It was obvious that down in that rotting under-hive below the earth, an utterly chaotic war was now erupting.
After all, this time Chaos Space Marines were involved—if it had been an ordinary planet, a single Chaos Space Marine would have been enough to whip up a tide of Chaos capable of destroying the entire world.
It wasn’t that any one of them possessed the strength to solo a whole planet on his own, but rather that they could carry out small sacrifices, one after another, through their knowledge of Chaos.
And in the end, they would devour the entire planet bit by bit.
Apart from those of Slaanesh, even the Chaos Space Marines of Khorne possessed enough cunning intellect.
It was truly hard to say what state the under-hive was in now, and clearly the main forces of this sector had all been redeployed to Vigilus.
According to what Heydrich knew, there wasn’t much time left now before the opening of the Great Rift.
But no matter what, at this moment the two of them had no choice but to abandon their blown-out car.
One of them gripped a chainsword, and then they swiftly slipped away from the middle of the battlefield with lateral movements.
But it was right at this moment that the Khorne cultists and the Poxwalkers collided with one another.
In an instant, the Poxwalkers toppled over in great swathes, torn to shreds by the Khorne cultists.
Yet before those Khorne cultists holding aloft the skulls of the Poxwalkers could even show a joyful expression on their faces, they then watched as their own flesh rapidly sprouted blotches and markings of every color.
Then maggots and bacteria began to flourish swiftly within their bodies, and the Khorne cultists who had charged to the very front turned, in the blink of an eye, into humanoid monsters covered in thick, oozing tumors.
Almost in a single instant, the two sides had become the most savage of battlefields.
Squelch!!!
Over on the other side, Heydrich and Irena had also cut straight across the contact point between the two forces, and afterwards both of them stared at the battlefield before them with a touch of shock.
“Even though I’d known it in my heart all along, the warfare of these Chaos things really is terrifying.
Hey, it looks like the road we came by is a no-go now.
The only option left is to take the risk and venture into the under-hive.”
After casting a grave glance at the utterly chaotic war below, Heydrich looked back toward Irena.
The expression on her face was much like his own—if anything, Irena looked even more frenzied.
But however manic she got, Irena had not lost her reason.
She did not choose to throw her life away single-handedly against these millions, perhaps even tens of millions, of cultists.
Forget a mere Sister of Battle—even the Custodes, were they to come, would be driven half-mad.
After all, no matter how mighty the Custodes were, they could only hack away one blow at a time; there was simply no way to wipe out a whole swathe with a single AOE.
So at this moment the two of them slipped down through a fissure that the cultists had blasted open and entered into the under-hive.
Only, the instant they stepped inside, both their brows couldn’t help but twitch.
If the original lower-hive had looked at a glance like a multicolored mass of radioactive matter—and, to put it less kindly, carried more than a little of the flavor of some dreamland—then what was this before them now?
Everywhere were heads impaled upon sharp spikes.
“How long has it even been?
Chaos has already corrupted the entire under-hive.”
At this moment Heydrich, too, drew in a deep breath.
It would be a lie to say his heart wasn’t stirred.
After all, he was only a man of the 2K era—where would he ever have experienced such a spectacular and cruel scene?
And so in this very instant, Heydrich’s killing intent toward Chaos grew even more intense.
“Blasphemy…..”
At this moment the corners of Irena’s mouth trembled a little, too—she was not Heydrich, after all.
And so the seductive, lingering whispers had already begun to surface beside her ears, but unfortunately that voice was very quickly shut out by a surge of golden-yellow power.
Her lips parted and shut a few times as she softly recited the shortest line of the Imperial Cult’s prayers, “The Emperor protects.” Each syllable was like a nail, pinning those Warp whispers that sought to bore into her skull firmly outside the outer wall of her consciousness.
The rose-shaped sacred emblem set into the shoulder of her power armor gave off a faint golden glow—a radiance that was not dazzling, yet was like a silent wall, forcing back the Chaos corruption coiling in the air.
And yet the knuckles of the hand gripping her boltgun had already turned slightly white, not out of fear, but out of fury—at the sight of those eight altars piled high from the skulls of living men, she had nearly ground her teeth to dust.
“Kill me, I beg you, please kill me!!!”
But very quickly the two of them simultaneously halted their footsteps, for a string of agonized wails had begun to ring out beside their ears.
Then, after crossing over a small mound, Heydrich and Irena saw an utterly spectacular sight.
For what appeared before them now were eight ‘mountain peaks,’ each tens of meters tall, and these peaks were composed entirely of human heads—and what was even more horrifying was that those skulls were all alive; they had not died.
Under the empowerment of Chaos’ current might, they were all in agony, ceaselessly singing dirges in praise of Khorne.
Seeing this, Heydrich, almost without hesitation, drew out a melta bomb to destroy the eight ‘mountains.’
“The thing I feared most has happened.
This is already a sacrifice of considerable scale.
By now it’s very possible that Bloodletters of Khorne are already among those cultists—but a degree like this still shouldn’t be enough to let the Bloodthirsters loose.”
Of course, the eight mountains were offerings sacrificed to Khorne.
Clearly, under the intervention of that Khorne Space Marine, the entire planet had likewise begun to enter its phase of corruption.
“Back then I was still a bit too cautious.
There’s no telling how many more Khorne Space Marines are over there.”
At this moment Heydrich, too, fell into thought.
A display on this scale was surely not something one or two Khorne Space Marines could create.
That meant that, apart from the batch he himself had screwed over, there should have been at least a full company of Khorne World Eaters down in the lower-hive at the time.
Only, he reckoned they’d all been scattered across various places, and hadn’t followed that captain off to develop the ruins.
Boom!!!
But at this very moment a melta grenade was hurled with precision into the center of these eight mountains, and the scorching flames and the explosion utterly devoured them.
Now that this warp-point had been destroyed, the corruption of the Warp instantly shrank a great deal.
Then, before Heydrich’s astonished eyes, several tall, hulking figures came running out from the opposite side in utter disarray.
“Astartes—it’s that fellow, and by the looks of it he seems to be a Black Shield of the Deathwatch.”
Heydrich didn’t recognize the other few cans, but the one in the lead he was fairly familiar with—it was that very Alpharius he himself had hoodwinked.
Clearly the other party had also noticed Heydrich and Irena at this moment—after all, accounts of a Sister of Battle being corrupted were practically unheard of these days.
So after spotting the two of them, the three of them rapidly drew near.
“Mortal, and Sister.
We must withdraw at once.
Right now there is at least a company of World Eaters here…..”
“Blood for the Blood God, skulls for the Skull Throne!!!”
But before he could even finish his words, roar after roar of fury rang out beside their ears.
Then, seemingly drawn by the earlier explosion, the group watched as eight World Eaters came charging in from all directions, bringing two Helbrutes with them, and surrounded them in the center.
“This is a trap.”
Seeing such an all-encompassing scene, how could the several of them not realize they seemed to have walked into an ambush.
“It seems we are to return to the Golden Throne today, to return to the embrace of His holy and pure Majesty.
What an honor this is.”
Yet the several of them showed not the slightest trace of fear—indeed, one of the Astartes spoke at this moment with a fervor laced into his piety.
“Fuck, Word Bearers?”
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan ;)🔥👻
🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
Help smash these goals: