However, the two Death Guard veterans were moving at a rate more than 30% slower than in their prime.
The untouchable realm is like a cold filter, stripping away all the blessings that are attached to the Warp.
The plague power of Nurgle, once their strongest armor and sharpest weapon, has now been stripped away, and their bodies, already riddled with holes by the plague, immediately show signs of fatigue.
The corroded Power Armour, having lost the support of flesh regeneration, had its rotting flesh in the gaps between the armor plates cease to move.
The swollen tissue that was originally able to absorb the impact quickly shriveled up, leaving only the heavy metal shell pressing against the already necrotic bones.
The soldier on the left Barlow, a former assault soldier of the Seventh Company who hacked through the Orks ' defenses with a Power Axe during the Great Crusade.
But at this moment, his arm trembled slightly as he swung the axe; the decaying tendons could not withstand the recoil from the full-force chop, and the axe blade deviated by several millimeters.
It grazed Phelps ' shoulder armor, sending up only a string of tiny Mars.
The warrior on the right Coren, a veteran of siege warfare who has participated in countless raids against the Xenos.
However, the power of his Power Hammer strikes was weak and his steps were visibly unsteady.
His left leg had been shattered during the Horus Heresy, and he could only walk thanks to the granulation tissue of the Nurgle.
Now that the plague's power has receded, the necrotic leg bones simply cannot support the heavy Power Armour.
Phelps simply twisted his waist to the side, easily avoiding the two attackers' attack.
The rusty warhammer spun halfway through the air, its handle slamming into Barlow's side with a dull thud. Barlow staggered back several steps, barely managing to steady himself by leaning against the wall.
"Calm down, Barlow, Coren." Phelps ' voice was still hoarse, but it carried an almost cruel calm.
He raised his warhammer, the hammerhead facing his two former colleagues.
"Ten thousand years have passed. The Great Crusade ended long ago, and the False Emperor is now a corpse sitting on his Golden Throne. We can't go back."
"Bullshit!" Coren roared, spitting out thick, foul saliva.
"We are the XIV Legion! The Emperor's Death Guard! Not those disgusting maggots of the Plague!"
" The Emperor's Death Guard?" Phelps chuckled, the putrid liquid in his chest gurgling.
"Look down at yourself, look at this festering, rotting flesh, look at these rusted armor plates that have grown into your blood and flesh."
Do you even think you deserve to be called Death Guard anymore?
He took a step forward, his warhammer striking the ground lightly with a dull thud.
" Typhus simply gave us a choice."
"Either rot away in the plague, dying in the mire of Isstvan with the entire legion, or accept the Grandfather's grace, live on, and become stronger."
"We chose to live, was that wrong?"
"The one who is wrong is this Imperium that abandoned us, that Emperor who was high above us and never even looked at us properly."
"Shut up!" Barlow suddenly straightened up, raised his axe again, and charged forward, the blade whistling through the air.
"You may fall into depravity, but you cannot tarnish the Legion's honor!"
The two clashed again.
The shadows of axes and hammers clashed, and the crisp sound of metal colliding echoed continuously in the empty passageway.
But it's obvious to anyone with eyes that Barlow and Coren are already at their last gasp.
Their fighting skills are still there, and their killing instinct, ingrained in their bones for ten thousand years, is still there, but their decaying bodies can no longer support this skill.
Each block caused their bones to groan under the strain, and each advance left them staggering and vulnerable.
Phelps, however, handled it with ease.
He was someone who actively embraced Nurgle; the power of the plague was already deeply bound to his soul.
The untouchable domain can suppress the spread of disease and the proliferation of flesh, but it cannot erase the combat experience etched into his genes, nor can it take away the way he has long adapted to the corrupted body.
He didn't even need to use his plague abilities; his superb combat skills alone were enough to firmly suppress his two colleagues.
While parrying, he continued to slowly persuade him, like enticing a lost lamb:
"Accept reality, Barlow."
"Even if you're sober now, what good will it do? Your body is already rotten to the core, your intestines are stinking inside, and your lungs are full of Grandfather's spores."
"Without the power of the plague to support you, you can't even stand up straight."
"Come back with me. After we've dealt with these mortals, I will pray to the Grandfather to erase this unpleasant memory from your lives."
"We are still brothers, still the Grandfather's apostles on earth. Come, let us turn this entire warship into the Garden of Nurgle."
