In a corner of the Upper Hive.
Densely packed rebels watched their surroundings, their nerves taut.
Especially the passages leading to the tower's summit-the rebels checked them almost every few seconds, gripped by immense fear.
The rebels who had once crowded the place, full of curiosity about all the Upper Hive's "novelties," now huddled behind defensive lines and buildings, not daring to expose even a sliver of their bodies.
An immense dread now hung over the heads of the very rebels who specialized in bringing terror to others.
At the very heart of this rebel force.
Inside a fortress buried deep underground, Dujiao sat in a chair, the conspicuous horn still atop his head and his face full of frustration.
Dujiao was the horned man who had brought Sith the infantry fighting vehicle earlier.
For a room belonging to cultist rebels, Dujiao's quarters were exceptionally bright, positively blazing with lights.
Had the room not been filled with bizarre-looking rebel soldiers, and had Dujiao's appearance borne any relation whatsoever to "light," an unsuspecting visitor might have thought they had entered some hall of light.
He swept his gaze over every illuminated corner again. Once he was certain he remained safe within this room, at least, some of the terror between his brows faded.
He reached out to pour himself a glass of Promethium liquor, but just as he picked up the bottle, the door ahead burst open.
Bang!
The rebel behind the door and those around him looked at Dujiao in confusion as the bottle full of liquor fell to the floor, its contents spilling everywhere.
Watching the liquor go to waste, the rebels looked regretful, their Adam's apples bobbing in unison.
Only after Dujiao looked toward the doorway and confirmed that the newcomer was merely one of his own rebels did his expression improve a little.
But before the rebel could speak, the frustration between Dujiao's brows began to deepen.
"What is it this time?"
Dujiao sounded utterly listless. As he looked at the rebel in the doorway, the bitterness inside him felt as though he were holding an entire lump of Promethium in his mouth.
There was nothing he could do. He had finally managed to "send off" Sith and his band of terrors to the tower's summit, complete with "gongs and drums."
He had thought he could finally sleep peacefully, but before long, those terrors had actually come down again of their own accord.
And Dujiao really could not say he liked the way they came down.
The rebel's words from the doorway confirmed as much.
"About three thousand of them attacked our supply point. The supplies that just arrived have been stolen again."
The corner of Dujiao's eye twitched violently. He froze for a moment before speaking through gritted teeth:
"Didn't I tell you to strengthen the supply point's defenses? How did it get robbed again?"
Dujiao felt his heart pounding. Instinctively, he reached for his glass, only to discover that his bottle had already fallen to the floor and drained dry.
His cheek twitched. Suppressing his fury, he withdrew his hand, while the rebel at the door lowered his head slightly in fear at his reaction.
"We did. We stationed over ten thousand men there, but..."
The rebel did not dare continue, but even without him saying it, Dujiao knew what had happened next.
And at the thought of three thousand men breaking through more than ten thousand of his own, with the smaller force being the attackers, a profound helplessness lay beneath Dujiao's gritted teeth.
His body trembling from the violent surge of emotion, Dujiao shakily sank back into his chair. Reluctant as he was, he still forced himself to ask the question he had asked countless times before:
"What about the observers? Did they spot any familiar faces?"
The rebel at the door shook his head stiffly. Seeing that it was yet another group of recruits they had never seen before, Dujiao lost every last ounce of strength and slumped in despair.
"A Chaos God... there's definitely a Chaos God on the other side!"
Dujiao slumped with his head bowed, his face full of the terror of encountering something uncanny.
Fine, you have one or two thousand absolute monsters. I'll even accept those one or two thousand monsters cutting through hundreds of thousands, even a million of my rebels.
But you can't tell me these monsters are fucking mass-produced!!!
When Sith came down from the tower's summit to seize rebel supplies and farm kills along the way, Dujiao had not caught on at first.
He had merely thought that these monsters lacked food and drink and were unwilling to learn to eat people like the rebels, so it was only natural for them to come down and ask him for supplies.
