Warhammer 40k: Shattered Steel Soul

Chapter 499: Distorted Fortress

The sticky dark purple blood slid down along Akurduna's straight sword, and the hissing sound of corrosion was chewed and swallowed by the hidden roar in the surrounding fortress city.

The Emperor's Son scanned the surrounding environment in the intervals between battles with a headache, and turned a blind eye to those disgusting twisted forms. The two swords cut off many swollen creatures that sprang out from the shadows with artistic precision and freehand brushwork. Their weak points were torn into deep cracks by the heavy pressure of the sword blades, and then smoke-like vicious clouds burst out from the wounds, challenging the limits of the anti-toxic function of the Astartes mask.

Near Akurduna, three warriors wearing purple and gold power armor had been dyed into blood men with filthy things. From time to time, the internal communication channel could hear low hums of disgust and angry breaths. These sounds intertwined into a bloody music of battle. The natural rhythm was worthy of appreciation and pride. This was the proof of their strength.

It was not the first time for him to face the evil of the warp. Even the battle in Medusa itself was just a difficult side dish compared to the desecrated garden when he fought against another evil force in Olympia... What really made him sweat on his forehead inside the armor was the malicious gaze above Medusa.

That continuous sticky will, like a solidified purple-blue bruise, or a cold and cruel eye, hung high on the back of Medusa's dark sky, watching everything that happened on this dark continent.

Even if it was not so close, so close to reality, that eye was enough to make his hair stand on end, constantly consuming his energy and reason...

Now, when Akurduna swung his sword, he had to use part of his will to retain his sanity during the battle. He was like a purple satin flowing in the wind, wandering between the heavy clamps and the cracked shells, tearing off the steel armor connected to the flesh and blood, crushing the organs and bulging cysts flowing with oil inside, and calmly resisting any further understanding of these dirty things.

Knowing that the source of these things is steel and flesh... is enough, no more. The terrifying eyes are still staring at this land.

Some chemical silk threads wrapped around his right arm, and were cut off in an instant, dissolving into milky white broken fibers... Gray liquid seeped out from the inside of the deformed building complex. Although there was no evidence, an answer jumped into Akurduna's mind: This is a pool of broken pulp full of souls.

He raised his head and looked far away at the occasionally illuminated Primarch - a bright and swift shadow, instantly shifting between the flickering light and shadow, like dancing a vivid and free dance like a ghost. One after another, the enemies fell under the blazing blade of Fulgrim, the flaming sword that Ferrus Manus had given him.

"My children," the Phoenix said with a hint of anger, "annihilate this evil that has desecrated the homeland of my dearest brothers!"

The Emperor's Children followed the Phoenix's guidance and poured into the depths of the fortress. Considering the complexity of the situation here and the uneasy premonition it brought, even though they had enough people, the Emperor's Children still chose to move forward together in groups rather than disperse to various parts of the fortress to show their respective combat arts.

In the deep black environment, strands of metal reflections fell from the sky like faintly visible spider webs, and the once solid and cold fortress had been transformed into some kind of living corrupt and vulgar thing.

The towers and arches interlocked with each other, oozing unsightly oil. Some telescopic buildings were half-embedded in the ground, tightly connected to countless pipelines for conveying liquids. The square doors slid back and forth regularly, and the disgusting plastic steel and adamantine brackets bound together all the pollutants and immaterial materials that Akurduna refused to further describe, forming a tight whole...

When the real and ethereal music sounded, the second captain suddenly realized that the entire fortress now seemed to be transforming into some kind of organ-like instrument, and Fulgrim's dance had acquired a faint soundtrack. Phoenix was the first to notice these changes, and his battle rhythm immediately changed, avoiding any fit with the music, breaking the long caress between the dance steps and the music.

Soon, the music disappeared.

In a moment, Fulgrim laughed, and the clear sound spread across the battlefield, like a strong wind sweeping away the thick smoke. "Attention, our battle brothers are still here!"

