"Hey! Officers, please! We need rescue—there are police still buried in the rubble—"
Bang! Bang!
"..."
At Rentarou's plea, even the Astartes warriors—who had just finished firing at the bisected Gastrea—fell silent for a moment.
Uh... The black-haired boy sitting amid the debris looked up pleadingly, completely unaware of the awkward confusion his words caused among the three Astartes of the First Legion.
The leading warrior glanced down at his roaring chainsword, then at the boltgun at his side. Are we... not intimidating enough? Do we look like saviors to him? Hey, kid, we're invading your world, not saving it!
What, was he that eager to bask in the Empress' radiance?
Clatter...
The rubble shifted. The masked man staggered to his feet—his once-elegant burgundy tailcoat now nothing more than bloody rags. His right abdomen was torn open, viscera seeping through shredded flesh. His pure white mask, carved with a mocking grin, had shattered in half, crimson froth dripping from the corner of his mouth.
He hunched forward, clutching his wound, coughing blood. "Cough... You... you're from the Mechanized Soldier Project... or perhaps... from Sumire Muroto's New Human Creation Plan... cough..."
Moments ago, when the building collapsed, he'd barely escaped death—leaping clear in search of his daughter, Kohina Hiruko, his Initiator. But then, three armored giants had slammed into the ground before him, massive thrusters blazing on their backs.
And the booming gunfire from their weapons—it matched perfectly the sound he had heard over the phone, when his daughter's call was cut short.
"Cough... That gunfire... what did you do to my Kohina? And... that Selene—"
"Silence!!"
The masked man's words were cut off by the thunderous roar of the leading Astartes.
"How dare you, insect! You dare utter the sacred name of our God-Empress with that filthy tongue?!"
A moment ago, this arrogant stranger had amused them slightly—but now, with that name spoken aloud, fury blazed in their eyes.
"Heretic! I'll take your head!"
Within the Imperial Army, all divisions addressed Selene only as Her Majesty—their cheers limited to Long live the Empress! or Glory to the Throne! But only the Astartes and the Imperial Guard Legion were permitted to call her by name—to shout Selene's glory! or For Selene! That was their exclusive honor.
And this wretch had defiled it.
Seeing the armored giants preparing to strike the wounded masked man, Rentarou, who had understood little of their cryptic references to mechanized soldiers and Selene, stepped forward urgently.
The masked man was a murderer—he had slaughtered multiple officers. But Rentarou still believed these black-armored giants were government creations, the latest in some secret military project.
"Wait, officers! Be careful! That masked man has some kind of strange defensive ability—"
"Silence!"
The Astartes' fleeting curiosity toward the boy vanished instantly, replaced with annoyance. The pity they'd briefly felt toward this world's humans evaporated. The black-haired youth's shouting was nothing but noise to them.
One of the Astartes unlatched the boltgun magnetically fixed to his thigh, raising it without hesitation.
BOOM!
Splatter!
The 0.75-inch bolt round fired with a roar, striking Rentarou square in the chest. The explosive warhead detonated an instant later.
There was no time to feel pain. His vision went white—then nothing.
The boy's body disintegrated, fragments of flesh and blood scattering across the rubble.
The Astartes reattached his weapon with calm indifference. To him, it was no different than crushing an insect beneath his boot.
Indeed, they were not true Space Marine Astartes—they were modeled after them. Soldiers born through the fusion of Honkai energy, Tyrant evolution cells, and alchemical biotechnology.
Though they hadn't endured the millennia of war that forged the Astartes of the Warhammer universe, they were no mere novices either.
Before becoming Astartes, they had been elite Imperial Guardsmen—battle-hardened veterans of countless wars. Their discipline was forged in blood. Mercy was a luxury they did not possess.
They were capable of restraint—but never softness. Anger could turn them lethal in an instant.
"Now then..." growled the leader, raising his chainsword toward the dying masked man. "Your turn, defiler."
"With your blood, we consecrate the God-Empress. With your skull, we adorn Her golden throne!"
