Fu Yongxin: Are you loyal?

A cruel tableau unfolded before Fu Qinghai: collapsed ruins, twisted steel walkways, and scattered, mangled corpses. A small giant clad in filthy white power armor sat slumped before the rubble. Dried scabs and semi-coagulated fresh blood formed a dark red carpet before him. His entire lower body was pinned beneath a massive metal pipe, his legs visibly twisted and deformed, shattered leg armor fused with flesh and bone.

Yet, he seemed to feel no pain at all. This burly man with a face full of jowls wore a hairstyle similar to the classic Ronaldo "R9" cut; if Fu Qinghai were familiar with Chogoris culture, he would know this style as a Zhuiji.

The small giant with the unique haircut looked at Fu Qinghai, who held a shock lance, with confusion, as if watching an ant brandish a toothpick.

"So... you spent all that time preparing, just to use that thing against me?" He finally spoke, his voice the same hoarse, rough, and unpleasant rasp.

"It is for self-preservation, my lord." Fu Qinghai responded calmly, not moving forward, but beginning to observe.

Although the power armor was covered in laser scorch marks and various jagged cuts, and the legion insignia was blurred beyond recognition, Fu Qinghai still identified it from the bone-white base color, the blood-red trim accented with light gold lines, and the decorative hemp rope adorning the shoulder pauldrons.

White Scars, Vth Legion.

"Are you from Chogoris?" The burly small giant frowned, sizing up Fu Qinghai's distinctly Eastern features.

"No, I am from Levant Hive." Fu Qinghai replied while observing the area around the Space Marine's hands.

Empty. There was neither a bolter nor a power sword.

"From the same place as them." Fu Qinghai tilted his chin toward the pile of mangled corpses on the ground, adding a note.

He had already identified them; the torn-apart bodies were none other than Cedric and his men.

The Space Marine followed Fu Qinghai's gaze to his feet and laughed: "Hahaha, so, are you like them too, planning to get something out of a warrior whose legs are trapped and who is unarmed?"

"No, I just wanted to have a chat with you."

Fu Qinghai was certainly not stupid. An unarmed Space Marine was still a Space Marine; even with his bare hands, he could easily tear a hive-city thug like Cedric in two—literally tear him in two.

Furthermore, Fu Qinghai had deduced that this Space Marine was cunning. With his legs trapped and his mobility compromised, theoretically, Cedric and his men would have been safe as long as they didn't get close. The fact that they had been wiped out suggested he had likely feigned weakness to lure them in, then torn them to shreds one by one.

This was also the reason Ladrall had been able to flee back to the stronghold before finally succumbing to his wounds after facing a Space Marine.

"You are a warrior of the White Scars." Fu Qinghai asked while eyeing the Space Marine's legs, which were flattened by the metal pipe.

A normal person would have long since died from blood loss due to a severed femoral artery from such an injury. Fu Qinghai couldn't help but marvel at the tenacity of a Space Marine's vitality. Of course, this was also the result of the power armor's life-support system repairing some of the damage; Fu Qinghai could see the solidified hemostatic gel at the cracks in the leg armor, though it couldn't stop some blood and interstitial fluid from pooling on the floor, mixing with the semi-dried blood in front of him.

"You know quite a bit." The Space Marine sized up the Fu Qinghai before him with interest.

"How should I address you?" Fu Qinghai lowered the tip of his lance slightly, relaxing a little, and took a small step forward, though he dared not drop his guard.

"Ogedei, Ogedei Mangnut. If you were a soldier of our legion, you could also call me Noyan-Khan Ogedei." The burly man with the jowly face replied, still wearing that relaxed expression, his mouth even curling into a slight arc.

Oh, an officer, a captain.

The Space Marine legions of the Imperium naturally had fixed combat structures, with squad-level combat teams and company-level combat companies, but each legion had different divisions and names based on the tactical habits and cultural customs of their respective Primarchs.

For instance, the combat companies of the White Scars were called Brotherhoods, and the captain was addressed as "Noyan-Khan."

These names originated from the native cultural customs of Chogoris, the homeworld of the White Scars and their primary recruitment planet.

Although Fu Qinghai knew that the White Scars were a loyalist legion that sided with The Emperor throughout the Horus Heresy, he still dared not let his guard down.

Because he also knew that in the early stages of the Horus Rebellion, nearly half of the White Scars Space Marines had quietly chosen to stand with the Warmaster, intending to stage a mutiny and seize actual control of the legion fleet while their Primarch, Jaghatai Khan, was landing on the surface of Prospero.

