The main mining zone of Griffin IV was an iron hell being torn apart alive.
Acidic industrial smog mixed with gunpowder smoke, making one's lungs burn with pain.
In the air, the distinct ozone smell of lasguns firing, the charred stench of Chainswords cutting through flesh, and the thick, unyielding scent of blood twisted together into a nauseating noose, gripping everyone's throat tightly.
"Hold! For the Emperor! Hold that damn defensive line!"
An Astra Militarum veteran roared at the top of his lungs, his shoulder pressed firmly against the vibrating base of a laser cannon as he fired wildly at the figures surging up like a tide below.
Those were once miners.
Now, they had become the most devout followers of The Spider Mother.
Their skin was covered in profane runes, and their eyes shone with inhuman fanaticism.
Wielding crude weapons improvised from mining tools and stained with flesh, they charged fearlessly against the Astra Militarum's crumbling defensive line, which was composed of barbed wire and abandoned mining carts.
A young soldier, Jensen, found his lasgun barrel so hot it could roast meat.
Just a moment ago, he had watched his squad leader get tackled by three Cultists.
That massive industrial shear, meant for cutting ore, had easily severed the squad leader's neck.
As the head rolled away, those wide, terror-filled eyes were staring straight at him.
Jensen's nerves snapped completely at that moment.
"Ah—!"
He let out an inhuman scream, dropped his weapon, and turned to run toward the rear.
He only wanted to leave this place, to escape this meat grinder that devoured lives.
His breakdown was like a drop of cold water in boiling oil, instantly triggering a chain reaction.
"We can't hold!"
"We're all going to die here!"
Several other soldiers, also pushed to their limits, began to waver, and a fatal gap appeared in the defensive line.
"Coward!"
A cold, iron-like rebuke, seemingly carrying physical weight, slammed into Jensen's back.
He stumbled to a halt, turning his head back in terror.
A man in a crisp black uniform, wearing a peaked cap with a skull emblem, stood behind him, though no one knew when he had arrived.
The man's face looked as if it were carved from granite, with cold, hard lines and no excess expression.
His eyes were grey, like the unchanging sky of Griffin IV, shrouded in industrial exhaust, devoid of any light.
Imperial Commissar Valerius.
"Lord... Lord Commissar..." Jensen's voice trembled uncontrollably, and a warm wetness spread through his crotch. "I... I wasn't..."
Valerius ignored his plea.
He slowly raised the bolt pistol in his hand, the pitch-black muzzle aiming precisely at Jensen's forehead.
"imperial codex, Volume 3, Article 71, Wartime Regulations."
Valerius's voice did not come through an amplifier, yet it pierced the ears of every nearby soldier like an ice pick.
"Anyone who retreats without permission when facing the enemy shall be deemed a traitor."
His tone was flat, as if he were reading an insignificant cargo manifest.
"The only punishment is summary execution."
"No! Please! I don't want to die!" Jensen wept, snot and tears streaming down his face as he fell to his knees.
Bang!
A dull explosion drowned out all the clamor on the battlefield.
Jensen's pleas came to an abrupt end.
His head, like a watermelon smashed by a hammer, exploded into a mist of blood mixed with bone fragments and brain matter.
The headless corpse twitched twice before collapsing into a pool of blood.
That bloody and shocking scene left all the soldiers who were about to retreat frozen in place, as if under a petrification spell.
They looked at Valerius, at his smoking muzzle, and a chill, more piercing than when facing the Cultists, shot up their spines to the tops of their heads.
Valerius withdrew his pistol without even glancing at the corpse again.
He turned around, his grey eyes, colder than the steel ground beneath his feet, sweeping over faces twisted with fear.
"The next one who dares to retreat will meet the same fate."
He pointed the bolt pistol, having just enforced "discipline," toward the swarming Cultists ahead.
"Now, return to your posts."
His voice carried through the amplifier on his chest, spreading across the entire defensive line.
"Forward, and serve the Emperor with loyalty! That is your only glory!"
Inside the bridge of the genesis, there was silence.
