Chapter Sixty-Five: Nineteen Million Versus Three Hundred Thousand—The Advantage Is Ours

"Hujin, what's with that ridiculous ponytail on your head?" Outside the outskirts of Thanatos Hive, Wang Ming looked at Hujin, who was leading three hundred thousand orks, sporting a single, skyward-pointing braid atop his head, and asked.

"Oh, that, boss? That's just my hair," Hujin replied, touching the upright braid.

"Hair? Ork squig hair?" Wang Ming looked at the outlandish ponytail in surprise, as if something had dawned on him.

"Yeah, boss, look." Noticing Wang Ming's astonished expression, Hujin simply plucked the ponytail off his own head.

As soon as Hujin pulled it off, a stream of fresh blood spurted from his scalp, leaving Wang Ming dumbfounded.

"Maybe... you should put it back," Wang Ming quickly suggested, staring at the jet of blood erupting from Hujin's head.

"Uh... boss, I can’t put it back," Hujin replied helplessly, blood spraying from his head.

Wang Ming looked at the fountain of blood and was speechless. With this amount of blood loss, only an Astartes body could survive such antics—any normal human would have died instantly.

Following Hujin’s orders, the orks began to enter the lower hive of Thanatos. Hujin led the Second Company along with them.

Hujin marched at the front, spearheading the advance with the orks, while the transmigrators of the Second Company followed close behind.

It had to be said, the sight of three hundred thousand orks flooding the streets of the lower hive was nothing short of spectacular. As far as the eye could see, the streets were nothing but a sea of green.

"Boss, when do we get to fight?" one ork asked, hefting a massive chopper fashioned from a slab of iron, shuffling along the street beside Hujin. They had been marching through the lower hive for quite a while.

"Don’t worry, it’ll be soon," Hujin replied, strolling along at ease with two power swords in hand, his green horde trailing behind.

Almost as if to confirm Hujin’s words, a burst of automatic fire erupted from a nearby building, and a bullet struck the very ork who had just spoken, cleanly blowing off his skullcap. Yet, this did not kill the ork—their vitality was astonishing. Though his skull was shattered, his brain remained largely intact.

"Waaagh!" the ork, after reeling from the impact, charged straight into the building, his exposed brain matter glistening in the air.

Other orks followed him inside. After a brief burst of automatic gunfire, several orks emerged, wielding the automatic rifles they’d just seized from the slain cultists.

Among those orks, the one whose skull had been blown off was nowhere to be seen—he was surely dead by now.

The orks strode up to Hujin, presenting the captured rifles as if offering treasures. In their minds, anything good had to be handed to the boss first—at least, that’s how the previous boss had done things.

"Well done. Keep them for yourselves," Hujin said, glancing at the crude, factory-made rifles in their hands.

Overjoyed by the boss’s words, the orks fired a celebratory burst into the air.

The other orks looked on enviously. Up till now, their technology had barely surpassed the Iron Age, and these strange new bullet-spitting guns were objects of desire.

"Keep moving. You’ll all get your turn," Hujin assured the orks, noting their eager faces.

"Waaagh!" The orks erupted in excitement at the boss’s promise.

And so, Hujin led his three hundred thousand orks in a raging firefight against the Genestealer Cultists in the lower hive. The orks gleefully wielded their captured firearms, assaulting the cult strongholds and battling the infected with wild abandon.

Yet, strangely enough, they hadn’t seen a single purestrain Genestealer. Given the number of cultists in Thanatos Hive, there should surely be plenty of purestrains, but after capturing several cult strongholds, none had appeared. Something was off.

"What’s going on? Why have the beasts from West Sisyphus Green come to our side?"

Within one of the cult strongholds, a cult patriarch questioned a senior acolyte.

He simply couldn’t understand why the three hundred thousand orks, who had previously occupied West Sisyphus Green, were now running rampant in the lower hive of Thanatos.

His clawed and fanged form writhed in the shadows, seething with rage.

"It must be the outlanders who came to Meurs. Our followers reported seeing a giant outlander leading those beasts—he’s probably their leader," the acolyte explained.

"Send the war-leader and the purestrains. The divine will of the Four-Armed Emperor must not be defied. For the Four-Armed Emperor," the patriarch ordered after a brief contemplation.

"Yes, Patriarch. As you wish. For the Four-Armed Emperor." The acolyte saluted and left to relay the order.

"For the Four-Armed Emperor... No matter what, it's nineteen million against three hundred thousand—the advantage is ours," the patriarch muttered to himself once the acolyte had departed, lurking in the darkness.

Soon, the cult's war-leader appeared, leading ten thousand purestrain Genestealers into battle against the orks.

"So, they finally show themselves," Hujin thought, watching the purestrains crawling from every building and pipeline around them.

"Lads! For the Golden Big Guy and Brother Mao! Waaagh!" Hujin shouted, lifting his power sword.

"Waaagh!" The orks roared in response, charging at the purestrains from all directions.

The transmigrators of the Second Company joined the fray, some of them even more frenzied than the orks, wielding two power swords each and outpacing the orks—after all, Wang Ming had already set the respawn point to Hujin.

The orks, armed with automatic rifles and massive choppers, fought the purestrains in a wild melee. Even the bio-electric claws of the Genestealers, which could rend Terminator armor, struggled to quickly dispatch the swarming orks.

One purestrain Genestealer, surrounded by a dozen orks, was hacked to pulp.