Although they ultimately failed, it showed that the White Scars were not united, and there were many traitors who refused to follow the Primarch's command. Who knew if the White Scars warrior before him was a rebel.

Fu Qinghai took another small step forward and spoke:

"Uh, that... Honorable Noyan-Khan Ogedei, as I said before, I am an ordinary, law-abiding citizen of the Imperial colonial outpost on Cheslatan. I have no ill intent. I noticed your current predicament and hope to help you out of it."

"But," before Ogedei could speak, Fu Qinghai continued: "Before that, I have one last question."

Fu Qinghai took a deep breath, looked directly into Ogedei's eyes, and said in a low voice:

"Are you loyal?"

Upon hearing this, the White Scars warrior's previously indifferent expression changed instantly. His brows furrowed tightly, his sharp gaze piercing into Fu Qinghai's eyes, and a low voice squeezed out from his throat and through his teeth, word by word:

"Boy, I have fought for the Imperium and the Khan for two hundred years; it is not for a pathetic mortal like you to question my loyalty!"

By the last sentence, he was practically roaring.

This statement seemed to have touched his reverse scale, and he continued to yell: "We fought from Ullanor to Prospero, we hunted down every ship and every person of the traitors, and the bodies of my brothers are still floating in the space above your head!"

"You! You humble, pitiful mortal, holding a lighter, and you dare to doubt me? To judge me?"

The White Scars warrior was so angry that he grabbed a severed arm from beside him, preparing to hurl it at Fu Qinghai.

"I..." Before Ogedei could finish his cursing, Fu Qinghai violently plunged the tip of his shock lance into the semi-dried blood in front of him.

"Crackle!" The powerful voltage from the warship's power supply instantly pierced through the blood, connecting directly to Ogedei's lower body, which was oozing blood, interstitial fluid, and gel.

"Aaaaaaaahhhhh!" The Space Marine screamed in surprise, his voice rattling and shaking.

He had certainly seen the shock lance Fu Qinghai was holding, but the slender shaft had led the White Scars warrior to judge that the device's power would, at most, make a Space Marine's body twitch, and could not possibly cause any harm.

This thing was indeed just a civilian animal-capture device; theoretically, it didn't even count as a weapon.

He had been careless.

"Sssss~" A wisp of white smoke rose from the end of the shaft. After one discharge, the shock lance burned out as expected.

Ogedei also stopped trembling. He sat slumped on the ground, his eyes somewhat unfocused.

The severed arm he had already raised fell with a "thud."

"Phew..." Fu Qinghai let out a sigh of relief. From Ogedei's tone, he had roughly judged that this Space Marine should belong to the loyalist faction, but his own small frame couldn't withstand a vengeful throw from a Space Marine, so he had to make him calm down first.

A few seconds later, Ogedei's eyes blinked, finally regaining their focus.

Having come to his senses, he glared at Fu Qinghai: "You little..."

"No, no, calm down, Khan, I just wanted to help you cool off!" Fu Qinghai hurriedly raised his hands, threw the shock lance onto the ground, and signaled that he was unarmed.

"I am a loyal citizen of the Imperium. I am on your side. I hate Horus just as much as you do, and I love The Emperor as I love my own father!" Fu Qinghai said rapidly.

"Please, stay calm. You are in a very bad state right now. To prove my sincerity, I will find a way to get you out of here." Fu Qinghai said as he backed away.

"You..." Ogedei was slightly stunned, watching as Fu Qinghai turned and bolted out the door in a flash.

Before long, he heard the roar of a jetbike engine.

Ogedei saw Fu Qinghai drag a long iron chain inside. Fu Qinghai walked to one end of the metal pipe, crouched down, and figured out how to tie the chain to the heavy conduit.

Ogedei understood what he was trying to do.

At this moment, a young girl's head peeked cautiously around the doorway. She took one look at the severed limbs and blood inside, covered her mouth to gag, and quickly pulled back.

After securing the chain, Fu Qinghai tugged on it hard to ensure it was firm, then walked over to Ogedei and said, "Brace yourself."

"Hmph," Ogedei sneered disdainfully. "I am an Astartes. Do you think I fear pain?"

You probably forgot how miserably you were screaming just a moment ago... Fu Qinghai thought to himself, but he didn't say anything else, turning to walk out the door.

The roar of the engine sounded again, and the iron chain instantly pulled taut.

The straight chain bent around the corner of the doorway, and as the jetbike pulled from outside, the iron links "clattered" as they were dragged out of the room one by one.

