"There will be nothing more worthy of pursuit than peace. Even a thief, in order to disturb the peace of others, must maintain peace with his associates and maintain peace with his own limbs. Even a person who is keen on war must seek glory after conquering Or peace. Man hates only the peace he does not want, and recognizes only the peace he likes." - "The Book of Lorgar".

Gri-Gris doesn't really know everything about his titular second home planet, Caliban.

Forests, giant beasts, and endless dangers. The undercurrent surges. hunting. Hiss. Lurking hunting vine.

How strange. Gerry once thought so. Megan may find these scary - maybe they are indeed scary, but the Terrans will never understand the threats of these dark greens. The green of life has not embraced the hearts of Terran people for a long time, maybe hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years.

When the would-be Astartes Megan pointed her short whip at the shadowy and lifelike giant tree in the holographic screen, telling them everything Leon El'Jonson wanted his future warriors to know, when the mysterious figure from the jungle When the lady described to them the terrifying shadows on the ancient planet originating from the twisted life itself, all Gerry could think of was the desolate steel city he had seen when Terra was born.

The place had no name in Gothic, and it was not even one of the places of honor on the list of surrendered places when the great Lord of Man conquered the old land of Terra. Gerry's birthplace is just an unnoticeable corner of a broken island located in the west of Europa, separated from the main continent by a strait. It is swallowed up by a large steel structure as ferocious as a sea beast. It is the remains of a rainy season war. Slowly suffocating in the relentless winter acid rain.

That was where Grizzly's first impression of the birth of life was established - unlike the warm and trivial pulse that ordinary people thought, life in his eyes was cold, hard and grand.

He knew that it came from the steel that covered the sky and the sun, not from life itself. However, in the early years of a newborn's life, the entire world is made of the same similar material, and the impression it brings must be blurred and unified.

When he was selected by the emperor's recruiting officer, lay in cold iron, fixed by metal rings, and underwent heart-opening and lung-replacing operations, this impression was further strengthened, and he was far away from his new life. His past mortal life was completely fixed in the subtle smell emitted after the metal was wetted, and the blood stains that flowed with it.

And in this area, the core area of ​​​​this alien creature ship, through the filtering of the breathing grid, just from the smell itself, he found this familiar smell. Tendons and gunmetal, blood vessels and rusty iron. Cold and full of vitality. This is the source of life that Terrans can understand.

And Gerry Grice would never admit that.

Huge steel structures were wrapped around the warm flesh exterior, just as they were around the entire ship's exterior protecting its interior. They are a pair of membranes that echo each other, the outer skin and the inner membrane, which isolate the Space Marines' boots from the flesh under their feet.

Jack fired at the wall, a series of explosions and fire flying everywhere. Very good, the attack brought by his explosive bomb was very effective. The rusty metal layer was exploded, in exchange for a large number of piles of meat and yellow-green tissue fluid that fell to the ground from the charred hole. The smell will be on the spot. The Shadow Moon Wolf was so frightened that he took five or six steps back.

"Why are you hitting the wall?" Hammer asked in a muffled voice, and he temporarily closed the external circulation air valve again.

"You don't often play that kind of trick, bang," Jack gestured twice with his gun, "bang, there's a big explosion at the point of force, and the whole wall collapses. I thought I could learn a trick."

"Are you going to Iron Warriors, Jack?" Gerry asked.

"What? No, Horus is so good, why should I go to the fourth... First of all, let me say that this is just my personal feeling. It does not represent everyone's consensus or any general opinion. At the same time, I have no intention of offending any of us. Anyone……"

"You can shut up, Moonwolf," Kroger warned.

Just as the Luna Wolf was about to retort, the Word Bearer's gentle voice floated into the channel: "Brothers, don't get into mutual disputes. This is an act that is not conducive to our service. We should abandon it in order to cultivate ourselves."

Jack shrugged and put away his gun. Everyone, including Hashem himself, knew that Jack couldn't stand the Word Bearers' chatter.

They continued to advance slowly through the dark hall. After walking a certain distance, Gerry realized that this place seemed to have a guessable effect based on the usual ship structure. But it was Kroger who really made the statement.

"This is the bridge structure," the Iron Warrior concluded. Even though he had thought about it many times before speaking out, there was still hesitation in his words.

"It's such a mess outside, but there is a clear structure inside?" Jack whispered, "What's the reason?"

Hammer said: "The metal here is older than the outside. There is at least a time difference of more than a hundred years."

"How do you judge?...Forget it, I understand, you are the Iron Warriors." Jack replied, patted the butt of the gun with his hand to create the effect of applause, and raised his feet to step over a pipe rising from the ground.

"They grow, outside the metal, and then are revised, covered up, obscured again," the Word Bearers chanted rhythmically. "They fly, on iron, on flesh and blood, and then iron again."

"Good guess." Gerry commented, this is exactly what he thought.

