44: The so-called version update means that the former BOSS has now become a mob.

[Holy Terra - Pan-Pacific Toxic Mire Sector - Outer Defense Line of the Hive City 'archimedes']

The rain kept falling.

It was black rain with strong acidity, sizzling and corroding as it landed on the heavy diving suits of the Pan-Pacific Empire soldiers, sending up plumes of acrid white smoke.

"Those desert rats are probably all dead by now."

A Pan-Pacific squad leader leaned against a sandbag emplacement, twirling a massive pneumatic harpoon gun in his hand.

Through his heavy brass faceplate, he looked out at the gray, desolate wasteland, his tone dripping with contempt.

Behind him, the massive Hive City entrance had been transformed into a formidable fortress.

Three 'Sea God's Wrath' heavy drill cannons were mounted on the high ground, with hundreds of elite infantry in exoskeletons guarding every passage.

They had just crushed the so-called 'Thunder Legion' here, sending those arrogant giants tumbling into the abyss.

"The officer says as long as that mechanical ark hanging in the sky doesn't come down, we have nothing to fear."

Another soldier reloaded his rivet gun with a fresh drum magazine.

"Anyway, we've already seized the geothermal core. As long as we hold this place..."

His words were cut short.

Because he felt the ground beneath his feet tremble.

Thump.

It was faint, but in the dead silence of the rainy night, it struck his heart like a muffled thunderclap.

"What was that?" The squad leader stood up alertly, activating the sonar detector on his helmet.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The tremors grew clearer, more rhythmic.

It wasn't the stampede of beasts, nor the sound of tank treads.

It was... a synchronized, precise, clockwork-like marching of feet.

Through the curtain of rain, a line of black silhouettes appeared.

Sixty-eight of them.

They formed a broad skirmish line, the distance between each pair precisely maintained at five meters.

They wore pitch-black Mk II power armor, the night-like hue. Raindrops slid off the hydrophobic coating on their ceramite plates, unable to leave a trace.

Their helmets bore no extraneous ornamentation, only a pair of tactical lenses glowing with an eerie green light, flickering like will-o'-the-wisps in the darkness.

No battle cries.

No 'For the Emperor'.

Not even the sound of breathing could be heard.

This oppressive, deathly silence made the squad leader's throat go dry.

"Enemy attack! Open fire!!" he screamed, squeezing the trigger.

Thwump! Thwump! Thwump!

Hundreds of pneumatic guns fired simultaneously.

A storm of red-hot rivets and barbed harpoons poured towards the line of black giants.

However, what happened next shattered the understanding of these deep-sea fishermen.

In the previous battles, those 'Thunder Warriors', though formidable, would still be wounded, would still bleed, and could even be dragged down by harpoons under such concentrated fire. But now... Clang—!

A harpoon capable of piercing a light tank slammed squarely into the chest plate of one black giant.

Sparks flew. The harpoon scraped a shower of sparks across the ceramite armor, leaving a shallow scratch, but failed to penetrate the molecularly-reinforced composite plate.

The giant didn't even break stride.

He merely tilted his shoulder slightly, deflecting another rivet aimed at his faceplate.

"Ignore."

C-19's voice sounded over the First Legion's internal comms channel, steady, cold.

"Distance: 200 meters."

"Threat Level: Low."

"Free fire."

Sixty-eight Bolters rose as one.

Their movements were synchronized, as if controlled by a single central nervous system.

Boom. Boom. Boom—

No longer the 'simplified version' reports prone to jamming and erratic ballistics.

The mass-produced Bolters calibrated by the Adeptus Mechanicus STC modules sounded deeper, more powerful.

First volley.

Sixty-eight .75 caliber mass-reactive bolt shells, tracing sixty-eight straight lines of death through the air.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The Pan-Pacific Empire's defensive line instantly erupted into chaos. This wasn't a metaphor.

It literally 'erupted into chaos'.

Those heavy diving suits were like paper before the bolts.

Bolts drilled into bodies, then detonated.

Exoskeletons, muscle, bone—all were instantly reduced to basic organic matter.

The squad leader who had been joking moments ago had his upper torso vanish completely.

