"Fire!"
Rovi's command was brief and cold.
"Rat-a-tat-tat!"
All six blasphemously modified Heavy Logging Guns roared at once.
The sound was no longer a crisp metallic clatter, but a thunderous roar like a high-pressure boiler exploding.
Nor did bright yellow tongues of flame spit from the muzzles. Instead, streams of dark purple plasma burst forth.
As the bullets passed through the Warp-steam-filled barrels, their surfaces acquired a layer of unstable, high-energy thermal film.
The first bullet struck a Walking Dead at the very front of the charge.
No blood sprayed.
The Walking Dead's body seemed to be struck by an invisible field of intense heat, and instantly began to "melt."
Yes, melt.
The Warp heat carried by the bullet reacted violently with the Nurgle rot within the Walking Dead.
Half of the monster's chest simply vanished.
There was no blood flowing from the wound.
Instead, it was charred black, and the carbonized patch was even spreading outward.
"Ahhhhh!"
Buck let out a bestial roar.
He was venting his pain, and his fear.
The Heavy Logging Gun shuddered violently in his hands. Each recoil hit his shoulder like a heavy hammer.
But he didn't stop.
A dense barrage of bullets formed a purple net of fire, cutting down the charging monsters in row after row.
The Nurgle creatures, which had once possessed extraordinary regenerative abilities, lost their advantage completely against this enchanted ammunition.
Their wounds wouldn't heal.
Their rotting flesh was scorched.
Even the plague gas emanating from their bodies evaporated instantly in the heat.
"It works."
Watching the scene, Rovi silently made a note.
"Warp heat enchantment increases damage against Nurgle creatures by over 200%. Side effect: severe barrel wear."
Through his binoculars, he could clearly see the barrel of one Heavy Logging Gun glowing red and beginning to soften.
Its dark purple metal surface slowly ran down like melting wax.
This wasn't a sustainable way to fight.
It was an extravagant waste of Imperial property.
But that was exactly what he wanted.
Use a one-time, high-cost burst to wring every last bit of value from the asset before it was completely written off, and trade it for a decisive advantage on the battlefield.
That was perfectly in keeping with the logic of a low-ranking Scribe.
If it was going to be written off anyway, it might as well leave a glorious entry on the loss ledger.
However, Nurgle's legions had never been so easily driven back.
Just as the horde of Walking Dead was being suppressed, the ground suddenly trembled.
"Thud."
"Thud."
The heavy footsteps even drowned out the roar of the guns.
A huge creature forced its way out of the shadows.
It was a Plague Ogre.
Ordinary Ogres were known for their immense strength and low intelligence, and the Imperium often used them as assault troops.
A Plague Ogre was the terrifying form these creatures took after being "blessed" by Nurgle.
It stood three meters tall, like a small mountain on the move.
Every trace of its former human features had disappeared.
Its muscles were swollen and misshapen.
Thick, calloused hide covered its body like armor.
A huge gash split open its belly.
Its intestines waved outside like tentacles.
Each tentacle bore a little mouth full of sharp teeth.
In its hands, it carried a giant club made from scrap I-beams and chunks of concrete, with half a laborer's corpse still hanging from it.
"Roar!!!"
The Ogre let out a deafening roar.
It lowered its head and charged through the hail of bullets like an out-of-control heavy tank.
"Concentrate fire! Hit the big one!" Buck roared.
Machine-gun bullets struck the Ogre, spraying purple sparks.
But the monster's hide was simply too thick.
Its skin was scorched and its flesh blasted away.
For a creature of its enormous size, those were only superficial wounds.
It kept charging.
It was less than fifty meters from the Second Line of Defense.
At that distance, anyone could smell its nauseating stench.
The Defense Force soldiers began to panic.
Several machine gunners' hands shook, and their shots veered off target.
"It's going to break through!"
Buck shouted in despair.
If the monster made it into the trenches, it would be a massacre.
In the Command Tower, Rovi remained calm.
He didn't even look at the approaching Plague Ogre.
Instead, he turned his gaze to the strange-looking dark red Metal Wall at the very front of the defenses.
It was a defensive fortification made from the armor plates of the Steel Beast Harvester, dismantled and assembled anew.
"Alpha," Rovi asked, "is it hungry?"
The Tech-Priest standing behind him suddenly had a burning red light in his eyes.
"Its Machine Spirit... is ravenous."
Just as the Plague Ogre was about to crash into the defenses, the motionless dark red Metal Wall suddenly came "alive."
This wasn't a figure of speech.
The moment the Ogre's shoulder struck the metal plate, the sturdy armor didn't dent or shatter like ordinary steel.
Instead, it softened.
Like some deep-sea mollusk, it opened its cavernous maw.
"Pfft!"
The Ogre's tremendous charge didn't knock the wall away. Instead, it drove the Ogre deep into the metal.
Then a horrifying sight unfolded.
The rough, calloused layer on the metal plate's surface turned into countless sharp barbs.
They clamped onto the Ogre's skin.
They pierced its muscles and locked around its bones.
The Ogre let out a terrified roar.
It tried to struggle, tried to pull itself free.
But the harder it struggled, the tighter the wall's grip became.
The dark red metal began to writhe, spreading along the Ogre's arms and shoulders.
Like living Fungal Carpet, it greedily enveloped its prey.
"Fizz..."
A sound like strong acid eating away at something rang out.
The metal was secreting some kind of digestive fluid.
No, more precisely, the Mutant Metal—having absorbed a Nurgle Beast's bodily fluids and been catalyzed by Warp steam—was "feeding."
