I'll lead you through!

The ground had been warped by massive explosions.

Although extermination weapons saw less use the closer one drew to Hyperia, high-powered explosives were gradually revealing the terror of conventional weapons.

Countless enormous shell craters dotted the vast stretch of ground, sheltering tens of thousands of mortal soldiers in all manner of uniforms.

The crater at the very center even held an armored squad comprising three Leman Russ tanks and two Chimeras.

At the front of the armored squad, a group of officers in equally varied uniforms quietly crouched low, their gazes resting silently on Sith above them.

Sith peered out of the crater, the scanner on his helmet sweeping the ground ahead.

Hyperia lay just ahead, its Void Shield much smaller than before.

The outermost walls were already in ruins, and even the taller second wall shook with violent explosions as ever more Warp fiends and cultist troops swarmed up it.

Only on the third high wall farther back, sheltered behind the Void Shield, did the Imperial Army continue pouring fire onto the fallen positions below, making no distinction between friend and foe.

Sith's gaze moved down from the third wall.

He watched several Astra Militarum soldiers standing on a gun emplacement, desperately pulling their triggers at something behind them, but their las-fire left only tiny red spots on a Chaos Astartes.

Then, before the terrified soldiers, the Chaos Astartes casually hammered the first few to death and forced the last to jump from the towering emplacement.

The wall was hundreds of meters high. The falling soldier plunged into the surging rebels and daemons below and vanished in an instant, leaving only scattered limbs.

Farther down, in a corner of a trench outside the city that the Chaos army had yet to notice, an Astra Militarum soldier listened to the agonized screams of his comrades behind him, his face filled with terror as he pointed his gun upward beneath his neck.

But he was trembling all over and could not find the courage to pull the trigger. Only when a daemon suddenly leaped into the trench did the hesitant soldier turn deathly pale and finally squeeze the trigger, whether deliberately or out of fright.

His body slowly toppled, his eyes vacant, but the malformed Chaos Daemon still walked over.

A moment later, under Sith's gaze, the daemon grinned savagely as it pulled out an ethereal soul filled with even greater despair and terror...

Withdrawing his gaze, Sith stepped back half a pace and turned toward the battered survivors watching him from behind.

Seeing that many of them did not even have a firearm, Sith turned away, speechless, and silently cursed Calgar a few times where no one could see.

Because, incredibly, Calgar had told him this was the point in the entire Hyperia Hive Cluster where the Chaos assault was weakest.

It was also where Sith was about to launch his charge before ultimately withdrawing into Imperial-controlled territory.

But looking at the Chaos army opposite, which overwhelmingly outmatched his own in both quality and numbers, Sith felt he would have been better off bringing only his own 101st Regiment.

After silently cursing, however, he turned back toward the battered survivors staring at him with expectant, even respectful eyes. Sith could only lower his gaze slightly and consider what to do.

But while Sith wanted time to think, the Chaos army ahead would not waste time considering such questions.

When fierce gunfire suddenly erupted on his flank, Sith looked up in shock. A terrified Planetary Defence Force officer ran over:

"Our left flank has been spotted!"

Sith's cheek twitched. Although discovery was only a matter of time with over two hundred thousand men hiding behind the Chaos army, he had never imagined they would be discovered so quickly.

Especially when the gunfire rapidly spread toward his position in the center, Sith put aside the jumble of "countermeasures" in his head.

He abruptly rose. Facing the vast Chaos army turning back in the distance and charging excitedly toward him, Sith looked behind him.

Drawing his Power Sword and raising his bolter, Sith pointed ahead:

"I have nothing to give you. All I can do is have you follow behind me. I'll lead you through!"

It barely even counted as encouragement, yet the battered survivors behind him instantly widened their eyes.

Not because Sith's words were particularly stirring, but because they knew it was now their turn to show the enemies of the Imperium their courage.

There was nothing to say. The first to answer Sith were several Krieg soldiers who stepped forward in silence. They wordlessly lay prone behind the crater, calmly preparing to charge again.

Then came the thunderous roar of Leman Russ engines as their throttles were pushed to the limit!

A Khorne Bloodletter at the very front carried a massive two-handed serrated sword, its long tongue hanging out as it shouted excitedly.

But when it gleefully rushed up, what burst from the crater was a Leman Russ with so much power that its front end actually reared up.

Under the Bloodletter's stunned gaze, the enormous tracks crushed it to pulp.

Sith sat in the commander's position and did not even notice the Bloodletter. He simply kept pulling the trigger while repeatedly sweeping his sword forward.

Behind him, two hundred thousand battered mortal troops leaped from the craters in dense masses, covering the entire enormous battle line.

The pressure on the front instantly eased. Seeing the mortal troops behind them, spearheaded by Sith, rolling straight through their positions, the Chaos army almost immediately abandoned the difficult walls and turned toward Sith's force, exposed in the open.

Granted a respite, the Imperial Army looked at these suddenly appearing "reinforcements" with confusion, while immediately feeling sorry for them.

Because this was not the weakest point at all, but the main axis of the Chaos assault!

"What? Chaos can't stop them?"

At that moment, before the third wall, Calgar's two Power Fists rested at his sides while several Adeptus Mechanicus priests continually replenished their ammunition and erected shrines to soothe their machine spirits.

Calgar himself, covered in blood and wounds, stared in astonishment at the messenger who had hurried over.

The messenger was equally shocked. He opened his mouth, unsure what to say, but Calgar had already risen and walked straight to the very edge of the wall.

The walls grew taller the farther back they stood, so Calgar could see the entire battlefield below.

Then, not only the other Imperial defenders, stunned speechless by the sight below, but even Calgar himself fell into something of a daze.

That expendable force, which should have drawn the enemy's attention to buy the main force a brief respite, had actually broken through the Chaos lines under a young regimental commander's leadership, charging on as those ahead fell.

He watched a charge in which dozens or even hundreds of mortals fell with almost every step, watched Chaos shift from its initial excitement to astonishment, then panic.

Calgar paused for only an instant before abruptly turning:

"Open the side gate and send a squad of Ultramarines to provide cover. Let Sith and his regiment enter Hyperia."

The officers below immediately turned to carry out his orders, their gazes continually straying behind them toward the mortals who had actually fought their way to Hyperia.

At the same time Calgar gave his order, more and more people realized that these troops were none other than Sith and his 101st Regiment, whom the Departmento Munitorum had been continually publicizing. Morale, which had already sunk terribly low, actually rallied at that moment.

Any reinforcements in a desperate situation would raise morale, let alone Sith, who had all but been publicized as a legend of Vigilus.

Had Calgar sent precious Astartes to cover Sith because he could not bear to lose him?

No. Calgar had not expected the force from his publicity campaign to actually appear before the main army and announce its presence in the most courageous way possible.

At that moment, the only sight Calgar wanted to see was this legendary force he had personally publicized creating another legend, successfully withdrawing into Hyperia before the eyes of the main army.

Otherwise, however great the hope he had given the soldiers below, their despair when Sith's entire force was wiped out would be just as profound!

As casualties mounted among the troops Sith had gathered along the way, and the Leman Russ beneath him perished along with several heavy Chaos units, the "Daemon Engines," the roar of bolter fire from Ultramarines finally began ringing out around Sith under everyone's gaze.

Sith did not know how many had fallen along the route of the charge, nor how many had followed him into the safe zone.

All Sith knew was that when he entered the walls, carrying his chipped Power Sword with his chest heaving, countless eyes watched him from atop the walls and below.

And at that moment, those eyes held only shock and silence!

Because even Sith himself did not know that, just now, before everyone's eyes, he had led a band of battered survivors...

And broken Chaos!