171. Interlude: Rekindled (4, 7k2)
The blood mist cleared, the darkness vanished, and the scene was not very gentle.
Luthor clenched his sword and stood behind a Rand raider, staring at the front of the line. The mist of blood behind the Torch Gate transported them to another world, and it was needless to say that anyone with sight could understand their current situation.
The sky was no longer the burning it had been, but an uncomfortable, overly bright blue.
Luthor looked up at it, and some not-so-good premonition rose in his mind. Some of the exclamations that followed made him sigh silently, and he knew that his instincts, which had always worked only in unfortunate matters, had done its job again.
Turning his head, the old knight saw several armored vehicles fighting the ground, and the laser cannons and crew members were constantly firing, shooting at the heavy fungus blanket that had replaced the original ground at some point.
But they apparently didn't care about the damage, and a cloudy yellow-brown juice gushed out of the thick veins that had been pierced like mud, clamping down on the wheels of the vehicle.
A swarm of buzzing flies flew out from under the blanket and exploded into clumps of powder above people's heads, wriggling white fat maggots falling from the air. Dropping or shattering it leaves behind a dark green stain.
As if being pulled on, the carpet began to wriggle in their direction like a living thing, apparently to expand their territory, and some of them had been caught and devoured, screaming and never to be seen again.
At the same time, there was a loud scream in the sky, and the light shone brightly, illuminating everyone's faces like a supernova explosion.
Countless birds with brilliant colorful feathers screamed and flew out of it, obscuring the sky, and clusters of blue flames fell from between their wings and fell into the crowd.
Luthor frowned and leaned against the side of the Rand raider, trying to dodge the flames. However, when they descended on the roof of the car, he realized that those things were not flames at all, but a small kind of flaming demon.
A wicked face danced in the flames, greed and ugliness coexisted. Luthor drew his gun and smashed it to pieces, and with its screams, the war officially began.
The armored troops began to dodge the fungus blanket at full speed, but blood-red flames burned in front of them, and the demons driving brass bulls burst out of it with a wild laugh, and began to collide head-on with tanks and armored vehicles like ancient knights and chariots.
Weapons such as twin laser cannons, heavy blasters, and twin assault guns immediately began to roar. But the demons also have cannons, brass cannons, corpses as cores, and flesh as leads.
This supernatural war is becoming more and more absurd, and the soldiers in the artillery positions saw this scene, and they immediately began to manually adjust the aiming data, intending to give the demons something good to taste.
But behind them there was already a pinkish-purple miasma with a strong musky scent, and in the midst of it the shadows surged, and the sound was incessant, but so soft that it seemed to murmur, and the soldiers could not even notice it, until they were near.
And so everything happened in an instant, and the evil deeds of depravity began to be committed one by one by those shameless lowly creatures in the laughter of joy.
The white scars on the flanks have spotted these enemies. They rushed into it with swift speed and began to shoot at the survival of the artillery position. Seconds later, the first human cannon fire landed among the brass cannons, splattering a puddle of debris.
"It's horrible."
Luthor took in all of this, and he couldn't help but sigh. A War Dog-level Titan strode past him at this moment, and the tip of the barrel as bright red as blood once again burst into fierce fire.
The blackened-headed monitor glowed with a crimson glow from nowhere, and the ghost roared silently, moving faster and faster, emitting a heat that distorted the air.
It was so irritable that even its movements seemed so aggressive that it made the ground tremble. As a last resort, the old knight grabbed the dagger and plunged it deep into the chest of a bird demon that tried to attack him, thus making a simple fixation.
The latter screamed, and as he ascended, he pecked the beak of the bird so ferociously that it was about to pierce Luther's head.
The old knight unhurriedly raised his left prosthetic leg and grabbed its beak, the force of which made it immobilized. Then he drew his sword and cut off its claws. It flapped its wings feebly, helping Luthor stabilize his body from falling.
The old knight smiled at it, thanked it with his mouth, drew his sword, struck it head, and fell to the ground on his knees.
