Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes

Chapter 99 Misplaced Cognition

"Sidney is dead." Chaos Wizard Mendez said in his hoarse and dirty voice.

On the plain hundreds of kilometers away from the Arena Valley, next to an abandoned Hive City is the fortress and camp of the Skull Reavers on this planet.

The former outbuildings on the edge of the hive are full of remnants of the war, and occasionally there are a few rooms that are saved from destruction because of the quality of the building or the good location. Location and garrison of the Chaos Warband.

The main force of the Skull Takers is not here.

At this time, they are still wandering the entire universe on their ship, the Styx-class heavy cruiser "Blood Dawn", led by the Chaos Lord Zhufu.

Remaining here is a small detachment led by the warband's nominal number three: Chaos Sorcerer Mendez.

They have their own missions here—to manage the staging area of ​​interstellar pirates well, and at the same time firmly guard the interstellar passage leading to the asteroid belt behind the planet.

This is one of the many retreats reserved for himself by the cunning Chaos Lord, and it is also the key source of information for the heavy cruiser "Scarlet Dawn" to escape from the empire's siege repeatedly.

At this time, it was already the middle of the night and the hall was extremely quiet.

The dry voice of Wizard Mendes, who woke up suddenly from meditation, was extremely harsh in the empty hall.

And the leader of his guard, also the leader of a team of Chaos Terminator, and the skull champion Melko who believes in Khorne, immediately responded to the call of his lord:

"That mortal psyker? Don't you like him very much? Although he has been unwilling to dedicate his soul to you."

Mendez's eyes were not open, and he was savoring the wail of Sidney's soul when it was finally broken in his soul.

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that he's dead."

Melkor disagreed with such an explanation.

As a champion of Khorne, he has no bad habit of using his precious power for useless thinking.

Melkor just replied bluntly:

"Isn't it strange? People die every moment on this planet. Fights, murders, duels, poisoning... and no matter what method, these killings are the best gift to please the skull master."

Mendes was not irritated by Melko's sophistry, or in other words, the conversation with the lazy top thug under his command was originally his rare pastime.

He maintained his dry voice and continued:
"No, there are thousands of ways to die, and the mark I left in his soul tells me that his soul was annihilated the moment he touched the other party."

"So?" Melko finally understood what his lord meant:
"Ah! Here comes the guest, right? Who else on this planet can do this but you? I'm going to call up all the brothers right now. I think we have something to do!"

Melko stood up excitedly, and the servo in the crimson Terminator power armor let out a heavy hiss.

He couldn't wait to walk out, and what came from behind was Mendez's rare exhortation:

"Wake up Mog too, and reset his memory. Call all the ground troops and wait for me at the door."

After receiving the warning, Melkor finally became serious. He turned around and looked at the figure who was still sitting cross-legged under the icon of the Skull Lord:

"Demon Engine? Are you sure we can use it? You know, it kills as many of itself as it does enemies every time it wakes up."

"Of course, you have to understand the difference between actively destroying a soul and passively destroying it. This guy who sneaked in is more dangerous than you imagined."
-
"This is it?"

Calvin, who was deep in the ruins in the middle of the river valley, looked at the ancient stone cabinet in front of him and took out an unknown mechanical artifact and asked Constantine.

"Yes. I think we can return home." Constantine's eyes were fixed on the reliquary containing the mechanical fragment, and he didn't want to leave for a moment.

"Is this the relic you are looking for?"

"No, it's just a fragment that carries an ancient message. We have to go back and purify and analyze it before we can know whether the message in it is the one we've been looking for."

Perhaps because he knew what the Gray Knights were thinking, Constantine patiently explained to them.

"In any case, thank you for your help along the way. The goal of this mission has been completed halfway. As long as we can return safely, there will be no surprises in what we promised you."

This is what Calvin and his comrades most wanted to hear.

"Then inform all the staff, return the same way..."

Before Calvin could finish his sentence, the screen on his left arm and the communication device next to his ear sent out a contact signal representing an urgent matter at the same time.

And the initiator of the contact signal was the black ship "Noble and Dirty" of the Inquisition Chamber, which was supposed to be on standby in orbit.

"Judge Calvin! I'm Matthew!"

"I'm Calvin, what's going on?"

"Just now, the astropaths on my ship told me that a huge number of unknown large objects are approaching in the nearby subspace! They will break through the constraints of Manzeville Point and appear in the orbit of this planet within a few hours superior!"

Matthew's voice was extremely dry due to impatience and nervousness, and Calvin could already imagine how anxious he was on the track now.

But he still insisted on telling Calvin the conjecture he was least willing to say:

"I guess, the exploration fleet from Greia should have arrived!"

