21 Red Sand (End)
Where am I?
Jill Birdwin asked himself this question.
Where am I? Where am I located?
He barely opened his eyes, and all his senses returned in that instant. He saw a hazy mist, distorted light, and firelight emanating from the darkness. He could hear roars and the sounds of Boltgun firing, perhaps even a few plasma shots? Then, he smelled a strong stench.
He could no longer make out anything, and as the legion commander, his instinct was to question why heavy firepower wasn't being used, until someone stabbed him in the neck with something.
Accompanied by intense pain, he suddenly regained consciousness.
"Please wake up, Commander!" the Apothecary Paccarod yelled at him. "The last shot of excitement—"
He couldn't finish his sentence before he collapsed, his head disappearing into a mixture of blood and flesh.
Jill Birdwin fell to the ground, a sharp pain shooting through his head as if someone had cleaved his skull in two.
He began to breathe heavily, groping with his fingers to pick up the gun the Apothecary had dropped on the ground, instinctively checking its condition. Fully loaded, the muzzle was still warm, clearly indicating it had just been reloaded.
Jill Birdwin coughed, and blood trickled from between her lips and teeth.
He thought, "The Apothecary Paccarod is right—I must wake up, I must get to the bridge and contact any Imperial Navy that can receive the message, and get them to open fire on us."
We must be stopped.
A few seconds later, he staggered and looked around at his surroundings. The fragmented memories in his mind were immediately pieced together. With his indomitable will, the War Hounds ignored the pain in his mind and the rage sweeping through his heart, and determined exactly where he was.
"I'm still on the ship," he thought.
He didn't know if it was luck or misfortune, but he hoped that the six squads led by Kharn of the Eighth Company could escape alive. The War Hounds had paid a bloody price to get them out of the encirclement. Twenty thousand of their brothers had lost contact with them in the enemy's slaughter, their fate unknown.
Jill roughly estimated the distance between herself and them, then prepared for battle. She crouched down and took a combat dagger from the Apothecary's belt. Then, she waited in the darkness.
Three seconds later, he abruptly stood up. His body couldn't support such strenuous activity, but the stimulant Paccarod had finally taken effect. Ignoring the excruciating pain in his head, he began to pull the trigger repeatedly.
The muzzle flash illuminated the faces of the attackers in the darkness—pale faces, crimson faces, utterly frenzied, with bundles of steel cables trembling behind their heads. Their madness was obvious; even after Jill had already shot four of them the instant they engaged the enemy, they didn't stop.
"Blood--!" an attacker roared as he lunged at him, crushing his fallen comrade's head as he ran. Jill remained unmoved and continued to pull the trigger, the first two shots hitting the body, the last hitting the right knee.
The bomb hit its mark precisely; the attacker fell to the ground but was still trying to crawl toward him.
But his companions ignored him, trampling him as if he were the ground itself, blood and flesh flying everywhere. The successors pounced on Jill furiously and eagerly, the roar of the Chainaxe so clear, the brass and scarlet armor gleaming in the dark mist.
Jill stepped back, gripped her combat dagger, and plunged it into the first man's throat. She cruelly twisted the blade, tearing open his throat; blood splattered onto the War Hounds's face, but this was far from over. The Boltgun were still firing, severing the second man's left leg.
Jill lunged at him, adding more power to her attack with her leap. She punched the man in the wound, tearing out a piece of broken bone, coldly pinning him down, and then plunged the bone into his throat.
The third person arrived a little later, which gave Jill ample time.
He turned, his combat dagger flashing wildly through the air, embedding itself deep into the enemy's eye socket. The cables behind his head thrashed wildly, causing the man to roar in fury, "Blood for the Blood God! Blood for the Blood God!"
"Mourn your own death," Jill Birdwin said coldly, releasing his right hand, clenching it into a fist, and driving the dagger deep into his eye socket.
After doing this, he picked up the Boltgun and walked back into the darkness.
The matter is far from over.
He had to rush to the bridge to warn everyone that the honor the War Hounds had earned with their own hands had been completely tarnished, and what had happened on this voyage had to be completely erased; their Primarch could not be affected by this.
Thinking of this, a bitter smile mixed with bewilderment suddenly appeared on Jill Birdwin's previously expressionless face.
"I haven't seen what you look like yet, Primarch," he thought. "I'm sorry we couldn't see you, but we must die here."
The honor of the Twelfth Legion must be upheld.
--
Combustion.
Something is burning, burning persistently.
Karyl slowly walked into the darkness, the awful stench still lingering in his nostrils. For some reason, he wasn't surprised.
All around him were burning fragments. After he stepped down from the plain and into the undulating hills shrouded in twisted metal, the sky over Nuceria had completely disappeared.
Even if he looked up, all he could see was a vast, sweeping ocean, a uniquely Warp sea, shimmering in the sky above Nuceria. A million stars vanished in an instant, forming a terrifying vortex, before dissipating in the next moment.
These images made Karyl grateful for his earlier decision; these were not scenes that normal people should see, only someone like him could look at them directly.
He continued walking, the filthy black mud churning beneath his feet. It refused to be trampled, bubbling up as if it had come alive, emitting eerie and terrifying sounds.
Some human remains remain amidst the burning mud and metal ruins, gleaming and shining with the flames, reflecting eerie colors.
Karyl spent a few minutes observing them and discovered that at some point these things would return to normal—the twisted metal and burning darkness would disappear, and the farmland, rivers, and ruins of collapsed houses destroyed by the explosion would return.
But only for a moment, because something on the other side of the Veil was pouring its power into this place without restraint.
Crazy.
Karyl narrowed his eyes, hearing a cacophony of sounds coming from the communications channel, most likely from the Second Company or Roboute Guilliman calling him.
But he can't hear clearly now; this is no longer a world that normal people should be in, and normal technology is therefore unable to achieve any of its intended purpose here.
He walked calmly, his pale face appearing and disappearing in the darkness, as if he were naturally meant to be there. The darkness rejoiced upon noticing this.
Thick fog gathered from what had been an empty space ahead, and an eerie silence descended in an instant. The fog swirled around, exuding a sense of submission, pleading with the power beneath Karyl Lohars's skin to appear, accept it, and share in his supreme glory.
The power did not respond; only Karyl Lohars did.
He frowned deeply, raised his hand in disgust, and grasped the mist, turning it into a screaming, dispersing wisp of spirit. Several screams echoed from the darkness, and some things that had arrived by means of the trembling the Veil fled in terror upon witnessing this scene.
They are monsters newly born from the Chaos ocean, unlike their older counterparts who know to whom Vengeance and hatred now belong. Unfortunately, their existence has already been detected by Karyl.
Therefore, escape became a pipe dream. After a meaningless, brief period, they were all utterly killed. Karyl stood in the darkness, his hands covered in blood, and had a rough idea of what was going on.
This speculation was almost unacceptable to him—what gave Him the right to be so arrogant? Wouldn't the other monsters take this opportunity to attack Him? He knew that their relationship had never been harmonious.
But now.
Karyl calmly shook his hand, cutting off his thoughts once more. He had no time for such things; he simply continued forward—the darkness still rejoiced, and the power of Chaos itself did not reject him.
As he walked, glittering fragments began to emerge from the darkness. Some of them were completely obscured by the darkness, while only a few still glittered. Karyl frowned, not understanding what this meant, until the darkness itself conveyed a thought to him with Chaos rationality.
"Welcome back," they mumbled. "Help."
"."
Karyl was silent for a moment, then reached out and chose one of the fragments. The next second, he vanished from the spot.
There's also a 4K chapter.