Chapter 432

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Protagonist:

Lin En

Lena

Phelps turned, looking toward the direction the corridor led to the upper deck, a flash of unconcealed greed passing through his turbid eyeballs.

Their objective from the very beginning was not the slaughter of the civilians and military police in the lower levels.

It was the Machine Temple.

That is the heart of the entire Retribution-class Battleship, the sanctuary where the machine spirit dwells, and also the ultimate control hub for all of the ship's systems — power, fire control, navigation, shields, everything.

From the moment of boarding, the Rust Plague he carried began to spread outward, traveling along metal pipelines, ventilation systems, even energy circuits, slowly corroding this warship.

But the James Tong is, after all, an Imperial main battleship that has served for at least a thousand years, having experienced hundreds of battles large and small; its machine spirit was tempered in warfire to become powerful and unruly.

The Mechanical Priests' daily prayers and consecrations, the State Religion Pastors' regularly held Purification Rituals, caused the entire ship to be shrouded in the dual protection of faith and machine spirit.

Without approaching the core, without personally contaminating the Machine Temple's main core, it is fundamentally impossible to shake this steel behemoth's will.

Let alone enslaving its machine spirit, turning this Retribution-class Battleship into their new Mobile Plague Fortress.

But the Machine Temple and the Bridge both belong to the warship's core zone, located at the very center of the middle deck.

Surrounded by the most elite Navy Guard units, the Machine Cult Apologist Army, and layer upon layer of energy shields and blast doors.

They currently have only twenty-two people, no Chaos Engines, no Plague Vehicles, not even many heavy weapons brought along.

Behind them are only several thousand slow-moving Plague Zombies and several hundred insignificant lower-level Chaos Believers; a frontal assault would be no different from throwing eggs at a stone.

So, they cannot force their way in.

Phelps raised his right hand covered in rotten flesh, toying with a Nurgle Spore that had burrowed out from his body.

He needed more "little partners."

Just then, the simple communicator at his waist emitted a crackling static sound.

It was a message from an insider planted in the Navy communication system.

After the Military Police Team lost contact, the Bridge had already ordered a lockdown of the entire lower deck.

A mixed force composed of two Navy Guard companies plus a squad of Machine Cult Apologist Army is rushing toward H4 District.

They intend to establish a blockade line, to completely trap the plague in the lower levels.

Hearing this, Phelps let out a low laugh, the laughter tugging at the decayed tissue in his chest cavity, bringing forth a series of bellows-like gasps.

Right on time.

He immediately issued orders to the warriors behind him.

Have the lower-level Chaos Believers drive over a thousand Plague Zombies to launch a feint attack toward the front Main Corridor.

No need to win; just make enough of a ruckus to draw all the Imperial Mixed Force's attention onto the front line.

As for him and the twenty-one Plague Warriors...

Phelps looked up at the complex ventilation ducts and maintenance shafts crisscrossing overhead.

The rusted metal pipe walls had already been corroded by the power of plague into extreme brittleness; it would not take much strength to tear them open.

He turned and squeezed into the side maintenance shaft, his massive body wedged in the narrow pipe, corruption fluid flowing everywhere along the pipe walls.

Twenty-two figures like maggots boring into rotten wood, silently circling via the pipeline network toward that mixed force's side rear.

The front is the revelry of zombies and believers; the side rear is the blade edge of the Death Guard.

The smile beneath Phelps's mask grew even more twisted.

He wanted to see just whether these lackeys of the False Emperor could catch this "surprise" from the Kindly Father.

The corridor was dead silent, the corpses of three hundred Navy Military Police strewn haphazardly filling the passage.

Swollen and blackened bodies, under the action of the zombie plague, had already begun to swell slightly.

Before long, they would sway unsteadily to their feet, becoming the Kindly Father's newest subjects.

The twenty-one Death Guard Warriors following behind Phelps stood in silence.

They are the remnants of the Dusk Assaulters, the Fourteenth Legion's most tenacious warriors.

Unlike the Khorne Believers' hysterical mindless charges, they adhere to a different philosophy of war.

Patience, calculation, and the fatal blade delivered when the enemy least expects it.

Phelps has always styled himself a "Strategist."

Before his fall, he was a Siege Engineer of some renown in the Legion, most skilled at finding the weakest gap in seemingly impregnable defensive lines.

Skilled at dismantling an entire fortress down to skin and bone with the least effort.

Even after throwing himself into the Kindly Father's embrace, this tactical instinct engraved in his bones has never faded.

He never disdains relying on numbers to pile up victory; in his view, every plague spore, every zombie, every warrior, should be used on the cutting edge.

He raised his rotten-flesh-covered right hand, five fingers lightly pressing against the cold cabin wall.

The Rust Plague surged out along his fingertips, like living mold rapidly spreading along the metal grain.

Dark brown rust stains crawled across pipeline interfaces, invading surveillance lines hidden inside the wall body, corroding the glass lenses of optical lenses, gradually incorporating the Imperial Navy's surveillance network into his own perception.

Countless images unfolded in his consciousness.

At H4 District's main entrance, two full-strength Navy Guard companies were erecting blast doors and heavy fire positions.

Soldiers pushed ammunition crates, setting up Warhammer 40000 and Thermal Cannons into a crossfire net, gun muzzles locked dead-on at the corridor entrance.

Their orders were to hold the front, to trap the unknown plague enemy to death in the lower residential zone; everyone defaulted to assuming the enemy would charge out from the main gate.

And three hundred meters to the side rear of the front gate position, beside a maintenance cargo hold, a mixed force of Machine Cult and Navy was constructing a temporary heavy cannon position.

One thousand Inquisition Army soldiers formed a strict battle line, their metal-glossed prosthetics and implants reflecting cold light under the emergency lamps.

They were the Omnissiah's most loyal warriors, flesh and steel perfectly fused, firepower precise, wills like iron.

One thousand Navy soldiers deployed on both flanks of the position, operating sixty twin-linked Warhammer 40000 and four laser cannon array formations.

In the center of the position, transport combat servitors shuttled back and forth, orderly moving ammunition and calibrating cannon mouths.

Dozens of combat servitors crouched at the frontline, optical lenses flashing red light, chain-saws and nail guns on servo-arms ready to activate at any moment.

At key nodes were distributed three "Wild Ass" light walkers, three Iron Knight Crossbow Cannons, and ten Leman Russ tanks, heavy armor exuding a cold sense of oppression.

And in the most core area, before the Mechanical Priest, six Castellane Combat Robots stood in neat formation.

This was a standard Mechanical Church Assault Squad, heavy firepower sufficient, mechanical units complete — originally the excellent combination for dealing with plague corpse tides.

But in Phelps's eyes, this was the most perfect "prey".