How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 398: There is some material in the embroidered pillow that can be used as an auxiliary
At the moment he squatted down, Maxius actually felt that everything was over.

It was normal for him to think so. After all, he was an Ultramarines, and most Ultramarines were influenced by the Codex Astartes, so their thinking was inevitably trapped by common sense. According to common sense, it was unlikely that an armed group with clear murderous intent set up a minefield on a narrow path in a building without intending to kill the target. Even the Dark Eldar were the same.

Indeed, due to the habit of this Eldar subspecies of "indulging pain", most of their weapons seem to have a worrying lethality on paper. But just like the outrageous record of Fujimaru Ritsuka's .22 pistol successfully killing the Khorne Bull in the webway, the fancy tricks inherited by the Dark Eldar from the Eldar Empire, under the twisted shaping of their vicious minds, will only be much more powerful than Fujimaru Ritsuka's crude preparation of "carving runes on bullets".

At the moment he squatted down, Maxius was not aware of all of the above, but it did not prevent him from using common sense to infer a theoretical possibility: the best result that his covering behavior could achieve was probably to leave an intact body for the imperial saint whom he was protecting in his chest.

But this is different in practice. In that moment that seemed to be infinitely stretched, the first thing he felt was not the loud bang of the explosion, nor the fragments that penetrated his armor and cut into his body, but a strange force. This force did not descend directly on him. He realized this from the singing of his armor - this set of MK10 power armor that was closely connected to his nerves, its machine soul roared in an inexplicable source of power. He didn't have time to think about where this abnormality came from. In the next moment, the light and loud noise of the stun bomb had filled all his senses, and his armor was also hit by various inexplicable fragments -

——Not defeated.

The machine soul of the power armor roared angrily, and the touch of the ceramic steel being hit was transmitted to Maxius' spinal cord through the neural interface like raindrops. His armor was not broken, and there was no pain from cutting through the metal shell into his flesh. This was very contrary to common sense, but he did not have the energy to think about this problem. He had to concentrate and make sure that the object he was protecting was safely shielded by him in every direction.

But even if he succeeded, it might be useless. The sound waves and light exploding around him even penetrated the protection of the MK10 power armor tactical helmet, directly causing damage to his Primaris senses (although not much, and he would recover within a few breaths), but the person he was protecting was a complete mortal who had not undergone any mechanical transformation and enhancement. Common sense said that even if it was only the sound waves that he could not defend against, a mortal would have his organs shattered and die in such a situation.

He prayed that the defenses the saint carried were comprehensive enough to allow her to survive this undefended attack. He knew that he was in a very passive state, and his overloaded senses made it impossible for him to judge whether the explosion had ended, and he could not react to the enemy's attack in the first place. But he remembered the teachings in the holy book and knew how to do his best in this situation.

Before his senses recovered, Maxius held his breath and counted silently, waiting for the moment when the alien blade or bullet would fall on him and expose their position. He did not hesitate to exchange injury for life, even though he knew that given the enemy's agility and speed, his efforts would only be life for injury at best, and would not even achieve any results. But in fact, when the enemy's blade cut into his armor, his rapidly recovering hearing did catch a confused "Hmm?"

He felt his armor being broken, and a pain penetrated insidiously from the side of his neck kissed by the blade. This was different from the pain of skin and flesh being torn apart, but a kind of neuralgia infected by toxins. Normally, his neck should have been cut off by this blow, but in fact, the damage he suffered ended there. In fact, the enemy's blade not only did not smoothly cut through his muscles and bones, but was also stuck by the relatively fragile armor on his neck due to the need for movement. This is why the enemy was stunned with doubts, and Maxius decided to make this doubt the last sound of the other party in his life.

He suddenly jumped up from the ground, still holding the saint in his free hand, and with the other hand he swung the chainsaw sword as fast as possible in the direction of the blade. He let his sword follow the fast-moving black shadow in his blurred vision as much as possible, and he was not very surprised that the attack missed, but there was another scream from a little further away, the smell of burning when the disintegration field cut into flesh, and a disgusting sound like some fruit being crushed.

The blood, still warm, splashed from that direction and splashed onto Maxius. Ritsuka Fujimaru, who was curled up in his arms, moved a little at this moment - whether it was because she felt uncomfortable because of the blood splashing, it at least proved that she was still alive. Maxius did not lower his head, but continued to look around vigilantly, and soon realized that it was caused by Santo's power claws grabbing a dark elf and tearing him apart.

But the purpose of his looking around was not to confirm this. On the astronomical clock built into the armor, the seconds ticked, and Maxius's senses, as if hidden behind frosted glass, quickly became clearer with the powerful recovery of the Primaris Space Marines. He was finally able to clearly capture the enemy's shadow again, and realized that in the previous explosion, several Dark Eldar who were caught in it and did not have time to dodge were obviously also injured, but these aliens did not care about it at all, and even jumped for joy at the pain they felt.

In the dust, he saw Santo's power claws catch up with another enemy, and before that, the alien's left half was already pierced with their own poison crystal fragments, and half of its palm was missing. Maxius didn't have the time to continue watching, because in the next moment, a whip suddenly flew out from his blind spot and bit Fujimaru Ritsuka viciously, who was holding him in one hand.

The Ultramarines turned around quickly, wanting to at least take the hit with their armor even if they couldn't dodge in time. But his turn to cover was a little hasty after all, and the Dark Eldar's Whip of Pain was a soft weapon. He hurriedly used his arm armor to hit the attack, but hit the wrong place - the whip's castration was indeed eliminated, but the whip tip still followed the original inertia and followed the arc of the arm armor into Maxius's defense, scraping Fujimaru Ritsuka's sleeve.

