“All company assembled!” After the battle, Corian shouted, and the company, which had seemed to be in a frenzy, immediately assembled.
Corian glanced at the ranks.
There were no casualties, but a few men had unexpectedly many scratches.
“Andy, Tommy, Smith,” he called out the three unlucky ones with the most scratched paint, “You three are not allowed to participate in the next battle.
Stay here and continue clearing out any mutants that might be hiding.
Any objections?”
“No!” the three shouted.
“Very good.” Corian nodded in satisfaction.
Although he had acted like a battle maniac during the meeting, breathing heavily at Huron, as the leader of the Tiger Claws and now the company commander of the second largest company, he demanded strict discipline from his entire unit.
“Company Commander, what’s the next target?” He stretched, somewhat impatiently.
“The next target is an anomalous cult.
The Chapter’s serfs discovered this cult practices human sacrifice rituals and have launched an attack.” The platoon leader had already memorized the operational information and arranged the order of attack according to distance.
“Excellent!
Another reckless enemy of humanity.
They deserve to die!
Second Company, move out!” Corian, wielding his chainsword, led his company onto a transport vehicle and headed towards the next target.
Due to insufficient equipment, specialized Astartes vehicles, such as the Rhino transport, were naturally not used for this ordinary mission, so the Astartes had to travel in conventional transport vehicles.
Besides the first company, directly led by Corian, the remaining nine companies of the Second Company were mixed together, each led by a veteran, slaughtering their way through the lower hive.
Most of the scum didn’t expect to encounter Astartes against them, so they were mostly routed and wiped out by the Veteran Company.
The occasional tough nut to crack was met with a baptism from the Veteran Company.
For example, a notorious Tzeentch cult, already eradicated, was wiped out by 40 veterans in Terminator armour leading 12 squads.
The cult leader was even finely chopped into mincemeat.
After two companies’ worth of continuous, high-intensity cleanups, the security situation in the entire Underhive improved.
Because some twisted gangs were also wiped out in the process, the leaders of the Underhive became more cautious, even to the point of being on edge.
With the system’s support, the new recruits gained experience in combat at an astonishing speed; some exceptionally talented recruits had already reached the initial stage of Level 2 training.
This made Huron even more enthusiastic about this low-intensity combat — it could eliminate enemies, improve security, and give new recruits experience — a triple benefit!
The effort had to be intensified!
Huron was even planning to include the lower hive regions in the cleanup campaign, compressing the living space of these enemies of humanity and strengthening control over Paratos’s hive capital.
Underhives generally fall into two categories.
One type is a harsher environment unsuitable for long-term human survival, a place only criminals, refugees, bounty hunters, and others would risk their lives for.
These underhives are typically overrun by mutants and mutated creatures.
One type is the lower hive regions where nobles have lost control.
In these areas, even collecting taxes requires the nobles to send large armies to harass them, resulting in a complete imbalance between expenditure and gain.
Therefore, as long as no trouble arises, the nobles treat these regions as if they don’t exist.
The lower hive of Paratos Hive City falls into the second category; it has become a state within a state, harboring a significant population.
This is naturally intolerable to Huron, especially since these regions are usually rife with cults; if nothing goes wrong, all is well, but if something does, it’s a major disaster.
However, truly controlling these places cannot be achieved simply through the Astartes’ killing spree.
A sufficient number of troops and administrative personnel are needed for actual control, along with large-scale infrastructure development to completely integrate these regions into the Astral Claws system.
Otherwise, it will remain a chaotic cycle of independent rulers; killing one old ruler will immediately lead to the emergence of another.
If Huron were ruthless enough to treat the population of these regions as experience points, regardless of their lives, then he could indeed do so.
But the moral compass cultivated in his past life made it impossible for him to accept such a thing.
As for withstanding moral pressure and enjoying a life of immorality?
He’s a transmigrator who only knows how to cheat; do you expect him to withstand moral pressure?
Don’t be ridiculous.
Therefore, he can only wait until he has trained enough Chapter auxiliary troops before completely eradicating the Underhive.
However, this won’t take too long, at most a year.
The training capacity for Chapter auxiliary troops is determined by the current army.
Once the first batch of two million auxiliary troops is trained, the next batch can train four million at once, then eight million, then sixteen million.
By then, there will be no shortage of manpower, and he can properly manage the nobles.
And the first batch of Chapter auxiliary troops has already been trained.
To improve quality, Huron specifically used two civilian factories to provide supplies for these two million people.
One produced gene enhancers, with each person consuming an average of two doses.
Combined with the “high-energy nutrient solution” produced by the other factory, and a continuous supply of vitamin tablets, their physical condition has been raised to the average level of Tempestus Scions.
Tactical and cultural instruction was provided by veterans within the Chapter’s auxiliary corps.
Each auxiliary corps member was assigned a personal terminal, which enabled them to understand the instructors’ commands, significantly accelerating language learning and quickly standardizing the language.
Then came the relentless, high-intensity physical training, rote memorization, and examinations.
Previously, Huron had ordered a change to the Chapter’s recruitment ceremony; after discussion, the grueling process was replaced with the aforementioned methods.
Even with vitamin supplements to quickly restore their bodies, the six hours of intense physical training daily, the six hours of rote memorization, and the subsequent examinations still left most auxiliary corps members exhausted.
Most of them were former Underhivers; they were used to working themselves to the bone.
But when that period of intense work was extended to 12 hours, and then to two months, they couldn’t hold on any longer.
This is also one of the goals of the Chapter.
Without the requirement of genetic compatibility, the Chapter naturally places more emphasis on the willpower of new recruits and reserves.
This isn’t a matter of simply gritting your teeth and doing something; momentary bravado isn’t favored by the Chapters.
As Astartes, destined to serve the Emperor for decades, even centuries, they prefer those who can persevere and push their limits.
Besides imparting knowledge, another task of the instructors is to evaluate these recruits’ performance and identify those with exceptional willpower.
Old John, standing in the front row at the recruit graduation ceremony, was such a person.