All the new recruits immediately began the armouring ritual, and right now protocol was out the window; facing the Night Lords without power armour was a death sentence.
Everyone put on their jump packs; these ancient packs were in short supply, stripped mainly from the corpses of Green Templar assault warriors, numbering only 56, which was barely enough for now.
The recruits put on the power armour, and everyone was thrilled. Although quite a few among them still felt they were unworthy of this honour, most still displayed a profound sense of glory.
Yet in Evan's view, staying alive right now was what mattered most, and heaven only knew how many enemies were on the other side.
Six serving Astartes, each leading eight new recruits, patrolled throughout the entire hive city.
The White Scars naturally countered the two Assassin Legions. At the very onset of the Horus Heresy, Jaghatai Khan, who had pacified the Orks at the galaxy's edge, led the White Scars back to Terra, engaging in fierce battles with the Alpha Legion en route and scoring countless victories. (The loyalists also had the Raven Guard, which was also a semi-assassin type legion.)
After the death of their primarch, the Night Lords split into various warbands, and when they massacred various remote loyalist worlds, the reinforcements of the White Scars inflicted heavy losses upon them.
This also cemented the situation of irreconcilable enmity between these chapters and the White Scars.
Evan strongly suspected that as he sat on the rooftop right now wearing White Scars armour, a squad of Night Lords would come to assassinate him tonight.
This was an extremely perilous operation, with the six squads being under mandatory orders for two squads to operate together. Many of the ten-thousand-year veterans among the Night Lords possessed dozens or even a hundred Astartes kills under their belts, and a single squad would find it a struggle to take down two Night Lords-let alone three, which meant getting slaughtered.
The sky gradually darkened, and all the residents of Scaria obediently stayed indoors, closed their windows, locked their doors, and prayed to the statues or portraits of the Emperor enshrined in their homes.
Aristocratic families were even worse off. Many nobles hid inside their private underground defense bunkers, with the strongest bio-engineered bodyguards guarding the sole passageway. Every place was brightly lit with lights turned up to the maximum, and household staff and bodyguards patrolled round-the-clock.
Squads of heavily armed warriors patrolled the streets.
Yesterday, an incident had already occurred where an entire patrolling guard squad went missing.
Everyone dared not lower their guard, and the warriors patrolling outside were in groups of as many as 30, calling out numbers at every short interval.
Today was different: three fully armed squads of red-armoured Astartes patrolled the streets.
The crimson paint made it hard for them to hide in the dark, let alone when the upper hive was almost devoid of darkness.
Occasionally, citizens peering out of windows spotted the Crimson Tide Chapter, and everyone knelt down towards them with eyes brimming with tears of gratitude. The great Emperor had sent their angels to protect us! Originally, there had been scattered prayers and words of blessing, but as more and more places were walked by the Astartes, the crowds chanting the blessings grew ever larger.
In the end, when Evan and his company completed their first patrol at dusk, almost the entire city was chanting the holy benedictions.
Even people living in the mid hive could hear the great hymns echoing from above.
Night finally descended, yet the brightly lit upper hive slept with unexpected peace, knowing that the omnipotent Astartes would protect them.
Evan led a troop and slowly advanced into the mid hive. The two squad leaders were Kazhaniv and Xiao Lan, who had been discussing tactics with the entire squad right up until Evan's arrival.
William led another following squad that would remain at the passageway between the upper hive and mid hive, standing by for reinforcements at any moment.
The Night Lords were a legion that particularly loved to wreak havoc behind enemy lines to cause severe panic, and their formidable reputation during the Great Crusade was enough to cause a stubbornly resisting planet to surrender just to avoid summoning the Night Lords.
So what was the best way to terrorize the enemy right now?
First, strike down the important personnel they were protecting under the heavy guard of the Crimson Tide Chapter, and then arrogantly hang them in a conspicuous place. People would think these Astartes could not protect them and thus lose trust in the Astartes, triggering an unprecedented crisis.
Yet right now the Astartes were not specially guarding any particular target, making it hard to pick a prey with sufficient influence.
