64: Chapter 64 A Former Imperial Officer

The Chaos Psyker's retreat was not fleeing the battlefield—it was a tactical repositioning.

A few days later, he reappeared outside the base perimeter with a better-equipped force, and this time, he brought someone with him.

It was a former Imperial officer in his early forties, wearing a modified Imperial uniform—the collar insignia had been removed, the rank markings torn off, but the shoulder padding structure of the Imperial Guard remained.

He stood at the forefront of the Chaos Forces, unarmed and without any chaos mark, looking like someone who had come to negotiate.

Through the Chaos Psyker, he requested to speak with the Commander of Blackstone Town.

Lin Mo met him behind a low stone wall on the outskirts of the base. There was a distance of several dozen paces between them, and the troops on both sides were out of range.

The former Imperial officer introduced himself using his old rank. He had once been a Lieutenant Colonel in the Imperial Guard, having served on the frontier for many years.

His garrison planet was abandoned by the Imperial fleet during a Chaos invasion, on the grounds that it could not be rescued.

He survived—not because he was particularly skilled in combat, but because on the night before the Imperial fleet withdrew, using the experience of bad luck he had accumulated over many years of Imperial service, he managed to secure a transport ship capable of flying out of the atmosphere before anyone else.

He escaped with his company. After that operation, the Empire marked him as a deserter. Chaos gave him a new identity.

His tone was strangely calm as he said this. No anger, no repentance, just stating facts—like reciting a resume he had read countless times before.

Finally, he said to him: "You can continue to work within the framework of the Empire. But you must remember—I was just like you back then, thinking that as long as you did a good job, the Empire wouldn't abandon you. It will. When it abandons someone, it doesn't even blink."

Lin Mo listened to the end. He was silent for a moment, then said: "You are talking about your Empire. Not mine."

The former Imperial officer looked at him and nodded, as if saying, "I understand what you mean, but you will understand later." Then he turned and walked back to the Chaos defensive line.

He did not order fire. He watched the man's back disappear into the Chaos lines. On the way back, he said to Locke, a phrase he would repeat later: "Everything he said was true. But the truth is not necessarily correct."

A forty-year-old former Imperial officer, standing between the Chaos lines and the ruins of the Empire.

The former Imperial officer stood at the forefront of the Chaos Forces, while Lin Mo stood behind the low wall on the outskirts of the base. There was a distance between the two men. To Lin Mo's left was Locke's sniper, and to his right was a loaded grenade. But he neither ordered fire nor raised a flag to negotiate. He just stood there, listening to the man speak.

The officer's narrative was very calm, like reciting a confession he had read countless times. He showed no anger when talking about the Empire abandoning the planet he was garrisoning. He showed no pride when talking about how he managed to get a transport ship to escape. He showed no repentance when talking about joining Chaos. That calmness itself was more unsettling than any anger—it meant he had completed his self-persuasion. He was no longer someone forced to defect, but someone who believed from the bottom of his heart that he had made the right choice.

"You will understand later," he said to him at the end. This sentence was not a threat, not a provocation—it was the cruel certainty spoken by someone who had already gone astray, confirming that another person who had not yet set foot on the path would eventually walk the same one. Lin Mo watched him turn and walk back to the Chaos lines. He did not order fire. Not because of mercy—but because he knew that if he killed this man, there would be another. The real problem was the Empire itself.

Lin Mo later learned that this planet had a designation on the Imperial star map, but no one remembered its name. In the warhammer 40k universe, there were far more unnamed planets than named ones—they were just a string of numbers on a star map, gathering dust in archives, waiting for some battle destined to never be recorded to erase those numbers.

After the former Imperial officer's figure disappeared into the Chaos lines, Lin Mo stood behind the low wall for a long time before turning to leave. Locke walked over from the other side, and seeing Lin Mo's expression, he didn't ask what they had talked about behind the wall. He just confirmed the position was secure, then placed an ammunition consumption report by Lin Mo's side. Lin Mo took it, glanced at the numbers, then folded the report and put it into his pocket. On the way back to the command center, he passed an old tree that had half of its crown sheared off by artillery fire, yet the tree was still alive. He stopped in front of the tree for a moment, touched the remaining bark on the trunk, then continued walking back. That man had made his choice. Lin Mo did not need to do the same thing to prove his own choice was right. What he needed to do was walk his own path well.

[What is this thing?] Someone poked the metal fragments on the ground with the barrel of a gun.

[Don't touch it.] Lin Mo stopped him, [It might be a chaos mark.]

