Don't Stop, Don't Look Back

Cecilia's slit pupils opened fully, sharp and bright in the darkness like two copper stars.

She tightened her grip on the dagger. The blood that hadn't been wiped clean from the blade gave off a nauseating, metallic stench in the cramped space.

Cecilia's other hand tightly clasped Lin En's.

Lin En felt his own hand trembling, and Sister's hand trembled along with it.

He had extinguished the flashlight long ago. Now the entire cave was as black as though a pot had been overturned over it, leaving them unable to see a thing.

A sliver of red light shone in from outside the cave. They heard two cultists stop at the entrance and try to squeeze their way inside.

The two cultists stood there for several seconds. Then their voices grew more distant, and their footsteps retreated slightly.

"Go back and find someone. Find someone thin."

"Right, bring over someone small. It's too narrow in here. We can't get inside—"

The two cultists were too large. They were turning back to find a thinner companion.

Lin En's scalp prickled.

There were thinner cultists among them as well.

Once they squeezed inside, the cave was only this large, with no other exit. They would be fish in a barrel. It would all be over.

If they wanted to get out, they had only this one chance.

Lin En turned to look at Cecilia.

The Battle Sister quietly leaned against the stone wall ahead. Her breathing was so light it was almost inaudible. She said nothing, but her grip on his hand was extremely tight.

Her hand was as cold as ice from blood loss.

How much time did they have left? Was there any way out?

...There was no way. At least Lin En couldn't think of one.

Cecilia was a mortal. She had no Power Armor or Bolter, and she had suffered serious injuries.

Even a Battle Sister couldn't withstand such an adverse situation.

...No. Actually, there was one last way.

Lin En took a deep breath. "Sister."

"Hm?" Cecilia was still concentrating fully on the movements outside the cave. She responded distractedly.

Lin En whispered, "I'll lure them away. You stay here. While they're chasing me, get out through the entrance and find reinforcements. Once you've found them, come back and save me, all right?"

Cecilia whipped her head around.

Lin En couldn't see her slit pupils in the darkness, but he could feel two gazes stabbing into his face like a pair of knives.

Cecilia was silent for three seconds. Those three seconds stretched on like a century.

Then she gritted her teeth and spoke with a determination that seemed squeezed out between them. "No. I'll lure the Chaos Cultists away. You run out and find reinforcements."

There was absolutely no way a Battle Sister would abandon a civilian and run away on her own.

If she let Lin En draw away the pursuers while she escaped, she would never be able to hold her head up again for the rest of her life.

The class barriers of Warhammer 40,000 were sharply defined. In theory, civilians and Astra Militarum soldiers had to kneel on one knee whenever they saw Astartes or Battle Sisters.

But it was more than a matter of class. It was a matter of responsibility.

Astartes and Battle Sisters had to shoulder the responsibility of protecting mortals.

But Cecilia's words didn't fool Lin En. He had already gone over every possibility in his mind and decided what he was going to do next.

Lin En whispered, "It's all right, Sister. Actually, there's one more thing I've kept from you."

"What?" Cecilia didn't move.

"I have another ability. I have an exceptionally strong recovery ability. When I'm injured, I heal on my own. As long as they don't capture me, I can hold out for more than twenty standard Terran days while being pursued by any enemy." Lin En chose his words carefully.

Actually, it was thirty days. But to be conservative, he would say more than twenty.

He didn't want to explain the system, draws, and other things. It was too complicated to explain clearly in such a short time, and they didn't have time anyway.

So Lin En could only be the one to stay behind.

If Cecilia stayed, setting aside whether Lin En could successfully get out and find reinforcements, Cecilia had no light and no Thirty Days. She wouldn't be able to see the traps, ambushes, or pursuers in the darkness. She also had no way to recover quickly from her injuries and couldn't hold out for long while being chased by the cultists.

Retreating to the Hive City wouldn't work either.

The Hive City's load-bearing structure had failed, leaving no way to climb upward. There were no supplies inside the Hive City, either. As long as the cultists guarded its entrances, Cecilia would be trapped inside and slowly starved to death.

