Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 889, 08.888: "The Crisis and Conflict of Bloodborne (Blood Sacrifice to the Blood God!)"

"Click-clack...click-clack...click-clack..."

Dense terracotta armor and magnetic combat boots clashed rhythmically on the alien ship's eerie, elastic deck, echoing through the connecting corridors on the side of the black ark.

Horatio personally led the team to board the ship.

The void-blue power armor he wore, custom-made by Father Lati, reflected a cold luster in the dim environment.

Command of the flagship "Swift Skyhawk" has been temporarily handed over to his acting vice-captain, who is also his lover and an outstanding officer, Lieutenant Louise.

This was her first attempt to independently command a capital warship. For a determined female officer, this was a crucial hurdle she had to overcome in her career, a tempering and tempering process.

Horatio chose to board the ship himself not only because he trusted his adjutant's abilities, but also because almost all of his officers who were skilled in boarding operations had been killed in action, leaving him with no one capable of taking full charge of such a dangerous mission as boarding a battleship.

He had to do it himself.

His combat boots trod across the deck, scorched by fire and plasma, where horrifying gaps, like the wounds of a giant beast, were visible everywhere, left by the gray-blue Thunderhawk gunboats that had crashed into the ship's hull.

The gunboat's ramp was wide open, but it was empty; clearly, Fenris's sons had already infiltrated the enemy's lair.

Everywhere there are traces of fierce fighting.

The bulkheads and deck were covered with scratches from ricochets and black scorch marks left by bombs.

These brutal marks of war ruthlessly destroyed the bloody human skin murals of the aliens, which were filled with a distorted "aesthetic."

The interior of the Black Ark was littered with corpses. Not only the aliens, but also the Space Wolves suffered casualties. However, judging from the number of corpses, it was clear that Ducalli's side suffered far greater losses.

They encountered almost no resistance along their way.

Horatio's boarding party didn't even find a single dying alien soldier—the Space Wolves were ruthless, killing all their enemies in a gruesome manner.

But... isn't this death a little too gruesome?

Horatio's tactical goggles magnified the body of a Ducalli soldier, and data streams flashed across the lens.

The corpse didn't look like it had been killed by a weapon; it looked more like it had been torn in two by a pair of incredibly powerful claws.

Internal organs spilled out, a stark contrast to the clean, sharp cuts made by the power axes and chainsaws commonly used by space wolves.

As Horatio led his team deeper into the ship, the stench of blood and the concentration of unknown chemical toxins in the air increased dramatically, foreshadowing an increasingly fierce and dangerous battle ahead.

On the deck, there were more enormous corpses belonging to Space Marines than on the outer deck.

The fierce attacks of the Space Wolves are always accompanied by devastating casualties—a rule that has been in place since the Great Expedition.

They will always belong to the combat sequence with the heaviest casualties.

It is also thanks to the fact that in the 41st millennium, the sons of Fenris still stubbornly use the ancient Dalian system instead of following the Astartes Codex.

Otherwise, with such a casualty rate, a single boarding action would likely wipe out an entire Holy Scripture Company.

thump.

A dull metallic clang came from ahead.

Horatio, who was moving quickly, immediately gave a hand signal, and the entire squad instantly moved close to a blood-stained corner of the bulkhead. He turned his head slightly and looked at the other side of the corridor through the optical sensor in his helmet.

At the end of the corridor, there was an eerie reddish-purple light.

Light emanated from the alien's rather elegant, organic-like illumination device, breathing and changing colors slowly like a living thing, making the corpse-strewn corridor appear both eerie and magnificent.

At the end of the corridor, three Space Wolves Space Marines stood like iron towers, guarding a huge, tightly closed bone archway.

One of them was a wolf priest dressed in black with a Fenris wolf head on top of his helmet, who was busy extracting gene seeds from a fallen comrade.

The other two monks, armed with explosive guns, vigilantly guarded him.

Horatio confirmed that there was no enemy activity nearby and that the identification code on the tactical terminal matched the friendly signal perfectly.

He sent a servo skull flying out from behind him with a buzzing sound. After confirming that there were no ambushes in the hidden corners around him, he carefully walked out from behind the corner of the wall and led the team toward the three cultivators.

“Greetings to the Son of Ruth, sirs.” Horatio bowed, performing the mortal’s courtesy to the emperor demigod.

The two black-maned wolves guarding the gate also solemnly returned Horatio's salute by tapping their breastplates with their fists.

"In the name of Ruth, we salute the Imperial Navy," they replied in unison, their voices emanating from external acoustic gratings with a dull, metallic quality.

The wolf priest—a unique character in the Space Wolves Chapter who combines the roles of priest and apothecary—was carefully extracting a seed from the neck of a fallen monk using his gene seed extractor, known as "Mokai's Fang."

The fallen cultivator was struck directly in the neck, a weak point in his armor, by the witch spirit's blade. The wound was huge, and blood was still flowing out, staining the Imperial Eagle emblem on his breastplate red.

The wound was so deep that the wolf priest didn't even need to cut the power armor to extract the gene seed.

However, this destruction meant that he only managed to extract one complete gene seed.

As the gene seed, which had a somewhat Cthulhu-esque appearance and wriggling tentacles, was sucked into the green nutrient solution tank, the wolf priest carefully stored it in his personal cryopreservation box before rising to return Horatio's greeting.