Second, kill one or a squad of Astartes, hanging the corpses of these angels of the Emperor in the most conspicuous place, just like the patrol guards that had just been killed. That would unleash an unparalleled wave of panic.
What choice would the Night Lords make now? Attacking Astartes in a brightly lit place was no simple matter, and they were probably agonizing over it themselves.
So Evan would make the choice for them, directly entering the dimly lit mid hive.
If they did not make a move, Evan would even enter the underhive, or dig ever deeper down to the lowest stratum—a special sector of the underhive referred to by some as the deep underhive.
Today was the first day the Crimson Tide Chapter had appeared on Scaria, so aren't you going to strike? Cowards.
The warriors in crimson armour marched in neat paces into a dim neighbourhood.
In the silent, pitch-black night, dark-blue bats swept past continually. They did not make the slightest sound; only Evan and the five other sons of the White Scars felt that something was amiss.
"Everyone maintain your current actions. The enemy is all around us, and I will no longer issue commands from this point on."
As soon as Evan finished speaking, he removed his helmet.
With them out of the warp, leaving his skin exposed allowed Evan to better sense the enemy through air currents and faint scents in the air. The genetically modified eyes of an Astartes possessed night vision, but facing the Night Lords, this laughable advantage was no different from having none.
Tactical visors were meaningless in front of the Night Lords. The light modes commonly used for night-vision visors revealed only the purest darkness when directed at those specially modified suits of armour.
Everyone continued moving forward, all of them in a state of extreme vigilance.
The streetlamp ahead was broken. After passing it, they would only see light upon reaching the third streetlamp.
The moment Evan stepped into the darkest zone, he heard a slight shift in the airflow to his left.
"In the air! Fire!" Evan roared. A Night Lord above had already used his silent air pack to reach an ambush position. From the perspective of the Astartes in the middle of the formation, that spot was merely a broken streetlamp; even if Astartes from other positions looked that way, the armour paint blending into the night would lead the warriors into doubting whether they were just seeing things.
The Astartes raised their bolters and switched on the high-intensity flashlights gun-mounted specially for this battle. (This really wasn't referring to a lasgun, but simply a flashlight-the super bright kind.)
A Night Lord clad in dark blue power armour swooped down from the sky. His armour and helmet were covered in barbs emitting an eerie, chilling gleam, and his armor bore numerous bullet holes and cracks, though these were concealed as decorations by strange skulls and the bones of some unknown beasts.
The power sword radiated a ink-black glow, and it was unclear whether a chaos daemon resided within it.
The once-loyal insignia on the armour were replaced by desecrated patterns, though in terms of appearance, his degree of corruption by chaos was not severe.
Instead of spraying the sky with gunfire like the other warriors, Evan slashed toward the left with his sword.
The pale-green radiance illuminated an otherworldly, sickly pale face opposite him.
A dark blue lightning claw blocked the blow, and the two separated the instant they touched.
The Night Lord in the air used the emergency thrusters of his jump pack to escape into an old building on the edge. The spherical thruster nozzles spewed dark ionic streams, making it hard to see clearly even in the pitch-dark conditions.
While everyone was firing into the air, an enemy emerging from the right successfully ambushed an Astartes on the very edge, leaving deep gasaches on this unlucky recruit with a lightning claw.
The enemy did not press the attack. In a situation of being outnumbered, a single slip-up would get one blasted into slag by a bolter.
"Hello there, Bethman," Evan greeted the opponent with a smile.
Clearly, the opponent did not understand what this meant, and of course had no intention of responding. Before capturing their prey, a Night Lord would not waste words.
Evan merely lunged forward three steps. Several shuriken flew out from the right, heading straight for Evan's head, yet Evan shifted his body slightly, letting the 5 shuriken skim off his right shoulder guard and chest plate.
He pressed his fierce attack against the enemy on the left. The formidable strength of a Primaris Space Marine was difficult for even a ten-thousand-year veteran to parry. If they had obtained the blessings of Khorne or Nurgle, Evan would have had to give a wide berth, but the Night Lords trusting no one meant the power given by any dark god was minimal.
