12. First Battle (2)

Soldier Daso struggled to his feet, his mind a jumble of noises and screams that rendered him almost incapable of thinking.

Burning metal crackled around him, the silver ground charred and stained with blood. Several mangled corpses gruesomely surrounded him. It took soldier Daso several minutes to regain his senses and realize he was still inside the spire.

The spire of Harkosus I, a symbol of honor, sacrifice, and dedication. And now it has been invaded, invaded by a horde of monsters that have descended from the sky!

Realizing that this incident nearly enraged Soldier Daso, he didn't let his anger cloud his judgment. In fact, he remained calm. He had never seen combat, not even once, but years of training had been precisely for this moment.

He quickly checked himself and found he was unharmed. His tattered combat suit had protected him, at the cost of his own mangled state. He removed the suit and tapped his intact helmet.

It hummed to him that it was still usable. Soldier Daso's thoughts stirred, and following the instructions in the combat manual, he connected with the "runes" built into his helmet. His mind sank into a silvery sea.

He continued his search, yearning for communication—he needed to find a superior, anyone would do, as long as they could command him and tell him what to do next. Soldier Daso's search was fruitful; he found a vortex-like object in this silvery sea.

He immediately focused his thoughts on it. The next second, a torrent of frantic and violent words flooded his mind.

They are questions, inquiries, requests, and emphasis. They are endless screams and shouts, a wave of fear sweeping in, with one voice most intense, almost drowning out everything else.

Soldier Daso recognized the voice; it belonged to Officer Ta-C0-1, who was screaming inside his head.

The spire is under attack! The spire is under attack! Repeat, the spire is under attack! They're falling from the sky, we're being slaughtered! God, let the Burning Fire protect me!

The words were repeated over and over, and Soldier Daso wanted to reply, but he couldn't. Officer Tower-C0-1's voice was too loud for him; they were granted sacred rights by the Burning Fire, so even their voices sounded so intense in the vortex.

Daso pleaded humbly, hoping Officer T. C. 0-1's voice would soften slightly. He needed an answer, he needed orders. He tried several times without success, so he withdrew from the silvery sea and opened his eyes.

His thinking ability had returned, and through the vision provided by his combat helmet, he could clearly see the corpses in the ruins. There were far more dead than he had thought, and he began to recall, the combat helmet's data recording function helping him.

From the complex data, soldier Daso realized that the battle had actually begun half an hour earlier; the enemy had rained down fire from the sky, smashing through the spire and launching a terrible attack.

He couldn't help but wonder—had more fiery rain fallen on the residential areas?

The Burning Fire above, and he hoped his family was safe. He dismissed that thought a few seconds later.

Soldier Daso moved his tongue and licked his dry lips to keep himself from getting too nervous.

He gripped his combat rifle, approached the dead soldiers, and took the spare ammunition magazines from their bodies.

It took him some time to do this, and time is never his alone. While he was busy picking up ammunition to increase his chances of survival as instructed in the combat manual, burning debris fell from the sky and landed on the ground with a terrible bang.

Soldier Daso jolted, whirling around to his feet, his combat rifle already pointed in their direction. He was well-trained, one of the Spire's guards. It was an honorable duty, and the Burning Fire elevated his right to fire.

Soldier Daso muttered these words to himself, hoping they would give him a tiny bit of courage. He looked up at the wreckage and immediately recognized what it was.

This was one of the tens of thousands of combat robots installed inside the spire. He saw the iconic metal beak. These six-meter-tall combat machines had provided Harkosus I with a rare peace on Halcosus II and III. And now, it was just a pile of twisted scrap metal.

Daso couldn't figure out what had caused its destruction, but he could sense a deep chill.

Fear followed, and soldier Daso inexplicably began to roar brokenly into the darkness, while simultaneously opening fire—on enemies he didn't even know were there.

He knew, of course, that he was just bluffing. But the combat manual mentioned that it could sometimes be effective, and this was the first time Soldier Daso had used it.

He succeeded; the combat manual did not disappoint him.

There was indeed something in the darkness, but it wasn't the kind of thing he wanted to see.

What emerged from the darkness was not the "enemy" he sought to confront, but a Ghost —a tall, walking Ghost. A cold, eerie blue flame burned quietly in its empty eye sockets, and all the surrounding noise vanished in that instant.

The Ghost stared at him, and Soldier Daso's eyes widened as he threw away everything in his combat manual. He knelt on the ground, his face contorted with fear, shifting constantly beneath his combat helmet.

He began to scream, even though the Ghost hadn't done anything yet—and his last thought before he died was: Will the Burning Fire protect my soul?

"No, it won't," the Ghost said, then raised its arm.

Karyl gently removed the battle helmet from the Harkosus soldier's head. The face beneath the helmet was contorted, tears and snot streaming down his face, and everything was a mess, but it was easy to tell that he was a young man.

A flickering flame rested on his forehead, shimmering with a silver light. It wasn't a tattoo, but a brand deeply etched into his flesh.

He stared at the symbol of the Harkosus Burning Fire Chamber of Commerce for a moment, then shook his head.

What kind of chamber of commerce would resort to religious methods to brainwash soldiers? Even going so far as to call this practice "flame infusion"?

He saw many images and turbulent emotions in the unguarded mind of the soldier Daso, and there was a great deal of evidence that the Burning Fire Chamber of Commerce were using religion and faith to brainwash the people of Harkosus.

And that's the problem: this is undoubtedly a cult.

