Gunfire echoed through a narrow passage as an Imperial Army soldier fled desperately.
The man was wearing slightly damaged flak armor and held a lasgun in his hands — standard equipment for a soldier of the Imperial Army.
Yet he did not embody the indomitable spirit of the members of that legendary institution.
He ran in a disorganized manner, without a trace of the legendary discipline that the army of the Master of Mankind had forged in the fires of the Great Crusade.
The man didn't even dare to look back.
From time to time, the soldier tried to fire a few laser shots behind him.
Unfortunately, he was unable to place an accurate shot because of his frantic running.
The desperate mental state that the metal labyrinth created in him did not help him stay calm.
He was clearly lost in the steel installations.
"Damn it, what did I do to run into this thing?" he cursed while running.
He should have been stationed at the intersection of the previous passage, but he and his group had encountered a fearsome enemy.
The Imperial soldier could swear on the Throne of his Emperor that they had tried everything: neither lasguns nor bolters had the slightest effect on that moving wall of steel.
"Even the krak grenades only push it back half a step…" Unconsciously, he tightened his grip on his lasgun.
He wondered why their superiors hadn't given them more powerful weapons if they had anticipated such a difficult battle.
After all, while his squad had poured all its firepower onto the wall of steel, it kept advancing.
The soldier shivered as he remembered the scene that had unfolded barely a minute earlier.
They had deployed all their artillery, but in vain. Their adversary seemed unstoppable in the eyes of humble mortals like them.
The Imperial soldier witnessed a macabre spectacle when their target got within point-blank range.
The mountain of steel used its bolter; with every shot, the upper body of the other members of his squad was reduced to unrecognizable meat paste.
Even their leader, a veteran of several planetary wars, met a terrible end.
All that remained of him was a bloody mass stuck to the wall after a bolter shot from the steel giant.
The Imperial Army soldier could only run.
In his judgment, the only chance of survival against these steel monsters was to flee.
If he didn't want to end up like his squad, then running was the only path to survival.
The soldier had nothing to gain against this monstrosity: no glory, no honorable death, only a tragic and anonymous end.
He didn't want to be reduced to a mere number in the dusty records of the Departmento Munitorum on Holy Terra.
Perhaps because of all these thoughts and self-persuasion about the logic of his flight, the soldier tripped over a corpse on the ground.
His heavily equipped body collapsed heavily, his lasgun slipping from his hands.
Looking at the laser rifle lying in front of him, he remembered his instructor's words:
"Secure your sling, or I'll shove this lasgun up your ass."
A harsh phrase, but today it felt nostalgic.
But there was no time for nostalgia.
The soldier heard heavy footsteps behind him. The "wall of steel" was still pursuing him.
Desperate, he turned his head and saw a massive foot slowly advancing toward him.
He was about to be crushed.
At that moment, he realized the futility of his flight and the dishonor his mental weakness was casting on his former squad.
His action was shameful.
"I-I… I can't be afraid of traitors!!" he thought as he regained control of his body.
The smell of urine in his pants was now just a minor detail compared to the steel monster advancing toward him.
How many before him had known despair in this endless sea of stars? How many members of the Imperial Army had given their lives for a goal greater than themselves?
Indeed, the Emperor's dream had died on the Golden Throne.
However, the Imperial Army soldier was unaware of that information.
The fear of the iron wall vanished.
The indomitable spirit of the human race rekindled in the face of the traitor raising his bolter against the Master of Mankind.
The soldier cast aside his cowardice, seized his useless lasgun, and stood against the steel monster.
"For the Emperor!" he roared at the Renegade Space Marine.
At that instant, the reason behind the Imperial Army's endless victories during the Great Crusade was revealed in a single word: fanaticism.
Unfortunately, this world does not always reward the devotion of the brave.
**Crack.**
"Problem, Captain Atreus?" asked a Space Marine not far away.
Atreus glanced at his iron boot for a moment, then lifted his foot from the corpse that had been reduced to unrecognizable pulp.
No one would ever know the name of this soldier, nor the exceptional courage he had shown until the end of his life.
The Departmento Munitorum archives would record this battle as a failure, if it was deemed important enough to be logged.
A young soldier nearby witnessed the death of the former coward but did not react.
Unlike the first, he had not managed to overcome his fear, due to his status as a young Imperial Army recruit.
His mouth hung wide open, desperately gasping for air, unable to fill his lungs crushed by terror.
Ignoring the young man, Atreus replied to his battle-brother:
"Negative. I just crushed a bug," he said, his voice distorted by his helmet.
He continued advancing down the passage, assault shield in hand.
The two Space Marines were not alone in the corridor: they were accompanied by other battle-brothers.
'Who's already on the left?' Atreus wondered, no longer remembering clearly the identity of his brothers.
Before the recent events, Atreus's squad had suffered heavy losses.
Not only that, but he blamed himself for acting immaturely upon arriving in this chaotic universe.
At the start of the day, he had simply been Alex, a 21-year-old young man who loved collecting figurines and reading manga.
He had just finished the anime To Be Hero X and had decided to expand his Iron Warriors figurine collection.
But things did not go as planned.
A flash of light erupted from his latest figurine, and Alex found himself at the head of a group of Renegade Space Marines.
The initial confusion and his naïveté had caused the death of several brothers, but the mind of a transhuman soldier was no joke.
Alex had been able to analyze and manage the flood of information without acting like a little girl in front of his subordinates and brothers.
He had even improved the old strategies of the previous owner of his body thanks to his knowledge of the Warhammer 40K novels.
'Oh yes… Andrew is on my left,' he finally remembered as his steps echoed in the corridor.
Andrew was a young, arrogant Astartes who had replaced an old friend of Atreus in his tactical squad before the war.
This was his first real combat as an official Iron Warrior, but Atreus judged his death inevitable.
A conclusion not based on his annoying personality, but on cold logic.
A hypothesis that was soon proven correct.
Andrew advanced with confident steps, exposing his massive profile to the powerful lascannon at the other end of the passage.
With a crash, the arm holding Andrew's shield was shattered first, immediately followed by his helmet and armor.
Atreus remembered saying countless times to stay close to the team, to keep the shield adjusted, and not to let gaps appear in the wall of steel, but Andrew simply thought he would be fine without caution against a mortal-level enemy.
He had paid dearly for it.
Most members of the Imperial Army had one or two flaws, but they were very often veterans.
If a mortal survived more than 10 or 20 years in the Imperial Army, he would become a legend of war on Alex's Earth.
That was why Atreus remained cautious and applied tactics inspired by Roman infantry.
The Iron Warrior shook his head, regretting seeing a "brother" perish due to a lack of caution, but he quickly regained his analytical composure.
As Andrew's body fell, Atreus pulled the trigger; his bolter spat rounds through the gap in the shield wall.
Andrew's death had created a slight opening, as the enemy thought they had gained the upper hand.
A truth, but Atreus was not fooled.
He possessed the body of an Iron Warriors veteran upon his reincarnation, as well as the knowledge of a player who had spent a large part of his free time on Call of Duty: Warzone.
He reacted quickly and eliminated the enemy in the yellow armor when they believed they could push through the breach in their defense.
"Fill the gap…" Not many words.
The Iron Warriors had been forged by Perturabo for war, not for socializing.
They were not Ultramarines.
This action by their Primarch aimed to create perfect warriors, but it mostly produced tools that obeyed orders without taking too much initiative.
It was also why there were few iconic figures in this legion of Space Marines, apart from Barabas Dantioch.
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