Phase Shift

"Captain! There is Chaos corruption inside the Tyrant!"

Through the communicator inside his combat suit, Norris immediately reported the situation here to Gao Yi.

Hearing Norris's words, Gao Yi also grew tense.

"Chaos? What kind of Chaos corruption?"

"I don't know... I only feel Warp forces filled with malice right now!"

"I see. Keep your original mission plan unchanged!"

"Understood!"

Receiving the order, Norris once again entered a stealth state and headed toward the bridge.

Gao Yi stood up, and seeing Gao Yi rise, Inquisitor Ian also looked at him with curiosity.

"Captain Gao Yi, has something happened?"

"Inquisitor, perhaps you can no longer remain a detached onlooker to this battle."

"Why?"

"My soldier tells me that Chaos corruption has broken out inside the Tyrant. It seems this is no longer simply a routine battle between Rogue Traders."

"Chaos corruption? Can you be certain?"

"I don't joke about such matters! Inquisitor Ian, are you prepared to join the battle?"

"If... this is truly the case, I will not stand by and watch!"

Having obtained the reply he wanted, Gao Yi came once more before the holographic projection on the bridge.

The originally stalemate-bound fleet battle had changed from the very moment the Tyrant's engines were destroyed.

Although still at a numerical disadvantage, the enemy frigate did not dare approach the Golden Ram at all; the gap in firepower and tonnage between the two sides was simply too vast.

And while the Sword Rain and the Vanguard were frigates just like the enemy ships, modifications by the tech-priests and far more powerful warship equipment allowed them to seize the absolute upper hand in combat of the same tier.

"Would a Rogue Trader dynasty that touched upon Warp lore, and perhaps even became completely corrupted, be defeated so easily?

Even if the enemy summons powerful daemons inside the warship, I can completely obliterate them along with the vessel!"

A Greater Daemon? It probably couldn't withstand taking macro-cannon fire head-on, right?

Yet Gao Yi still had a lingering feeling of bad premonition.

Meanwhile, inside the Golden Ram, upon a deck breached by a boarding torpedo.

The ground was littered with the corpses of enemy boarding parties, alongside two destroyed combat servitors.

These bodies had not yet been cleared away, and a servitor that should have been thoroughly killed began to stir eerily.

The staggering servitor managed to drag itself toward a thinker located near the bulkhead door.

The moment it touched the thinker, a special corrupted code entered the interior of the thinker.

Having fulfilled its mission, it completely lost power.

The forces led by the two forge fiends began to split at the passageway; one headed toward the engine deck to deal with Damon's rangers, while the direction of the other happened to be Norris's advancing path.

At this time, Norris had also donned his tactical goggles. As the Warp energy grew increasingly dense, the lighting fixtures on the bulkhead overhead began to flicker.

"Going past the elevator of the forge workshop and further up leads straight to the bridge!" Rehearsing the route in his mind, Norris suddenly halted his steps.

If the previous Warp energy had been permeated throughout the surrounding environment, he now felt a Warp corruption resembling a condensed solid closing in on his direction.

The malice originating from the Warp made goosebumps rise all over Norris's body.

A heavy sound of footsteps echoed from around the corner.

Norris stood frozen in place, making not even a whisper of sound.

Surrounded by dozens of corrupted tech-priests, a forge fiend emerged from around the corner.

"What—what kind of monster is this?!"

Norris's heartbeat accelerated. Although his brain had gained an abundance of combat techniques, it could not directly enhance his willpower.

The terrifying appearance of the forge fiend before him made Norris swallow hard.

Yet it was precisely this infinitesimal sound that caught the forge fiend's attention.

It shook its head, turning toward the spot where Norris stood. Its massive body, which occupied nearly the entire corridor, began lumbering toward Norris.

The corrupted tech-priests also sensed the forge fiend's anomaly. They vigilantly watched the space ahead, yet the empty corridor held no trace of any living entity.

Watching the closing forge fiend, Norris's brain raced frantically.

He was cloaked in stealth, but it was only stealth; his physical body still possessed a physical collision volume.

If the opponents marched straight forward in their current dense formation, colliding with him was nearly unavoidable.

"Should I run, or fight?"

Norris gripped the C-20A in his hand.

After undergoing a fierce psychological struggle, he chose to fight.

"The captain's mission must be accomplished!"

He slowly raised the C-20A in his hand and switched to locking rounds.

As Norris pulled the trigger, the ammunition struck the forge fiend's massive torso without suspense.

Whether you are possessed by a daemon or created by evil Warp technology, as long as you remain machinery, you cannot escape the effects of game mechanics.

A single locking round dealt low damage but carried immense insult; the bullet failed to pierce the forge fiend's sturdy armor, but it enraged the creature. Yet when the forge fiend attempted to unleash a barrage of covering fire down the corridor before it, it discovered that its body seemed utterly rusted, unable to move so much as an inch.

Seeing the forge fiend's body begin flashing with sparks, the corrupted tech-priests realized an unknown enemy had appeared.

They raised the arc weapons and phosphor weapons in their hands, firing wildly down the corridor and sparing no corner.

As for Norris, he activated the phase shift device on his chest.

Before the weapons could strike him, he vanished from the spot.

In the eyes of those tech-priests, however, they saw only sudden flashes without spotting any figure at all.

Simultaneously with the flashing, Norris's C-20A opened fire. Dense armor-piercing rounds shot out, piercing the bodies of the tech-priests. Regrettably, these fellows' bodies had undergone heavy modifications; while it failed to kill them, it severely lagged their firing motions.

Norris recalled the various combat techniques imprinted in his mind, channeling psionic energy into the psionic glaive in his hand as a deep blue psionic aura coated the blade.

The sharpness of the psionic energy combined with the monomolecular blade effortlessly sliced through the bodies of the tech-priest pack.

The dual enhancement of psionic power and combat suit multiplied Norris's speed manifold.

These corrupted tech-priests were cut down in droves before they even knew who their enemy was.

Meanwhile, the forge fiend finally broke free from the control of the locking round.

The blasphemous soul within it erupted with uncontrollable fury.

The barrels of the stygian autocannon began to spin. Careless of friend or foe, the forge fiend's terrifying firepower blanketed the tech-priests' position.

Yet no matter how fierce your firepower, you still had to actually hit your target.

During the forge fiend's period of immobility, the phase shift cooldown had completed. Norris flashed once more, this time appearing directly on the back of the forge fiend. Through the gaps in the forge fiend's armor, he spotted the furnace providing energy to the beast, and without hesitation, he thrust the psionic glaive downward.

As the furnace was destroyed, the forge fiend's body crashed to the deck, reverting once more into lifeless machinery.