Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 968, 08.967: 'Near-Death Survivor'

"It's heavy...brothers, give it your all!" Battalion Commander Poniatovsky, his veins bulging, used all his strength to hold up a relatively intact, huge precast slab.

Sweat streamed down his dusty face, pooling at his chin.

Under his cover, the battle nuns of the Holy Rose Order were carefully dragging bodies out from under the rubble.

The Hellsoldier, clad in full power armor, is already quite heavy, not to mention the twisted steel bars and shattered concrete pressing down on them.

The power backpacks on the backs of the Clean Angels emitted a sharp whistling sound due to overload, as if they might stop working at any moment due to the unbearable burden.

The first buried body was pulled out.

Then came the second and the third bodies.

The surrounding soldiers couldn't help but whisper among themselves, their eyes filled with awe and curiosity.

They had never seen soldiers so well-equipped—complete sets of force-feedback power armor and high-powered hell carbines that were clearly far more powerful than the laser guns in their hands.

Everyone had heard about the excellent treatment offered by the Imperial Navy and knew that only the most outstanding Sintiras could join it.

Even many conservative noble officers racked their brains and tried every means to pull strings in order to get one of their good-for-nothing family members into the navy, even if it was just as a low-ranking warrant officer.

Now, these elite mortal warriors, whom they had never seen before, simply lay there quietly, with faint bloodstains and rotting flesh still visible between their tattered and deformed armor.

Sister Arabella and two other medical nuns immediately knelt down and began examining the hell soldiers who had been brought out, providing emergency aid to anyone who still showed even a sliver of life.

Horatio quickly stepped forward and removed the storage chip of the combat recorder from the top of the power backpack of the first soldier who was dragged out—his engineered power armor made him instantly recognizable—and inserted it into his personal data slate.

The screen lights up, the perspective coming from Ensign Vox, a naval technical officer in the engineering department.

This record, in turn, fills in the gaps in the servo skull footage from another perspective—what exactly happened to them after parting ways with Captain Harvey.

The footage shows that after bidding farewell to Harvey, the Hell Soldiers immediately deployed into a standard dispersed formation, covering each other as they fought and retreated.

They appear to be trying to break out through the exit on the other side of the building.

Behind them, the alien weapon fired a barrage of poison crystal bullets as densely as raindrops, its firepower extremely fierce.

Several deadly beams of light pierced the darkness, heavy weapons capable of threatening vehicles.

One of the Hell Soldiers was unfortunately hit in the leg by a poison crystal, screamed in pain, and fell heavily to the ground.

Lieutenant Vox immediately stopped his rollerblading and rushed to his fallen teammate, grabbing his arm and using all the strength of his power armor to drag him along as they continued their sprint.

At this moment, the audio recording on the screen was drowned out by the sounds of the injured person gasping for breath and groaning in pain.

"Flanking! Enemies on the flank!" someone shouted into the communication channel.

The distinctive "crackling" sound of laser weapons firing at high frequencies immediately entered the recording.

"We're surrounded! Enemies are everywhere!"

"Watch out for the ventilation ducts overhead!"

"What do we do now, Lieutenant? We're cornered!" On the screen, a Hellsoldier slid up to Lieutenant Vox and asked nervously.

The scene began to rotate violently, and it was clear that Lieutenant Vox was desperately searching for a way out.

He placed the wounded Hellsoldier against the wall, first retrieving ancient architectural blueprints, then extending an additional engineered prosthetic limb from his assault power armor to attempt to install a thermal breaching bomb on the wall.

"careful!"

During the installation, the wounded Hellsoldier with a broken leg let out a terrified scream at Lieutenant Vox.

Immediately afterwards, Lieutenant Vox was tackled to the ground by a tremendous force.

It was a black snake-man mercenary who emerged from the ground, baring his fangs and brandishing his claws.

Its one hand gripped a poisoned blade, lunging at the lieutenant's helmet, but the quick-thinking lieutenant used the engineered prosthetic arm on his power backpack to stop it.

His other two hands grabbed the snake-man's other arms that were holding weapons. "Ugh!" he suddenly let out a muffled scream.

The snake-man's fourth hand had somehow already inserted a syringe into a gap in his armor, injecting him with a potent anesthetic commonly used to capture slaves.

Soon, his consciousness began to blur.

This sudden attack plunged the entire Hellfire Squad into brutal close-quarters combat.

"Attention! Aliens have broken in from underground! Lieutenant! Lieutenant!"

"The lieutenant's heartbeat is weakening! He's incapacitated! Lieutenant!!"

"Ah!! Damn it! My arm is broken! My body is numb... I've been poisoned!"
Brothers, it has been an honor to work with you. Goodbye, Golden Throne!
For the Emperor!!!

Bang! — Sizzle…

A soldier detonated the grenade he was carrying. The static from the dead soldier's communication failure was quickly filtered out by the system's intelligent system.

"Air Support Command! Respond! Respond! (Buzzing sound - no signal) Can anyone hear me!"
This is Sergeant Major Billy of Operation Eagle Flag 3. D-1 (Lieutenant Vox's personal officer codename) has fallen! Repeat, officer fallen!

I have taken command! My coordinates have been sent! Requesting 'Broken Arrow'! Repeat! Requesting 'Broken Arrow'!!!

("Broken Arrow" is a tactical code name for "launching an indiscriminate air strike at our coordinates".)

Lieutenant Vox lay on the ground, his breathing extremely weak, barely managing to produce a faint gurgling sound, barely maintaining the bare minimum of his respiratory system function.

His body was still instinctively resisting the snake-man's suppression, but his consciousness was becoming increasingly blurred.

laugh--

The power armor's automated medical system began injecting large doses of high-quality antidotes and combat stimulants into his body.

His pupils suddenly contracted, his breathing became rough and heavy, and the strength in his hands returned, giving him the power to launch a final, desperate fight.

Suddenly, the earth began to tremble violently, and the shaking grew closer and closer.

Even considering the reaction speed of indiscriminate air strikes, this is far too fast.

Suddenly, the ceiling above them began to collapse with a loud crash.

A sharp brick fell from the top and hit the snake-man squarely on the head.

Lieutenant Vox, like an arrow poised to be released, kicked aside the corpse whose head had been smashed open but whose body was still twitching instinctively. He rolled on the spot, dodging the huge boulder that followed.

Soon, the weathered roof of the abandoned structure began to collapse completely. The once exquisitely carved stone structures began to disintegrate, falling like hailstones.

The entire passageway is being buried alive.

The aliens also frantically tried to escape.

The surviving Hell Soldiers huddled in a small corner, but soon even that corner began to crumble.

In his final moments, Lieutenant Vox, the only officer present, threw himself at the two remaining Hellsoldier soldiers beside him, using his heavy assault power armor to provide them with final cover.

Immediately afterwards, everyone was buried under the rubble.

The screen went completely black, leaving only the survivors' painful cries and Lieutenant Vox's faint, almost imperceptible breathing coming from the communication channel.

The scene continued until the faint light from the excavation pierced through, and the Holy Rose Battle Sisters pulled them from the ruins. Horatio crouched beside them and retrieved the storage plate.

“Captain!” Sister Arabella’s voice pulled Horatio back from that horrific memory.

He looked up and saw the nun's face, covered by a veil, filled with both sorrow and a glimmer of hope.

"The dead, 4... the survivors, 3."

(End of this chapter)