Chapter 90 The Bizarre Death Korps of Krieg—Coulson’s Astonishing Theory

If there was any universe even more dangerous and brutal than Marvel’s, the universe of Warhammer 40,000 was certainly one of them.

A long-running joke existed among its fans:

No matter how much someone loved Warhammer 40,000, if they were transported into that universe, they would immediately start crying like a terrified child.

It was a universe where a peaceful death was considered a blessing.

If someone was unlucky, their soul could be corrupted by the four Chaos Gods after death, condemning them to eternal torment and manipulation within the Warp.

Humanity faced constant threats in the 41st Millennium.

Every minute of every day, the Imperium of Man fought against Chaos, Orks, Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids, and countless other hostile species.

The influence of the Chaos Gods was omnipresent, tempting and corrupting humanity. Their invasions frequently became catastrophes capable of destroying entire worlds.

The people of Krieg came from that universe.

There was a saying in the Imperium:

The lives of human soldiers were the currency spent by the Emperor.

If Krieg soldiers were the Emperor’s currency, they were coins bundled tightly together, clenched inside a fist, and hurled at the enemy with enough force to crush them.

Krieg, the Death Korps’ homeworld, had once suffered a massive rebellion.

The commander of the planet’s loyalist faction ultimately reached a brutal conclusion:

Krieg could only belong to the Imperium of Man, which remained loyal to the Emperor.

If the Emperor could not have Krieg, no one would.

The final solution was to baptize the entire planet in nuclear fire.

Nuclear winter and radioactive dust transformed Krieg into a cruel and nearly uninhabitable wasteland.

Yet the war did not end.

Across a planet covered in trenches, tunnels, barbed wire, and fortifications, loyalists and rebels continued fighting for every trench and every underground passage.

Krieg’s subterranean tunnel networks eventually became so complex that no one could fully understand them.

Krieg soldiers cleared those passages one by one with shotguns, flamethrowers, grenades, and entrenching shovels.

Every advance and every tunnel they reclaimed came at an appalling cost.

Every front line was more brutal than the Battle of Stalingrad.

The war continued for five hundred years before Krieg finally returned to the Imperium.

Five centuries of continuous warfare changed everything.

It created Krieg’s unique culture and values.

In the eyes of Krieg commanders, any number of casualties was acceptable if they contributed to the Emperor’s great cause.

This reverence for sacrifice became deeply embedded in the Death Korps’ strategic doctrines and military organization.

To every soldier of Krieg, the purpose of existence was to fight without end and sacrifice generation after generation for the Emperor of Mankind.

Even now, they continued pursuing that ultimate objective through their actions.

Their obsession with dying in service produced a unique tactical philosophy.

Krieg commanders believed victory came from the merciless application of superior manpower.

Their doctrines favored wars of attrition, and they were willing to pay a far higher price than their enemies to secure victory on any battlefield.

Every battle was ultimately a question of time and personnel expenditure.

To ensure that every soldier became an unwavering sacrifice for the Emperor, the people of Krieg received military training and instruction in the Imperial Creed from early childhood.

Military tradition and the spirit of sacrifice were integrated into every aspect of Krieg society.

As a result, Krieg soldiers became famous for never retreating.

Because of their planet’s history, every soldier regarded death as a deserved punishment—an act of atonement for their world’s past heresy.

That culture ultimately forged a monstrous army.

The Death Korps of Krieg did not fear death.

They considered it an honor.

Five hundred years of tunnel and trench warfare had given them extraordinary expertise in siegecraft, trench warfare, and preparatory bombardments.

Every Krieg soldier was also an exceptionally skilled combatant with thoroughly practiced battlefield techniques.

Because of Krieg’s culture of atonement, its annual tithe to the Imperium was always paid at the highest possible level.

The planet supplied at least several dozen regiments of soldiers each year.

Several dozen regiments might not sound particularly impressive.

However, regimental organization in the Imperium was extraordinarily inconsistent.

Measured by the number of soldiers involved, Krieg’s annual contribution amounted to approximately five hundred million troops.

