Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 682 Soul Devouring Bee
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"I wonder how Utherma Atla is doing now?"

Camille, the chronicler of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet, was standing on a cliff overlooking the ruins left behind by the inhabitants of Prospero before the ancient night, looking out at the ancient ruins.

Now, she is preparing to enter the ancient city on the Prospero wasteland for investigation together with Carlophis, the temple lecturer of the Fire Phoenix School of the Thousand Sons Legion.

To be precise, the reason why the two of them appeared here today was, firstly, because the Scarlet King had previously asked his descendants to try to "contact more mortal chroniclers and make them leave a good impression of the Thousand Sons Legion", so Carlophis accompanied her; secondly, Lemuel accompanied Callistarius to the Medical Pyramid today for further examination and treatment, and was unable to go; finally, Utherma Atla should be accompanying the Fifteenth Primarch now, and no one can disturb him either.

This handsome, well-educated but slightly shy young scholar is now a rising star in Tizca and the 15th Legion.

The Thousand Sons Primarch's fondness for this noble scholar of Terra was now so palpable that there was no need for any speculation.

"Why did you think of him?" The captain of the Sixth Company had parked his speeder boat lightly and casually here before, so now they were walking slowly down the low cliff and entering the green-covered ruins from the entrance of the valley.

The powerful captain was in a casual posture, with his bolter slung diagonally across his body, but it was obvious that when Camille mentioned the newcomer's name, Carloface snorted silently from an angle that she didn't see.

"Because of the greenery here." Camille waved her hand, pointing to the ruins they were about to enter. These ancient ruins left by the inhabitants before the current Tizcan residents were a large area of ​​square steel and stone towers, most of which had collapsed on top. "To be honest, I didn't expect that such a lushly vegetated area could be called a wasteland."

In the distance, lush forests and grassy plains surround this moist valley, where the water comes from several crystal waterfalls cascading down from the top of the opposite cliff. The clear water from these waterfalls still flows along the ancient drinking water channels, evenly distributed throughout the valley. Apparently, the architectural style preferred by the ancient residents of Prospero is different from that of today. Between the large, heavy gray stones that can be seen everywhere on the ground, many thick, severely weathered steel bars are twisted and sticking out from them like dark ancient vines. In some places, you can see parts of the steel bars that have not been eroded in the gray stones.

And the original large gray stones on more of the tall towers have completely peeled off. Large and small stone slabs have fallen off from their original positions and piled up on the ground to form fragmented gray mounds. The cracks are full of new green grass sprouts and dark green moss. Only the straight, thicker debris like the engineering steel frames found in the forged world pierce these huge mounds and silently face the sky.

They had just seen the layout of the city ruins on the cliff. It was very square. Although countless years had passed and it was covered with a lot of green forests, mosses and vines, it could still be seen that these stone and steel towers were originally arranged in a chessboard-like manner. So they were not worried about getting lost - Carlophis and Camille were both smart.

"Don't you think so? This beautiful, rich, ancient green suddenly reminds me of his eyes. I invited him, but unfortunately he said he had to accompany your Primarch today, and I'm afraid he couldn't come with me."

Carlofis did not answer her. She glanced at him and saw that the captain was too lazy to even put on a perfunctory expression. There was only a trace of indifference and boredom between his brows.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s start working efficiently and focused.”

They climbed through the ruins, picking out those ancient buildings that seemed to have retained their lower floors and structures and tried to enter - this was much easier than they had imagined, because these buildings were also built in the same spacious and tall manner, and the entrances did not seem to have too many door panels or similar materials, nor did they have twisted blast-proof doors or more defensive designs.

However, even so, after searching for a whole afternoon, they failed to find anything useful.

Although Camille's talent, which was rediscovered and encouraged to be used after she came to the 28th Expedition Fleet, is really useful for archaeology - as long as she can touch the objects with her finger skin, she can read the thoughts and images that the author of the objects saw when they made or wrote them - for example, she can read what the author of an unknown ancient work thought when he or she created it; for example, if there is a deceased person in need, she can also see the fragments of memory carried by the remains.

Although her ability has become stronger and stronger under Ekuannan's teaching and encouragement, it does not work every time. The object must be well preserved and not lost, and the creator must put in real abundant or focused emotions when creating it. Either way, it needs to reach a fairly strong level so that she can read the content.

Maybe the ruins are really too old. Although they seem to be well preserved, the organic matter inside has almost disappeared over time. Moreover, there are even wild animals native to Prospero here. There are enough ruins to hide, dense forests, and abundant clean water. The variety of native plants and animals gathered here is unimaginably rich. It's just that Camille is not a zoologist or botanist, otherwise she would definitely have some insights. This is also the reason why she invited Maatra in the first place.

As for wild animals, Camille was not worried at all about the threat they posed to her safety. After all, she now had a real, fully armed elite Astartes as a bodyguard - it was a pity that he was really unwilling to condescend to be her helper, otherwise their efficiency might be even higher.

"Have you finished? If you have, we should start our return journey," Carlofis asked again, sounding like an irritable peacock that couldn't help but start twirling its tail feathers, opening and closing them. "You've been taking pictures, but it looks like there's nothing valuable left in this ruin. Even if there was, after so many years, they should have weathered or been taken away."

"Well, I think that's about it, but I saw another one over there that looks relatively intact. After I take a look inside it, we'll retreat? How about that?"

Camille raised her finger and pointed at the ruins of an equally square iron and stone tower at the edge.

This tower is located in a sheltered area of ​​the valley, with no nearby water sources. Compared with other towers, its cross-section is very wide, so it appears that it still retains most of the floors and walls of the bottom two or three floors.

