"Commander, when do we attack?" Orfeo asked in a low voice.
Even though he and Guilliman were friends, they still addressed each other by their titles within the military.
Guilliman said, "Dawn. We move in two hours, on schedule."
The battle plan was one he had developed together with Gaius.
The First Legion would spend several consecutive days launching feint attacks against some of the hill tribes' fortresses, aiming to exhaust the defenders.
This was the moment when the enemy's vigilance was at its lowest, and also Guilliman's best chance to deliver a fatal blow.
Gaius had given him full trust, leaving the conduct of this campaign entirely to Guilliman's discretion.
But Guilliman knew that even the perfect strategy required overcoming the immediate obstacle first.
Only by capturing this fortress could they reach Kashum Falls.
Otherwise, everything was just empty talk.
Guilliman gazed up at the overcast night sky. "Julius, do not disappoint me."
The barbarians had spent centuries fortifying their defenses, sealing off nearly all the mountain passes leading into the northern highlands.
But this seemingly impregnable line was not flawless. It had a fatal weakness: it could be bypassed.
At this very moment, Julius was leading a force of elite light infantry. They had to cross the perilous, perpetually snow-capped mountain ranges.
They had to face not only the bone-chilling cold but also watch out for ice crevices hidden beneath the snow and the ever-present threat of avalanches.
Every step across the snowy peaks was fraught with danger. One minor mistake could lead to the annihilation of the entire force.
But the risks and rewards went hand in hand.
If they could successfully cross that mountain range, they could bypass the barbarian defenses and launch a surprise attack from behind!
Although the plan was very risky, through Guilliman's precise calculations, the chances of success were not low, making it worth attempting.
Two hours from now was the pre-agreed time for the assault.
If Julius could reach the predetermined position on time, capturing the pass would be effortless.
Even if he failed to arrive on time, Guilliman was confident he could still take the pass, albeit at a much heavier cost.
He would not contact Julius by any means, as the barbarians also possessed advanced technology and could potentially intercept their communications.
They had only one chance.
If Julius could not seize it, his future achievements might be limited to inheriting his father's legacy, perhaps becoming Consul at best.
And Guilliman would lose a comrade-in-arms.
…...
"I will not let Roboute down!"
Julius's eyes were filled with determination. He crouched, hidden in the darkness of the night, gazing quietly at the pass in the distance, which stood out like a lighthouse.
When they set out, he commanded ten thousand elite warriors.
Now, only seven thousand eight hundred remained. Over one-fifth of his soldiers had been left behind forever on that unfamiliar, snowy wasteland.
But it was all worth it. They had arrived before the agreed time!
"Prepare to attack!"
Julius's voice was particularly deep in the darkness. "For Macragge!"
"For Macragge!"
The warriors responded in low whispers from the shadows.
Julius turned his head and saw the young warrior beside him.
He looked only six years old by Macraggian reckoning, the same age as Julius.
But he had joined the First Legion two years ago, participated in several wars against the barbarians, and had personally killed several enemies.
Yet he was still just a warrior.
Julius, on the other hand, had no experience commanding troops, no noteworthy achievements or honors.
Nevertheless, he had been given the title of Deputy Commander, simply because his father was the Consul.
Julius did not feel he was unworthy of his position.
His father had given him a good education. Although he lacked combat experience, he had achieved excellent results in simulated warfare.
He knew this was just theorizing.
But no one is born a commander; everyone starts with theory and moves on to actual combat.
He needed the opportunity to gain experience, and he craved honor.
Guilliman had given him the chance. Julius would not let him down!
…...
Boom!
Several warriors, risking the cover of darkness, crept to the base of the wall and kicked off the battle with a deafening explosion.
The two forces attacked from completely opposite directions, a pincer movement. The barbarian defensive line was caught off guard and a breach was torn open.
When the barbarian commander was jolted from his sleep and hastily organized a counterattack, the Macraggian warriors had already breached the city gates and were engaged in bloody street-to-street fighting.
The barbarians were determined to defend their homeland to the death, while the Macraggians were equally intent on unleashing their vengeful fury upon those who had raided their towns.
Over centuries, both sides had accumulated a heavy debt of blood, leaving almost no possibility of reconciliation.
Whenever the opportunity arose, they would wield their swords without mercy, regardless of age or gender.
Blood must be repaid with blood, this persistence is etched into the human genome.
Guilliman led from the front, his las-pistol spewing deadly light.
Even though he didn't seem to be aiming, every shot was precisely targeted, accompanied by a barbarian soldier crumpling to the ground.
Simultaneously, the ancient power sword he bore, a legacy from the Golden Age, never ceased killing, cleaving any barbarian warrior daring to block his path in two, armor and all.
His fighting style was not elegant in the slightest; it was the perfect embodiment of the aesthetic of violence.
"For Macragge!"
His war cries and heroic demeanor inspired the Macraggians, while also terrifying the barbarians with his brutal efficiency.
Officers and warriors instinctively gathered around him, using their bodies to shield him from enemy fire.
With countless warriors charging fearlessly forward, the gate changed hands almost instantly.
