49. The Swollen Face of the Deceased

The plague was leaving me.

That fact filled Death Guard Soren Codlow with absolute terror—he had never felt this way in the past ten thousand years. Grandfather's gift had always been with him.

In his veins, across the surface of his rotting, ulcerated skin, and in his diseased, pus-weeping muscles. Every time he breathed, the stench of decay passed through his already deformed nasal cavity and windpipe, turning into a peculiar, cloying sweetness.

And now, all he drew into his lungs was the thick taste of smoke and dust.

He wanted to move, or at least get out of the ruins. But he could not. His corrupted armor and flesh had been damaged to a horrifying degree by the fall and the explosion. He was pinned beneath the rubble, his lower body gone without a trace.

Soren Codlow's mind was filled with terror at the disappearance of the gift, so he was completely unaware that the fact he was still alive at all was already a miracle wrought by Nurgle.

If he had not been a Death Guard, he would have died long ago.

Then, in these ruins that had been ravaged by three weeks of war and then torn apart by the explosion caused by the transport ship's crash, footsteps suddenly rang out.

Heavy—like hammers forging red-hot steel.

An emotion different from his earlier fear began to spread through Soren Codlow's heart. Through the goggles that had already grown together with his eyes, he searched the darkness, but found nothing. All he could hear was the increasingly heavy tread, like an omen of death.

The footsteps stopped not far from him.

Codlow widened his eyes, and his hand began groping through the darkness. He had to find his weapon, or only one thing awaited him.

He would not find