The bridge of the Iron Blood had never been quieter than it was now, and it had at least maintained a sense of orderly noise. And now, there is no sound here.

Not even the gasps of pain were gone, the fungus blanket was gone, scorched clean by some flame that shouldn't exist, challenging both cognition and reason.

It took a few minutes for Perturabo to accept everything.

He held the hammer in one hand and manipulated the screens on the podium with the other, only a few of them were still on, but it was enough for him to achieve his goals. After a brief conversation with Vulcan and Motarian, he left.

The wide corridors of the battleship were now filled with only corpses. The bodies of sick and dead crew members or Iron Warriors were piled up on top of each other in the long corridors, each slumping on their way.

Now, all that is still moving here is the calm floating dust, and even the flies and maggots have disappeared.

The Lord of Steel strode past the staggering mass of corpses, oblivious.

He entered the unlocking door of the auxiliary bridge through a secret passageway, and the biometric code and his special identification lock combined to verify the identity of the visitor, and the door slowly opened. It was still silent and not noisy.

Twenty or so crew members died next to the dripping array of contemplatives, and two Iron Warriors collapsed near them, one dead and the other not.

Perturabo approached the man who was still alive and slowly fell to his knees.

"Vitru Kao." He pronounced his name without wavering. "You're going to die."

"Yes." A member of the Fourth Legion reluctantly responded.

His eyes had almost melted, and his reaction was dulled to the point that Astarte should not have been. It took half a minute for Perturabo to call his name, and Vitru Kao was able to locate the direction of the original with his residual hearing.

His chest, which had been almost stagnant, began to rise and fall violently at this moment, without the slightest hesitation, as if he had been gathering strength for this moment.

So, in the following paragraph, Vitru Kao of the 146th Company of the Iron Warriors completed his battle report summary of the original body without a pause.

"We've completed martial law all over the ship, but the engine room has been lost. The ship's communication channel was destroyed, and we were unable to contact the company commander and the other war blacksmiths after that. The number of survivors on board cannot be determined, and the only thing that is certain is that the traitors are still on the offensive. ”

"We managed to complete the general situation of the ship through the Ponderor array of the auxiliary bridge, the engines are all offline, and the Void Shield lacks energy to be evoked. Eleven of the ship's artillery positions are still available, and there may be people there who are resisting."

"I see, well done, Vitru." Perturabo whispered. "You have done your duty brilliantly, in iron armor, steel inside and out."

The Iron Warrior slowly widened his completely melted eyes, so cloudy that a liquid that didn't look like blood or tears slid down his dirty cheeks.

He nodded.

Perturabo slowly stood up.

He put the hammer down for a moment, leaning it against the side of the dead. There were pitch-black blood stains and several handprints on the walls, the traces of which happened to be covered by the warhammer.

The Iron Lord didn't give himself any time to buffer, striding over to the Ponderor Array and attempting to fix the ship's communications.

It didn't go well, and it didn't go about for less than five minutes before Perturabo realized that he couldn't fix the communication in this situation.

Another way needs to be found.

Keeping his composure, with this conclusion in mind, the Iron Lord turned around and returned to the command platform of the auxiliary bridge. He pulled a cable through the nerve link inside the armor and inserted it into the podium through an external port.

The vast, defaced and nearly unusable stream of data swept across his eyes, but Perturabo ignored it and began to roam the world of data with his lightning-fast thoughts.

After more than ten seconds, he finally gathered the data and created a port that could be used temporarily. With it, Peturabo was able to temporarily change the function of the command station and immediately update his tactical map.

The Steelblood's immediate reach was now within his grasp, and a glowing green light lit up Perturabo's face, causing him to slowly open his eyes.

He glanced at the map, walked over to Vitru, picked up his hammer, turned around, and strode away from the auxiliary bridge.

Due to the fact that all the engines were offline, many of the doors inside the Ironblood could no longer be opened by normal means, but fortunately, it was always easier to destroy than to build.

Moreover, not all doors are automatic, there will always be a few reliable mechanical structures waiting for him somewhere. However, it was too slow to move on foot in a battleship that was twenty kilometers long and full of twists and turns.

It took Peturabo twelve minutes and forty-six seconds to reach his first destination. He used his hammer to destroy two walls, one of the half-ruined gates, and entered a bloody battle.

This is the Fourth Artillery Position, where the Iron Warriors and the Death Guards are fought by the traitors. The enemy clearly had the upper hand, and they were almost on the verge of victory, but the Lord of Steel was here.

Thus, in the blink of an eye, an almost victory turned into a total rout.

After a few back and forth, Perturabo slaughtered the traitors to pieces.

The flesh that had been modified and proliferated by the lesion could not remain intact under the hammer, and the rancid air and the pervasive viruses were firmly blocked by the original immune system.

The Lord of Steel didn't even use the portable weapon platform that housed inside his armor, he simply wielded the hammer in his hand and slaughtered them all.

There was no hint of outrage in the whole process, every movement was made with precision, speed and absolute ruthlessness, and he had never been so extreme and daunting as he was now.

"Narik Dreygour." After killing the last one, Perturabo turned around with the still-bleeding hammer and summoned the name of the commander of the remnant army. "How many people are left?"

"Twenty-six, the original." The person whose name was called replied with difficulty.

"How's your health?"

"We almost all had a fever." Narik Dreygour quickly got into shape and began to answer questions with clarity as if he had never been ill. "There are still varying degrees of vertigo and detachment, but we can still fight, and we are gradually getting better."

Perturabo didn't answer immediately, he just looked at Narik Dregul seriously. It was a strange look, not like the eyes of the Iron Lord. Narik Dreygul was stunned, and it was the voice of the original body that brought him back to his senses.

