Warhammer 40k: Melee Warriors

The four candidates who had fought their way out of the family feud met before setting off, and Komi was invited by Griffin to join their conversation.

Frizz smiled at Komi, and with her white dress embroidered with gold thread, she sat gracefully on the magnificent chair, looking like a holy beauty who had stepped out of a painting.

Komi responded politely to Fritz's overtures. Since he had already signed an agreement with Griffin, there was no need for him to provoke anyone else.

Seeing how Komi treated her, Frizzle looked sad, clearly regretting not being able to gain the support of a saint.

There were those who were willing to give Gu Jian a friendly look, and there were those who were unwilling to give him a friendly look. The moment he pushed open the door, the pious Imran's scrutinizing gaze fell on him like a knife.

In stark contrast to the holy and dignified Fris, Imaran was dressed like an ascetic, his body covered in coarse linen clothes, his shiny bald head topped with a blazing brazier. The constant heat emanating from the brazier had scorched the edge of his head where it touched the fire, but he did not suffer from this; instead, he regarded it as part of his spiritual practice.

When Komi found a seat, Imran rolled up his sleeves, revealing the marks of purity and inquisition on his arm. Each mark spoke to Komi of his past loyalty, and of the thousands of heretics and mutants who had died under his judgment.

Koken has always been indifferent to the gaze of religious fanatics.

There's no reasoning with these people; they only believe in their own judgment, and no amount of other people's words can sway their minds. The only thing that can make them change is the will of God.

The last one was Harald, who hid himself inside an alien-sized, heavy coat. His large hat, adorned with many unique bird feathers and beast tails, completely covered him, which made Komi wonder how Harald could walk without being pulled by the excessively heavy coat.

Griffin clapped his hands twice to draw everyone's attention, and said, "This is Saint Otto. He has eliminated enough aliens to earn a medal personally awarded by the Sector Governor! With him by our side, I believe the purge of the traitor Harland will be swift as lightning!"

Imran snorted. Although he disliked Komi's move to organize the demi-humans into an army, he had nothing to say about their undeniable achievements.

“Saint Otto’s contributions have indeed improved the situation somewhat, but is that really enough for us to relinquish control of an entire world? That’s Harald’s world, capable of producing Leman Rustank, Chimera armored vehicles, and even petrified lizard self-propelled cannons, not some undeveloped, barren planet where you can only mine rocks.” Harald’s voice rustled the fur on his coat. He didn’t acknowledge the promise Griffin had made to Komi. He reached out from under his coat and lifted the brim of his large hat, revealing a spider-like mechanical eye gleaming beneath it.

“Indeed.” Frith placed a handkerchief to her lips in agreement with Harald’s idea. “Griffin, you’re not the chieftain yet. How is making such a decision any different from deception?”

Imran closed his eyes and remained silent, but the downward turn of his lips betrayed his inclination.

Koji glanced at Griffin. These were the problems he should be solving. Griffin had already thought of them. He presented his family history and used a past example to shut everyone up.

"In M38.882, the family patriarch, Draco, and the Mechanicus's exploration fleet jointly set their sights on a world overrun by aliens. The authority of the merchant ronin clashed with the faith of the Mechanicus, and neither side was willing to back down. Just as our family was about to clash with the exploration fleet, the Terra High Lords offered a solution to the problem."

Having read through her family history to the point of almost memorizing it, Frizzle couldn't help but add, "The two armies launched their attacks from the Arctic and Antarctic towards the equator. Whoever crossed the equator first would gain control."

Koji was a little nervous when he heard this. What a Warhammer version of "first come, first served"? History really is a cycle, and what happened in the past will continue to happen in the future in a different way.

As if waiting for Griffin to say this, Harald chuckled a few times and rose from his chair. "Then let's do it this way, according to the old tradition. We'll split into four groups and see who can breach Harald's spire first. If you lead the Saints in first, then I won't say a word."