Only his legs remained standing, black smoke curling from the severed stumps.

"What... what kind of weapon is this?!" a Commander in the rear stared in horror at the monitor screens. "Shields? Deflector fields?!"

Useless. Before absolute kinetic energy and explosive yield, those fields designed to withstand water pressure were like soap bubbles.

"Sea God's Wrath! Fire!" the Commander shrieked hysterically.

The heavy drill cannon that had once slain a Thunder Warrior veteran began to rotate, its massive drill bit shrieking forth.

But this time, its target was no longer a berserker who only knew how to charge.

It was a group of 'Astartes' whose very nerves were linked to their armor, with reaction speeds 50% faster.

A red trajectory prediction line flashed across C-19's tactical lenses.

He didn't take the hit. At the instant the drill was about to strike, he executed a tactical evasion that defied the very laws of gravity.

—He suddenly slid sideways mid-stride, attitude thrusters on his power armor firing a burst of gas, shifting his entire body three meters laterally.

Boom!

The drill bit slammed into the empty ground beside him, spraying mud skyward.

Throughout his slide, C-19 kept his Bolter perfectly level.

"Target locked: Heavy weapon operator."

Boom!

A single bolt shell drilled precisely into the gunner's port of the massive cannon hundreds of meters away.

Followed by a muffled thud.

A sympathetic detonation occurred inside the turret. The huge drill cannon barrel toppled sideways, belching thick black smoke.

"This is impossible..."

The Pan-Pacific Empire's defense line crumbled.

Their pride in firepower, their pride in armor—before these black reapers, it was all like outdated relics from a version that hadn't been updated.

This was the cruelty of a 'version update'.

T1.5 units, facing T2 regulars, only face slaughter... [Holographic Operations Cabin]

Li Cang rested his chin on his crossed hands, his gaze jumping between tactical data windows, his mind rapidly calculating the cost-effectiveness of this battle.

On the screen, it was a one-sided massacre.

The First Legion's advance hadn't even slowed due to combat. They were like a black wall, pushing forward relentlessly.

System Prompt: Pan-Pacific Elite Units Eliminated x 120.

Acquired: GP + 1200.

Combat Evaluation: S+ (No Casualties).

"Input-output ratio: Excellent."

Li Cang looked at the data. This was the generation gap.

Before, producing Thunder Warriors was 'trading lives for lives'; every battle made his heart ache for days.

Now, this was harvesting.

"C-19." Li Cang opened a comms channel.

"No need to pursue the fleeing soldiers."

"I want that Hive City."

"And... go check that crater."

...[Hive City Entrance - Battlefield]

The gunfire ceased. The ground was carpeted with the shattered corpses of Pan-Pacific soldiers.

C-19 stood at the edge of the massive crater—the place where D-01 had fallen.

The abyss remained pitch black, bottomless.

C-19 activated the searchlight on his helmet. The beam stabbed into the darkness.

No body. Only some fragments of power armor, and... a trail of blood-dragged footprints leading deeper into the Hive City, into an even darker region.

C-19 activated the multispectral scan mode of his tactical lenses.

Trace Analysis: Mk I power armor Footprints. Condition: Severely Damaged. Conclusion: Target Alive.

"Commander." C-19 reported, his voice still devoid of any inflection.

"He is alive."

"But he... went down. Entered the 'Underhive'."

The Underhive.

The lowest level of the Hive City, a forbidden zone even mutants and Scavenger Gangs dared not tread.

Where millennia of toxic waste settled, where forgotten nightmares dwelled.

"Alive is good enough." Li Cang's voice came through.

"Leave him be. That's the path he chose."

"Perhaps down there, he can find the final resting place for a Thunder Warrior."

"Now, plant the Empire's flag."

"Tell Terra this place has a new master."

C-19 turned.

He drew a black banner from his waist, emblazoned with a golden Double-Headed Eagle.

He drove the flagpole forcefully into the corpse of the Pan-Pacific Empire Commander.

In the wind and rain, the black banner snapped and fluttered.

And beneath the banner, sixty-eight Astartes stood in silent vigil, like statues watching over the night.

The old era had ended. A new era was crowned upon mountains of corpses and seas of blood.