Wartopia [Army & Base Building]

The army of mankind stood firm and held the line, but the truth behind its secret fuel remained in the shadows. Logistics was about to collapse due to a decision Adam Clay had to make a few nights ago, but that decision gave him both the ultimate power he needed and the chance to employ a second Solarium Paladin.

On the right flank, Captain Solomon Creed, a Slayer Paladin of the Hammerguard Order, held the line like an absolute and unbreakable barrier. Alone, he bathed in the blood of many Bigfoot monsters, cutting them with Serrated Sawblade and blasting them open with his Plasma Gun.

On the left flank, Sergeant Darius Grimm, a Banneret Paladin of the Oathkeepers Order, didn't fight in the same style as the Slayer Paladin, for he planted his banner in the middle of the battlefield and rallied the fighters around him into a senseless battle frenzy, healing them with Holy Solar Power and fighting alongside them.

On one flank, Captain Creed was an apex predator; on the other flank, Sergeant Grimm was raising hope and boosting morale while holding his ground like an absolute unit. As for the heart of the formation, there stood no one but Adam Clay and his elite Men-at-Arms, Blazers melting the Jotnar tide while Artillery picked off every target that would give the enemy some advantage.

The other side marched in an unstoppable tide, their bodies made cover for others behind them, and a wall of a thousand corpses made way for even mightier Children of Jotnar to come forth and start hurling stones and debris.

As casualties started rising, Adam ordered the gates to open, and more combatants rolled out to reinforce the front, but what made the front seem deadlier than the two flanks was the emergence of two hunks of metal rolling on glorious tracks.

Adam's first serious war machines walked into the battlefield; two Battlemaster Tanks with all the hubris and glory of the most popular main battle tanks of the Solarium joined the fray, their weapon systems modified to high-explosive shells and explosive slug rounds.

But was it all enough to stop the Giant that marched towards them?

Adam didn't know the answer, and he hated the odds. Even his invincible Captain Creed wouldn't fare well against a gigantic man wielding a frost storm, and once that storm clashed with the barrier of the Holy Flame, even he wasn't sure what would happen.

For that, he had a plan that involved going around the enemy and hitting where it hurts.

Thanks to reconnaissance, he realized where the enemy's weakness might be, and he sent his fastest squads for the kill, along with the first Runic Artifact he hand-crafted.

✧ ✧ Three days before the battle ✧ ✧

For the first time ever, it wasn't an argument Adam could simply speak his way through, because the one he was arguing with was a Paladin.

"That's impossible! We have plans for that; it is basically sustaining our food stockpile." Adam spoke while pacing back and forth in the Oratory where only he and Captain Creed were meeting.

Standing at the center, Captain Creed felt more like the centerpiece of the Oratory, still and menacing, yet his voice was loud and clear.

"This is the only way to ensure victory." He said, not even considering this an argument with Adam Clay. "Victory comes first; survival comes second. The Dire Wolf Rift must be cleared."

"But victory at the expense of what?" Adam howled in clear frustration, "You can't simply be asking me to feed that to the people."

"First, it is only temporary." Creed replied patiently, "Second, nobody needs to know. Third…" Captain Creed seemed to be considering the following words before uttering them, yet he still said them anyway: "The serfs should eat what they will be given and be happy."

Adam heard Creed's words and couldn't help but stare long and hard at Creed, suppressing an ungodly amount of retorts. Even Creed could see the air around Adam shifting, and the Paladin, somehow, started to look awkward.

"I understand this is no concept of the life you led so far…"

"You don't," Adam replied and shook his head. "I can't make my people eat human corpses."

"Then you are dooming us all." Captain Creed seemed rather upset, for his part.

His suggestion was the most pragmatic thing ever, straight to the point of abandoning humanity and diving straight into cannibalism. He wanted Adam to approve an expedition to the Dire Wolf Rift so that he could go in and clear it out, potentially returning with another Solstone, a Seed of Light. His current theory: since a Solarium Paladin is made by being infused with a Solstone, Adam can't summon a Paladin without one or something equivalent.