As the leader roared the sacred verse, all three Astartes drew their roaring chainswords and ignited them.
Whirrrr—!
BOOM!
SPLATTER!
...
As the mushroom cloud faded into the sky, the shockwave and heatstorm continued to spread across the Tokyo Area.
"The strong nuclear grenades crafted using Her Majesty's Honkai manipulation are a bit... excessive," Alex murmured, resting his ornate commander's helmet under his arm as he gazed at the devastation before him. "We'll need to establish several power tiers. Otherwise, their blast radius exceeds their intended deployment range. That's not combat efficiency—that's mutual annihilation."
Before him stretched a colossal crater. Half the Monolith barrier at the city's edge had collapsed, its stone-black surface spiderwebbed with fractures that reached deep into the inner metropolis. Buildings near the blast site had been completely flattened.
In coordinated trios, Astartes warriors rained down from the skies—jetpacks flaring like comets—as they descended upon the inner city. Within moments, the Tokyo Area was ablaze, engulfed in fire and chaos.
Behind Alex stood his honor guard—the personal company of the Legion Commander. Fully armored, they held banners and ceremonial weapons, their black armor gleaming under the blood-red sky.
"These Monoliths... each one stands about 1.618 kilometers tall and one kilometer wide," Alex noted, studying the ruins with detached curiosity. "Designed to contain some kind of organism, I assume?"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—!
The relentless echo of boltgun fire thundered from behind him. Alex turned slightly, eyes narrowing as he watched the chaos unfold.
"So these are the creatures from Her Majesty's intelligence—the beings transformed by the Gastrea virus. Their regeneration and mutation rates... astonishing, for mortals."
From the violet-hued rift behind him, an endless stream of Astartes in newly forged power armor emerged, advancing in perfect formation.
Moments later, perhaps due to the Monolith's collapse, countless grotesque creatures began swarming through the breach—waves of mutated horrors pouring into the open city.
But to the Astartes, it was a harvest, not a threat.
Their armor—its internal layers woven with Honkai energy and Tyrant gene matrices, its outer plating forged from alchemically enhanced orichalcum—rendered them immune to infection and impervious to Gastrea claws.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
WHIRRRR—!
CRASH! BOOM!
SPLATTER! RIP!
The deafening cadence of bolter fire, the screeching whir of chainswords, the wet tearing of flesh, and the thunder of grenades combined into a symphony of slaughter.
The Gastrea's famed regeneration and hardened carapaces were meaningless here. Even if they could survive decapitation, what use was that when their entire bodies were obliterated?
"Commander!"
"Hm? Bainin... report." Alex turned his head slightly as a tall Astartes approached. His armor was the same deep black of the First Legion, but adorned with golden feathered wings on the helmet and twin blood-red crests flaring from its crown. On his left pauldron was an embossed golden wing motif, and from his back flowed a red-and-white cape matching Alex's own.
This was Bainin—the Company Champion of the First Legion and Captain of the Commander's Honor Guard.
"In this sector alone, we've captured 13,468 natives," Bainin reported coolly. "Strangely, most of them are young girls—malnourished, underdressed, like discarded orphans."
He folded his arms, his voice cold. "And this world itself—barely qualifies as a ruin. Even the slums of our empire are in better condition."
Falling half a step behind Alex, Bainin continued, "Also... we discovered something interesting not long ago."
"Oh?" Alex tilted his head with mild curiosity. "And what could possibly pique the curiosity of our Company Champion?"
"These natives," Bainin said, his tone laced with faint disdain, "refer to their leader as Seitenshi."
"What?!" Alex's expression darkened. "Seitenshi?! Such arrogance—such blasphemy! To claim such a title with such pathetic strength... utter folly!"
"Bainin, where did this information come from?"
Bainin turned sharply, raising a hand. "Bring him forward!"
Soon, under the Company Champion's command, an Astartes warrior approached—his helmet equipped with multiple optical lenses, his right gauntlet enlarged and reinforced. In his grip, he dragged a dazed, drooling, overweight man dressed in a security uniform.