This was like a distant warning. As they avoided the deformed and active fortress city, opened up a path from the narrow secret passages that still existed, and went deep into the fortress, the iconic sound of bolter fire gradually appeared.

Just in the depths of those greasy and twisted steel, on the other side of the maze woven by hoses and joysticks, another army that had been fighting in this area for a long time began to make a distinct movement.

Scorched earth and steel overlapped, ashes and flames intertwined, a scattered war machine was split into countless fragments by the disaster, but each of the fragments was still fighting ruthlessly and continuously. Lasers and flames were occasionally activated, illuminating the silver armor...

Akulduna saw three Gorgon Terminators bombarding a rotten plastic steel gate, and they were followed by a slowly advancing dreadnought. And, of course, their weapons were pouring ammunition at a speed and firepower coverage that no one could figure out.

The second captain tried to identify the clan. He was not sure if it was Avni - he thought it looked similar, but no matter what, everyone was relieved to finally see the warriors of the Iron Hands. If they found nothing in the fortress, or reaped consequences they would have preferred not to have reaped, then Fulgrim's trip would not only be a disappointment, but a heartbreak.

He heard that Kai Soren was already trying to get in touch with the few Iron Hands he met by chance, and gave up thinking about why the large hole exposed by Dauntless seemed to be empty. These technologies should be sealed and kept, buried deep in some secret location that he didn't know... Akulduna still understood the principle of following authority in emergencies.

Thinking of this, he sighed in his heart, salty sweat rolled from the corner of his mouth. There was a flash of the face of another golden cousin with whom he always liked to go to the arena.

In any case, the point is, and only is, that during the time when the subspace storm was raging, there should be many cousins ​​of the Tenth Legion who kept their lives alive.

On the other side, after guessing a few secret orders and ports, Kai Soren successfully chatted with the warriors in front of him from afar: "Cousins, we are the Emperor's sons, here to guard your backs. We want to know News from the Primarch Ferrus Manus."

Several soldiers of the 10th Legion remained silent, and their voices were simply sent through the internal channels through the mechanical nerve knots and cranial circuits. Perhaps this was thanks to the keys that Fulgrim had obtained from many clans in the past.

"Go to the assault team at the front," a simple statement made Akulduna want to smile. If he hadn't been busy fighting a blind battle with a huge steel distortion monster in the darkness brought by the immaterial haze, he might have replied a few words.

The armies of the Emperor's Children began to divide, and some detachments broke away from the group operations. Under effective communication and guidance, they went to assist more battle brothers of the Iron Hands in the battle, like molten streams of purple gold. Akulduna watched everything that was happening in front of him - or rather, in his senses - and pushed deeper into the building with Fulgrim with high will.

In the midst of this battle, the vague music sounded again, and this time Akulduna could hear its composition: everything was made of the friction, knocking, vibration, and ingenuity of steel. The flow of liquid and the sound of dripping are combined and pieced together in fine pieces, and every note falls on a chord that can be combined but reveals a subtle and weird combination. There seems to be no involvement of any flesh and blood will in this...

"A perfect practical item..." said an Iron Hand. His tone made Akulduna instantly alert and pay attention to the direction of the corresponding warrior. That calm and intoxicated tone once again reminded the chief swordsman of that bastard Fabius.

The bearings of the small scanner continued to rotate, and the steel hand surveyed the surrounding environment and continued: "The beauty of machinery lies in it..."

Akulduna's pupils tightened, and he almost crushed a rusty armored copper plate under his feet. The scimitar in his hand stabbed his theoretical companion mercilessly. The second a string of piercing garbled codes exploded in the communication channel, his blade pressed straight into the gap at the lower edge of the visor, cutting straight through the soft flesh inside, bringing out a string of strong-smelling spray of blood. .

It was still not fast enough, or in other words, the objects he destroyed were not accurate enough. The throat he cut only prevented the chaotic hexadecimal code from spreading further in the channel, and the Terminator he was facing at this moment was rapidly changing its form.

