How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 412: Meaningless (I)

Lot didn't like the mission sent by the Skinless Man.

In fact, he didn't like most of the tasks assigned by the Iron Warriors, because after all the tasks were gradually disassembled and selected, the leftovers that fell into his hands would generally be the most boring ones, the ones farthest from the honorable battles. As a new member of the "Legion" who was disliked and seemed to be redundant everywhere, the tasks assigned to him by the superiors were either to check the servitors and debug the artillery; or to do earthwork and plan trenches; or to charge from beyond the range of the bolter under enemy fire. Not to mention that these tasks basically isolated him from the real honorable battles, he even had to take the lead in swinging the shovel sometimes - swinging the shovel itself was nothing, other Iron Warriors would swing it from time to time, and earthwork was also a kind of work that could bring people a definite sense of accomplishment due to the high visibility of progress, and it was not worth complaining about in itself. But the combination of the first and last two things was very unpleasant.

What's more, this time we were shoveling on loose sand, and the land for the project was not ownerless. While considering the needs of Party A, we also had to accept the opinions of the landowner, and we couldn't just shoot the landowner down. The torture was doubled.

But what can he do? Lotor has no choice. And it is very likely that he has had no choice since he was born - although he does not remember anything before he became an Astartes. The brainwashing device of the Iron Warriors took effect very thoroughly on him. His first memory was that he had to endure the pain and drag his barely stitched body off the monstrous mechanical operating table of the mechanical monsters - literally "rolling off".

From this "birth", he was required to obey by those who were more senior in the legion. Obey superiors, obey veterans, obey the reclusive primarch, and strive for perfection in completing every reasonable or unreasonable task handed down from above. Disobedience or failure will lead to some consequences more terrible than death. Lot heard about some tricks that made people sick just by listening to them. He also saw with his own eyes that the survivors around him were dragged away from the team because of failure, and when they reappeared, they had experienced other things. It was enough to prove that Lot's hearsay was not a fictional story made up from the imagination of evil. Just like Tolamino, the "Skinless One" who was in charge of commanding their small group of troops now - in comparison, being disassembled alive and made into mechanical servants was almost a pardon.

The Iron Warriors, especially Lot's current boss, Honsou, is a guy who has no mercy on his enemies, and the same is true for his own people. Among the few Iron Warriors commanders that Lot knows, Honsou is the one he dislikes the least. Although everyone says that he is a bastard and rejects and despises him because of his genetic differences, Lot can sometimes feel an objective and coldness in his decision-making that is not affected by emotions. This absolute rational tendency makes Lot feel close to him, although Honsou cannot always maintain this.

At least, for Hong Suo, right is right and wrong is wrong. Success is achieved through calculation, and failure is caused by many factors. This prevents Hong Suo from taking out his anger on his soldiers for no reason and assigning tasks that are doomed to fail to be completed to Lotte and his men. As a soldier at the bottom of the legion, this is of course a good thing, but Lotte still does not intend to make himself more conspicuous to get a promotion, even though he knows that Hong Suo, who is also criticized for his background, will not care about the background of his men. As long as he really has enough ability, he will definitely be promoted.

As a commander, Hong Suo's rational and pragmatic qualities do make Lot feel a little close to him, but being close to him and being willing to serve under him are sometimes two completely different things. Hong Suo is indeed rational and pragmatic, but this rationality and pragmatism sometimes leads to an unacceptable direction - look at the demon womb, the skinless people in the sewers of Medlengard, and the current "Tolamino", all of which are the sins committed by Hong Suo. In Lot's eyes, the most frightening thing about these things is that Hong Suo himself does not subjectively want to commit sins, nor does he have the awareness that these things are sins, but he will naturally commit such karma because of practical needs.