Harald left without looking back after saying those words.

Chapter 514: Where else is rich in minerals? The graves of the dead.

Koji frowned slightly; he sensed that this attack on the traitor would not go too smoothly.

The alliance has already fractured before the war has even begun, which is certainly not a good sign.

As the fleet entered the warp, ships began to disappear into the turbulent currents of the warp before they had gone far. The crew remained unmoved, as this was all too common in warp navigation. In contrast, it was extremely rare for the Punisher to always leave the warp unscathed.

After leaving the warp, the fleet needed some time to clean up the madmen and mutants on the warships, and Imaran led the pilgrim army to spread fire throughout every filthy compartment.

Under their merciless cleanup, only the Exterminator remained unscathed. The crew, bound together by the Beast Brew and the energy of the Aether Field, could even look directly at the demons and traverse the Corruption. The whispers of the Warp and the ominous light posed no challenge to them.

The fleet quickly reached the edge of the star system, where the world called Ironbreaker, controlled by Harland, was surrounded by massive, curved mining platforms.

The mineral content of the Iron Star is so high that it doesn't even need to be screened. It can be roughly mined and then put into the furnace for refining. This is why the mining stations on the orbit are equipped with ultra-high-power laser cutters. When minerals are needed, the mining station only needs to be stopped above the mining area along the track, and the laser cutter can cut the continent into huge rocks weighing tens of millions of tons.

Griffin decided to send soldiers to control these mining stations first to avoid being attacked by laser cutters after landing. The Astral Legion and the family's private army boarded torpedoes and continuously rammed into the mining stations, fighting in the narrow corridors and pipelines, and building an initial victory with blood.

Like Griffin, the Child Punishment Fleet, which surrounded the planet from other directions, prioritized capturing the mining stations and then used them as nodes to select suitable landing sites on Ironbreaker.

“We cannot deploy our troops near the main hive of Ironbreaker. Their land-based macroguns and anti-aircraft turret arrays will wipe out all our landing craft, and their void shields are sturdy enough that our naval guns cannot break through their defenses,” Griffin explained his strategic deployment to Koji. “According to the psionic prophecy, resistance in this depression will be the weakest, and it is also closer to the main hive of Teconk. If you lead the troops to land first, I think we can…”

"Who told you I was going into battle?"

Komi interrupted Griffin, which surprised the latter, because in his understanding, Komi was a brave warrior who always charged ahead in battle.

Seeing Griffin's confusion, Komi smiled and patted Griffin on the shoulder, saying, "I trust my soldiers to handle everything. They don't need me to keep an eye on them all the time."

"Really? Just relying on those demi-humans?"

"Yes, it's all thanks to those demi-humans. They are burdened with sin, yet they forge ahead relentlessly."

......

"Hey! Ella, it's been a long time!" Chief Warrior Gate greeted Ella. After the battle at the Eye of the Far East Fortress, he no longer held any prejudice against Ella. Fighting side by side and sharing life and death always builds a solid friendship very quickly.

Ella glanced at Gate, assuming he was greeting her to ask for some food, and before she got into the cockpit of her combat suit, she reached for her waist pouch.

"Here, take this and eat it."

Gates looked at Ella's outstretched hand, inside which lay a piece of pickled cat ear, clearly made by Ella from her own cat ear. This thing had a crisp, chewy texture and a unique flavor; its value on the Punisher exceeded that of an unopened bottle of Beast Brew.

Swallowing hard, Gate wiped his mouth with his hand. He was a loyal fan of Beast Brews, and when he could enjoy his beer outside the battlefield, he had to have some snacks to go with it. What could be better to accompany beer than the cat ears in Ella's hand?

At least in Gates's opinion, there was no other food available.

“Cough cough... That’s not what I wanted.” Gate pushed Ella’s hand back. “I just wanted to say that you are a brave and loyal warrior. Don’t let those guys’ words distract you. Look at yourself now. You’ve been fighting for so long to atone for your sins in the name of the Savior. You’re becoming less and less different from us. The only strange thing is that the ears that are sticking out of your hair. But I think those ears are actually quite cute.”

