Turbines whirred. Two exhaust trails ignited behind five Reapers, launching them straight into midair and letting them easily leap onto a nearby building.
The goggles worn by the Reapers provided them with infrared vision. Soon, they locked onto the hiding Nurgle Psykers, and the terrain scanner instantly mapped the nearby environment, plotting a reasonable route for the Reapers.
"Target locked! Take them down!"
Seeing the Reapers rapidly approaching, the Nurgle Psykers roared in fury!
"Stop them! Don't let them near me!!" Although he did not know who these soldiers actually were, he felt the threat of death.
Plague Flies changed targets, flying toward the Reapers, but their speed simply could not keep up with the high-speed movement of the Reapers.
The Reapers continuously leaped and bounded between buildings and across the ground.
With flying Plague Flies unable to keep up, let alone those Living Dead.
A few cultists wanted to operate the autocannon and Hellgun, but before they could swivel the barrels, the two P-45 electromagnetic pistols in the Reapers' hands began to fire.
"Eat lead, you motherfuckers!"
Every pause by a Reaper was a precise shot, followed by immediate rapid maneuvers after each shot.
A single Reaper might lack the firepower to instantly take down a believer blessed by Nurgle, but five Reapers could achieve an instant kill.
These Nurgle Cultists, capable of casting Nurgle spells, were not particularly strong. Their essence remained that of thugs, and they were unskilled in this suddenly acquired power. Any combat psyker in the Empire could probably kill them.
A Reaper used a jetpack to leap directly over the autocannon and Hellgun positions, dropping a KD-8 grenade onto the emplacement as he flew past.
After a brief delay, the exploding grenade blew nearby enemies away while destroying the position.
Whenever a Reaper detected signs of being surrounded, they would throw this type of grenade, which caused knockback and damage, to help themselves break out.
"Good job! Reorganize the formation, attack!!"
The front-line enemies were heavily drawn away, and with the Plague Flies no longer a restriction, Damon and the soldiers around him launched a counterattack.
Those Nurgle Cultists panicked; they had lost their greatest reliance.
When they gave up casting more Plague Flies and tried to sneak away, their death sentence was already pronounced.
Without needing to perform excessive maneuvers to dodge Plague Flies, the Reapers charged toward their respective targets.
A burst of gunfire and a grenade were executed in one go.
When the Reapers' turbine jetpacks stopped operating, the Nurgle Cultists who had been casting Plague Flies were all wiped out.
As expected, the deeper someone is influenced by Chaos, the more crystals I obtain after killing them.
Gao Yi discovered that a single cultist capable of using Nurgle psionic magic could provide him with a starting foundation of 50 psionic crystals.
"Clear out the remaining Living Dead, and Firebats, burn every single corpse if possible! You few, establish a defense line to prevent a possible counterattack!"
Damon was furious. In the just-concluded battle, they had lost eleven machine gunners, and a Firebat was directly hit in the fuel tank by an autocannon round, detonating on the spot.
Fortunately, the addition of the Reapers prevented them from losing even more men. Damon wore an ugly expression; this was his first time experiencing such heavy casualties since coming to this world. However, what he did not know was that in the Warhammer world, such casualties could already be called a historic victory, especially given that there were psykers among the opponents.
Aside from their equipment advantage, his side still consisted purely of mortal flesh, and human lives were cheap in this world.
Holding the C-14 in his hand, Damon led his subordinates into the Church.
The interior of the Church could practically be called a living hell at that moment.
When the outer walls of the Church were damaged and the soldiers fired their final ammunition, they had no choice but to pull out melee weapons and continue fighting these Nurgle Cultists. If even soldiers wearing Combat Suits fought this hard, the survivors inside the Church went without saying.
The once-crowded Church was now in utter disarray. Nearly all the soldiers had died in battle, with bodies piled high across the floor, belonging to both shipworkers and the living dead.
Meanwhile, the Church priest and several church personnel were sitting dejectedly on the ground holding chainswords. Large amounts of flesh fragments remained on their chainswords, and behind them stood quite a few trembling laborers.
The clerical robes were already tattered beyond recognition, and the bodies beneath those robes bore countless wounds. The plague had also entered their bodies.
When they saw Damon walk into the Church, the priest actually forced his body up, roared "For the God-Emperor!" and charged at Damon.
"We are here to rescue you, we are soldiers of the Rogue Trader!!! Stop!"
Hearing Damon's voice, the priest vigorously wiped away the blood that had glued his eyes shut. When he saw that the newcomers were not those mutated flesh-creatures, he could no longer hold on and collapsed to the ground.
"Connie! Quickly, bring the other two medics to save lives!!"
Damon arrived in front of the priest, recognized the other's appearance, and cross-referenced it with the database. He confirmed that the priest before him was the very person who had sent out the distress communication and stated he would provide intelligence.
"Elias Barnes?"
"Y-yes... Praise the God-Emperor... You really came to save us..."
Connie briefly checked the man's injuries. She genuinely had no idea how this person had survived; by all logic, blood loss alone should have taken his life, yet he had somehow remained conscious the entire time.
"You lot held off their attack with just this many people?"
"Cough, cough... I became a priest later on... Before coming to this warship, I was an Imperial Navy officer..."
And the plague that was normally enough to kill an ordinary soldier outright seemed to have been weakened within his body?
Could this be what the commander called the so-called power of faith in this world?
Fortunately, as long as he did not die outright, the medic could max out his health bar once more.
Under the healing of the nanites, Elias's physical body recovered.
However, while physical injuries could heal, psychological ones could only be handled by Elias himself.
Wounded individuals were carried out from the Church one by one. It had to be said, under the blessing of faith, this group of priests possessed astonishing combat prowess. Thirty-odd church members plus a few faithful shipworkers had stubbornly held the breach until Damon's reinforcements arrived, though only five church members ultimately survived, and very few of the participating shipworkers remained.
The only survivors were those cowardly individuals who had avoided battle.
An Enforcer Squad member wearing CMC armor walked angrily up to the group of draft-dodging survivors and loudly rebuked them.
"You cowards! You failed the expectations of the Rogue Trader and the Dynasty! Every single one of you has received the bounty of the Rogue Trader! If we didn't still need you to pay with your lives to make contributions to the Dynasty, you'd all be hanged! After this riot ends, you and your clans will face punishment!"
Damon merely stood by and watched. To him, these shipworkers were just pitiful civilians, and he did not understand why they had to be treated so harshly. However, Gao Yi had told him not to interfere in the matters of these Enforcer Squads, so he said nothing more.
"Elias! You said you had important intelligence to report? What is it?"
"I... I saw Lord Ludwig's condition wasn't very good, but he still led the Praetorian Guard toward the Lower Deck! They seemed to be looking for something."
"We already know that. Is that the important intelligence you were talking about?"
"No... also, I saw the Master of Discipline by Ludwig's side. My intuition tells me this isn't normal..."
"The Master of Discipline?!"
Before you continue