40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 160 21. Life or death uncertain

Marius Gage was knocked out - he didn't know what knocked him out, but as he landed heavily, he could feel a biting coldness.

It came from under the left rib plate and began to spread at an extremely fast speed. The chill was obviously so real, but the wound itself gave him the feeling of being burned with promethium flames.

Gage got up after a few seconds, using willpower to suppress the possible impact of the pain. He had no fear, no wavering, not even a little bit of surprise, even if he had just been knocked down from a height of dozens of meters. The First Chapter Master cut through these things with an otherworldly and terrifying determination.

He retrieved the power sword he had dropped not far from where he fell, and then began to climb up the cliff. In the process, he picked up another name, a name welling up from deep in his heart - Robert Guilliman.

Some memories came back to him. His brain was not clear, and his body sense told Gage that he was having a fever. So he allowed his memories to act for the time being.

He slowly began to think back, from where the attack had first occurred, to the collapse of the ground, their fall, and Robert Guilliman's fall.

The attack came too quickly and suddenly, and they were separated during the fall. Gage wasn't even sure if his primarch was still alive at this moment.

He climbed to the top of the cliff with bare hands. The dark and fragile light underground did not get better. The air was filled with smoke and dust and the extremely unpleasant screams of the aliens. Gage ignored them and rushed over to join the battle.

He held the power sword with both hands, raised it high, rotated his wrist, and strode forward. The deadly dance formed by the sword was performed in the chaos. Death is the ticket, blood is applause, flying heads are cheers, and a bloody road to death is born.

Then he began to move forward, stepping over the primitive corpses of these aliens, panting, feeling as if his lungs were being tightly tied with red-hot wire, preventing him from taking a big breath.

He soon realized the reason - it was the poison, which had weakened the Astartes with a toxin capable of harming him.

He should have noticed this a long time ago, from the moment he was knocked away. Marius Gage sighed deeply, remembering the appearance of the thing that knocked him out and forced him to fall off the cliff, a wave of nausea surged into his heart.

It was taller than the Astartes, with layers of pale blue skin that formed disgusting wrinkles. Like other aliens that suddenly appeared, it also had eighteen eyes - eighteen eyes in each head. Ugly as hell.

And it has many heads, many hands, and many legs. The way it moves is like a monster in a nightmare has come to reality. It moves on the ground like a bug, and its seemingly long and fragile legs can pierce the chest of the power armor with one blow.

Above those densely packed heads is a huge mouth, with yellow-brown venom bubbling between two separate tentacles. It took Gage half a second to recall what this thing looked like. He stopped imagining the details, gripped the blade, and started running towards his brothers.

The battle cry of the Ultramarines was too obvious in the darkness, not to mention that Gage knew where they were - he had gathered a small team after the fall, and he was fighting alongside them before being knocked away.

He ran that way, his weakening strength mercifully not stopping Gage from completing the task. Forty-seven seconds later, he rejoined them. The monster that knocked him out was fighting them. It was huge but its movements were very agile.

An Ultramarine was firing at it, heavy explosive shells hitting it, causing a storm of flesh and blood. This thing screamed. No flesh and blood body could withstand the power of heavy explosive bombs, and this thing was no exception, but it showed an astonishing tenacity.

It reared up like a dexterous cat amid the flying flesh and blood. The huge mouth on its back opened, and the two giant tentacles like lips stirred up, and the yellow-brown venom poured down.

The Astartes who was shooting fire immediately retreated. He moved quickly, but his right hand was still stained with a little venom. They quickly began to corrode the power armor, hissing as the armor melted away, and then the flesh itself.

By the end, all the limbs below the elbow of his right hand had disappeared, and the turbid liquid kept dripping, but the Astartes didn't even scream. The pain was temporarily blocked, allowing him to make better decisions.

He shouldered the heavy bomb and retreated immediately. Others began to use firepower to contain the huge monster. It took Gage a few seconds to judge the general situation. He did not join the battle group immediately, but waited quietly in the shadows for a while - until the thing straightened its back again and planned to repeat its same trick, he Finally rushed out.

"Go back to hell!" Marius Gage roared and swung his sword down - no matter how tenacious the thing's vitality is and how terrifying its appearance is, there is one thing it can't get around.

