Loyal Plasma

"AAAAAAARGH!" A roar laced with rage and hatred drew White Fang's attention. He could clearly sense that a truly troublesome brute was rapidly approaching them.

"Wolves, fall back!" At White Fang's command, the Grey Hunters quickly retreated from the front and gathered around him.

A crimson minotaur daemon clad in heavy brass armor forever wreathed in flame charged at the Space Wolves, wielding two enormous blood-red battleaxes. With wide, sweeping strikes, it cleaved aside every lesser daemon in its path.

The unease in White Fang's heart intensified completely. The daemons of the Warp were countless, their varieties impossible to tally. The first things to pour from that rift alongside the Warp corruption were not followers of the Four Gods, but all manner of brainless, grotesque creatures like wild animals. They were numerous, greedy, savage, merciless, and cruel, but not especially powerful. Yet as the Warp gate remained open longer, the servants beneath the shadows of the Four Gods began swarming forth one after another.

If one did not want a summoning to produce a horde of lesser daemons that behaved like wild animals, then a clear ritual of direction was required. Only then could an appropriate rift be opened to summon the daemon armies of the Four Gods.

White Fang looked at the minotaur daemon, with its unmistakable Khorne style, and knew that the rift had entered its second stage. If they did not quickly settle everything here, this ship would be flooded by daemons blessed by the Four Gods. At that point, there would be no need to save it.

"Haah!" Gripping his massive Frost Axe, White Fang charged the minotaur daemon.

There was only a desire to slaughter in the minotaur daemon's scarlet eyes. It could not even be bothered to defend itself. Its two enormous blood axes chopped straight at White Fang, determined to carve him into bloody chunks.

White Fang twisted aside to evade one axe, then blocked the other with Frost Axe. His right hand swiftly drew the plasma pistol at his waist and fired a fully charged shot straight into the minotaur daemon's head.

Blue plasma exploded across the minotaur daemon's face, blasting away its flesh and revealing a skull that gleamed like brass beneath.

"COWARD!!!!" The minotaur daemon roared furiously and attacked White Fang with even greater madness. Its twin axes formed an impenetrable storm, heedless of its allies, shredding any daemon caught within into pieces.

Bennett Wolf Claw shouted, "Help the Long Fangs!"

The Grey Hunters immediately swung their guns around and fired accurately at the minotaur daemon's exposed brass skull.

"COWARDS!!!!"

"Do you only know how to spit out one word at a time?"

Having gained a moment to catch his breath with the Grey Hunters' support, White Fang immediately began taunting the minotaur daemon. Yet his hands never stopped moving. One held his axe to block the daemon's attacks, while the plasma pistol in the other sought tricky angles through the storm of axes, firing charged shots again and again. This plasma pistol, named Loyalty, was an ancient technological creation White Fang had found during a hunt. It even came with a matching holster, inscribed in High Gothic with the words: "Loyal plasma never overheats."

Plasma Mk XII used by the Wolf Guard

Although this gun's charging cycle was a quarter longer than that of other plasma pistols, its inability to overheat made it the deadliest weapon in White Fang's hands, far surpassing even the power axe he wielded, Frost.

A precise plasma shot vaporized the minotaur daemon's leg joint. Losing its balance, it crashed to the ground, then had its head severed by White Fang's battleaxe amid an unwilling roar. It turned into a mass of burning flames and vanished.

"Hahaha, another perfect hunt for the pack!"

As the Space Wolves surged forward, the sea of lesser daemons, now without the minotaur daemon, was utterly incapable of stopping these powerful angels of death. Like wheat cut down by a scythe, they fell row after row and vanished into flames.

No daemon roars could be heard any longer in the corridor, which was covered in bullet scars and blast marks. The Space Wolves ran swiftly through it, heading for compartment D1347.

"Judging by the structural map provided by the priest of the Machine God, opening the hatch ahead will lead to a living area for the lower-deck sailors. We need to pass through that settlement-sized residential zone. Then we can use this melta bomb to blow through the wall of the D1347 passage."

After hearing Bennett Wolf Claw's report, Kaiser White Fang nodded. He then split open the hatch ahead with the axe in his hand. Under the effect of the power axe's disruption field, the heavy metal door was barely tougher than butter.

The residential district beyond the hatch appeared before them.

Pipes covered by irregular iron plates on the ground occasionally vented scorching steam. The narrow, chaotic alleys were strewn with scraps of flesh and gore, while the barks of Flesh Hounds occasionally drifted from the pitch-black shacks in the distance.

It seemed that everyone living on the lower decks had already died in the daemons' attack.

But as a veteran who had fought for hundreds of years, White Fang was long accustomed to such scenes. He could name at least a dozen sights even more horrific than this. At the very least, this chaotic place only had bone fragments and half-eaten minced meat scattered across the ground. It was far better than that daemon world he had once purified. After all, this place would not suddenly grow a huge mouth from the ground and swallow you alive.

The Space Wolves advanced toward their objective while clearing out the scattered daemons that sprang from various crates and rooms.

Suddenly, a gunshot unlike the bolters used by the Space Wolves rang out. A running Grey Hunter had his helmet pierced and fell to the ground.

"Ambush! Find cover. Which traitor is it?" The moment White Fang heard the shot, he realized who was attacking them. He slammed into the wall of the nearest building and began examining the bullet hole in the fallen soldier's helmet.

The priest and the other nine Grey Hunters swiftly rolled and adjusted their positions, searching for any reliable cover to protect themselves.

"That damned bastard!" After rapidly analyzing the situation, the enraged White Fang roughly determined the attacker's direction. He fired a probing shot at a tower of stacked containers some eight or nine hundred meters away.

A charged plasma shot struck the tower, melting away a large ring of metal. Molten metal streamed downward, and the once-stable container tower lost its balance and toppled to one side. The containers crashed to the ground with a tremendous roar, raising a cloud of dust thick enough to block sight.

White Fang knew that the man had already abandoned his original position and moved quickly. He wanted to delay them and ensure the rift ritual was completed.

"You think you can compete with the finest hunter? Damn traitor!" White Fang spat corrosive saliva onto the ground, where it hissed and sizzled. He shouted to the others, "Wolf Claw, take them and finish the mission. I'll have a proper fight with this traitor here."

Bennett Wolf Claw immediately threw his bolter and several magazines to White Fang. The Grey Hunters, who worked with him in perfect coordination, tossed smoke grenades onto the road one after another. Clumps of nano-smoke capable of blocking detection signals and heat formed an entire corridor of smoke, concealing the warriors as they ran.

White Fang caught the gun, licked his fangs with his tongue, and ran in another direction.

As for the Gene-seed of that fallen warrior, it would have to wait until everything was settled.