Warhammer: Black Emperor

Chapter 671 Isidore's Atonement

902.M30.

As night fell in Viziol, Keon, the fifth company commander of the fourth regiment, raised his hand and lightly tapped the space between his right eyebrows.

Blackish-green mist emanated from the "gatekeeper's" brow, within which swirled distorted or invisible faces.

With a creaking sound, a strange door opened.

Whoosh whoosh!
One by one, the alien evil spirits spread their arms, glided through the air with their wing membranes, and spit out dark green bullets from their logging guns.

With a sharp whistling sound, bullets, half-solid and half-illusory, pierced through Hrud's hinged armor and struck their bodies.

The dying Hruds let out unprecedented, terrifying screams.

The sound reminded Keown of the ticking of the last second, or the ultimate decay of the last star.

This is the death scream of time itself.

Amidst the terrifying screams, the madness in Hrud's dark eyes temporarily receded, replaced by a flash of crimson hatred as he temporarily shifted away from the direction of the stasis device.

Hrud roared as he raised his plasma flintlock pistol, unleashing a green beam hotter than a star.

The plasma beam continuously adjusted its phase in both the physical and subspace realms before striking the evil spirit.

bang bang bang...

Amidst a series of explosions, the evil spirits' bodies burst apart.

Amidst the dark green shadowy light, the evil spirits reformed their forms.

Some lost their left arms, while others had large holes torn open in their abdomens...

The "Gatekeeper" stared at his ghost. The Hrud plasma beam, not limited to the real world, possessed a certain subspace property, making it far more lethal to evil spirits than the plasma weapons of the Empire and the Space Dwarves.

However, the damage is limited to the area directly hit; the area affected by the spread of the fire pillar will not cause any damage.

After the evil spirits reformed, they immediately launched an attack, as if they had not lost any part of themselves, only their cries became even more shrill.

The beastly alien spirit roared as it charged toward Hrud, swinging its weapon in an attack.

The hammer slammed into Hrud, piercing straight through his hinged armor and smashing his body, which was covered in pus.

The axe cleaved through his dark eyes and smashed his head into a pile of mud.

……

The "gatekeeper's" spiritual intuition was suddenly triggered. He turned to look ahead and felt that a dozen or so Hruds had suddenly appeared there.

A look of seriousness flashed across Keon's eyes, indicating that the Hruds' distorted force field was beginning to take effect in a world filled with static force fields.

Since the Black Emperor activated the stasis device created by Lord Peturabo, the distortion effect of the Hruds has never taken effect here in the past four months.

Hundreds of Hrud city-ships and tens of thousands of fungus-encased migration ships arrived in the star system only to be ambushed by six scattered warband fleets.

The Ramirez-class star fortresses in the main star's orbit have become meat grinders.

Of those who broke through the earth's surface, not a single one survived.

Although they still number nearly 200 million in total, without the protection of the entropy energy field, they are still an easy enemy to deal with.

The distortion effect is now taking effect, indicating that the static force field has been affected.

As Keown pondered, on the orbit, thirty-four city ships and one hundred and fifty-eight migration ships formed a petal-like array, pressing towards the Ramirez-class star fortress.

In the central area, a section of the punishment-class reactor cable in the power room suddenly rotted and broke off, scattering into a pile of dust.

Isidore quickly led his entourage forward.

His armor was unpainted because it failed to withstand the attack on Sonem 8, becoming the first to commit the crime of attacking a fellow soldier, and was stripped of his rank of technical sergeant, and at the same time lost its paint.

After the outbreak of war, Isidore, as the only shadow of order within the Ramirez-class star fortress, voluntarily went to the power room to perform the most dangerous maintenance mission.

Over the past fifteen sidereal days, he has performed the repairs a total of 261 times.

The armor was pitted and dull after countless repairs.

Now, he no longer has the energy or time to maintain it.

Isidore's six servo arms behind him danced like spider legs.

In an attempt to atone for his sins, he pushed his own potential to its limits, installing more mechanical prosthetics on himself than he was capable of.

In order to be able to use it, Isidore used a stimulant made from Om Messiah oil every day, which further accelerated his aging by overworking his body.