On the massive holographic screen, this bloody execution taking place on the surface of the mining planet was being broadcast clearly.
Terrania's little face turned deathly pale; she instinctively buried her face in Leticia's arms, her small hands clutching Leticia's clothes tightly as her body trembled slightly.
"Why... why did he kill his own people?" The young girl's voice carried an incomprehensible fear.
"Brutal, but effective."
Fogremia stood to the side, examining the cold figure on the screen, and commented elegantly in the tone of an art connoisseur.
"Using a more direct fear of death to suppress the fear of an unknown death. Truly... a form of governance devoid of any aesthetic beauty."
Leticia did not speak.
She only reached out, gently and soothingly stroking Terrania's blonde hair in her arms.
Her gaze, however, never left the figure of the Political Commissar on the screen.
In Fogremia's eyes, that was a crude butcher.
In Terrania's eyes, that was a terrifying demon.
But in Leticia's eyes, she saw something deeper.
She saw a soul that was also trapped in a desperate situation.
A pathetic martyr who, in order to execute so-called "loyalty," had personally strangled all his own emotions, turning himself into a walking imperial codex.
This universe not only twisted heroes but also drove loyal subjects insane.
"Big Sister," Fogremia's gaze turned to Leticia, a hint of inquiry in her purple eyes, "When shall we intervene? If we wait any longer, this defensive line made of mortals will crumble completely, like a crushed biscuit."
"No rush."
Leticia's voice was very soft, yet carried an unquestionable certainty.
"Let them watch a little longer."
"Watch what?" Fogremia asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Despair." The corners of Leticia's mouth curled into a subtle arc. "Only when a person has truly experienced what it means to be in absolute, hopeless despair..."
"...will he understand how precious, how... worthy of sacrificing everything to follow, the light descending from the heavens truly is."
Surface battlefield.
Under Valerius's iron-fisted intimidation, the Astra Militarum's defensive line miraculously stabilized for the time being.
The soldiers no longer retreated; they numbly and mechanically poured firepower forward.
The fear of the Political Commissar temporarily overwhelmed the fear of the enemy.
Valerius stood in the center of the defensive line like a cold statue.
He drew the Chainsword from his waist, and the roar of its engine became the most reassuring background sound on this position.
However, this was merely drinking poison to quench thirst.
The number of Cultists was simply too great.
After a brief pause, a new wave of attacks swept in with an even crazier posture.
This time, several obviously larger and more mutated monsters appeared in the crowd.
Their bodies were fused with mining exoskeletons, and they wielded massive hydraulic shears and drills, tearing through the fragile barbed wire easily like small siege mechs.
"Heavy weapons! Focus fire on those big guys!"
An officer roared at the top of his lungs, but the next second, his upper body was severed at the waist by a massive hydraulic shear.
The defensive line was torn open with a huge gap once again.
This time, it was a true, irreparable collapse.
Soldiers were slaughtered in droves, their screams drowning out even the roar of guns and cannons.
Valerius swung his Chainsword, splitting an attacking Cultist in two, and though scalding blood splattered across his face, he did not even blink.
He watched the enemies surging like a tide, watching the soldiers falling one by one beside him.
Even for him, whose heart was armed to the teeth with the imperial codex, a wave of helpless cold finally welled up.
Is it ending?
He thought.
To die here, for the Emperor, for a mining planet no one knows about.
Is this his, Valerius's, final end?
Just as he gripped his Chainsword, preparing to meet his final moment of serving the Emperor with loyalty.
The sky darkened.
A shadow, unimaginably huge and not of this world, silently enveloped the entire C-5 position.
Both sides of the battle, whether the fanatical Cultists or the desperate Astra Militarum, instinctively stopped their actions and looked up in confusion.
The source of the shadow was a spaceship that they had never seen before, with a design so beautiful it did not seem like a mortal creation, its entire body shining with holy white light.
It hovered silently in mid-air, quiet and still, yet carried a majestic authority sufficient to make gods and demons hold their breath.
Valerius's pupils contracted sharply.
What... is this?
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