Truly Fearless

Kai's world, in the brief span that flashed by like a meteor yet stretched as long as a century, consisted of only this.

Blade flashes, roars, and the frantic pounding of his heart on the verge of bursting.

He cut off the first Chaos warrior's head.

It happened so quickly that even he could barely make it out.

He had acted only on the unspent fury in his chest and the strange spirit within the lightsaber in his hand, which seemed to guide his movements.

The instant before the other's chainsword came down.

He ducked and lunged forward, a silver-gold arc sweeping upward across the foul armor's neck joint.

There was no deafening clash of metal, only a dull sound, like a red-hot blade cutting through rotten leather.

The helmeted head tilted crookedly, its dark-red eyes full of disbelief as it rolled into the mud.

The headless body stood stiffly for a moment before crashing down.

He won?

I... won?!

Before triumph could surge through him, crushing pressure rolled in from all directions.

More scarlet lenses lit up in the darkness, like the eyes of hungry wolves in the wilderness.

One, two, three...

A full dozen black giants had been drawn by their comrade's death and that blinding light.

They abandoned their scattered slave raids and began converging on the center of the illuminated rice field.

Their heavy footsteps boomed like war drums, encircling Kai and the headless corpse.

Fear poured over him like icy water, only to be instantly vaporized by a fiercer blaze!

"Come on! Heretics! Scum!"

Kai roared, his voice already hoarse, yet carrying a savagery beyond his years.

He did not wait any longer. He charged the nearest Chaos warrior!

Golden-red light streamed behind him like a burning cloak.

His small figure darted and leaped between the giants' iron legs, the lightsaber in his hand becoming streaks of lethal radiance.

He targeted joints, eye lenses, and the connections to their power packs.

Those were relatively weak points, and places where the light seemed most effective.

Another Chaos warrior roared and tried to fire its bolter at close range.

But Kai suddenly threw himself down, driving his lightsaber into the power lines in the other's lower leg.

Exploding sparks and some foul liquid made the giant stagger and fall to one knee.

Kai immediately rolled up and leaped, plunging his blade through a gap in its helmet.

The third, the fourth...

Kai seemed like a war god who knew neither exhaustion nor pain.

Surrounded and attacked by more than a dozen Chaos Space Marines, he charged left and right, somehow bringing down another three in succession!

Every swing of his sword came with a roar torn from the depths of his strength; every dodge was perilously close.

He was dancing on the edge of blades, burning every shred of his life force amid a tide of destruction.

But in the end, he was only a ten-year-old child.

The limits of his body arrived irreversibly, like a spring stretched to its breaking point.

When his lightsaber struggled through the breastplate of the fifth enemy, Kai suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood-flecked foam that tasted of rust.

His vision darkened in waves, and his ears rang as if countless flies were buzzing inside them.

The surging strength that had filled him moments ago receded from every limb like the tide.

He dropped to one knee, barely keeping himself from collapsing completely by driving the lightsaber into the earth.

Sweat, blood, and muddy water ran into his eyes, stinging fiercely.

His lungs heaved like broken bellows. Every breath tore through him with pain, and what he inhaled felt not like air, but burning sand.

It was as though his body had been set ablaze, every inch of muscle screaming and trembling.

He looked hazily around him.

Seven or eight Chaos warriors still surrounded him. They seemed to have been shaken by the child's mad resistance and their comrades' deaths.

They did not rush in immediately, but the cruel, violent glow in their scarlet lenses had only grown stronger.

Kai could see the still-wet blood on their chainswords and smell the increasingly pungent reek of sulfur from their bodies.

But he... had no strength left.

Even the light of the lightsaber in his hand seemed much dimmer, as if it too had grown weary with the draining of his life force.

But... he was not willing to accept this!

His father... his mother... the village... and all those people who had been taken away...

Though weak, the golden flame in his eyes still burned stubbornly.

His fury had never gone out.

"Heh..."

He suddenly laughed softly, blood foam on his lips, his voice ragged and unpleasant.

Slowly, using the last of his strength, he pulled the lightsaber from the mud.

The blade trembled faintly and gave off a weak hum, as if resonating with him.

He could still... charge once more.

One last time.

"For... the Emperor..."

He murmured, not knowing whom he was speaking to.

Then a beastlike growl rose from his throat. With sheer willpower, he forced that nearly broken body into motion and sprang up from the ground!

No technique, no maneuvering—only the most direct, most resolute charge!

He charged at the nearest Chaos warrior, the one that looked the largest of them all!

He poured every remnant of his strength, every ounce of rage, every fragment of hope and despair into this final strike!

This was the last loyalty he could offer.

"Courting death!!"

That towering Chaos warrior was clearly enraged.

It had long since grown impatient. The light on this insect-like human whelp made it profoundly uncomfortable, and now the time had finally come to crush him!

Roaring, it raised its chainsword high with both hands. The teeth spun madly, whipping up a bloody wind as it brought the blade down at full force toward the charging Kai, toward that tiny head!

It wanted to see brains burst. It wanted to see that hateful light extinguished forever!

The lightsaber in Kai's hand seemed to sense that its master had reached the end of his strength.

It flickered one final time, its light almost completely withdrawing until only the faint gleam of the metal remained.

It was over.

Kai could even see every barbed tooth spinning at high speed on the chainsword.

The scent of death was so clear.

He opened his eyes wide. There was no fear in them, only a trace of faint regret and... relief.

Emperor... I... have no strength left... I have failed You...

Just as the chainsword's shadow was about to swallow him, just as the sharp wind from its edge lifted the hair on his forehead—

"Crack—!!!"

A hand clad in exquisitely crafted azure armor, perfectly proportioned yet incomparably huge.

As though it had appeared from nowhere, it steadily and precisely gripped the blade of the descending chainsword!

There was no earth-shattering impact, only a shriek that set teeth on edge—the piercing sound of metal being forcibly clutched, twisted, and crushed!

The rapidly spinning teeth stopped dead. Sparks burst wildly beneath the blue giant hand's grip, yet could not harm it in the slightest!

The chainsword's blade groaned beneath the overwhelming pressure.

Its power unit overloaded and erupted with sparks.

Like a biscuit crushed in a hand, the entire sword twisted and deformed with a series of crackles, finally becoming a heap of smoking scrap metal!

Time seemed to freeze at that moment.

Kai's charging posture locked in place as he stared blankly at the blue giant hand that had suddenly entered his vision of death.

And behind that hand, a massive figure that had descended like a mountain, radiating incomparable majesty and power.

A gentle voice, filled with boundless emotion and praise, drifted softly through the air like a warm breeze brushing over scorched earth:

"Truly fearless!"