Because the Iron Warriors needed new soldiers quickly, Honso created the Demon Womb, using mortal women who had been transformed into pure reproductive machines and the Chaos Power of the Warp to mass-produce skinless Astartes; because not all of these "skinless ones" were truly "qualified" and qualified to wear skins peeled off other living people, Honso threw the unqualified ones into the sewer for the sake of efficiency; and because he temporarily needed an extra person with command experience in his battle line, he did not hesitate to stuff the original Tolamino, who had been evacuated from the battlefield with difficulty and suffered serious injuries that were difficult to recover, into the Demon Womb to digest it, causing it to spit out the skinless commander who was now above Lot's head...

If it is said that Hongsuo did these things out of hatred, or simply because he enjoyed cruelty, Lot would find it easier to accept. Under the influence of the power of the warp of the Eye of Terror, or looking at the entire cruel galaxy full of war, there is no shortage of such psychopaths in the universe. But the terrifying thing about Hongsuo is that he did these terrible things without any emotional fluctuations, just because he needed to. Even when he used a war blacksmith who had experienced the long war for eternity as a sacrifice: when Hongsuo made a unilateral decision as a knife sniper, he didn't care what Tolamino, who was the prey, thought - no matter which one. But he did realize that he would be hated for this, so he didn't keep this new "Tolamino" by his side, but sent him to the position where the Primarch was ready to discard at any time.

This incident clearly proves that among the Iron Warriors, no matter how senior a person is or what honors he has won, they cannot be his golden ticket to avoid death. Death and eternal torture will always come to everyone equally and cruelly, for no reason. Lot is alive today only because he is lucky enough. He knows his own worth, and is fully aware that he is one of the worse ones among his blood brothers - but it is precisely because of his badness that he can survive four major battles and still be intact... well, not that healthy, but at least he is barely alive and has no missing limbs.

The Iron Warriors blindly followed their Primarch, hating the genes of Dorn and the VII Legion, but for a long time relied on plundering the gene-seed of the Imperial Fists to create new Astartes recruits. This sounds ridiculous in terms of logic, but unfortunately, this is how Lot became an Astartes. His truly determined and goal-oriented blood brothers either died on the battlefield of their own accord, or were deliberately sent to the battlefield by commanders who felt threatened, or were ruthlessly killed by the Iron Warriors or their war engines (or Daemon Engines) in various forms of riots. Among the blood brothers who joined at about the same time as him, only Lot, who was more cowardly and less determined, and therefore learned to be sneaky and protect himself, survived.

But this is also the highest achievement that Lot can achieve among the Iron Warriors as "Dorn's dirty and lowly blood". If he wants to survive, he must keep himself functioning like any ordinary Astartes soldier, not failing to complete the assigned tasks, nor completing them so well that they attract attention. In addition, to survive, he needs some luck, but since he was assigned to the commander of the Skinless Ones and thrown into this Glorious Complex Grand Temple, placed in the yellow sand and scorching sun outside the building, he can't help but wonder if the luck that has supported him to survive until now has come to an end.

No matter what, the orders from above must be strictly executed. Lot knew that among the captains in the chain of command, there were actually many people who were unwilling to obey the orders of Tolamino the Skinless, and some were willing to regard him as a pathetic substitute for Tolamino the Warsmith. But this had nothing to do with ordinary soldiers like Lot. The meaning of his existence was only to obey orders, observe targets, whip slaves, and ask those coolies and servitors to adjust the firing parameters of the artillery according to the parameters he calculated, and finally fire. He stood on a higher open ground, using the aucmascope on his helmet to look in the direction reported by the squad leader, trying to find the target. The real master of the Glorious Composite Grand Temple did not allow these "outsiders without faith" to enter the interior of the temple, nor did he allow them to excessively change the original architectural style in the environment, otherwise those buildings could have become excellent commanding heights or excellent cover for artillery positions...

Lot waved away these useless thoughts, forced himself to accept reality, and observed the target more carefully. It was a white boat stranded on the ground, only about 70 meters long, not small for a vehicle, and not too big for its shape. Its streamlined hull was not like the usual design of the Empire, but it was obvious that it miraculously did not suffer much damage during the previous fall. Lot was able to generate some novelty and appreciation from the simple and smooth appearance, but it was of no benefit to his goal of completing the mission, so it was quickly strangled in the bud.