A burst of artillery fire fell behind him, stirring up a cloud of smoke and flying mud. Luther looked back and saw several minotaurs appearing along with the blood flames working together to tear apart a Celestial Dragon armored transporter belonging to the Solar Auxiliaries.
The treasure that was seriously maintained and taken seriously is gradually turning into a pile of garbage at the moment. The armor was bitten and torn. The tracks were torn apart, the engine was smoking, and the chassis was damaged in several places.
However, its twin laser cannons are constantly firing, and the crew's attempts to fight the impending despair have the opposite effect.
The old knight frowned, pulled out the huge revolver from under his cloak with his backhand, and began to aim. He fired four times in a row, piercing their heads. The armored car landed heavily on the ground, and Luthor immediately sped away.
The demons' corpses were still trembling, but they hadn't melted, and their vain bodies made of ugly aetheric flesh had begun to writhe, twitch, and spurt blood like real creatures.
Luthor made a note of it, and the power dagger was already flying in his hand. It didn't take much effort for him to cut open the compartment of the armored car with this personal gift from the Lord of the Fourth Legion, and the soldiers immediately climbed out of it.
The thick armor of the Holy Celestial Dragon saved their lives, and most of the twenty people were only slightly wounded, bleeding a little, but not fatal. They grabbed their weapons and engaged Luthor for a brief moment.
There were no words from beginning to end, just a few simple glances and palms crossed over the chest.
Luthor turned to leave, and they ran to another position to the right front. There, the walking dead who have been swallowed up in a blanket and re-vomited are swarming.
Luthor didn't know what fate they would endure, but he wished them victory.
He switched the sword to his left hand, and the strength of the prosthetic was much stronger than his left hand. Besides, he still prefers to hold the gun in his right hand. From the lining of his cloak, he pulled out a short submachine pistol and began to fire with precision to attack any enemy he could see.
The battle situation has become chaotic, and it is like the mind of an outsider who first sees the formation of the First Legion. And Luthor believes that the first priority is to find the male lion first.
It was noisy all around, full of shouts, roars, death, and demonic screams. It's a strange war song, a radical departure from the war ballads that Luthor was familiar with in the past.
But he accepts it.
He is not Astarte, and adapting to any war is their mission and instinct. He's just an old Caliban guy who has been somewhat reformed. Stubborn, he insisted on facing this already strange galaxy with the set that belonged to the Knights
These old things are outdated, but some of them will not fade with time.
Such as loyalty, such as bravery, such as the way of killing.
If a creature has a physical body, if it has flesh, then it can be attacked, it can bleed, it can die.
Luthor clenched his sword.
A flock of birds flew over his head, and he raised his gun to shoot, shooting down most of them. The purity of the energy flow seems to interfere with their so-called flesh and blood bodies, forcing them to lose the ability to fly as they melt.
The ugly birds screamed and fell to the ground, and Luthor pounced on them with a frenzied speed, stabbing them to death one by one. No blood splattered, only scattered blue flames.
The fire demons ran out of their corpses, and just after they were born, they saw the muzzle of the old knight's black hole. He shot again and again, not bothering to bother with the amount of ammunition.
After doing this, he looked up at the sky, which had been obscured by the forces of chaos and was now lit up with a foul aurora, which stung his eyes.
Something roared from behind him, and Luthor stabbed a sword without looking back. Then bend down, bow your head, turn around, and draw your sword in one go.
A blood-red demon impaled through the chest smashed the twisted blade in his hand into him in a rage. Its sharpness shone with blood, and the wailing faces of the dead flashed from the skull in the center of the gauntlet.
Luther dodged the dangerous blow sideways, swinging his dagger and slicing off its curved left leg. It fell, and was immediately smashed in the head by a stream of energy.
Luthor straightened up, he heard himself sigh unconsciously, but he heard something else. The old knight looked down and saw that the ground was changing.
The dirt was replaced by sarcoma, and several thick rhizomes silently propped up the sarcoma and the earth, and in the cracked gap, countless maggots writhed their bodies, waiting for the unlucky ones who fell in.
Luthor took a deep breath and left without hesitation, continuing to run towards the rear of the position.
