Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

The tunnel collapsed much deeper than Dantioch could have imagined.

He once thought that this was just a shallow tunnel dug by the Hrud people in the soil and rocks on the planet's surface for use in war, but soon he realized that even the time that this place was disturbed was affecting his distance. It was judged that he and Zoran had fallen for too long.

The glowing green stone walls were constantly flipping up and down in his field of vision, rising up from both sides of him. A blurry mural and a metal frame driven into the cracks of the stone were at the edge of the reach of his hands.

Dantioch seized every moment, trying to identify the lines on the stone wall. This attempt was unsuccessful, and he could only vaguely make out a group of smaller Hrud-like creatures worshiping around a larger creature, or some other vague image of Hrud-like life.

The creatures on the murals no longer resemble the Hrud people today, and even with just a brief glance, the battalion commander can tell the long time these dripping rocks have gone through. Long before the Hrud people migrated here for unknown reasons, they seemed to have had a different life, but everything has been buried in the vortex of time.

This is not the point.

The point is to survive.

Dantioch drew out the knife he carried with him, and when he swept past him at the protrusion of the non-vertical stone wall, he turned around and plunged the dagger into the rock wall. The single-molecule blade dagger was too sharp, and a harsh scratching sound and a tremor from the end of his arm helped Dantioch slightly slow down his rapid fall.

He aimed at a gap in the rock wall and threw his other free arm over. The knuckles at the end of the gauntlet barely fit into the gap, and forcibly expanded it to form a fulcrum to support himself. The hand holding the dagger moved horizontally at the same time. Say goodbye and stick the blade into the crack.

"Battal Commander!" Zoran shouted behind him, which seemed to contain some kind of warning, but the sergeant was only allowed to speak a limited number of syllables for a moment. Before Dantioch could respond, a huge wave of The force grabbed his legs and pulled him down hard, almost to the point of flipping backwards.

Dantioch cursed as he tried his best to bear the weight of two full-armoured Astartes in the air.

"Sorry!" Zolan's voice came from below. The sergeant tried hard to hold on to the battalion commander's combat boots and hung them in the abyss, swinging back and forth. "I can't hang it on the wall!"

"Ready!" Dantioch shouted, kicking Zoran towards the rock wall.

The sergeant finally found a chance to save himself as he was thrown against the wall.

"Thank you!" Zoran shouted back breathlessly.

Dantioch snorted coldly, still feeling frightened from being pulled so hard by Zoran. "Let's go down."

Rock climbing is not a standard part of Astartes training, but fortunately their physical fitness and computing skills alleviate some of this difficulty.

The closer you get to the bottom, the more obvious the distortion of time fluctuations becomes. The passage becomes unbearably hot, and the cooling cycle in the armor speeds up. An endless tremor permeates the armor and bones. The human brain responds to wrong senses. Resistance brought with it a queasy discomfort.

Time became difficult to calculate. Dantioch and Zoran repeated the mechanical rock climbing descent in the most energy-saving way, and occasionally asked each other whether the communication had been restored. The answer is always no.

Until Dantioch felt his limbs become numb and heavy, a dark light finally overflowed upward from below, accompanied by the sound of tiny digging sounds and the movement of living creatures. At the same time, the rock wall at the bottom was also treated with glass to stabilize the tremor caused by the presence of the Hrud.

Dantioch estimated the distance at the upper edge of the vitrified layer, adjusted his posture, and jumped down gently. For that thick armor, the sound of his falling to the ground was reduced to the minimum.

Seeing that Zoran was about to jump down as well, Dantioch rolled over to the side, allowing the sergeant to hit him next to him.

"Have these aliens dug through the entire planet?" Zoran cursed in a low voice. Enduring the severe pain caused by the fall, he stood up and checked the status of the weapons and equipment he carried with him. When he turned to his waist When he was picking up his satchel, Dantioch pulled him down and reminded the sergeant to observe the shadows in the tunnel.

A small team. Dantioch gestured.

