Ross Vance did not yet have concrete intelligence on The Hand.
Griffin and Cecilia had already dispatched scouts to track their movements from different angles.
But Hell’s Kitchen was massive, and those Japanese ninjas hid like rats in the sewers.
Rooting out their secrets would not be an easy task in the short term.
Still, knowing what Ross did about them—especially a vindictive organization like The Hand—they certainly wouldn’t let this slide.
With the Mad Dog Gang wiped out, The Hand’s supply chain was completely severed.
Given the nature of those ninjas, it would be a miracle if they didn’t retaliate.
Sure enough, that very night, suspected Hand ninjas appeared near the base.
Ross was lying in bed scrolling through his phone when a sudden warmth bloomed in his chest.
The Psionic Source throbbed violently, sending out a sharp warning.
He put down his phone and expanded his psionic senses outward.
Four malevolent presences were approaching the base from different directions.
Those presences weren’t particularly strong, but they felt filthy.
It was as if someone had blended rotting flesh and charred hair, then mixed in something that didn’t belong to this dimension.
“So they really came.”
Ross sat up, threw on a coat, and pushed his door open.
In the corridor, Griffin was just coming up from downstairs, his expression grim.
“My Lord, you felt it too?”
“Yes.
Four of them,” Ross said as he walked.
“Assemble everyone, fully armed.
Have the Battle Sisters don their power armor, and equip the Astra Militarum with their lasguns.
No more hiding our hand.”
Griffin struck his chest with his right fist, turning to convey the order.
Five minutes later, all twenty-three Imperial soldiers were assembled in the first-floor lobby of the base.
The three Battle Sisters had already donned their ebony power armor.
Cecilia stood at the front, her helmet tucked under her arm, a chainsword hanging at her waist, and a bolt pistol strapped to the holster on her outer thigh.
The twenty Astra Militarum veterans each held a lasgun, the Imperial Aquila insignia on the receivers gleaming faintly under the lights.
Their power packs were fully charged, frag grenades lined their belts, and entrenching tools were strapped to their backs.
Griffin stood at the head of the formation, the scar across his face looking exceptionally ferocious.
Everyone stood in silence, awaiting Ross’s command.
He did not speak immediately.
His psionic senses continued to feed back information.
The four malevolent presences had halted on the rooftop of the abandoned apartment building directly across from the base.
They were less than two hundred meters away.
They weren’t attacking, nor were they retreating.
They simply stood on the roof, looking down.
Reconnaissance.
Just as Ross had guessed, The Hand lacked clear information about his forces, so they had sent scouts to scope out the place.
Cecilia stepped out of the queue, looking up at Ross as she struck her chest with her right fist.
“My Lord, let me take a squad to eliminate them.” Her voice was steady, but a fire already burned in her eyes.
“I cannot tolerate such foul heretics dancing under our noses.
Every second they spend standing on that rooftop is a desecration of your majesty.”
Griffin also stepped forward, striking his chest with his right fist.
His voice was hoarse and low.
“Indeed, my Lord.
The soldiers of the Imperium do not fear death.
What is far more unacceptable than death is having heretics right before our eyes while we do nothing.”
His scarred face looked incredibly fierce under the light, his rage barely contained.
Ross looked at them, remaining silent for two seconds.
He could feel their burning fury.
These people had fought their way out of the hellish world of Warhammer 40,000.
In their worldview, it was absolutely unthinkable for their leader’s quarters to be spied upon by heretics while the soldiers did nothing.
That was an insult to the Emperor, a desecration of their faith.
To them, Ross was now their Emperor on this soil.
Those ninjas spying on him from the opposite rooftop was equivalent to pissing on the Imperial flag.
Ross knew that if he didn’t let them fight this battle tonight, they would probably end their own lives out of sheer shame.
“Very well.” He walked down the stairs, stood before the ranks, and swept his gaze across everyone.
“Leave none of the heretics outside alive.
Execute them all.”
Cecilia’s eyes flashed with sudden brilliance, her lips curling into a faint smirk.
“Yes, my Lord!”
She turned to face her two Battle Sisters, her voice suddenly rising.
“For the Emperor!”
Griffin also turned and bellowed at the Astra Militarum veterans.
“Everyone, safety off on your lasguns, flank them in fireteams!
If a single one escapes, don’t bother coming back!”
“Yes, sir!”
Ross walked to the window and pushed it open, letting the night wind gust inside.
On the opposite rooftop, four blurry black figures still stood, completely unaware that death had crept up right behind them.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Ross shook his head.
“The Hand is really cheap.
Sending four low-level peripheral ninjas to scout me out—do they think I’m some helpless amateur?”
Just as he picked up his teacup, Cecilia’s voice crackled through the earpiece.
“My Lord, we are in position.
Ready to engage on your mark.”
Immediately after, Griffin’s voice came through.
“My Lord, the front is secure and ready.”
Ross took a sip of tea, set the cup down, and spoke into the earpiece.
“Do it.”
Two brief responses echoed in the receiver.
“For the Emperor!” “For the Emperor!”
A second later, the first scream pierced the air from the opposite rooftop.
The four ninjas had been crouching at the edge of the roof, completely oblivious to the movement behind them.
They were far too focused.
One held a pair of miniature binoculars, peering intently at every window of the base across the street.