Lin Mo already knew the numbers on the ammunition consumption report by heart before submitting it. After reading it, he placed the report at the very bottom of the file pile as processed and archived. He understood what Locke meant—ammunition consumption was below the warning line, and the position was temporarily safe. Long after the back of that officer in the direction of the Chaos lines had disappeared, Lin Mo still remembered the certainty he had when leaving. A man who had defected to Chaos—yet was more convinced that he was on the right path than many Imperial officers he had seen. Lin Mo wrote a line on the ammunition consumption report: Position ammunition reserves to maintain existing alert level, no replenishment for now. What he needed was not more ammunition—what he needed was the answer to why that person was so convinced.

Locke believed one thing: there are no perfect plans on the battlefield, only perfect habits. So his way of training recruits was not to teach them how to execute tactics, but to let them remember what to do even when they were too tired to think. Changing magazines, crawling forward, judging cover—these actions had to be practiced until they could be done without thinking. Because Chaos would not wait for you to be ready before attacking. They would appear at the moment you were most exhausted, most relaxed, and most wanting to give up. What Locke wanted to ensure was—when that moment arrived, everyone in Blackstone Town, their bodies would be faster than their brains.

To what extent do they truly believe.

Every victory requires someone to pay the price. — Lin Mo, late-night record after casualty statistics.

Old Tom successfully trial-produced the first batch of alloy steel rails that day. He placed a rail on the workbench and struck it with a hammer from a height of one foot—the hammer bounced back, leaving only a shallow mark on the rail. Old Tom touched the mark with his thumb, then looked up at Lin Mo, his eyes holding the kind of calmness an artisan has only when completing an important piece of work.

"It's enough," he said.

These two words were heavier than any praise. Lin Mo knew what "it's enough" meant in Old Tom's dictionary—it meant that the strength of this material had reached the highest level that Blackstone Town could currently manufacture. If used on the sentry tower structure, the fortifications could be upgraded from wood-stone structures to steel-concrete structures. This meant that the next time Chaos attacked, the defensive line of Blackstone Town would not be almost smashed through like last time.

Lin Mo patted the cold surface of the steel rail and said: "When can the next batch be ready?"

Old Tom did not hesitate: "Three days."

He silently calculated in his mind: how many days of food reserves were left, how much ammunition had been consumed, how many people were needed for the next patrol. These numbers meshed together like gears in his brain, each number linked to three others—change one, and everything had to be recalculated.

Lin Mo nodded. Three days. He needed to list all the locations that needed reinforcement within three days—and then turn these steel rails into the bones that would keep Blackstone Town from falling.

The night wind blew again. This gust was cooler than before, carrying a smell of mixed metal and earth. He wrapped his frayed burlap coat tighter around himself—it was given to him by the villagers, much warmer than the T-shirt he was wearing when he crossed over.

The production of alloy steel rails officially entered a stable period on the third day. Old Tom set up a simple assembly line in the Arsenal—not an assembly line in the sense of a modern factory, but a "workstation progression" mode he designed based on decades of experience repairing clocks. Each worker was responsible for one process, and after completion, it was passed to the next workstation. The efficiency was nearly four times higher than single-person full-process production. Old Tom stood at the end of the assembly line, watching the silvery-gray steel rails come out of the final process and be placed neatly on the rack. He didn't smile, but his hands were trembling slightly—not because of fatigue, but because he had finally made something worthy of the "Made in Blackstone Town" label.

Yang Shitou stood on the firing range under the night curtain for a while longer. The night wind blew his clothes, but he did not move. He was waiting—waiting for that moment when his heartbeat and the wind fell into a synchronized beat. Then he pulled the imaginary trigger.

The way time passed on this planet was not quite the same as on Earth. There were no mobile phones to remind him of meetings, no calendars to tell him what day of the week it was. Only sunrise and sunset, only combat and peace, only living and dying. He recorded the days using vertical lines in his notebook, drawing a horizontal line for every five. This primitive counting method made him feel grounded—at least he still knew what day he was on.

[The mountains reflect the setting sun, the sky meets the water. The fragrant grass is heartless, extending even further beyond the setting sun.] — Fan Zhongyan, "Su Mu Zhe". Fragments of memory sealed in the mirror of the emperor, quietly emerging in the darkness.

After firing that perfect long-range shot, Yang Shitou picked up the shell casing and put it into his pocket—he counted, this was the seventh one he had collected. There was a mark on the inside of each casing. Locke had seen it once and didn't ask. When connected, those marks formed a coordinate.