*Don’t you dare come over here.*
A “greenskin Warboss” nearly ten meters tall rose to its feet.
It was wreathed in malevolent Warp lightning, and sickening green pus spewed from the gaps between its fleshy tentacles and mechanical sutures.
This was no longer a monster that mortals could oppose.
Fiery streaks plummeted from the sky.
Dozens of pitch-black Astartes drop pods made hard landings.
*BOOM—*
The shockwaves rolled.
“The Emperor protects! The Angels have descended!” The Commissar felt as if he were looking at salvation itself.
The heavy metal hatches blew open with a series of bangs.
Space Marines clad in dark blue power armor stepped out with giant strides.
The Angels did not raise their bolters to shoot.
Like an iron wall, they ignored the roaring greenskin giant entirely.
Instead, they rushed straight to Seth Knight, forming a tight defensive ring around him.
Muffled breathing rasped through their helmet grilles, casting an eerie, grim aura over the scene.
The Astartes captain leading the squad removed his tactical helmet with one hand, revealing a cold, hard face covered in crisscrossing scars.
There was no fanaticism of a fantasy pilgrim on him—only a sour, grim expression.
“Silence! Do not celebrate too early,” the captain rasped.
“The supreme commander of the orbital fleet fell to the clutches of Chaos long ago. The so-called halt in the bombardment and the pilgrimage are nothing but a trap.”
The captain pointed his middle finger toward the sky.
Without warning, the already darkened clouds were ripped wide open by an even more blinding white light.
The energy readings of the goddamned planet-killing lance matrices were skyrocketing once again!
“That bastard wants to use ‘covering fire’ as an excuse to wipe us, this entire position, and the Living Saint—the greatest wildcard—all out of existence in a single strike.”
The Commissar’s smile froze completely on his face.
“Chaos cultists… a conspiracy? How is that possible? Have the higher-ups of the Imperium decayed to this extent?!” As if his spine had been ripped out, he collapsed onto the mud with a thud.
The hope that had just ignited was instantly crushed to dust by an invisible giant hand.
The recruits stood dazed like wooden chickens, their sobs caught in their throats.
Seth Knight’s face darkened with a murderous glare.
“Those goddamned Chaos dogs. They want to wipe me out too? Screw their ancestors for a hundred generations!”
He knew that cowering now was useless.
It was better to die like a real man, with some backbone!
“You cannot die here. The Imperium’s upper echelon is rotten to the core, but there is still hope for humanity.”
The Astartes captain stepped forward, placing his heavy metal gauntlet on Seth Knight’s shoulder, motioning for him to calm down.
*Clang—*
The captain and the other Astartes pulled out their storage containers.
Very quickly, a miniature stasis escape pod, modified from a power reactor core, was assembled.
The captain shoved Seth Knight into the escape pod and said gravely, “The fleet has blockaded orbital space. Only by utilizing the brief window of the lance bombardment will you have a chance to escape!”
What?!
The Angels were giving the only chance of survival to him?!
That’s too fucking noble!
The heavens are looking out for me!
From now on, the Astartes are my second parents!
Oh, wait, loyalty can only be offered to the old God-Emperor!
Seth Knight stared with wide, shocked eyes.
Before transmigrating, Seth Knight had been just an eighteen-year-old hot-blooded teenager.
If you asked him to copy some gangland brawls, he could manage, but witnessing strangers sacrifice themselves for him on a whim…
the impact of this was just too damn massive.
The entire field fell into absolute silence.
The Commissar trembled violently with emotion.
The proudest Angels of the Imperium, to protect a mortal Chosen, were willing to sacrifice themselves even while knowing it was a trap!
What peerless loyalty!
“I can still take on ten more!” Seth Knight’s eyes were shot with blood as he shoved the captain’s hand away.
“If we’re going to live, we live together! Let’s hack down this greenskin, then storm up to orbit and twist off that dog commander’s head!”
“Your life is worth far more than us old veterans!”
The captain wasted no words.
He suddenly shut the escape pod, locking Seth Knight inside.
“Open the door! I didn’t agree to you sacrificing yourselves for me! I still have trump cards! I have over a thousand card draws left!”