Zoran squatted silently, his movements appearing sometimes fast and sometimes slow in the distortion of time. The anomaly in the entropy field here is different from other places. Time does not simply increase in speed. There seems to be another medium that conflicts with it and is neutralizing the trend of abnormal entropy increase.

After the Hrud team left, Dantioch took Zoran to choose one of the forked roads and continued moving forward. There are no clear distinctions between doors in these paths, and a large amount of decayed debris accumulates on the walls in a free manner, fixed by fungi that sprout in a humid environment. As Dantioch walked deeper, he built a three-dimensional model of the terrain here in his mind.

"There is light here." Zoran whispered, firstly because all the nearby Hrud people had left, and secondly because he felt that the gestures could not express his mood.

"Why not?" Dantioch said softly, turning the knife in his hand. Deep in the Hrud's lair, for the two Astartes who were alone, shooting rashly was not a good option.

"Well... after all, they are not the Eighth Legion." Zoran muttered, "How did the Hrud climb to the surface?"

"By their alien abilities."

"Then what do we do?"

"Rely on our imperial ability." Dantioch said calmly.

Before he finished speaking, a separate group of black mist suddenly appeared from the next corner.

Dantioch's expression did not change, he stepped forward in an instant, and cut into the entropy field surrounding the Hrud with one knife. His dagger quickly began to break, corrode, and was gnawed by time, while the surface of his ceramic steel armor floated A layer of particles appeared, and the yellow and black paint peeled off, showing the wear and damage of time.

It didn't help that the Hrud struggled and fought back in his iron-locked grasp. Within seconds, the decay ceased and the Hrud fell to the ground.

In the second before it dissipated like a dust haze, the caveman's mucus-flowing skin and giant black eyes were briefly observed, and then left together with time, entering the end. The time field created by the aliens also expired.

Dantioch coughed, and in that moment, his skin wrinkled slightly, and the beating of his two hearts was no longer so powerful. The shadow of death briefly passed over him.

If the delay was extended a little longer, or if more Hrud suddenly appeared, he might become the first Astartes to die of old age in the history of the Empire since the advent of the Space Marine program.

"Get out of the way!" Zoran shouted behind him, and Dantioch quickly jumped away. The cold invisible sickle of time slashed across his back, bringing a hint of danger under the ceramic armor.

He rolled to the side, and a stasis grenade passed by where he was standing just now, and hit Team Hrud who leaned out of a gap in the wall of the tunnel. The stasis field and entropy field were in front of him. Conflicts arise one after another, canceling each other out, and the dangerous balance is tipped over.

Before the consequences of playing with time could hit his head, Zoran rushed over, dragged the battalion commander and ran away, leaving the rapidly rising heat of the tunnel behind.

Soon, the one-sided explosion of space-time heat swept up the expanding explosion ripples. During the accelerated time, whether it was burning or explosion, it ended within a short period of time that could not be observed by the outside world, and solidified in the brilliant but stagnant firelight.

The tunnel behind Dantioch and Zoran officially began to collapse, with shaking ground and cracked rocks chasing their footsteps.

"Where did you get the stasis grenade?" Dantioch shouted.

"I always have a group with me. My cousin works in the armory—"

Zoran grabbed Dantioch's hand and pulled him into a crack in the wall. He watched in horror as a group of Hrud rushed toward the point of the explosion in disorder.

"Why are there so many Hrud here..." Zoran panted.

"Tell me first whether you have applied for it or not." Dantioch said.

"How dare I not fight?" Zolan trembled, "That's a joke, because my cousin is a sweeper servant."

Dantioch nodded slowly and squinted his eyes to examine where they were. This seemed to be another hidden passage, accidentally penetrated by the explosion just now, and thus reopened.

At the end of the road, there was an ambiguous light, attracting two soldiers to explore.

This may be the reason for the sudden increase in the number of Hrud here - they are guarding something.

"Let's go," Dantioch said softly, "let's go take a look."