Crossing the bridge, they determined that they were approaching the core area of ​​the spacecraft. The sweltering heat was still rising. The temperature control system of the armor helped them maintain the internal temperature at a level suitable for combat, at the cost of the buzzing and noisy cooling system. It looked like a Forge World Baneblade production line that had been in disrepair.

Air currents drifted from the front, and the air circulation caused by some temperature differences invisibly wrapped around their armor from the multiple wall gaps or forks in the old metal hall like gossamers. Hammer's expressionless helmet carefully examined the surrounding clues and calculated the possible path of the bullet in the wind.

It has been a long time since they encountered the strange enemies they could encounter on the outside, just like the creations born of flesh and blood that lost the nurturing environment in which they were born on this metal road.

But just as they approached a fork in the road, there was a sound of armor scraping, and a familiar sound of footsteps sounded distantly in the passage, echoing to the 23rd Team through the wide and long road environment.

Jack quickly identified the hissing sound of the armor operating, the sound of the warrior standing up from the floor, and the clanking of some connecting buckles as they moved. His excited voice immediately rang out in the communication channel: "I thought Only our team has arrived in this area, what is your number?"

"That's Norwood," Kroger spoke first, recognizing his comrades, "Team 11."

"Oh, it's nice to meet you...you guys," Jack stopped his pronouns, recovered from the excitement, and realized that what appeared in front of them from the corner was just a wounded man whose armor was burned through by black light. The Iron Warrior just lowered his raised gun.

Jack wisely didn't ask what happened to the rest of their team.

"Yeah." The new Iron Warrior said, his voice hoarse, like grinding gears, "Kroger, Hammer, and you."

He paused and did not shy away from their losses: "The rest of my team members died from gravity squeeze in an internal mezzanine of the ship. I continued to explore until I arrived here. Do you need help?"

"How proud," Hashem said, his tone gentle. "How heroic. I will not refuse you, battle brother."

"But then the concentration of Iron Warriors in the team will reach half!" Jack said, "No matter what, you are welcome to fight alongside us..."

"This is difficult. I can't fight side by side with you for a long time." Norwood interrupted the welcome of the Luna Wolves, and his tone was even a little rough, which was in line with the attitude of other legions except for a few specific legions. The inherent impression of Iron Warriors.

"Why," Kroger said.

Norwood glanced around the 23rd Team present. His helmet blocked all his expressions, but the members could almost imagine his frowning face and his face as stone. Of course, that experience comes from their observations of Kroger and Hammer. Each legion has an overall personality that each legion has, and all warriors express these to a greater or lesser extent.

"I'm about to die," Norwood replied. "My first heart has been ruptured, my second heart has been damaged, and other organs are also damaged to varying degrees. I'm not sure how long I can survive, and continuing to fight is A challenge.”

Jack fell silent.

The Word Bearer nodded solemnly to the other party: "May the honor of serving belong to you, brother, and may your labor rest."

"Hmm." Norwood responded shortly, and just from his voice, there was almost no hint of inner pain or hesitation.

"You haven't reduced your numbers yet? I hope you know that the bodies of the soldiers who died in this ship will be taken away by the aliens that appear." He said, "My original plan was to destroy my gene seeds, but since you have the ability After arriving here, I think you will be able to complete the tracking of the aliens after my death. This is the effective help I can provide."

"But... no, my Emperor, you have only appeared for five minutes... and come to arrange funeral arrangements with us? Shouldn't it be a process, first fighting alongside us, then having an accident, and then saying goodbye with tears? We move on with grief and anger..." Jack murmured.

Norwood's helmet turned towards him, and then the Iron Warrior took off the helmet and held it in his arms, revealing a face that was half machine and half full of dried blood.

"Is it necessary?" he asked. "You stay away to avoid alerting the enemy. Until I die and the alien appears, you will continue your mission."

"We understand, brother," Kroger replied, "You've been here a long time."

"Yes, I heard you guys appear, so I came over." Norwood nodded solemnly, "Goodbye."

"Goodbye." Kroger nodded, "Hammer, Gerry, Jack, Hashem, let's go to the tunnel and wait."

They left Norwood's side silently, and the warrior watched them go away, then sat down again.

After a few minutes, he sensed that his time was up and said over the comm channel: "Get ready."

In the tunnel, the 23rd team, which received the signal, began to monitor the situation around the place where the soldier fell.

At first, there was nothing there, darkness, silence, and the everlasting smell of blood caressing the Astartes' olfactory nerves. Then, subtle movements appeared on the armor of the dead warriors, accompanied by the gentle collision of iron products, just like the whispers left by the deceased during his lifetime, lingering deep in the hot and humid air.

Kroger raised his hand and asked the team members to wait patiently. Soon, the body of the deceased suddenly fell downwards, and his armor briefly hooked on the cable link on the ground, causing a brief delay.

