UK:GSW Chapter 325 – Minato Namikaze and Sakumo Hatake Also Want to Play Warhammer 40k
Kakashi was very unskilled and unaccustomed to this kind of space opera-style warfare.
It was completely different from large-scale battles between ninja. Although Warhammer 40K wasn't truly science fiction but rather a dark-style space opera, where much of its combat theory was essentially World War II level, to Kakashi, a native of the ninja world, it was still far too advanced a way of fighting.
Especially with the existence of super-soldiers like the Adeptus Astartes, their "primitive" combat theories became even worse.
Thus, when encountering a joint assault from an elite squad of Chaos Astartes, Kakashi was simply out of luck.
These Astartes worked in close coordination, surrounding Kakashi, using a Hellbrute mech as the vanguard for frontal fire suppression, shield-bearing Astartes for defense, Chaos Astartes with other firearms for mid- and long-range suppressive fire, and close-combat units wielding power axes and power swords for sudden strikes.
What made it hardest for Kakashi to endure was that he didn't know what kind of evil power these Chaos Astartes possessed, but ranged attacks barely harmed them at all. They even seemed to have some sort of "friendly fire damage reduction" buff — attacks from their own allies would only spark on impact without causing actual damage.
Well, not entirely — the Hellbrute's attacks could hurt them — but that thing was deliberately controlled: after finishing its suppression fire to help surround Kakashi, it was immediately sent off to attack Imperial Guardsmen instead.
Surrounded, Kakashi was unable to support others or break through. In the end, he was trapped and killed by this elite Chaos Astartes squad, dying with unwillingness in his heart.
Kakashi also learned the identity of this Chaos Astartes unit — a squad of the Black Legion, formerly the Luna Wolves, Sons of Horus, the 16th Legion of the Imperium, now an elite force of Chaos.
To Kakashi, the player, they were all elite mobs — enemies that could even be considered plot-kill-level, since their strength far exceeded what he could handle.
Without a doubt, after receiving the Emperor's blessing, Kakashi's physical abilities had reached the level of a powerful Space Marine. Combined with his inherent ninja abilities, he had attained true Kage-level strength — and even among Kage, he was powerful. To put it in more familiar terms, he had gained the mighty, area-controlling strength of the Raikage and the all-around ninjutsu mastery of the Third Hokage.
Such a Kakashi was a truly all-round ninja. In the ninja world, only bug-tier opponents like Uchiha Madara or Hashirama Senju could defeat him.
However, on a battlefield of this scale, against an elite Chaos team, it was like the strongest gladiator in history being set upon at once by Achilles, Hercules, and an entire squad of legendary champions — no matter how unbeatable he might have been in his own era, under such conditions he could only die resentfully.
In the encirclement, Kakashi kept taking damage, repeatedly suffering wounds. Although individual attacks from the Chaos Astartes couldn't directly break the golden energy granted by the Emperor, they could whittle it away bit by bit, until they finally shattered the Emperor's blessing and killed him.
Throughout the fight, the Chaos Astartes jeered with voices filled with disdain mixed with jealousy and hatred: "Lapdog of the False Emperor!" "A daemon blessed by the False Emperor!" "Pitiful slave of the False Emperor — die!" To these former Imperial Astartes — now traitors and servants of Chaos — the Emperor was a False Emperor, and calling him such was their way of denying him and justifying their betrayal.
Hearing these taunts, a nameless fire rose in Kakashi's heart. Although he did not worship the Emperor, in that fleeting moment when he saw the Emperor, he felt the sacrifice that the Emperor had made for humanity as a whole.
He didn't yet have a concrete understanding, but the Emperor was someone worthy of Hatake Kakashi's respect. Moreover, the Emperor had granted him great power, giving him the ability to fight Chaos.
What? The Emperor was just using Kakashi as a tool?
Well… is it not possible that ninja are inherently tools? Although Kakashi, because of Obito Uchiha, believed ninja should value comrades and friends, he never denied the "ninja = tool" mindset. After all, such a millennium-old, unchanging worldview wasn't something he could simply see beyond.
So Kakashi felt no resentment about being used as a tool after receiving the Emperor's blessing. Even the strange titles the Emperor used when addressing him didn't bother him — you couldn't expect someone who had long since stopped caring about life to fuss over such things.
