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"A brilliant decapitation strike, my Wolf God. With the rebel command chain severed, these rabble aren't far from total annihilation."
Kaelen, rifle in hand, quick-stepped to Horus and Kullen's side.
He surveyed the field, corpses everywhere, enemy officers reduced to unrecognizable scraps of limb and bone — and couldn't stop marveling at the sheer close-combat efficiency of these two.
"Back during the Great Crusade..." The Wolf God flicked the blood from his power knife and laughed. "An engagent of this intensity wouldn't even count as a countryside stroll for ."
"You an you weren't fighting seriously?"
"Mm..."
Horus deliberately drew out the sound, tilting his head toward Kaelen, savoring the suspense.
"Truth be told, my friend — I barely exerted any effort at all. It didn't even qualify as a warm-up."
Kaelen's face twitched. Whatever sense of hard-won victory he'd been nursing got doused in ice water. Everyone else had been fighting tooth and nail, and the primarch treated the whole thing like morning calisthenics.
Then again, looking at it from another angle, it was actually a relief.
Every xenos this Wolf God had torn apart with his bare hands back in the day was the kind of monster that could grind entire Astra Militarum regints into the dirt. Cleaning up these mortal traitors was pure dinsional suppression, a complete curb-stomp.
He, Kaelen, was at best an experience leech. The damage output was entirely carried by the primarch.
No arguing that. He was a carried noob, plain and simple. MVP was Horus. Oh, and Kullen too.
"The covering fire you provided from the rear was crucial, my friend."
Horus shifted his tone, sothing genuinely sincere creeping in.
"You knocked out no fewer than twenty threats. Your sniper timing was impeccably chosen. We worked with remarkable synergy, did we not?"
The Wolf God winked at him, smile brimming.
Kaelen knew full well he was being stroked. It worked on him anyway.
"Lord Lupercal," Kullen said, "the main Imperial force has already punched through the rebel front lines. Shall we go lend a hand?"
"It is only proper. As the strong, shouldering more responsibility is a given duty. Let's help the loyalists trim their casualties while we're at it."
Horus leveled his gaze at Kaelen.
"For the next stretch, the two of us will follow your command, Lord Kaelen."
-------------
On the other side, the Cadian 8th Regint's counterattack had already begun.
Nearby units from other defensive sectors, shaking free of the chaos, received orders in succession and folded into the pacification sequence.
The Voskarn Ironclad Regint, having lost its overall commander, shifted from offense to defense. Their fundantals were still solid, individual soldiering skills extrely high. But they were up against the 8th Regint, iron-blooded veterans under the personal command of Lord Castellan Creed himself.
The battle lines were ruthlessly carved apart.
Creed's tactics were vicious and pragmatic. Leman Russ tank clusters tore open the enemy positions by force. Infantry poured through the breaches, carving the elongated defensive line into several small, isolated pockets.
The Imperial forces relied on nurical superiority, devouring the rebels bite by bite.
Kaelen led his two canvas-draped "Ogryns" straight for the rebel fire-support positions along their rear.
On a high-ground slope, an enemy heavy weapons company had set up 6 heavy bolters. Their interlocking fire pinned the Cadian infantry at the base of the hill so hard they couldn't lift their heads. Severed limbs churned in the mud. The assault casualty count climbed in a straight line.
Kaelen lay prone behind a broken wall a hundred ters out. His crosshairs settled on a gunner's throat.
The beam punched through. The assistant gunner fell backward.
In that half-second gap, Horus and Kullen moved.
They surged onto the high ground with thunderbolt speed. Kullen's master-crafted power sword sheared through a gun barrel and, in the sa stroke, split the gunner and the sandbags clean in two.
Horus was even more savage. He grabbed the base of a heavy bolter with one hand, swung it in a full arc, and smashed it into the adjacent firing position. The tal base crushed the chests of 3 rebels through sheer velocity and montum. Bones shattered.
The strongpoint didn't last 3 minutes before it was wiped out.
The Cadian soldiers below seized the gap. They leaped from their trenches, roaring as they charged up the slope, bayonets out, bleeding the rebels still clinging to life.
Kaelen shifted to a new position, rifle in hand.
He specifically sought out the tough nuts. Wherever the enemy's heavy weapons were densest, that was where their three-man squad struck.
Creed stood in the observation turret of his command Chira, cigar half-burned.
He raised his magnoculars and swept the entire Tarlok Plains.
The battle was progressing more smoothly than he'd anticipated. The enemy command echelon was completely paralyzed. Their reserve armor still hadn't pushed forward.
His field of view drifted to a depression on the left flank. Monts ago it had been the rebels' most heavily fortified anti-air position. Now it was rubble. Through the high-magnification lenses, he caught sight of 3 non-organic combat units.
A sergeant carrying a sniper rifle. And two creatures of terrifying stature. The two massive figures in dust cloaks moved at speeds that defied all reason. Their killing thod was so clean and efficient it would sha a seasoned assassin.
