"We step into hell with both feet, and all the world stands against us.—Codex Astartes"
The sky was stained with smoke, making its already dim expanse even gloomier. Everywhere, the air was thick with the exhaust from bolter fire and the dense black smoke of burning Promethium.
It had been a full seventeen hours since John arrived in this world. He knew his magazine should have run dry long ago, yet whenever he pulled the trigger, the MK.5b Godwyn-pattern Bolter in his hands still spat blazing fire.
The MK.5b Bolter was the most widely issued model across the Legions. It had a gene-recognition scanner, a built-in ammunition counter, and a curved magazine holding thirty rounds. Its standard .75-caliber bolts consisted of a diamond-tipped casing, a depleted tritium core, and a mass-reactive detonator.
Loyalty and reliability were the defining qualities of every Bolter, and a source of pride for the Emperor's Angels. Even so, John couldn't help wondering about the old companion that had been with him for years.
"Wait, how is it still firing?"
John's full name was John Wick. He came from an Agri World recently reclaimed by Blackwatch, where his family had raised Ant-Cows for generations.
But John knew he didn't belong in this world. He was just an unlucky killer who had lost everything and woken up here.
There were no Hive Cities on the Agri World, only scattered human settlements across the grasslands. Some were small, with a mere hundred thousand people; others had populations in the hundreds of millions.
Under ordinary circumstances, John might have spent his entire life on this Agri World, from birth to death, raising Ant-Cows.
But John liked that life. He had found a family there, with a good father who was gruff but cared for him deeply, and a new