In fact, gaining great power for nothing was never "free" in Kakashi's mind — there was always a price to be paid. For him, that price was to fight for the Imperium, to fight to protect humanity. To him, that was no price at all.
After all, whatever the Imperium's faults, the Chaos forces that sought to slaughter all humans and torment and devour their souls were clearly enemies that must be defeated.
That was why Kakashi felt anger at the Chaos Astartes' blasphemous words.
Unfortunately, anger was useless. Anger didn't change the fact that he couldn't win.
In the end, amidst their mocking "Hmph, the lapdog of the False Emperor is nothing special," Kakashi met his second death in this hellhole of a world, filled with unwillingness.
When he died, Kakashi found himself in a dark, gray, misty world, standing atop a twisted and terrifying mountain of corpses.
The entire realm was silent and lonely, like the end point of death.
But in the darkness ahead, a faint golden light shone, as if calling to Kakashi.
Then, a will entered Kakashi's consciousness:
[Your battle is not over. Stand up, Hatake Kakashi, and continue your fight!]
With this will — clearly from the Emperor — Kakashi felt a powerful pull dragging his soul toward the golden light.
The light grew brighter until he crashed into it.
When he came to, Kakashi found himself back on the battlefield. But more time had passed than he expected — the battle line in this area had completely collapsed, and only the corpses of Imperial soldiers remained in the trenches.
From a distance came the terrifying sounds of artillery fire. Looking out, Kakashi saw that the Chaos forces had pushed the line at least ten kilometers forward.
Ten kilometers might not sound far, but on Cadia's battlefield, where over a billion Imperial soldiers formed layer upon layer of defenses, every kilometer of lost ground meant hundreds of thousands — even millions — of Imperial dead.
Here, mortal soldiers died like stalks of grass, Space Marines died like common troops, and only elite Space Marines could hold out a little longer.
Kakashi understood the situation instantly, as the knowledge had been directly implanted into his mind — another effect of the Emperor's power, letting him grasp everything in an instant.
Everywhere his eyes fell, corpses lay piled in mountains. Countless severed heads of Imperial soldiers stared blankly upward, their faces frozen with fear, rage, hatred, pain, and despair. Just within his line of sight lay over two hundred thousand bodies.
He saw twisted, terrifying Chaos creatures devouring corpses, or impaling severed heads, torsos, or other body parts on spikes. Some had piled heads into something like a Pyramid of severed heads.
There were also strange, purple, warped things desecrating the corpses in disgusting ways, making Kakashi's scalp crawl and stirring a nameless fury in his chest.
It was then that the Chaos monsters noticed him. Like predators spotting prey, they made horrid noises and surrounded him.
Kakashi instinctively prepared to fight, but quickly gave up. This was now enemy territory — staying would only mean throwing his life away.
Though he could still revive, resurrection took time, and the Imperium clearly couldn't afford him wasting it now.
Without hesitation, Kakashi used the Emperor's power to unfurl golden wings and shot toward the Imperial lines as a streak of light, planning to regroup before fighting again.
On the way, he couldn't avoid interceptions and artillery fire, but focused solely on escape and relying on his ninja skills, he reached the new Imperial defensive line without serious harm.
His arrival as a Living Saint once again boosted the morale of the front-line troops. But that was all he could do. Faced with their fanatical faith, Kakashi felt ashamed — the last group of soldiers had believed the same, certain that the Living Saint would lead them to victory. But he had been easily defeated by the Black Legion, their defense had collapsed, and nearly all those soldiers had been slaughtered.
The enormity of that sacrifice weighed so heavily on him that even breathing felt difficult.
But he had no time to dwell on it. The enemy launched a new assault — and once again, the Black Legion Chaos Astartes appeared.
Kakashi's scalp prickled. He knew fighting now would only repeat the last outcome. Last time, he'd fought with everything he had. Though part of his failure was due to being unaccustomed to his new role as a Living Saint, even fully adapted, his strength wouldn't increase much. In a battlefield with no chance for stealth or ambush, his odds of victory were truly low.
