Chapter 435

·

·

·

Protagonist:

Lin En

Lena

The lower deck of the James Tong is rotting.

The Rust Plague spreads silently along the cabin wall welds and pipe interfaces, as if alive.

The optical lenses of the monitoring array are turbid; the servo skull signals flicker and die under the erosion of the plague miasma, finally falling into dead silence.

Those electronic systems originally used to monitor every corridor, every hatch, go dark one by one under the gnawing of the Warp Plague, and the lower deck thoroughly becomes an unseen darkness.

But the plague's advance halts at the boundary line of the middle deck.

That is where the ship's core cabins are located.

The reactor's secondary control station, the main thruster's energy distribution hub, the Star Speaker's stasis chamber, the State Religion's accompanying church...

Since the day the ship was built, these cabins have received the Mechanicus technicians' daily holy oil anointing and litany engraving.

The State Religion pastor's blessings are sealed layer upon layer like glaze upon the armor plates.

More importantly, these core areas are easier for the machine spirit to control.

In thousands of years of voyage it has witnessed the tearing of Warp storms, the explosions of void torpedoes.

And countless attempts at Chaos corruption; the machine spirit itself carries an almost instinctive Warp resistance.

The Rust Plague crashes into an invisible wall.

The wildly growing rust surges and screams at the boundary, like tide beating a breakwater, yet can only slowly inch forward.

The lower deck is a turbid yellow-green, the middle deck a cold metallic gray; the two colors draw a clear boundary on the deck.

Lieutenant General Dominic stands before the command platform's holographic projection, gaze fixed dead on that boundary line.

He cracks his knuckles hard — his habitual motion when he has made up his mind.

"Redeploy all mobile forces to the middle deck areas where monitoring is intact." His voice carries not a trace of hesitation.

"Abandon the lower deck's monitoring blind zones; conduct no futile searches."

"All heavy firepower points deploy along the boundary line; hold only where the plague has not corroded, where there is line of sight — give them no chance to fight in the dark."

The order is swiftly relayed downward.

Guard units originally scattered across the decks begin converging on the middle deck; thirty thousand Navy Guards deploy in layered defense along the main corridor, combat engineers urgently erect temporary blast walls and heavy weapon positions at key nodes.

Since they cannot see the enemy in the darkness, they retreat into the light, forcing the opponent to walk out from the dark and engage head-on under the watch of the monitors.

This is the optimal solution Dominic can devise.

And on the other side of the boundary, Phelps has also noticed this.

This Death Guard warrior stands in a maintenance passage on the lower deck that has already been thoroughly corrupted.

Beneath his feet is rust accumulation sticky as pus; overhead pipes drip foul-smelling liquid without cease.

It splats on his power armor shoulder plates grown with putrid flesh, emitting a dull sound.

His perception long ago transcended mortal vision; the plague itself is his eyes. He can "see" the boundary of the miasma's advance.

Can "feel" the heavy, near-solidified power of faith and machine spirit will in the region ahead.

Progress is stuck.

Not only that, he also perceives the middle deck's defensive deployment.

Almost entirely normal mortal navy soldiers, complete organization, dense formation; every defensive line node is dotted with the State Religion pastor's faith spiritual light.

Those golden, warm motes of light, like red-hot branding irons, make the miasma dare not approach.

Under the pastors' blessings the soldiers form line after line of flesh ramparts, morale high, formation stable.

This is a deployment specifically targeted at his habitual tactics.

Phelps's mouth corner pulls into a contemptuous smile; rotten lips tear open several disgusting cracks.

Feints, infiltration, night raids, using darkness to divide and encircle... these indeed were his favorite methods in the past.

Defeating the many with the few, using Chaos's stratagems to tear apart mortal lines, slowly toying with prey like a cat with a mouse.

But he is not limited to only that.

Things are different now from before.

He lifts his head; turbid green light shines from the eye slits of his decayed helmet.

The narrow ship corridor itself is the best weapon; no matter how many men, crammed in a narrow corridor they cannot deploy.

Of thirty thousand defenders, only a few thousand can simultaneously participate in frontal fire projection.

And the current him has plague vehicles, has a formed zombie army, has the endless plagues bestowed by Father Nurgle.

Schemes and tricks? No longer needed.

Just crush straight through the front.

"Rise." Phelps says softly, voice like a rusted machine turning and grinding beside him.

His will spreads out along the plague's network.

Not long ago, the tens of thousands of navy soldiers slaughtered by him and his warriors now lie in the lower deck's various cabins and passages.

The Rust Plague has already permeated every inch of their bodies, corrupted their bones and muscles, remade their corpses into zombies obedient to the plague.

Over eight thousand corpses stand up simultaneously.

It is a hair-raising scene.

Broken bones crack and rejoin with a snap; prolapsed organs are stuffed back into the abdominal cavity by rotten fascia; hollow eye sockets ignite with turbid yellow-green glimmers.

They staggered to their feet, still clutching the laser guns and bayonets from their lives, movements stiff yet carrying a certain stubborn sense of direction.

Afterwards, they all headed toward the direction of the Middle Level Defensive Line.

Simultaneously, those several dozen vehicles infected by the Rust Plague also finished their transformation.

Rust crawled over their metal shells; the hydraulic pipes no longer flowed with machine oil but with sticky pus.

Mechanical arms twisted into bizarre claw shapes, and when the engines started they spewed not exhaust but yellow-green plague smoke.

They let out low, hoarse mechanical roars, like giant beasts stricken with lung consumption.

Eight thousand Waa'gh, dozens of Plague Vehicles, formed a great army exuding the breath of death and decay.

And opposite them stood the First Line of Defense meticulously arranged by the James Tong.

Thirty thousand garrison Navy, heavy weapon Positions, blast walls, and reconnaissance mines spread all around the defensive line.

Those mines had been quietly laid by combat engineers in the maintenance pipes, ventilation shafts, and equipment interlayers around the defensive line, covering almost every dead angle that could possibly be penetrated.

Every single mine was equipped with the most sensitive vibration and sonic sensors; as soon as any object approached within the trigger range.

Within 0.1 nanoseconds they would detonate, emitting a piercing directional sonic impact, capable of both early warning and killing.

This was an airtight alert net.

Phelps knew the other side was on guard.

The Plague's Perception told him that the metal interlayers around the defensive line hid dense clusters of little gadgets, each carrying the dangerous signature of explosives.

But he did not care.

"Advance."