11: A surprise attack means blocking the heat dissipation vents.

[Deduction Epoch: M2 Cliff Flank]

98 degrees Celsius.

This is the current air temperature inside Arik Taranis's power armor.

Red warning lights flashed frantically across his retinas, and he forcibly muted the buzzing of the bio-monitor.

He was like a giant gecko cast from grey iron, clinging to the near-vertical black basalt cliff.

Above him howled freezing radioactive winds; below him lay an abyss hundreds of meters deep, enough to smash power armor into scrap metal.

To evade the barbarian fortress's sensitive thermal imaging scans and sonar detection arrays, Arik issued an order that violated every dogma of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

“All units, cut the back cooling cycle.”

“Shut down the main reactor, cut the servo-motor assistance. Initiate manual climbing mode.”

This meant that these Thunder Warriors were relying on pure physical strength to drag their half-ton Mk I power armor up the smooth precipice in a free solo climb.

The heart, modified by Gene Alchemy and as violent as a miniature nuclear reactor, roared within his chest. The massive waste heat it generated, having lost its cooling channels, was trapped tightly inside this thick Ceramite can.

Sweat evaporated into salt grains the moment it seeped from his pores, plastering onto skin slick with oil and dead cells, bringing a stinging pain like sandpaper grinding.

With every breath, his lungs felt like they were inhaling scalding sulfuric acid vapor, and the scent of scorched flesh rose from his trachea.

Arik's massive armored hands gripped the cracks in the rock with a death-grip.

Under the terrifying pressure of his muscles, the diamond climbing spikes at his fingertips embedded deeply into the hard basalt, letting out a bone-jarring screech of friction.

“Damn... this is... even hotter than the Unification Wars.”

A raspy low growl came through the comms channel from a Thunder Warrior, followed by the sharp crack of bone yielding under the strain.

“Shut up, Hal,” Arik’s voice was as cold and hard as iron. “Swallow the pain. It’s fuel.”

Behind him, thirty veterans of the Thunder First Company maintained the same posture, the same silence.

They were like a group of steel corpses hanging from the cliff, letting the high heat cook their own flesh.

They were tools.

Tools do not need comfort, nor do they need to complain; tools only need to fulfill the user's intent before they are completely scrapped... [Holographic Perspective: Fortress Battlements · Barbarian Commander]

“Left flank fire points, suppress those lunatics! Don’t let them near the walls!”

Barbarian Commander Valga stood behind the battlements, his grim face reflected on the tactical tablet in his hand.

He wore an exquisite exoskeleton equipped with a personal deflection field generator, with a rare volkite pistol hanging at his waist.

As a veteran who had fought his way through the wasteland, he did not indulge in wine and merriment like those decadent nobles; instead, he maintained the constant vigilance of a hunter.

“Is their Commander a total layman? Charging heavy machine gun nests with light infantry?”

Valga frowned, watching the red dots on the hologram rushing forward to their deaths one after another.

Those refugees were like a black tide, crashing wave after wave against the fortress's field of fire, leaving behind a ground littered with broken corpses.

“This kind of suicidal charge has no tactical significance other than consuming our ammunition and barrel life. Even a mutant riot would know to seek cover.”

“Sir, thermal imaging shows the number of enemies on the front battlefield is plummeting,” reported the adjutant, a hint of bloodthirsty excitement in his voice.

“Should we dispatch the ‘Iron Cavalry’ Guard for a counter-charge to finish them off? Those refugees' gene-glands could still fetch a good price.”

“No rush.”

Valga waved his hand, his eyes as cold as a venomous snake.

“This might be bait. Let the automated turrets keep firing. I want to watch them bleed out their last drop of blood in despair until I'm sure there are no hidden reinforcements.”

He turned around, turning his back to the seemingly insurmountable abyss, and looked toward the brightly lit plaza inside the fortress.

Parked there was his trump card—a heavy siege tank warming up, along with two hundred elite guards ready for action.

“Check the energy shield generators in the rear. Although these savages couldn't possibly bypass the cliff, we must remain foolproof...”

He didn't finish his sentence.

Because he heard a... strange sound.

It wasn't the sound of gunfire, nor the wind.

It was the hiss of some high-pressure gas being forcibly compressed, accumulating to its physical limit, about to burst through a valve.

Sss—

Like the prelude to a pressure cooker about to explode.

Valga turned back in confusion.

He looked toward the darkness of the cliff's edge, which was considered absolutely secure.

A hand.

A giant hand, covered in rough Ceramite and riddled with scratches and scorch marks, suddenly gripped the edge of the wall.

Under the terrifying grip of that hand, the hard basalt actually crumbled like a brittle biscuit, with rubble tumbling into the abyss.

Then came a helmet.

It was a helmet devoid of any decoration, featuring only cold breathing grilles and crimson lenses.

Deep within those lenses burned two hellish ghost-fires.

“What—”

Valga's pupils instantly shrank to pinpricks, and his heart skipped a beat.

Before he could even draw the volkite pistol at his waist, the dark figure had already vaulted onto the wall.

The giant was wreathed in white smoke, his Ceramite armor glowing a dull, dark red from overheating, like a piece of iron fresh from the forge.

“Cooling valves... forced open.”

A raspy voice, as if from the depths of hell, emanated from the giant's vox-caster.