Another was rapidly taking notes on a notepad, while a third crouched behind the guardrail on high alert.
The leader knelt at the very front, his eyes closed, using some form of psychic sensory ability to probe the energy fluctuations inside the base.
They believed they were hidden in the shadows.
A dark shadow rose silently from behind a ventilation duct.
Cecilia Vera.
Unbeknownst to them, she had already circled behind them, her closest approach less than five meters away.
Power armor made almost no sound when moving at low speeds.
Cecilia moved.
She stepped toward the nearest ninja, her combat boot crunching softly against the gravel.
The ninja peering through the binoculars twitched his ear and whipped his head around.
Cecilia was already towering over him.
Her right hand clamped over his head like an iron vice.
Her thumb pressed hard against his left temple, her other four fingers digging into the right side of his skull.
Then, she ripped backward.
His cervical spine popped in a rapid succession of cracks, the sound of tearing ligaments mimicking a wet towel being ripped in half.
His head was torn clean from his neck.
Blood erupted from the severed carotid artery, splashing all over the face of the ninja who was taking notes nearby.
The headless body swayed twice before collapsing to its knees with a dull thud.
The remaining three ninjas drew their blades simultaneously.
The ringing of drawn katanas chimed in unison, three silver flashes gleaming under the moonlight.
The leader bellowed “Enemy attack!” in Japanese, and the three instantly fell into an offensive formation, lunging toward Cecilia.
Unfortunate for them.
Cecilia didn’t even blink.
Drawing the chainsword from her waist, her thumb flicked the ignition.
The high-speed whirring of the spinning teeth instantly tore the silence of the rooftop to shreds.
She lunged forward, and in their very first clash, she shredded the middle katana along with its wielder into two halves.
The chainsword bit into his left hip and tore out of his right rib cage; his upper and lower torso fell to the ground half a second apart.
Before the second ninja’s blade could fall, Cecilia delivered a backhand strike, cleaving off the hand holding his weapon.
The severed hand, still gripping the katana, flew through the air.
The ninja’s scream of agony had barely begun when her boot slammed into his chest, launching him three meters away.
His back crashed through the guardrail at the edge of the terrace.
He dangled in the air for a fraction of a second before plummeting down.
A dull thud echoed from below, cutting the scream short.
Only the last one remained—the ninja who had been taking notes.
He had already dropped his notepad and drawn his blade, but he didn’t dare take a single step forward.
Staring at Cecilia, his pupils shrank to pinpricks, his knuckles white from gripping the hilt too tightly, the tip of his blade trembling slightly.
He backed up two paces until his back hit the guardrail of the terrace.
He had nowhere left to run.
Cecilia sheathed her chainsword and walked toward him barehanded.
She wasn’t sparing him; she wanted to crush him with her bare hands.
The ninja let out a hoarse shriek and swung his blade downward with both hands.
Cecilia slipped past the blade, caught his wrist in her right hand, and twisted.
The snap of his wrist fracturing was as crisp as dry firewood snapping in half.
The katana slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor.
The ninja’s mouth fell open, but before a cry could escape, Cecilia’s left hand clamped around his throat.
Her fingers contracted, digging deep into the muscles on either side of his throat, crushing his windpipe and carotid arteries as she lifted him off the ground.
His feet left the roof, dangling in midair.
The ninja kicked wildly, clawing at Cecilia’s fingers with both hands, but her fingers—encased in the armored gauntlet—remained completely unyielding.
Cecilia tilted her head slightly, watching him struggle in the air like a fish yanked out of water.
His face flushed red, then turned purple, and finally black.
His eyeballs bulged, and his lips darkened.
His tongue slipped uncontrollably from the corner of his mouth, and a wet, gurgling rattle sounded in his throat as he desperately tried to draw in air.
Only when his kicking began to subside did Cecilia slowly tighten her grip.
His neck vertebrae snapped one by one in her palm like a bundle of chopsticks, each crack sharper and louder than the last.
Then, she ripped violently.
His head, along with half his spinal column, was torn completely from his body.
The jagged tear dripped with bone fragments and trailing nerve tissue dangling beneath it.
The headless body remained upright for a couple of seconds, a torrent of dark red blood geysering from the stump of his neck before it collapsed forward like a felled log.
Blood splattered all over Cecilia.
She casually tossed the head to the ground.
It bounced twice, rolling to a stop near the guardrail.
The expression on the face was forever frozen in its final moment of agony: eyes bulging, mouth agape, tongue lolling out.
Cecilia looked down at the blood coating her power armor and frowned slightly.
She drew a cloth from her pouch, unhurriedly wiping the sticky blood from her fingertips.
By the time Griffin rushed onto the rooftop with his men, the battle was already over.
The four ninjas lay scattered across the roof in various states of ruin.
One was headless, one was chopped in two, one had fallen to the street below to become a splattered patty, and the last lay near the guardrail with his head torn out along with half his spine.
The jagged neck stump exposed stark white bone fragments to the night.
Blood pooled across the ground, looking as dark as ink under the moonlight.
Griffin surveyed the gruesome scene on the rooftop, then glanced at Cecilia, who was still wiping her hands.
The scar at the corner of his mouth twitched.
“You hogged the whole show.
What did we even come up here for?
To enjoy the view?”
Cecilia didn’t even look up, continuing to clean her fingers.