He dragged his heavy body back to the position, shouting amid the rumbling of the broken power armor souls that he had pieced together, waving his electrified whip at the cowering mortals, ordering them to start working. At the same time, in a small part of his brain, he mechanically calculated the distance, firing angle and wind speed, and reported the data like a string of cannonballs, so that these stupid slaves who had become deformed by chaos or heavy labor could adjust the barrels to the correct position. This work did not require any technical content, and anyone could do it. It did not reflect any unique value. Every time Lot performed such boring calculations, he felt a sense of emptiness. But looking at the mortal slaves who were doing work that was even less valuable than his, he felt that he might have been quite lucky.

These thoughts were meaningless. Lot sneered at himself in his heart. He reported to the captain that the artillery array he was responsible for had been calibrated and applied to open fire. At the same time, he felt that instead of thinking about those boring things, he might as well plan which way he should take to return to the hangar where the war gang temporarily stored the transport plane as quickly as possible when the entire Glorious Complex Grand Temple was abandoned, so as to get a seat for evacuation as much as possible. This idea only flashed in his mind for a moment, and then he had to busy himself with checking the time with another artillery position that could provide fire coverage for the same target and preparing for the first round of salvos.

Does it really need two artillery positions to fire simultaneously from different angles to suppress such a seemingly defenseless and immobile vehicle? Perhaps this is a reasonable question, but Lotte has learned not to think about these questions. The meaning of his existence is to obey the orders of his superiors. As for why his superiors ordered this, the experience that has supported him to live until now tells him that it is best not to worry about this matter.

The mission soon entered the execution phase, and success or failure depended on this one move. Lot was extremely alert and urged the slaves under his control to complete all preparations for firing within the time limit. Everything went smoothly. After the countdown ended, the artillery pieces, which enjoyed four or five times better maintenance than Lot himself, fired quite smoothly, and a pleasant roar resounded in the empty desert. This was often Lot's favorite part of a boring mission, and it was also often the part he did not allow himself to immerse himself in too much: his two hearts were lifted up in this roar, and he began to concentrate and listen carefully - first judging from the sound coming from a distance that was half a beat slower, another position did indeed follow the order and opened fire at the same time as him; then he heard the sound of shells landing and exploding about two kilometers away.

Generally speaking, these sounds mean that Lot has completed his mission perfectly, but this time, he can't rest easy. The total depth of the Glorious Grand Temple is no more than ten kilometers, which may be a lot for soldiers who walk with guns, but for artillery, it is basically just a sprinkle of water. Under the command of the Iron Warriors, it is a virtue not to question any orders issued by superiors and to execute them perfectly, but the too close range of the artillery attack this time really made Lot feel uneasy - usually, at this distance, they can already consider coordinating vehicles to charge, not to mention that there is only a stranded boat on the opposite side.

This uneasiness prompted Lott to check the results of this round of shooting again, even though they could make a judgment based on the leader's instructions for the next round. Lott left the position with poor visibility, climbed back to the open sand dune where he had just made his observation, and looked at the target's position again. In the first few seconds, his auspex did not capture anything other than the smoke and dust raised by the impact of the explosion. The target site was very quiet, and there was no defensive attack that could disrupt the smoke and dust, but there was no chain explosion that often occurred when the vehicle was destroyed due to the ignition of the fuel tank or ammunition depot. Lott adjusted the magnification very high and stared closely at the original location of the small boat - however, as the dust fell and the obstruction became thinner, the signal from his auspex captured several fleeting, almost illusory blue lights from bottom to top.

Lot had never seen anything like this before, so the first inference he made from his experience was that the old auspicious instrument in the helmet he picked up needed to be repaired. But before this idea disappeared from his mind, a strange sound of breaking air from the sky made him instinctively look up and readjust the focus of the eyepiece -

Those blue lights were not illusions. Two of them were clearly falling towards the direction of the artillery position set up by Lotte.

He didn't have time to realize what it was. Before that, he was blown away by the strong wind caused by another explosion.

(End of this chapter)