Warhammer 40: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 415 Kroger

After repeatedly confirming the collective direction and frequency of the new round of alien attacks, Perturabo obtained a piece of information that was difficult to evaluate, but had to be shared.

"Horus Lupercal, a new round of attacks on our defenses are all centripetal attacks, targeting the Silver Angel base planet. Preliminary judgment is that the planet has generated a psychic wide-area signal source. Please reply if you receive it."

Horus' voice came soon, and the wolf god sounded energetic. In the rounds of war and sacrifice, the commander of the war no longer easily had too much emotional ups and downs. They were too busy, just too busy.

Perhaps it was also due to the encouragement and prayers of Lorgar Aurelion. This approach might not work on others, but having someone praising the Emperor in Horus's ear did make the Son of the First Return feel better at this time.

"Then we have a more specific defense," the wolf-god said. "Can you assist me, Perturabo?"

"Soldiers from Fortresses 40 to 46, and 21 to 25, join the defense line as close as possible."

"The authority is in your hands." Horus replied quickly.

"receive."

Perturabo waited for three seconds and realized that Horus's communication was still hung up in a burst of electric current, busy tone, and the noisy discussion in the background of the communication room. Horus's hand was on the sound array button on the side of the control panel, and he was reluctant to end the conversation.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"I was wondering... if we erase the signal source, can we successfully make the Randan alien lose its direction?" Horus answered. This time his voice was vague and mixed in the noise in the background, like the bass part of a melody, sinking to the bottom.

Perturabo was unmoved, not even hesitating. "This is not your way, Horus Lupercal. Extermination is the way of Lion El'Jonson."

"But we all serve the Emperor," Horus lowered his voice.

"That's enough," said the Iron Lord. "Take five minutes to rest, Wolf Shepherd. There is no need to give up. We will fight to the end."

-

"What can I do now?" Lion El'Jonson asked calmly.

"Recover your spirit, rebuild your mental barriers, and wait for your warriors to come to your rescue."

"No, Two," he said, feeling the drops of blood dripping down the bone chain and hitting the center of his outstretched hand softly. "How do I launch an attack?"

"…You can't be serious."

A week, a day, or even an hour ago, he could not have imagined himself reaching this temporary peace with an Imperial creature that had become a xenomorph, but he did so.

This should have been the path that those who talked about brotherhood, led by Horus Lupercal, were more inclined to choose, rather than the choice of a lion who was only loyal to the Emperor. After rebuking others for their weakness, Lion El'Jonson realized that being dragged into a trap by emotions would one day become the end of him.

He could explain to himself that this was the rational choice at the moment, a way to distinguish between enemies and friends, and the timing of turning that a qualified hunter should sense after analyzing the direction of the wind and the swaying of leaves in the hunting grounds.

No, these are all just excuses brought by superficial language, just like the waves stirred up by the swimming of a school of fish underwater.

The real answer was moving quickly underwater: his sword was no longer willing to swing.

It's just that now, he happened to have a better target to attack and divert all his anger and regret.

"You can't kill it."

"No need. I will stop it, injure it, and prevent it from escaping."

"and then?"

"Let someone who truly possesses great power destroy it."

Duncan seemed to flinch. "No...Leon..."

"I never tell a dull joke. Give me gunnery authority over the Glorious Queen, Second Primarch."

Duncan thought for a long time, then shook his head. "Forget it."

The sound of the bone chain floated in and out of the dark hall. In a blink of an eye, Duncan was on the ground again, wearing the dark brown robe of a traveler, and standing beside the lion.

"We'll go together," he said. "Until the one you're waiting for comes."

"Okay." Leon said coldly.

Duncan nodded slightly. Even though his spirit body seemed to have left the chain platform that held him, the two bone chains were still connected to his hands, and the ends were hidden by his sleeves and could not be seen clearly.

He went on to say, "But you must know that the fuel for each of the next cannon shots will be your own spiritual will. You will become weak, and your body in the real universe had better not be damaged to any extent. Otherwise..."

He pursed his lips.

"Otherwise, this world of collective consciousness will be the only place where you can continue to exist in the future."

-

Just like the mighty tides pulled in by the tides on an ocean planet, Krog thought.

These aliens, wrapped in a layer of translucent gelatin, were filled with disgusting dark purple and dark pink, as well as strange pus-yellow and mold-like dark green. They were pouring towards them from the plains below the Bone Mountain like a tide.