He told himself optimistically: "It's just a more disgusting Caliban forest"
He laughed out loud at the joke.
——
Nasir Amit heard a sound like a sharp wind blowing over a cliff, and it came to his ears like a ghost crying wolf. But it's not really the sound of the wind, it's the sound of a living being.
And it was definitely the most disturbing voice Amit had ever heard during his war career.
With a stiff face, he jumped up and slashed one of its slippery tentacles with his chainsaw sword, which screamed and writhed a thousand more tentacles, knocking him away. The fifth company commander of the Holy Blood Angel fell to the ground and let out a low roar from his throat.
He quickly got to his feet, his face charred black. A cloud of gunfire struck from behind the thing, and the bombs rained down on its glowing pink body, exploding through its entire chest.
Something like guts or slime splattered out, and the promethine flamethrower immediately followed, beginning to cauterize its flesh.
Amit laughed—immediately, and two fangs shone savagely from under her lips.
He coughed, spitting out a thick patch of blood. His brothers from the Fifth Company strode past him and began firing at the things that were hiding in the pink miasma.
"Go on!" Amit roared. "Don't stop for a moment, run out of bullets before you say anything else!"
This was of course his experience—the Blood Angels had dealt with demons back in the days of the Signus system.
He didn't care what the colors of the objects represented, but upon arriving in Terra, Amit had come up with a very valid idea based on his experience and sense of smell.
If you're fighting demons, you'd better run out of bullets first, and you'd better not draw your sword and start a white-knuckle fight with them as soon as you get within easy reach, unless you want to be killed by them in any way that defies common sense.
He gripped his chainsaw sword and strode after his brothers. The Astartes, clad in vermilion armor, rained fire in the miasma, while missiles whistled above their heads and landed behind the mist, causing chain explosions one after another.
Amit couldn't help but laugh again, he knew that this was proof that the mortals in those artillery positions were fighting.
As always—he told himself—it was just another war with auxiliaries, nothing unusual.
Then the sky began to burn and howl above their heads, as if to punish him for the idea. The ground shakes, as if experiencing a sudden movement of the earth's crust.
Unable to keep his balance at all, Amit fell to the ground and had to grab the chainsaw sword with both hands and plunge it deep into the ground. He didn't care if doing so would cause the sawtooth to wear out.
The ground continued to shake, and a strange scream that transcended the description of 'sound' began to come from beneath the ground, giving him a splitting headache. Amit didn't realize he was screaming until minutes later, and by that time, his mouth was full of blood.
He coughed twice, spat out the blood, and staggered to his feet, only to be slammed into the ground by something. It was probably a breed dog, but it wasn't a normal dog.
Its head was a swirling mass of fleshy tumors, with a gaping gap, revealing tender pink flesh and fine teeth. It bit at Amit, and the Angel of the Holy Blood instinctively sliced it in half as it fell from above.
In the stinky blood splattered, he stood up again. A screeching spear stabbed at him, and Amit used his instincts again to dodge the attack. When he looked up, he realized that the attacker was not human, but a twisted thing with a long snake tail.
It didn't look like a human, but it actually had facial features, and at the moment it was actually smiling disgustingly at him, and its long forked tongue was slowly licking the edge of its lips.
Amit lunged upon it, dismembering it with sheer anger and zeal. As a result, it kept laughing, even as it was being chopped to pieces by Amit with his chainsaw sword.
The Blood Angel felt a headache again, and he looked around to see that most of his brothers were too.
All those who were not wearing helmets had a similar pale and unusual flush on their faces. Nosebleeds flowed from the nasal cavity, sticky as if unmelted pigment.
A little cloudy thought flashed through Amit's mind, as if water had been poured into his head along with another black water. That thought is black water, and it is impossible to get it out of the way of ordinary water
Amit gasped, and just as he felt helpless, there was a rapid sound of breaking the air above their heads. A figure descended from the sky and landed beside them.
Radiance bloomed between his wings, and Amit's thoughts, which were about to get out of control for various reasons, suddenly calmed down at this moment. He looked at the man, and the man looked at him, and slowly bowed his head.