“Oh…” Ella knew that Gate’s words of comfort referred to the pilgrims who followed Imaran. Her brief encounter with them had been unpleasant, reminding Ella of her past life as a slave. They were bullied because of their cat-like appearance, and even survival was a luxury.

But...the Savior knew their suffering and brought hope.

Ella clenched her fists and looked at Gate. She knew that the Savior she believed in was not the Emperor, and that Gate and the others' faith had been deceived. She knew that Imran's accusations against them were correct.

They are not only unclean in body, but their faith is also impure.

It wasn't Ella's place to tell the truth. She simply gave Gate a deep look, forcefully shoved the cat ears into his arms, hoping that the savior would show some mercy to those of them who had been deceived, and then went into the cockpit to make final preparations.

Hey, that's a good start.

Gates pinched the cat ears to his nose and took a sniff; a pleasant smoky scent filled his nostrils.

After the battle is over, we'll use this as a snack with our drinks.

Getter chuckled and took a few steps into the cockpit of his combat suit, connecting with his machine spirit.

"You seem very happy?" the machine spirit asked with its expression.

"I feel like I'm going to win the heart of a nice girl. Would you give me your blessing?"

"I wish you well... but I don't want that."

The machine spirit is a little jealous, which is common on the Punisher. After all, not everyone is willing to tie their life to the machine spirit. Most people are willing to regard the machine spirit as their close friend and choose a real person to become their partner.

Komi sometimes worries that the machine spirits might become yandere due to jealousy, but judging from the current situation, very few machine spirits would go that far.

Gate knew how to soothe her. He opened the repair kit in the cockpit, took out a small battery, connected it to the screen, and started the machine. The buzzing current warmed the machine's soul, and a sound like a cat's purring echoed in Gate's ears.

Three hours later, the troops were ready. Gat, Ella's combat suit squads and other Orc soldiers landed on the planet's surface. In other directions on the planet, Harald, Imran, and Frith's troops were also rained down by the ships.

Iron-Cutting Star is shrouded in a layer of interwoven black and red clouds, formed by centuries of intense industrial activity. Each mining operation sends dust and black ash billowing from chimneys thousands of meters into the air, making it impossible for any sunlight to reach the surface of this planet.

As the landing module passed through the cloud, the outer shell rubbed violently against the suspended powder within it, creating lightning and flames of varying colors on the outer shell.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

One after another, landing pods of different sizes crashed to the ground, and then the hatches opened, and the Atonement-type combat suits immediately poured out to survey the surroundings.

“There are no enemies here... I thought there would be a fierce battle.” Gates was somewhat disappointed. He had really wanted to test the beacons they were issued in this first battle, but it seemed they wouldn’t be of much use in the short term.

"No...it's not that there aren't enemies here. Look at the horizon in the distance, what's that?"

Ella's voice came through the channel, and Gate looked into the distance and saw a large pile of smooth stones, each emitting lightning, slowly drifting toward them.

"This is...this is the Black Stone we saw in the fortress!" Gate exclaimed. The next moment, the lightning released by the Black Stone condensed and shot into the sky, illuminating the dark surface of Ironbreaker Star. Only then did Gate realize that the ground around them was not without enemies, but that those enemies were buried in the solid ground like dead people, and then revived in the lightning.

Chapter 515: Landing Failure

The resurrected dead swarmed across the nearby land, surrounding the landing forces under Blackstone's control. Their mangled bodies fused with the local minerals, making them incredibly tough to kill.

The Howler shotgun mounted on the combat suit can shatter the body of the dead with its enormous impact, scattering dried body tissue and ore all over the ground. The laser guns possessed by other soldiers have little chance of stopping the dead from getting closer.

