Upgrading Barabas Dantioch's equipment was only a minor interlude. As Lox's personal guard, he would have fewer and fewer chances to participate in battle personally.
Lox preferred overwhelming firepower, blasting enemies to pieces from beyond visual range rather than sending Space Marines charging in with melee weapons to risk their lives.
In his view, what made these genetically enhanced warriors created by the Emperor stronger than ordinary humans was their capacity to learn and adapt. They could master new weapons and the rhythms of war more easily and quickly, but their combat abilities themselves were actually only average.
"Even Warp daemons can be hurt by firepower. The only difference is whether the firepower is strong enough."
"After all, when you're poor, you rely on tactical maneuvers; when you're rich, you saturate the battlefield with firepower. If weapons pouring endlessly off assembly lines can drown the enemy, why spend living human lives instead?"
Lox's inherent way of thinking differed considerably from that of the current Imperium. For a vast galactic civilization, human lives were truly the cheapest resource. Any hive world could yield billions, even tens of billions, of people.
But he was only one man. For now, the only people he could influence and change were those around him.
"Hill, how far away is our next target?"
What had happened on the T'au planet was regrettable. Lox had failed to find the Blackstone he had been seeking, and instead, a group of mysterious xenos had entered his sight.
Although those T'au xenos were not a bad gain, they were ultimately not what he wanted.
Fortunately, this was only the beginning. Among the several candidate planets reported by the exploration ships, aside from the T'au planet, several others were suspected to contain Blackstone veins.
Lox only hoped his luck would not