The wings spread and flapped, and the miasma was blown away by the wind. The demons screamed and rushed over, aiming at the Angel of Baal himself, who had just landed.
Amit gripped his chainsaw sword tightly and stood in front of the original. The same was true of his brothers, who, despite the blood on their faces, had dissipated the oppression that had caused them a headache, all because of the presence of angels.
St. Giles watched all this faintly, he had no sorrow or joy, only complete peace.
The spear of Bi Gong was raised high by him, and the golden light suddenly bloomed on the chaotic battlefield, like a silent horn, attracting the attention of the people around him.
The chaos was over, and Amit roared and slashed down a demon, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the auxiliaries charge. Rushing straight down the high slopes created by the earth's crust, thousands of mortals were fearless.
Are they called to come, by whom? The answer is obvious. He looked back at his father, who didn't look at him.
St. Giles intently raised the Spear of Completion and looked up at the sky. And in the burning sky, deep purple and blood-red brilliance bloomed together, splitting the sky in half as if it were a scramble.
"Amit." St. Giles suddenly called.
"I'm here." The Flesh Ripper responds immediately.
The angel lowered his head, and a colossal anger quietly bloomed in his eyes. Nasir Amit could swear that he had never seen his father so angry.
"Kill them all." St. Giles said coldly. "None of them will be left."
——
Ahriman heard Bjorn gasping for breath, a kind of breathless mutter, as if all three of the lone wolf's lungs had exploded, or maybe he had asthma, otherwise how could he make such a sound?
You see, herein lies the disadvantage of not having eyesight. He couldn't see the battlefield, he could only imagine what the battle would look like by the sounds he heard. And imagination is imagination after all, how can it compare to reality?
Bjorn's breathing was for a reason, as was Saul Tavitz's struggle, Sigismund's broken wrist, and the Thunder's blood still gushing from his chest. But Kabanha could see it all.
It laughed with pleasure.
"Your blood will be a sacrifice to my glorious blood god." It proclaims with a calmness far beyond its own kind. "You may be able to get up again and again after you die, but the blood you shed will not be fake. Your blood will drain, and I will smear it on the faces of your gods. ”
Thunder didn't answer, just slashed hard. The lightning-wound blade sliced through the brass armor, but the demon spread its wings, shattered blood-red wings that seemed to obscure the sky.
It leapt to its feet, dodged Sigismund's attack, and sent Saul Tavits flying with a backhand. Bjorn howled and followed, thrust his fist into the demon's ankle with unimaginable recklessness.
Kabanha glanced at him, grinned, pulled him up with his backhand, and threw him down. Once again, the lone wolf fell into the river of blood, and this time, he didn't immediately float.
Ahriman stumbled over, demonic laughter coming from behind him, but Ahriman didn't care. He simply followed the sound intently to the spot where Bjorn fell and pulled him out of the river of blood.
He couldn't see Bjorn's face at the moment, he only knew that he had to pull him up. He succeeded, a burning sting pain coming from his fingertips, and the lone wolf snapped to his feet in a burst of coughing.
He nonchalantly straightened his broken bones and rushed over with his axe. Ahriman trembled and followed, but fell halfway into the river of blood.
After all, his disability was a pain point that could not be blurred, and he gasped and got up, but the ancient book was always firmly held in his hand, as if it had become one with his hand. When he struggled to his feet, he heard the demon's mockery again.
"Do you really think you can defeat me?"
It asked, rubbing its sharp teeth. The sound of swords escaping between his lips and teeth sounded like swords rubbing against each other, and they were terrifyingly sharp.
"You can't kill us." Sigismund said calmly, and swung his sword at the demon's flank weakness exposed by blocking both Thunder and Tavitz's attacks.
Kabanha snorted and ate the blow unconcernedly, even having the strength to knock the Thunder back with a sweep.
It burst out laughing again.