One of them had flipped a Chira transport with his bare hands, crushing the infantry squad sheltering behind it.
Creed lowered his magnoculars. He took a drag of his cigar and nodded.
"Three of the Emperor's most valiant and loyal warriors."
"Cadian 8th — continue the attack! Give the rebels no chance to catch their breath!"
The mop-up lasted an entire day.
Dusk over the Tarlok Plains ca in a sickly violet-red. Gunsmoke surged into the stratosphere, blotting out the last light of the star. The soil was saturated with blood. Every step made a wet, sticky sound.
The rebels fought with the desperation of cornered beasts. Laser beams and shells packed the air. The last intact company of the Voskarn Ironclad Regint was reduced to scrap tal in a sea of fire.
Before nightfall, the final gunshot ceased.
The rebel force was completely annihilated.
The Cadian defenders had paid a steep price. But they had held the most critical defensive line, and they had personally snapped this poisoned blade that had stabbed deep into their heartland.
Everywhere, Astra Militarum soldiers were treating the wounded and clearing the aftermath.
Flares climbed into the high sky. Cold white light flooded the battlefield, illuminating every brutal detail.
Kaelen was exhausted. The high-intensity maneuver had drained him dry. He leaned against a charred slab of armor wreckage, breathing hard, his uniform caked in mud and the tainted blood of heretics.
His two "Ogryn" bodyguards stood beside him. Horus's breathing beneath his mask was still steady. The canvas draped over him had been torn open in several places by enemy fire, revealing completely unhard skin underneath. Kullen had deactivated his power sword. The blood grooves on the blade were clogged with congealed flesh.
"It's done." Kaelen tossed his empty canteen back into his pack.
"This is only the beginning." Kullen gazed at the eerie aurora on the horizon, his tone carrying no ease at all. "Cadia's tribulation is far from over. Ezekyle's main fleet is still mustering in the void."
"But at least tonight, Cadia remains in the Imperium's hands." Kaelen wiped the blood and mud from his face with his sleeve and straightened up.
A stream of pale-blue text flickered across his retina.
[Mission: Alter the Tragedy of Betrayal — End the Betrayal Early. Completed.]
[Reward Points: 10,000]
[Currently Available Total Points: 111,500.]
10,000 points deposited. A sum large enough to exchange for cutting-edge weapons or skills from the system's armory.
Kaelen closed the panel. He understood clearly that this bit of capital was still nowhere near enough for what was coming.
A breeze swept across the scorched earth of the landing zone, carrying the mixed sll of char and blood.
Up ahead, the crowd parted.
Hundreds of veterans from the Cadian 8th Regint had lined both sides of the path, spontaneously, without any order given. Every gaze converged on this unremarkable sergeant, and on the two figures behind him who stood like gods of war.
They knew nothing of this sergeant's past. But every frontline soldier had seen it with their own eyes, how this three-man squad had torn through the rebel rear and left carnage in their wake. The feats spread by word of mouth: fire-support positions rooted out, armored vehicles destroyed with bare hands.
An army worships only true strength.
Without any command, a veteran raised his fist to his chest in the highest form of the Aquila salute.
Then a second. A third.
tal struck tal across the line. The sound built into a wave, rolling across the plains.
Kaelen froze. The reverence raised goosebumps across his skin. He turned to glance at Horus. The Wolf God claid nothing, said nothing, only stood in silence at his side, yielding this honor entirely to the mortal in front of him.
The grind of tank treads on gravel approached. A command Chira rolled to a halt not far away.
Ursarkar Creed stepped down.
The commander fad for his ruthlessness crossed the distance to Kaelen in long, purposeful strides.
Creed studied this weary but sharp-eyed mortal. Then he looked up at the two masked giants looming behind him.
He extended his hand.
Kaelen ca back to himself and reached out to et it.
Their hands locked together.
"Well done, Sergeant." Creed's half-smoked cigar was still clamped between his lips. His rough voice carried through the silent crowd. "You and your retainers saved Cadia's rear. Without your decisive action in knocking out the rebel command hub, the 8th would have had to spend many more good soldiers' lives chewing through this fight."
"Just doing my duty, sir. We only did what we could."
Kaelen kept it clean and simple.
He understood now what Horus had ant earlier. No matter how many enemies the two of them had killed, they still had to play the role, a sergeant in command of well-disciplined Ogryns, nothing more, nothing less.
Creed released his hand and stepped back half a pace, drawing himself up ramrod straight.
He raised his hand and rendered an impeccable military salute to all three of them.
"Thank you, Sergeant. On behalf of Cadia, I salute you and your warriors."
Kaelen stood at attention and returned the salute.
The soldiers around them erupted into cheers that didn't stop.
➤ Next: When the Wolf Shepherd Heard of the Siege of Terra
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