Warhammer 40K: I Fight On for the Dead

The evacuation order had gone out twelve minutes ago, but corpse collector Eli was still writing a name on the third dead man. On Charon-17, a body had to be registered by name before the family could claim their next ration. Then a strange soldier died in Eli’s arms, pressing a bloodstained dog tag into his hand. The next instant, Eli saw the dead man’s final eleven seconds: aim, breathe, pull the trigger. From then on, every dog tag could leave him with a new skill: marksmanship, demolition, reconnaissance, driving, even the experience of commanding a war. The price was that the dead man’s fear, regrets, and memories also began to crowd into his mind. To find his missing mother, Eli joins the 117th Combined Regiment as a conscript at the very bottom, completing the final battles of the dead who never made it home. Every clue eventually points to a dog tag that should never have existed It belonged to his father, whom the Empire branded a deserter eighteen years ago. The Empire says that man abandoned Graygate. But the dead tell Eli he stayed alone behind the gate. Corpse collector Eli can inherit the final eleven seconds of a fallen soldier’s combat memories from their dog tag. The dead teach him to shoot, demolish, scout, and command, while filling his mind with their fears, regrets, and unfinished missions. To find his missing mother and uncover the truth behind his father’s alleged desertion, Eli joins the 117th Combined Regiment, rising from cannon fodder to battlefield commander. But when countless dead begin using his body to keep fighting, he must first answer one question: who will be the last one standing, Eli, or an army made up of the dead?