"Yes, yes, Imperial Fist. I can't kill you here, the cowardly god has locked up this hell and turned it into a place of reincarnation where you will be tortured endlessly. “
"But you are the key, the keyhole, and the door. You're going to get out of here eventually. There's only one thing I'm concerned about right now, when will He let you out? ”
"Silence!" Thunder roared and rushed back.
His armor had long since shattered, something that had never happened in his previous torment, his face had been contorted, and he had never been so angry.
"Maggot, you deserve to judge him too?!"
"Angry, Experiment?"
The demon grinned, took his blade in anticipation, and slashed with him for dozens of rounds in a matter of seconds.
Thunder retreated, covered in blood, and Kabanha stuck out his tongue to lick the wound on his forehead, and it was deep in the bones, making its face twitch. Still, the demon's face was full of contented smiles.
"You should know I'm telling the truth." It continued. "If He is not cowardly, why would He give up His altar on His own initiative, and why would He make your home planet like this? Admit it, warrior, and admit that you have always despised Him in the bottom of your heart, I can feel it. ”
"Bullshit, honest!"
Thunder roared madly, his countenance contorted to the extreme.
"I hate his ruthlessness at best, but I also understand his ruthlessness. How can a thing like you understand what he can do for humanity? And how can we understand what we can give for humanity?! ”
"Fuck," Bjorn gasped and walked behind him. "You've hidden a lot of stuff that you didn't tell us, Thunder."
"Come with me, brother!" Thunder roared without looking back. "For unity!"
"You have the final say, boss." Björn grinned. "For unity!"
They rushed forward again, and the demon focused on blocking Sigismund's blade, only to be struck by a bolt of black lightning. Thunder laughed at it, and then he put down his greatsword and strode forward, sinking deep into the river of blood.
In the stiff pain, Saul Tavitz stabbed it in the left eye with his sword. Bjorn slashed its thick tail with the blade of his fist, and the thunder turned wild, the greatsword dragging through the river of blood, splashing a boundless wave of blood.
He rushed to it before he drew the greatsword, and the blood swelled high, and the greatsword was embedded deep in Kabanha's skull, threatening to split its head in two, but it couldn't get an inch.
The demon clawed at the greatsword, and it gasped lowly, its brass armor slowly disintegrating in Sigismund's silent sword dance, and it couldn't resist because it had to wrestle with the thunder.
Bjorn seized the opportunity and attacked its curved legs, fists and axes swinging, and the demon's legs were white. Tavitz roared and spun the blade, a mixture of brains and blood flowing out of his blade.
Die! Die! Die! Everyone was shouting in unison, including Azek Ahriman, who was stumbling in. He'd pulled out the blade from the ancient books, and he didn't know if it would work, but he had to try.
Demons can be banished, but they can also be killed He thought with a dry mouth, he couldn't see the specific situation now, but he only had one thought.
Die, please, please, die.
And Kabanha just doesn't die.
It slowly exhaled a mouthful of blood with a strong sulfur smell and smiled approvingly.
"Well done." It compliments hoarsely.
Its tone doesn't sound like it, but a god?
Ahriman was stunned.
An infinite ray of blood shone through the cracks in its armor, and that was the last thing Azek Ahriman could remember. He regained his sight—albeit only for a brief moment, but he did see again.
It wasn't the thing he was trading with that he saw, but someone else, who was it?
He instinctively searched for still time and got answers.
It was the emperor, it was the emperor who made him see all this.
So he looks.
He saw Saul Tavitz beheaded, Sigismund eviscerated, Thunder pierced through his chest with his greatsword, and Björn broken and trampled into a mass of flesh.
He screamed, tears of blood pouring from his long-lost tear ducts and crawling all over his face.
Then he heard the emperor's sigh.
"Shameless." The Lord of Humanity said coldly. "But they won't die here, false gods."
The Blood God laughed.
Subsequently, there was a golden light in full bloom. Azek Ahriman's consciousness was plunged into darkness.
This chapter is 7k2, and there is a chapter of 8k, and I will try to write it before twelve o'clock, and write as much as I can. The recent goal is to guarantee a minimum of about 10,000 per day, and a maximum of 15,000.
(End of chapter)