Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 875 (08.874): 'Duel Master'

The gilded command throne on the high platform—a symbol of power adorned with countless data panels, communicators, and reliefs of sacred texts—is now empty.

The owner of the warship, the King of the Flying Kingdom, stood silently before his throne. His magnificent captain's uniform was splattered with the warm blood of his subordinate, which appeared ominous dark red in the dim emergency lights.

His posture resembled that of an ancient hero statue about to awaken, not a cold rock, but a dormant form containing volcanic energy.

Faced with this one-sided massacre, his face showed no trace of the panic that a mortal should have.

These assassins from the Comoros were unlike the ordinary members of the Ducale Conspiracy; they moved without a single noisy battle cry or sadistic screech.

For them, the battle was like a solemn and silent ritual, the only background music being the lamentations of the dead.

They moved through the broken hatch like ghosts, mercilessly hacking down the stormtroopers in their path before they could even let out a complete scream, paving a crimson carpet for these assassins on their way to the command throne.

The last line of defense consisted of six stormtroopers from the Navy Security Force.

Clad in heavy black armor, their Hellfire Guns glowed ominously red, forming a desperate semi-circular defensive position around the command post. Their iconic Orm Shield helmets concealed all their expressions.

Perhaps, beneath that steel mask, are lips trembling with fear; or perhaps, a detached indifference that has long since disregarded life and death.

Regardless of their emotions, they were all overwhelmed by absolute loyalty to the God Emperor at this moment.

They are mortals, about to face a nightmare.

Nightmare launched its attack.

"For the Emperor!" the stormtroopers roared in desperation, pulling the triggers to the limit.

The Hellfire Gun unleashed a deafening roar, and high-energy laser beams, like a crimson rain, poured down on the charging aliens.

However, the energy that was enough to melt through the alloy only exploded into useless sparks on the Nightmare's smooth, obsidian-like shell, leaving not even a scorch mark.

The massacre ended in an instant.

In Horatio's superhuman perception, the battle was not a chaotic carnage, but a precise and efficient execution.

He clearly saw a nightmare slide sideways with an elegant, physics-defying posture, its entire body seemingly weightless, leaving a blurry afterimage amidst the dense hail of bullets.

His decapitation sword moved like a venomous snake emerging from its hole, swiftly slashing upwards and cleanly cleaving a stormtrooper, gun and all, from the hip to the top of his head in two symmetrical halves.

Another nightmare sprinted along the sloping bulkhead, his figure becoming an elusive streak of light under the flickering emergency lights of the bridge.

As he landed lightly, the heads of two more stormtroopers flew into the air, tracing two tragic, bloody arcs before rolling to the ground.

Their movements were devoid of any redundancy; every swing precisely sliced ​​through the weakest points of the armor, and every move was deadly efficient.

Wow——!
One of the Thinker Array's auxiliary brain coolant tanks was struck by the sword wind and shattered with a crash.

Glass shards and viscous green coolant scattered everywhere, along with the head of a stormtrooper that had just been separated from its body, rolling to the ground.

Six seconds.

Just six seconds later, the last stormtrooper's body fell heavily to the ground.

Horatio was the only one left around the throne.

None of these nightmares perished; only two had faint molten marks left on their armor from the concentrated fire of the Hellfire Gun, demonstrating their astonishing power.

Horatio's mind raced through an assessment: Stormtroopers were far inferior to Astartes monks, but these elite mortal warriors, united by courage and discipline, often managed to take a piece of their opponents' flesh, even if they died in battle.

Horatio had seen them fall to a powerful enemy before, but this was the first time he had seen them die in such vain.

According to his judgment, even ordinary Space Marines who have served for less than a hundred years would probably be slaughtered in the face of these Nightmares who have lived for hundreds of years and have incredibly rich combat experience.

The Nightmare leader—judging from the more ornate horns on his helmet and the deeper energy flowing from his blade, he was a decapitation swordsman, the leader of this Nightmare squad—contemptuously parted a still-twitching corpse with the tip of his sword.

Then, he raised his boots and, under Horatio's watchful gaze, crushed the stormtrooper's skull with a single stomp.

