First Company

Damian had never believed in The Emperor so devoutly as he did today. A pitiful man battered by misfortune would clutch at anything he could grasp while drowning. His devout faith in The Emperor was the lifesaving straw he clung to.

Just as Damian had prepared himself to die, an enormous, echoing wail came from the carriage ahead. When the sound stopped, the trembling Damian did not see the superhuman black-armored monster coming to take his life. Instead, their temporary commander, Lin Fan, emerged carrying the Black-armored Warrior's hole-riddled helmet, his body splattered with strangely colored black blood.

When asked how he had defeated such a powerful monster, Lin Fan merely took out the wooden holy icon of The Emperor hanging around his neck and said quietly, "At the most critical moment, the great God-Emperor blessed me."

After arranging all his fallen comrades' bodies neatly, Lin Fan silently bowed to mourn those brave and kind men. Damian, perhaps thinking this was some ritual of faith in the God-Emperor, followed suit and bowed as well.

The two survivors went to the foremost carriage to check on Delia. The moment the hatch opened, Delia's scream pierced both their ears.

"Eeeek!!!!"

"Why are you screaming like a ghost?!" Lin Fan's voice calmed the screaming Delia.

Only then did Delia turn around to see who had entered through the hatch. She revealed a timid smile of fear and relief. "I thought they had boarded the train and that you were all dead. The sounds of fighting and screaming were so loud. I was terrified."

Seeing the frail young priest before him, Lin Fan felt some concern. He patted her head reassuringly. "It's all right, it's all right. We took care of those guys. We'll solve all of this. Everyone will be fine."

Delia felt Lin Fan's touch. By all rights, such an impolite gesture should have angered her, but why did these hands of ordinary flesh feel so warm and sacred? Delia carefully felt Lin Fan's hand and lowered her head, not knowing what she was thinking.

If Lin Fan still remembered his conversation with The Emperor, he should have realized that his body was constantly shielded by The Emperor's great power. This was to stop Lin Fan, with his big mouth, from constantly calling out to the daemons and all manner of hungry monsters in the Warp. Yet this also meant that ordinary people who believed in The Emperor would sense His sacred aura whenever they touched Lin Fan. Though The Emperor's aura was cold, Lin Fan's special physique tempered it slightly, making it warm and sacred. To believers, it was practically a temptation more effective than Slaanesh.

Although Delia believed in the Machine God, the Adeptus Mechanicus preached that The Emperor was the finest proof of the Machine God walking among mortals. Especially after The Emperor was grievously wounded and seated upon the Golden Throne, such faith became even more devout and widespread. After all, before sitting upon the throne, The Emperor did not appear to have a trace of machinery on him. Once seated on the Golden Throne, however, there was practically nowhere on his body not connected to cables and instruments. How could those Adeptus Mechanicus personnel, who regarded machines as life itself, not be excited?

Now, Delia was deeply affected by the tempered aura around Lin Fan. It reminded her of how, after being struck by Warp energy, the implants in her brain had been damaged and spewed endless streams of scrap code to corrupt her mind. At that time, Delia had thought she was going to die, dying for nothing before she had properly served the Machine God.

That unwillingness made Delia suffer deeply, even more than the agony of scrap code corroding her mind.

But with the slightest touch of Lin Fan's hands, the scrap code mixed with Warp power vanished in an instant. A sacred warmth she had never experienced before gently embraced Delia's entire body, making the modules and implants in her brain cheer with unprecedented joy.

Could he also be a form of the Machine God walking among mortals? If that was true, then I'm so lucky! I really want to show the Machine God the gears on my body that I polished smooth! But what if it's false? That aura feels so comfortable. I really want him to keep touching me.

Delia was simply too young and too inexperienced. She had also lacked the proper instruction at her teacher's side, leaving much of her thinking human rather than mechanical. If an older Adeptus Mechanicus priest had been touched by Lin Fan like this, the instruments all over her body would surely have run at high efficiency while continuously transmitting sacred code, displaying her boundless worship and devout heart to the Machine God's incarnation. Of course, perhaps she might also have wanted to show Lin Fan her smooth, gleaming polished gears, while recording this rare and precious scene from every angle and making hundreds of encrypted copies in her memory modules.

Lin Fan sensed that Delia had calmed down again. He took a deep breath and slumped into a seat, recovering his strength.

