Company Captain Naruf returned to the Waning Moon Fortress.
His once black-and-white Luna Wolves power armor was now covered in blood and soot, and a terrifying slash had nearly torn through his right pauldron.
Passing the dining hall, Naruf saw a group of wounded Luna Wolves... stuffing their faces.
These Luna Wolves were missing hands and feet and bore enormous wounds. They were wolfing down every kind of food, even crunching up iron plates as snacks.
The XVI Legion's gene-seed was produced through mass cloning rather than passed down as it was in normal Space Marine Chapters. This also left them severely lacking in combat experience, leading to frequent setbacks in battle.
Fortunately, thanks to a kidney implant called the "Tree of Tranquility," their activated stem cells displayed formidable regenerative abilities.
As long as a warrior of the XVI Legion had not been killed outright, hauling him back was generally enough to keep him alive. Within a few months, he could regrow damaged sections of his torso and missing limbs, then bounce around as though nothing had happened.
The only problem was perhaps that regrowing severed hands and feet left the Astartes ravenously hungry and thirsty-the kind of hungry that would make them take a bite out of a Tyranid before anything else when they met one.
But that had nothing to do with Naruf.
Naruf walked straight into the command room and saw his Gene-Father.
"Father."
"Use my rank during operations."
"Yes, Legion Commander."
"Sector C has fallen?"
"I'm sorry."
"It's all right."
Horus studied the situation on the tactical display. The operations staff had already marked Sector C in red.
The Imperial Army's attacks had gone quite smoothly lately.
They had broken through the defenses through the fearless sacrifices of the Death Korps of Krieg, to the point