48 Cans of Confidence Shake

Endurance, Seventh Company solo training room.

Now.

Hades, wielding Warscythe, was rapidly dodging the Combat Servitor's attacks.

The giant, six-bladed Combat Servitor unleashed a storm of strikes, the roar of its chainswords deafening as it relentlessly bore down on Hades!

Hades swiftly parried the incoming chainswords with his scythe. The scythe's arc flashed like lightning, countless tiny sparks erupting where the blade met the chainswords, only to vanish instantly within the whirlwind of steel.

For a moment, man and machine were locked in a stalemate, the room filled with afterimages.

One moment, the Combat Servitor gained the upper hand, forcing Hades to retreat. The next, Hades anticipated the Combat Servitor's moves, unleashing a powerful scythe strike to regain control.

At that moment, the only sounds in the entire room were the tearing of the air and the clash of weapons.

Hades' pupils dilated, his mind clear of all distractions. Nothing existed in his mind except the six roaring chainswords before him.

The scene from the dueling cage a few days ago seemed to materialize before his eyes.

In slow motion, Hades saw the Combat Servitor's series of attacks!

That's it!

Hades subtly shifted his weight, taking a small step to the right as a swift blade of wind narrowly missed him.

A confident smile quietly bloomed on Hades' face—

At that moment, the previously rapid attack frequency of his opponent now seemed to unfold in slow motion before him.

Easy to dodge, full of openings!

Mimicking the veteran's flashy greatsword moves from the dueling cage, Hades sidestepped the next attack, switched the heavy scythe to his other hand, and spun it into a beautiful flourish!

Then, he leaned forward, disrupting the opponent's rhythm. His massive, modified body was now completely exposed to the opponent's attacks, but Hades was not afraid.

Because the next strike would be its death!

As if sensing Hades' thoughts, the six chainswords roared as they swung down, as if to embrace Hades—

The silent Warscythe cut through the din.

"Hiss—clunk!"

The roar of the chainswords faded weakly, the previously rapidly spinning chains gradually losing power and slowing to a stop.

The red light on top of the Combat Servitor flashed urgently, like a silent cry for help, but after a few seconds, the flashing frequency began to slow...

Finally, it went out.

Hades stood in the middle of the training cage, scythe blade drooping.

Opposite him, less than three steps away, the Combat Servitor stood still.

Then the top of the Combat Servitor shook a few times, "Bang!"

A cut that split the Combat Servitor at the waist completely bisected the behemoth!

Seeing that the Combat Servitor, which had been beating him up for over a week, was finally done for, Hades couldn't help but exhale a breath of relief.

Awesome!

From being completely unable to defend himself at the start, being chased all over the training cage, to being able to withstand a few moves, and then to completely seeing through the Combat Servitor's attack patterns, even being able to show off with a scythe flourish, Hades had spent a whole week!

He had been chased and beaten for four days of that!

Looking at the Combat Servitor's corpse lying on the ground, Hades felt that the hazing task that the veteran Blanca had deliberately set for him had been completed, and he could go find Blanca and start the next stage of training.

Hades casually shook the scythe, subconsciously wanting to shake off the blood and flesh stuck to it, but then he realized that he had been fighting a Combat Servitor, so there was no need to shake it off.

However... as Hades swung the scythe, a crack appeared on the weighted training scythe, like an ice surface about to break, with cracks spreading in layers.

What Hades didn't know was that a normal-strength training scythe couldn't cut through a Type 3 Combat Servitor at all. Just now, Hades had relied on his subconscious intuition to find the weak point on the Combat Servitor, and then used brute force and extreme speed to forcefully split it open.

The door to the solo training room was suddenly thrown open, and Blanca strode in, followed by a Tech-Sergeant with a multi-functional carrier pack on its back.

As they entered, the door shook violently, and the blade of the scythe in Hades' hand gloriously ended its life, shattering into pieces and falling to the ground.

"Clatter."

Ah... this.

Hades suddenly felt that he shouldn't have directly split open the machine that had been beating him up for a week.

The Tech-Sergeant saw the Combat Servitor cut in half in the training cage, and the red light on its helmet flashed rapidly.

It reached out and placed its hand on Blanca's shoulder in front of it.

Explain?

Hades saw Blanca freeze for the first time.

So... that's the situation.

Hades sat carefully and cautiously next to Blanca, the two large men appearing slightly cramped on a row of chairs below the training cage.

The Tech-Sergeant's helmet light flashed red frantically as it paced back and forth in front of them.

Rapid Low Gothic, unintelligible to Hades, spewed from the Tech-Sergeant's helmet.

At first, Blanca stubbornly argued with the Tech-Sergeant, but later only weak "uh-huh" sounds remained.

[You're assigning tasks to new recruits like this? Straight to a Mark III, and they wrecked it???]

[Blanca, I know you're stubborn, but assessing each recruit's combat ability shouldn't be difficult, right?]

[You're only leading two soldiers, and you can't even manage that???]

[I know you think new recruits can't handle a Mark III, and frankly, I think it's ridiculous too, but that's not an excuse for you to not check on the recruits' training progress for a week.]

[No way? No way? Blanca, you really haven't been following the recruits' progress?]

[The Legion's expanding, and equipment manufacturing is already busy enough. Now you're telling me I have to come down from the assembly line to fix a Combat Servitor for you?]

Blanca was devoid of his previous stubbornness. He originally wanted to retort a couple of times, but then he looked at the Combat Servitor lying on the ground, split in two.

Moreover, the Tech-Sergeant opposite him—Alberto—was a veteran who joined the company with Blanca. Because Alberto pursued the path of a Tech-Sergeant, his military rank advancement was delayed. Otherwise, Alberto would probably be about the same rank as Blanca now.

What's more, Alberto had twice pulled him out of piles of corpses during battlefield repair missions.

Yeah... he really didn't expect the new recruit to be so capable.

Blanca resentfully fired a Bolter round at the Hades-shaped little man in his mind.

Then he obediently sat up straight and listened to Alberto's scolding.

Just as Hades felt that dinner time was about to arrive, the training room door opened once again, saving Blanca and Hades.

Forge Master Enrique was striding in. Seeing his teacher arrive, Alberto immediately stopped complaining and stood at attention to salute.

[Sorry, sir, Alberto will return to his post immediately.]

Enrique glanced at the training cage and instantly knew what had happened.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, to be able to chop up a Mark III to this extent... the younger generation is to be feared.

Previously, Alberto was enraged by the sudden new repair task, and Blanca was busy dealing with Alberto. Both of them subconsciously downplayed how difficult Hades's actions were to achieve.

But Enrique thought, a Mark III being broken at this time was indeed a bit of a pity, but now...

Praise the Omnissiah!

Enrique looked at Hades, "Hades, you need to make appropriate compensation for your destructive behavior."

"But given your superior's negligence, this is not entirely your fault."

"Therefore, I have decided to give a lighter punishment. You will need to come to the Forge to help during free time on every even-numbered Terra day, for two months."

Hades looked at Enrique opposite him. Why did he feel like something was off?

Happy reading (σ′▽‵)′▽‵)σ