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Chapter 88: Then, I Shall Go to War
🕑 Added 2025-08-14 13:52:04 +0000 UTCChapter 88: Then, I Shall Go to War
After a stalemate that lasted for nearly two months of back-and-forth, the Tyranid offensive had reached a turning point.
The outcome of this war was not determined by strategy, nor even by morale. It was determined by the superiority of wargear and the disparity in numbers.
"Three artillery battalions have suffered heavy losses. Their commanders were assassinated before they could react. We must contract the defensive lines further and consolidate the routed forces. The enemy's information processing capabilities have clearly risen by several orders of magnitude."
Listening to the analyst's report, Romulus looked at the battle lines on his display, which were constantly being marked in red. He pressed a hand to his head in frustration.
Faced with the Hive Fleet's seemingly endless offensive, the human population was inevitably dwindling. As the Tyranids continuously deployed new combat bioforms, and in the face of unavoidable sacrifices, every person was being crushed under the weight of death. Not even the Emperor's light could dispel the shadow in their hearts.
Compared to the effortless control they had at the beginning of the engagement, their defensive perimeter had now shrunk by half.
And—
After a brief moment of frustration, Romulus calmed himself again. He stared at the battlefield model, which recorded the changes in the Hive Fleet over the past two months. The enemy now had a stronger commander. The entire Hive Fleet's maneuverability had risen by an order of magnitude, allowing it to capture battlefield information more accurately and issue commands more rapidly.
The Hive Fleet was adapting. A powerful node had entered the Shrine's operational range and was quickly adapting to the human way of war.
They had to destroy this command node. Otherwise, the pressure on the defending forces would only continue to grow.
But he couldn't find it...
While directing the contraction of the battle lines and commanding the soulless, Mechanicus-scanned automata on an unseen front to trade their lives against the Tyranid swarm to reduce the pressure on the main battlefield, Romulus diverted a portion of his thoughts to analyze the situation. The enemy was also building a model to counter him. His own use of Astartes to assassinate their node-creatures had given the enemy a massive amount of data. So much so that, including his assassination tactics, the Hive Fleet's current tactics now highly overlapped with his own.
You ask why Romulus couldn't counter his own tactics?
Romulus looked at the battle lines, where he was forced to mass-produce troops just to fill the gaps, to the point where the control of units in other sectors was now lagging. He couldn't help but sigh.
Yes, he couldn't counter it. His tactics were unbeatable when he had the numerical advantage.
And high-end combat power wasn't something you could just mass-produce. And the number of humans, compared to the Hive Fleet, was far too small.
If even one of either Arthur or Ramesses were here, the situation would not be so dire.
"Sigh—"
Looking at the message Ramesses had sent on their behalf two weeks ago—"Situation stable and improving, do not worry"—Romulus let out another long sigh.
Who were the enemies, what was the progress of the battle, how much longer would it last, what were their own casualties? None of it was mentioned.
Just "stable and improving."
How is it stable and improving? Could you be a little more specific?!
The weary battlefield commander looked again at the front line, which was a complete mess. He took up the comms and issued detailed orders to the various units, while simultaneously controlling his soulless troops to put out fires. The only good news, perhaps, was that the Adeptus Mechanicus's Titans were holding up well. At least the Mechanicus Temple showed no signs of being breached. In Romulus's projections, it should have no problem holding out until Cawl's calculations were complete.
The battlefield was a chaotic mess.
Corpses, blood, and fragments of steel covered the ground, mixed with the remains of the xenos, weaving a thick web of flesh and blood. The breach in the front line was piled several meters high with bodies. Fortunately, Karna had arrived in time, quickly opening the breach and giving the fleeing crowd a direction.
The battle had raged to this point. The Hive Fleet, having gained biomass, had gradually taken the upper hand. The Imperium's fanatical faith was on the verge of collapse after more than two months of attritional warfare. With one frontline commander after another being assassinated, not even the harshest military discipline could force them into a desperate, last stand.
The armed faithful had broken into a panicked rout. At this point, no one could even round them up into a penal legion.
Karna said nothing. He rested a hand on the cratered wall, nimbly evading the attack of a Ravener, then looked at the temporary command post. A quick glance was enough. The young man who had just mustered the courage to organize the crowd was now slumped over the command vehicle, his body drained of blood, his empty eyes staring at the sky, which had been stained a sickly gray-green by the hot plasma clouds and phosphex.
SQUELCH!
With a flick of his wrist, the tip of his spear pierced the Ravener's skull.
Karna remembered this boy. He had knelt before his mother and spoken of his dreams, vowing to defend the last hope. He was dead now. The ghost-like Ravener had drained his blood, dead at the very moment he had mustered his courage, trying to regroup the chaotic crowd.
And now the crowd, these temporarily armed humans, had instinctively chosen to flee after losing their commander. The transmigrators did not have mind control. They had done their best to pass on their own conviction to the masses, but they could not guarantee that every single person would be fearless in the face of death.
When the flesh and blood of their own kind exploded at their side, when a terrifying xenos they had never seen before appeared before them, fear would only freeze their blood.
