Chapter 404: Warhammer: What Do You Mean You Conquered the Zerg

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Protagonist:

Lin En

Lena

In the Underground Second Floor corridor, Lin En half-crouched behind a makeshift alloy barricade, constantly watching the incoming reports.

The Vanguard Army's casualty figures kept rising, and Luna's witchcraft traps laid on the second layer were far more treacherous than those on the first.

Spatial folding, psychic whispers, nodes for summoning demons hidden in every pipe and corner.

Just then, a faint rustle of fabric came from behind him.

A Purge Plague Bishop landed silently at his side, the purple pupils beneath his hood carrying a trace of solemnity, sending the message directly into Lin En's mind through the symbiote's psychic link:

"Adult, an anomaly has occurred in the orbital airspace."

"A Warp Rift has unfolded outside the Eastern Starport, and the Nurgle Fleet is breaking into Real Space."

"The Tithe Fleet has already entered First Combat Readiness, and firefights have broken out."

At the same time, a somewhat shaky and blurry starry image was transmitted into Lin En's mind.

Roughly depicting the scene near Brevis Starport, beginning with the corrupted fleet.

A fleet exuding a stench drilled out of the Warp Rift, and Dominic spread out his battle lines.

Nurgle.

They arrived right on time.

His brow twitched slightly, with little panic in his heart; instead, a trace of understanding flashed through first.

The plague in Bottom City had come suspiciously, its transmission speed and mutation degree far exceeding ordinary Nest Capital plagues, and he had long suspected the Death Guard's shadow behind it.

It was just that the other side hid too deeply, never showing a flaw, and unexpectedly jumped out directly at this critical moment.

"Can you confirm the warband's identity?" he asked in his mind.

"The other side's plague characteristics are special, able to directly corrupt mechanical structures."

"Some inorganic matter in Bottom City, without any personnel contact, has also shown rusting and flesh proliferation phenomena," the Bishop supplemented.

"The Machine Cult's accompanying priest preliminarily judged it to be a kind of 'Warp Corrosion'."

A Warp plague capable of corroding and infecting machinery......

The Plague of Rust, these four words abruptly appeared in Lin En's mind.

He still had some impression of this infamous Warp plague.

Under the Death Guard's banner was a warband called the Pale Hand; these traitors had a special plague called the Plague of Rust.

It could corrode the vast majority of mechanical constructs, small as laser rifles, large as warship engines and Knight Mecha.

Once contaminated, metal would rust within a few hours and simultaneously grow deformed flesh tissue, eventually completely becoming Chaos's plaything.

A few years later in M42, a Knight World in the Menglong Star Domain fell into their hands.

The Pale Hand Warband relied on feigned defeat to lure the knights into deep pursuit, finally contracting the Plague of Rust.

Under the virus's continuous erosion, they completely corrupted half of an entire Knight Family's mecha.

Giving birth to a traitor Knight warband called the Rust Hounds, which began hunting the souls of their former comrades.

"The target is now clear." Lin En stood up and patted the dust off his knees.

"In a backwater like Brevis, whatever is worth the Death Guard going all out for comes down to just two things."

One was the Saint Galus Family's Knight Mecha. As the sole remaining Knight Family of the Kalixis Star System.

Even if now only an empty shell remained, those mecha and machine spirits passed down for ten thousand years were, for the Pale Hand who excelled at corrupting machinery, also excellent raw materials.

The other was the STC Template hidden deep in Brevis.

The Chaos Forces' desire for STC was not a whit weaker than the Machine Cult's.

Luna was stirring up trouble underground, playing the game of killing with a borrowed knife to seize power and rise above.

And these Pale Hand lunatics were eyeing the Knight Family and the STC, wanting to turn the entire planet into the first test subject.

Lin En snorted with laughter.

Interesting.

By rights, the Pale Hand could have waited a while longer.

Wait until he and Dominic completely tore faces over the Gene Thief matter, wait until Luna stirred the whole planet's waters even muddier.

Wait until human factions were weakened to the utmost by internal strife before striking, and their chances of victory would at least double.

But they chose to jump out at this very moment.

Had they sensed Slaanesh's little moves, afraid Luna would snatch the fruit first?