To be honest, he barely felt any pain or exhaustion, but the immense psychological pressure brought on by that real sense of oppression was undeniable. The pressure of watching people die, the pressure of being hunted, the pressure of facing a blasphemous superhuman—combined, it left Lin Fan deeply mentally exhausted.

It reminded him of the Space Marines. Even after being modified to gain exceptional resistance to scenes of slaughter, their long campaigns would still affect these superhumans to varying degrees, eventually disturbing their resolve.

Lin Fan did not know whether he would someday need psychological treatment, but resolving the situation on this planet was the most important thing for now. Such a beautiful, peaceful planet should not sink into eternal despair like the rest of this dark universe. He hoped the tragedy of seeing something beautiful mercilessly shattered before his eyes would never happen again.

"Be the first to worry about the world's troubles, and the last to enjoy the world's happiness." Lin Fan quietly recited a familiar ancient saying as he contemplated his future.

"Damn it." Morris Yukagel, captain of 1st Company, led the more than two hundred remaining soldiers at his side out of Keton, the capital of Karmaklan Agri-World.

The city had gone mad. Those once upright and simple Imperium citizens had all turned frenzied and savage, charging fearlessly and mindlessly toward the base of the Imperium's 1st Company. Before they could even figure out what was happening, 1st Company had not dared open fire immediately, instead shouting at the approaching residents to ask what they wanted.

In the end, the political commissar, who had always been unpopular with the guardsmen, fired the first shot. He accurately killed an approaching resident with his laser pistol and made the harsh judgment that they were all traitors. In Captain Yukagel's eyes, it was the most correct decision that cold-faced commissar had ever made since he met him. Otherwise, he might not even have managed to lead these two hundred men out alive.

Under the pressure of the commissar's authority and the residents rushing at them from afar, the soldiers of 1st Company aimed at the runners and fired volley after volley, until there was not a single person left standing in the open ground before their base. Many soldiers could not bear the bloody sight before them, which was understandable. They had all been recruited from this planet, with neither combat experience nor combat resolve. They had only become the regiment's best-trained company through sheer stubborn diligence.

Just as the commissar led a group out to investigate, unfortunately—or perhaps inevitably—the ever-cold and loyal commissar had his head blown apart by a crude automatic weapon used by the Planetary Defense Force. None of the fine young men who went out to investigate survived either.

Then the company's base, formed from a network of various cellars, came under attack from rebel Planetary Defense Force troops on all sides. Their helmets bore meaningless multi-pointed stars painted in some unknown color, a color Yukagel thought resembled dried blood. The company fought with everything it had, bringing out its hoarded heavy laser cannons and heavy bolter machine guns, barely managing to hold back the Planetary Defense Force's assault.

The usual style of Chaos rebels.

It had to be said that their unremarkable armor possessed remarkably good defensive power against the Defense Force's automatic weapons. Most soldiers struck from afar merely gained a shallow dent in their body armor.

"Damn it!" Yukagel cursed again. They could have held the fortifications for several days, or even months if the rebels had no heavy weapons.

If that unsettling giant in black armor had not appeared.

The giant launched his attack from the point where rebel fire was lightest. With precise marksmanship, he instantly killed the 1st Company soldiers guarding that line, then charged before them at a bizarre speed too fast for the naked eye to follow. Yukagel swore that if he had not spent a fortune on a fine augmetic eye, he might not even have known what had happened.

The giant strolled leisurely through the soldiers' encirclement, instinctively finding cover to evade the rain of bullets. He could also make accurate and cold long-range kills while moving at high speed. Nearly every terrifying boom of that massive gun meant one or more soldiers were blasted into chunks of flesh along with their armor. The soldiers' defensive line quickly collapsed, and they fled in every direction with their backs to the black-armored giant, trying to find somewhere safe.

But where could there be safety? They would either be killed by the black-armored giant or by the rebels outside.

Witnessing everything, Yukagel swiftly gathered the more than three hundred soldiers from his command post and retreated into the cellar network they had constructed. He quickly placed explosives and blew up several passages, though many more died at the black-armored giant's hands during the operation. Fortunately, the tunnels were extremely narrow, making it difficult for the black-armored giant to enter and move around. He could only vent his fury on Yukagel's group with his terrifying firearms.

In the end, only we remain. Yukagel looked at the 1st Company soldiers before him, covered in dirt and low in morale, not knowing what plan to make next.