Chapter 387

"I beg you, as long as you can let the heavenly soldiers of the twenty-second century save humanity, I will do anything!"

"You, Hua Hua Hua Di Huang! Where is your dignity as the Master of Mankind?"

"What is dignity? I only care about all of humanity!"

The brown-haired boy grabbed Zhou Yun's leg with one hand and clawed at the four-dimensional pocket with the other, his expression ferocious to the point of being terrifying.

"As long as humanity can be saved, as long as all of humanity can be saved, that's enough."

An intense obsession slammed directly into Zhou Yun. The surrounding reed marshes swayed violently as if in a storm, and tides rose on the bronze-colored water surface.

Everything around them rushed toward Zhou Yun, expressing intense obsession and longing to him.

As long as humanity is saved, it doesn't matter what is sacrificed.

He clearly perceived this obsession.

The things before his eyes were not real, but a way of communication between the Hua Hua Hua Di Huang and Zhou Yun.

Everything before Zhou Yun—the brown-haired boy clutching the four-dimensional pocket, his frantic words, and the constantly changing scenery around them—were all manifestations of the Hua Hua Hua Di Huang's longing to save all of humanity and his obsession over the past ten thousand years.

Or rather, this was the longing of all humanity for redemption.

In the face of this longing, everything could be sacrificed, everything could be abandoned, as long as all of humanity was saved.

The brown-haired boy looked at Zhou Yun with eyes full of longing.

Zhou Yun lowered his head and looked at him silently as well.

"... No," Zhou Yun said after a short silence.

"Huh?" The brown-haired boy's hand loosened slightly from the four-dimensional pocket: "No?"

"Do you think I haven't tried?"

Zhou Yun couldn't help but say:

"I've tried writing letters to sell to the future department store, tried passing information to the other end of the four-dimensional pocket, but all of it was in vain."

Zhou Yun had tried several times to make contact with the world on the other side of the four-dimensional pocket, but in the end, he couldn't even be sure if there was a twenty-second century on the other side.

Only the scenes transmitted back by Xi Gaoqi's sublime avatar before the link broke, and those Aeldari souls whose whereabouts were unknown, could indirectly prove the existence of the twenty-second century.

But what was the essence of that twenty-second century? Was it the miraculous era from the Doraemon anime? Or was it just a special Warp domain?

Zhou Yun couldn't confirm any of this. Xi Gaoqi had also tried throwing a few sublime avatars into the four-dimensional pocket, but couldn't obtain any more information.

"If I were really sure the other side was the twenty-second century, do you think I'd still be staying in this cesspool of a galaxy?"

"If I had a choice, I'd rather go to Night City, to Metropolis, or even to the damn Kunxu than come to your side."

Listening to Zhou Yun's words, the brown-haired boy smoothly let go of Zhou Yun's leg and the four-dimensional pocket, stood up from the ground, and patted the mud off his knees.

"As expected, you're still a naturally evil raccoon cat brat. I trusted you too much just now."

Both of them stared at each other.

But only half a second later, both of them couldn't help but sigh at the same time.

They sat back down on the muddy riverbank together.

"I know it's unlikely, but I still hold a tiny bit of hope, hoping that you can really save humanity with ease."

The brown-haired boy said to Zhou Yun with some sadness while washing the clay off his feet with clear river water.

"I originally hoped so too, hoped that you knew about this four-dimensional pocket and knew how to save this galaxy," Zhou Yun said, shrugging his shoulders.

Then Zhou Yun couldn't help but sigh again: "How did it come to this? I should be an ordinary twenty-first-century person, studying step-by-step from elementary school to high school, then getting into a university that's neither good nor bad, getting exploited by capitalists for my surplus value after graduation, and gnawing on apples while building models in my spare time... Who stole my life? I must have been poisoned by eating cheap takeout!"

"Then I also have to ask, how did it come to this? I should be the heir to a small tribe in Mesopotamia, with a wise father, friendly brothers, diligent subjects, annual wheat harvests, no bandits, no droughts or diseases, and my aunt's daughter would comb my hair. After my father grew old, I should have carved eyes for him with seashells... Who stole my life? I must have been poisoned by eating wild mushrooms in the forest!"

"How could it be me?" "Why me?"

"I'm not a god." "I'm not a god either."

The two spoke almost simultaneously.

"Then why are you standing here? Give the four-dimensional pocket to someone else, and I'll arrange a Shrine World for you to be a noble. You'd still be a wealthy man, wouldn't that be wonderful?"

The brown-haired boy pointed to the bronze-lustered river in front of him and said:

"I swear by the Zakkaria River: if you gift me the four-dimensional pocket, I will return a Shrine World to you, and you shall be a wealthy man."

Zhou Yun turned his East Asian face directly toward his, looking at the brown-haired boy with dead-fish eyes.

The brown-haired boy's proposal was no longer an insult to Zhou Yun's intelligence; it was an insult to Zhou Yun's lineage. When Zhou Yun was born, the credibility of such oaths had already been lost for nearly two thousand years.

"... Even if I trusted you, I couldn't give it to you," Zhou Yun sighed and said: "I've tried. Except for me, no one else can see the interface of the future department store."

"Indeed... This pocket seems to be bound to your Warp essence," the brown-haired boy said, rubbing his chin and thinking.

"And don't just talk about me. I ask you, why do you insist on standing out?" Zhou Yun glanced at the brown-haired boy and asked.