"Good." The Lord of the Fourth Legion bowed slightly, and then turned around. "Keep it up, come with me. We are to gather our forces and abandon our ships. ”

"Abandon ship?" Narik Dregul and the warriors behind him were taken aback. "Primordial, I beg you to give us an explanation.?"

"The Iron Blood has been contaminated, and these corpses and the diseases you shouldn't have on you are the best proof of this." Perturabo stopped, and complied with his words for the first time.

Rather than pacifying, his performance made the remaining warriors look more confused and flustered - what kind of situation did the Lord of Steel need to explain?

He hated it the most.

Perturabo could see their reactions, but ignored them and just kept talking.

"What's more, its engines have been completely shut down. It's hard to fix the engine in this situation and make it move again. We must abandon ship and move to other ships that can serve as flagships. Although we have not fought such a war, this war still needs us. ”

He turned his head slightly, the white glow of the makeshift emergency light only reaching half of the original body's face, his expression was calm, but the light made eerie.

"This war, and many wars in the future, needs us."

Peturabo said his last words slowly.

"And in the Empire, who else can take on this task except the Iron Warriors? We are the only ones who can be called steel, and only we can resist the fire that is about to scorch the entire galaxy. We will accept its forging and tempering, and we will become the extinction itself of the enemy of humanity. ”

"That's the explanation you're looking for, Narik Dreygul, I'm done."

The Iron Lord ended his explanation, turned his head stiffly, and strode into the darkness with his hammer in hand.

"Dressed in iron armor, steel inside and out!" Narik Dreygur roared and immediately followed his primordial, followed by the rest of the twenty-five.

——

Hatred is a bitter sinking, and although it is bitter, it is also willing to walk in it.

Unlike ordinary emotions, hatred is the most extreme emotion of man or any other intelligent race, colder than anger, more fanatical than desire, and even far beyond the madness that love can reach.

It can make a seasoned coward raise a weapon at a certain moment and become a murderous butcher without care, or it can make lovers turn against each other, fratricide, and parents and children turn against each other.

By its very nature, it is distorted. But it's also indispensable, but what does exposure to such an extreme emotion make people look like for a long time?

Little by little, Carlil forced himself to open his eyes and return to the real world.

In the caverns carved out from the depths of Terra, the icy air shuddered to welcome him back. Larch draped quietly and obediently over him, offering protection he didn't need, and it insisted on providing.

Finally, he began to breathe again. With this act, the blade of a spear also began to emerge in the dark cavern, revealing a golden light, blazing like a flame in the sky.

Konstantin Valdo stabbed his weapon out without squinting, striking precisely where the shadows could not obscure it. Golden light shimmered from beneath the armor.

Lalch was so dissatisfied with this that he wrapped his arms around the neck of the Janissal and was about to end his life with force, but Karil grabbed it and pulled it back.

The shadow retracted into the gap in his armor very aggrievedly, and it didn't look like it would come out anytime soon.

"Thank you."

Carlil ignored it, wishing it would be quiet for a while. He looked at Konstantin Valdo and solemnly expressed his gratitude to the Marshal of the Praetorian Army.

"Thank you very much for waiting for me here, Konstantin."

"It's just a matter of duty, no need to thank you." The Janissary nodded calmly, not reacting emotionally to what had just happened.

He withdrew his spear and looked down at it. The weapon, which had been glowing, was now much dimmer. After careful observation, the marshal of the Praetorian Army gave a conclusion.

"It can still bring back your memory at most once."

"That's enough." Carlil replied with a smile. "It's just a spare item, and I didn't expect it to reach such heights. It seems that he was indeed the best craftsman in the world when he had time. ”

The corners of Konstantin Valdo's mouth twitched.

"Yes." He admitted. "The Lord is indeed so. But you should know better than I do that memory carries humanity. How much longer can you be so reckless, Karil Lohals? ”

"Until I'm done with it all."

Konstantin Waldo was silent.

Although he had been ordered by the Emperor to wait here, he did receive the order with curiosity in his heart - he rarely had curiosity, and most of the time all he needed was anger and calm.

The latter was the weapon he had been using, and the former was a flawed burst. He wouldn't let himself get caught up in anger if he didn't. Curiosity is different, and as a weapon to be used by the sovereign, Konstantin rarely allows himself to be born curiosity.

But he couldn't help but be curious, this matter was too unbelievable. Even a broken person like him will inevitably give birth to a thirst for knowledge.

"Why?" Suddenly, he sincerely threw out a question.

Such a lack of beginning and tail should make people feel confused, but Carlil gave an answer after a little thought.

"Because I want to." He sat down slowly, back on the stone chair, smiling. "Maybe it's stupid, maybe it's unreasonable, but it's just because I want to. Of course, if you have to ask for a reasonable explanation"

He pondered for a moment and gestured.

"I've been in the dark for too long." Carlil retracted his smile and slowly put on the mask for himself. Flames of rage flickered, fluttering past where his face connected to the mask. Konstantin stared at him without squinting, his expression changing from calm to solemn.

He began to wait for his last words.

"I know very well what it's like to be in the dark, no one should put up with it, it's horrible, it's worse than dead. And I happen to have the flame to dispel darkness now. How do you want me to hold back? ”

Smiling, Carlil lowered his hand, the mask had completely replaced his broken face.

Konstantin Valdo bowed in silence and turned to leave.

Today, I will change my thinking, and I want to adjust my thinking to write the plot later. I feel like I've not been in a good state lately, and my writing is a little poor.

(End of chapter)