Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 881, 08.880: 'The Apostle of the Night (Seeking Monthly Tickets!)'

Fifteen minutes ago.

Deep within the energy hub deck of the "Swift Eagle," a structure as intricate as the ribs of a steel behemoth, a duel unknown to anyone is unfolding.

Here, far from the roar of artillery fire on the main battlefield, only the scarlet glow of emergency lights cast long, dancing shadows among the twisted metal wreckage and scattered corpses.

The air was filled with the sweet, fishy smell of blood, the pungent odor of venom, and the nauseating stench of some strange chemical.

Blood-Blooded Man slowly turned around.

On his ivory-carved face, which had no lips, six insect-like compound eyes blinked with interest.

He saw a solitary giant clad in jet-black power armor.

He was a Deathwatch Space Marine.

His armor was battered and bruised, with the iconic silver shoulder armor on his left shoulder bearing no insignia of the chapter—only a "black shield" symbol representing atonement and an unknown past.

His face was covered by a silver skull mask, leaving only a pair of red goggles that glowed faintly in the darkness.

"Ah, a watchman."

Bloodlust licked the wound on his cheek inflicted by a tactical knife, letting out a soft, serpentine laugh. "Still an 'anonymous'. Tell me, did you ever have a name, a society, a... past that I can savor and slowly strip away?"

Black Shield did not answer.

He slowly emerged from the shadows, gripping a rough-looking chainsaw halberd covered in electrical discharge tubes.

With each step he took, the deck beneath his feet groaned slightly.

He didn't come to negotiate, nor did he come to deliver a verdict.

He came to hunt.

"Silence is golden, I understand."

The Blood Demon's four bio-arms gracefully retracted, like an insect folding its wings. "Then let me use your screams to compose a new movement!"

Before he could finish speaking, Bloodthirsty Man's figure instantly transformed into a pale bolt of lightning!

He didn't charge in a straight line, but instead glided across the ground in a physics-defying manner, instantly closing in on Black Shield.

The poisoned blade in his hand—a weapon as precise as a scalpel, with a thin flexible tube attached to its tip—transformed into a dazzling array of phantoms, piercing the joint gaps of the Black Shield power armor from all directions.

At the same time, his four auxiliary bio-arms, like venomous snakes, attacked Black Shield's helmet, throat, and weapons respectively.

Clang! Clang! Clang!
A series of piercing metallic clangs rang out.

Black Shield reacted with astonishing speed, his chainsaw halberd forming an impenetrable black barrier in front of him, precisely blocking every attack from the Bloodthirsty Man.

But the Bloodlust is faster.

His attack was not intended to inflict a fatal wound, but rather to probe, to find that one-ten-thousandth of a second of weakness.

Each of his attacks was anatomically precise, and each parry made Black Shield feel a chilling, insidious energy trying to seep into his armor.

"Your movements are filled with anger and despair, Black Shield."

As the Bloodthirsty Man unleashed his mercury-like attacks, he whispered in his hypnotic voice, "Let me guess, for whom are you fighting? Is it that desiccated corpse sitting high on the golden throne? Or... your long-forgotten, pathetic past?"

Black Shield remained silent.

But his blocking motions became increasingly heavy and wild.

He was no longer simply defending, but instead used a method that was almost mutually destructive, smashing the axe of his chainsaw halberd fiercely against the Bloodlust's poisoned blade.

"Oh? Getting impatient?" Blood Spirit chuckled, his figure suddenly drifting backward, creating distance between himself and Black Shield.

Just as Black Shield thought he could get a moment's respite, one of Blood Spirit's four auxiliary bio-arms suddenly shot out.

At the tip of the bio-arm was a syringe that shimmered with a ghostly green light and resembled a bee stinger.

puff!

Despite Black Shield's best efforts to dodge, the poisonous stinger still pierced precisely at the junction between his shoulder armor and breastplate.

A cold, numbing toxin was instantly injected into his body.

Before the injection was even finished, Black Shield swiftly severed the poisonous stinger.

"This is just the appetizer, Warrior."

The Bloodthirsty Man's voice carried a hint of morbid pleasure, "Soon, you'll feel your muscle fibers being peeled away from your bones, one by one. What a beautiful symphony that will be..."

Black Shield staggered, and the movement of his right arm became noticeably slower.