The metal pipe began to move slowly, the heavy conduit grinding against the Space Marine's legs like a millstone as it was pulled outward.

"Hiss..." Even though the flesh of his legs had long since necrotized, the sheer torture of the movement pulling at the nerves in his thighs made Ogedei hiss in pain.

The metal pipe was finally pulled away.

Ogedei's forehead was covered in cold sweat. The stimulants and painkillers built into his power armor had been exhausted in the previous battle, and he was currently relying on sheer willpower to endure the agony.

"Ha..." Ogedei took a ragged breath, looking at his legs which had been crushed into a pulp, and thought to himself, I might end up being sent into a Dreadnought...

Fu Qinghai walked back inside.

[You have saved the life of White Scars Space Marine Ogedei Mangnut, achieving a stage milestone event!]

That familiar, cold voice appeared once again.

[Calculating Assimilation Points... 209 points]

OJBK! Fu Qinghai inwardly cheered, having successfully earned the Assimilation Points.

Ogedei, staring at his own legs, looked up at Fu Qinghai and said, "I cannot stand, nor can I walk."

"It's fine, I'll find a metal plate to drag you along," Fu Qinghai said, stating his plan.

Ogedei pondered for a moment and said, "That will work, but you must do me a favor first. Behind the wall behind me, there should be a few corpses of the Sons of Horus. Bring one over. Also, if there are any power weapons, bring those as well."

Fu Qinghai followed instructions and went around the wall behind Ogedei. Sure enough, lying behind the wall were two corpses of Space Marines clad in grey-green armor, both wearing helmets, with one partially buried in the collapsed ruins.

Fu Qinghai felt a sense of certainty. The enemy of his enemy was his friend; the Sons of Horus were almost all die-hard Warmaster loyalists, and only a tiny fraction remained loyal to The Emperor. The White Scars fighting the Sons of Horus could almost certainly be considered loyalists.

Fu Qinghai found a power sword lying quietly beside the hand of one of the Sons of Horus.

Judging by its design, it was a broadsword with a curved, straight crossguard and a long hilt, enough for Fu Qinghai to grip with both hands. However, compared to the size of a Space Marine's palm and the proportions of the hilt to the blade, it was clearly intended as a one-handed sword.

The hilt and crossguard had only simple decorative patterns, and the runes inscribed in Low Gothic were the name of the Forge World that produced it. It was not a master-crafted weapon, suggesting its owner was not an officer.

Fu Qinghai lifted the power sword with some effort; it was too heavy for him to wield effectively, as it was, after all, a weapon designed for a Space Marine.

Fu Qinghai found it hard to put down. From the moment he saw the sword, his sea of consciousness had been fluctuating constantly. Fu Qinghai gently pressed a button on the hilt.

"Zzz..." With a barely audible hum, the entire blade was instantly enveloped in a faint, ghostly blue force field. Wisps of white electric arcs flickered around it, and the blue light emitted by the blade slightly illuminated the dim chamber.

The disruption field generator of this sword was still functioning normally.

"Kid, be careful. Don't touch that blue light, or you'll cut your own head off," Ogedei's raspy voice came from behind.

Ogedei had heard the sound of the power sword activating; for a Space Marine, that sound was all too familiar.

Fu Qinghai was certainly not foolish enough to touch the blue energy field with his hand.

A disruption field, the core of a power weapon, could directly disrupt the molecular bonds of solid matter it touched, capable of disintegrating almost any solid material. Power weapons were standard equipment for Space Marines and also issued to certain high-ranking mortal officers, but it was not a common technology. At the very least, many xenos races lacked the technology to manufacture power weapons, and even many human Forge Worlds in the 41st millennium no longer possessed the capability to produce them.

This standard power sword could fetch a high price in the Levant Hive where Fu Qinghai originally lived.

Fu Qinghai turned off the disruption field generator, carried the power sword back to Ogedei, placed it by his side, and returned behind the wall, using all his strength to drag one of the Sons of Horus corpses over to Ogedei.

Ogedei picked up the power sword, swung it skillfully a couple of times, and instructed Fu Qinghai: "In the power pack on the back of the corpse, look for the life-support storage compartment. It's in... in... damn it, his armor is a MK5 patchwork. I recall it being on the side, try to find a..."

"Is this it?" Before he could finish, Fu Qinghai pulled a compartment containing various unknown liquids from the side of the power pack.

"Eh? You kid... have you dealt with power armor before?" Ogedei looked Fu Qinghai up and down in surprise.

