Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 394 FALLEN
"Why hope that He does not exist? Why try so hard to deny Hell and judgment? Some people do this just to have more confidence when doing evil." - "The Book of Lorgar"

Kroger inserted a new magazine into the magazine. The auxiliary computing system in the helmet reminds him of everything about himself. He, the weapon he wields like an arm, and the layer of armor on his exterior, that layer of light yet heavy, close-fitting yet hard skin.

Perhaps from the outside, the armor they wore was so bulky that it must have caused a lot of inconvenience. No, this second layer of skin makes them light and agile enough, protected and easy to fight. This completes them as a Space Marine, an Astartes, a true warrior bearing the blood of the Emperor and Primarch, and nothing else.

It offsets the weakness of pure flesh and blood, and protects the warrior's hammer-like will. It makes them armored with steel inside and out.

"...I also want to suggest to my father that we add a large bathhouse on the ship. If you have nothing to do, take off your armor and go there to take a bath. You know, last time I heard mortals secretly commenting that we smelled like sweat! Throne, my heart is broken Broken……"

Kroger turned the bolter over in his hand, checking its condition. It lay docilely and lovingly against his palm, an excellent tool. It has cleared dozens of square meters of enemies today, executing every one of his will diligently and loyally. The reason why we use this counting unit is because it is the most appropriate one.

He raised the muzzle of the gun and pointed it at the shadow that the scanner pointed out to him. A sharp biological activity detection peak was flashing on the instrument screen, just like the zigzag lines like the sharp teeth of the battlements on the top of the city defense fortress. Hidden inside, there is richness. Power must be removed.

"Fire," he whispered, his voice carried over the comm channel. Luna Wolf Jack's bullet was the first to touch the enemy material, and a bloody mess exploded in the air, rapidly spreading in the narrow passage. Some sticky falling sounds hit the ground, accompanied by infrasound wails and calls.

"Flash bomb," the Dark Angel prompted. Four seconds later, the entire wall was illuminated as brightly as the midday sun. A bunch of huge eyeballs embedded in a cone-shaped pile of flesh were illuminated and closed. The remaining team members quickly To supplement the firepower, under the barrage, these effects are equivalent to the eyeballs of the light spear launcher being completely blown away from multiple angles.

"We are His eyes that look at the world, and His hot light bursts out in our souls..." Hashem was thinking quietly when he was showered with flesh and blood, as if he was still in a sacred building. They worshiped quietly in the church, "...the fire from the gun helps us cleanse - the acid is coming."

The pained body captured the presence of the team. On the organ-like soft ground covered with some kind of mucus under their feet, the hidden glands immediately began to spit out highly corrosive acid, slowly seeping towards the bottoms of their combat boots. . This liquid can cause damage to their armor, and the degree of damage increases with the time it stays. The results of staying in it will be devastating.

Just like a real animal, there's no need to illuminate your internal organs internally.

They ran while aiming, and the aiming point was uncertain. Fortunately, the bullets hitting any corner of the biological ship were not wasted. A large number of shattering sounds exploded in the firelight, the enemy's broken bones flew everywhere, and slime was everywhere.

"...Why do you have eyes in your belly," Jack said, "It's so ugly. I'm serious."

After the first one appeared, the sound of more bones colliding came from behind the corner. Iron Warrior Hammer took out a grenade and quickly smashed it into the incoming alien group, blasting a passage.

"Time is running out," Luna Wolf said quickly, checking the crimson wall for any remaining dangerous turrets after firing the salvo. No. Each round platform was cleaned, not a second black burn mark scratching his pearly white armor. "Let's go!"

The Luna Wolves have undoubtedly experienced hundreds of battles on battlefields everywhere, but the existence of Randan's aliens continues to refresh his understanding of aliens - they are the most diverse race he has ever seen.