The dull thud of a skull shattering sounded particularly jarring in the deathly silence of the bridge.

The decapitator made no sound, but merely tilted his head slightly, turning his lifeless, skeletal mask toward Horatio on the high platform.

There were no duels, no respect, only a cold pursuit of combat efficiency. For these modified beings born solely for slaughter, only internal challenges were worthy of any talk of martial virtue.

These fierce and cruel uninvited guests began to stride up the adamantite steps, preparing to rush onto the command throne.

Suddenly, Horatio vanished from their sight.

It wasn't a step, nor a sprint, but a kind of gliding that seemed to have no friction.

In the blink of an eye, he had moved like a ghost from the command throne on the high platform to the deck below.

The battleground instantly shifted from the narrow, cramped throne area filled with important instruments to the more spacious deck.

This superhuman speed caused the three nightmares' postures to change instantly.

Their forward momentum came to an abrupt halt, their previous leisurely, dining-like demeanor transforming into a highly alert and focused state.

They realized that their prey was not a real human being.

Horatio gripped the hilt of the chainsaw sword hanging at his waist. He pressed a button with his thumb, activating it.

The "Immaculate Angel's Lash" has awakened.

His roar was completely different from the savage howl of an ordinary chainsaw sword.

It was a high-pitched, pure shriek, as if composed of the hymns of a thousand avenging angels, carrying the holy fury that would burn away all heresy.

The single-molecule saw teeth accelerated to their limit in an instant, forming a silver halo of destruction around the blade.

The sound itself was a weapon, a mental shock, crashing violently into the aliens' deathly silence.

To Ducalli's exceptionally sharpened senses, honed by drugs and torture, the sound was like a scorching steel needle piercing his brain.

Enraged by this sudden provocation, the decapitator launched the first attack.

He transformed into a black whirlwind, his decapitation sword becoming a shimmering curtain of light, attacking Horatio from all directions.

The decapitation swordsman's attacks made full use of the vertical space of the bridge, sometimes leaping high on broken control panels, sometimes moving rapidly on sloping buttresses. Each attack came from a tricky angle, aiming to overwhelm the opponent with pure speed and skill.

Horatio immediately went on the defensive.

The roar of 'The Lash of the Immaculate Angel' clashed with the blade of the decapitation sword, erupting in a piercing shriek and flying sparks of energy. To any onlooker, he appeared to be in complete retreat, utterly overwhelmed by the alien swordsman's frenzied onslaught.

However, Horatio saw a different picture in his mind.

His mind was like a cold, analytical engine, gathering crucial information with every parry and dodge.

This is precisely a deeply ingrained combat philosophy—observe, analyze, and then annihilate with absolute superiority.

[A feint to the upper right, actually a low thrust aimed at the left knee joint. The attack sequence is seven stages, after which the stance resets. The barbs on the armor are used for close-quarters combat. One second before the thrust, the center of gravity shifts 3.2 degrees to the left.]
In Horatio's mind, countless streams of data surged like a waterfall.

He is learning, he is deciphering his opponent's "art of killing".

This was an unprecedentedly calm analysis within seconds before undergoing the second phase of the Latti gene modification project.

Nightmare pursues technical perfection through endless practice and torture, while Horatio represents an innate, absolute advantage achieved through genetic design and logical calculation.

As the decapitation swordsman finished his seventh attack sequence and prepared to reset his stance, Horatio seized a tiny, almost imperceptible opening and counterattacked.

His parries were no longer simple defenses, but precise deflections, each time causing the decapitation swordsman's blade to slide into empty air, causing him to lose his balance for a moment.

He kicked up a piece of broken deck, the metal fragments whistling through the air and disrupting his opponent's footwork. He then cleverly used the leaking Thinker coolant on the ground to make his opponent stagger under his fierce attack.

The other two nightmares struck, carefully choosing the most vicious, unfair, and careless moment to launch a surprise attack on Horatio, who was fully engaged in his duel with the decapitator.

And now, the time has come.

Horatio's analysis of the Nightmares' fighting styles was also completed.

(End of this chapter)