Boom—!!!

The terrifying heatwave, accumulated for a full half-hour and enough to scald an ordinary person instantly, erupted from the cooling grilles on the giant's back along with the roar of the reactor restarting at full power!

It was a pillar of scalding, white high-temperature exhaust!

The two barbarian guards standing behind the giant didn't even have time to scream before they were swallowed by the superheated exhaust.

Their exoskeletons alarmed under the heat as their skin instantly blistered and festered, and their eyeballs burst in their sockets, turning them into two steaming, twisted corpses.

“For... Unification!”

Arik Taranis, this beast tortured to his limit by the heat, was finally unleashed from his cage.

He drew the Chainsword from his back.

Vrrr—!

The moment the Chainsword started, its monomolecular teeth tore through the air with a hungry roar, sparks blooming in the night like fireworks.

He didn't charge the terrified guards but instead slammed directly into the barbarian Commander, who had yet to regain his senses.

“Stop him! Fire! Fire!”

Valga screamed, frantically pulling the trigger of his volkite pistol.

Zap! Zap!

Red deflagration beams struck Arik's breastplate; the Ceramite surface instantly glowed red and melted, revealing the twitching muscles beneath.

The sharp pain that followed acted like a shot of adrenaline, making Arik's movements even more rapid.

But Arik did not stop.

This level of pain, compared to the torture of being boiled in a 'pressure cooker' for half an hour, was practically a gentle breeze.

“Too weak.”

Arik crossed five meters in a single stride, the ground trembling. His Chainsword, backed by the terrifying kinetic energy of the power armor's servo-muscles at full output, swung down in a diagonal shoulder strike.

Crack!

Valga's proud personal field shield lasted only 0.5 seconds under the Chainsword's violent tearing before overloading, erupting in a burst of blue electrical sparks.

Next came the exoskeleton, the flesh, and the bone.

Blood erupted, instantly vaporized into a mist by the Chainsword's high temperature.

Valga's upper body slid to the ground, the cut as smooth as a mirror, his entrails spilling everywhere.

Incredible terror lingered in his eyes, his lips still trembling as if trying to say something, but in the end, he only spat out a mouthful of bloody froth.

But this was only the beginning.

Behind Arik, more and more grey giants vaulted onto the wall.

Each of them vented white, high-temperature exhaust from their backs, and in each of their eyes burned a killing intent suppressed to its absolute limit.

They were like demons crawling out of hell, carrying the scent of sulfur and the aura of death, pouncing upon the terrified sheep.

“First Company, deploy formation.”

Arik shook the bits of flesh off his Chainsword, his voice as cold as a machine.

“Target: Fortress interior.”

“Order: Leave no survivors.”

... [Era League · Judging Panel 103 Livestream Room]

“This... what kind of tactic is this?”

Tactical Analyst Karen froze while watching the thermal imaging playback on the screen, unaware that the electronic pen had slipped from his hand and hit the floor.

In the past half-hour, the thermal signatures of this strike team had almost merged with the cold rock.

This meant they had cut all power assistance and even severed the life-support system's circulation.

“They were using their flesh to endure the weight of the power armor and the waste heat of the reactor...”

Karen's voice was dry, as if his throat were filled with sand. “According to data on Mk I power armor, with the cooling shut down, the internal temperature exceeds 90 degrees. That’s three times the temperature of a sauna, enough to denature proteins.”

“A normal human in that environment would suffer dehydration and shock within five minutes and brain death within ten.”

“But they held out for half an hour.”

“And the moment they scaled the wall, they could still unleash such terrifying combat prowess...”

Karen felt a profound sense of helplessness.

This had already moved beyond the scope of tactical analysis; it was a biological miracle, or perhaps a curse.

Isabelle watched the Thunder Warriors on the screen, moving like tigers among a flock of sheep, tearing the well-equipped barbarian guards to pieces with the most primal and violent means.

She felt a chill crawl up her spine.

“Do they not feel pain?”

“No.”

Isabelle shook her head, pointing to the wound on Arik's chest, charred by the volkite weapon and slowly healing.

“They feel pain.”

“But for this civilization... pain is just another fuel.”

“A fuel called ‘hatred’.”

On the screen.

The fortress alarms wailed shrilly through the night sky.

The once impregnable defense line collapsed instantly as it was breached from within.

The automated turrets lost control, and the defenders fell into total chaos under the pincer attack.

And below the walls.

The Mortal Auxiliaries, who were originally meant to be ‘bait,’ erupted in deafening cheers upon seeing the victory flare rise from the battlements.

“Long live the Emperor!”

A young soldier—not the deceased Karl, but another young man with a face just as caked in mud.

His name was Jon.

He looked at the corpse of his comrade fallen beside him; there was no sorrow in his eyes, only the fanaticism of a survivor.

He picked up the autogun next to his comrade's body, wiped the blood from his face, and followed the main force charging toward the now-open gates.

He didn't know what tactics were, nor did he know he was actually just bait laid out on the table.

He only knew that the giant had done it.

That god-like giant had opened the gates to victory for them.

Even if what lay behind those gates was an even more horrific hell, he was willing to follow.

Because in the deepest part of that hell, behind the giant's silhouette, he saw something that had never existed on this wasteland—

Order.

A future named the ‘Imperium’.