And then it was done.
Klaus gasped sharply, his entire body seizing as if jolted awake. His eyes snapped open, pupils dilated. The pain was gone.
Kallista staggered backward, her grip on her staff the only thing keeping her upright. The G*ddess's presence slowly faded, leaving only silence behind.
One of the nurses leaned forward, inspecting Klaus's leg.
"All right, carry him back, I'll stitch him up properly,"
She ordered, already reaching for her surgical kit.
Without hesitation the same covered In sweat and blood legioneers lifted Klaus onto a stretcher and carried him through the field hospital.
Klaus looked arround In a daze.. A few cots away, an Imperium soldier lay beside a fellow Teutonica trooper.
The Imperium man's leg was gone, nothing but a bandaged stump left. The Teutonica soldier next to him had a gut wound, his hands trembling as he clutched his stomach.
And yet… the medics treated both of them the same. No preferential treatment. No delayed care. No mockery. Just efficiency. Just survival.
The realization hit Klaus like a hammer. This wasn't what he had been told. The spartanum ducatums warriors weren't bloodthirsty monsters. They weren't indiscriminate butchers. They took care of their own. And even… their enemies.
His chest tightened again, but for a different reason.
"Why…?"
His voice came out hoarse, barely a whisper. The field nurse that began stitching him up barely glanced at him.
"Why what?"
Klaus licked his dry lips, swallowing thickly.
"Why have you saved me? I'm… I'm your enemy."
The nurse finally looked up. She exhaled, wiping blood from her hands onto his already ruined coat. Then, she smirked.
"Not anymore."
Klaus swallowed, his throat tightening.
"From this moment on youre a citizen of Spartanum Imperium".
...
18 Hours Later the Road to Teutonica's Capital
The First Armored Cohort rumbled forward in chess formation, the hardened dirt road cracking under the weight of sixty panzers, fuel trucks, and ammunition carriers.
At the tip of the spear were the two modified Panzer IIs belonging to the First Century's First Contubernium, their reinforced angeled hulls catching the dim morning sunlight as they tore through the frostbitten landscape.
And leading them all, at the very front of the armored vanguard, was Lupa. The war beast had been running for more than eighteen hours straight.
Her golden eyes locked onto the distant bridge that marked the final stretch toward Teutonica's capital, at a glance one could tell the she wolf was pissed.
And rightly so after all her alpha left her behind with the lame excuse that she couldnt paradrop from the transport plane.
Hanging onto the turret hatch of the lead panzer marked with white III roman numerials, its makeshift command shield providing little protection from the bone chilling wind, was Decanus.
An ex paratrooper, summoned into this world by the Imperator, now commanding the vanguard of the Imperium's fastest armored assault in history.
His gloved hands clenched the rim of the hatch, his bloodshot eyes stinging from exhaustion. He hadn't slept. Hadn't even blinked for more than a second.
But it didn't matter. The capital was in sight.
"Bridge ahead!"
One of the panzer commanders in the second row of panzers barked over the radio.
Decanus squinted, the morning fog lifting just enough for him to see the outline of concrete barricades, sandbags, and dug in machine gun nests at the bridge's entrance.
And behind it? The sprawling cityscape of Teutonica's capital. The final destination. But before he could process anything further, his gaze snapped to the right.
A wing of transport planes. Less than fifty of them. Rushing in from the side, having taken off from the captured airbase.
His breath caught for half a second. The First Paratrooper Cohort with the Imperator himself and his death squad was inbound. It was happening.
"SPEED UP! PREPARE FOR COMBAT!"
Varro barked into his headset mic, his voice hoarse but filled with fire. Inside the panzer, the radio operator/machine gunner instantly switched to the cohort's command channel, repeating the order.
"All units, speed up! I repeat, speed up! Prepare for combat over!"
Decanus barely had time to duck down before he clapped a hand on the gunner's shoulder. Lucius Antius. An ex criminal, sentenced to service, now one of the best gunners in the cohort.
"Get ready to fire!"
Lucius, his uniform soaked with cold sweat, swallowed hard.
"Yes, sir!"
He shouted, gripping the 37mm cannon's targeting handles, his breath coming in shallow gasps. The panzer roared forward as the driver switched to the highest gear, the rumble of sixty armored vehicles growing into an earthquake of steel and fire.