Karyl shook his head thoughtfully, bent down and picked up the helmet—or rather, lifted it with half a finger.

The helmet has an interesting appearance. Its rear half is a standard circle, silver, and shiny. The material is not metal, but it is much tougher than ordinary metal.

The front part is a bit odd, with a sharp, beak-shaped respirator positioned at the very front, topped with two silver goggles. Similarly, the silver-edged, black-based flickering flame also dances quietly on the top of the helmet.

Burning Fire

Karyl casually tossed his helmet aside, turned around, and left the ruins.

He used a few leaps to get from the bottom of the spire to the twelfth floor; the drop pods sometimes created unexpected paths. Interestingly, the building called the spire was indeed quite sturdy.

Its basic building structure remained undamaged, even after being hit by the airdrop pod from the twelfth floor all the way to the bottom floor.

The scene on the twelfth floor was vastly different from the dark and burning lower level. Here, basic lighting was still maintained, and the light was abundant, but the silver floor was covered in blood. A low, continuous humming sound echoed from the far end of the wide corridor.

That was the sound of the guns of the people of Harkosus. Their guns were interesting, but their combat robots were even more interesting.

Karyl used his agility to dissect six combat robots in the battle, and he concluded that these things had exactly the same mechanical structure, and even the dimensions of their parts were exactly the same.

This means they are mass-produced items, rather than machines meticulously handcrafted by artisans.

Powered by nuclear energy and with shells capable of withstanding explosives, attacking their weak points should be effective. Yet, these six-meter-tall machines are not cumbersome; in fact, they are quite agile. While not as powerful as the Astartes, they are more than capable.

Not to mention their firepower; even a regular soldier's rifle in Harkosus can threaten Power Armour under concentrated fire, and these creatures' shoulder-mounted weapons are even more formidable, combining high rate of fire and firepower. Without a doubt, they are absolutely formidable opponents.

So—what kind of chamber of commerce could research these things?

Nuclear-powered combat robots, combat suits that enhance the physical abilities of ordinary soldiers—and Karyl knew these were just the tip of the iceberg. He saw many more weapons in the memories of soldier Daso.

Could a federation that hasn't even researched long-distance navigation really possess these things?

Karyl had no answer, but he didn't intend to find it out. He was tired of deciphering.

A flash of blue light appeared and disappeared in the corridor. The cloak enveloped his armor like a ghost, making him look as if he were floating rather than running. Six seconds later, Karyl arrived at the gathering point of the gunfire.

A group of Harkosus soldiers gathered here, temporarily halting the Eighth Legion's advance with the firepower of three combat robots.

Karyl lowered his knees, leaped lightly, and jumped into the crowd. The soldiers of Harkosus stared at him in disbelief, not realizing what was happening at first, until Karyl extended his right hand.

A blue blade, flickering like a shadow, vanished in a flash, creating several headless corpses. Blood splattered, and it even leaped onto the ceiling. Only then did they snap out of their daze. The guns were immediately switched, and they had already lost their chance to fire.

They couldn't fire into the crowd—besides, firing required aiming, and Karyl kept flashing.

Three seconds into the battle, he approached the first combat robot. The heavy, silver-gleaming machine was clearly unaware of his arrival and continued to unleash its firepower down the corridor.

Karyl swung his right hand, the blade plunging deep into the machine's midsection. Then, it suddenly expanded. Psionic power transformed the dagger into a longsword in the next second. Karyl twisted his wrist, swung the sword upwards, and sliced it in two.

Some blue liquid spilled from between the broken wires, hissing on the metal floor. The second combat robot finally turned its head at this moment, its metal beak opening, within which a dangerous red light was gathering.

Karyl ignored it, simply kicking a component emitting a dangerous blue light out of the machine with his foot before disappearing instantly. Half a second later, a violent explosion erupted among the Harkosus people.

Death came, and the murderer was already gone.

He had reached the other end of the corridor when the Harkosus died in the series of explosions. There, six Astartes clad in somber, dark blue Power Armour were gathered.

One of them was using a special method to tie three Krak Grenade together. Clearly, they already had a way to deal with those stubborn Harkosus people.

"Good idea," Karyl said softly. "But Krak Grenade would probably need to be glued to them to be effective."

"I will do it," Anric Barbatos said. "Provided you don't turn them into scrap metal."

Karyl chuckled. He knew, of course, that Anric Barbatos was capable of such a feat, but that didn't stop him from helping them out. He turned to look at the other end of the corridor, assessing the scene of the explosion he had caused, and casually asked a question.

"How is the Eighth Company faring?"

"We've advanced to the twenty-eighth floor and are currently clearing downwards from there—"

Anric Barbatos shook his head. "--But it didn't work. These Harkosus are intimidated by fear, but they always manage to rally and launch a counterattack against us."

"Religion."

"You knew about this too?"

"It's too obvious." Karyl turned his head. "If it were just simple fearlessness, perhaps it could be explained as a basic quality of a battle-hardened unit. But these people are clearly not, and..."

"And they'll charge at us while shouting the word 'Burning Fire,'" said Anric Barbatos, his armor still bleeding.

"Hmm, tell your Eighth Company to keep a close eye on things, Company Commander Anric." Karyl nodded to him, his voice distorted into a terrifying echo by the skull-like mask, but Anric felt no fear, only a sense of security.

"I will proceed according to plan and head to the top of the spire. We'll meet there."

"Yes, Instructor."

The company commander of the Eighth Company bowed slightly as a sign of respect. When he raised his head again, Karyl had already disappeared.

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