What's there to be afraid of? Chase and chop.
The violent onslaught overwhelmed the enemy before him. He was no World Eater; once he lost the element of surprise, his advantage was minimal.
This Night Lord activated his jump pack to leap towards the old building on the edge, and Evan activated his jump pack to follow closely behind, moving even faster than they did.
The jump packs they wore were anything but silent, and traditional jump packs had stronger thrust than the enemy's.
Evan had his helmet hanging at his right waist, and his standard-issue relic ion pistol at his left waist.
While in mid-air, he drew the ion pistol.
The two crashed into the building one after the other, causing the entire structure to sway with the impact.
The moment Evan entered the building, he fired an overcharged ion pistol shot, the close-range blast blowing an ambushing Night Lord into smithereens.
It wasn't that Evan had wallhacks enabled; it was simply that whether anyone was there or not, Evan was going to fire a shot to his left, meaning he would then only need to deal with the enemy on his right, while the chainsword held in his right hand could capably handle opponents.
Ahead was the enemy who had been fighting Evan all along. Evidently, he had not expected Evan to fire that shot so decisively, and a look of surprise appeared on his pale face.
The enemy hiding above and to the right of Evan swung a black power sword down at him.
The distance was too close, and Evan made no redundant moves, meeting the assault with the chainsword in his right hand.
Now Evan fired his left hand to the left and swung his sword with his right hand to the right.
In short, his center was wide open.
The enemy in front of Evan stooped to grab a pre-prepared bolter, intending to aim and fire at Evan's helmetless head.
Strictly speaking, this was the most dangerous deadlock Evan had ever fallen into.
Unfortunately, this wasn't a one-versus-three, but a nineteen-versus-three.
Berserker Kazhaniv performed an extremely dangerous overcharged jump-pack leap-a common assault-warrior tactic for instantly jumping right into the midst of the enemy's protected targets, the cost being that the pack could never be used again until the overcharge cooled down.
Generally speaking, such a leap was enough to jump from here to a block away, but right now Kazhaniv flew straight in through the hole Evan had smashed open.
Without landing at all, he slammed directly at high flight speed into the Night Lord veteran right in front of Evan.
The enemy was bending down to pick up the bolter, and as he looked up, he saw a glowing red metallic object slam into him.
Both were sent reeling.
Kazhaniv's condition was much better than his opponent's. He had taken the brunt of the impact with his left shoulder guard, crashing hard into the enemy's front plate. Just as the enemy tried to raise his lightning claw to attack Kazhaniv's waist and abdomen, the power sword in Kazhaniv's right hand drove into the enemy's chest cavity like cutting through tofu, smashing both of his hearts to pieces.
Evan's situation on this side was not looking optimistic. His opponent was a rare melee specialist, wielding a power sword in his right hand and a power fist in his left. Every time their blades crossed, Evan had to be extremely cautious of the opponent's left hand; taking a hit from that power fist would inflict heavy damage even while wearing Terminator armour.
Seeing that Kazhaniv had finished off his opponent and was charging towards him, the enemy decided not to press his luck, faking a strike to draw a parry before smashing through a wall with a single punch and flying away.
The battle situation below was even more perilous. Led by an enemy warrior clad in Terminator armour, six Night Lords launched an assault against the 17 Astartes. They were hunters, and they wanted living prey rather than corpses with their heads blown off by bolters.
The Terminator armour shrugged off the bolter fire as it charged into the crowd, immediately cutting down a recruit.
Rage surged within Evan, and he used his jump pack in kind, executing an overcharged jump-pack slam.
This was unlike Kazhaniv's; the armour Evan wore was Terminator plate.
The Night Lord leader hacked off the left arm of a newly arrived attacking recruit with a single sword stroke, only to hear the terrifying sound of a sonic boom approaching from beside him.
As expected of a ten-thousand-year veteran, even if he was merely an ordinary Astartes, he reacted swiftly, urgently activating his jump pack to leap away.
