Qin Mo had overhauled the power armor.
The old battery system was obsolete. In its place stood a revolutionary energy engine, a self-sustaining power source capable of not only storing immense energy but slowly regenerating it in the heat of battle.
It wasn’t warp-based sorcery. It wasn’t reliant on xenos biomatter, exotic materials or arcane voidcraft technology.
Instead, it drew from the battlefield itself.
The engine absorbed ambient energy from its surroundings, the lingering heat from lasgun discharges, the residual energy from enemy plasma blasts.
The old energy plating was discarded.
In its place? A capture field, integrated directly into the grav-shield.
The new grav-shield had two primary functions:
Energy Absorption – The field siphoned the force of las and plasma weaponry, redirecting it into the energy engine to fuel the armor.
Now, the enemy’s own firepower no longer drained the wearer.
It strengthened them.
The old rotary lascannons were obsolete.
A high-output energy weapon that compressed multiple las-beams into a single devastating burst. It retained the high rate of fire of its predecessor but delivered unparalleled lethality at point-blank range.
For close combat? The battlefield had changed. And so had the weapons.
Every suit was now equipped with a gravity hammer.
Encased in a gravitational distortion field, even the slightest swing could turn a target into a fine red mist.
But even these weapons were merely secondary.
The true firepower came from the shoulder cannon.
A weapon of adaptation and devastation.
It could shift between multiple configurations:
Mortar Mode – Launches a superheated energy sphere, detonating 100 meters above the battlefield, creating a plasma downpour.
Heavy Cannon Mode – Long-range, high-velocity destruction, punching through fortifications and armor columns alike.
Gauss Accelerator Mode – A hypercharged kinetic round, tearing through dozens of targets in a single shot.
Missile Launcher Mode – A self-guided nightmare, tracking its prey with precision beyond mortal comprehension.
No physical ammunition.
No supply limitations.
Only pure, ceaseless devastation.
Despite these advancements—
Qin Mo was unsatisfied.
Even with this power, it still wasn’t enough.
Power-armored warriors.
To achieve that, he designed a new drone fleet.
These weren’t ordinary drones.
They were larger. Smarter. Specialized.
Energy Drones – Linked to the energy engine, ensuring unlimited operational time in battle.
Fire Support Drones – Heavily armed autonomous units, equipped with devastating energy weaponry, raining destruction from above.
Transport Drones – Capable of deploying troops anywhere on the battlefield at breakneck speed.
With this new doctrine, warfare was redefined.
Only three power-armored warriors needed to be deployed.
They would arrive via transport drones, striking where no Imperial allies were present.
Then, the fire support drones would saturate the battlefield—with long-range bombardments.
Armor. Fortifications. Enemy formations.
All obliterated before close combat was even required.
Speed. Precision. Overwhelming dominance.
This was Qin Mo’s masterpiece.
The pinnacle of warfare.
But even this vision had a flaw.
The cost was astronomical.
Some components were impossible to manufacture without Necron-tier technology.
He had no intention of stopping.
After three days of design work, followed by four days of constructing the AI-controlled logistics drones and three prototype armor sets, Qin Mo decided it was time for a field test.
The opportunity came swiftly.
A Call for Reinforcement
The 47th Regiment’s eastern outpost received a transmission.
Another Imperial force had made contact.
Their stronghold—90 kilometers east—was under siege.
They needed reinforcements. Immediately.
Qin Mo did not hesitate.
The Imperial defenders had been pushed to their last refuge.
The outpost was lost.
The heretics swarmed the area, hurling grenades into the bunker at regular intervals.
Each time, the defenders threw them back.
Someone dove onto the grenade.
After thirty minutes of desperation, the eternal darkness above the underhive was pierced by two glowing spheres.
They descended like miniature suns, burning golden and hissing through the polluted sky as they illuminated the battlefield below.
The orbs exploded mid-air, detonating a hundred meters above the heretic line, brilliant flashes turning night into day.
And then the lasstorm began.
A monsoon of pure light.
Searing flesh. Bone. Armor.
Crimson and white-hot streaks carved through the chaos, reducing fortified positions to slag and heretics to ash.
Before the smoke had even cleared—
A deep, mechanical hum filled the air.
Anti-grav engines whined.
A transport drone descended through the haze, its bulky frame shimmering with energy fields as it hovered above the battlefield.
Its bay doors opened.
Three figures descended.
They landed with a resounding crash, impact shockwaves cracking the ground beneath them.
With him stood Grey and an old veteran named Grot, a towering man with short brown hair.
An oath-bound warrior, one of the surviving Six of the 44th Infantry Regiment.
A man who had pledged to fight at Qin Mo’s side until the end of all things.
They all wielded gravity hammers.
His Aquila staff remained unchanged.
It had become his symbol.
"It’s him, the one the Emperor has sent!"
Inside the bunker, morale ignited.
The stories had spread.
The west had been saved by the warrior who carried the staff.
"Call in the fire support drones," Qin Mo ordered. "We’re wiping them out."
Grey and Grot did not hesitate.
Two massive anti-grav drones roared into the air—
Equal in size to Valkyrie dropships.
Their weapons deployed.
A deadly array of Las-cannons. Plasma launchers. Rotary chainguns.
The battlefield erupted with explosions and disintegrating bodies.
Heretics disintegrated.
Fortifications shattered.
"Grey, maximize enemy casualties."
"Grot, eliminate that abomination."
Qin Mo pointed at the mutant monstrosity looming over the battlefield among the heretics.
"For the Emperor!" Grot roared.
His jump pack ignited, launching him forward.
Heretics were crushed beneath his grav-shield, reduced to pulp beneath its expanding kinetic barrier.
He slammed into the abomination at full force.
Lashing out with hooked limbs and steel tendrils—
But Grot deactivated his grav-shield and swung his hammer.
The gravitational distortion field of the hammer struck the abomination’s skull directly.
There was a moment of silence.
Then a wet crunch, like rock shattering underwater.
The abomination collapsed.
Its skull crushed. Its body spasmed, then lay still.
This… wasn’t the plan.
They had new tactics now.
But even in this new age of warfare…
The power-armored troops still fought the old way.
Grey, however, understood the new combat doctrine.
He had listened to Qin Mo’s explanations while delivering meals during development.
Instead of rushing in, he summoned an energy drone.
The drone linked to his power armor, ensuring temporally unlimited firepower.
He raised his right arm.
His laser scattergun unleashed a storm of light, cutting a swath through the enemy lines.
His shoulder cannon launched three projectiles in quick succession.
Each detonated mid-air, releasing clouds of las-shrapnel over a wide radius.
It didn’t matter if the heretics were behind barricades or out in the open.
They all burned the same.
Even the scorched metal ground beneath them bubbled and warped, as it melted.
The battlefield belonged to them now.
And this... was only the beginning.