Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 933, 08.932: 『Helldiver』

Under the night sky, the ground-based air defense positions awaken once again.

Chains of blazing tracer bullets, like burning whips, intertwined to form a sparse yet impenetrable net of fire, lashing wildly at the dark sky.

Large-caliber anti-aircraft guns on the ground also opened fire, each salvo roaring like a giant hammer striking the earth, even the air high above trembled.

puff--!
A dull, deadly tearing sound.

One of the Valkyrie transport planes, located on the outer side of the formation and with all its crew members having disembarked, was unfortunately struck in the engine by the fire whip, causing a fatal overload.

Before long, the accumulated energy found an outlet, and the entire plane suddenly exploded, transforming into a huge golden flower that bloomed silently in the night sky.

Countless burning fragments scattered like flower petals, creating a scene with a cruel yet magnificent morbid beauty.

Harvey's chest heaved violently, each breath filled with the metallic stench of circulating air.

He had no time to mourn his fallen comrades; all his attention was focused on adjusting his body, which was being tossed around by the wind.

After a series of desperate adjustments and struggles, he finally managed to regain his balance during the roll, turning face down and stretching out his limbs like a war eagle gliding through a storm.

To avoid being torn to shreds by those deadly anti-aircraft shells that are only a few inches in size while in mid-air, Harvey, like most highly skilled Hellscreamers, chose to release his gravity parachute at the lowest possible altitude, minimizing the time he was exposed to the barrage of fire.

However, as the altimeter readings rapidly surpassed the limits he had set in mind, a sudden change occurred.

? !
After pressing the start button, the gravity umbrella on his back did not react, and the powerful force field that was expected to counteract gravity did not appear as scheduled.

In the corner of the helmet's built-in display, a line of scarlet runes flashed rapidly:

Power supply disruption

"Machine Soul self-checking..."

Warning: Impact suffered... Power supply line blocked.

During the violent turbulence before the jump, his parachute backpack slammed hard against the edge of the hatch.

The damn impact damaged the delicate internal components of the pipeline.

"Damn it!" Harvey uttered a curse through gritted teeth.

Boom!Boom!
He had no choice but to resort to the oldest and most brutal repair methods.

He swung his gauntlets, covered in terracotta plates, and slammed them with all his might against the gravity field booster behind him.

The heavy impact sounded insignificant amidst the howling wind, yet it carried all his hopes.

*Pfft! Pfft!*

After several heavy thuds, one of the two engines finally let out a reluctant cough, emitting a weak anti-gravity field.

Immediately afterwards, another one started up, and although it was extremely unstable, it finally began to work.

At this moment, his height above the ground was approaching the theoretical limit of safe parachute deployment distance—three hundred feet! That's equivalent to the height of a thirty-story building, but for someone falling from a great height, that distance is fatally short.

Below, the jagged forest, silhouetted against the intermittent flashes of artillery fire, was rushing towards them at an alarming speed.

Harvey made an emergency adjustment to his posture at the last moment, maximizing the output of the unstable force field.

Wow!
The gravitational parachute's engine emitted a near-disintegrating roar, yet the descent speed was still excessively fast.

He plunged headfirst into the dense canopy of trees like a meteorite.

The steel body collided violently with the tough tree trunk, producing a series of loud cracking sounds of branches bursting and sharp scraping noises of metal, like a small storm.

Finally, a terrifyingly loud bang, as if all the bones in one's body had shattered, was heard.

The world was plunged into darkness and agony.

Meanwhile, Horatio was leading his squad at breakneck speed across a Gothic covered bridge.

The covered bridge is made of cold rock, and the flying buttresses on both sides are like the exposed ribs of an ancient behemoth, while the gargoyles whose faces have been blurred by wind and rain seem to be emitting silent screams into the void.

He noticed the flashes of anti-aircraft fire constantly appearing on the horizon of the friendly forces' positions in the distance.

He gazed at the night sky stained red by the flames of war, and an ominous premonition gripped his heart.

He had not yet received intelligence of a large-scale enemy attack, so why did his allies, who should have remained silent, open fire?
Is it a response to an enemy air raid, or something worse... an orbital attack?
For some reason, the distant firelight seemed to outline some kind of ominous pattern on the horizon, giving him a strange sense of unease.

According to the original plan, Harvey's third squad should have been close to completing its mission and was preparing to withdraw.

Must speed up.

"We're almost there. The main control room is in that protruding structure supported by the arched bridge just ahead."

While leading the race, They spoke while referring to the building structure data in the eyepiece.

Boom!
As soon as she finished speaking and was about to jump down the steps, a huge dark shadow blocked her way like a wall.

It was a "black orc" with green skin and glowing red eyes.

