Even Cato Sicarius's face beneath his helmet instantly grew solemn upon hearing the number "over a thousand."
Over a thousand Death Guard. That was not merely a statistic; it represented an entire Company, perhaps even the fighting strength of an entire warband. One had to keep in mind that even a fully-manned Ultramarines Chapter contained only a thousand Astartes. Right now, his 2nd Company was at an absolute numerical disadvantage.
This meant that no matter which direction he led the 2nd Company to reinforce, they were likely to encounter an equal, or even greater, number of traitor Space Marines.
"Mobile defense..." Sicarius bitterly rejected the plan in his mind. When the flood spilled in from every direction at once, patching leaks became meaningless, for the dam itself was collapsing. He could not rely on mobility to fight outnumbered. Once locked in a stalemate, the 2nd Company would vanish like snowflakes under the sun.
Sicarius turned around, looked at the mortal commander, and asked in a deep voice, "In the face of an assault of this scale, how long are you confident you can hold?"
The commander's face lacked all color, yet his eyes were as unyielding as steel.
"This is not a matter of whether I have confidence, or how long I want to hold out, Captain," the commander shook his head, his tone laced with a fatalistic resolve. "The orders from high command are to hold for one month. So no matter the cost, even if we have to bite with our teeth or stack our corpses, I will do everything in my power to pin the Death Guard here for a month!"
Looking at the mortal before him, Sicarius felt as though he briefly saw those mortal heroes who had fought side by side with him on Plantim.
"Very well." Sicarius nodded. "Then I shall hold here alongside you. Just as you did on Plantim, the Ultramarines will never abandon their allies."
He strode over to the holographic hololith and scanned the entire defense sector with a piercing gaze, his finger finally landing heavily on a elevated junction toward the center-left of the map.
"This position," Sicarius said, "is the throat connecting the eastern and western defensive lines, as well as the hub of the energy conduits. If this falls, the entire defense network will be severed in two, with catastrophic consequences. I will lead the 2nd Company to hold this position personally."
---
Half an hour later, Sicarius led his squad to the designated deployment area.
As soon as they approached the region, a sickening stench of charred flesh rushed over them, overwhelming even the foul rot inherent in the air.
The sight before them resembled a hellscape. Inside massive incineration pits, severed limbs were stacked into small mountains, and soaring flames painted the dark sky blood-red. Helldivers wearing hazmat suits and gas masks moved briskly back and forth. Whether dealing with dying comrades or bizarre corpses summoned through sorcery, they ruthlessly threw them all into the roaring flames.
Crackling pops resounded endlessly, while thick black smoke billowed upward.
This location was still some distance from where the guns roared on the frontline; it was clearly a rear logistics processing area.
Seeing the blue giants appear, a Helldiver directing corpse transport froze for a moment. Immediately, he jogged over with excitement, came to a halt before Sicarius, and rendered an impeccably crisp salute: "Greetings, sir! The Emperor protects!"
Sicarius offered a slight wave, signaling to forego formality. Glaring down at the corpses rolling in the fire pit, he asked, "This is not the front line. What are you doing here?"
"Reporting, sir! This isn't the front line; we are the epidemic prevention unit!" Although the Helldiver wore a mask, his voice sounded full of vigor—perhaps even overly hyper. "We're specifically responsible for transporting bodies from the battlefield here to burn them. It's mainly to mitigate the spread of the plague, and more importantly, to stop those damned filthy things from reanimating and biting people again. It's dirty work, but vital!"
With that, the player pointed to the nameplate on his chest, which bore several high gothic characters.
"Because my name is Don Quixote, those bastards voted me to run this mission. Said my name naturally makes me suited to deal with Nurgle as an epidemic prevention ambassador."
Don Quixote paused, his tone abruptly turning boastful, with a hint of schaedenfreude: "Hmph, they must be green with envy now! How is eating bullets on the front line better than chilling here? They'll never guess that running corpse-hauling missions could actually land me a meeting with Ultramarines! Hahaha!"
As he spoke, he deftly pulled out a marker from his pocket and even fumbled around for a notebook, only to realize he was wearing an oil-stained hazmat suit.
Unbothered, Don Quixote puffed out his chest and pointed at his filthy torso: "Sir! Seriously, I'm a huge fan! Could you give me an autograph? Right here! Once I screenshot this and post it on the forums, those chumps acting as cannon fodder on the front line are going to die of jealousy!"
Looking at this erratic mortal who could still laugh next to a sea of corpses, a rare trace of a smile flickered across Sicarius's tightly wound composure.
"Of course, soldier."
Sicarius reached out, his adamantine gauntlet—capable of crushing skulls—carefully pinching the marker that looked like a toothpick relative to his hand. With smooth, precise movements, he signed his name in a sweeping flourishes across the oil- and blood-stained chest of Don Quixote's hazmat suit.
Don Quixote lowered his head, using the roaring light of the incineration pit to decipher the elegant line of Gothic cursive script.
"Cato... Sicarius..." he muttered beneath his breath. Then, as if struck by lightning, his eyes widened drastically, and his voice shot up an octave, breaking completely: "Holy shit! Sicarius?!"
Only at this moment, staring at that familiar spelling, did he truly realize what manner of legendary entity stood before him. This wasn't just any ordinary Ultramarine officer; this was the 2nd Company Captain! The Champion of Macragge who acted ridiculously arrogant in the lore, yet possessed terrifyingly insane strength!
That shout echoed like a sudden thunderclap.
The other Helldivers who had been buried in work—hauling corpses or tossing wood into the fire pits—stiffened as if a mass stasis spell had been cast on them upon hearing the name. In the very next second, dozens of heads snapped around in unison, the eyes behind their gas masks flashing with a green glint like hungry wolves spotting meat.
"Who? Sicarius?"
"The 2nd Company Captain?"
"Holy crap, a living legendary NPC!"
Stared down by dozens of fanatical eyes, Sicarius felt no discomfort. Instead, he reflexively straightened his back, making himself appear all the grander. Pulling back that faint smile, he handed the marker back to Don Quixote, his voice echoing through his vox-grille with supreme authority that drowned out the noisy burning around them.
"Indeed, soldier! I am Cato Sicarius."
Sicarius surveyed his surroundings, his tone solemn: "But now is not the time for cheers. The enemy approaches. If every corpse here is not cleared, it could become a bullet shot into our backs."
"Now, stand by your duty and fulfill your mission! The fires here must not go out!"
The oppressive aura unique to an Astartes commander instantly brought quiet to the scene.
"Yes, sir!" Don Quixote looked as though he had been injected with adrenaline, trembling with excitement as he delivered a salute far more crisp than before. "With you around, the mission is guaranteed to be completed!"
Immediately after, he glanced down at the signature on his chest, then looked up at Sicarius. His exhilaration as a "player" completely overwhelmed any disgust for the foul environment.
Slapping the signed cloth on his chest, he yelled at his comrades who were casting looks of sheer envy and jealousy: "Guys! Do you see this?! This is a specific plot reward! Getting this signature... forget about me, even if a hundred of you in our unit die here today, it's totally worth it! We made a massive profit on this one! I'm talking about the big bucks!"
Sicarius looked at these mortals whose morale had skyrocketed—doubling their work speed over a single signature. Though slightly baffled by their strange value system of "a hundred deaths being worth an autograph"—since he viewed life as precious—there was no doubting their soaring fighting spirit.
And that was enough.