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

Chapter 400 Iron Hand always gives people the impression of a multifunctional Swiss Army knife

"Is it dead?"

Santo's voice came from behind Akurdona, who shook his head, his tone lacking any obvious emotion: "No. This is the most troublesome situation. Is there any movement in your auspicious instrument?"

"No." There was some obvious irritation in Santo's tone, but after giving this simple result, he did not add anything further.

They did not continue to discuss whether to pursue or not, because it was obvious that the current situation was not suitable for doing so. Akuldona stared at the empty corridor again with caution for a while, then sheathed his knife and sighed as he turned back.

The main reason why they were "unsuitable for pursuit" had been tentatively put back on the ground by Maxius. After withstanding this round of traps and ambushes, even Fujimaru Ritsuka, who was the object of protection, was inevitably covered in dust caused by the explosion. Her bright hair inevitably turned gray, and her skirt, which had already been "cut" by herself, was stained with blood. After experiencing such a round of shock trap attacks, her eyesight was a little out of focus, and her hearing organs also obviously had some problems, making her look a little shaky even if she just stood there.

This scene vividly illustrates the necessity of the Lyman Ear as an enhanced organ, but unfortunately no one present noticed it.

"Is she okay?"

"Don't ask such stupid questions."

Santo impatiently dismissed Akurdona's ineffective question and reached out to try to support the unsteady Fujimaru Ritsuka, but the latter took the initiative to grab his retracted claws and said loudly: "I'm fine!"

"You're in trouble," Santo retorted, "You're talking louder than usual. Your hearing is affected."

"I just have some tinnitus! It's nothing serious!"

"Come on. If you were okay, you wouldn't even hold Santo's hand." Acurdona laughed in a good-natured way. "There's a lot of blood on his hands. Can't you feel it?"

After hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka immediately retracted his hand, and took a step back, as if he couldn't keep his balance. Akuldona saw that her hand was not only stained with blood from Santo, but also had some small wounds - caused by the Dark Eldar whip with barbs and venom. The feeling brought by these wounds was definitely not just as simple as the usual pain. Perhaps she had temporarily lost her normal sense of touch because of this.

Akurdona couldn't help but gasp, but Santo, who had already noticed this, had already passed the "shock and anger" emotional reaction stage. He raised his head slightly and confirmed that Maxius was still behind Fujimaru Ritsuka, acting like a toddler who bumped into his leg, but he was just an ordinary passerby with no parenting experience, who was at a loss. Then he snorted coldly and gave orders directly: "Keep going. Now we have to get back to the ground as soon as possible and get medical help."

This sentence did trigger Maxius's activation switch, but not in the way Santo had hoped. The Ultramarines, unsure whether to pick up the Saint again, extracted the most relevant keyword to the situation in front of him, and asked: "We have painkillers in our standard rations..."

"No, thank you." Fujimaru Ritsuka responded personally.

Her voice was a little softer than before, but it was hard for outsiders to tell whether the change was because her hearing was quickly returning to normal, or whether she was intentionally controlling it after hearing Santo's comments: "It feels like this should be just ordinary neuralgia, which has no effect on my functions. Besides, I'm used to similar pain."

Maxius didn't have time to think about it, and his first reaction was to regard this "habit" as the person involved having received similar anti-torture training. The Iron Hand, which prevented him from thinking about it, urged him, "Don't be in a daze, go open this door."

Akuldona came over and directly put his hand on Fujimaru Ritsuka's swaying shoulders, freeing Maxius from the century-old dilemma of "whether he should continue to provide assistance". The Extreme Warriors then retreated from the Imperial Saint with lingering fear and focused on dealing with the gate in front of them.

But soon, almost at the same time as he touched the operating panel, he discovered a problem: this small thinker had been completely destroyed.

