The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Chapter 2887: Desert Rangers (Middle)

Currently, this new type of composite bolter gun doesn't have a name. This Tyranid operation is also considered an experiment with the new weapon. It's generally equipped in the 1st to 3rd Companies, but the 10th Company also received some. Jacob is one of the users.

Afterward, he checked the communication backpack on his back, ensuring it was working correctly. This was their only channel of communication with the rear. The Tyranids could interfere with most communications, and only by carrying this specialized anti-interference equipment could they contact the rear.

"I'm all set here, how about you guys?"

Neil also finished checking his weapons: a chainsword, two pistols (one bolter pistol and one plasma pistol), six grenades. His main weapon was also a composite plasma bolter, but he also carried an arc rifle on his back. This weapon, originally mainly used by the Adeptus Arbites, was modified into an Astartes version by someone. This arc rifle had greater power and a self-protection function, and it could jump multiple times after hitting an enemy, making it a very efficient area-of-effect weapon. More importantly, it could be charged to increase its power and generate a powerful denial force.

"I'm good here."

After Neil finished speaking, Kusakala also completed his inspection. Because he was still a recruit, he only had one plasma pistol, six grenades, and a power sword as his melee weapon, which he won as a prize for getting third place in the recruit competition. His main weapon was a regular bolter, and his secondary weapon was a multi-purpose railgun from the Leagues of Kin. This sniper rifle had extremely strong penetration, and after aiming and locking onto a target, the smart bullets also had a tracking function. During the Great Maelstrom expedition, Thorson ordered a batch of ordnance from the Leagues of Kin, and this was one of them.

Although it was a Leagues of Kin weapon, it wasn't exactly illegal in the Imperium, but it might attract criticism if an Astartes used it.

But in war, sometimes you can't worry about so much.

"Boss, I'm good here too."

Finally, there was Rikas. His configuration was basically the same as Kusakala's, except his melee weapon and secondary weapon were different. His melee weapon was a chainsword, and his secondary weapon was a melta-dissolving gun with a silver metallic texture, which could be understood as an upgraded version of a melta weapon. It had both focused and scattered modes, similar to the Eldar Fire Dragon's fusion gun.

This thing was completely imported from the Squats, only modified in appearance to adapt to the Astartes' physique.

"I'm ready too, Captain."

"Okay, let's go."

The four-man squad walked out of the windmill wreckage, carefully walking through the yellow fog formed by the spore cloud in a standard formation of one person in front, two in the middle, and one at the rear.

Violent winds would occasionally blow, stirring up dust and causing the yellow fog to flow like a liquid. Their cloaks were able to stick tightly to their backs during this process, almost unaffected by the wind.

In order not to trigger the spore mines above their heads, they had to keep their waists as low as possible while moving.

Suddenly, Jacob, who was walking in the front, raised his hand and made a tactical gesture. Rikas and Kusakala immediately stepped forward, while Neil faced away from the three and cautiously retreated.

Finally, they came to the back of a rock. Jacob slightly poked his head out, and with the help of the additional optical observation equipment on his helmet, filtered out the interference of the fog and saw a large group of Tyranids passing by, mostly Termagants and Hormagaunts, and some larger creatures among them.

"Damn it!"

Jacob suddenly cursed, quickly retracted his head, and then made a gesture. The other three immediately retreated into the shadow of the boulder and gripped their weapons.

With a bang, a Warrior jumped directly onto the boulder and looked around, as if searching for something. The four under the stone held their breath and prepared to fire.

Unable to find any prey, the Warrior roared and, as if blind to everything under its feet, jumped off the boulder and quickly disappeared into the fog.

"Wow, it didn't even see us. Are Tyranid creatures really that blind?"

Kusakala, as always, was the first to speak, but was immediately hit hard on the helmet by Jacob.

"Shut up! Tyranids have very sensitive senses. Even if we communicate using radio, it might be detected."

Jacob cautiously took out a miniature reconnaissance robot from the tactical box on his thigh. This thing, the size of an adult's thumb, vibrated its miniature wings and flew out of the shadow of the boulder, hovering at a height of twenty meters and transmitting the surrounding images to Jacob's tactical eyepiece.

After confirming that there were no Tyranid ground creatures nearby, Jacob waved his hand and took the lead in walking out with his gun, followed closely by the other three.

"I guess it's the cloak's effect."

Rikas said softly and shook his cloak.

"That's amazing. I can't see any equipment on it. Is the fabric itself special? But it clearly can't cover our entire body, it looks more like psychic power than technology."

Neil suddenly interrupted the two's conversation.

"Don't guess randomly. The Chapter doesn't have any Librarians and doesn't involve any psychic technology."

As the four went deeper, more bizarre and terrifying scenes appeared. For example, when they passed through the destroyed city, they saw large groups of obese, multi-legged creatures, not much bigger than bags, vomiting huge amounts of bile into pools dug out by strangely shaped Ravener. Jacob and the others believed this might be a unique construction behavior. They didn't know that the Tyranids were building digestion pools to extract minerals and organic matter from the soil and rocks. In the following dozen or so cycles, barbs would continuously grow out of the ground, extracting and transporting the materials needed by the Hive Fleet, and then be eaten and recycled when the consumption phase ended.

When they passed through the already built digestion pools, they saw things that had grown into huge capillary towers, like space elevators directly connected to the bio-ships in orbit, used to transport large amounts of biomass harvested from the planet.

"Truly terrifying and incredible..."

Jacob stared at the huge capillary tower that looked like an umbilical cord not far away. Putting aside everything else, its scale alone was enough to be called a miracle.

"How can living things have this kind of strength? How do they overcome the atmospheric pressure, gravity, hot and cold differences, and even the planet's rotation from the ground to orbit?"

Rikas also exclaimed. After all, a pipeline made of biomass connecting from the ground to space orbit was something that no one would believe existed without seeing it with their own eyes.

As they went deeper into the Tyranid-occupied area, more and more Tyranid creatures began to become common. Not only were there groups of Termagants and Hormagaunts, but also Warrior clusters gathering in groups of three or five, driving small creatures like herding sheep. This made their actions more difficult, but it also meant one thing—

They were approaching their target.