"How could it be so fast? It's not expected to be within a year?" Calvin also realized the seriousness of the situation.

"I don't know. According to the exploration records of their last appearance, there should be at least three more exploration sites among us. I think they may know something."

Ma Wei's voice was also full of doubts and incomprehensions, but it was more of the fear of being discovered.

He couldn't imagine the purpose behind the behavior of a large exploration fleet from the Crown of Miracles coming directly from three distant regions.

"We have already got the things, and we can return within an hour at most." Calvin calmly comforted the panicked Mavi.

"By the throne! That would be great! I'll turn on the teleportation array. Please return as soon as possible!"

"Received!" Calvin cut off the communication signal, then picked up the mechanical priest beside him and the reliquary in his arms, and strode out.

"Easy! In the name of the God of Might, I command you to be gentle! What happened! Let me down! I can walk by myself!" Constantine, who didn't know why, loudly condemned Calvin's rudeness.

Calvin didn't have time to pay attention to the protests and questions from the mechanical priest under his arm. As he walked, he gave the latest instructions to the entire team on the communicator.

"There are all of them, return to the surface as quickly as possible! At the same time, order the left-behind team on the surface to carry out signal docking adjustments with the transmission array on the orbit! This is not our strike cruiser, we have to do these things well in advance."

Under Calvin's order, the whole team of gray knights adjusted the power armor's energy output to the maximum standard, and then moved towards the surface with their huge strides, seemingly slowly but really fast.

And until then, Calvin was free to answer the mechanical priest's question.

As he strode forward, he explained concisely to the priest under his arm: "The stealing of chickens has been completed, we should go. And the master you don't want to see seems to have received some reminder that he has been sent from three sections They came here from a place outside. According to Matthew, they may arrive in an hour at the earliest."

As Calvin's voice fell, Constantine, who was still struggling, immediately stopped struggling.Obviously, under the requirement of running speed on the premise of escaping for his life, he must also admit the eternal truth that running with height and legs is fast.

The Gray Knights finally managed to evacuate from the surface to above orbit at 4:50 am.

And the "Noble and Dirty" didn't stay any longer. After receiving the return of the gray knights, it opened the escape route immediately.

Its main engine, which has already fully warmed up, ejected a huge wake following Ma Wei's order, leading the uninvited guests on the ship to quickly escape from this place of right and wrong before the arrival of the owner.

After the black ship detached from the orbit, it did not head towards the Manzeville point where there was a clear possibility of encountering danger.

On the contrary, under the guidance of an experienced captain, they avoided the possibility of a head-on encounter with the exploration fleet, and turned their heads towards the direction of the asteroid belt behind the planet.

In the eyes of this old captain with 3 years of service experience, the priority is to ensure that all observable possibilities are avoided.

This choice proved to be extremely correct and predictable after 30 minutes.

When the Noble and Dirty will hide her body on the edge of the asteroid belt, Calvin and Constantine, who have already arrived on the bridge, can barely see the planet through the porthole on the black ship.

The Manzeville point outside the orbit of the planet was suddenly torn apart by the power of the subspace, and what was then spit out was an entire super fleet with more than thirty ships.

How huge is the size and quality of this fleet, there are more than five battleships alone!

As for the slightly inferior heavy cruisers and cruisers, as well as the heavy landing barges attached to them, they are row upon row and connected amidships.

Constantine even saw some heavy landing ships marked with the Titan Legion logo with the excellent vision of his mechanical prosthetic eye!

This fleet obviously has a clear goal and is full of some kind of anger of being stolen. They just finished breaking away from the state of subspace navigation, and they couldn't wait to launch a global announcement on the public frequency to the entire planet.

While declaring the legal rights and interests of the Forge World of Gria, which it represents, the fleet ordered all armed forces on the surface of the planet to give up resistance, otherwise they would deal a devastating blow without hesitation.

And those special heavy landing barges discovered by the sharp-eyed Constantine, even under the escort of a group of warships, unscrupulously and with a clear goal, went straight to the surface of the atmosphere, heading towards the Arina River Valley where Calvin and the others were before. It released wave after wave of super-large anti-gravity landing pods.

At this time, on the surface of the river valley, headed by Mendez and Milko, a group of people from the Skull Reavers Gang who had just arrived at full speed on an assault boat from a hundred kilometers away to prepare for war.

They stared dumbfounded at the countless large unknown objects descending from the sky—these could only be seen during the Great Crusade, representing the rain of fire and steel that would only appear when the Titan Legion stormed the ground.

Their only thought was: "Xin Liezhi's ass! Isn't it just stealing something, why don't you?"

　Ah, first post and then change.Ask for a ticket

　　
　
(End of this chapter)