With Guilliman as the core, the expeditionary force pierced straight into the heart of the pass like a sharp sword.
"Macraggian, face me!"
With a furious roar, a barbarian warrior over 2.2 meters tall charged recklessly through the hail of gunfire like a juggernaut.
He was clad in heavy composite armor, wielding a massive shield and a broadsword.
Protected by dozens of similarly heavily armed barbarian elites, he barreled towards Guilliman.
Macraggian warriors tried to stop him, but dozens of scarlet beams struck his armor without even scratching the coating.
Guilliman calmly raised his power sword, its tip pointing directly at the approaching enemy. "I am Roboute Guilliman, son of Consul Konnor!"
"Alphonse! Die, son of the Consul!"
The barbarian warrior roared, his charging pace undiminished, cleaving two warriors in his path aside with his broadsword.
Guilliman met him without hesitation. Power sword clashed with broadsword; the disruption fields gnawed at each other.
Simultaneously, the Macraggian warriors engaged the barbarian elites in close combat.
This was a bloody battle; both sides had reasons of blood to settle.
Alphonse was indeed a formidable warrior, capable of trading a couple of blows even with a growing Primarch.
But only two blows.
Because on the third, Guilliman's power sword had already severed his head.
Under the gnawing of the disruption field, the blood instantly vaporized into a crimson mist that dissipated into the air, only then gushing wildly from the headless torso like a fountain.
Alphonse's head flew high, his wide, staring eyes still glaring at Guilliman, his consciousness still frozen in the moment of combat with the Primarch.
Even among the fierce barbarians, he was a rare and valiant warrior.
He died without ever understanding why he had been defeated so quickly.
Guilliman casually cut down two barbarians charging at him, grabbed Alphonse's bloody head, and held it aloft.
"Alphonse is dead! Surrender!"
However, the commander's death did not plunge the barbarians into despair. Instead, their eyes turned bloodshot, and they roared with even greater frenzy as they threw themselves at the Macraggians.
They would rather die than bow to their ancestral enemies.
Guilliman was silent for only a moment, then raised his sword again.
He knew that hatred was not easily resolved, that his call for surrender would likely be in vain, but he was still willing to try.
Just as he tried to control his own nature, this was the choice his humanity offered him.
But if reconciliation was impossible, then only bloodshed could bring an end.
The fighting lasted the entire night. Guilliman's blade never stopped.
Coagulated blood stained his cobalt blue armor a dark crimson, carrying a pungent, metallic smell.
There were no living barbarians left within the pass. Guilliman himself had executed at least hundreds.
"Do you see? This is the real you!"
"You are not truly happy. Your rationality is just a hypocritical mask!"
"Embrace me! Feel me! The desire for slaughter boils in your blood!"
Guilliman's nature reveled in the thrill of the kill, but Guilliman ignored it.
He stood silently amidst the mountain of corpses and sea of blood, reciting the prayers his mother had taught him.
"I am not you. You cannot control me. I will control you."
"Fool, you will regret this!" it roared.
"Commander!" Julius staggered towards him.
Guilliman suppressed the surge of exhilaration within him and slowly opened his eyes.
He looked at the young man, whose armor was also stained red after a night of bloody battle. "How are your injuries?"
Julius's face flushed instantly, and he stammered, "Just... just minor scratches, nothing serious. I killed five men, personally!"
As the Consul's son, he possessed the best equipment on Macragge.
His armor could withstand lasgun fire, making it nearly impossible for him to be wounded.
But he had gotten carried away by the heat of battle, charged too fast, and tripped over an enemy corpse, twisting his ankle.
Falling on the battlefield was embarrassing enough. That his only injury was a self-inflicted twisted ankle was even more mortifying.
How could he possibly say that out loud?
Guilliman reached out and placed a hand on Julius's shoulder to comfort him. "At least we're both still alive."
Julius's embarrassed expression eased, and a smile appeared on his face. "More than alive, we won."
Guilliman looked towards the lightening horizon in the distance. "But this is only the beginning. Even more brutal battles await us."
Orfeo approached Guilliman, gripping his bloodied longsword. "And I will fight by your side!"
"Me too!"
The bonds of youth are the most sincere. They saw Guilliman as their leader and comrade.
And in the future, they would come to see him as their leader and father.
….....
In the battle for the pass, the Macraggians had lost three thousand warriors.
Guilliman left five thousand behind to reinforce the defenses, coordinating with the relief forces from the First Legion.
He personally led the remaining twenty thousand straight towards Kashum Falls.
Kashum Falls was not in a remote location. It lay on the edge of the northern mountains, bordering Macraggian-controlled territory.
The only obstacle between them was the single pass; the other areas were unsuitable for defense.
If the barbarians had built extensive fortifications there, it would have aroused Macraggian suspicion.
Therefore, the barbarians had made no superfluous deployments, leaving only the pass and ten thousand warriors to defend it.
Thus, even in the face of a major Macraggian incursion, the pass could hold them off for several days.
As long as they held out, reinforcements from other passes would arrive.
As long as the pass remained in their hands, the temple at Kashum Falls would remain safe.