Adam argued against that when Creed came up with the idea of clearing out the Dire Wolf Rift, which was, ironically, the logistical blessing in disguise of the whole base, saying that he summoned Captain Creed without the need for one, but Creed reminded Adam how this almost killed him, and it was mostly based on unknowable factors.

It kept going back and forth until Creed had to call for Elena, who joined the tense atmosphere, rather impressed that Adam was actually arguing against a Paladin. However, when the matter was explained to her by the two sides, her face went pale.

"Corpse Bars?" Elena asked, giving Creed a chilling look, "Seven Hells! Why would you even consider something like that!"

Rather than her usual pragmatic stance, she seemed completely against Creed's proposal.

"We are using the enemy's bodies as sustenance for the troops. They are lying out there, buried and preserved in the snow," Creed explained, insisting on his point.

"Doesn't make it any better, my lord," Elena said with wide eyes, shaking her head. "I understand the logistical advantage, and even with anything thrown in the belly of the beast, we won't starve or be corrupted; even xenos biopaste can be purified. But for some unholy reason, humans aren't good grub bars."

"This is an empty superstition!" Creed retorted, clearly displeased with how Elena wasn't on his side. "We have long supplied the frontlines with human-based food bars during the hardest of sieges. Explicating the nature of the food bars wouldn't be a priority with people on the verge of dying of hunger."

"This is madness." Adam backed away with disbelief. "The moment we are exposed, people might literally pack up and leave."

"The Commander is right." Elena said, yet again siding with Adam, but then, in a twist of both physical and political stances, she stood with Creed, saying, "But the Lord Paladin is right too, and in a strange, twisted way, the chance of gaining another paladin in our ranks will save hundreds of lives. We only have to keep it hidden."

The way Adam took that didn't go over as well as the two expected, as he started throwing a real tantrum for the first time. He was walking around, hitting the Oratory's furniture, and throwing all kinds of insults left and right, calling them grimdark freaks, edgy fucks, and all kinds of galactic-fantasy trope insults.

Elena wanted to stop him, but Creed stopped her with a simple motion of his hand. In a way, the stone-cold Paladin recognized a nervous breakdown when he saw one, and Adam's stress meter seemed to have hit its limit.

After a well-earned half-hour of cursing and thrashing, Adam lay on the ground, heaving and covering his face for another half an hour, while all major decisions were hastily handled by Elena via radio. After he sat back up, the color had drained from his face, and he refused to speak, clearly contemplating life and its choices.

"It is hard to be a man of action," Creed spoke to him, finally moving from the position he had been stationed in for the past hour or so, towering over Adam as he spoke. He then removed his helmet, revealing a neutral expression on his usually grim face, before saying: "However, there was a silver lining to a situation like this."

Adam looked at him, his gaze clearly unamused, but after closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath, he asked: "What?"

"What breaks you once will never break you again, and inaction will not be repeated." Creed replied in a deep voice, "You will be broken and repaired again until one day, you'll be unbreakable, Adam Clay."

"That's what you call a silver lining?" Adam asked, his mouth agape and his body shaking, until he lost it and laughed manically, "You bunch of crazy grimdark bastards!"

Creed didn't react much to the insult, but as Adam rose from the ground and turned away, his body aching from the stress that had exploded during his breakdown, he stopped in front of Elena, facing the exit to the Oratory, and exhaled.

"You still agree with him?" He asked, tone flat and voice hoarse.

Elena replied after a pause: "I know it is not what you wish to hear, not what I wish to say either, but yes."

"Take the Urdmen," Adam said and turned to Elena with his eyes, which carried red lines of stress and strain. "They are discreet."

He then walked out of the Oratory, leaving his first two summons behind to get the dirty work done.

Surprisingly, they had it all set up in less than two hours. The Urdmen troopers, who were distant from other Men-at-Arms by nature, were selected to carry out a quick dig on the northeast side of the hill. Two Hoverbarrows were assigned to them, and they would take the corpses from the snow under daylight, making everyone think they were either getting rid of them or sending them to the holy furnace.

When Elena returned to the Command Room, Adam was sitting in a chair in its center, watching all reports with his tired eyes, while Captain Creed was stationed in one dark corner of the room.