"This one," Bainin said, his voice cold. "So far, he's the oldest native we've captured in this region. I had Raynald use his Shingu—Mindseer—to read his memories. And what we discovered... well, it's worse than I imagined."
Shingu: Mindseer — A gauntlet-type auxiliary relic capable of extracting the memories of those whose will or mental strength is weaker than the user's.
"These girls," Bainin continued, "are the primary weapon this world uses against the infected creatures—the Gastrea. And yet, the irony is laughable..."
He clenched his armored fists. "The very ones they protect—the citizens inside these walls—despise them. They call their saviors 'Cursed Children.'"
"Their birth, according to his memories—'Cursed Children' are those born to mothers infected by the Gastrea virus during pregnancy. The virus mutates within the womb, granting the offspring partial Gastrea abilities. And for that reason alone, these children are reviled—hated, persecuted, and exiled to the outskirts."
"This man captured one such girl who had snuck into the city looking for scraps to eat. After forcing her back to the outer zone, he decided to 'have some fun.' If we hadn't arrived when we did..."
Bainin's voice trailed off, but the tension in his tone said enough.
"Pathetic," Alex muttered. "Disgusting."
Though his tone remained calm, everyone around him could sense his fury.
"I see."
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three bolt rounds tore through the man, reducing him to crimson mist. Lowering his bolt pistol, Alex's expression remained utterly blank.
It wasn't mercy. It wasn't compassion. It was disgust.
They weren't saints—but such cruelty offended their very nature as warriors. If their own sacrifices were ever repaid with such contempt, how could they stand it?
As for the rescued girls, Alex had no intention of granting them privilege. They were captives—like all others. Whether they found a place within the Empire would depend entirely on their own worth.
Yet, even this impartial treatment would already be far kinder than what they had known.
Within the Empire, even prisoners of war were granted food, shelter, and purpose. Here, at least, none would be abused or discarded.
But the rule was absolute—obedience. Any sign of rebellion would be crushed.
"Order to the First Grand Company's Assault Battalion—equip all vector-thrust jetpacks. Adjust the battle plan. Alongside the infantry's main advance, initiate a decapitation strike. The enemy's command core lies within the central City Hall, yes?"
Reattaching his bolt pistol to his magnetic holster, Alex slid his helmet into place, his voice reverberating through the comms. "Bainin. Commence the operation."
"Yes, Commander!"
...
Meanwhile—inside the City Hall.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOM—!
A main battle tank erupted in flames, struck by a volley of explosive bolts. Its frontal composite armor was torn apart; the ammunition inside detonated violently, hurling the scorched turret high into the air.
BANG!
A soldier barely peeking from behind cover was torn in half by another bolt round. Blood and entrails splattered across the pavement as his screams filled the air.
"Dammit! What are those things?! Those metal monstrosities—"
A shouting officer in a peaked cap didn't finish his sentence. A single bolt round struck his face.
SPLOOSH!
His head burst apart like a melon dropped on stone.
"Commander! We have to retre—AAAHHHH!!"
THUD! THUD!
WHIRRRR—!
SPLATTER—!
Two black-armored giants stormed through the front barricades, shrugging off gunfire as their chainswords tore through men and steel alike. Limbs flew. Blood fountained in great arcs, coating the shattered walls.
The troops behind them froze, their sanity cracking as their comrades were diced apart before their eyes.
Within minutes, the ad-hoc thousand-man defense line the Self-Defense Force had thrown together around City Hall lay in ruins—massacred to the last.
The silver bullets meant for Gastrea creatures did nothing against the Astartes' power armor. Even the 105mm tank cannons barely scratched the surface—scorching the paint at best.
"Run! RUN!!"
Someone shouted, and the survivors broke. The line collapsed completely.
But abandoning cover under the Astartes' auto-targeting systems was suicide.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
One by one, the fleeing soldiers were vaporized into red mist.
"Advance!" Alex's voice thundered through the comms. "Crush them beneath our boots! For Selene—!!"