"... It's just that no one else stood out," the brown-haired boy shook his head slightly.

"You've really had it hard," Zhou Yun reached out and patted the brown-haired boy's back.

"You're also quite unlucky, coming to this era for no reason," the brown-haired boy also patted Zhou Yun's back.

"..."

The two were silent for a moment, then the brown-haired boy broke the atmosphere:

"Tell me about the specific situation of your four-dimensional pocket. Maybe we can discover something?"

"I want to know the specific price of each gadget..."

Nearly forty thousand years later, it set foot on Terra's soil once again.

It was a Greater Daemon born of war and slaughter, a Bloodthirster born in the midst of an ancient and tragic war on Terra.

That was a battlefield filled with mud, trenches, corpses, artillery fire, and pain; it was a tragic meat grinder.

It was the Somme, it was over 1.2 million corpses, it was an endless war meat grinder, it was dark anger, constantly craving to slaughter more life, caring only about the flow of blood.

It emerged from the Blood God's realm and, along with seven other Greater Daemons, gained the opportunity to lead eight daemon legions to ravage Terra.

Finally, in the long years since the hateful Astronomican was ignited, the Somme had never again ravaged this land that had birthed it.

Now, it could finally bring war to Terra once again.

But the daemon army led by the Somme encountered obstacles.

Mortals, a group of mortals holding ridiculous blades, blocked the breach in the Eternity Gate.

That group of mortals seemed to be masters of swordsmanship, each of them holding off the daemons with nothing but toy-like short swords.

It wasn't just the Somme; the other seven directions were also blocked.

This made the other seven Greater Daemons feel anxious; they even personally entered the fray and launched charges against the mortals.

But even as Greater Daemons, they were evenly matched with the mortals. In the end, the Somme's Bloodthirster colleagues could only rely on letting out louder and louder roars to cover up the embarrassing situation.

But the Somme was different; the Somme was observing and waiting.

The Somme was born from a long and stalemate battle. For a change of a few meters in the front line, humans had spilled tens of thousands, even millions, of blood in the trenches.

The Somme was very patient, very patient. It launched seven attacks, and all seven failed to break through the defensive line built by this group of mortals.

Finally, on the eighth time, the Somme noticed their flaw.

The toy sword in a mortal's hand lost its luster, turned gray, and then that mortal hurriedly retreated, with others hurriedly filling the vacancy...

The Somme narrowed its eyes; it understood, it had discovered it.

The Somme joined the war, and the chainaxe hung with countless skulls slashed heavily toward those mortal Astra Militarum soldiers.

They brandished those glowing little short swords to block the Somme.

But just as the Somme had guessed, the battery power of those short swords had basically reached its limit, and one after another, they turned gray.

It grinned, revealing a ferocious smile, ready to start harvesting lives—

Bang!!!!

An intense psychic warhammer descended from the sky. The Somme was like a spinning top struck hard by a supersonic whip, tumbling and spinning on the ground, flying seventy or eighty meters away before barely stopping.

It looked up blankly at the military-uniformed woman in mid-air, whose entire body was releasing intense psychic flames.

Xiang Xiang Leina panted heavily; her psychic power was being consumed rapidly.

The battery power of the Famous Blade: Lightning Ball had a limit. Now, the Lightning Balls on all eight fronts had basically exhausted their power.

But what made Xiang Xiang Leina feel difficult to accept was that they had persisted for so long, yet some of the Astra Militarum on Terra still hadn't completed their retreat?!

Was this training volume too damn poor? How could they be called Astra Militarum if they couldn't march more than 100 kilometers a day?!

Among the veteran groups that had once followed the Hua Hua Hua Di Huang of Mankind to battle, as time passed, many had rotted into waste.

If this were Cadia, Xiang Xiang Leina would have dragged them one by one to run laps around the planet's equator! Those who fell behind would be shot on the spot!

But the problem now was that Xiang Xiang Leina and the Cadian 184th Regiment were being held up.

Other Astra Militarum units were retreating, and the Astartes were too few in number to fill such a huge front line. The Cadian 184th Regiment had to hold the line, otherwise, the retreat would turn into a rout.

Xiang Xiang Leina greeted the mothers of those wastes again.

She had to run back and forth between various fronts quickly. Just a moment ago, she had torn off the head of a Bloodthirster.

Now, her psychic potential had also almost reached its low point.

Just at this moment, Xiang Xiang Leina suddenly saw the sky burning. Drop pods like meteors ignited the atmosphere, slamming straight into the battlefield, slamming into the daemon army.

Reinforcements!?

Astartes?!

Which Chapter was it?!

Chapters near Terra... The Imperial Fists had suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Cadia, and the portion of their power that could still be mobilized was already on the battlefield.

Were there any other Space Marine forces of such large scale near Terra?!

Just at this moment, the steaming drop pods opened one by one on the battlefield.

Scorching psychic lightning pierced the void, and magnificent chanting resounded endlessly. The daemons let out sharp wails.

Astartes wearing silver-gray power armor walked out of the drop pods, like a group of demon-slaying heavenly generals forged from mercury.

Any daemon that approached them would be burned by the scorching psychic power.

Just by standing on the battlefield, they established a defensive line amidst the daemon's offensive.

"Colonel Xiang Xiang Leina, I've called for reinforcements."

The voice of Custodian Shield-Captain Valerian rang out in the comms.

But Xiang Xiang Leina's eyelid couldn't help but twitch.

(End of chapter)