Krona's great axe churned up a bloody whirlwind, each swing like splattering crimson paint on a green canvas. The aliens' wails and the crunch of breaking bones were his most familiar battlefield symphony.
But he didn't focus all his attention on this exhilarating slaughter of aliens. He was, after all, a commander, a Wolf Lord of the Space Wolves, and could never truly be as crude and savage as the rumors suggested.
What he truly worried about were the Helldivers paratroopers who were assaulting alongside them in the same Valkyrie. Theoretically, paratroopers were the elite of the elite, but with the Helldivers Legion's horrifying methods of deploying troops, it was hard not to wonder how many veterans could possibly survive.
So, while Krona never worried about the morale of these Helldivers, he was very concerned about their tactical and technical proficiency. The Helldivers' spirit and vigor were undoubtedly strong, but what if... they only had spirit and vigor?
Upon witnessing the pilot's incredibly skilled, almost insane flying, half of Krona's worries dissipated. And when those fully masked paratroopers jumped out of the aircraft with them, his other half of worry completely vanished.
The tactical and technical proficiency of these Helldivers soldiers was astonishing. Their flight paths in the air were elusive and unpredictable, often requiring massive suppressive fire to hit them. Their laser guns always found the most difficult angles to shoot the orks in the eyes or neck.
They were intimately familiar with the orks' chaotic tactical characteristics, always anticipating when the orks would attempt a mass charge, and scattering them with precise grenades mid-route.
Their movements were concise, efficient, and deadly, perfectly complementing the Space Wolves' wild charges, firmly protecting the astartes' flanks.
This was clearly a group of true veterans, seasoned by many battles.
However, Krona's curiosity was also piqued—how did the Helldivers Legion manage to forge such elite soldiers despite such extremely high casualty rates? They were practically treating soldiers as consumables, using troops like dirt, yet every soldier before him looked like a veteran who had fought at least a dozen tough battles.
Just then, another artificial sun rose before them, and an even larger mushroom cloud rolled skyward.
The violent shockwave hit again. Krona continued to charge forward as if unimpeded, his power armor emitting a few insignificant clanks. The nuclear explosion also presented him with another problem.
For the Space Wolves, with their technologically advanced power armor and superhuman physiques, this level of nuclear radiation was merely a breeze for a space marine.
But for these Helldivers paratroopers fighting alongside them, it was an irreversible lethal dose. Their carapace armor and respirators could filter out poison gas and smoke, but they could hardly block the omnipresent strong radiation from eroding their flesh and blood.
In other words, this group of highly skilled Helldivers paratroopers, truly the elite among mortals, faced an equally inevitable doom.
Krona mused silently, perhaps only those infamous penal legions could be so disregarded in terms of life?
No, that's not right. Those burdened with sin wouldn't face death so readily. They would all be desperately trying to save their lives, struggling between atonement and survival, otherwise, there wouldn't be a need for rear-guard commissars to commonly use heavy machine guns to 'encourage' them forward.
Under the successive nuclear bombardments and the precise, efficient cover fire from the Helldivers paratroopers, the Space Wolves' advance was astonishingly fast. The savage, ferocious feral orks, usually so formidable, were as fragile as paper before this assault team composed of superhuman warriors and Helldivers, utterly powerless to stop them.
Soon, they broke through to the leader of this ork horde. It was an exceptionally large green-skin, adorned with various metal scraps and enemy skulls. He roared and raised his massive power klaw, attempting to struggle, but Krona swiftly brought down two axe blows, severing his weapon-wielding arm and one leg.
The green-skin warboss crashed to the ground, roaring unwillingly, "You ummie, don't get too arrogant! Even if you defeat me..."
Before he could finish, Krona's third axe fell, neatly severing his massive head.
"Sir, aren't you going to listen to what he had to say?" A Wolf Guard nearby asked, cutting several green-skins attempting to protect their warboss into pieces with his chainsword, "What if it was useful intelligence?"
Krona shook the green blood from his axe blade, saying indifferently, "Just nonsense, meaningless."
Herbert chimed in, "He was probably going to say something like, 'I am just the weakest one in so-and-so's team, and you still have to face so-and-so, and so-and-so, and even if you really fight through all of them, you will never defeat our warboss.' I've been an Inquisitor for so long, I've heard that kind of talk at least eighty if not a hundred times."
Herbert paused, shot an ork in the head with his bolt pistol, and continued, "Anyway, green-skins don't understand concealment or strategic deception at all, at least these feral orks don't understand it yet. Our Valkyrie can simply scout from the sky, observe their gathering points and troop distribution, and we can roughly guess how many warbosses are left and where they are probably distributed. Listening to his nonsense is completely meaningless."
"Heh, you actually have been on a battlefield." Krona glanced at him, a hint of playful amusement in his tone.
"Even if you have prejudices against Inquisitors, this prejudice is a bit too severe." Herbert responded expressionlessly, as another psychic lightning bolt incinerated a small group of green-skins.
Despite this, Herbert could clearly feel that ever since he had fought alongside these Space Wolves on the front lines, their attitude towards him had indeed improved significantly. At least, he wouldn't have to worry in the short term about being suddenly cleaved in half by a chainsword from behind during an unguarded moment.
This was also part of the reason why Herbert chose not to remain in the hive city to investigate alone when the Space Wolves left for the front lines, despite it being a theoretically excellent opportunity.
His decision was based on three carefully considered points.
Firstly, and most importantly: victory in the war against aliens was where the Emperor's glory lay, and it was his sacred and undeniable duty as an Inquisitor. Whatever secrets the Helldivers Legion might hide, purifying the Emperor's territories of aliens was always the top priority. He could not be absent from this holy war.
Secondly, this was a matter of pure survival. He had to find a way to get along with these Space Wolves, or at least, make them acknowledge that he was not just a bureaucrat who hid in the rear giving orders.
Otherwise, these wild Sons of Fenris would sooner or later find an excuse to have him torn apart by aliens in some 'accident,' or simply 'purify' him, an eyesore mortal, with a chainsword. Fighting alongside them was the fastest and only way to build trust.
Finally, after a brief period of observation, Herbert believed that there were no major overt abnormalities in the hive city. No signs of Chaos corruption, no shadow of a genestealer cult, and certainly no whispers of warp rifts.
Perhaps the Helldivers' ideology was strange, but it was beneficial to the Imperium and didn't contain any obvious heresy like 'the Emperor has four hands,' so strange was strange. It was merely a death cult.