Considering that the Dark Eldar had set traps and ambushes in this corridor, this was not a particularly unexpected situation. Maxius could easily smash the wall and find the motor pulley that was hidden inside to control the lifting and lowering of the door. This door was made of adamantium, so based on the volume, the mass of the whole door was about five tons. There was an Iron Hand here, and if they were lucky, they could bypass the control console and turn on the motor directly; even if they couldn't do that, with the power of the Space Marines, it would be difficult to use the labor-saving pulley to manually pull it up, but it was also very feasible.

He briefly reported the situation and alternative plans. Santo, wearing the Terminator armor, did not comment, but still came up to check out the equipment with Maxius. However, when they turned to the corresponding direction, they finally noticed that this place had already been occupied.

In the plan of this assassination team, when Fujimaru Ritsuka's team moves towards the next door, five conspiracy fighters will attack from their "front", and Lelis and her five witch cult sisters will rush up from the direction of the elevator shaft to attack from both sides. Regardless of how the enemy behind enters the scene, let's just talk about the five conspiracy fighters in front - in this empty corridor with no cover and therefore unobstructed, where are they hiding to launch a surprise attack without being discovered? The answer is this position.

The Dark Eldar had discovered the structure long before they arrived. The aliens had blasted it open and used the corpses of the Ultramarines to create a small hiding place. And while they were at it, they also made some deliberate moves that would not directly affect the battle: for example, they destroyed the entire motor and cut the polymer cable on the pulley in an awkward and difficult to repair position. It is not impossible to repair it with things at hand, but it would take too much time. The Space Marines can wait, but they are not sure that Fujimaru Ritsuka's body, which is too fragile by comparison, can withstand such a wait. "Come on, Santo," complained Akurdona, who was holding Fujimaru Ritsuka and helping her keep balance at a distance. "Don't tell me you can't even take out a hot melt."

"Yes, but in this environment, I have to consider the issue of ammunition capacity." Santo half explained and half complained, "The 'ammunition capacity' in reality and the 'ammunition capacity' obtained through ether transformation are not based on the same logic."

He said this, but it was clear that he was not trying to shirk responsibility. Iron Hand strode towards the gate. Just as Akurdona could draw a sword from the void, Santo also took out a heavy multi-barreled melta gun from thin air during the few seconds he moved. "Make sure the position is safe. I'm going to break the door."

Akurdona moved Fujimaru Ritsuka further away and blocked her eyes. When Santo raised the barrel, Maxius, who had retrieved his bolter, also moved aside and stood at a safe distance on the side to prevent anything from suddenly rushing out from behind the door. After confirming this, Iron Hand pulled the trigger in silence and released a devastating hot melt shockwave in silence.

Due to their nature, melta weapons are almost noiseless when fired and in effect, but the same cannot be said for the objects ignited by the energy. Santo fired two shots at different locations, and the heavy adamantine surface immediately began to glow red and shine when touched by the energy, emitting an incandescent and almost blue light, and then entered a molten state. With a slight popping sound as the rare moisture in some decorative additions covering the adamantine began to vaporize, the area of ​​the entire cast metal that was hit began to disintegrate and collapse in the form of a viscous, shiny, and superheated fluid, regardless of the other solid parts that were still solid. It was obvious that within a few minutes, a large hole would be left in the door for everyone to pass through.

While waiting for the metal to melt, Santo put away the multi-tube hot melt and moved away from the place where he hit. On the side, Ritsuka Fujimaru was arguing quietly with Akurdona. The former believed that she also needed to observe the surrounding environment at all times, while the latter was determined not to move her hand away, believing that the intensity of light produced when the metal melted would damage her already unhealthy vision. Even Santo would think so. In the harsh reality, it is nice to have these two people to liven up the atmosphere occasionally. But——

——At the moment when the heat completely melted the door and the two corridors were connected, something quickly broke through the metal that had become soft due to the high temperature and shot out in front of the gap. In fact, there was no one standing in that direction, and this fruitless attack should have been a blind shot, but obviously, this also meant that there was something else moving on the other side of the door.

