Chapter 4

He was an 18-year-old killer, and the sniper gun looked heavy in his hand.

He observed for a long, long time. He was trained for this. He knew how to slow down his heartbeat, how to control his breathing and the natural vibration of his body, until he was as motionless as a sculpture.

Predators.

Prey.

His mind became cold, his attention was absolutely focused, and the prayer recited in his heart became the only way to see the world.

Predators.

Prey.

In addition, there was no other thought. He pulled the trigger and a life died two thousand meters away.

hunter.

The hunted.

"Target destroyed."

He said that to himself.

——————

He is a 20-year-old man, sleeping on the same operating table as before.

The chemicals flowing in his blood vessels put him into a coma, and he dreamed of the scene again.

Thinking hangs in silence and enters the dreams of two worlds.

In a world, his brain is sleeping, but his thoughts are rolling and reverberating in his tight memory.

In another world, his eyes looked at the intersection of the corridor, but his thoughts jumped slowly, just like his blood pulse.

His eyes were open, his pupils were zooming and shaking, as if he saw something moving in front of him, but there was nothing in front of him, only three long and black corridors.

He has been like this for 56 hours, more than half of the time awake, and the remaining half in half awake and sleep he can now control.

In the real world, needles and medical probes drill into the flesh and blood behind him and inject various liquids directly into his spine.

He coughed. His sleeping body was responding to the invasion of foreign bodies. The acidic saliva from his mouth hissed at the landing, eroding several deep pits on the brick floor.

When he woke up, it was a few days later.

He could feel the slots arranged on his spine, the scars, the metal nodules

He knew that in a universe with only endless war, only the infinite approach to death can finally become holy.

The grey eyed pharmacist looked at him like an artist looking at his most perfect work, and showed a heartfelt smile for the first time.

——————

He is a recruit, looking into his eyes.

He stood naked in a dark room, in a row with more than a dozen other people. Other newcomers were also naked, and his pale skin was full of traces left by surgery.

Lust is a forgotten concept that does not exist in his mind, and it is just one of the tens of thousands of human desires abandoned by his consciousness.

He could not remember his parents' faces. He only remembered his own name, because the instructors of the Legion had never changed his name.

He looked at the eyes that now belonged to him, and the deep and crooked "eyes" looked back at him - the eyes inlaid on the helmet whose visor was painted gray.

When he looked at the battle helmet as white as a skull, the helmet was also looking at him with dark reflection.

This is his face now.

Through these eyes, he will see the whole galaxy.

Through this helmet, he will roar angrily at the traitors and aliens who dare to despise the emperor.

"You are soshyan Alexei."

A War Regiment instructor said to him.

"Belonging to the seventh company."

——————

He is a champion, born to win.

"Status confirmation -"

Soshyan sent a message to the other two people through the messenger.

"Intersection 21 is stable and has not moved, just like before."

"They're right outside."

Axel of the same team responded like this, and his voice turned into a roar in the communication.

"They're coming. Didn't the nest that gave birth to you teach you to be patient?"

"Oh, it taught me, but somehow it didn't teach me to enjoy floating in a vacuum waiting for unknown enemies to appear. In addition, the place where I live is not a nest."

Soshyan's voice didn't have much extra emotion, but the other party laughed. The voice echoed in the silence, like a burst of rapid barking.

"It won't end like this -"

Another member of the team spoke in a cautious tone. His name was NAD. He came from the same planet and the same group of recruits as soshyan.

"If we were here, the enemy would be there."

"What if it's not to be taught?"

As soshyan spoke, he changed his figure and stared into one of the three channels.

Several cables sagged from the cocked inspection box cover, and the pipeline leaked from the protective pipe like a cut-off blood vessel. They were in the dangerous area of a transport ship open and parked in the void. There were other investigation teams scattered in the whole hull, each with a different task, but no one knew where the other teams were and the details of their tasks.

Soshyan, Aksai and NAD's mission is to monitor a dead end passage. All of them are wearing only a space suit, equipped with a bomb gun and chain saw sword.

"What do you mean?"

Aksai roared, and soshyan carefully took a breath before answering. The young man could change from straightforward and generous to angry in a heartbeat. All the changes to his mind and body not only didn't polish this characteristic, but made his temper more obvious.

"What if waiting is wrong? What if there is no danger? The only thing that keeps us here is that we think there is a threat."

"No, soshyan."

Nader retorted, before Axel could speak.

"We have a task, and we have to watch it finish."

"But what is the task?"

Soshyan was still asking questions. He turned and looked into the second passage. The action brought him down so that he had to grasp the safety rope connecting him to the wall to stabilize his body.

The second channel is empty, just like the first.

"What if we don't understand it correctly?"

"This..."

Nader still wanted to talk, but Axel interrupted.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, maybe there are no enemies here, they may be somewhere else, because we are here, leading to hard fighting elsewhere."

"This is due diligence, not fear."

"Really?"

Soshyan heckled and didn't have time to control himself, but he regretted when he blurted out some words.

He noticed that this situation occurred more and more. Emotion and impatience would suddenly come out of nowhere. It was like another person living in his mind. Some cold and anxious guy had no clue about the reason for this matter.

"I'm sorry..."

"All right."

Nader's voice was so calm that he didn't seem to have such trouble.

"We are brothers. You don't have to say anything more, just don't say that again."

Brother, the word is still strange to his world, just like the organs added to his body.

——————

He is a demigod, a complete Superman, not old and immortal.

He looked at the surface of the world through the crimson mirror. A series of data represented by sharp and clear white runes rolled on his retina. He looked at the life of his brothers displayed in digital form. He felt the temperature outside the sealed armor. He looked at the target locking box flashing with the movement of his eyes.

He felt the tension of his hand, the hand holding his missing gun, trying to follow every target lock.

The bomb counter made him know how many enemies had died today.

The aliens fell around him.

Ten, a hundred, a thousand, his brothers killed a way in this garbage dump like city.

"Brothers!"

While he shouted the word, he fired a bomb at each channel, which was enough to break ordinary people's arms, and the recoil force was as light as a feather under his hands.

"I'll be with you soon."

Axel is growling.

"I'm moving towards you!"

Nader's voice was full of electromagnetic explosions.

He fired again, looping from one shot to another, and he saw the enemies.

They crawl on the wall like spiders, the linked joint metal limbs replace the arms and legs, the head is raised on the neck composed of steel rings, the weapon cabin is connected from the back of the spine to the device like scorpion tail, and they are spent, and there are dozens of them.

"I see you!"

Axel's voice came.

"I have some targets to shoot."

The flash of fire lit up the distant passage, and the air flashed as shrapnel tore.

Soshyan also opened fire again. Three shots were fired, and four groups of metal and flesh exploded. He glanced over his shoulder. Aksai was ten meters away, stuck between the wall and a group of machines. He opened fire towards the aliens closest to soshyan.

"Hey!"

He was still in the mood to shout through the summons in the middle of the battle.

"At least we found the enemy this time."

Soshyan laughed.

The lost gun roared and the chain saw sword roared. In the combined sound of the battle noise, the combat brothers roared angrily at the enemy through the loudspeaker in the helmet.

The sound is always the same.

The missing guns always roared, the chainsaw sword always roared, and the astates always shouted to vent their anger.

He shouted those words engraved in the deepest part of his brain, those words that would soon become the value of life for him.

Now, he and his brothers shouted together, those words he had not thought about and those words he had not felt.

For the emperor!