Duvall had always clung to a sliver of hope concerning his transmigration. What if—what if he had merely played too much Darktide, blacked out, and slipped into a dream? It was only that this dream felt far too real.
The shriek of las-fire tearing through the air. The stench of ozone and scorched flesh. The desperate, furious cries of officers and soldiers...
Duvall’s eyes snapped open. He dragged in harsh breaths, staring in disbelief. "I’m still alive?"
He seemed to have just endured an artillery barrage.
The tremendous shockwave had hurled him into the mud. By the time he regained consciousness, everything around him had changed. The trench to his left had been blown into a vast crater, severed limbs and shredded flesh churned together with the mire and sprayed everywhere.
Beside where he had been lying was a severed arm, its grey uniform sleeve still smeared with wet blood.
He tried moving his body. There was no agonising pain, no broken bones. That was strange. The shell had struck this section of trench directly. Everyone else was dead, yet he had somehow survived.
Duvall pushed himself upright with one hand, muddy water dripping from his coat.
The boom of shells impacting sounded in the distance. The ground quivered faintly, and the air was thick with choking propellant smoke.
He drew a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
He tried to recall his present circumstances. This was the agri-world Falak IV. He was a trainee Commissar attached to the 101st Regiment of K3192—an Astra Militarum regiment also known as the Ashen Watchers.
"Damn it, was I really drafted by that yellow weasel?!" Duvall slammed a fist into the puddle beside him. The spray left another wet stain across his grey Guardsman’s uniform with its blue piping. The insignia on his chest, denoting his status, had already been rendered unrecognisable.
A trainee Commissar... wasn’t that just another rank-and-file trooper? Throne damn it. The defensive line of the Sixth Company was on the verge of collapse, and the rebel force known as the Skull Crushers was pressing its assault relentlessly.
What was he supposed to do? Run for it? No. Setting aside whether he could reach safety, if he encountered the main body of the rebels while alone, he would be dead at once.
No matter how he looked at it, his only way out was to find troops still resisting and join them.
Relying on the memories of this body’s former owner, Duvall reached into the mud and pulled out a lasgun. He checked it. Its casing was caked in filth, but thankfully, it still worked.
He took several deep breaths, striving to steady his racing heart.
Panic was useless. Fear was useless. In this universe, death was by no means the end. The Warp was full of things far more terrible than death.
He did not want to die, and he wanted even less for his soul to be defiled by Chaos after death. Survival was all that mattered now.
Clutching his lasgun tightly, Duvall began carefully advancing in the direction of the gunfire.
As he moved through the trench, a great number of mutilated corpses came into view. Some wore the same grey Astra Militarum uniforms as he did, their chests torn open by something unknown, their heads missing entirely.
Others were even more grotesquely twisted. Their clothing appeared to have been stitched directly into their skin, while bone-white masks clung fast to their faces. Not even direct hits from high-powered las-fire had dislodged them. It was as though they had simply grown from the flesh of their faces.
The carnage around him assailed Duvall’s nerves again and again. He breathed heavily, his stomach churning, and could only pray that the first person he found would be an ally.
At last, around another bend in the trench, Duvall saw several figures locked together amid shouting beneath the orange light of dusk. His finger settled on the trigger. Holding his breath, he sprinted out from the corner.
A lean Astra Militarum trooper was fighting two rebels at close quarters. Just as one rebel raised a sharpened steel pipe to drive it into the Guardsman’s waist, the piercing shriek of a las-shot cut through the air. The dull crack of a skull being punched through made the other rebel freeze for an instant.
The Guardsman seized the chance, shoved away the enemy grappling with him, and thrust his bayonet through the man’s lung. A sound like air hissing from a punctured balloon escaped the rebel’s throat. Duvall immediately put another shot through his head.
His heart thundered. His hands trembled. This was the first time he had killed someone. Well, perhaps not the first time for this body.
"Throne-damned lunatics. Hah... fine shooting!" The soldier panted, then gave a whistle as he turned to Duvall. "It’s you, all right. Lucky Duvall. Where are Hiranel and the others?"
"They..." Duvall had just begun to answer when a line of small text appeared in his vision.
[A friendly Astra Militarum soldier has been detected. Legion Soul activated.]
[May fortune favour you, my child.]
What was that? Duvall stood frozen in place.
The soldier some distance away seemed to understand from the look on his face. He sighed. "Death is the most ordinary thing in the world for us. May their souls reach that damned Golden Throne."
He removed his garrison cap, revealing a gleaming bald head marked with a skull tattoo. "Those lunatics scattered us. We need to find the main force quickly. Come on."
Duvall looked at the tall, thin, bald man wiping his bayonet with his cap. Several lines of green text appeared above the man’s head.
[Stroud Hammer]
[101st Ashen Watchers Regiment, Sixth Company, Second Lieutenant]
[Loyalty: 80%] [Morale: 80%] [Condition: Lightly Wounded] [Sanity: 64%] [Chaos Corruption: 43%]
Was this his cheat? Could he see other people’s status? Had the battlefield been turned into a game? Before he had time to think further, Stroud smeared mud from the ground across his scalp and face, then turned and ran in one direction. Duvall immediately followed.
The two continued onward, encountering several more scattered groups of rebels along the way. Duvall followed behind Stroud, and every shot he fired was steadier than the last.
"Your marksmanship really is excellent, my good Commissar. Well, you aren’t one yet, but I reckon you will be sooner or later. Speaking of which..."
Duvall ignored the camouflaged bald man’s incessant chatter, for another notification had appeared before his eyes.
[You have slain ten Chaos rebels. Legion Skill Tree unlocked. Reward: 100 points of the Emperor’s Wrath.]
Duvall stared at the interface in his vision, resembling a game’s skill tree, his eyes full of shock and suspicion. "This isn’t really one of Tzeentch’s schemes, is it?"
He gave the three main branches a cursory glance: [Iron Discipline], [War], and [Sacred].
Duvall tried using his 100 points of the Emperor’s Wrath to illuminate the first skill in the Iron Discipline branch.
[Ring of Iron (Novice)]
[The sanity and morale of soldiers under your command will increase slightly.]
[Steel Within, Steel Without!]
Almost at once, Duvall noticed a change in the status display above Stroud’s head: [Morale: 75] [Sanity: 80%].
"What are you standing around for, my good Commissar?" Stroud was already urging him onward from ahead. "Hurry! I can hear them—the main force is right in front of us!"
Duvall came back to himself and hurried after him.
The sounds of battle grew increasingly dense. The furious cries of the Astra Militarum and the shriek of lasguns melded into one. The air reeked of scorched matter and blood, while earth sifted down in trembling streams from the trench walls.
They rounded the final bend and at last beheld a position still holding out.
Several dozen grey-clad soldiers held a relatively intact stretch of trench, pouring fire down the slope. Stroud laughed. "See? I told you we’d find them."
Duvall looked at the soldiers still fighting, then at the glowing skill icon in his vision.
He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the lasgun.
Survive.
Then find a way to win.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register