So Lin En should stay behind. With Thirty Days and a flashlight, and the possibility of drawing a new card in a few more days, he could hold out for a long time.

Actually, Lin En was still a little afraid. His hands had been trembling the whole time.

Cecilia could feel it clearly as she held his hand.

She was almost crushed beneath her guilt.

Lin En was a sheltered civilian who had never experienced war. She was a Battle Sister, yet she had to rely on a young civilian boy to draw away the pursuers so that she could survive.

In a daze, Lin En even felt as though he had become one of the Super Raven Guard who had been ambushed and mutated by the traitor legion, while the Raven King had to strangle them one by one with his own hands, and the Super Raven Guard had turned around and comforted him.

The Super Raven Guard under Corax, the primarch of the Raven Guard, had been ambushed by the traitor Alpha Legion. The traitors had introduced a virus tainted by Chaos Corruption into their gene-seed, causing the Super Raven Guard to mutate and grow sharp fangs and claws.

In the end, they had almost lost their minds and become gigantic Raptors.

They had wanted to die as humans.

Corax had dealt with them one by one with his own hands.

As he strangled the Raven Guard one after another, they had still rubbed against him affectionately and comforted him. It's all right, Father. This isn't your fault.

...So this was what it meant to willingly sacrifice oneself for one's comrades.

So this was hatred for the cultists.

Cecilia looked at him, unable to bear it.

Lin En knew what she was thinking. He turned up the brightness a little and shone it on his face, letting Cecilia see his eyes.

The clear, perhaps frightened yet extremely resolute eyes of a twenty-year-old university student who had never experienced war.

"Sister, I'll do my best to stay alive until you return with reinforcements. You do your best to find help, and I'll do my best to survive for twenty or thirty days. I'll definitely still be alive when you come back."

Cecilia said nothing.

The cultists' footsteps came again from the distant passage. They didn't have much time left.

Cecilia remained silent for a long time.

She knew this was their final option.

Cecilia's voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible. "The supplies. Take all of them with you."

Lin En hurriedly said, "No, you need to eat, too."

"I'll take three days' worth."

"Sister—"

"I'll take three days' worth." The Sister's voice was as hard as iron, leaving no room for negotiation. "One day's worth of supplies can let me last seven days at most. I'll definitely find reinforcements within twenty days. If I can't, I'll die on the road. I won't need food for the second day."

Lin En opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but swallowed it back down.

He saw Cecilia's eyes glimmering in the darkness.

He didn't know whether it was tears, and he didn't dare ask, because Battle Sisters weren't allowed to shed tears in battle.

Lin En opened his backpack and took out its contents to redistribute them.

Rations, protein bars, and water skins.

He secretly divided the supplies into two portions, pushing the larger one toward Cecilia and keeping the smaller one for himself.

But Cecilia didn't take those things.

She only reached into the pile of supplies and took out enough for an ordinary person to eat for three days.

Three pieces of hardtack, three protein bars, and two water skins.

She put them into a small cloth pouch that Lin En had previously taken from a cultist and tied it around her waist. Then she pushed everything else back toward Lin En. "All of these are yours."

"Sister, that won't do—"

Cecilia only said, "Take them. I'll definitely come back."

Lin En looked at the pile of supplies, then at the limp little pouch around Cecilia's waist. His nose stung slightly.

Cecilia was the first good person Lin En had met in this great cesspit called Warhammer.

Even if this world was rotten, there were still people who persisted. In the forty-first millennium, those people who continued to persevere were also the reason the Emperor still sat upon that throne.

He wasn't a fool. He knew who was good.

Cecilia had made him side completely with humanity and become sworn enemies with Chaos.

He stuffed the supplies back into his backpack one by one, shouldered it, tucked the steel pipe into his belt, adjusted his helmet, and took several deep breaths, lowering his heartbeat from one hundred and twenty to one hundred.

Cecilia clasped his hand together with the dagger. "Don't stop when you run. Don't look back. Wait for me."