Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 439 Typhons
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Vosk Bogus, or rather, Vosk Dovok, who had not yet "graduated" from Clan Dovok and obtained permission to transfer back to Clan Bogus, was holding his bolter and moving forward steadily.

The ground beneath his feet had a strange texture, at least the recruit had never thought that he would be able to step on the ground in his hometown. If a 3K ancient Terran and his dog were present and knew what Wasko was thinking, he would tell the new recruit Iron Hand that this was called "stepping on SHI feeling."

The eyepiece captured several focal points, and the teammate walking in front of him on the left made a gesture to him. Although Vosko had just been taught the meaning of this set of gestures by Fireline, he had already memorized the meanings of the most basic ones with his smart brain that had undergone preliminary transformation: what this "Son of Phoenix" veteran meant was that there were tricky enemies ahead, and he had to be vigilant and ready to attack at any time.

——Although Vosko didn't notice this, his own goggles seemed a little dull in the strange green and moist fog he had never encountered since landing, and he relied entirely on the information shared by his teammates to fight.

——So far, their team has been moving forward and has successfully killed all the invaders they encountered on the way - mainly because his other four teammates handled them as easily as cutting melons and vegetables, which made the newcomers of the Iron Hands admire them and also more eager to get their own victory.

He carefully read and analyzed all the displayable data in his eyepiece, but saw nothing except a series of very tiny energy peaks on the energy detector, which were usually counted as normal interference levels and almost negligible.

But out of habit or caution, he still noted down the number of these tiny peaks, scanning them with the corner of his eye: three, seven, nine, fourteen, twenty-one.

So how did they determine that there were enemies ahead? Or, this was the answer to the question he had suspected them of before: was the condition of the power armor of these loyal and glorious ancient warriors a manifestation of their long-term struggle with Chaos and their eternal expedition against the great enemies?

But since these experienced veterans never talked about their past battles and were not affiliated with the same chapter as the Iron Hands, Vosko privately thought it might be impolite to ask too much about other people's past.

And for now, he is still facing good news and bad news. Life is always like this. Being an outlier among the natives of Medusa, being strong and cruel is one thing, but on the other hand, he must be very good at finding joy in suffering.

The good news is that the airdrop capsule he was riding in was of very good quality, worthy of being produced by the Iron Hand. It brought them to the ground safely and opened the capsule smoothly, and everyone was safe and sound without any missing limbs.

The bad news was that their landing site looked to be the closest to the enemy's center of all the teams, which meant that pressure would be great on both sides.

If they were a team composed entirely of recruits, this would be really bad news, but now, perhaps this was not bad news for him. Vosko glanced at his comrades around him.

He was accompanied by four temporary companions from the same assault team.

The one leading the way on the front left, holding a power sword made of alien spoils, is the one who had just chatted with him before the airdrop and introduced himself as cousins ​​of the "Sons of the Phoenix" regiment. He calls himself Flavius ​​and is also the captain of this team.

On Vosco's right, in charge of the shield guard position for the entire squad, was the sturdy and strong Palos. Judging from the level of understanding and communication between him and Flavius, the two of them must have been partners for a long time, and the former had served as the latter's deputy.

Behind Iron Hand, on the left and right wings were Merricks and Bellaphos. The former had a mechanical prosthetic arm that Vosco felt familiar with, and was taciturn. Vosco observed that his prosthetic arm might need more subtle adjustments to achieve the balance he needed, and their technical sergeants might be novices or of poor level; the latter's power armor, which was covered with a particularly large number of oaths and hymns, had an unusually bumpy surface, as if someone had hurriedly and tried their best to repair its surface before setting off, but had not had time to polish it too smooth.

The advancing position of this team is actually very strange. Yes, now the position of the entire team is like this - these four veterans are "protecting" the newcomer in the center position.

As the number of their kills and the frequency of their tactical communications increased, Vosko's feeling became stronger.

This is very, very rare, at least no recruit in the Iron Hands will be given this treatment, because first of all, if you want to make it out of the Ouranus Monolith under the Iron Moon alive, then you have to kill as many of your competitors as possible with the weapons in your hands, no matter whether you know each other or how good they are.