"I overestimated the situation," Romulus sighed. The perfect defensive circle he had constructed had been breached by the enemy's exploitation of human weakness. Large numbers of the armed faithful had broken after losing their leaders multiple times. They had deserted in the face of the Hive Fleet's charge.
The human defensive network in the Upper Hive had inevitably contracted. This was followed by a weakening of fire support, a shrinking of maneuvering space, and a decrease in orbital deployment capability. This was a success the Hive Fleet had bought with countless deaths and failures. And humanity, at least the humans fighting on this planet—they did not have many chances to fail.
But if the people could have just acted according to his will, the situation would not be like this. Romulus looked at the collapsing battle lines and shook his head. This would only lead to more deaths.
"You demand too much of yourself. To excessively pursue perfection is a form of arrogance," Karna's voice came through.
The spear turned, the angel sidestepped, and a Ravener impaled itself on the tip of his weapon.
"You always want to control everything to perfection," Karna continued. "To guard against everything, everywhere, is to have a weakness everywhere. But now, look at those bodies. We are, in essence, only slightly stronger than them."
"Don't be so hard on yourself. To be human is to make mistakes. Don't measure humanity by good and evil. Think about what has created the good and evil in humanity today."
Flicking the Ravener's corpse from his spear, Karna stared at the Tyranid swarm.
The Hive Mind's constant assassinations were, in themselves, the ultimate blow to morale. It was normal for ordinary humans to break under repeated assaults. Astartes could guard against a Lictor's assassination, but mortals could not. And the Hive Mind's node on the front line seemed to be a bit too strong.
The jump pack ignited with a cobalt-blue flame, carrying Karna high into the air.
Romulus was always adapting to the situation, always able to make the right moves for the battlefield environment. But while he could adapt, the ordinary people, who were now caught between a rock and a hard place, could not. They were always more fragile, and yet, so complex.
But sometimes, they were very simple.
The angel looked down on the entire battle. He wanted to change this situation.
The flow of the crowd, the attacks of the Hive Fleet, his partner's focus on detailed data—he could be misled by that data, led into a ditch by a wrong turn.
But an angel would not.
Karna raised his spear. His eyes were locked on an area far from the battlefield. A custom-built rocket booster began to fire from the vents along the spear's shaft.
He would not be fooled by a feint.
CLANG!
A javelin fell from the sky. Without warning, incredibly fast. Before the target could even react, the power lance had pierced through its body.
ROOOOAR!!!
A roar like muffled thunder echoed from the far side of the battlefield. At the same time, a deep green psychic shockwave expanded outwards. The ruins were pushed aside by the violent psychic power, the wreckage of several Leman Russ tanks directly melting, forming a massive crater.
This is—
Romulus, who was directing the battle, his pupils reflexively dilated, staring at the beast that still had a gaping wound in its body.
Massive in size, incredibly powerful.
A Hive Tyrant!
The embodiment of the Hive Mind, the most powerful node-creature of the Hive Fleet under normal circumstances.
Its reaction was very fast. Otherwise, the vortex weapon attached to the spear's tip would have torn open a Warp-vortex and disintegrated it into pieces.
"I've found you," Karna said in a low voice. His demeanor was completely different from the gentleness he showed when dealing with humans.
Faced with an enemy, only extreme emotions were real.
Anger, killing intent.
The urge to drain the enemy's blood.
"Fall back, Karna," Romulus said, his voice serious. "We need a plan." A complete plan, a plan that would minimize the sacrifices.
The artillery positions, under his command, quickly locked onto the wounded Hive Tyrant, but their dense fire was blocked by a massive beast with a thick carapace.
"You, you always think too much." Karna shook his head, his refusal clear, as he looked down at the fleeing mortals.
To try and take care of everyone is to take care of no one. Romulus had protected them too well. The perfect execution of every step had made them think they still had a way out, that they could still get lucky. Romulus had, with his own ability, carved out the most extreme living space for the mortals on a desperate battlefield.
But the mortals didn't know that.
The mortals were missing someone to tell them what to do on a desperate battlefield.
To go deep into the battle alone was, rationally speaking, a very costly and high-risk move. But who knew what the result would be?
His gaze locked on the relocating Hive Tyrant, Karna already had a plan. To use his absolute combat power to drag the Hive Tyrant into melee, forcing the Hive Mind to divert a large amount of its attention to control the Hive Tyrant to fight him. The pressure on the battlefield would naturally decrease, and his partner would naturally return to a state of effortless control.
Charge. Charge at the strong enemy.
It was that simple.
As for the rest...
The angel summoned another spear in the air.
Don't think about it for now!
"In your calculations, if I go to war, how many lives can I save?" Karna's voice came through the comms.
"???"
Romulus could see it now. These three brothers were all cut from the same cloth in a crisis.
You all only think about the results before you go, don't you? You don't think about whether you'll die?
"Countless," Romulus replied with resignation, looking at the results of his calculations.
"Then—"
Against the tide of the fleeing crowd, the crimson angel began to fly.
The afterimage pierced through the dust, cleaving a path through the shattered battlefield, drawing the eyes of all, and a joyous roar from the Blood God in the Empyrean.
"I shall go to war!"
(End of Chapter)
