War Fortress

The first day of fighting soon passed. The Nordics left wreckage strewn across the ground and captured only about two kilometers of defensive positions.

Even that was because the Adeptus Custodes had opted for a flexible defense. Had they held their ground at all costs, Bona thought the enemy might not have taken even a single trench.

But the casualties were far too heavy.

The bodies of mortal soldiers had filled the open ground. Wreckage and scraps of tissue lay scattered everywhere, mixed with the mud like a mass of bloated earthworms.

Bona did not know whether they could hold out for the next two days. The artillery fire to the south had not stopped all night, and towering pillars of light occasionally illuminated half the sky.

Clang-

The Sisters of Silence beside him immediately raised their guns and rushed over. Bona stood up and saw...

A little girl stood there trembling, holding a filthy toy dog in her left hand and a metal fragment in her right.

Her legs would not stop shaking.

A mother nearby hurried over, even stumbling and falling to the ground.

"My lord-I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We were only passing through. We didn't mean to disturb you. Please forgive us," the mother said in a panic, still trembling before the dark gun barrels.

Bona walked over.

"Lower your guns."

The Sisters of Silence exchanged glances. Two sisters stepped forward and thoroughly searched them, then nodded.

"Thank you, thank you. I... we'll leave right away." The mother thanked him hastily, took the little girl's hand, and started to leave.

"Stop."

They stopped and looked at Bona in terror.

Bona looked at the little girl's mud-covered face, then at her skeletal mother. The woman's arms were scarcely thicker than dead branches.

Neither could suppress the fear in her eyes. After all, the rulers here had always been brutal warlords who treated their subjects little differently from tools.

Tools were worked to death while they were useful, then thrown away when they broke.

Bona shared his rations with them-just a few coarse starch cakes, but enough to hire a whole group of sturdy young men locally to risk their lives.

"Go on. Eat."

Bona gently stroked the little girl's head.

The little girl's face was blank with confusion, but her mother brought her down onto her knees with her.

Bona said nothing more. He simply turned and left, not knowing how to face them.

"We still have plenty of rations, don't we?"

The Sister of Silence beside him nodded.

Their losses on the first day had already reached forty percent. They certainly had no shortage of rations or ammunition now.

"Give some to the refugees."

Bona looked toward the town faintly visible in the distance, then walked back with heavy steps.

Through these past days, sheer willpower alone had kept Bona going.

Every extra hour they held here allowed more than ten thousand people to escape the battlefield.

The second day-

Bona watched the light gradually spilling toward them from the distance and rubbed his eyes.

His head felt groggy, too.

The gunfire and artillery had never stopped last night. The Nordics had launched night attacks almost continuously.

But the Astartes had driven them back. The enemy was fairly skilled at night fighting, and ordinary mortal troops of the Imperium alone might well have lost the positions, but they were nowhere near the Astartes' level.

Bona had watched the Astartes split into several squads. One deliberately opened fire to expose its position, while two others flanked the enemy, charged in, and began cutting them down.

Bona had not been idle, either. He had just adjusted ammunition allocations, halving the supplies of ammunition such as Heavy Bolter rounds for the ordinary mortal troops and assigning more to the Astartes and Thunder Warriors.

At that very instant, without warning, another fiercely blazing sun seemed to appear in the sky! Its dazzling radiance cleaved straight through the darkness like a sharp, enormous sword, lighting the entire land as brightly as day.

When that blinding white light shone down, it swept over them like a raging storm, leaving no time to react. In the blink of an eye, the brilliant flash erupted over their positions, its intense light surging outward like an overwhelming torrent.

Many mortals caught in that light had no chance to protect themselves. The sudden glare stabbed into their eyes, the pain like thousands upon thousands of fine needles piercing their eyeballs at once.

But they did not have long to suffer. A high-pressure blast wave instantly smeared them across the ground, reducing them to pools of blood.

Bona was far away, but he was still hurled out of his trench.

He rolled over a dozen times before stopping, his ears ringing in waves.

He struggled to his feet, and everything before him spun.

In the distance, an enormous silhouette slowly emerged against the sun.

It looked absurd, as though someone had fitted three enormous gun barrels onto a city, then attached six high-rise buildings as legs.

A city of steel advanced with slow steps. The heat radiating from its gigantic gun barrels distorted the light so badly that even the sun looked flattened.

A chill spread through Bona's entire body.

That thing was not a Reaper. It was a War Fortress!

The mortal soldiers broke. They threw down their weapons without a second thought, wailing as they scrambled out of their positions and fled.

It was not that they lacked courage. They were simply powerless before something of such overwhelming might.

Another flash blazed from a gun muzzle high among the clouds.

The last defensive line they had fought so desperately to hold ceased to exist in any physical sense.

Bona saw the Adeptus Custodes hurled through the air. They had already broken into a sprint after the first shot, trying to scatter.

The distinctive flashes of bolter fire still flickered here and there along the forward positions, but cyborgs surged in alongside masses of ordinary soldiers, spending their lives to overwhelm those noble warriors.

Bona sat helplessly on the ground, his head buzzing.

They had bought only a single day.

He had failed his father. He had failed the Imperium.

Suddenly, Bona saw the War Fortress raise its gun barrel.

Trembling all over, he looked toward the town behind them.

No, no, no, no, no.

He scrambled to his feet in a wretched state and sprinted toward the town.

"Get out! Run!" he shouted with all his strength.

But an enormous dark shape flew overhead and slammed into the town.

With a tremendous flash, the town vanished.

The massive shock wave once again hurled Bona off his feet. He tumbled like a pebble thrown by a giant, rolling like a piece of garbage.

Bona froze.

Something fell and struck him in the face.

Numbly, Bona picked it up and looked. It was a little stuffed dog, burned to black charcoal.

Heh.

Heh.

Hahaha.

Why did humans always love...

War so much?

Why did they love slaughtering their own kind?

Bona did not understand.

But...

If I killed them all...

Then surely no one would ever die again.

Yes.

Nearby, Malak came running over, shouting something Bona could not make out.

But Bona did not care.

He only wanted those people dead.

Malak watched in shock as Bona rose to his feet and walked toward the War Fortress like a zombie.

He tried to rush over, but an immense, oppressive force pinned him to the ground.

It's over.

Malak tried to find the Sisters of Silence around him, but they were nowhere to be seen. Now, more than anything, he hoped they were still alive.

"Bona! Calm down! Listen to me!-" Malak roared with all his strength.

But Bona walked blankly onward, as though his soul had left him.

He seemed to hear countless wronged souls wailing in his ears, while the extinguishing of innumerable lives played out before his eyes, scene after scene.

The memories of every soul, beginning in childhood, unfolded before Bona one by one. He felt the joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness in each scene, over and over.

Whether innocent civilians or valiant soldiers, the despair, resentment, and anger those departed souls had felt before death battered Bona's heart mercilessly like raging rivers.

Their shared cry echoed between heaven and earth, resounding through the clouds.

Revenge!

Revenge-

Revenge!-

To the south-

The Emperor suddenly stopped what he was doing.

Before everyone's astonished eyes, a streak of golden lightning flashed past and shot northward.

Far away in the rear, Malcador closed his book and quietly gazed into the distance.

"Is this fate?"

He tried to write something down, but in the end, he set his pen aside.