Five hundred million every year.

Even those five hundred million soldiers had to pass a final selection ritual.

Two Krieg armies fought one another, and only the victors were permitted to enter the Imperium’s official battle order.

Those who failed naturally met their end ahead of schedule.

In other words, one billion soldiers entered the selection process, and five hundred million surviving “seeds” were presented as Krieg’s tithe.

However, Krieg’s unique culture of sacrifice also meant that ordinary Astra Militarum units generally disliked being mixed with the Death Korps.

Merely being stationed near Krieg soldiers could damage the morale of ordinary troops.

The soldiers of Krieg always wore their iconic gas masks.

They rarely spoke and did not even use personal names, identifying themselves only by numbers.

They resembled an army of living dead.

Despite that, anyone would willingly entrust their back to the Death Korps.

No matter how difficult or impossible a mission appeared, the soldiers of Krieg would continue fighting until the last man fell.

To a commander, there could never be too many soldiers like that.

Ethan’s only concern was that Krieg commanders might be too enthusiastic about seeking death and expend the army faster than necessary.

That would make even him feel the loss.

After their orbital deployment and the extermination of the surrounding hordes, the Death Korps immediately began constructing defensive positions according to Ethan’s battle plan.

In less than an hour, Krieg’s experienced combat engineers transformed the open plains into an enormous network of trenches, sandbag barriers, barbed wire, and antitank obstacles.

While the Death Korps prepared its battlefield positions, observers and agents from S.H.I.E.L.D., the JTF, and numerous other factions secretly monitored its every movement.

To Earth’s military experts, this army was extraordinarily strange.

Its soldiers looked as if they had emerged from the First or Second World War, and their weapons appeared crude and primitive.

Yet the Death Korps’ equipment and military doctrine originated from the Astra Militarum of the 41st Millennium.

The spies and observers watched the Krieg soldiers deploy Earthshaker cannons resembling towed field artillery and Medusa siege guns that looked like gigantic mortars.

Then they saw the Leman Russ tanks.

The tanks’ crude hulls resembled landships from the First World War or France’s ARL 44 from the Second. Some sections even appeared to use riveted construction.

They were accompanied by Centaur multipurpose carriers that looked equally antiquated.

The observers felt as though their entire understanding of warfare was being rewritten.

The Death Korps’ weapons appeared to have walked straight out of the world wars.

To a modern military expert, their equipment seemed to lack any coherent technological system.

Some observers believed an American force of equal size could gain an overwhelming advantage over them.

After all, the American military’s integrated combat systems and advanced equipment should theoretically crush such a bizarre Foundation army.

Yet no one dared reach that conclusion.

They had already witnessed the Death Korps descend from orbit and effortlessly destroy zombie hordes through overwhelming individual combat ability.

Those crude infantry weapons had also turned out to be high-energy lasguns that modern Earth could not manufacture.

The spies and military observers stared at the Earthshaker cannons, Leman Russ battle cannons, and their absurdly large barrels with growing unease.

Whatever else could be said about those weapons, their firepower was unquestionably terrifying.

Judging purely by its dimensions, the Earthshaker was at least a 200-millimeter field cannon—far larger than the 155-millimeter artillery commonly used by modern armies.

The Medusa siege gun appeared to possess an outrageous caliber of at least 600 millimeters.

The Leman Russ, one of the Imperium’s military workhorses, might have looked crude, but the cannon mounted in its main turret appeared to be at least 160 millimeters.

Its supposedly obsolete hull also carried what appeared to be a 120-millimeter weapon.

Additional gun emplacements were positioned around its viewing ports and atop the main turret, including two machine-gun-like weapons that appeared to be at least 20 millimeters in caliber.

(A clarification for readers familiar with Warhammer: Games Workshop has never been particularly rigorous about military specifications and has essentially given up trying. I’ve adjusted some of the figures according to what I consider reasonable.)

To knowledgeable observers, the Death Korps created a deeply unsettling impression.