A hearty battle royale is the first lesson that the Iron Hands teach their new recruits: never truly trust anyone, even the brothers around you.

Perhaps the chapter culture of the Sons of Phoenix is ​​just the opposite, focusing on protecting their new blood and having veterans lead them in battle, while also imparting experience and cultivating mutual understanding?
It felt really good to be protected, Wasco thought. He hadn't received such attention from an "elder" since he was three and a half years old.

Doing so can indeed ensure a certain survival rate for new recruits, but the disadvantages are equally obvious. It will not allow new recruits to grow up quickly through bloody lessons. Just like if a Medusa child does not learn to wield simple weapons to knock down something to demonstrate his talent for fighting before the age of three, he is almost doomed to not survive on this desolate planet.

Although the training of Iron Hands recruits is ruthless and cruel, it is indeed efficient and makes people remember it - because in this kind of battle, as long as the recruits are not dead to the point where they can't be transplanted into prostheses or enter Dreadnought, they will not be counted in the death statistics of the Iron Fathers.

The experiences that lead to their first death can naturally come in handy in the next battle, until the day they actually die. Then those valuable experiences and the various bizarre ways of death will enter the clan's (definitely not the warband's) simulacrum and mindset, and the gene seed will also make the next bearer more vigilant in the dark.

As they got closer to the rear of the invading enemy, they were forced to slow down as the ground, which had been eroded to become as soft as a fleshy quagmire, and the ground, which was originally composed purely of basalt and black quartz, was covered with strange or fresh organic matter, becoming fertile and disgusting.

"Pah." Vosko frowned and pulled one of his power boots out of the dirt and mud that might have been the corpses of the Medusa defenders. The black paint coating on it had been corroded, revealing the faint original color of the ceramic steel material underneath.

He immediately took a few steps to the side, avoiding the "ridges" on the ground that were formed by a mixture of metal, plastic and corpses that had begun to grow leathery flesh, eyelashes or teeth.

"It's so... smelly here. I never thought that the lava-washed land of Medusa would have such a strong smell. Is your power armor sealed well? Why can I still smell the stench even when I'm wearing a helmet?"

Then he closed his mouth uneasily and subconsciously tried to spit - even though his power armor had checked itself three times and assured him that his helmet and seals were intact, he could still feel the stench of rotten meat pouring into his mouth as he opened his mouth, and now there was a bitter and strange taste on the root of his tongue, as if he had eaten rotten meat and vomited bile.

There was a snickering sound coming from either Flavius ​​or Bellaphos.

A dense cloud of mist was carried by the air currents and came towards him close to the ground. The water vapor in it seemed to be too dense and abundant and began to condense into larger droplets.

He caught a glimpse of his energy detection instrument and saw a series of tiny peaks flashing across its graph: three, seven, nine, fourteen, twenty-one, forty-nine, seventy-seven… Suddenly, the sound of intensive gunfire from the grenade launcher rang out, and the red warning light that suddenly lit up in his helmet told him that the bombs were launched from behind Vosko.

The bombs hit his power armor one after another, and bright sparks popped up on the black surface.

With a secret feeling of hurt and relief at having finally been "betrayed," Iron Hands turned around and began firing his weapon back at his former teammates.

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Vosko Dofok unleashed his bolter's bullets upon the traitors.

Even so, the Death Guard are apparently really hard to kill, and Iron Hands newbies are definitely feeling that.
Just now, with the help of the two Phoenix veterans behind him shooting in front of him, the three of them managed to kill a Plague Drone that was trying to sneak up on him using a corrupt poison cloud as cover. The swarms of Plague Drones surrounding this evil creation were the culprit that caused Vosko's energy detector to be unable to detect the Drone itself whose energy fluctuations were masked by the swarm of flies.

Obviously, the Sons of Phoenix had much more experience in dealing with these evil creations of Chaos than he did. Those tiny wave peaks were one of the bases for them to judge the approaching targets in time and shoot them.

With the arrival and destruction of the drones, the Sons of Mortarion apparently noticed the uninvited guests appearing in the rear.

