Exploring the Spaceship

They set off again at dawn.

Following the trail of scattered ship debris, Feiyi no longer needed to frequently adjust their course, allowing her to increase their speed significantly. As a skilled driver, Feiyi maneuvered the motorcycle with ease, nimbly dodging obstacles on the ground.

The howling wind whipped against Fu Qinghai's face, causing his face mask to flap noisily. He held onto Feiyi's waist tightly, using the travel time to contemplate the situation he might soon face—

The Space Marines aboard the ship.

At the inception of the Space Marine Legions, there were 20, though the archives of two were purged by the Empire, leaving their fates unknown. Of the 18 existing legions, Fu Qinghai knew that half had participated in the rebellion.

Fu Qinghai did not know which legion's Space Marines he would encounter, but since he had the time, he might as well let his mind wander and consider the possibilities.

Fu Qinghai ranked all the Space Marine legions, sorting them by best-case and worst-case scenarios.

The best-case tier: the XIII Legion Ultramarines and the XVIII Legion Salamanders.

Both legions were known for their friendly attitude toward mortals. The XVIII Legion Salamanders, due to the genetic traits of their Primarch, possessed dark skin and were jokingly referred to by Warhammer 40K fans as "Uncle Black." The Space Marines of the Salamanders were compassionate and deeply concerned about civilian casualties during combat.

The XIII Legion Ultramarines were also Fu Qinghai's favorite. They were renowned for their skill in governing and operating the planets under their control. Unlike other legions, once the Ultramarines conquered and reclaimed a human colony, they would rapidly establish strict and efficient administrative mechanisms to restore production and daily life as quickly as possible. Thanks to the vast manpower provided by their meticulous governance of controlled worlds, they possessed the largest number of warriors of any legion.

Once you learned the Ultramarines' operational style, was it just a matter of "F2 A" to victory?

It wasn't that simple. The Ultramarines' combat style emphasized operational planning and tactical coordination, valuing information gathering before battle and communication during it. This aligned perfectly with Fu Qinghai's definition of a modern military, which also made the Ultramarines one of the two most efficient legions at conquest during the Great Crusade.

Recalling Ladrall's dying words, he had spoken of "white demons"... Unfortunately, neither of the aforementioned legions featured white armor; the Ultramarines wore blue armor with gold trim, while the Salamanders wore dark green.

The second-best tier: the I Legion Dark Angels, V Legion White Scars, VI Legion Space Wolves, VII Legion Imperial Fists, IX Legion Blood Angels, X Legion Iron Hands, and XIX Legion Raven Guard.

These legions held a lukewarm attitude toward mortals. After all, they considered themselves superhumans superior to ordinary people, and a sense of disdain and contempt for mortals existed among many of their warriors. However, fortunately, these legions were all on the loyalist side during the Horus Heresy, sharing the same faction as the one randomly assigned to Fu Qinghai by the reincarnation world.

If the surviving Space Marines on the ship belonged to the loyalists, Fu Qinghai wouldn't need to devise some convoluted scheme to infiltrate the traitors, increasing his hope of earning reincarnation points.

Among them, the IX Legion Blood Angels were actually quite friendly toward mortals, but as far as Fu Qinghai knew, their gene-seed was flawed. Their genes, mutated by radiation from their home world, carried a certain chance of triggering a disease known as the "Red Thirst." Blood Angels afflicted by this state were filled with a violent desire for blood and slaughter, sometimes unable to distinguish friend from foe. During a sensitive period like the Horus Heresy, it was best not to encounter them, so Fu Qinghai placed the IX Legion in the second tier.

The unfavorable third tier: the III Legion Emperor's Children, IV Legion Iron Warriors, XIV Legion Death Guard, XV Legion Thousand Sons, XVII Legion Word Bearers, XX Legion Alpha Legion, and the XVI Legion—the famous Luna Wolves, renamed the Sons of Horus in the later stages of the Great Crusade. They were the direct legion of Warmaster Horus, the most famous Space Marine legion in the Imperium of Man, and equally numerous, with a conquest efficiency during the Great Crusade that slightly surpassed even the Ultramarines.

The legions in the third tier were those that chose the Warmaster's side and rebelled during the Horus Heresy. If the survivors were from these, it would be extremely disadvantageous for Fu Qinghai. However, at least in the early stages of the rebellion, these Space Marines were still rational. The Warmaster, Primarch, or Chaos Gods they supported were, in their minds, the embodiment of justice. Though labeled as traitors, they believed they were fighting for the truth.

It was only in the mid-to-late stages of the Horus Heresy that Space Marines, completely corrupted by the powers of Chaos, would transform into daemon-possessed warriors with horns, extra limbs, and minds filled only with the desire for torture and slaughter.

However, there was the worst-case fourth tier: the VIII Legion Night Lords and the XII Legion World Eaters.

If there was at least a possibility of negotiating, compromising, or infiltrating the third-tier traitor legions, the two legions in the fourth tier were ones Fu Qinghai would turn and run from the moment he saw them. These were two notoriously insane legions even during the Great Crusade.

The Night Lords were known for spreading terror, torture, assassination, and high-pressure rule.

As for the World Eaters, the legion with the Butcher's Nails driven into their skulls, everyone from the Primarch down to the common Space Marine was a group of bloodthirsty, paranoid psychopaths who frequently engaged in senseless massacres and planetary exterminations during the Great Crusade.