Or was there some hidden circumstance forcing them to act ahead of time?

But the reason no longer mattered.

What mattered was that this suddenly arriving Nurgle Fleet had, by mistake, actually helped him break the siege.

Even if Dominic wanted to keep questioning the Gene Thief matter, facing the Chaos invasion, he would have to distinguish priorities.

Accounts within the Empire could be settled slowly, but once Chaos knocked on the door, they first had to present a united front externally.

This was a principle engraved in the bones of every Imperial warrior.

"Notify the Governor's Mansion." Lin En spoke, his tone decisive.

"Dispatch the entire Expedition Fleet to rush to the aid of the Tithe Fleet."

"Mobilize the Second and Fourth Pioneer Guard Divisions, immediately head to the Starport Surroundings to deploy defenses."

"All anti-air arrays operate at full power, all ground defensive fortifications activated."

"Additionally, detach one heavy assault regiment, prepare for boarding support."

"Inform fleet command, the vanguard army awaits tithe fleet deployment, no need to report to me."

He did not intend to specially send a message to Dominic to explain.

Saying too much would instead seem like deliberate flattery, showing guilt and weakness.

The vanguard army's actions themselves were his attitude.

Internal contradictions belong to internal contradictions, with chaos before us, he absolutely would not stand by with folded arms.

This was the best response.

"Yes." The bishop bowed to accept the order, his figure flickered, disappearing into the shadows.

Lin En looked again at the barrier markers on the tactical terminal for underground third floor.

Outside pressure temporarily eased, but the battle here still had to be fought.

Luna wanted to borrow Nurgle's east wind to buy time, he refused to let her have her way.

"Pass the order down, assault battalion accelerate advance speed." His voice turned cold.

"Within half an hour, I want to stand before the third floor entrance."

……

Above Brevis orbit, warfire had already ignited the entire space.

The roaring of macro cannon volleys, across hull and vacuum, could still transmit to the bridge depths, muffled like distant thunder.

In the James Tong's bridge, all officers tensed their faces, gazes dead fixed on the main screen's constantly refreshing data.

Dominic stood with hands behind back before the porthole, uniform straight, the general's star insignia on his left shoulder flickering uncertainly in the cannon fire's reflection.

He gazed at the distant exploding clusters of fireballs, eyes deep.

The imperial fleet fanned out in a fan shape, five hundred kilometers interval stretched wide, the firepower net formed by light spears and macro cannons continuously poured toward the warp rift's direction.

Macro cannon shells trailing white tail flames streaked across the void, crashing into those bloated rotting Nurgle warships, blasting skyfuls of rusted fragments and dark green pus.

But the expected one-blow collapse did not appear.

These had no void shields, nor any energy shields, even their hull armor had been replaced by flesh and rust.

Yet they displayed a scalp-numbing tenacious vitality.

One macro cannon shot sufficient to penetrate ordinary escort ship armor, yet landing on plague guard frigates could only blast out a bloody mangled large pit.

Under the flying splashing pus and flesh fragments, severed blood vessels would immediately writhe and entwine together.

Newborn flesh buds at visible speed filled the wounds, in just over ten seconds the blasted holes would be plugged anew by proliferating flesh.

Only leaving a piece of uneven rotting flesh scars.

The deeper cruisers were even more exaggerated.

Light spear high energy beams cutting onto them could burn away large sections of flesh hulls, revealing inside rusted terrible metal skeletons.

But those skeletons would soon crawl with sticky tissue, spreading like mold, re-wrapping the damaged hulls.

Even growing new pustule-like barrels, spraying sticky corruption shells at the imperial fleet.

They were like a group of rotten flesh smashed yet still writhing, displaying the tenacity and resilience belonging to the kindly father's subordinates.

Except the Pale Rose positioned at the array's rearmost still maintained a relatively intact hull.

The remaining dozen or so warships under saturated firepower all became riddled with holes, hull surface pus moss peeling off in large patches.

Blood vessel-like tissues severed who knows how many, from afar looking like a group of rotten corpses torn and bitten to shreds.

But not one stopped.

They endured the sky-covering earth-covering firepower, at a slow yet unswerving speed, advancing toward the imperial fleet group.