The shock wave of the explosion exploded in the direction where his gunfire was pointed. He could almost hear the wails of the aliens and the bitter-smelling chemicals spurting out in pain. A large number of bones were shattered, and death followed. The air is full of mixed sour smells and stench. If a mortal were here, he would be so smoked that it would be difficult to continue fighting, unless his will was unimaginably strong.

"No escape," Gerry said. "No forgiveness."

Before the Word Bearers could answer, Kroger was the first to roar, "Get out of the way!"

Jack ran into an alien creature with multi-jointed bony tentacles. The twelve tentacles spread out from the wings like expanded ribs. Two groups of them were supported on the ground. The tip of each tentacle was a sharp edge. bone knife. Its main body is an insect-like three-section ellipsoid-shaped limb wrapped in a carapace, with simple dark pink lines emerging on the surface. There were two eyes on the head, which were dark brown in color, staring straight at him. The deformed luster made it difficult to breathe.

"The Iron Warriors didn't say they were ugly. Do you want your artistic achievements to be higher than them, Jack?" Dark Angel Gerry said. Every step he took would leave a deep footprint on the flexible structure of the ground.

"...Now we have the ability to witness the vastness of the universe and use our own learning and understanding to analyze all the mysteries of the world..." Hashem said softly.

"Read some Imperial truth for me, Hashem?" Jack shouted.

Then, he knocked it down, used his power claws to tear apart the hard bone tentacles, bending them one by one like weeds, and used the weight of himself plus the power armor to force it to fight back ferociously. A few seconds later, he pinched the last tentacle of the alien, broke it back, or even tore it off directly. A splash of yellow-green mucus spurted out from the severed limb, and the alien fell, its unblinking eyes staring upward.

Under fire, several of the aliens showed obvious hesitation and showed pain feedback when hit. After dozens of seconds, they retreated, fled, and turned away in front of the Space Marines. The soldiers immediately followed up. On the one hand, they wanted to leave the area where the acidic mucus was surging as soon as possible and re-enter the invisible part of the entire ship, that is, a relatively quiet area. On the other hand, they wanted to pursue themselves.

They burst out of the area and into new shadows. There is no source of lighting in the depths of this Ran Dan ship. Even the outer levels, which pretend to be a regular ship using metal and inorganic materials, do not have lights.

They quickly left the combat zone and entered new darkness with occasional flashes of electric sparks. A small number of non-swarming aliens can also be destroyed with melee weapons, whether claws, swords, or hammers. The arc of light in the decomposition field flashes, sometimes illuminating the darkness.

Jack threw away the severed limb in his hand. Just holding it made him feel sick. He was not sure whether it was the influence of biological toxins or some unknown psychic element.

Following Jack's request, he read Imperial Truth.

“I can’t build the Imperial Palace out of clay, so I can’t say this place is ugly——!”

It is difficult to imagine the mentality of the Word Bearers to recite these truths that refute religion calmly and even with reverence.

Regardless, the sound of the Word Bearers chanting Imperial truths may be the best background audio they can get in this inhospitable area for human life.

At the sound of the Word Bearers' voice, Kroger realized a problem.

"That was the first group of aliens to break out," Kroger said, sensing something unusual and leading the team onward. "Previous aliens felt no pain and were not afraid of danger. But these creatures trembled and fled from the crisis."

"This is a normal alien, Kroger," Jack replied, picking up a bone hanging on the armor and tearing it off and throwing it away. "Of course intelligent life should understand the existence of fear. This is the Eighth Legion's One of the purposes. Fear, the supreme fear.”

"They are intelligent beings." The Dark Angel automatically omitted his comments and thoughts about the last half of the Luna Wolf's sentence, "Partly."

"Perhaps this has something to do with their life stage?" Hammer speculated, "Outside the alien empire, there should be no intelligence in those flesh-and-blood structures."

"Maybe they have some hierarchies within themselves, like trunks, branches and leaves." Jack said. "Some aliens are like this."