Decanus pulled himself back up, gripping the fixed to the side medium machine gun. And that's when he saw her. Lupa had already stormed off.
She tore through the bridge defenses like a g*ddamn hurricane, slamming into the nearest sandbag bunker, sending machine gunners flying like broken dolls.
Her jaw clamped down on a fleeing soldier, his screams drowned out by the bone crunching snap of his spine.
The defenders had no time to react. They fired.
Heavy machine guns ripped through the air, rounds bouncing off Lupa's armor plates as she slammed into another barricade, sending concrete chunks flying.
Varro barely had time to react before they entered heavy machine gun range.
"GUNNER FIRE THE HEAVY MACHINE GUN!"
Hearing this Lucius grabbed the coaxial heavy machine gun and pulled the trigger.
RATATATATATA!
Tracer rounds spewed from the gun's barrel, cutting down the unlucky sods that had managed to escape Lupa's wrath.
"Panzer 112, heavy machine gun cover fire over!"
Varro switched channels by pressing the ring on his neck connected to his headset, his voice booming through the radio network. The response was immediate.
Another heavy machine guns roared to life. The defenders barely had time to scream before they were torn apart in a storm of lead.
Lucius, his hands trembling, watched through his gunners sight as the tracers carved through flesh and bone.
And still, the panzers did not stop.
The cohort surged forward, breaking past the bridge defenses, rolling over bodies, debris, and abandoned weapons.
They were through. They were in. The Teutonica capital lay ahead.
...
Teutonica's Capital Grand Duke's Throne Room
The Grand Duke of Teutonica sat slumped on his gilded throne, his once opulent robes disheveled, his fat fingers trembling as he gripped a half empty goblet of wine.
The reports kept coming. Each one worse than the last.
"Our forces at the bridge have been overrun, Your Grace! The enemy has broken through!"
"Impossible!"
The Grand Duke snapped, spilling wine down his chin.
"They only had light tanks! We have fortifications! We had heavy machine guns!"
The palace's war minister, his uniform still stained with sweat from earlier arguments, stood rigid, his face pale.
"Had, Your Grace. The bridge defenses are gone. The enemy armored columns are advancing..."
A comms officer barged into the throne room, his face white as a sheet.
"T... the enemy vanguard is less than ten kilometers away!"
The goblet fell from the Grand Duke's grip, clattering onto the polished marble floor.
"What...?"
His voice barely escaped his throat. His hands shook violently. His mind spiraled into chaos. This wasn't supposed to happen.
They had fortifications. They had troops. They had more men, more guns, more artillery!
And yet. And yet, the Imperator's forces were still coming.
The Grand Duke's breathing grew shallow and erratic, his pulse hammering in his ears. His body felt numb. And then...
WEEEOOOO! WEEEOOOO! WEEEOOOO!
The air raid alarms blared, shaking the palace's ancient foundations. A low, distant rumbling followed one that was growing louder.
The Grand Duke's eyes widened. A voice screamed through the palace's radio network.
"IMPERIUM AIR RAID INCOMING! REPEAT, IMPERIUM AIR RAID INCOMING!"
The sky was falling. The war had arrived at his doorstep.
The palace guards snapped into action, their submachineguns clutched tightly as they rushed to secure the exits.
A pair of Praetorians clad in ceremonial steel breastplates over their modern combat gear stormed toward the Grand Duke, grabbing his arms.
"Your Grace! We must evacuate immediately!"
"W... Wait... No! I...."
The words died in his throat as a deep, mechanical thud-thud-thud-thud rolled through the air. It took a second for his panic fogged mind to process what it was. The anti aircraft guns.
Outside the palace walls, Teutonica's anti air defenses roared to life, their barrels blazing against the pre dawn sky.
Bright red tracers cut through the darkness, streaking upwards, desperately trying to swat the enemy from the heavens.
Followed by a flash of light that caught his eye. He turned, still being half dragged by his Praetorians, and stared out of the luxurious and grand palace window.
And that's when he saw them. At first, it looked like a surreal, grotesque illusion. Dozens, no, hundreds of white petals blooming across the early mornings sky.
Parachutes. The enemy had arrived.
His breath caught in his throat as the first wave of Imperium paratroopers descended through the chaos, their silhouettes cutting through the sky like a d*vine storm.