But there were only five of them, so the number of plague warriors sent to deal with them was not that large.

Vosko's shooting was calm and steady. A series of precisely spaced explosive shells tore through the rotten armor of the burly Death Guard rushing towards him. Suspiciously colored body fluids gushed out from the honeycomb-like holes on the surface of his pierced power armor. A supernatural stench that was even stronger than before spread as if it had substance. Even his comrades around him couldn't help but take a half step back.

The Plague Warrior's body, pierced by the Iron Hand, presented a horrible sight as the liquid gushed out. The muzzle fire illuminated his body without skin, fat and muscle. His internal organs now looked like some spoiled oysters and sea intestines placed in a big belly pot made of armor.

But even so, he did not die. He laughed mockingly at Vosko, "The Corpse King's running dog!" Flies buzzed around his bulky figure, and a choking cloud of plague overflowed from the top of the heavy scythe in his hand. He swung it and swept it towards the Iron Hand.

This attack, which seemed to cover a large area, did not succeed, because a sword light flashed from his side. The Death Guard roared and tried to turn around, but one of his arms flew out, and his flesh and blood merged with the ceramic steel. After landing, it was greedily devoured by the ground.

It was Flavius, the warrior wielding his alien longsword, the blade surface not stained by a single drop of corruption. The swordsman was as agile as a cat flying over a huge herd of cattle among the clumsy and slow Plague Marines. Every time he extended his sword's sharp claws, a Plague Marine would lose his fighting ability.

Merricks and Bellaphos were equally skilled in swordsmanship, and the former saved Vosko once: Iron Hands broke through the defense of a Plague Warrior and was about to turn around and attack another, but he didn't know how to tell whether the latter's body would explode when it fell and cause further damage. Fortunately, Merricks pulled him away, avoiding the tragic fate of the new recruit being drenched in the virus' corpse water.

They were doing a good job in the rear, so good, in fact, that they alerted a truly terrifying Chaos Bringer who had been leading the charge but had stayed back in the center for the duration of this battle.

Dissatisfied with the interruption of his slow but smooth actions to bring vitality to this place.

The master of the Destroyer Flies turned and came to see who was destroying the field he had just so carefully sown.

First came the cloud of Destroyer Bee Flies with wings, mouthparts, and stingers, more powerful and evil than any of the previous swarms of flies. The buzzing sound of the demonic insects' flapping wings was as rough and dry as a hundred chain swords grinding open the ribs of a corpse.

The four veteran soldiers of the "Sons of Phoenix" had completely retracted their relaxed and leisurely fighting posture, and vigilantly huddled the team together, using the overlapping defense positions of their respective relics to resist these tiny and greedy demons.

From the center of the gift promised by the God of Plague, a huge giant appeared, with an impressive and distinctive bone horn growing on his helmet, and the ancient Terminator armor was deformed by his bulging belly. A huge sickle was held in his hands, and the blade of the sickle was still dripping with juice emitting a strong warp aura. Behind him stood several thick hollow bone exhaust pipes, which were connected to his body. The destroyer flies were constantly flying out of these bone pipes every moment, joining the increasing number of destruction clouds around him.

"Typhons."

Before Vosko could ask the question, Merix answered it. "That is Typhons, the First Captain of the Death Guard, the Herald of Nurgle, the Spreader of the Plague, the Master of the Destroyer Hive. He is also an extremely powerful psychic wizard. You should be careful..."

The visitor, whose name was seriously mentioned, raised his hand proudly towards them.

Merricks was the first to be hit. Without warning, the veteran began to cough, his body swayed, and ominous strands of black blood began to flow out of the breathing grid of his helmet.

"Why?" The hateful invader and traitor laughed softly, "Ah, you are so pathetic that you didn't join our arms immediately. It seems that your master has not completely given up on you, someone's child..."

Before the first company commander said some names, a beautiful and clear voice sounded in his ears, stopping him from saying the second half of his sentence.

"Go back to your stinking swamp, wizard."

A flaming sword light fell faster than the sound.

(End of this chapter)