It was breaking down the Ogre's biomass and converting it into nutrients.
The Ogre's supposedly impenetrable, calloused hide rapidly softened and dissolved beneath the Mutant Metal.
Its thick arms quickly withered.
"A miracle... This is a dark miracle of the Omnissiah..."
The Priest Alpha pressed himself against the observation window.
Several Mechanical Tentacles waved excitedly in the air.
They recorded this precious and blasphemous data.
"Metal activity increased by 300%. Self-repair mechanism activated. It's growing! It's becoming stronger!"
Rovi watched coldly.
It was indeed powerful.
But it was also dangerous.
This was no longer Imperial technology. It was playing with fire.
He was using the power of Chaos to fight Chaos.
As they said on Earth, fighting magic with magic.
One slip, and this Metal Wall would turn around and devour the people inside.
"Stop staring," Rovi ordered over the broadcast. "While it's trapped, kill it."
Buck and his men were stunned by the bizarre sight.
Only when they heard Rovi's command did they come to their senses.
All their firepower focused on the Ogre, half its body still embedded in the wall.
Purple light flared once more.
Now that it couldn't move, the Ogre was a sitting duck.
A few minutes later.
With one last, anguished wail, the mountain of flesh stopped struggling.
Its enormous body had been riddled with holes.
Combined with the Metal Wall devouring it, more than half its body had melted into pus.
After the dark red Metal Wall had "eaten" its fill, its color grew even deeper, and a glossy metallic sheen rose across its surface.
It slowly released the remains and returned to its hard, cold state.
Yet the heavy armor plate now bore the faint outline of a distorted human face. It looked strangely like the Ogre from moments ago.
The battlefield began to grow quiet.
This silence made the ears ring more than the gunfire had.
Without their heavy units serving as shields, the remaining Rebels and Walking Dead didn't scatter like a conventional force.
Instead, they slowly and silently withdrew into the distant fog.
They didn't look back or make a sound.
Their orderly retreat carried a chilling sense of discipline.
The enemy's second assault was over.
Rovi didn't let his guard down.
His gaze swept past the ravaged battlefield.
Past the dark red Metal Wall as it digested its meal.
It settled on the darkness farther away.
He was calculating.
"Kais," Rovi said, pressing his communicator. "Assess enemy losses."
"Image analysis indicates approximately 2,300 Low-Grade Zombies lost, Traitor Guard casualties exceeding 40%, and the heavy siege unit, the Plague Ogre, completely wiped out."
The Wetware Server's cold electronic voice reported to him. "Casualty ratio: 1:12. By the standards of a conventional battle, this is a rout."
Rovi shook his head, his eyes deep and thoughtful.
"Conventional logic doesn't apply to the Lord of Pestilence. They don't care about casualties."
"To the Lord of Pestilence, death is merely another stage in the cycle of life. Two thousand corpses are nothing more than two thousand new incubators."
"But they retreated," the Priest Alpha added. His mechanical eye was scanning the Metal Wall. "Perhaps they were cowed by the miracle of the Omnissiah?"
Rovi shook his head.
He took out a clean handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat from his palm.
"The followers of the Lord of Pestilence are mad, but they aren't fools. Especially the sorcerer commanding from behind the lines."
He pointed to the dark red Metal Wall and the nearly ruined Heavy Logging Guns.
"The strength we've shown exceeded their expectations."
"First, the Metal Wall can devour rotting flesh as fuel. That shattered their attrition-war logic of 'trading corpses for ground.' The more they send, the thicker our defenses become."
"Second, bullets infused with Warp heat can suppress regeneration at the molecular level. That means their 'recycling' chain is broken."
"Those Nurgle creatures that die here can't be revived or recycled. They're a pure net loss."
Rovi paused, folded his handkerchief neatly, and put it back in his pocket.
"For a shrewd Plague Gardener, if a patch of soil can't grow mushrooms and instead devours seeds and fertilizer, then the wisest course is to abandon it for now and look for targets that are easier to corrupt."
"Like... other granaries."
The Priest Alpha's red light flickered. "You mean they'll change targets?"
"If that Plague Wizard is smart enough, he will."
"At least until they figure out how to break through this 'Wall of Gluttony,' or gather enough forces to overwhelm us in a single assault, Granary Seven is safe for now."
This was strategic deterrence based on a cost-benefit analysis.
Rovi knew full well that he hadn't truly defeated that vast sea of corruption by force.
He had only won a business negotiation.
By demonstrating an exorbitant "cost of acquisition," he had made the shrewd Plague Gardener give up on this money-losing venture.
With the Metal Wall and gun barrels burning with Purple Flame, he had demonstrated a kind of "toxicity" that bordered on blasphemy.
To Nurgle's appetite, Granary Seven was no longer a tender cut of meat on the chopping block, waiting to be carved up.
It was a hard bone covered in barbs and soaked in poison.
Anyone who tried to swallow it by force had better be ready to shatter every last fang in their mouth.
As the warning lights on the control panel shifted from red to green,
Granary Seven began to rumble again after a brief silence.
Pistons hammered, exhaust valves hissed, and rusty gears meshed together.
A heavy churning sound came from the Fermentation Tank—the muffled rumble of bone, flesh, and waste being crushed and blended together.
The boiler roared as it built pressure, steam surging and crashing through the pipes.
In this wasteland, there was no poetry, no hope.
Only this brutal, monotonous, unceasing industrial din could offer a comfort that was almost cold.
It meant the machines were still running, and order had not yet collapsed.
It meant today's books could still be balanced.
Before you continue