But after several battles, despite his forces clearly having brought down at least some of them, their numbers had actually risen rather than fallen. Only then did Dujiao realize something was wrong.
He then assigned a group of rebels with good memories specifically to observe them. After several more visits, Dujiao received a terrifying piece of news.
Those monsters on the other side seemed to be different people every time!
And even now, Dujiao remained unwilling to believe what that implied.
As a mid-ranking rebel leader in this Hive City, he naturally knew there were no Imperial Army troops at the tower's summit.
If they had not feared the Imperium's air superiority, they would have occupied the summit long ago.
So these new monsters certainly had not been hiding at the summit before appearing after Sith went up there.
And at the thought that this meant Sith had churned out so many monsters in such a short time, Dujiao could find only one explanation, no matter how much he pondered it: a Chaos God had personally descended.
Once he was certain that what he faced was not some small, roaming Imperial Army force, but an actual Chaos God, Dujiao instantly felt the nonexistent lump of Promethium in his mouth grow even more bitter...
"Boss, should we keep reinforcing the supply point?"
When Dujiao remained silent for a long while, the rebel at the door ventured the question cautiously. Yet despite his quiet voice, Dujiao abruptly straightened.
"Reinforce? Reinforce what?"
"They just want some supplies, and you're sending people to refuse them?"
"Do you have any manners at all?"
A hint of madness crept onto Dujiao's face. Having witnessed Sith's various outrageous feats, he was now convinced that he was facing a Chaos God descended into the mortal world.
And at the thought that he had repeatedly refused a Chaos God's requests for "offerings," Dujiao felt a chill run down his back.
The more he thought, the more frightened he became. He abruptly sprang from his chair:
"Pass the order down. Remove every firing position. If the one above... er, that honored lord above comes again, no one is to resist!"
After all, supplies were constantly being produced in the middle and lower hives. Supporting those few people at the summit would not amount to even a drop in the bucket.
The rebels exchanged looks, but then their eyes filled with immense relief, and they hurriedly nodded.
The rebel at the door, even more afraid that Dujiao might change his mind, turned and left immediately to put the order into effect.
After all, Dujiao was afraid, but the rebels Sith used to farm experience were even more afraid!
But barely had the rebel left, before Dujiao's seat had even warmed beneath him, he came running back in terror.
Then he pointed toward the tower's summit and stammered:
"All... all... everyone..."
Dujiao flared up and glared at him:
"What do you mean, 'all'? What do you mean, 'everyone'?"
The rebel jumped in fright and hurriedly took a deep breath, his face filled with terror:
"The people at the summit have all come down! Every last one of them!"
The air instantly froze. Even the overhead lights happened to flicker at that moment.
Dujiao's face turned deathly pale, his eyes filled with nothing but the terror of approaching death.
But the clash and gunfire he had imagined never came. After a long wait brought nothing but silence, Dujiao's eyes widened in confusion instead.
Without questioning the rebel at the door, Dujiao strode out himself. As he took in the distant scene, his eyes slowly widened.
Through several broad passages, densely packed black-clad soldiers marched into the Upper Hive in orderly ranks, their footsteps filling the air.
Yet these black-clad soldiers did not attack immediately. Instead, they formed up on the ground, waiting to assemble.
"Are they... going to attack?"
Dujiao murmured, then carefully examined the deployment and orientation of Sith's legionaries. His gaze suddenly shifted toward the passages leading out of the Upper Hive.
"No, they're breaking out!"
The tower's summit had no supplies, much less factories or population, and it was not a safe zone where they could hold out until the end of the chaotic war on Vigilus.
If Sith wanted to survive the chaotic war, his only option was to break out toward a safe zone.
But although Sith had expected a bitter battle against the rebels of the entire Hive City, things took a different turn once Dujiao understood his intentions.
"The Chaos God is leaving?!"
Struggling to suppress the irrepressible upward curl of his lips, Dujiao flushed red, then abruptly turned toward the rebels beside him.
"I'll chop any fucker who dares stop them into mince!!!"