"Now!" The warrior ordered, and the 23rd team arrived at the target location in an instant, everything was just in the blink of an eye. Under the body of the deceased, the steel ground was removed, and the thick pipes like blood vessels were exposed. A bloody opening was accepting the deceased to fall into it and drift along the liquid in the pipe.

Without hesitation, several people chased and jumped into the opening, and then were quickly swept forward by the extremely fast-flowing biomass liquid. The dark blood flow surged, repeatedly washing their armor in the thick water channel.

The excellent sense of balance of the Astartes helped them distinguish everything that rushed towards or rushed past them. The broken iron seemed to be eroded by the crimson background, and the rumbling noise like a volcano in their ears rolled endlessly, circling back and forth, never ending, shaking their eardrums again and again. Crimson and black iron rotated alternately in the field of vision, and sometimes huge discs like blood cells rushed past them, rolling up turbulent waves.

Suddenly, everything became light, the coercion and pressure of the blood flow left them, and the last threat to their lives was the fall from the center of the pipe.

Gerry gritted his teeth and fell to the ground. This time the height was much higher than the last time, and his armor was the heaviest among the few. He fell to the ground, and there was a pool of crimson water beside him. Other warriors just fell into the pool and were swimming out of the high-density water quickly. Hasem grabbed the arm of the dead Norwood and pulled him to the metal ground beside the pool.

A spike passed through Gerry's shoulder armor under the place close to the armpit and pierced into the upper arm. He recovered from the black and red spots flashing in front of his eyes, pulled out the spike, and found that it seemed to be some kind of decorative bone blade, mounted on an alien statue.

Statue. Yes. Statue-a clear symbol of civilization, a definite evidence of cultural pursuit.

Half of the statue by the pool was knocked down by him, and the remaining half looked like some kind of soft biological variant, with arms that were spread membrane wings, no feet, and only a long tail that swam like a marine creature.

He soon got the opportunity to confirm the complete image of the statue, because the creature depicted by the statue - or one of the species itself, appeared in front of the team.

This alien was very different from any one that had appeared before. It was upright, less than three meters tall, supported by a powerful and delicate bone-white fish tail to swim on the ground, connected to the many nerve and blood vessel root-like structures on the ground.

A pair of membrane wings were folded behind it, and another pair of soft and flexible tentacles stretched in front of the body, with suction cups grasping the metal blade. A translucent jellyfish-like thin skin covered from the top of its head to the bottom, covering its pink and white upper body like a veil, and also reflecting a faint mother-of-pearl luster, like a soft firefly, slightly illuminating the surrounding darkness.

From a certain subjective perception, its smooth lines and wonderful shapes can almost be called beautiful, as long as a human's acceptance is strong enough.

Its head turned until a pair of slowly flapping gills faced the direction of the warriors. Then, a sound imitated by friction and vibration came from it.

"Astartes..." The alien said in its own way, "You are still alive..."

Hasem couldn't bear it anymore and opened fire directly.

No matter what the alien wanted to say or what emotions it contained, it was drowned in the burning of the flames. But this time, the burning of the flames hit the barrier. The alien's smooth and soft skin dissipated the long-range firepower. At the same time, its membrane wings instantly unfolded, and a torrent of blood rushed towards the team. What was really fatal was undoubtedly the ion dark light hidden in it.

Kroger and Gerry immediately decided to start a close combat. What was annoying was that the alien's fighting skills were also a problem. It flexibly used every part of its body structure in a way that humans could hardly imagine, and swiftly fought back.

The turning point came after Hammer cut off several nerves and blood vessels on the ground. The alien's counterattack immediately became slow and blind, as if it had forgotten how to fight. Tens of seconds later, Jack's power claws tore off its jellyfish-like cortex and then smashed the opponent's chest.

"For Norwood - this is the first time I say this for someone I've only known for five minutes, really." Jack said half-shouting and half-sarcastically.

The alien fell down in the wailing of infrasound. Hashem was still furious. After putting the body of the dead Norwood on the ground, he picked up the power hammer and exerted his strength on the alien.

Kroger bypassed the broken nerves on the ground and walked deeper into the room. This place was probably a place similar to the command room. He saw a large screen and a strange joystick that seemed to be used to control the spacecraft, but they were all abandoned and entangled with blood vessels.

Now, the interior of the room is filled with cocoon-shaped semi-translucent objects, with human forms floating faintly inside, and next to the cocoon is a pile of roughly removed space warrior armor.

He identified the armor on the ground one by one. One set, two sets, some shone with pearly white, and some were gray armor written with scriptures by the Word Bearers. Each set of armor came from other squads that joined them, and if they were counted by cocoons, there were more than twenty cocoons that were fully formed, and many more were half-formed, exposing the damaged bodies of the warriors inside.

"Hassem," he heard himself say, his voice full of hatred, "Gree."

"I understand," the Word Bearers and the Dark Angel said simultaneously, "I will take care of it."

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