Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

"Why hope that He does not exist? Why try so hard to deny Hell and judgment? Some people do this just to have more confidence when doing evil." - "The Book of Lorgar"

Kroger fed a new magazine into the magazine. The auxiliary computing system in the helmet reminds him of everything about himself. He, the weapon he wields like an arm, and the layer of armor on his exterior, that layer of light and heavy, close-fitting and hard skin.

Perhaps from the outside, the armor they wore was so bulky that it must have caused a lot of inconvenience. No, this second layer of skin makes them light and agile enough, protected and easy to fight. This completes them as a Space Marine, an Astartes, a true warrior bearing the blood of the Emperor and Primarch, and nothing else.

It offsets the weakness of pure flesh and blood, and protects the warrior's hammer-like will. It makes them armored with steel inside and out.

"...I also want to suggest to my father that we add a large bathhouse on the ship. If you have nothing to do, take off your armor and go there to take a bath. You know, last time I heard mortals secretly commenting that we smelled like sweat! Throne, my heart is broken Broken……"

Kroger turned the bolter over in his hand, checking its condition. It lay docilely and lovingly against his palm, an excellent tool. It has cleared dozens of square meters of enemies today, executing every one of his will diligently and loyally. The reason why we use this counting unit is because it is the most appropriate one.

He raised the muzzle of the gun and pointed it at the shadow that the scanner pointed out to him. A sharp biological activity detection peak was flashing on the instrument screen, just like the zigzag lines like the sharp teeth of the battlements on the top of the city defense fortress. Hidden inside, there is richness. Power must be removed.

"Fire," he whispered, his voice carried over the comm channel. Luna Wolf Jack's bullet was the first to touch the enemy material, and a piece of blood exploded in the air, rapidly spreading in the narrow passage. Some sticky falling sounds hit the ground, accompanied by infrasound wails and calls.

"Flash bomb," the Dark Angel prompted. Four seconds later, the entire wall was illuminated as brightly as the midday sun. A bunch of huge eyeballs embedded in a cone-shaped pile of flesh were illuminated and closed. The remaining team members quickly To supplement the firepower, under the barrage, these effects are equivalent to the eyeballs of the light spear launcher being completely blown away from multiple angles.

"We are His eyes that look at the world, and His hot light bursts out in our souls..." Hashem was thinking quietly as he was showered with flesh and blood, as if he was still in a sacred building. "...the fire from the gun helps us cleanse - the acid is coming."

The pained body captured the presence of the team. On the organ-like soft ground covered with some kind of mucus under their feet, the hidden glands immediately began to spit out highly corrosive acid, slowly seeping towards the bottoms of their combat boots. . This liquid can cause damage to their armor, and the degree of damage increases with the time it stays. The results of staying in it will be devastating.

"Time is running out," Luna Wolf said quickly, checking the crimson wall for any remaining dangerous turrets after the salvo. No. Each rounded platform was cleansed, leaving no second blackened burn mark on his pearly white armour. "Let's go!"

They burst out of the area and into new shadows. There is no source of lighting in the depths of this Ran Dan ship. Even the outer levels, which pretend to be a regular ship using metal and inorganic substances, do not have lights.

Just like a real animal, there is no need to illuminate your internal organs internally.

"...Why do you have eyes in your belly," Jack said, "It's so ugly. I'm serious."

"The Iron Warriors didn't say they were ugly. Do you want your artistic achievements to be higher than them, Jack?" Dark Angel Gerry said. Every step he took would leave a deep footprint on the flexible structure of the ground.

“I can’t build the Imperial Palace out of clay, so I can’t say this place is ugly—!”

Jack ran into an alien creature with multi-jointed bony tentacles. The twelve tentacles spread out from the wings like expanded ribs. Two groups of them were supported on the ground. The tip of each tentacle was a sharp edge. bone knife. Its main body is an insect-like three-section ellipsoid-shaped limb wrapped in a carapace, with simple dark pink lines emerging on the surface. There were two eyes on the head, which were dark brown in color, staring straight at him. The deformed luster made it difficult to breathe.

The Luna Wolves have undoubtedly experienced hundreds of battles on battlefields in various places, but the existence of Randan's aliens continues to refresh his understanding of aliens - they are the most diverse race he has ever seen.

Then, he knocked it down, used his power claws to tear apart the hard bone tentacles, bending them one by one like weeds, and used the weight of himself plus the power armor to force it to fight back ferociously. A few seconds later, he pinched the last tentacle of the alien, broke it back, or even tore it off directly. A splash of yellow-green mucus spurted out from the severed limb, and the alien fell, its unblinking eyes staring upward.

Jack threw away the severed limb in his hand. Just holding it made him feel sick. He was not sure whether it was the influence of biological toxins or some unknown psychic element.

"Read some Imperial truth for me, Hashem?" Jack shouted.

Before the Word Bearers could answer, Kroger was the first to roar, "Get out of the way!"

After the first one appeared, the sound of more bones colliding came from behind the corner. Iron Warrior Hammer took out a grenade and quickly smashed it into the incoming alien group, blasting a passage.