Thousands of lasers were unleashed, burning the outer skin of the dead to ashes, but the minerals inside their bodies remained intact. They required even higher temperatures to melt, which required a laser gun to aim at a single spot and unleash half a magazine's worth of energy. Each soldier fighting in the landing zone was only issued three energy magazines.

Not all the dead were miners carrying picks and cutters; many were also soldiers who supervised the miners' work and upheld the authority of the rulers.

Their weapons share the same characteristics as their bodies, with mineral crystals and spikes adorning them, making them virtually impossible to capture and reuse.

The dead stiffly raised their weapons to fight back. The beams of light from the laser guns were not the usual crimson and golden yellow, but a blurry black, which was extremely inconspicuous on the harsh and dimly lit planet of Ironbreaker.

Many soldiers didn't realize the enemy had opened fire until they were hit by the black beam.

The combat suit troops, protected by mountain-patterned coatings and Xuan-style defensive armor, were not afraid of the attacks from these black beams, but the soldiers sent by Griffin could not ignore the damage this weapon could cause.

When the black beam of light falls on a soldier covered only by bulletproof armor, the soldier will feel his entire body being drawn to the wound.

"Ah! Help me! Help me!"

A soldier fell to the ground in a panic, screaming as he touched the dents in his bulletproof armor.

His superior officer shouted from afar, "You damned coward! That laser didn't penetrate your armor! Get up and keep fighting!"

Tears of anxiety streamed down the soldier's face beneath his fully enclosed helmet. The black laser had indeed failed to penetrate his armor, but he felt something about to burst from his body, an ominous premonition that made it impossible for him to remain calm.

The veteran beside him couldn't stand the soldier's weakness and prepared to reach out and pull him up from the ground.

At this moment, the soldier's screams grew louder and his struggles became even more intense. Just as his voice abruptly stopped, a sharp spike that had drained all the minerals from his body suddenly emerged from the crater in his bulletproof breastplate.

Maintaining a normal human body requires the coordination of various elements. When this spike absorbs certain mineral elements from the soldier's body, his body, which is protected by equipment, also disintegrates.

The veteran who tried to pull him up watched helplessly as a lively, energetic man turned into a murky liquid flowing from the gaps in his bulletproof chest armor. Even someone who had seen mountains of corpses and seas of blood couldn't help but curse how eerie it was.

Bang bang bang bang bang...

In the cockpit, Gates used his multi-barreled howler shotgun to smash hundreds of solidly wounded corpses. He planted the shield he was holding in his other hand into the ground to provide cover for the other soldiers.

The landing position, built around the combat suits, was extremely sturdy. Those soldiers belonging to Griffin who landed far from the combat suits were on the verge of annihilation. Their positions were compressed inch by inch by the surging dead, until finally they had to draw their bayonets and fight to the death.

The monomolecular blade bayonet is far more effective than the laser gun at cutting through the mineral bodies of the dead. However, the dead are not enemies who are willing to fight you one by one. They crowd together like a wall. When one of the dead has his limbs burned off by a volley of laser guns and his head chopped off by a bayonet, the dead next to him will push him forward.

"We need reinforcements! Where's the tank company? Why didn't they come down with us?!"

"Whoa! I'm being drained! I'm being drained!"

"Hold the line! You cowards! It's better to die for the Emperor than to live on for yourselves!"

"Keep firing! Keep firing!"

The battle situation at the landing site made Griffin in the ship's command room frown deeply. He had not expected that so many enemies could be hidden in that desolate depression.

He had no shortage of landing pods capable of airlifting Leman Rustam and heavy artillery, but these pods were too large and their speed was not impressive. Once they were targeted by the enemy's hidden air defense positions, there was no chance of survival.

In comparison, landing pods for infantry are much faster, and the pods, along with the soldiers inside, are extremely cheap compared to armored and artillery units. Even if a hundred landing pods were to explode in the sky in an instant, Griffin wouldn't even blink.