Evan crashed heavily onto the ground like a beast, the surroundings filled with flying metal and shattered panels.
It wasn't over yet; Evan launched a rapid charge, heading straight for the leader.
The specialized jump packs of the Night Lords could not linger in the air for long either; they always had to land.
A berserk Evan knocked over all obstacles in front of him, smashing straight through three consecutive walls. The enemy's predicted landing points shifted constantly, yet he failed to shake off this mad beast.
The Night Lord Terminator finally landed, the heavy armour suffering a brutal blow.
Fun fact: Evan routinely practiced Taiji Swordsmanship, but that did not mean he only knew Taiji Swordsmanship. The sword training for Green Templar recruits was the most rigorous of all Space Marine Chapters; for no other reason than that Primarch Jaghatai Khan possessed the best swordplay of all the primarchs.
Evan unleashed a violent sword technique for the first time, interspersed with Taiji swordsmanship executed with hard strength.
"I bring no shame to the name of my father!"
Evan's battle cry could be heard even in the neighbouring street.
The unique muscle coils of the Primaris Space Marines played a huge role at this moment, enabling Evan to execute movements akin to those only a primarch could make.
The storm-like attacks were parried by the opponent using a lightning claw and power sword, but it was clear that this claw was not a relic like the pale-green chainsword in Evan's hand, having already been notched with numerous chips.
The enemy was also enraged. Millennia of campaigning experience allowed him to regain his composure, and he discovered that this enemy's swordplay was not refined, yet the formidable strength left his hands tingling numbly.
He attempted to use his own exquisite swordplay to counterattack, but the madman opposite him habitually shoved his shoulder guard into the path of his attack, driving the chainsword in his hand straight towards his own vital points-exchanging injury for death.
This blood-red armour... wouldn't this cause the Blood Angels to fall to the Red Thirst? Wait, no, do the Blood Angels recruit East Asians?
On the other side, the six Night Lords who had lost their Terminator leader fell into a bitter struggle.
They were also puzzled in their hearts. Nobody knew whose spawn these people were; once soldiers wearing that armour were slashed, even if it meant sacrificing an arm, they would grab the enemy with a death grip while the following warriors chopped the foe into minced meat.
After witnessing with their own eyes five warband brothers being hacked into mincemeat, the final Night Lord continuously activated his jump pack and fled into the distance.
Even World Eaters merely traded blows with you fearlessly without minding pain; why is your bunch so perverted, stepping up to trade your lives just to earn your teammates combat merits?
The Night Lord fled swiftly into the night, vanishing from sight after a few leaps. Under Xiao Lan's orders, the pursuing warriors halted after a symbolic pursuit of a few paces.
Kazhaniv, his left arm somewhat dislocated, led several recruits as he sought to reinforce Chapter Master Evan.
At this moment, Chapter Master Evan and the enemy were locked in a fierce grapple. The enemy tried to flee several times, but Evan clung to him like pitch, surrounded by the screams of terrified residents.
The veteran wanted to activate his pack to fly away once more, but completely ignoring the shuriken launched at him by the enemy to cover his escape, Evan brought him down with a jumping slash.
Despite his chest being studded with shuriken and fresh claw marks continuously accumulating, Evan's onslaught did not weaken in the slightest.
Painkillers and sedatives built into the Terminator armour were continuously injected into Evan's body. Evan knew very well in his heart that to end this stalemate, there was only one opportunity now.
The enemy was being driven frantic. Looking at Evan's scar-ridden front plate, he calculated the probability of Evan's front plate being shattered by a sword strike from himself.
After a dozen-odd rounds, he discovered that no matter how well he utilized the Night Lord's stealth and ambush skills, the opponent's acute perception always dragged him into a head-to-head melee, and his only advantage was his millenia of campaigning experience.
The two separated once more. Evan was panting heavily yet remained brimming with fighting spirit, while the opponent's shuriken were depleted and his weapon condition was far from optimistic.