It is a flesh-and-blood creature, and it is absolutely impossible for any flesh-and-blood creature to withstand a power sword.

Under Gage's furious blow, the monster's dozen hind legs, which it relied on to straighten up, were instantly cut off. It fell to the ground wailing, and countless densely packed heads began to rotate, and hundreds, or thousands, of eyes began to blink at Gage.

He sneered fearlessly. Needless to say, the Ultramarines team did not waste this opportunity. The heavy fireman who had been waiting for a long time rushed forward and activated the flamethrower, and the deadly destructive power of promethium began to appear.

The monster screamed and scrambled to its feet, trying to escape, but the Ultramarines would not give it another chance. Half a minute later, its body riddled with holes fell to the ground, burning. The same thing happened to Gage. He fell between a rock and his cheek twitched.

"Pharmacist!" shouted a man in the darkness. "Come here! Chapter Master needs help! Others are on alert!"

Gage raised his hand and tried to speak, but his limbs and lips had begun to fail. His face inside the helmet began to twitch continuously. Misia, the pharmacist who came over, grabbed him, laid him flat, pulled off the broken helmet, and began to perform inspections.

Two injections of antidote and one injection of stimulant were slowly injected, and two minutes later, Gage was finally able to speak.

"Where is the Primarch? Has communication been restored?" he asked very quickly. He had to confirm these things.

"We still haven't found the whereabouts of the Primarch, Chapter Master. Communications have been partially restored, but the situation on the ground is not optimistic. They are everywhere. Our people are carrying out emergency repairs."

Gage looked at the person who answered him: "What's your name?"

"Vlady Arndt, sir, sergeant of the third company."

"Very good, sergeant." Gage turned his head and gestured to the pharmacist, asking him to check on the soldier who had lost his right hand.

After doing this, he looked back at the sergeant: "How many people can we contact now?"

"It's not certain yet. Only more than 600 people responded to the communication we sent. The situation on the ground is slightly better, and our bombers have been dispatched."

"Bomber?" Gage felt his numb lips and shook his head.

"Yes." Vladimir Arndt nodded and began to explain.

"The city of the Harkossians was also attacked, and their civilians were dying, and the provisional government official who replaced one of the merchants, the leader of the Chamber of Commerce, sent us a distress signal. The civilians of the Harkossians also Half an hour to evacuate the bombing area or find a safe place to hide."

Gage thought hard. Nowadays, it has become very difficult for him to do this orderly thing. Fortunately, he had not lost his most basic tactical literacy, and he quickly realized what this meant.

"This is a full-scale attack—" the First Chapter Commander said weakly. "-These things have been planned for a long time, Sergeant. We must get this news back to the Macragge's Glory and let them inform our cousins. Harkossus is a Federation and it has three planets."

"Understood, sir," the sergeant said. "What do we do next?"

Robert Guilliman.

Gage's lips and teeth began to tremble. He reached out his hand and let the sergeant pull him up. The once strong legs were now trembling. The poison was contained, but it still had some impact on him.

And Gage had no time to worry about whether it would affect him in the future. He stood up straight and thought for a while. Then he felt a twinge of fear.

It was not the fear of death, nor the fear that those toxins might make him disabled. He thought he would never feel this emotion again. Genetic modification and long-term training gave every Astartes the ability to inject fear. Human beings have extraordinary resistance to extreme emotions.

However, he was sweating now.

Robert Guilliman.

Gage's right hand began to tremble, and it wasn't from the poison.

"Sir?" Vladimir Arndt looked at him, waiting for the next order, with hidden uneasiness in his eyes. Gage didn't answer immediately. He looked around and found that everyone in the team was staring at him.

Robert Guilliman.

Is he dead? We plummeted to the surface, and I saw countless corpses along the way - would he survive? Is he fighting? they asked silently.

Gage's thoughts were as chaotic as a tangled thread. He was silent for a long time, and finally gave an answer.

".We keep fighting," he said. "Until we win or until we kill them all."

He didn't mention Robert Guilliman, not even a word.

There are still two chapters left, ten thousand today, to make up for yesterday’s arrears.