Every time they were pierced by a bomb, a series of sticky corrosive substances would fly out from the honeycomb-like holes in their bodies, forming an acidic rain, splashing on the outer armor of the Space Marines, corroding their respective paints, leaving only the pure ceramic steel color underneath, and even the broken composite steel core structure inside.

"Damn it..." Someone cursed in a low roar. He roared with all his might, but when the roar was drowned out by the hail of bullets, it was just a small noise and no one noticed it.

"Blow them up!" others shouted, becoming a loud accompaniment to the torrential machine gun fire, like a percussionist pounding on a drum frantically, intending to blow all the enemies in front of them into carbonized colloid, broken stratum corneum, burnt dark sticky pus and blood, and corpses and blood twitching under the heavy grenade launchers.

Kroger opened fire not only out of reason but also out of anger. The flames of war gradually nurtured the burning anger in his heart until it grew stronger.

As new spiky aliens pounced upon them, as worm-like barbs shot out from their hands and tails, as those crudely made but incredibly sharp bone knives cut the Space Marines in half, his cold rage rattled in his mind and swirled madly.

Acid splashed, explosives screamed in the air, and fire burned on top of the spilled grease. The gun was held tightly by the dying warrior, and the chain sword was still buzzing after the sword holder died. Two limping gray-armored warriors stood back to back, waving their giant hammers and shouting the prayers engraved on their armor. When the power hammer came into contact with the alien's body, through the transparent gelatin, you can see the wrinkled and coiled internal organs being shattered inside the enemy's body.

Then, a sharp claw swung downwards, piercing through the gap in the warrior's arm armor that had been corroded and melted by the strong acid, and then fiercely stabbed into the warrior's body along the arm until the entire section of muscle was torn apart.

Kroger looked at the overall situation, like a traditional blacksmith in Olympia, using his own heavy hammer to forge the incoming enemy waves on the battlefield. He never thought that one day he would become the commander of an entire battlefield. He was a warrior, devoted to blood and fire, not letters and documents. But he——

He locked onto a beast that lunged at it with his power sword, ripped its limbs apart with his bolter, then pierced the inside of its crumpled skull from the neck up before pulling it off his body.

"Cliff, take your team west," he roared, sending out an order.

But he has taken on this responsibility.

His decision was to lead the entire force to conduct defensive operations based on the Bone Mountain beneath their feet, while contacting the space command to conduct high-altitude range bombing in the area where all the Space Marines had evacuated.

No aliens escaped from this mountain of bones, and the waves of psychic energy seemed to fade away without anyone noticing, no longer harming the Astartes who came here. In addition, the mountain undoubtedly buried one of the most critical secrets of Randan, and this conclusion could be reached with simple reasoning.

In any case, a team has been sent to investigate inside, and Kroger has ordered them not to touch anything except for investigation.

"No!" Several Space Marines shouted, but their voices were cut off by a loud explosion. Where they were before, a handful of blazing green flames based on some unknown biochemical material suddenly spurted out from the body of a dead alien, igniting the oil mist and fuel debris in the blink of an eye, causing a small explosion. This meant that Krog's team was reduced again.

Even though warriors continued to come from all directions and joined his command tacitly, Krog's warriors were still being lost, and the number of Randan aliens seemed to be endless. The land of flesh and blood provided them with a constant supply of biomass, and as long as there was still spiritual power injected, the reborn creation would not disappear.

He could already vaguely sense a huge black shadow lingering in the majestic dark space, like the debris surging wildly in a tar lake, casting its huge blood coral eye around this lonely planet... squirming and lingering in a filthy manner, forming an infinite spider web that wrapped around the entire collapsing world...

"This is not good." Kroger heard a voice nearby saying with a wry smile, followed by a familiar Kosonia curse. "What do you think?"

Kroger said nothing. He had never known that he was suffering from auditory hallucinations.

The dark shadow rolled and churned in Kroger's brain, and the clickety whispers gnawed at the edges of everyone's will.

"Pay attention to killing the phosphorescent green aliens from a distance. Be careful of explosions after death." Kroger reminded the new Astartes.

He lifted the covering of the skull of a beast in front of him, and a yellow-green fountain of blood spurted upwards, like stretched glass, savagely exploding into gorgeous colorful flowers.

