Helbrute

Fu Qinghai hurried back to the hole in the floor where he had fallen.

Struggling to climb up through the breach, Fu Qinghai quickly headed toward the slaughterhouse altar; he needed to know what had happened.

Before he even arrived, he heard the sounds of intense combat.

Fu Qinghai lowered his footsteps and crept to the corner of the corridor to take a look.

It was a Possessed Marine, leading two Word Bearers Space Marines, who were currently suppressing Stinger Squad.

Fu Qinghai pulled his head back, briefly assessed the strength of both sides in his mind, and formulated a combat plan.

Once decided, Fu Qinghai rushed out from the corner and, catching them off guard, slashed his blade toward a Word Bearers Space Marine who had his back turned.

"Urgh!" With a painful scream, under the force of Fu Qinghai's long-prepared strike, the power sword sliced into the Word Bearer's body at the weak point where the shoulder armor met the helmet, the blade sinking deep into the Chaos Space Marine's entire chest cavity.

Fu Qinghai performed a roll, released his grip on the hilt, used the body of the Word Bearer to block the bolter fire from his teammate, and drew his own Bolter, ready to retaliate.

"Clack!" A massive crab claw swung over, knocking Fu Qinghai's Bolter to the ground with a single strike.

The Possessed Marine had also turned and was charging toward Fu Qinghai.

"Qingshan! You're still alive!"

Behind the Possessed Marine came Gult's excited shout; the warriors of Stinger Squad had finally caught sight of their reinforcement.

Stop yelling, damn it, and help me out... Fu Qinghai cursed inwardly. Without a weapon in his hands, he was forced to dodge and parry the Possessed Marine's powerful strikes in a sorry state.

Fu Qinghai's original plan hadn't been like this. The Possessed Marine was thick-skinned and recovered quickly; he had intended to use a sneak attack to take out the two Chaos Space Marines first, then join Stinger Squad to surround and wear down this durable Possessed Marine.

Unexpectedly, he had only managed to take out the first one before all the enemies turned around to deal with him.

He had failed to time his entry into the skirmish, and now he had become the front line himself!

With Fu Qinghai's sneak attack drawing the attention of the Possessed Marine, the pressure on Gult and Stinger Squad from the front was greatly reduced, and they seized the opportunity to pounce.

Fu Qinghai knew the armor plating on his chest was already hanging by a thread, so he dared not take a direct hit, resorting to all sorts of undignified rolls to dodge.

The Possessed Marine roared in fury and stomped his feet. This Space Marine, as slippery as a loach, possessed not an ounce of warrior's dignity. Such cowardly behavior, which severely violated the teachings of the Blood God, sent him into a fit of impotent rage.

The Word Bearer who had lost the cover of the Possessed Marine was turned into a bloody mess by the concentrated fire of Stinger Squad, and the group rushed over to support Fu Qinghai.

After a fierce battle, the Possessed Marine finally collapsed as well.

Unlike Fu Qinghai, the Possessed Marine, who worshipped Khorne, knew nothing of retreat and would only fight to the death.

Stepping over the corpse of the Possessed Marine, Gult steadied Fu Qinghai's shoulder armor, panting as he said happily:

"That's great, Qingshan, you're still alive. We all thought you were dead."

Shut up, you damn crow... Fu Qinghai thought irritably, his own chest heaving slightly.

Fu Qinghai caught his breath and asked:

"What's going on, Gult? What happened outside? Why was the teleportation canceled?"

"I don't know. The enemy might have used some kind of psychic spell we haven't seen before, or some sort of ancient technological device. In any case, the teleportation failed."

Fu Qinghai asked: "Didn't you contact Vlahos?"

Gult replied: "When the teleportation device failed, our internal communications were cut off as well."

Fu Qinghai nodded and said: "No time to waste, let's head outside the transport ship and take a look."

Gult nodded, and everyone organized their gear and ammunition before heading back the way they came.

A quarter of an hour ago.