Its green color was deep, almost black, and its skin was rough like weathered leather, indicating that it was much older and stronger than an ordinary orc. Its crude armor was pieced together from various scrap metals, with large bolts driven directly into its flesh.

It bared its fangs, and foul-smelling saliva mixed with engine oil and blood dripped from between its teeth.

Its nasal cavity was like an overheated steam engine, spewing out scalding white steam.

The tall, green-skinned beast had just raised its massive, blood-stained machete when it let out a deafening "WAAAGH!" and prepared to charge at the small shrimp that was charging towards it.

In that instant, an incredibly fast black figure swept past Thee like a whirlwind.

Om-!
With the iconic roar of the chainsaw halberd starting up, Brother Albion, clad in black terracotta power armor, had already entered the battle.

He narrowly deflected the green-skinned man's powerful slash, and the two weapons collided, unleashing a blinding burst of sparks.

The orc's attack was undeniably powerful, but Albion's body remained completely still. With superhuman skill, he deflected the opponent's immense force and then twisted his halberd in the process.

Green Skin revealed a fatal flaw due to its excessive force.

The next second, Albion's chainsaw slashed upwards from Greenskin's waist with a tricky upward trajectory.

The high-speed spinning adamantite saw teeth bit into the orc's crude abdominal armor, tearing through the iron plate with a piercing metallic shriek, and then cutting into the warm flesh without any resistance.

The serrated teeth gnawed and churned frantically, scattering its organs along with undigested food from its stomach through the massive wound.

The green-skinned man's roar abruptly ceased, turning into a wet, coughing sound of blood.

The red light in its eyes dimmed rapidly, as if all its strength had been drained in an instant. Its knees buckled, and its massive body knelt straight forward.

The monk calmly turned to the side, gracefully dodging the falling corpses.

With a flick of his wrist, he shook off the dirt from the halberd blade, the whole process flowing smoothly and displaying ruthless efficiency.

"Damn it, where did all these black orcs come from on this planet?" Tey stepped over the blood-stained greatsword, looked at the green-skinned, dark green skin, and muttered.

"The blood on this machete is still very fresh." Horatio's goggles quickly analyzed the blood sample and came to a disturbing conclusion.

With the Albion brothers guarding the gate, Horatio and They quickly rushed into the central control tower.

The Core Thinker array, like a giant tree reaching for the sky, rises from the base of the tower, with countless thick cables spreading outwards like vines from its top, eventually turning the entire tower into a tangled cage of steel and wires.

The interior of the tower is shocking.

As Horatio had predicted, all the mechanical priests here were dead.

The scrambled cyborg corpses lying on the ground silently testify to the fierce battle that once took place here.

Horatio's goggles swept across the scene, quickly reconstructing the events. They had clearly suffered two sudden attacks.

The first wave of attacks came from an extremely swift and precise enemy—a priest's corpse with a hair-thin cut in its throat, as if precisely sliced ​​by a scalpel, its blood drained from its body—a common tactic of the Dark Eldar.

The priests appeared to have repelled the agile aliens after making enormous sacrifices, even sacrificing all their fighter servants.

But they were immediately met with a second, even more brutal massacre.

The breastplate of the other priest's body was completely caved in, clearly indicating that it had been smashed to pieces by some kind of huge blunt object.

Broken mechanical tentacles and shattered prosthetics lay scattered on the ground. Scattered sparks of electricity drifted from the ends of severed wires, adding a final, eerie touch of life to this deathly silent slaughterhouse.

It's likely that the black orc who was just killed by Albion was the only creature to survive this massacre.

Horatio extended his mechanical prosthetic hand and used the dendritic probe at its end to connect to the port of the Thinker array.

After a slight hissing sound, he discovered that even with his special affinity for the machine spirit, he could only make this massive and ancient Thinker array bypass the cumbersome identification and authentication system and allow it to access external subsystems.

He cannot bypass the permissions to directly access and manipulate the system.

"Teyi, it's up to you now."

"Hmm," the girl responded and stepped forward. With an almost sacramental solemnity, she removed a delicate rose knot ornament from her fair neck.

That was not merely decoration, but a gene key with the highest authority in the entire empire.

She skillfully inserted it into the protruding identification chip hole.

Click! A crisp locking sound was followed by a subtle abnormal noise from the electric drive.

The rose knot was completely swallowed by the device.

In an instant, on the dozens of old CRT screens in front of them, the previously static runes began to cascade with dense character code like a waterfall.

This is clearly another control channel that the system enters after receiving a higher-level key that is not authorized by the planetary governor.

A moment later, all the code flow stopped, leaving only a few lines of clear, solemn Gothic text on the screen:
"+Key verification passed+"

『+Source of permission: Orders of the Holy Tribunal of the Emperor+』

"Welcome, Your Honor!"

(End of this chapter)