" The Garden of Nurgle?" Coren coughed up a mouthful of black blood, his laughter chilling.
"Turning living people into rotting corpses, turning steel into maggot-infested carcasses—is this the Garden of Nurgle you're talking about?"
" Phelps, you've been insane for a long time."
On the other side of the passage, Dominic watched the sudden infighting quietly, his fingers tightening slightly around his sword.
He was initially confused.
He was prepared to fight to the death when the twenty-two fierce-looking Death Guard charged at him.
As soon as the other side stepped into the Sisters of Silence ' untouchable territory, they all froze, then nineteen of them committed suicide on the spot, and the remaining three of them started fighting.
He'd never seen or even heard of this kind of development before.
But he was, after all, a battle-hardened major general, and after a few seconds of stunned silence, he immediately grasped the key point.
She is the Sisters of Silence.
It was the anti -Warp force field of the Blanks that stripped these traitors of their Chaos Blessing, briefly bringing them back to their senses, which had been clouded by the plague for ten thousand years.
Dominic's heart began to pound wildly.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
This is absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
If the twenty-two Death Guard were at their peak, he and his Celestial Lions Squad could barely hold them off, and it was hard to say whether they could even defend the Machine God.
Now, nineteen have committed suicide, three are still fighting amongst themselves, two of them are in extremely poor condition, and only Phelps remains who is still capable of fighting.
This is practically a war opportunity bestowed by the God-Emperor!
Without the slightest hesitation, he turned his head and whispered the command to the captain of the Sisters of Silence beside him:
"Stay where you are, maintain the force field, and do not retreat an inch."
The seven nuns nodded slightly, their expressions obscured by their half-hidden faces, yet the pale silver aura surrounding them remained as steady as a rock.
Like a pool of frozen ice water, it firmly suppressed the Warp energy within a radius of tens of meters.
Dominic took a deep breath, and the force field of the Power Sword suddenly hummed higher.
He raised his hand and made a tactical gesture. The six Celestial Lions Terminator immediately understood, spreading out in a fan shape and flanking him from the side with heavy, rhythmic steps.
Seven pure white, precision-engineered Terminator Armour, each step causing the metal deck to tremble dully.
The muzzle flashes of the twin-barreled Boltgun were simultaneous, but not in bursts; instead, they were precise bursts, all aimed at Phelps ' vulnerable points such as his joints, eyepiece, and power lines.
The moment the gunshot rang out, Phelps ' movements froze.
He was only concerned with dealing with his two colleagues, completely ignoring the ordinary people behind him.
In his view, those mortals wearing Terminator Armour were nothing more than slightly more resilient ants.
After dealing with the two traitors, we can slowly maneuver around them.
But he forgot that in the untouchable realm, he had no plague shield, no flesh regeneration, and no Warp enhancement.
Even a mortal's explosives can penetrate his Power Armour.
"Clang clang clang!"
Several explosive shells accurately struck the back of his knees and the joint between his shoulder armor, blasting several gaps in the corroded armor plates.
Although it failed to penetrate the inner armor, it did cause his movements to freeze for an extremely short time.
It was in that very moment.
A glint flashed in Barlow and Coren's eyes, and the two exerted their strength simultaneously, one with an axe and the other with a hammer, blocking Phelps's space to dodge left and right.
Taking advantage of this brief moment of stiffness, Dominic suddenly unleashed a stream of pale blue flames from the thrusters beneath his feet.
He transformed into a white bolt of Lightning, charging straight at Phelps.
The power field of the Power Sword surged to its maximum, with blue-white arcs of electricity leaping along the blade and emitting a piercing buzzing sound.
"Traitor! Prepare to die!"
Phelps' pupils contracted sharply.
He tried to swing his hammer to block, but he was tightly bound by Barlow and Coren on both sides, and was hit by two explosive bullets in the waist, making his movements a beat slower.
He could only desperately turn his head to the side, trying to block the sword with his shoulder armor.
Dominic's sword strike was the culmination of a long preparation, and he unleashed his full power.
"Laugh!"
The sharp Power Sword easily sliced through the rusted shoulder armor, tore open the swollen, rotting flesh beneath, and slashed viciously into the gap on the side of the neck.
The cracking sound of bones breaking, mixed with the splattering of putrid liquid, was particularly clear in the narrow passage.
A rusty, festering head flew high into the air, spun a few times, and crashed heavily onto the metal deck, rolling several meters away.