Klofa arrived at the bottom deck of the Bloody Worm transport ship.

He looked at a twisted humanoid creature suspended on a specialized device.

"Wake him up," Klofa said in a low voice to the Dark Tech-priest beside him.

Klofa knew well that this was the most valuable cargo loaded onto these three transport ships. To survive, he decided to use this "cargo" ahead of schedule.

The Dark Tech-priest, his head covered by a mask and a green mechanical eye, nodded. Several mechanical tentacles extended from beneath his robes and tapped lightly on the buttons beside the device.

On the apparatus, various colored liquids in transparent columns slowly descended, injecting into the body of the twisted humanoid creature through infusion tubes.

"Ugh..." A deep sigh echoed through the dark and empty bottom deck.

The twisted humanoid creature hanging on the device slowly opened its eyes a crack.

"Klofa..." he sighed.

"You still remember me?" Klofa looked up at the indescribably twisted remnant of a body.

"Of course... of course I remember you, you bastard who put me in a stone coffin... I want to tear you apart every single moment, every single moment!"

As the liquid was injected, the humanoid creature's eyeballs bulged, his veins twisted and bulged, and his ugly flesh contracted and expanded, like a hermit crab unable to find its shell.

"Ahhh--" The twisted humanoid creature screamed in agony.

Klofa snorted coldly, turned his head to the Dark Tech-priest beside him, and said:

"Open the bottom hatch, load him in, and release him directly from the bottom deck."

"Understood, my lord."

A specialized device hoisted the squirming, half-humanoid creature, moving it horizontally as if it were a slab of rotting meat.

Following the direction of the guide rail stood a massive, twisted, and terrifying Dreadnought.

Outside the Blood Worm, Vlahos was leading his squads, having just broken through to the exterior of the transport ship.

The failure of the teleportation was completely beyond Vlahos's expectations; in his hundreds of years of combat experience, he had never encountered such a situation.

However, he did not lose his composure, immediately leading his team to find a way to rendezvous with the tactical squads scattered throughout the transport ship.

After consolidating the strength of the various squads, they pushed with all their might to break out of the transport ship, refusing to give the Word Bearers a chance to engage in urban warfare within the vessel.

As a commander, Vlahos knew well that urban warfare in complex terrain prevented the advantages of numbers and firepower from being utilized, making it easy for a weaker force to inflict a near-equal casualty ratio on a stronger one.

Regardless of the final outcome, if a Lunar-class cruiser suffered the same casualty exchange ratio as three transport ships, the Ultramarines would have already lost.

The three transport ships, whose coordinates had been identified and whose propulsion systems had been destroyed, were nothing more than sitting ducks; Vlahos only wanted to quickly lead his warriors out of the engagement and call for orbital bombardment from the cruiser above.

However, the Word Bearers seemed unwilling to give the Ultramarines the chance to regroup and disengage.

They counter-encircled from the outside, using powerful Possessed Marines to spearhead their assault and establishing layers of defensive lines, determined to remain locked in a death grip with the Ultramarines.

Wearing his Terminator Armor, Vlahos smashed a bulkhead door open with a heavy hammer blow.

Beyond the door, the dim, rugged canyon and the gloomy sky came into view.

They were out!

Yet, outside the transport ship, the Word Bearers were still throwing themselves at Vlahos and his men with reckless abandon.

Bolter rounds fired from every direction clanged against the Terminator Armor.

The Ultramarines filed out of the hatch, quickly spreading to both sides to form a counter-attack line.

Just then.

"Awoo---"

A beastly howl erupted from the left flank of the Ultramarines.

Vlahos had just turned his head when he saw the figures of several Word Bearers sent flying.

Vlahos's pupils constricted sharply.

He saw it.

That deep-red behemoth, as if it had crawled out from the depths of hell.

"It's a Helbrute! Scatter!" Vlahos roared.

Before his voice had even faded, a massive column of plasma erupted and slammed into them.

"Boom!"