Blood streamed down from Evan's brow; just a moment ago, a fraction closer and his head would have been split open by the enemy's lightning claw.
Both glared intently at the other. Suddenly, Evan took off the helmet at his waist, intending to put it on.
Huh? The veteran opposite was dumbfounded. What are you doing? Are you looking down on me?
The ink-black power sword swung into motion. Evan swiftly parried with the chainsword, then crouched, tilted his head, and put the helmet on at the cost of a few extra claw marks scored across his shoulder guard.
Humiliation. Naked humiliation. You're tidying your uniform in front of me? And the crucial part is that you actually succeeded.
Evan's helmet still had its external speakers cranked up, and now Evan spoke.
"How's that, little bat? Have you had your fill? If it's not enough, come take two more swings."
Both heard footsteps approaching in the distance. The Night Lord Terminator realized he could no longer wait, and this time he took the initiative to launch a preemptive strike.
Evan did not use Taiji Swordsmanship to skirmish with him as before, then wait for reinforcement from his teammates.
Did others not know what his warriors were like? Evan knew clearly in his heart. If they came up, they would only cause trouble.
In terms of strength, the enemy was inferior to Evan because Evan held his sword two-handed, whereas the enemy's advantage lay in being able to parry with one weapon and counterattack with the other.
Yet things backfired: one weapon could not fully block Evan wielding his sword two-handed, and the other weapon could not rapidly slay Evan clad in Terminator armour, keeping the two locked in a constant stalemate.
"We have come for thee." Battling to this point, the Night Lord Terminator warrior finally shouted his first battle cry.
The ink-black power sword slashed diagonally down from the upper left, and Evan, wielding his sword two-handed, drove the enemy's power sword straight down, pinning it firmly against the ground.
The crackling power fist executed a heart-plucking motion. Making full use of the rounded outer armour, Evan crouched slightly, letting the power fist carve a deep gouge across his armour.
"Two times-at most two more scrapes, and I can completely shatter his shoulder guard." The Night Lord constantly gauged the enemy's condition amid the combat.
Yet Evan's onslaught did not halt. The pale-green chainsword pinning the opponent's blade swept backward in a gorgeous arc, slicing straight towards the opponent's head.
Even a ten-thousand-year veteran had not anticipated this move, hastily leaning backward before executing a roll to re-establish distance.
Evan refused to let up while ahead, launching another horizontal slash towards the opponent's shoulder. The opponent rapidly dodged, his lightning claw unfolding for a swift counter. Without stopping, Evan spun his entire body, the "sizzling" sound of the armour meeting the lightning claw continuously echoing out.
Crouch, then a spinning slash.
Even Mistanbol would have to pole-vault for me under this move.
The veteran skillfully jammed his power sword by his own foot, executing a side somersault along with Evan's horizontal slash. The meeting of the two swords produced a teeth-grating shriek.
"Three." The Night Lord heard Evan muttering strange words while in mid-air. Three? What did that mean.
Just as the enemy's foot touched the ground..."Two." The Night Lord Terminator warrior felt something was amiss; the subtle thermal heat ahead made his heart flutter with dread.
When his two feet finally touched the ground and he rapidly turned his head to look at Evan..."One."
Pale-green arcs of electricity flooded his entire field of vision, the potent electrical current carrying arcane psychic energy that effortlessly tore apart his scar-ridden armour, followed by his flesh.
The crackling electricity scorched his skin, melted his muscles, shattered his bones, and evaporated his blood.
Amidst the leaping ionic streams, he seemed to catch sight of his primarch's cold and eerie smile-that smile belonging to the victor and the hunter, the smile that embodied the justice within his own heart.
Ah, the rebellion had lasted ten thousand years, and what he saw before dying turned out to be the smile of the primarch "bringing victory to the Emperor" during the Great Crusade.
The overcharged ion blast swallowed the enemy while also scorching Evan intensely.
With the two separated by no more than two and a half body-lengths, even exploding right against the enemy's chest, the powerful ionic stream blew Evan completely flying, smashing through consecutive walls with his life or death unknown.
Before you continue