Just as he hesitated, someone roared from behind, "For the Emperor — kill these blasphemous traitors!" A large group of Astartes in black, blue, red, and green armor charged forward.
This time, they were Imperial Astartes — twenty-two in all.
It wasn't a large number, but on this battlefield, they were undoubtedly a shot of pure morale for the Imperium. Even Kakashi's eyes lit up, and his confidence for the coming fight surged.
Incidentally, such a mixed-color force was non-canon — in the original setting, each Chapter had its own colors and characteristics, and Astartes typically acted as a Chapter. Here, Uchiha Kei's setup felt more like Imperial Astartes who had been separated from their Chapters and temporarily banded together.
Actually, that was exactly the case — a rainbow-colored ad-hoc squad formed after losing contact with their own Chapters.
On a meat-grinder battlefield like this, such details hardly mattered.
Kakashi immediately joined the rainbow squad's assault, adding a new color to their ranks.
The Imperial Astartes hesitated at this unknown man's sudden appearance, but quickly recognized him as a Living Saint. Their morale soared, and they too felt the Emperor's presence with them.
Thus began a small-scale super-soldier battle.
With the rainbow Astartes' support, Kakashi pushed his ninja abilities to the limit, quickly wiping out nearly half of the Black Legion squad and forcing them to retreat temporarily.
Though the Imperium's Astartes suffered casualties, they had indeed won. Morale skyrocketed, inspiring the mortal troops and even pushing the line forward.
The surge of morale even stirred the lazy Kakashi's heart, filling him with unprecedented passion and even giving him the illusion that "we can win."
Then, a boss-level Chaos unit appeared.
This time, one of the four Chaos Gods — Khorne — personally sent a Greater Daemon, leading a host of Khorne's basic daemons.
Such a foe was far beyond ordinary Astartes to handle — normally, the Imperium would send the Grey Knights to fight daemons.
Unfortunately, none were here now. The result was a one-sided slaughter — Kakashi's side could not stand against the Khorne Greater Daemon. Even if this one was nameless in canon, a Greater Daemon was still a Chaos boss unit.
The terrifying daemon — with traditional red skin, demonic wings, towering over six meters, rippling with explosive muscle, and sporting a long tail and savage jaws — led a host of 88 daemons, the sacred number of Khorne, and overwhelmed the rainbow Astartes squad. Kakashi finally met his third death, run through by the Greater Daemon's massive blade, dying with unwillingness and helplessness.
Then, Kakashi's existence became an endless cycle of resurrection, finding allies, fighting, and dying.
Though the Emperor's power let him avoid permanent death, grow, and gain strength in this brutal, blood-soaked war, on a battlefield where his allies were strong but the enemy was even stronger, Kakashi's personal power was simply insignificant.
Even if Uchiha Madara or Hashirama Senju themselves came here, they too would be crushed utterly by Chaos's overwhelming might.
Helplessness, powerlessness, pain, unwillingness, rage, grief, despair, numbness.
Kakashi's emotions cycled through them all. After countless defeats and revivals, he grew numb, fighting only because he had to, and watching the Imperium's soldiers die again and again.
Millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions…
In just three days, over a hundred million Imperials had died, and the number kept climbing. The brave, unyielding Cadians fought on their homeworld without fear of death — and died ceaselessly, like weeds being cut down.
As an outsider, Kakashi wanted to change this, but even with the Emperor's power, even as one of the ninja world's strongest, it was utterly impossible.
This world seemed to hold only despair.
In the mental network world, Uchiha Kei, having accelerated time so that Kakashi experienced three in-game days in mere moments, rubbed his chin. He wondered if he'd gone too far — after just three days of Warhammer 40K-style warfare, Kakashi's mind was indeed tougher, no longer so apathetic, but he also seemed broken, radiating a numb, hopeless depression worse than after Minato Namikaze and his wife had died.
Scratching his head, Uchiha Kei wondered whether to end the game early — after all, if this continued, Kakashi's mental state might collapse entirely.
However, when Minato Namikaze and Sakumo Hatake heard this idea, they both agreed without hesitation: "No need, keep it going."
In fact, they even made another request — they wanted to enter the game world themselves and take part in this war pushed to the absolute limits of brutality.
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