Akurdona immediately picked up Fujimaru Ritsuka again and approached the blind spot in the corner of the gate; Santo and Maxius raised their guns almost at the same time and fired cross-fire at the opposite side of the cave entrance. The purpose of this round of shooting was mainly to suppress and intimidate, and no one expected to actually hit anything. After the shooting, the two quickly changed their positions, and then after the fire and smoke from the bombs dissipated, they carefully scouted the opposite side through the light and heat emitted by the molten metal:

A huge... biological... mechanical... biological... in short, something that was obviously a blasphemous thing of the Eldar, was lying motionless in the opposite corridor. Its body had expanded and mutated unnaturally due to some human factors; the round protective shell on its back seemed to be able to deflect most long-range shots; various unknown pipes and units were inserted into its body using alien technology; the position of one of its hands was changed to be connected to multiple mechanical tentacles, each of which ended in a delicate but hideous torture knife, with different uses in terms of shape; the position of its other hand...

Maxius looked back and confirmed: in its other hand was a twisted bone-chopping knife. Maxius didn't know what this thing was called, but a few seconds ago, it had just flown past all of them through the hole melted in the door.

"Who's on the other side!" Santo asked in a raised voice.

He knew very well that it was impossible to kill such a small tank-like alien creature with just two bolt pistols. The only reasonable explanation was that before they shot, this thing had already fallen here and was dead. Therefore, there must be someone in the corridor behind the door who could hunt this thing.

Maxius, who also realized this, was cheered up and expected to see the remaining colleagues who were originally stationed there, but his reason quickly rejected this. A fully armed Ultramarines squad would not use the method of "tearing off a part of the enemy's body and throwing it away" to test, which was unnecessary and unholy.

So he still held his gun, alert for anything that might happen on the other side, until a clearly human voice sounded from that direction: "Is that Santo?"

The clone Fulgrim's equally gray, bloodstained white head poked out cautiously from the opposite side of the cave entrance.
-
"I understand," Guilliman said as calmly as he could.

He was furious, but he knew that anger would not solve the problem at this moment. Therefore, he just stood up from his position and said in a thunderous voice: "Hera Fortress is under martial law, all Macragge personnel are on level one combat readiness, send evacuation information to the airport immediately, and all actions must give priority to military dispatch!"

This is it. In addition to being angry, he was still able to calmly string together all the clues from before. The vision that Digris had warned him before, "Macragge is about to be plunged into war", was unexpectedly fulfilled so soon. The inaccuracy of psychic prophecy would catch people off guard in such a place. He was still wondering, there was no problem with his strategic deployment around Macragge, where exactly would the enemy come from? Now he at least has a partial answer...

"What if we find and destroy the beacon set by Eldarad as soon as possible?" he asked Evelyne, "Will this prevent the enemies in the Warp from passing through the veil?"

"I'm afraid not." The Chosen God of Death, who could clearly sense the thunder hidden in the soul of the Son of God, answered fearfully, "I don't know what the prophet Eldarard had made a deal with. You also know that he has 'wide connections'. But no matter what, he should not choose to cooperate with the Unliving. In other words, the enemy attracted by this beacon must be a physical entity."

This can be considered as intelligence. The enemy must pass through Mandeville Point. Even if the existing defense system in the galaxy cannot withstand it, it can at least delay the enemy for a while. Guilliman thought so and turned his head again: "Then send a message to--"

——His words were interrupted by a huge, terrifying explosion from the sky. The sound was like thunder, but more frightening than thunder, and even caused the Hera Fortress on the top of the mountains to tremble. No one fell because of this short and slight rumbling, but the unstable center of gravity did make many people present feel a little panic. The people in the room had no idea what was going on, and even the primarch who immediately ordered "find out the situation" was no exception.

But in fact, what is happening is very clear. As long as everyone goes to a position where they can see the sky and look up, they can find it:
A huge crack appeared in the sky of Macragge, emitting the greasy, colorful light of the Warp - countless Chaos ships were pouring out of it.

(End of this chapter)