*Psssshh—*
Cryo-gas and sedative gas began to flood the escape pod.
Seth Knight’s body became completely immobilized, extreme frustration and anger burning in his eyes.
“Angels…” The Commissar and the recruits choked up, bowing deeply once more.
Through the light blue frost, Seth Knight saw the Astartes put their helmets back on.
In perfect unison, they faced Seth Knight inside the escape pod.
Their right fists slammed heavily against their left chests, executing the most precise, resolute Aquila salute.
The salute ended.
They drew their bolters and chainswords, and facing the roaring greenskin Chosen beast and the planet-killing white light falling from the heavens, they launched a death-defying counter-charge!
“FOR THE EMPEROR!!!”
“LOYALTY!!!”
The battle cries shook the sky.
Next second.
The planet-destroying lances rained down from the heavens, completely swallowing Position 04.
The soil vaporized, mountains crumbled, and the entire world was transformed into a pure white ocean of annihilation.
At the exact moment the lances struck the surface.
Using the massive torrent of energy, the escape pod transformed into a meteor invisible to any radar, violently cutting into a Warp channel and instantly vanishing in a warp jump.
Inside the frozen pod, a sharp, fierce glint flashed in Seth Knight’s eyes.
*You goddamned dark side of the Imperium, I will definitely return!*
…
An unknown amount of time passed.
An outlawed, lawless territory on an unnamed industrial planet.
The Underhive.
The peak of a massive trash heap in a scrap reclamation yard.
*Clink, clank—*
Three ragged scavengers, their bodies covered in mutated growths, were frantically prying at a frost-covered metal pod with crowbars.
“We’re rich, we’re rich! This is definitely a treasure dropped by some big shot from the Spire!” The one-eyed scavenger leader was full of greed, drool dripping down his decayed teeth.
“The parts inside will be enough for us to live it up in the pleasure dens for the rest of our lives!”
*Crack!*
Just as the crowbar was wedged into the door’s gap, an incredibly terrifying burst of light-blue cold air exploded outward!
The scavengers shrieked.
Their hands were instantly frozen solid like ice sculptures, and the crowbar shattered into icy shards.
The cryo-mode was deactivated by external force!
A hand gripped the edge of the pod door.
Seth Knight stepped out of the wreckage, his entire body blazing with a golden psychic flame that was even more intense and materialized than before.
His frozen slumber had ended.
Yet the image of the Astartes charging into their death-sworn battle had been etched into his soul like a chisel, leaving an indelible mark.
“G-Ghost… A ghost!” Scared out of his wits, the scavenger collapsed into the garbage pile, his legs kicking frantically as he backed away, his crotch giving off the sharp stench of urine.
Seth Knight didn’t even spare a glance at the trash on the ground.
He coldly pulled up his system interface on his retina.
Having annihilated thousands of heavily armored greenskins earlier, his system drawing points had skyrocketed to an extremely terrifying number.
[Current Drawing Attempts: 1111]
Interweaving layers of iron pipes stretched out, closely resembling a massive cage imprisoning billions of souls, and resembling even more the thoroughly decayed bureaucratic system of the Imperium.
“Just how many Chaos cultists are hiding among those rotten Imperium high-ups?!”
“I’ll start from right here, fight my way all the way up, and root all of you out!”
“I will carry on the conviction borne by that Astartes captain!”
“Protect the Imperium of Man, purge all threats, until the day I die in battle!”
Just then.
A harsh grinding sound of metal echoed from the dark corners around the salvage yard.
*Slither…*
From the shadows, over a dozen mutated Underhive beasts—each the size of a young bull, covered in black scales and bone spikes—slowly poked their heads out.
Their crimson compound eyes stared fixedly at Seth Knight, who emanated the scent of living flesh.
Corrosive venom dripped from their pale fangs, sizzling as it ate into the iron plating on the ground.
“Are you all starved?”
Seth Knight cracked his neck, his bones popping like roasting beans.
His right fingers clenched in the air, and the Vibranium shield materialized with a hum amidst a flash of golden light.
“Just as well. I’ve got a belly full of rage and nowhere to vent it.”
Golden lightning burned fiercely in the darkness of the Underhive.