Buzz! Buzz!
A massive humming sound made everyone present instinctively look up toward the sky. A flash of purple light streaked by, vanishing in an instant, replaced by dozens of rapidly descending 'black dots.'
"Roar! Roar! Roar!" No identification signal—it's the enemy! The humans' reinforcements have arrived.
"Roar—!" All units, prepare to engage!
A Sangheili warrior clad in crimson armor gripped his red-hued Type-1 dual-bladed energy sword tightly, letting out a resounding battle cry.
The next moment—
Boom! Boom! Boom—Rumble!
Like a series of 'heavy aerial bombs,' the objects executed a second-stage acceleration before crashing down, detonating upon impact. Inside the ringed perimeter of the drilling station, everything seemed to 'explode.' The loose sand-covered ground rippled like a lake struck by stones. Air detonated violently as an invisible shockwave swept outward.
Towering waves of sand, over ten meters high, surged forward, rolling in all directions. The sky darkened as the airborne dust formed an impenetrable veil.
Spartan-125, who had just peeked out from cover, ready to charge into a desperate fight, had no time to voice her shock. She clutched her heavy sniper rifle, using the overwhelming sandstorm and deafening explosions as cover, swiftly making her way along the station's perimeter toward the Master Chief's location.
Amid the continuous thunderous explosions—
"The drilling station has come under suspected bombing attack. Silver Team, report combat losses."
"South sector, Spartan-125 reporting. Crisis averted—I've broken free and am en route to the rendezvous point. Master Chief, are these reinforcements?"
"I didn't call for reinforcements. Around Harvest, the United Nations Space Command hasn't deployed any additional forces for now."
Upon hearing this, Spartan-125's heart instantly sank. As a soldier, she did not fear death, but dying due to faulty intelligence felt utterly frustrating.
"Master Chief, then who are they? The Covenant? Or rebels...?"
"Roar! Roar—!" Open fire! They're enemies!
The Covenant Elites quickly realized that the descending figures were not bombs at all but heavily armored humans.
Enemies!
The Sangheili red-armored commander, responsible for leading the elite unit, raised his dual-bladed energy sword high and roared—
"Roar! Roar! Roar!" Attack! Kill them all!
"Awooo! Awooo~" Order the reinforcements from the forest to advance!
Meanwhile, the newly landed Astartes, evidently already eager for battle, charged toward the xenos with terrifying brutality, launching their onslaught.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Blood for the Empress! Skulls for the Golden Throne—!!"
A voice, metallic and beastly, resounded across the battlefield. The roar was so thunderous, so ferocious, that it briefly drowned out the cascading explosions.
Thump! Thump! Thump—
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz—
Bang! Bang! Bang—
In an instant, it was like a grand symphony erupting within the drilling station—the roars of Covenant Elites, the buzzing hum akin to a chainsaw revving up, the thunderous bellowing of large-caliber cannons, all interwoven with the heavy, muffled thuds of power armor-clad warriors stomping across the sand-laden ground.
Through the active noise-canceling function built into her MJOLNIR power armor helmet, Spartan-125 was able to clearly distinguish valuable information amidst the chaotic cacophony.
As a Spartan, she was certain—this was not an Elite reinforcement. It couldn't be Grunts or Jackals, the usual low-tier Covenant fodder, and it definitely wasn't Brutes—those weren't this heavy.
Suddenly—"Roar!"
Years of training and muscle memory kicked in. Spartan-125 immediately ducked and executed a tactical roll—Swish!
A massive figure clad in blue armor was sent hurtling sideways through the air, crashing heavily against the ringed wall of the drilling station. The steel-reinforced concrete wall cracked upon impact, forming a deep indentation where the body had struck.
The Elite's chest plate was deeply dented, its four-lipped mouth involuntarily spewing blood-tinged foam. Its head slumped to the side, teetering on the brink of death.
Then came a powerful gust of wind. The first thing reflected in Spartan-125's visor was a towering giant clad in gray armor.
The giant's power armor was unquestionably bulkier and more rugged compared to the sleek design of a Spartan's MJOLNIR suit.
On the chest plate, a golden double-headed eagle emblem gleamed with brilliance. A ceremonial sash, symbolizing honor, draped down from a crimson wax seal imprinted on the armor. A symbol of two interlocking iron fists, resembling hydraulic presses, was engraved on the right shoulder plate.
With just a glance, Spartan-125 noticed several enormous weapons strapped to the giant's waist and thighs—massive swords akin to chainsaws and plasma-based weapons that faintly radiated a pale blue glow.
And in the giant's fist—there was an Elite in brown armor, firmly crushed.
Whoosh!
Silent and resolute, the Astartes warrior from the Punishers Legion swung his power-armored fist.
Boom—!
The brown-armored Elite was sent flying with a single punch, its hunched body violently colliding with the barely-alive blue-armored Elite, whose energy shield had already overloaded—Bang!