His torso, arms, and legs were all flesh and blood; he didn't look like a Tech-Priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus...

"First time. You could call it a talent," Fu Qinghai explained casually.

Fu Qinghai held the life-support device and went to Ogedei's side, found the identical compartment, and pulled it out. The liquid tubes inside were empty. Fu Qinghai inserted the device from the Son of Horus into the slot.

"Hum..." Ogedei's power pack shuddered, and the two spherical exhaust vents behind his shoulders puffed out a burst of hot air as the motors inside the power pack began to operate.

Following this, Ogedei let out a sigh, a look of comfortable relaxation appearing on his face.

Fu Qinghai guessed that at this moment, painkillers, stimulants, and hormones were being injected into Ogedei's body through his power armor.

Starting with the MK2 Crusade Pattern Power Armor, the massive power pack on the back of a Space Marine's armor integrated a micro-plasma reactor, life support systems, automated medical equipment, air filtration systems, and liquid circulation systems.

"You could apply to be an Apothecary for the Legion." Ogedei, having found a brief respite from the relentless pain, still had the mood to crack a joke.

It was just a joke, of course; setting aside the medical expertise required of a Legion Apothecary, there was one simple fact: a Space Marine Apothecary was, first and foremost, a Space Marine.

"And now, that just leaves you." As Ogedei spoke, he activated the power field of his power sword and looked down at his shattered legs.

Holy crap, you aren't going to... Fu Qinghai felt a jolt of shock as he witnessed this scene.

Ogedei held the power sword, measured the distance against his own legs, and then swung down with a sudden, violent motion.

The deep blue power field sliced through Ogedei's legs—still attached to the shattered leg armor—without the slightest resistance, just like a hot knife through butter.

Ogedei let out a muffled grunt as blood gushed out, but the wound was immediately covered by the hemostatic gel from the armor's life support system. The blood clotted at the base of Ogedei's thighs at a speed visible to the naked eye and began to scab over; this was the result of the Larraman cells, secreted by the Larraman organ in the Space Marine's chest and distributed through the bloodstream, working rapidly.

Performing an amputation on himself—are all Space Marines this ruthless? Fu Qinghai thought to himself.

At this moment, Fu Qinghai's peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of the scattered corpses of Cedric and the others on the ground; there seemed to be strange marks on the arm of one of the bodies.

Unable to suppress his curiosity, Fu Qinghai crouched down to observe.

They were bite marks.

Fu Qinghai's eyes widened, and he snapped his head up to look at Ogedei, his feet silently retreating two steps.

"Do you eat people?" Fu Qinghai asked in a low voice.

Ogedei raised his head, his gaze calm as he looked directly into Fu Qinghai's eyes, and replied: "The nutrient solution in my life support device is only enough to keep me alive for three days, and my stomach can digest many types of organic matter to provide the necessary energy for my body, including the corpses of enemies."

The corpses of enemies... Ogedei's frankness left Fu Qinghai momentarily at a loss for how to respond. The moral concepts of the Warhammer 40K universe were vastly different from those of his previous life on Earth. At first, Fu Qinghai had found it difficult to adapt to the practice of lobotomizing living people to turn them into servitors, yet the people here treated it as a matter of course.

Fu Qinghai could only nod and say: "Understood."

Indeed, a mature Space Marine could hardly let himself starve to death; that would be too pathetic.

In the time that followed, Fu Qinghai began picking through the safe areas of the ship wreckage, finding suitable materials to build a trailer to attach behind the jetbike. Even though Ogedei had lost his legs, as a Space Marine, his physical dimensions still far exceeded those of an ordinary human, making it impossible for him to sit on the jetbike.

This trailer had no wheels; it was simply a curved steel plate placed on the ground.

While building this trailer, Fu Qinghai had to admit that the indestructible power sword was truly an incredibly useful cutting tool. Even if not used to hack at enemies, it was highly efficient as a manufacturing tool.

After finding some usable weapons and supplies in the ruins, the three of them prepared to set off and return to the colonial outpost.

Ogedei braced his hands on the ground to hoist himself onto the trailer Fu Qinghai had built, gripping the edges tightly with both hands, his gaze filled with suspicion as he looked at Fu Qinghai.

Fu Qinghai reassured him: "Don't worry, I'll have Feiyi drive slowly."

"Vroom..." The young girl twisted her slender hand, and the jetbike roared to life.

Ogedei, now legless, sat in the trailer, feeling a sense of nervousness. For some reason, he was reminded of his first time participating in a ship boarding action, and his first time taking part in an orbital drop...