The defender immediately realized his negligence and quickly began to make up for it: he turned around again, and with Fujimaru Ritsuka's faint gasp of pain, he let the chainsword strike in the direction of the whip. At that moment, he carefully assessed the distance between him and the enemy, judging that this attack could not hit the enemy, and deduced the direction in which the alien might dodge next. But when he extended his chainsword forward, he immediately found that the dark eldar did retreat and avoid his attack range as he thought, but at the same time, the whip in the opponent's hand also straightened. A rather terrible conjecture emerged from Maxius' mind, but before he lowered his head to confirm this conjecture, he still followed his war instinct and seized the opportunity, and continued to step forward, using the roaring chainsword to separate the enemy's head and body. Then, he lowered his head and confirmed in trepidation whether his conjecture was true.

The good news was that what he thought, "the alien whip driven by some heretical technology, drilled into the saint's body and killed her", did not happen; the bad news was that the actual scene that happened was also quite terrifying for him: Fujimaru Ritsuka probably reacted the moment she was hit, and quickly grabbed the enemy's whip in her hand, and then after realizing what it was, she clenched it and pulled it back - completely ignoring the barbs on the whip that pierced her palm, causing blood to slowly seep between her fingers.

Moreover, Maxius discovered that after the baptism of the previous round of stun bombs, Fujimaru Ritsuka obviously lacked senses other than touch, and even her sense of touch became dull due to the pain. The dark Eldar holding the whip had fallen down, and the other end of the whip lost its grip, but Fujimaru Ritsuka was obviously unaware of this, still holding the alien weapon tightly and unnecessarily, with subtle, non-lethal electric light still flowing on the surface of the long whip, but except for the slight tremor caused by the stimulation of the nerves, which was not under her control, Fujimaru Ritsuka did not move at all.

Maxius was anxious, because as everyone knows, most of the Dark Eldar's weapons are poisoned, and no one should be allowed to come into contact with such things for such a long time. However, there were still two Cabal warriors wandering around on the battlefield around him, and he really had no free hands to solve this problem. He could only ask weakly while being alert to the enemy's next attack: "My lord? Can you hear me?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't respond, so the answer was obviously no. But Santo, who also heard this, realized that something was wrong. After clearing out an enemy, he took a quick look back and immediately said, "Let go!"

For some reason, Fujimaru Ritsuka, who was obviously unable to respond to external sounds, actually let go of Santo, as if she had indeed heard what Santo said. Then, as she let go, Maxius could clearly hear that she also relaxed the breath she had been holding in the pain of the injury - and then, she was choked by the flying smoke and dust and coughed.

A strange sense of absurdity surged into the Ultramarines' heart, but was thrown away in an instant. He dutifully (although judging from the results, his work was obviously not done very well) maintained a defensive posture and did not compete with the Iron Hands for the merit of the battle. In fact, after observing the other party's swift and fierce movements in the Iron Cavalry Terminator armor, he highly suspected that even if he wanted to compete, as a Primaris warrior, he would still not be able to beat the Firstborn.

After the bombs on both sides were violently defused, Maxius was not the only one who was immediately liberated in the combat space. Santo's armor, which was even more scarred after the explosion, did not hinder his relentless and almost crazy offensive. The Iron Hand was like a heavy hammer, swinging fatally and accurately at every enemy - death if it touched, death if it touched. He tore a Dark Eldar at the front of the team, and quickly grabbed another one, using his power claws to violently dig out most of the alien's internal organs. Then, after Maxius almost chopped down one by chance, he strode past the Ultramarines and came to a relatively backward position in the team, swiftly twisting off the head of an Eldar who almost crashed into his arms, and by the way, he unexpectedly shot the last enemy with a cold gun from his power backpack, forcing him back from Maxius, and then slid closer with a side step, forming an angle between himself and Maxius, forcing the last Eldar warrior into an artificial death.

The battle on this side ended, but the battle on Akuldona was clearly still going on. Maxius was still holding Fujimaru Ritsuka, who had not stopped coughing, and for a moment he was a little unsure whether he should put him down and join the other side for support, or check the condition of the person he was protecting first. While he was hesitating, Santo glanced at the battle situation on the other side through the smoke and dust, and made a decision for Maxius very straightforwardly:

He completely gave up paying attention to the battlefield on the other side, as if he was not only sure that Akuldona would not let the enemy break through his defense, but also very sure that the Emperor's Children would eventually win the final victory. He simply ignored the endless sound of fighting on the other side. Iron Hand came in front of Maxius, retracted the power claws on his hands, making his hand armor less dangerous, and lowered his head to check Fujimaru Ritsuka's condition.

"Aren't we going to provide support?" Maxius asked worriedly.

Santo raised his head silently, and because he was wearing Terminator armor, he could almost look at the Primaris at eye level. With a very dissatisfied atmosphere that could even seep out from under the cover of the helmet, he looked Maxius up and down, and then replied: "It's not necessary. And you can't help."

What do you mean by "can't help"? Maxius was a little angry at this argument. Rationally, he knew that he should quickly determine and find a way to maintain the status of the saint, but emotionally, he was still angry at Santo's statement that obviously looked down on him. Driven by this anger, he turned his eyes away, allowing the algorithm of the Power Armor Aurelion to eliminate the influence of the flying smoke and dust for him, so that he could clearly see the scene on another battlefield -

Then he quickly realized that Santo's straightforward and unsparing narration did not represent contempt, but simply stated an objective fact:
With his current abilities, he really couldn't intervene in a battle like that.

(End of this chapter)