Under the sheer force, metal twisted, skulls cracked, and blood splattered.
"Roar!" Humans!
Using his comrade's shattered corpse as a buffer, the brown-armored Elite steadied itself and fired a continuous volley of plasma bolts.
Zzz! Zzz! Zzz!
The plasma shots splashed harmlessly against the Astartes' power armor's built-in energy shielding, causing rippling distortions across the protective field. But the gray-armored giant paid no heed, his momentum unbroken. Lowering his stance, he drove another punch forward!
With an explosive impact, the wall behind them detonated into rubble. The brown-armored Elite was struck as if by a thunderclap, smashing through layers of reinforced concrete walls. Its body, still propelled by immense force, skidded violently along the ground, carving a deep trench into the sand.
The collapsing wall sent debris crashing down, while the surrounding workshop windows and fragile objects shattered from the force of the explosion.
"Roar! Roar! Roar!" Retrieve the officer!
Several blue-armored Elites leaped from the walls, rushing in to provide support.
Thump!
Sand scattered beneath the magnetic boots as they landed.
---
The energy shield on its body had long since been shattered. The brown-armored Elite, its body convulsing and barely clinging to life, spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with sand, struggling to lift the dual-bladed energy sword beside it.
"Cough... Awoo—" Humans… Sangheili… The Covenant will not let this go.
In response, the gray-armored giant simply lifted his foot and stomped down.
Crash.
The wall trembled, on the verge of collapse. The surviving workers of the drilling station, who had been hiding in the corners of the surrounding walls, screamed and ran out.
By now, the dust storm stirred up by the Astartes' hundred-meter orbital drop had begun to settle. And as the survivors' vision cleared, they were shocked by what they saw.
Amidst the deafening roar of bolt guns and the savage howls of chainsaw axes, the interior of the drilling station was littered with alien corpses—mutilated beyond recognition.
A group of towering, heavily-armored giants had appeared out of nowhere and were now relentlessly crushing the remaining Covenant forces.
A precision-crafted melta pistol, wielded by a Night Lords officer, fired a searing orange beam. In an instant, it sliced through the battlefield like a molten blade.
Schlkk!
Several Sangheili warriors, unable to evade in time, were bisected the moment the beam touched them.
Their horrifically severed bodies collapsed heavily onto the ground, blood spraying out in gruesome arcs.
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
"Doctor Halsey has other bio-enhanced super soldiers? Which unit are they from?"
Spartan-125 arrived at the Master Chief's side, slightly out of breath. The day's relentless combat had taken its toll, and the lingering adrenaline of narrowly escaping death made her ears ring faintly.
As for why she was certain these heavily-armored warriors were human, the answer was obvious. Their armor's design was one clue. The Roman numerals on their pauldrons—'Ⅱ', 'Ⅷ', 'ⅩⅡ'—were another.
Moreover, they hadn't attacked the human survivors. Instead, they were entirely focused—almost excessively bloodthirsty and frenzied—in their slaughter of the Covenant Elites.
Especially the 'Ⅷ'-marked warriors—the towering, white-armored giants with blue trim. They didn't just kill the Elites. They decapitated them, tying their severed heads to their waists, where they swayed, still dripping with fresh blood.
It was brutally savage.
Bang! Bang!
High-energy, kinetic-explosive bolt rounds burst from their guns. The standard Astartes bolter rounds, propelled by hyper-compressed explosives, spun violently as they tore through the air, covering nearly a hundred meters in the blink of an eye—straight toward the retaliating Sangheili warriors.
One moment, the Elites were howling their battle cries.
The next, they were falling.
A single bolt round punched into an Elite's chest, blasting a gaping hole the size of a washbasin through its torso. Blood gushed forth as the body crumpled.
One shot to break the shield. One shot to kill.
Each bolt round was effectively a miniature missile, accelerating even after leaving the barrel and detonating inside its target on impact.
"Doctor Halsey never mentioned anything like this. I have no information."
The Master Chief shook his head, retrieving an MA5 assault rifle from a fallen Elite's grasp and magnetically securing it to the back of his MJOLNIR armor.
"Their weapons—I've never seen anything like them in the UNSC's arsenal."
Logically, Spartans were supposed to be the cutting-edge special forces of the UNSC. Any newly developed prototype weaponry should have been tested by them first.
But these warriors? Their technology, tactics, and sheer brutality were completely foreign.
...
Splurt!
"Alien scum, scream! I shall toll the midnight death knell for you!!"
A hoarse, merciless voice crackled through the speakers, piercing the ears of the Sangheili red-armored commander. For a brief moment, it was stunned.
Within its field of vision, a terrifying figure loomed—a human butcher clad in midnight-blue armor, his helmet a skull-faced mask adorned with blood-red bat-wing decorations. His entire body was drenched in the flesh and blood of fallen comrades.
The warrior's gaze locked onto the Sangheili commander.