However, just as the Bloodwalker thought he had the victory in his grasp and was about to step forward to enjoy his "artistic creation" process, a shrill, inhuman scream suddenly erupted from the previously silent helmet of the Black Shield.

The scream didn't come from Black Shield himself, but from the desperate screams of the victim collected and stored through the megaphone on his helmet. It carried some mysterious power, blasting at maximum volume directly onto the Bloodthirsty Man's exceptionally acute hearing, which had undergone countless modifications. "Ah—!"

Caught off guard, the Blood Spirit's elegant face revealed for the first time a complex mix of astonishment, pain, and ecstatic joy.

He instinctively covered his head, and his attack faltered.

"What is this... what is this... the desperate screams of the dead? How can there be so many... how many have you killed? Ah... it's so beautiful it's making me numb."

All sorts of aliens and the dying screams of humans, scattered throughout the galaxy, echoed in the Blood Spirit's mind, like a jar of long-fermented, top-quality nectar poured directly into his brain, making his movements slightly intoxicated.

It's now.

Before the Bloodthirsty Man could even finish savoring the echoes of countless dying screams reverberating in his mind...

Black Shield's originally sluggish body suddenly lunged forward with a cheetah-like agility completely incongruous with his massive size.

Ignoring the numbness in his right arm, he gripped the long handle of the chainsaw halberd with his left hand and poured all his strength into this fatal blow.

This is not the precise and efficient kill of Deathwatch.

Instead, it uses fear to create chaos, chaos to create opportunities, and opportunities to bring about death.

The Blood Man felt a deadly threat. He endured the wonderful, tingling sensation and excruciating pain in his head and tried to retreat and dodge.

But it's too late.

Click!

A sickening sound of bones cracking rang out.

The chainsaw, its teeth flashing as it spun at high speed, slashed fiercely at one of the Blood Man's auxiliary bio-arms. The immense force not only severed the flesh-and-blood bio-arm, made of an unknown alloy, but also embedded itself deeply into his pale, carapace-like body.

"You...you dare!" Blood Spirit let out an angry scream, and his remaining three bio-arms, as if possessed, stabbed towards Black Shield's head.

But Black Shield didn't give him that chance.

He kicked the Blood Man hard in the stomach, sending him flying and crashing into a row of tall cargo boxes.

The Bloodthirsty Man struggled to stand up.

But the severed wound was constantly oozing a viscous liquid, like mercury.

His strength is rapidly diminishing.

Black Shield walked slowly towards him, step by step.

His enormous figure cast a shadow, as if death itself had descended, under the scarlet emergency lights.

"No...you can't destroy me...this body of mine..."

For the first time, the Bloodwalker's voice carried a hint of fear and anger. "I...I am art! I am beauty! You barbaric monkey from a primitive age who doesn't know how to appreciate it...and if you kill me, this Tech Priest will never wake up again...ah!"

Black Shield walked up to him, looking down at the once arrogant Bloodlust.

He slowly raised the chainsaw in his hand, the Blood Demon's severed, twitching bio-arm still hanging on the blade.

Then, in that hoarse, emotionless voice, he whispered:
"Your art is too noisy."

Before he finished speaking, the chainsaw, burning with vengeful fury, crashed down.

puff--!
"Aaaaaahhhhh!—" Another scream was captured and collected by the sonic receiver on the cultivator's helmet.

It wasn't a decapitation, but a crushing blow. The halberd smashed the Bloodthirsty Man's head, along with his torso, into the cold deck.

But Black Shield did not stop.

He raised it again and again, and then brought it down.

He used the most primitive and savage methods to turn this "blood puppet artist" into an indistinguishable mass of flesh, bones, and broken metal.

Until the chainsaw's power automatically shuts off due to overload.

Black Shield then stopped what he was doing.

He stood amidst the ravaged pool of blood, his chest heaving violently.

He slowly raised his head and looked at his own silver skull mask, which was reflected in the pool of alien blood on the ground.

There was no expression on the mask.

But beneath that armor, a pair of pure black eyes gleamed with an almost satisfied, cold light.

He murmured in a voice only he could hear, in an ancient language long forgotten by the empire:

“...Ave Dominus Nox.”

(Long live the Lord of the Night!)
(End of this chapter)