The steel that already accounts for more than 40% of its body has acquired a spiritual curse, and together with the part of the human body's natural organizational structure, it is reorganizing, merging, and twisting in a spiral, with rings and connected rings. The pipelines are stacked and reconstructed, and another kind of scream pours out from the mouth of this brand-new creation: "Ah——"

The sound spread in the steel music in the background. This noise seemed to plunge the entire area into endless shaking and turbulence. The passageways and overpasses of the corridor began to be torn apart, and six metal cables were connected like a series of iron rings. It wrapped around Akulduna's wrist in an instant, and spread unshakably upwards.

A stream of plasma erupted from the other Iron Hand's gun, instantly severing the tentacles entangling Akul Duna, and he responded to the help with the ensuing battle. He cut, chopped, and dissected, and forcefully divided the carapace and flesh into various places in the darkness, returning the festering filth to dust...

At this moment, he suddenly understood what those gray flowing slurries were. That is what becomes of the Iron Hands tainted by this, transformed in time by the Emperor's mercy granted to them by their companions.

In the corner of Akulduna's eye, Fulgrim seemed to have just completed a similar purge. The bright flaming sword had just swept away the last cluster of dirty slurry covering it and blocking the light.

The bright and blazing fire seemed to expand outward from the purple phoenix's sword blade, lingering around him, weaving a phantom-like feather coat, spread out on one side of his body, or wings of fire, faintly fluttering.

This is the Fulgrim they have known for so many years, Akulduna thought, his chest filled with calm pride, even if this pride was quickly shattered by the demands of reality.

Fulgrim asked loudly, questioning the Iron Hand and the dark space itself. His voice trembled in anxiety, and although his grasp of his own mood was not perfect, it was even more impressive: "Where is Ferrus Manus? Where is your original body!"

"Not here."

A voice found Fulgrim about five seconds later, accompanied by a lot of trivial crackling sounds, which seemed to be the noise caused by electric current in an area with extremely chaotic signals. The source of the sound was deeper in the fortress, belonging to one of the Iron Hands, or more than one.

This was the chorus of many confused Iron Hands, and it was the subconscious answer made by their shocked spirits after being awakened by the Phoenix.

"Where is it!" Fulgrim shouted angrily.

At first there was a silence, and then there was a reply full of hesitation and trembling.

"The secret room where the Key of Hel is sealed..."

——

"This is..."

The technical expert brought by the commander of Interrex was full of reflected blue light, and he stretched out his hands to the holographic projection in front of him in surprise, as if he couldn't wait to hold up those precisely designed drawings.

Seeing that the mind of the technology officer had been taken away by the gift brought by the Iron Warrior, Commander Naud took Kyle Varen out of the outer hall of the reception room and walked into the compartment inside.

"I don't think we can give back the selfless gifts that the Iron Warriors have brought us. In addition to providing some bases for the Iron Warriors to stay in and the supply of weapons, what kind of help do you need, Warsmith?"

Naud bowed respectfully to the Warsmith who came from afar. His gratitude was real enough to make Kyle Varen dazed in this turbulent season, and his words also made the Warsmith swallow some colder demands and threats. Perhaps only in this land outside the world can they still receive such a welcome and sincerity.

"Change my title," Kyle Varen said. "In the current chain of command of the Iron Warriors, I will serve as the Trident of the Interrex sector, commanding the Iron Warriors who have returned from our great and selfless long mission, and coordinating the operations with your troops. Lord Perturabo made this decision immediately after hearing the letter from his lost children."

"And send those drawings." Naud nodded, "I understand that these drawings are sent to us in the name of mandatory orders, requiring Interrex to build weapons and ships according to the drawings. However, we will not forget your selflessness for this."

Kyle Varen stared at him: "So, you are giving up an opportunity to join the Iron Warriors under duress. You are actively participating in everything that is about to happen."

"If we are trembling and timid, I think our conversation will not be so pleasant... Or can we really have this conversation, Trident?"

Naud smiled, with a hint of melancholy in his eyes, and so are the translators and musicians around him.

"Alas, we are finally back to the topic of your Lord of Mankind, warrior."