Carlofis snorted coldly.

"Can't you?"

"Let's go. Although I feel like you recorders haven't done anything useful in all the time you've been here."

He walked in front and used his power armor to start clearing some obvious obstacles on the ruins for the recorder.

Soon, they arrived at the ruins which was farther away from the entrance. The tower looked even bigger when viewed from close up. They walked into the first floor where they could not see any door panels at all. The light was very dim and there was a musty smell in the air as if there had been no sunlight for thousands of years. Fortunately, at least the height of the building here was strangely high, just like most of the other buildings. Even a giant like Carlophis did not need to lower his head when walking in wearing armor.

When they went about thirty yards deep, Camille began to regret that she should have brought some emergency lights or something similar today. There was almost no light here except at the entrance. She searched in her bag for a long time and only found a small flashlight. When she turned it on, the weak and pale beam of light only advanced two or three meters in the air inside the ruins where a thin layer of dust and mold floated.

High above, frightened birds flapped their wings and bats flew out from above their heads, and the dust cloud became thicker.

"Uh." She coughed awkwardly, turned around and grabbed the armor on Carlophis's arm to prevent herself from twisting on the ruins. "Excuse me, do you have anything like a headlamp on your armor? Let's light up this place and see if we can find something. I feel like no one has been here for a long, long time."

"Aha. But it would take me forever to turn my head and accompany you through this." Carlofis's voice came from the darkness, sounding like a boy who was about to demonstrate his newly learned skills to someone he knew. "So, I have a better idea."

Then, she seemed to faintly hear the voice of Carloface calling a name where Camille touched, but it was too vague for her to be sure.

Then, a very dazzling and brilliant light appeared in front of her eyes, as if a miniature sun was lit up here.

In an instant, the entire vast ruined hall was illuminated by this light, making every detail clear.

She blinked her eyes to remove the green double image caused by the glare in front of her eyes, and then she found that the ball of light was actually floating in the palm of Carlophis's outstretched hand.

"Wow." After sincerely praising the Fire Phoenix's skills, the other party said that it was just a trivial skill and using it here was like overkill, and then adjusted the brightness of the light according to the brightness she wanted.

The search on the first floor yielded nothing, but they found a staircase leading to the second floor. It was made entirely of steel, with the handrails on both sides strangely hollowed out. No one knew how it was originally designed, but it was sturdy enough. Carloface followed her up.

Their arrival startled more birds, and more sounds of flapping wings faded away. Then Camille finally made a new discovery that made her very excited.

"Look!"

Behind a structure that might have been a fence and a platform, she found a pile of skeletal human remains, and it looked like there was more than one person.

"Are you sure it wasn't left behind by later explorers, or the aftermath of murder? These bones are in such good condition."

"I don't think so." She looked around. "We may have found this place first... Look, these bones are covered with a clear jelly for some reason. It has preserved them for thousands of years. I guess."

She then selected a corpse that appeared to be a male, with a skeleton's skull hanging askew above its skull like an open hatch.

"It's quite strange." She put her fingers on it, letting her power flow through her body and fingers.

Camille let out a sharp scream of pain.

The residual memory of the evil spirit who died tragically couldn't wait to drag her into the tragedy that happened here thousands of years ago.

White maggots, people around me being devoured one by one, curled up in a coma with no escape, and the endless madness caused by the agony before death -

When she stopped screaming and twitching, Camille found herself being carried on Carlophis' shoulders and rushed downstairs. Obviously, he was the one who pulled her away from the skeleton, but why was he doing that now - ?
"Ugh, I'm going to vomit because of your shoulder armor..." she said weakly.

"Then bear with it!" The Sixth Company Captain replied coldly, and at the same time, a high temperature of fire began to rise around them. "Come down quickly! And follow me closely! We are surrounded."

Surrounded?

She heard the sound of countless huge insects flapping their wings.

Then she turned around and found herself face to face with two rows of compound eyes on a swollen head that were staring at her greedily. The surface of this thing's huge head had countless grooves like a human brain, and its mouth had a pair of sharp jaws like serrated knives. This ugly creature had six slender insect limbs, and its wings were almost invisible to the naked eye when flapping, and a layer of reflective substance was shining on its barbed legs.

Transparent gelatin.

In a flash, Camille understood everything with a chill all over her body.

The gelatin from the dead...

The stench from the giant insect's mouthparts almost touched her. She thought of what she had just seen and screamed in despair.

A wall of flames swept past, and then Carloface pulled her over.

"You get closer to me!"

“There are so many of them!”

Camille looked around in panic: they had gone down to the second floor, but hadn't been able to run out of the exit, so now they were trapped deep in the ruins by a group of giant bugs.

How many? Damn it! Why so many?! Twelve? No, twenty? Sixty?! A hundred?! Where did they come from?! How did we find them?!

Carlofis used his power to ignite fire to burn the swarm of insects, killing a dozen or even dozens of them at a time, but the insects seemed to become even more fanatical. They rushed towards them one after another, stepping on the ashes of their companions' corpses, as if they were the only two absolutely delicious things in the world worth eating.

"Why are there more and more?!"

"how could I know?!"

Huo Feng turned his head, and for the first time, fatigue appeared in his voice, not physical, but mental. Camille saw that his forehead was covered with sweat.

"We have to rush out and run into the speeder to get rid of them!"

But the speeder was on a cliff on the other side of the valley.

Camille wisely didn't say this, but just prepared to run out after him.

"Follow me! I'm going to form a fire shield around us, and then use a fire tornado to push them away!"

"Do you have enough strength to make it there?" she finally couldn't help asking.

"You better hope I can stick with it."

(End of this chapter)