On the game's main interface, Kitten Loves Fish had likewise spotted that eye-catching new icon: [30k Astartes Duel Tournament].
As a player with solid technical skills who favored precision sniping and tactical maneuvering, he was interested in any opportunity that offered fresh challenges and a deeper immersion into the Warhammer 40k universe, though the time period "30k" left him feeling a bit out of his depth.
"Ten thousand years ago? Before the Astartes ever split apart?" he muttered to himself, clicking accept with cautious curiosity.
[The system is scanning your combat history and battlefield behavioral patterns…]
Unlike the grand hall Daniel had experienced, his own evaluation process felt more understated. Before his eyes, the void quietly gave rise to eighteen ancient, awe-inspiring Legion insignia, silent examiners radiating an invisible, scrutinizing presence.
Most of the insignia dimmed rapidly after subjecting him to some unseen "assessment," as though judging that he did not fit their Legion's particular temperament.
The selection standards of these Legions seemed extremely stringent, weighing not just skill, but some inner, hard-to-articulate sense of "resonance."
In the end, only two insignia remained steadily lit.
The first was a hard-lined, powerfully rendered lizard, or dragon, skull emblem, its jaws locked to the left. It radiated a steady, tenacious aura, hot and dependable like heavy molten rock.
The insignia itself was not ornate, yet it carried within it a formidable vitality, with a texture reminiscent of the forge.
The second was a twisting, coiled hydra emblem. Its glow was more secretive, more elusive, harder to pin down, as if composed of countless overlapping phantom images, brimming with calculation, infiltration, and endless variables.
Kitten Loves Fish frowned.
"Salamanders… and Alpha?" he murmured, reading out the names the system had labeled.
For him, someone whose experience so far had mostly been on 40K-era battlefields, these two names were almost completely unfamiliar.
It seemed Medici's Archive Decryption Hall hadn't yet gone into such specific detail about the founding Legions' history, and none of the current playable units in the game offered these two options either.
"Absolutely no intel to go on…" he sighed helplessly. It was like choosing between two entirely unknown cards, with nothing to rely on but instinct and a vague sense of the insignia's aura.
He carefully weighed the differing "temperaments" of the two emblems.
The hydra's aura reminded him of the Chaos-aligned factions in the game: secretive, calculating, adept at exploiting information asymmetry and conspiracy.
It seemed suited to players who enjoyed tactical deception and infiltration playstyles.
The lizard skull emblem, by contrast, felt entirely different. It gave him a sense of being more… grounded.
That searing, weighty feeling, brimming with unyielding vitality, bore a faint resemblance to the Imperial Guard soldiers he remembered, the ones who fought on stubbornly amid ruins, who held their ground in hopeless situations, but elevated, purified into something even more essential.
More importantly, the imagery of "forging" and "tenacity" radiating from that emblem seemed to bear some subtle correspondence to the "patience," "stability," and "precision under pressure" that formed the core qualities he relied on as a sniper.
With no further information to go on, Kitten Loves Fish shook his head and, guided by a moment's instinct and that faint sense of being "grounded," reached out and touched the lizard skull emblem.
[Selection confirmed: Temporary recruit status, Salamanders Legion.]
A detailed information panel unfolded at once:
[The Salamanders Legion]
[Primarch: Vulkan]
[Legion Trait: Due to the particular nature of this Legion's gene-seed, its members exhibit a mutation rate far higher than other Legions, but all mutations trend toward beneficial, enhancing outcomes. The most common manifestations are: black skin, red irises, extreme heat tolerance, exceptional radiation resistance, and cellular self-repair capabilities far beyond the ordinary.]
[Physical Traits: Selecting this Legion will automatically adjust your character's Astartes appearance to black skin and red eyes. Salamanders warriors average greater size and strength than standard Astartes, but their reaction speed and agility are slightly lower than Legions renowned for their finesse.]