There is no existing reference for the internal structure of this ship. Even the auxiliary computing equipment of the Iron Warriors only provides limited warning and detection assistance, rather than many times for other Old Night humans and humans. When the pocket empire established by the mutants launches an attack, it can achieve an almost prophetic effect on the structure.

The team searched for a path forward, passing through large forest-like areas of bone or hard fiber, carving out a winding path in an intricate network of intertwined flesh. Sometimes, some aliens in a new alert state will come to the door, maybe they are sentries, or they assume the responsibility of patrollers.

Avoidance is better than direct firefight. After all, they are just a small team - they are certainly not alone. War designer Perturabo will not allow such an almost stupid strategy to appear under his command and waste any life. "Even if sacrifice is a necessity, its presence still signifies the general's incompetence," Hammer said of a war blacksmith who once said this. After a while he remembered that this was one of the monthly rotating slogans at the Agora Bazaar last year, if he remembered correctly.

In short, there are other teams entering the ship from different entrances. They have not met so far. The main reason is still luck.

While searching for a way to escape, they ran into something that made Hashem grit his teeth - some Astartes warriors who had lost their lives, were stripped from their armor, and their neural interfaces were extensively damaged. , embedded in the wall, leaving only the torso and head from the abdomen upward exposed to the crimson wall, like some kind of half-eaten exhibit.

While Jack was responsible for dragging Hashem and telling him not to empty his firepower on the spot, the remaining people endured the surging emotions and checked them to confirm that there was no mutation on their bodies and that the signs of life were confirmed to have disappeared.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that they should have been dead before they appeared in the wall. Each corpse had obvious fatal injuries on the body, such as two hearts penetrated by bone spurs, ruptured arteries and more fatal injuries. Wound.

Regardless, Hashem uses power weapons to destroy everything he sees, even if it means they are hunted by a new group of low-intelligence randan aliens that look like long-legged, long-mouthed brains. No one accused the Muristan of being irrationally excited, he did what everyone wanted to do - not to mention that Jack took the opportunity to kick the crimson wall hard with his boot next to him.

The path ahead narrows towards the middle, and the tunnel becomes long and narrow. They came to another unknown area, which seemed to be located on a narrow beam.

Jack retracted his foot out of thin air before stepping on the air, and issued a warning on the channel to avoid an accidental fall accident.

"Maybe it's a hundred meters deep down here, maybe it's only high enough for a foot," Jack said, shaking his power claws with lingering fear. "It seems like it's blocking my helmet detection down there. I don't know what it is. I bet you jump down. Not a good choice, I’m not going to try it.”

"Of course." Hammer replied. One of their war blacksmiths had personally verified the dangers of falling.

This area was less guarded or perhaps even unguarded than most of the areas they'd passed through before; but on the other hand, the long, labyrinthine journey across the beams was unpleasant. Several hours passed, and it was certain that they were not stranded in the same place, but they had not left this winding and narrow path either.
"I suddenly remembered something, brothers." The Luna Wolf paid attention to the boundaries of the path under his feet in the thermal imaging field of view.

The place they are in has changed from an icy environment near the outer reaches of the universe to a warm and humid inner space, but these active biomass can still be clearly distinguished in field of view detection. In a sense, this is also One thing that worked in its favor - though as time went on, they began to wonder more and more whether the entire massive alien ship might also be a living creature, and they were wandering into each other's disgusting bowels.

"Say." Gerry replied.

"We didn't bring any pharmacists with us, and we didn't bring any extraction containers. If someone, you know, unfortunately fell on this glorious and great road, how would we take away his gene seeds?" Jack hesitated. say.

"No more." Kroger responded, feeling the body of the Word Bearers in the team tense. Perhaps everyone in the team has hidden passions and ambitions, but beneath Hashem's seemingly gentle appearance, the emotions hidden inside may be particularly turbulent.

He was a good companion, Kroger thought, but in the future, if the Genefather decided to continue working with their Legion, at least Kroger hoped that he would not be chosen to travel with him again.