It seemed obsessed with pursuing overwhelming firepower.

It was almost as if the enemies these soldiers normally faced were not human at all.

If Ethan heard that conclusion, he would probably laugh aloud.

They had guessed correctly.

Although the Astra Militarum frequently served as background characters and expendable cannon fodder throughout official Warhammer novels and other works, the Imperium could maintain its vast territory only because of the Guard’s incalculable numbers.

The Death Korps had now completed its defensive lines.

Their speed was astonishing.

In an extremely short period, they had created an elaborate and comprehensive trench system.

Even modern combat engineers would have needed several times longer to construct comparable fortifications.

The knowledgeable military observers felt chills when they realized that the Krieg soldiers had dug foxholes, trenches, and shelters directly into New York State’s frozen, snow-covered ground using nothing but entrenching shovels.

Even elite modern soldiers would require far more time to build such defenses under these weather conditions.

Behind the JTF lines, Coulson lowered his binoculars and brushed the snow from his shoulders.

His expression was both puzzled and astonished.

After the Foundation initiated its orbital-drop operation, Nick Fury ordered Coulson and his team to gather intelligence and observe the Death Korps.

The hundred-thousand-strong Krieg army had been divided into three formations.

Each formation occupied a vital route between one of the three biochemical hives and New York City.

Because the JTF knew nothing about the Death Korps and had yet to establish formal communications with them, nearby forces had not approached recklessly.

The Krieg defensive positions had been established directly in front of the JTF lines.

That left the JTF soldiers with complicated feelings.

Part of them felt insulted that the Death Korps appeared to have so little faith in the JTF’s combat ability.

Another part was deeply moved that these unfamiliar soldiers had established their lines ahead of the JTF despite their relatively limited numbers.

Seeing Coulson lower his binoculars, Agent May spoke.

“Well, Coulson? Have you figured anything out?”

Coulson frowned.

“They’re an extremely strange army.”

“Their equipment looks backward, but it’s actually highly advanced.”

“The physical strength and endurance of their soldiers also far exceed those of modern humans.”

“Even an ordinary Krieg infantryman appears comparable to our most elite special-forces operators—perhaps even stronger.”

“They constructed all these fortifications in less than an hour at approximately eight degrees below freezing.”

“For a moment, I wondered whether every one of them was a mutant.”

Agent May teased him.

“They’re all wearing gas masks. Perhaps they really are mutants beneath them.”

“How long until the reconnaissance aircraft predicts the corrupted army will reach their positions?” Coulson asked.

“Approximately twenty minutes.”

“Damn.”

Coulson looked back toward the horizon.

“At least five National Guard infantry divisions have been infected, along with fifty thousand Blackwatch troops.”

“There are also armed civilians capable of using weapons and corrupted JTF personnel.”

“They’re about to face at least three hundred thousand mutated modern soldiers, along with an unknown number of flesh-mechanical armored units.”

He turned toward May.

“Do you think they can hold?”

“I’m not optimistic,” May admitted. “The JTF was routed by the same enemy not long ago. That defeat allowed even more soldiers to become infected and mutated.”

“The orbital bombardment has also stopped.”

“It’s difficult to predict who will win.”

Coulson exhaled.

Then, with a calm expression, he voiced the astonishing theory that had formed in his mind.

“May… what if this army was created by the Foundation specifically to fight monsters or extraterrestrial species?”

Agent May stared at him.

“Why would you think that? Are you serious, Coulson?”

“I’m completely serious.”

“Is it possible that this army was never created to fight conventional wars?”

“Could the Foundation possess countless armies like this in places we know nothing about?”

“Perhaps they’re already fighting a war that will determine whether humanity survives.”

“That’s insane, Coulson.”

Coulson released a long breath.

“I hope it’s nothing more than my own insane theory.”

“But I still intend to include it honestly in my report to Director Fury.”

He signed his name at the bottom of the observation report and closed the file.

Then Coulson looked toward the silent Krieg defenses.

“I have a feeling this battle is going to shock the world.”