They ran while aiming, and the aiming point was uncertain. Fortunately, the bullets hitting any corner of the biological ship were not wasted. A large number of shattering sounds exploded in the firelight, the enemy's broken bones flew everywhere, and slime was everywhere.

Under fire, several of the aliens showed obvious hesitation and showed pain feedback when hit. After dozens of seconds, they retreated, fled, and turned away in front of the Space Marines. The soldiers immediately followed up. On the one hand, they wanted to leave the area where the acidic mucus was surging as soon as possible and re-enter the invisible part of the entire ship, that is, a relatively quiet area. On the other hand, they wanted to pursue themselves.

"No escape," Gerry said. "No forgiveness."

The shock wave of the explosion exploded in the direction where his gunfire was pointing. He could almost hear the wails of the aliens and the bitter and smelly chemicals spurting out in pain. A large number of bones were shattered, and death followed. The air is full of mixed sour smells and stench. If a mortal were here, he would be so smoked that it would be difficult to continue fighting, unless his will was unimaginably strong.

They quickly left the combat zone and entered new darkness with occasional flashes of electric sparks. A small number of non-swarming aliens can also be destroyed with melee weapons, whether claws, swords, or hammers. The arc of light in the decomposition field flickered, sometimes illuminating the darkness.

"...Now we have the ability to witness the vastness of the universe and use our own learning and understanding to analyze all the mysteries of the world..." Hashem said softly.

Following Jack's request, he read Imperial Truth.

It is difficult to imagine the mentality of the Word Bearers to recite these truths that refute religion calmly and even with reverence.

Regardless, the sound of the Word Bearers chanting Imperial truths may be the best background audio they can get in this inhospitable area for human life.

At the sound of the Word Bearers' voice, Kroger realized a problem.

"That was the first group of aliens to break out," Kroger said, sensing something unusual and leading the team onward. "Previous aliens felt no pain and were not afraid of crises. But these creatures trembled and fled from the crisis."

"This is a normal alien, Kroger," Jack replied, picking up a bone hanging on the armor and tearing it off and throwing it away. "Of course intelligent life should understand the existence of fear. This is the Eighth Legion's One of the purposes. Fear, the supreme fear.”

"They are intelligent life forms." The Dark Angel automatically omitted his comments and thoughts on the last half of the Luna Wolf's sentence, "Partly."

"Perhaps this has something to do with their life stage?" Hammer speculated, "Outside the alien empire, there should be no intelligence in those flesh and blood structures."

"Maybe they have some hierarchies within themselves, like trunks, branches and leaves." Jack said. "Some aliens are like this."

There is no existing reference for the internal structure of this ship. Even the auxiliary computing equipment of the Iron Warriors only provides limited warning and detection assistance, rather than many times for other Old Night humans and humans. When the pocket empire established by the mutants launches an attack, it can achieve an almost prophetic effect on the structure.

The team searched for a path forward, passing through large forest-like areas of bone or hard fiber, carving out a winding path in an intricate network of intertwined flesh. Sometimes, some aliens in a new alert state will come to the door, maybe they are sentries, or they assume the responsibility of patrollers.

Avoidance is better than direct firefight. After all, they are just a small team - they are certainly not alone. War designer Perturabo will not allow such an almost stupid strategy to appear under his command and waste any life.

"Even if sacrifice is a necessity, its presence still signifies the general's incompetence," Hammer said of a war blacksmith who once said this. After a while he remembered that this was one of the monthly rotating slogans at the Agora Bazaar last year, if he remembered correctly.

In short, there are other teams entering the ship from different entrances. They have not met so far. The main reason is still luck.

While searching for a road, they ran into something that made Hashem grit his teeth - some Astartes warriors who lost their lives, were stripped from their armor, and their neural interfaces were extensively damaged. , embedded in the wall, leaving only the torso and head upward from the abdomen exposed outside the crimson wall, like some kind of half-eaten exhibit.

While Jack was responsible for dragging Hashem and telling him not to empty his firepower on the spot, the remaining people endured the surging emotions and checked them to confirm that there was no mutation on their bodies and that the signs of life were confirmed to have disappeared.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that they should have been dead before they appeared in the wall. Each corpse had obvious fatal injuries on the body, such as two hearts penetrated by bone spurs, ruptured arteries and more fatal injuries. Wound.

Regardless, Hashem uses power weapons to destroy everything he sees, even if it means they are hunted by a new group of low-intelligence randan aliens that look like long-legged, long-mouthed brains. No one accused the Muristan of being irrationally excited, he did what everyone wanted to do - not to mention that Jack took the opportunity to kick the crimson wall hard with his boot next to him.

The path ahead converged in the middle, and the tunnel became long and narrow. They came to another unknown area, which seemed to be located on a narrow beam.

Jack retracted his foot before he stepped on the air, and warned in the channel to avoid an accidental fall.

"Maybe it's a hundred meters deep below, or maybe the height is only enough to sprain my ankle," Jack said, shaking his power claws with lingering fear, "It seems that my helmet detection is blocked below, I don't know what it is. I bet jumping down is not a good choice, I don't plan to try it."

"Of course." Hammer replied. One of their war blacksmiths has personally verified the dangers of falling.