As he did so, the giant beast in the darkness slowly moved its gaze towards him. A strange life lurked in the huge bloodshot eyeball of the beast, rumbling at the end of the world... The individual's will was devoured in that giant eye, dried up, curled up, and fell into the primitive furnace of life, or the boiling infinite ocean...

The explosion boomed in front of him.

A cannon that seemed to be there but not there, a beam of extremely bright light that did not illuminate anything, a burst of iron flowers that exploded fiercely but did not burn anyone's shoulders and neck... and a huge blood-red eye that trembled in the darkness and briefly closed while blinking...

Countless small Randan aliens were stuck in a deathly stagnation at this moment, but Astartes would not miss such an obvious opportunity. A large number of enemies were killed because of the stagnation at this moment, and the urgent situation was relieved in an instant.

"Captain Krog," the team he sent to scout inside Bone Mountain finally reached their target, "We found the remains of a Luna Wolf, and the First Primarch is still alive, but the latter is in a coma. Over."

"Roger that. Don't touch anything, guard them!"

Then, there was a roar of a lion, and with it a strange sigh. It echoed in the void, fading away layer by layer, decreasing layer by layer, all the way to the end of the darkness.

Then, the light suddenly brightened in the immaterial spirit, first contracting inward into a penetrating beam, and then rapidly expanding outward, like spears of light fired from battle barges.

Non-existent torpedoes and multiple plasma tubes began to fire alternately at the same time, and energy pipelines and weapon systems were activated in large numbers. The burning smell immediately filled the air, covering the blood of the real universe, burning the hydrogen sulfide stench, lingering turbid clouds and blasphemous alien noises in the air in the most blazing and destructive way.

The shadows in the black cloud trembled constantly, and the furious minds screamed in chaos. The Randan aliens on the ground began to revive rapidly, and launched an even more frantic attack on the warriors guarding the Bone Mountain, wanting to break into the interior of the mountain at all costs.

Humanity is dying, being torn apart by the wrathful consciousness of the Supreme Being.

Immediately afterwards, they heard him.

Lord of the First Army. The Lion. The Emperor's Firstborn. Chief of the Dark Angels. Lion El'Jonson.

"Protect my body and follow me in battle," the lion said. His words were amplified in some way, coming from the void and disappearing into the depths of nothingness. In this brief gap of existence, the warriors on every planet heard his words.

Some warriors became nervous, while others became even more passionate. A broken body of an alien twitched wildly on the ground, and its head was crushed by a combat boot... The warriors roared, screamed, swung their swords, their ribs were broken, their leg armor was torn, they killed the enemy, and then died...

Artillery fire sounded in both the real and spiritual space, confronting the huge shadow in the void. Some silver light occasionally reflected at the edge of the shadow, as if fulfilling some kind of auxiliary duty.

Kroger immediately sent the information to the command center in orbit, describing all the strange phenomena he saw that might not be detected by machinery, to ensure that their genetic father knew this important news.

To his surprise, Perturabo responded personally.

"Keep fighting, my warrior," Perturabo ordered. "You are doing well."

Kroger took a deep breath and shouted in the channel: "Keep fighting, warriors! You are doing well!"

Blood was swelling between his teeth. During the battle, he no longer remembered anything. Commanding and shooting were all integrated into instinct. If he had the opportunity to review this battle in the future, he would be amazed that this impeccable combat and command could be accomplished by him alone.

He leaned forward, fired, a bullet was fired, and disappeared in the flames, some flesh and blood tore into pieces, the gelatinous layer bloomed like glass silk flowers, blood clots fell, time was far away from the world, the prey was rolling, broken, and ruthlessly destroyed, the rumble of artillery fire echoed, and angry shouts broke out from the depths of the world... He swung the sword, gave orders, attacked, slashed, one blow, and then the next blow, endlessly, until eternity, the eternity of fighting -

Until the end of his time.

Time returned to him, accompanied by a feeling of exhaustion, emptiness, and a sense of damage... His chest was broken, perhaps from a puncture, or perhaps from many bone bullets...

Something had killed him, perhaps a specific entity, perhaps the universe itself, the fate that came with being a Space Marine. To die in battle - that was the final gift they had chosen for themselves since they became Space Marines.

There is no pain, no frustration, and even no unnecessary glory. Only the only true ending that the entire universe can give to the warrior...

He fought to the end, and then he fell.

He fell, knowing that the next person would quickly take up his command duties - whoever that was.

He fell in an eternal battle and found himself laughing.

(End of this chapter)