The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Chapter 2684: Assassin and Wraith (Part 1)

"Is everyone ready?"

In the darkness, McCarty gripped his heavy needler pistol, emitting a sound only his kind could hear. The four shadows around him nodded in agreement.

"No firing without orders. Our mission is to locate the enemy commander and determine their possible size. This is a reconnaissance mission."

Then he covered his inhuman face with amask, compared to normal humans, the flesh on his face was waxy and dull, with a protruding brow plate in the middle of his head, his eyes were lightless black, he wore a well-made combat suit, his arms, legs, and torso were additionally protected by flexible bulletproof material, and a black cloak was draped behind him.

They are the most mysterious assassin species in the Order, a third-generation improved breed, produced from the best genes of the believers, with super sensory abilities, able to keenly perceive changes in the surrounding world.

The rapidly discharging neurons in the assassin species' predatory brain allow them to enter a transcendent bullet time – in this case, enemies seem to be moving at an extremely slow speed, allowing the assassin species to calmly replace bullets and calmly aim the barrel at the target in the blink of an eye, and then harvest life one by one. In addition, enhanced pheromone detection and thermal vision allow the assassin species to accurately hit targets even in dark environments, and the sophisticated pre-auricular vestibular system provides superhuman physical balance and coordination.

All of this makes them excellent assassins, as well as highly skilled scouts.

However, this mission is still a challenge for them, because they are not scouting those sluggish mechanical soldiers or stupid mechanical slave owners, but the soulless metal skeletons lurking deep underground – which the Order calls metal ghouls.

Some superstitious claims believe that these things are wraiths seeking revenge on the living, carrying the resentment of people who were brutally persecuted to death, but the Order's high-level or rational people scoff at this, including McCarty.

Because he had scouted the mechanical slave owner's underground laboratory, he knew that these were machines, just special machines, that should be very old.

The Order had not tried to take advantage of these things, after all, their technology looked very advanced, but the result was disastrous. It seemed that their actions angered the other party, followed by terrible retaliation and slaughter, and even the Order was driven out of its former home.

But now, they can't stay on the ground either. The Order doesn't have many choices. The bishops chose to withdraw most of the personnel and equipment to the underground on the one hand, and keep only a small number of guerrilla combat personnel on the ground to contain the Empire's forces. On the other hand, they want to figure out the specific situation underground. If there are not many of these mechanical monsters, they may be able to concentrate all their strength to fight them to the death and drive them away – the Order has accumulated a considerable number of weapons by riots, and is not as weak as before.

So, their mission is very heavy, and after going down, their spiritual connection with the bishops will be cut off, and they can only rely on themselves to deal with emergencies.

This is also why the assassin species were chosen, they are not only agile, but also have flexible minds.

After confirming each other's status, the five-person team climbed down the shaft all the way. This was originally a conveying channel that led directly to the mechanical slave owners' underground laboratory. The bishops judged that the metal ghouls first appeared from there.

As they gradually approached the target, McCarty saw a faint light, and these dim lights also enlarged his outline, and the projected strange shadows were no different from weird arachnids.

But suddenly, McCarty stopped. In each other's minds, he reminded his companions in a slow and dull tone.

"They are coming from below, moving very fast."

With the help of an extra arm, they can climb and use weapons at the same time. After receiving the news, the assassins immediately dispersed and scanned the dark shaft.

In the end, McCarty's needler pistol made three extremely weak sounds, and something below immediately made a mechanical and angry sharp burst. Each member of the team was well-trained and comfortable, and could fire in an orderly manner as a whole without any instructions.

The scurrying figures sprinted along the shaft towards them. Several limbs allowed them to climb the walls of the tunnel effortlessly. The heat flow from the bullets tore the approaching figures to pieces and threw their broken wreckage back into the abyss, but the resilience of these attackers was surprisingly strong. The impact absorbed by the artificial body covered with outer armor was enough to turn ordinary soldiers with only flesh and blood into a pile of wet rags.

Soon, a mechanized skeletal Tech-Guard charged directly at McCarty, its stained red robes flying up and down. The assassin caught a glimpse of the tubes and lenses under the hood, and the stained skull gear pattern on its armor was clearly visible.

He was very familiar with these Adeptus Mechanicus slave soldiers, but at this time they were different from the past.

It seemed even crazier.

The Tech-Guard rushed towards McCarty, and incomprehensible screams composed of static electricity and machine language came from its sound array grille. The assassin fired two shots in a row, chiseling a crater in the opponent's breastplate.

But this thing was unmoved, and tried to hit him like a beast.

McCarty flipped to the side in a flexible posture, then held the wall tightly with one hand, and drew a curved short blade from his waist that had killed a dozen slave soldiers.

With a series of bursts, he cleanly chopped off the two limbs waved by the Tech-Guard, and then backhanded a knife to split its head in half.

Despite suffering a fatal blow, this highly mechanized Tech-Guard was still twitching until it was kicked down.

"These slave soldiers are strange, as if they have lost the behavior of using weapons."

Just as McCarty was trying to figure out the strange details, another Tech-Guard screamed and rushed up against the assassins' firepower, and the air was once again filled with the noise of battle until it was cut to pieces.

Then there was a dead silence. The assassins were silent because they had internally communicated their feelings to each other.

Like McCarty, the others also felt strange, because they had developed a habit of doubting everything because they needed to wander inside the enemy for many years. The behavior of these slave soldiers was very abnormal, and they should not appear here.

Unless, they were here from the beginning, in the laboratory below.

McCarty had a deep impression of that place, especially the moment of its final destruction. He couldn't figure out what happened in that chaotic scene, but after that, the place was designated as a restricted area by the Order, and no mechanical slave owners and slave soldiers inside had ever come out again.

But now they seem to have appeared, have they discovered them, or are they simply running into each other?