This area has fewer guards than most areas they have passed before, and there may even be no guards; however, on the other hand, this long maze-like journey across the beam is also unpleasant. After several hours, it is certain that they did not stay in the same place, but they have never walked out of this narrow and wrinkled path.

"I suddenly remembered something, brothers." Shadow Moon Wolf paid attention to the boundary of the path under his feet in the thermal imaging field of view.

The place they were in had changed from the cold environment near the outer space of the universe to the warm and humid inner space, but these active biomasses could still be clearly distinguished in the visual detection. In a sense, this was also a good thing-although as time went on, they increasingly suspected whether the entire huge alien spacecraft might also be a living creature, and they were walking in the disgusting intestines of the other party.

"Speak." Gerry replied.

"We didn't bring any pharmacists with us, nor did we take any extraction containers. If someone, you know, unfortunately fell on this glorious and great road, how can we take his gene seeds away?" Jack said hesitantly.

"No." Kroger responded, feeling the body of the Word Bearer in the team tense. Maybe everyone in the team has hidden passion and ambition, but under Hashem's seemingly gentle appearance, the emotions hidden inside may be particularly turbulent.

He is a good companion, Kroger thought, but in the future, if the Father of Genes decides to continue to cooperate with them in the Legion, at least Kroger hopes that he will not be chosen to go with him again.

"No, I mean, Randan is proficient in biotechnology. Should we..." Jack paused, "leave the fallen brothers intact to them?"

The team was silent for a moment, and the Word Bearers and the Dark Angels said almost at the same time: "I will take care of it."

Then, their helmets turned slightly, facing each other, and then quickly turned back in the faint sound of the wind.

"What is that?" Gary growled, and before he finished speaking, Hammer had already raised his gun and shot, accurately shooting down a flying creature hiding behind a pile of stalactite-like bone stones. Then came the second and third. Each burst of shooting could kill at least one dark creature like a deep-sea manta ray. If the angle was right, his bullets could penetrate two or three.

The situation was not good for them. The 23rd team stood in the open, restricted by the narrow passage, and behind the countless high and low falling stones around them, the sound of many membrane wings trembling gradually sounded. Dark beams of indistinguishable color pierced through the darkness, and unstable ions were filtered through biological organs and converted into high-radiation energy body jets, hitting the warriors very quickly.

"See the throne..." Jack cursed instead of crying out in pain. The beam pierced his arm armor, burning a torn wound in the middle of the finger extensor muscle, and directly affected the flexion and extension of his four fingers holding the gun. He took a step back, and the dark red beam burned half of the muscle fiber connection where his feet had just stood.

In a certain experience-induced alarm, he instinctively ran to the side along the beam.

Combat experience saved him. Two seconds after he left, the entire beam collapsed downwards, chasing his feet until he stood on the top of the next support point extending from the bottom to the top.

He breathed a sigh of relief, and before his breath was completely exhaled from his mouth, a series of terrible sounds of armor colliding sounded in the imbalance of the armor, iron feathers collided, and strips hit rivets. In an instant, the muscle beams under the feet of the Dark Angel were directly burned through, and the warrior wearing heavy armor had nowhere to hide.

Only fall.

In less than five seconds, the heavy landing sound echoed like thunder, followed by the noisy operation noise of the Terminator Armor.

Accompanied by a clanging sound, the Dark Angel Gerry slowly climbed up by himself underneath - his biggest resistance was the design of the armor itself.

"Hi." Gerry greeted upwards, but no one responded awkwardly.

"Hey, brother," Jack's heart was still throbbing rapidly, and he cleared his throat and said dryly, "You... fell."

"Yes, I fell. It seems that the straight-line height here is no more than fifteen meters." There was a hint of depression in Gerry's calm voice, "This is a platform, there is no maze, you can all come down."

Kroger took the lead and jumped down following Gerry's footsteps, landing heavily but steadily with both feet, kneeling to cushion the impact. The remaining soldiers also jumped down.

Some alien technology interference equipment was installed in an unknown place, making the scanner unable to continue to operate, but their naked eyes were enough to see the situation here: the place where they were suddenly turned back into a steel structure, the ground was hard, there were no strings of faces and eyes on the walls, and the structure seemed to be similar to a hall. Except for some mucus created by the battle above, everything was clean and tidy.

Only the similar warm air temperature indicated that they were still in the core area of ​​the spacecraft.

"Isn't this the right way?" Jack muttered in frustration, his power claws swinging back and forth, "Why do we have to circle around that beam for hours?"

"Because someone advised us not to jump down," Gerry said calmly, "Who was that..."

"Dear battle brother, your fall makes me so sad that I almost fainted and sat on the ground," Hasem said sadly, appearing silently behind Gerry, approaching step by step with his pious chanting, "The beautiful Deathwing swords, why did they break? Fortunately, fortunately, you survived this disaster, how fortunate! It must be His..."

"Thank you, Hasem. We are all grateful." Krog said, inexplicably feeling a sense of relief from the Deathwing warrior's helmet.

He continued firmly: "Since we have found a new way out, we will continue to move forward."