[Brains? What brains? Five-eyed Blue Bird, don't get in the way of my FUCKING CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP!!!]
The end of the 41st millennium.
Segmentum Obscurus, a certain Hive City.
Heavy clouds covered the entire continent. Pale blue ice crystals drifted down beside the towering Hive City that pierced the distant sea of clouds, falling into endless trenches.
Before they could melt on landing, a pair of military boots came down with a crisp crunch, grinding them to powder.
Sith wore the uniform of a Planetary Defence Force regimental commander. Beneath his peaked cap, his young face tilted up slightly as he watched the thick flurry of ice crystals overhead.
He reached out to catch some. The crystals melted, but even through his gloves, their biting chill penetrated his skin and stabbed into his marrow.
He drew a sharp breath at the pain, only for the air to scrape across his throat like ice blades, making him frown.
Feeling that unmistakable pain, Sith abruptly clenched his right hand, crushing the ice crystals in his palm.
"Yel..."
"His Majesty the Emperor really brought me here..."
Beneath his peaked cap, Sith's face held nothing but utterly speechless frustration. He wanted to "honor" the Emperor with the name "Yellow Weasel" in his mind, but once it reached his lips, he didn't dare say it.
After all, he had only ever joined in shouting about loyalty online. He had never thought of actually going!
Well, now he had woken up to find himself in the glorious, great, radiant Imperium of Man.
And he had become a lowly regimental commander in the Planetary Defence Force of this Hive World, able to faithfully serve His Majesty the Emperor.
But as he looked at the Astra Militarum Commissar waiting nearby to oversee the fighting, the frustration on Sith's face turned into a helplessness worse than death.
The Commissar's cold eyes fixed on Sith. Enduring the knife-like scraping, Sith took one final deep breath, then gritted his teeth and walked along the trench, already frozen solid, toward the Commissar.
"Sith, commander of the 101st Regiment, reporting!"
His hard-soled boots struck the solid ice with a crack as Sith stood straight and saluted.
The Commissar's cold gaze did not change in the slightest. He looked Sith up and down several times, confirming that the young man before him showed no sign of insufficient loyalty, before raising his hand to return the salute.
"I am here to remind you that you and your regiment are to attack the rebels' positions in half an hour. This is not a request. It is an order!"
Sith glanced toward the distant enemy positions. Despite having prepared himself, he still couldn't stop the corner of his eye from twitching.
The permanent fortifications, built with vast quantities of plasteel, were densely packed with firing points.
Before those positions lay endless corpses, already covering the entire ground, leaving nowhere even to set foot.
The dead in just the corner Sith could see out of the corner of his eye already far outnumbered his entire regiment.
Sith felt bitter, but he dared show none of it. After all, in the eyes of the Astra Militarum, local Planetary Defence Force troops like them did not even qualify as cannon fodder. Calling them expendable supplies would be flattering.
In some defensive battles, for instance, the fighting was clearly carried out by local troops together with other Imperial forces. Yet after victory, the Planetary Defence Force, which had suffered the heaviest casualties, did not even deserve a mention.
And while they did not deserve mention in victory, they would be made scapegoats in defeat.
For another example, when battlefield communications could not be maintained for various reasons, the Planetary Defence Force responsible for communications would become the ultimate cause of every problem. A mass hanging would then provide an answer to those at the top.
Against the higher-ranking Astra Militarum, Sith simply had no way to raise any objection, nor was he permitted to raise one.
Seeing that Sith had "no" problems, the Commissar finally nodded with some satisfaction.
"Get your men ready. In half an hour, I want to see you charging out of the trenches."
Sith came back to himself, his gaze unconsciously turning toward his soldiers again.
A group of terrified people huddled in the trench. Never mind a suit of plasteel armor-their uniforms were frighteningly thin, let alone capable of keeping out the bitter cold!
With the charge imminent, the entire regiment did not even have a single campfire for warmth. The soldiers could only huddle together, trembling all over as they breathed onto their pale hands.
The Commissar was about to leave. Seeing this, Sith hastily reached out to stop him.
The Commissar stopped and looked at Sith with a displeased frown. The coldness that had faded slightly from his eyes returned.
Sith was inwardly speechless. He had no idea where he had found the courage.
But since he had already reached out, he could only hurriedly stand straight and salute.
"Sir, I would like to request some promethium fuel for the soldiers, to keep them warm before battle!"
The words stunned not only the Commissar. The nearby soldiers also turned toward Sith in astonishment.
The Commissar scrutinized Sith carefully. Only after confirming that this truly was all Sith intended, rather than delaying the attack, did his brow relax again.
But then his eyes remained cold.
"The Imperium's supplies are precious. They cannot be wasted on anything unnecessary."
Having answered, the Commissar paid no further attention to Sith or the nearby soldiers, walking straight past the crowd and away.
Sith helplessly withdrew his hand and looked back at the soldiers watching him. Though astonishment still filled their faces, there was now at least a little goodwill in their eyes.
He really had no energy to keep playing the commander who loved his soldiers like his own children. Hearing the first bugle call sound from farther down the trench, marking that five minutes had passed, Sith hurriedly wrapped his reasonably warm military greatcoat tightly around himself and found a crowded spot to lie down.
"Twenty-five minutes left. Every second I can enjoy counts."
Sith lay flat, ready to give up trying, but no sooner had he lain down than a line of text suddenly appeared before his eyes.
"Hundredfold Amplification? Anything I personally take part in will receive a hundredfold positive feedback?"
Sith murmured instinctively. After digesting this information, he was stunned for only a moment before immediately reciting several names in his mind.
Yellow Weasel? Khorne Number Two? Blue Bird?...
After going through the names, Sith hurriedly shut his eyes, waiting for any possible slap across the face. But everything remained quiet for a long while. Only then did Sith slowly open his eyes, confirming that this was not some big shot's joke.
His eyes, which had already given up, lit up again. Sith read it once more.
"Everything, a hundredfold?"
After a moment's thought, Sith reached out and gripped a piece of solid ice that would only show a white mark even if struck with an entrenching shovel.
He applied a little force, and the solid ice split apart!
Sith's breathing instantly grew heavier. After a brief pause, he unloaded and reloaded his sidearm, holding it in his hand.
He moved so fast that even the soldiers beside him did not react at all.
The soldiers merely wondered when their regimental commander had taken his gun in hand.
Feeling the looks of the soldiers around him, each thinking the cold had muddled his own senses, Sith slowly put away his sidearm.
"Strength, reflexes, speed-all multiplied a hundredfold. But I keep feeling this hundredfold effect shouldn't be that simple..."
Sith pondered, his eyes continually scanning his surroundings. After thinking it over, his gaze suddenly fell on the numb soldiers beside him.
"As long as I take part, there's a hundredfold positive feedback..."
"Then what if I lead them in training?"
Sith's eyes abruptly brightened, but along with training, another, even bolder idea arose.
"If training can be amplified a hundredfold, then if I lead them through one battle, does that mean every one of them will be..."
"A veteran of a hundred battles?!"