For centuries, the Macraggians had indeed remained utterly ignorant of the secret of Kashum Falls.
But as fate would have it, their secret was now exposed.
Even knowing the purpose of their mission, Julius could not hide his shock:
"Commander, how did you possibly figure this out? Was this secret plainly written in some book? If so, why was it undiscovered for so many years?"
Admittedly, not everyone could memorize the contents of an entire library like a primarch.
But Macragge had no shortage of scholars; surely someone would have found some clue, right?
Guilliman answered, "The library's collections do not directly record the temple's location, but the Ancient Epics describe the barbarians' ancestor worship in detail."
"It's just that for centuries, we never discovered the barbarians' holy site."
"By thoroughly studying barbarian history, combining it with their cultural customs and historically anomalous troop deployments, one can inversely deduce the location of the holy site on a map."
"For example, three hundred years ago, the First Legion launched a fierce attack on this area, trying to breach the barbarian defensive line from the flank."
"At that time, all the barbarian tribes gathered in response, repelling the First Legion's assault."
"Though it was accidental, it indirectly revealed the location of their holy site."
Orfeo exclaimed, "Commander, you're a genius!"
Guilliman shook his head. "It's nothing, really quite simple."
Julius was speechless.
Simple? Of course not!
Macragge had never lacked scholars studying barbarian history. But only Guilliman could extract key clues from the vast sea of historical records, analyze them thread by thread, and identify the holy site as Kashum Falls.
This required not only profound learning and extensive knowledge but, more rarely, Guilliman's keen insight and strategic intuition.
Mortals often find it difficult to possess both.
This was innate talent. Learning could certainly compensate, but the effort required would consume a mortal's entire lifetime.
With the natural barrier of the pass gone, the rest of the journey was relatively smooth.
Julius had expected desperate resistance from the barbarians, but there were no ambushes, not even sporadic counterattacks.
The barbarian holy site forbade the use of electronic devices; their priests considered it a desecration of the ancestral spirits.
There were no walls or fortified bastions, only a scenic waterfall and lake, and a temple hidden among the cliffs.
Even though the barbarian tribes had learned of the pass's fall, they could only send messengers to warn the holy site.
Although they had dispatched reinforcements to defend the site, those reinforcements would still take time to arrive.
Thus, when the Macraggian army arrived in force, the priests and guardians of the holy site were still bewildered by this unfamiliar army.
"Surrender!" Julius rode forward and shouted loudly. "Our commander promises no harm will come to anyone!"
The guardians responded enthusiastically with a lasgun shot.
Although it was merely a warning shot, not truly aimed at him, it clearly indicated the guardians' stance.
They would never surrender to their blood enemies!
Guilliman: "It seems they choose to perish with this land. Prepare for battle. Tell the warriors not to disturb the barbarians' ancestral tombs."
"In the name of Macragge!"
Orfeo drew his sword and shouted loudly, "For Macragge!"
It was less a battle and more a one-sided massacre.
The holy site had only a little over a thousand defenders, and even if the priests were not frail old men,
Against an overwhelming numerical advantage, their resistance was utterly futile.
Facing the tidal wave of the Macraggian expeditionary force, the defenders retreated step by step, their defensive line continuously contracting.
Finally, only a few dozen survivors retreated into the temple to make their last, desperate stand.
The loyal guardians threw themselves at Guilliman without regard for their lives, but they could never stop his advance.
Their bodies were shattered by the hum of the power sword, their bloodied remains collapsing weakly, staining the temple's stone steps red.
The old priest, protected to the death by his guardians, stood as straight as an old pine tree amidst the pool of blood, his eyes burning with profound hatred. "Macraggians, you have desecrated our holy site! The ancestral spirits will curse you! Our people will make you pay blood for blood, just as they did centuries ago!"
Guilliman shook his head. "I come for peace."
The blade cut through the air, and the bloodied head tumbled to the ground.
Juliu asked: "Commander, what now?"
Guilliman said, "Construct defensive fortifications on the spot. The barbarians will come to us."
They had captured the barbarians' holy site; the barbarians would not ignore it.
Whether for the greater good or out of self-interest, they would spare no cost to retake the holy site, fighting the Macraggians to the death.
Guilliman only needed to wait for the First Legion to arrive; then he could turn the barbarians' holy site into a bloodletting slot for them, making them bleed dry for their sacred ground. That, too, could end centuries of war.
But if he did that, he would be lying when he claimed he came for peace.
Regardless of what Guilliman intended to do, the old priest had to die.
Although the barbarians' ancestor worship was not as dangerous as belief in the Dark Gods, the old priest's status still superseded that of the tribal chiefs.
As long as he lived, there would never be true peace between Macragge and Illyrium.
Nor would Guilliman permit ignorant religion to poison Macragge, be it Macraggians or Illyrians.
Guilliman had no intention of annihilating the barbarians, but he wished to see Illyrium led by a leader as rational as himself.
Peace is never the result of unilateral compromise.
Only when both sides love peace can it be long-lasting and stable.
.....
30 Chapters [email protected]/DaoistJinzu