Fu Qinghai didn't have the courage to play the double agent in these two legions.

Among all these legions, quite a few wore armor with paint schemes close to white, and Fu Qinghai couldn't determine which it was for the moment.

"Tsk..." Fu Qinghai narrowed his eyes. Although his mind had raced through many thoughts, he would have to judge the situation when he actually arrived.

Fu Qinghai had just taken a gulp of fresh water from his canteen.

"Screech—" Grinding against the gravel on the ground, Feiyi performed a drift and tail-flick, bringing the motorcycle to a halt.

Feiyi pointed toward a small black hill in the distance. "A-Luo, look!"

Fu Qinghai wiped away the water he had spilled and peered into the distance. A small, hill-like wreck of a spaceship stood silently in the distance. Although it was hard to see clearly due to the distance, its straight, rigid lines indicated it was definitely an artificial construct rather than a natural hill.

Fu Qinghai picked up his binoculars and looked closely. A massive ship lay horizontally in the middle of the flat land. The dark, thick cannon barrels on its side showed that this was definitely a warship, or at the very least, an armed merchant vessel. A massive breach had split the hull in the middle, and the debris spilled from the breach had piled up into a ramp of ruins.

The bridge had tilted to one side, and the massive sub-light engine nozzles at the stern of the ship lay scattered on the ground.

Fu Qinghai estimated the warship to be about two kilometers long. According to the organization of the Imperial Expeditionary Fleet, this should be a medium-sized frigate.

The model was unknown.

With the ship disintegrated to this extent, it was hard to tell if it had made an emergency landing or crashed.

"The motorcycle engine is too loud; we'll walk the rest of the way." The two parked the bike behind a rock half a person's height and, one man and one woman, snuck toward the ship's wreckage.

As they drew closer to the warship, the intense sounds of battle they had imagined did not appear. The ship and the surrounding scattered hull fragments were deathly silent; aside from the whistling of the wind blowing over the steel structures, there was no sound at all.

The two reached the bottom of the ruin ramp. With other hatches either hanging in mid-air or buried underground, this massive breach seemed to be the only way to enter the ship.

With the lesson of Cedric's entire group being wiped out, the two carefully moved to the side of the ruin ramp, backing against the tall steel hull.

Feiyi whispered into Fu Qinghai's ear, "Still don't see anyone. What should we do, A-Luo? Are we going in?"

Fu Qinghai glanced at the dark, gaping hole, surrounded by broken cables and twisted steel beams, looking like a maw waiting to devour them.

"No, Feiyi, you wait outside for me. I'm going in." Fu Qinghai said softly.

"I don't want to..." Before she could finish, Fu Qinghai covered her mouth.

He looked at the girl with a firm gaze. "Listen to me."

The girl softened under his gaze. She nodded and released her grip on Fu Qinghai's clothes.

Fu Qinghai untied his cumbersome face mask and headscarf, then used his hands and feet to slowly climb up the ruins.

Under the girl's concerned gaze, Fu Qinghai was cautious, trying his best not to make any sound. He hooked his palm onto a protrusion and placed his toes on a piece of intricately carved marble rubble.

"Clatter!" The loose marble slid down, taking a piece of debris with it.

This... Fu Qinghai froze, stopping in his tracks, not daring to move.

The warship remained deathly silent, showing no signs of activity.

Fu Qinghai took a deep breath and continued his climb upward.

Soon, Fu Qinghai crawled into the breach. Once his eyes adjusted to the dim environment, he began to observe his surroundings.

The warship's towering vaulted ceiling felt incredibly vast, filled with severed thick cables and collapsed steel walkways. Sparks flickered in the corners from time to time, illuminating the gloomy space alongside the light filtering in from outside.

Large patches of dried blood stained the floor, and charred bullet marks marred the walls; the traces of a fierce battle were everywhere.

Then, Fu Qinghai saw the corpse.

It was a body missing its lower half. It maintained a face twisted in the agony of its final moments, the torso facing toward the breach with hands pressed against the floor as if trying to crawl away. The lower half dragged behind it, trailing shriveled organs and intestines, leaving a thick, semi-coagulated streak of blood in its wake.

He recognized this corpse.

Peibo, a member of Cedric's little gang of thugs and one of the most enthusiastic bullies of Locke.

Seeing his wide-open eyes and face frozen in terror, Fu Qinghai didn't know whether to feel relieved or horrified.

The stench of rot in the air was impossible to ignore. Fu Qinghai carefully stepped over Peibo's corpse, trying his best not to step into the viscous blood on the floor.

Regardless of anything else, Fu Qinghai was certainly not going to explore in the direction Peibo had been crawling from; he decided to head the other way instead.

Just as Fu Qinghai held his breath and crept on tiptoe toward a half-open bulkhead door:

A cold voice rang out abruptly within the empty interior of the warship:

"I see you, boy."

In an instant, the hair on the back of Fu Qinghai's neck stood up.

He froze in place, his neck stiff, turning an inch at a time toward the right.

Amidst a pile of shattered glass in the corner of the floor, Fu Qinghai saw an eye, staring coldly back at him.

PS: There are so many Astartes Legions that if you can't remember them all, you can simply memorize them by their visual style: Space Romans: Ultramarines; Space Egyptians: Thousand Sons; Space Vikings: Space Wolves; Space Mongols: White Scars; Space Gays: Emperor's Children (just kidding).