradually faded as his arms became numb from continuous swinging.

Kao had only one thought in his heart: he wanted to see his only remaining blood relative.

Kao was only doing one thing: fighting, just moving forward.