Chapter 40: Did You Kill All This?

The Light Spear washes the sea of sand.

Prolonged intense heat turns sand grains into boundless, flawless glass.

The glass continent mirrors the sky; within the heavy black clouds, continuous orange lightning flashes, and rows of Light Spears from farther away pierce the cloud sea.

Standing on this glass continent, the ground beneath feels like a completely inverted Alert Star.

Only when a pair of Taogang knees give way and fall onto the glass does the reflected world instantly "crack".

A Chaos Astarte clad in Ceramic Steel Powered Armor, its red visor on the helmet staring blankly at the mortal before it.

Xisi thrusts his leg to brace, forcefully extracting his Power Sword from the Chaos Astarte's chest.

The massive body collapses backward, and in the endless reflection it lies as if on a sky canopy.

His form heaves, and his fierce panting remains clear even through the helmet.

Xisi stands in place, one hand gripping an Explosive Gun, the other a Power Sword, a deep slash scar across his helmet, his gaze surveying everything around.

Boundless, endless corpses.

Green Skin, humans, Chaos—at this moment everyone seems enveloped by two layers of cloud above and below, quietly closing their eyes in this "midair".

Only the blood beneath spreads into a long river, slowly seeping toward the gleaming distance.

"Divine Emperor… long live…"

"Empire… long live…"

Intermittent, staggered shouts come from afar; Xisi looks, the few surviving mortals—some crippled, some seated—gazing at the piled corpses beside his solitary silhouette, he thrusts his head up, asserting his existence as the ultimate victor of this slaughter.

Xisi, weary, bows his head; the helmet, stripped of support, hangs limply toward his feet, he watches his own slash scars and bloodstains in the glass reflection, while intermittent sounds rise and fall at his ears, his lips move silently open and shut.

"Mortal… long live…"

Bang!

The Power Sword pierces the glass reflection; Xisi draws a deep breath, clutching the Power Sword, gritting his teeth, and straightens his body again.

He scans the area, sees Bunoke slumped among a corpse heap in the distance, clutching a machine gun with vacant eyes; Xisi draws his Power Sword and strides over.

"Organize the squad, advance toward Heberia at once."

Xisi summons his strength to keep his voice as steady as possible; Bunoke's eyes gradually come back, his hands still trembling from the trigger pull, he forcefully extracts the machine gun, lifts his gaze to Xisi, and dryly swallows.

Because nearly all the surviving soldiers involuntarily glance toward Xisi's side.

There lie the ground‑covering bodies of cultist dead, and even Astarte that can be stacked atop one another.

Among several Green Skin corpse hills are several LupiLaoda, their bodies sheathed in heavy steel, massive forms rolling onto the ground.

Confronted with Xisi's "trophies", Bunoke and the survivors, aside from dry‑swallowing, are utterly at a loss for how to convey their astonishment.

Clutching the machine gun, Bunoke grits his teeth and pulls his trembling body upright.

The surrounding attentive survivors, seeing this, also grit their teeth and straighten up; the Laser Rifle at this moment even serves as a walking stick for the soldiers.

Limping, the Regiment soldiers, now far fewer, gather from all sides.

He forces himself to swallow again, easing his dry, sore throat.

A slightly hoarse voice emanates from behind the helmet:

"Following this mirrored surface, we still have a long way to go."

The soldiers follow Xisi's gaze; perhaps they had just been exterminated twice in succession, and not long ago their own unit was stationed here; now the distant sky's repeated exterminations and slaughter have, beneath Xisi and his companions, become a silence.

Even the fierce wind from distant explosions, after racing hundreds to thousands of kilometers, arrives here as a cool draft, gently brushing the survivors' bodies.

In the wind's direction, a massive Nest Area jutting beyond the horizon, bathed in a blue light veil, continues to spew artillery fire across the sky.

With no extra words and no strength to speak, the soldiers simply withdraw their gaze to Xisi, silently watching him.

In the distance, an endless "meteor" again pierces the cloud sea, and the flow of the blood river brings trembling echoes from the ground; Xisi pulls his gaze back from both sides, turns, and continues toward Heberia.

Just as he lifted his foot, a warplane shrouded in thick smoke swooped and slammed onto the nearby mirror surface.

The cloud sea beneath is pounded into a huge crater; Xisi and the others glance in puzzlement, the markings indicating it is still an Imperial Side warplane.

It's merely an Imperial Side warplane; why traverse the entire battlefield and force its way here?

Bunoke and the others look at Xisi, who, with a hint of weary resignation, walks toward the warplane:

"Send a few Stormtroopers, the rest hold position."

A few Stormtroopers equipped with Jet Packs silently follow Xisi without complaint; Bunoke turns to find a Chaos Astarte that fell together with a LupiLaoda, using it as cover, and mounts his machine gun onto it.

But before Xisi has taken two steps, from the rolling thick smoke of the distant warplane, a Servo Skull stumbles out.

The Servo Skull swiftly scans the area, then darts straight toward Xisi.

The Stormtrooper serving as guard immediately raises his weapon, but Xisi lifts his hand to halt him.

Indeed, the Servo Skull does not launch an attack; instead, a flash of light flickers, casting a projection onto the ground.

Then, within the pale blue hazy projection, a towering blue Astarte appears, sporting a pair of exaggerated Power Gauntlets!

A faint, noisy Electronic Voice, signaling the other's activity, says:

"Contract the defensive line! Hand over the entire outer fortress to the opponent!"

"Void Shield? The Void Shield permits no problems; reinforce the withdrawing troops into the Void Shield's defensive power!"

Staring at the blue Astarte continuously issuing commands, Xisi and everyone around are stunned.

Until a faint cue from off‑screen prompts the giant to turn, looking toward Xisi.

He fully displays himself, then a mortal soldier beside Xisi draws a deep breath and kneels on one knee before the figure.

"Kaerjia… sir?"

The crowd is shocked at heart, for this is a legend that existed only in Imperial propaganda—a being capable of meeting a Demigod and fighting side by side.

And now this figure, though merely a projection, stands truly before their eyes.

Xisi stands in place, soldiers kneeling all around him, and before him a towering Kaerjia that he must tilt his head up to see.

He does not speak at once; Kaerjia first scans the surroundings.

Looking at the boundless corpses on the mirror surface, which even contained a great deal of ash from subspace demons, Kaerjia's stern, rational face clearly showed approval.

The moment this expression appeared, it even hushed the clamor outside the projection in the command center.

But as Kaerjia kept scanning, when he saw several piles of green‑skinned corpses and the stacked Chaos Astartes, even he slightly widened his remaining right eye.

Afterward, with a hint of disbelief, he glanced at the Chaos Astartes, then at Xisi before him wearing power armor.

Because that patch of corpses was different from elsewhere—there were no human soldiers' bodies, only Chaos and Green Skin!

Kaerjia, who finally grasped what this signified, could no longer keep his rational composure; instead, he aimed a shock at Xisi that he hadn't displayed outwardly in who knows how many years.

"These......"

"Did you kill all of these?"