"No, I mean, Ran Dan is proficient in biotechnology, we..." Jack paused, "Are we going to leave our fallen brothers intact to them?"

There was a brief moment of silence in the team, and the Word Bearers and the Dark Angels said almost simultaneously: "I will handle it."

Then, their helmets turned slightly, facing each other, and then quickly turned back amidst the faint howling of the wind.

"What?" Gerry growled, and before he finished speaking, Hammer had already raised his gun and fired, accurately shooting down a flying creature hiding behind a pile of falling stalactite-like bone stones. Then came the second and third ones. Each burst shot could kill at least one dark creature like a deep-sea manta ray. If the angle was right, his bullets could penetrate two to three of them.

The situation was not beneficial to them. The 23rd Team stood in the bright light, restricted by the narrow passage, and behind the countless hanging stones with irregular heights around them, the sound of many membrane wings trembling gradually sounded. Dark beams with indistinguishable colors pierced the darkness, and unstable ions were transformed into high-radiation energy jets through the filtering of biological organs, hitting the warriors extremely quickly.

"See the throne..." Jack cursed instead of shouting in pain. The beam penetrated his arm armor, burning a tear in the middle of his finger extensor muscle, and directly affected the flexion and extension of the four fingers he held the gun. He took a step back, and the deep black and red beam burned half of the fibrous muscle connections where his feet had just stood.

In some sort of alarm ringing from experience, he instinctively ran sideways along the beam.

Combat experience saved him. Two seconds after he left, the entire beam collapsed downwards, chasing the soles of his feet until he stood on the top of the next support point extending from below to above.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Just before his breath was completely exhaled from his mouth, a series of terrible sounds of armor colliding were heard in the imbalance of the armor. The iron feathers collided, and the strips hit the rivets. In a blink of an eye, In the meantime, the muscle beams under the Dark Angel's feet were directly burned through, and the warriors wearing heavy armor had nowhere to hide.

Only falling.

In less than five seconds, the heavy landing sound echoed like thunder, followed by the noisy operating noise of Terminator A.

With a squeaking sound, Dark Angel Gerry slowly climbed up on his own - his biggest resistance was the design of the armor itself.

"Hi." Gerry said hello upwards, but no one responded awkwardly.

"Hey, brother," Jack's heart almost jumped out of his chest and was still pounding rapidly. He cleared his throat and said dryly, "You... fell."

"Yes, I fell. It seems that the straight line height here is no more than fifteen meters." Gerry's calm voice had a hint of depression, "This is a platform, there is no maze, you can all come down."

Kroger took the lead and jumped down following Gerry's footsteps. He landed heavily but steadily on his feet and bent his knees for cushioning. The remaining few soldiers all jumped down.

Some alien technology jamming equipment was installed in unknown places, preventing the scanner from continuing to operate, but their naked eyes were enough to see the situation here: the place where they were suddenly changed back to a steel structure, the ground was hard, and there were no signs of damage on the walls. The structure of the face and eyes of the string seems to resemble a hall. Apart from some slime from the battle above, everything is clean and tidy.

Only the similar warm air temperatures showed that they were still in the core of the spacecraft.

"Isn't this the right way?" Jack murmured in frustration, his power claw dangling back and forth. "Why do we have to circle that beam for hours?"

"Because someone advised us not to jump down," Gerry said calmly, "Who was that..."

"Dear battle brother, your fall made me so sad that I almost sat on the ground in a daze," Hashem said sadly, appearing silently behind Gerry, carrying his pious chanting step by step. Approaching, "How come those beautiful Deathwing swords were broken? Fortunately, fortunately, you survived this disaster. How lucky you are! It must be His..."

"Thank you, Hashem. We are all grateful," Kroger said, feeling an inexplicable sense of relief and gratitude coming from the Deathwing's helmet.

He continued firmly: "Now that we have found a new way out, we will move on."

(End of this chapter)