Rather than going to check on Adam, whom she considered a close friend at this point, she went to Creed instead, knowing that the young Commander needed to stay focused on work instead of looking at her and remembering the horrible decision he had been forced to make.

"How is he doing?" She asked the Paladin, who spent the whole time watching.

"Surprisingly focused," He replied, his eyes still fixed on Adam's form. "He is preparing for the Rift Expedition as we speak, a small support force with heavy fire and anti-monster tactical gadgets."

"That's good," Elena said with a nod, assuring herself that it was okay, before shaking her head. "Something isn't right, though."

"What do you mean?" The Paladin asked, his eyes slightly narrowing.

"Whenever your kind agrees to something like that, your kind always makes some destructive move," Elena replied.

"My kind?" Creed asked again, this time clearly confused.

"Men." Elena clarified and left his side, walked towards Adam, and stood silently behind him.

She looked at the plans, the squads he prepared for the operation, the type of protocols he put in place, and noticed something big at the center-back of the force. She stepped past Adam, who noticed her going straight for the heart of his plan, and pointed at the strange holographic lump in the rear squad.

The scene on the hologram table displayed a strange vehicle made of many metal bars, and somehow, many expanding sections were all over it. Elena simply pinched two points and moved them apart, thereby expanding the vehicle's full shape.

As it came into view, even Creed stepped forward and started looking at the crazy design he had never seen before in any Solarium war machine.

"Commander…" Elena spoke with an unsure tone, pointing at the construct that was unfolded from a vehicle into a walker craft. "Is that… a Mech?"

"A golem skeleton made of SolTech and RuneTech," Adam replied, his eyes focused on his new innovation. "A mix of rudimentary construction walkers used by the Lunar Engineers and my very own Golem puppet. Attached Artillery, Razor Claws, Golem Mode, and Vehicle Mode. It mostly functions as a skeleton for a golem made of earth, but it can function on its own for lightweight operation. I call it the Warwolf."

"You've built this?" Elena asked, looking at Adam with a concerned face.

"Since the day Wrench introduced me to the walkers, I've been working on my own giant one with the Lunar boys." He replied, but rather than grinning as he usually does when he has something new, he was insanely focused.

"But… this means…" Elena spoke before looking back at Creed, then again at Adam. "You are joining the Rift operation with it, aren't you?"

To that, Adam only smiled.

By nightfall, the squads were assembled, and the mission briefing was given. Task Force Ajax, the reformed Trench Dogs, and Adam's newly assembled support squad were assembled, along with Captain Creed, who would lead the vanguard as a single unit. This Platoon was relocated near the front, where Adam's Warwolf mech was parked in a secret shed. There, the platoon was ordered to rest and spend the night before moving first thing at dawn.

A big argument seemed to have ensued between Adam and his Pennant Sergeant, Adam insisting on entering the Rift, whereas Elena tried to stop him with everything she had. She knew that he had made an emotional decision, and such decisions are the bane of military life.

He was the Commander; thus, he had to stay protected and lead from the back, yet keeping him there was a chore in itself, one that Elena was miserably failing. On the other hand, Captain Creed let him be, realizing that Adam's decision resulted from his guilt over allowing cannibalism as a means of survival. He was punishing himself in a way, but ever pragmatic, Creed told Elena that if he, as a paladin, were to perish in the Rift, the entire force would collapse against the Jotnar horde anyway, so, in a way, the safest place for Adam was behind Creed.

By dawn, the three-squad platoon moved to the Rift, covered by heavy fire from the support teams from the rear, and a few preemptive rounds of bombardment to disperse any lurking monsters.

The Warwolf rolled tank tracks installed into its arms and legs as it moved in a prostrate position, with an armored cockpit shaped into the head of a wolf. Its entire body was only a hollow frame with powerful pistons and no armor plating whatsoever. Two small blazer cannons were fixed over its sides above the arms, and one large artillery turret over its back. Its hands ended in two powerful fists with massive claws for fingers.

Once this construct stood upright, Adam would fill it with earth to give it weight and move it like a golem, providing protection for its moving parts and the ammunition, which was being moved on a hoverbarrow driven by the support rear squad.

With that, Adam was going to test his Walker Mech in the hostile environment of the Direwolf Rift.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

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