[Core Legion Culture: Consummate craftsmanship; a deep compassion and protective instinct toward common civilians and fellow Imperial citizens; a reverence for unyielding resilience, and belief in "self-strengthening," the ability to rise from the ashes even in the direst of circumstances.]
"High mutation rate… but all of it beneficial? Black skin, red eyes, greater strength but slightly slower…" Kitten Loves Fish quickly absorbed the information.
This seemed to be a Legion leaning toward the "heavy armor tank" and "battlefield blacksmith" archetype, its culture emphasizing protection and resilience.
This seemed at odds, on the surface, with his identity as a sniper, yet that quality of "resilience" and "staying steady under pressure" resonated with something in him all the same.
Before he could think further, the light of teleportation had already flared to life.
When his vision cleared, he found himself standing in a grand, sturdy hall, one saturated with an industrial aesthetic of pure functionality.
The walls were built from thick, dark metal plating, inlaid with runes and conduits that gave off a steady, warm orange-red glow. The air carried a faint scent of ozone, superheated metal, and something like volcanic ash.
And he stood in the midst of giants.
All around him were Astartes clad in deep green power armor, a green so profound it recalled ancient forests, yet subtly touched by the warm undertones of molten lava.
Most striking of all was their skin, dark as obsidian, and their eyes: a red that glowed in the hall's dim light like burning embers.
They stood in silence, their forms, just as the records had described, generally more massive and powerful than the other Astartes he'd seen in images, like so many immovable statues of living lava.
No one paid any mind to the arrival of this "new recruit." Every gaze in the hall, filled with boundless reverence and focus, was turned toward the main seat at the head of the chamber.
Kitten Loves Fish's own eyes followed.
And then he saw Vulkan.
Here was a true giant, towering like a mountain peak even among the already massive Salamanders warriors around him.
He too bore night-dark skin and burning red eyes, and the deep green power armor on his frame seemed to have been tempered by countless battles and refined through meticulous personal modification, at once heavy and graceful, its plating engraved with intricate forge-sigils and dragon-fire motifs.
But what left the deepest impression was the aura he radiated: bold, forthright, as dependable as a mountain range, yet radiating a warmth and vital strength as though from the very heart of a furnace.
He needed only to stand there, and he seemed to embody the unyielding spirit of the entire hall, indeed of the entire Legion.
At that moment, this Lord of the Drakes, Primarch of the Salamanders Legion, addressed his assembled warriors in a voice that was resonant, sincere, and utterly compelling:
"...In this coming duel of honor against our brother Legion, I do not ask that every one of you fight for that single title of champion."
His gaze swept across every face, wisdom and anticipation flickering like fire in his red eyes.
"But I ask that you remember this: you are Salamanders! Sons of the forge from Nocturne, keepers of fire in the darkness!"
"When you step onto that arena, you represent more than your own personal valor. You represent the very soul of our Legion: our resilience, our craft, and our flame, the one that never surrenders, that never goes out!"
"So fight with everything you have! Temper your skills as you would temper fine steel! Respect every opponent, as you would respect a piece of metal yet to be shaped! And then…"
Vulkan paused, a bold and confident smile spreading across his face.
"Let every brother there see, in our own way, that the warriors of the Salamanders may not be the fastest. But our will, like our skin, like the steel we forge, cannot be broken!"
"Don't you dare shame the Salamanders' name! Understood, my children?"
"Yes, Father!" A deafening roar, tinged with the resonance of grinding metal, burst forth from the chest of every warrior, brimming with searing loyalty and blazing fighting spirit.
Kitten Loves Fish stood among the ranks, feeling the overwhelming presence around him and the weighty conviction carried in the Primarch's words.
He looked down at himself: his virtual character's skin had turned deep black, and his hands seemed filled with a new kind of strength.
The heart of a sniper had been cast into the forge of a heavy-armored warrior.
This 30k duel, it seemed, was far from a simple matter of martial contest.
He was about to experience, firsthand, as a Salamanders recruit, this unique Legion's culture, its convictions, and, the singular honor of fighting under the gaze of that legendary Primarch.
The challenge had only just begun.