He aged 2,900 years in a short period of time, his black hair fell out, his neck was covered with age spots, and his skin became dry and withered.

Isidore's right leg made a loud clicking sound, a sign of wear and tear that the technical sergeant knew was a result of injury. He remembered the manufacturing date stamped on the data stamp when it was replaced five hours earlier: 901764.M30.

It's only been four months since then.

It decayed as quickly as the cable in your hand.

Crash.

Sections of cable came loose, and Isidore let out a frustrated sigh.

His maintenance failed.

Isidore looked toward the energy core, which extinguished in a sudden burst of light.

The indoor equipment disintegrated, and a rain of metal atoms drifted down.

Isidore's six servo arms snapped back with a screeching sound.

A robotic arm developed holes and wobbled as it fell to the ground.

The other robotic arm shattered, scattering into a pile of parts.

Isidore lowered his head, staring intently at his chest, his four arms moving rapidly in front of him to outline the legion's insignia.

Dust poured down from the cracks in his armor, and the agonizing screams of the Punishment-class reactor echoed in his ears, yet a relieved smile appeared on his sorrowful face.

With the death of the energy core, the fortress-level energy shield ceased functioning, and the entire star fortress rapidly decayed.

The Ramirez-class star fortress, which was designed to serve for at least three thousand years, was transformed into a shower of metal and fell upon the surface of Viziore after only eighteen years of construction.

The stasis field light covering the entire planet dimmed noticeably.

The entire planet trembled violently, and huge cracks appeared on its surface.

The earth's crust shifted, and the magma cooled rapidly under Hrud's strange influence. Then, pulled by the static force field and the entropy energy field, it broke through the earth's crust and swallowed tens of thousands of black-armored warriors.

Hundreds of millions of Hruds were shrouded in a hazy veil.

One moment, the bombs were hitting their targets precisely, shattering the enemy's explosives. Some detonated prematurely due to the decay of the explosives inside, while others sped away at incredible speeds, only to miss the distorting force field...

The black armor disintegrated and shattered, spilling dust and sand.

One by one, the shadows of order turned their hair white, their skin as thin as paper.

The intermittently appearing Hrud city-ships crashed down like mountains, while the fungus-covered migratory ships pierced down like javelins.

As time accelerated in a reverse flow, strange lights flashed, and hundreds of bizarre spherical cannons were unleashed.

They took root in the ground and fired towards the altar.

The dazzling energy aura shattered the nest city and the remaining battlements, sending rocks and stones flying as it crashed into the stasis device.

Within the altar, Ninglu took flight, his golden wings flapping.

Golden flames suddenly rose up and enveloped the air.

A barrage of beams of light shot into the golden ocean, only to be instantly submerged.

With a flick of his wrist, the "Chaos Mentor" produced a 1.4-meter-long flag, and his spirituality surged forth.

"In the name of the 'Red Priest,' I beseech the disordered realm to grant me power, to amplify the power of the static field to its fullest extent."

Thirty-three, even-numbered black and gold pillars, each eleven meters tall, exploded and disintegrated, their densely packed runes radiating a dazzling light.

A beam of light shot into the sky, illuminating a shining star in Viziore.

Black mist rose and enveloped the stasis device.

The dim light of the static force field suddenly became bright, expanding and enveloping the entire planet's 120,000-kilometer-diameter cosmic region.

The hazy veil was torn apart, and the warships that were rushing madly toward Viziores disappeared.

The torn and disintegrated planet has stabilized again, and the Shadow Order of the six warbands launches an annihilation campaign.

They charged angrily at the aliens, bombs exploding and blasting the stinking aliens that had revealed themselves into pieces.

In the void, a black fleet emerged from the stars surrounding the galaxy, encircling the exposed Hrud warship.

After a long period of silence, the macro cannon began to reload, and the machine spirit roared angrily as it fiercely attacked the alien warship.

Amidst the silent explosion, the massive city-ship, as large as a nest, disintegrated and shattered, flames accelerating their burning in the remaining time.

Fungal-encased debris rained down on the ground.

(End of this chapter)