"Human! How do you speak the language of the Sangheili?!"
"Heh… Let me grant you at least a shred of understanding before you die, alien filth. Capturing a few of your kind alive and extracting memories isn't difficult."
True to their name, the Eighth Legion of the Astartes—The Night Lords— were the unseen executioners of the Imperium, lurking in the void, embodying endless darkness.
They saw themselves as the Empress Selene's butchers, enforcers of terror, and the most sadistic interrogators within the Imperium.
They sowed unimaginable pain and fear like a plague across the Imperium's countless worlds and planets—and beyond.
And trash talk? That was just another one of their many cruel weapons.
"Isn't that right, defeated dogs of the San'Shyuum? Sniveling reptiles from the Urs system?"
Multiple Astartes reconnaissance and tactical teams, using their psychic instruments—the Soul Enlighteners, had forcibly extracted captive memories through brutal interrogation. Naturally, this knowledge was compiled and shared.
By now, the Astartes' forward command ships had gathered a substantial understanding of this so-called Covenant, this alien alliance.
It wasn't just Sangheili dialects—they had deciphered the Jiralhanae (Brute) language, the Unggoy (Grunt) language, and even the history of the Covenant's formation.
This newfound intelligence translated into real-time tactical advantages—their helmets had received a new software patch, incorporating an updated linguistic module that enabled live translation and verbal adaptation of Covenant languages.
"Bastard, die!"
The Sangheili understood every word.
Being insulted in their own language, with such utter disdain, ignited a burning fury in their hearts.
With a furious snarl, a brown-armored Sangheili took the lead, rallying over a dozen blue-armored Elites, all of whom rushed in at once.
"You… are not worthy."
The instant they got close to the Night Lords officer, his lightning claws erupted in a crackling storm of energy and death.
The disruption fields on his claws overloaded their energy shields in the blink of an eye.
Shlkk!
Blood and flesh flew in all directions.
Within mere seconds, bisected Sangheili warriors collapsed onto the ground.
Armor shattered into pieces, bodies pierced through by unfathomable force—even their heads lolled lifelessly to the side.
The lightning claws had sliced straight through the chest cavity of the brown-armored Sangheili, who now found itself dragged forward—the Night Lord striding slowly, deliberately, as torn flesh carved a scarlet path of blood behind him.
"Weak. So weak. Pathetically weak."
With an audience of furious Sangheili, the Night Lord sneered and with a flick of his clawed gauntlet, sent the brown-armored Elite flying like a discarded sack of flesh.
"Next..."
The razor-sharp lightning claws curled inward in a beckoning gesture. The Night Lord motioned toward his next target, the unactivated disruption field on his talons still dripping with Sangheili blood.
His claw-blades pointed directly at the red-armored commander's throat.
"It's you!"
"You!"
"Leave this one to me, Captain. You can have the glory—I don't care. But its head? Now that's a trophy worth collecting…"
Having just cleared out the eastern sector, a World Eater warrior strode forward, resting an unrevved chainaxe on his shoulder. Two severed Sangheili heads, their brown helmets still intact, hung from his belt, bouncing lightly with his movements. He was eager for the next kill.
The serrated edge of his chainaxe was still coated in sheets of flesh and blood.
No need to ask—he had once again refrained from activating the teeth when killing his victims. Instead, he had relied purely on brute strength, crushing them to death with raw, relentless force.
Which was stronger—chain weapons or power weapons?
That was debatable.
In terms of clean cutting efficiency, power weapons had a slight edge. But chain weapons were by no means inferior—in equal force exchanges, they inflicted far larger wounds, ones that were nearly impossible to heal.
After all, a power blade simply cut through flesh.
A chain weapon, however? It tore flesh away, ripping it apart, peeling skin and meat off the bone in a gruesome display.
"No. Its life is mine. You can have the head."
"Ugh… if I don't kill it myself, the trophy feels meaningless."
The World Eater lazily tapped his chainaxe against his helmet, clearly bored with the decision.
The red-armored Sangheili commander grimaced as he saw the human giants closing in from all directions.
Their own forces were dwindling rapidly.
His personal terminal informed him that more than half of his troops had already been annihilated.
"I challenge you to a duel!"
"If you still have even a shred of a warrior's honor!"
The Sangheili commander had no idea what was happening to the sacred artifact transport team deep within the forest.
But if he could buy them time, even for just a little longer, they might realize something was wrong and escape with the relic.
"Ha… ha… hahahaha…"
The Night Lord began to laugh, a low, chilling sound that shivered through the battlefield.
Even his shoulder plates shuddered as he chuckled, his frosted voice carrying an eerie, bone-chilling coldness that seemed to freeze the soul itself.
"Hahahahahaha!"
In the next moment, more laughter erupted.
One after another.
The echoing chorus of Night Lords' laughter filled the air.
Were they really soldiers of the United Nations Space Command?
For a moment, everyone on the battlefield had the same chilling thought.
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