"How's the situation at the front?" Horatio asked. "Everything's going well, mortal. Our Wolf Lord, 'Black Wolf' Ragnar Blackmane, has personally led his forces into the bridge. The battle should be over soon."

"Thank you for your timely support and tremendous efforts. We will proceed to the bridge immediately to provide flank support for Lord Wolf."

Upon hearing this, the two guarding monks exchanged a glance through their crimson goggles. Then one of them turned to Horatio and said, "No. The battle ahead is extremely dangerous. If you mortals go, you will only become a burden to the Wolf Lord."

“My men are all carefully selected Imperial Navy boarding personnel,” Horatio replied neither humbly nor arrogantly. “Everyone has received professional training and has survived numerous boarding operations. Boarding is their duty!”

“Please understand, Captain. You only need to wait here. Black Mane will resolve the battle soon,” another cultivator retorted, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Horatio frowned. This was very wrong.

Space Wolf does not reject fighting alongside mortals and admires mortal heroes who are never afraid of sacrifice. Why then is it so determined to refuse to provide support at this moment?
“I will say it again, please let us pass. In the name of the God-Emperor Warriors and the captains under the Supreme Lord, I have summoned you here. Even if you are the Emperor’s angel, you should not obstruct His holy navy from fulfilling its duties.”

"The Wolf Lord has ordered that we do not need mortal support. Please retreat, Your Excellency."

The monk answered coldly. The crimson light in his visors suddenly intensified, shining directly into Horatio's face.

If you were to look directly at it with the naked eye, you would definitely be stinged by the intense light.

However, the helmet goggles that Latti custom-designed for Horatio had an automatic light-filtering function, so the illumination did not cause Horatio to back down in the slightest during their eye contact.

The warning only provoked an even stronger response. The helmet's automatic countermeasure system was activated, and a more powerful tactical beam of light, tens of thousands of lumens high, flashed back at the Space Wolf cultivator in front of him.

“Ugh! Kutawa! (Fenrisian for 'damn')”

Caught off guard, the Space Wolf cultivator instinctively adopted an aggressive defensive stance, slightly raising the muzzle of his explosive gun.

Just as tensions were running high and a conflict was about to erupt.

"Enough!" A crisp and authoritative voice interrupted the tense atmosphere.

Boom, boom, boom.

Inquisitor They strode in, followed by three Astartes from the Black Shield Squad: Derek, Nasser, and Pirus.

"In the name of the God-Emperor's representative, I order you to make way." Thee's voice was not loud, but it carried an undeniable authority.

After accurately identifying the Tribunal's advanced identification code emitted by the scarlet rose knot around Thee's neck, the two Space Wolf monks reluctantly put down their bomb guns.

They looked at each other again, hesitant but still showing no intention of making way.

“Brothers Khaled and Terrell, step aside,” the wolf priest sighed and said to the two monks.

His voice carried a hint of weariness and helplessness.

“My lord, there are indeed some secrets. Rather than revealing them to the public, it is better to keep them buried deep. I believe in the Space Wolf’s loyalty to the Emperor, and I also believe that you are doing this to avoid causing any harm or conflict.” Horatio ignored the two guards and instead used the shortwave encrypted communication in his helmet to send a message directly to the Wolf Priest.

His helmet was custom-made for Lati and incorporated active linking functionality to almost all official channels of the Human Empire.

This gives him the authority of a higher-level military oversight commissioner, allowing him to insert, overwrite, or unilaterally monitor any Imperial channel, but not just the Imperial's mortal armies, but virtually any official Imperial unit.

Horatio keenly noticed the wolves' unusual behavior.

This doesn't fit his understanding of the Space Wolves' character at all. Unless... they have some kind of unspeakable secret.

A classic "Warband secret".

[Black Mane Dalian... Black Mane Dalian... and those torn corpses...]
Horatio's mind raced.

He recalled the alien corpses that didn't seem to have been destroyed by weapons, but rather torn apart by brute force with claws.

He recalled the rumors about the unstable genetic seed of the Blackmane Dalian team, and that taboo word—'Uffin Curse'.

So that's how he is.

They weren't afraid that mortals would hold them back, but rather that mortals would see their darkest secrets, and that uncontrolled collateral damage would tear mortals apart, leaving them with their flesh and souls intact.

“That’s right, High Lord Captain. Since you guessed it, you should also know: this isn’t directed at you, and you should keep this secret.” The wolf priest hesitated for a while before giving a vague affirmation.

He didn't know if the mortal before him truly knew the secret of the Black Mane Dalian Blood Curse.

But since he had given a hint, the wolf priest also implicitly acknowledged the equally implicit wording from the mortal before him.

These references make the encrypted call even more 'encrypted'—all keywords are consciously removed, leaving only the meaning that 'those who know, know' can understand.

Horatio took a deep breath, filling his lungs with filtered air: "All boarding team members, listen to my command!"

He acted decisively, issuing a new order over the public tactical channel: "Change support direction and attack the alien ship's engine room. Cut off the ship's retreat! Support the Blackmane Terminators in Lightning Strike."

Just when it seemed the battle group's secret was about to be in danger, the naval officer, who had been about to rush into the bridge, suddenly turned around with his men, averting a potential crisis. This act of leniency surprised the other two Space Wolf monks guarding the gate.

One of the monks immediately began reporting something in urgent Fenris language to an unknown communication channel.

Horatio, who overheard the conversation through his helmet, couldn't understand the rare planetary dialect, but he could detect a hint of relief in the other person's tone.

(End of this chapter)