I am in Warhammer's Heartsteel

Chapter 023: Blood Sacrifice to the Blood God, Skull Offering to the Skull Seat

【clang!】

[Heart Steel Layers +1]

[Tank Engine Layer +1]

Hextech Crystal +20

Deyan led his team to clear out the undead, with constant notification sounds in his ears.

Thanks to the heavy weaponry salvaged from the fallen soldiers, along with the remnants gathered along the way, especially the three weeping men, the clearing process was able to proceed steadily.

After killing the last undead warrior, Dejan brushed the sap off his chainsaw and breathed a sigh of relief as he looked at the bright spot in the distance.

"As expected, it's finally been connected."

However, the way the three mourners looked as if they were facing a formidable enemy made him wary again.

"What's wrong?"

Just as Deyan opened his mouth, a dark shadow flashed by and pinned the wailing man to the wall.

That was a chainsaw axe.

Blood seeped from the axe blade.

Deyang gasped and looked sharply toward the exit.

The light at the exit dimmed slightly.

A Chaos Warrior clad in black and red power armor appeared, riding on the screams of demons.

The Devourer, with the Butcher's Nail on its head, roared as it charged forward.

"Blood sacrifice to the Blood God, skull offering to the skull seat!"

A group of ferocious and terrifying figures followed closely behind.

The World Eater, its armor adorned with skulls and chains; the Word Bearer, chanting blasphemous scriptures and surrounded by malevolent runes…

The enchanted warrior, an enormous creature with armor and grotesquely overgrown flesh, had eyes that burned with eternal pain and rage.

The Black Legion, Chaos Astartes!

Dejan's heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible force, and his expression was as if he had seen a ghost.

No, where did all these Chaos Astartes come from?

What about the hundreds of thousands of reinforcements outside?

Damn it, how are we supposed to play like this?!

"Retreat!!!" Dejan roared and fired back.

The soldiers, who had been stunned by the shock, suddenly realized what was happening and hastily returned fire.

The two wailing individuals at the very front were dealt with in a single encounter.

Chaos Astartes charged into the fray, cutting down everything in its path and unleashing a bloody storm.

In the face of panic and despair, corruption spread.

Those with weak wills, as they keep hitting, grow teeth on the butt of the gun, eyes on the gun body, and tentacles on the barrel, and in no time their whole body turns into a deformed mass of flesh and blood.

There's no way to fight!

"Retreat! Cover our retreat!" Deyan slashed his chainsaw sword, killing a vampire, to cover his men's retreat. "Blow up the tunnel!!!"

"We're out of explosives!" Grove responded in despair.

Just then…

"ah!!!"

Seeing Dejan in danger, Pete's small eyes widened to their limit, and he let out a painful roar that sounded inhuman.

A violent burst of psionic lightning shot out and struck the rock formations overhead.

"Boom!"

The mine shaft shook violently, and large chunks of rock collapsed, engulfing the Chaos Vanguard that had just surged in and temporarily cutting off the passage.

Everyone stared in shock at what they saw.

Dejan was also stunned, staring intently at Pete.

By the Emperor, Oglin, the psionicist!

The world's great wonders.

Euglin Psionicist!

"Boss." Pete still had that goofy look on his face, clinging to the heavy machine gun.

Deyang snapped out of his daze and quickly told everyone to retreat.

"Hurry up, we can't hold them off here for long."

The group followed Deyan in their retreat, escaping through the maze-like abandoned mine tunnels, finally stopping at an abandoned mine pit.

Deyang looked around and counted the number of people, his heart sinking.

The original force of over 600 people was reduced to less than 200 wounded soldiers, many of whom were injured.

Oh no!

Not only was the passage not opened, but the retreat was also cut off by chaos.

Judging from the situation, the hundreds of thousands of troops outside may have already been wiped out.

Could Gondor have already been overrun by the Chaos Demons?

Dejan wasn't the only one who thought this way; despair was growing within the team.

"We shouldn't run away!" a battle nun suddenly spoke, her voice weak from blood loss but unusually sharp. She struggled to sit up, revealing half of her fair chin beneath her tattered helmet; she must have been quite pretty.

Dejan glanced at the nun and retorted, "Otherwise what?"

The nun's words were filled with the fervor of martyrdom.

"We should die gloriously, offering our loyalty under the Emperor's gaze."

Dejan felt exhausted and patiently explained, "With such a disparity in strength, such a sacrifice would be meaningless."

"That's better than hiding here and living a wretched life!"

"You have betrayed the warband commander's trust!" The nun coughed agitatedly.

Thoughts deserve suffering.

There was no point in talking to these extreme religious fanatics, so Dejan ignored him and turned to the treasure boy, Pete, saying, "You're not being fair, why didn't you say you had psychic powers sooner?"

"Ah, I just learned." Pete put the machine gun on his lap, his eyes unfocused and he looked constipated.

Another headache?

I didn't have this problem just now.

Deyang kept an eye on things and caught a glimpse of the black stones with unnatural patterns around the mine where the branch was located.

The doubt that had been lingering in my mind suddenly became clear.

Understood!

The problem doesn't lie with the Star God fragments.

The source is the ubiquitous black stone in the Tomb of the Dead.

Why does Pete have a headache, but he doesn't?

Because Pete is a psionicist.

Black stone naturally suppresses spiritual energy.

Pete didn't have a headache earlier because the Blackrock Network elsewhere had been destroyed, but he has a headache here because the Blackrock Network here hasn't been destroyed.

Looking at the black stones, Deyan stroked his chin thoughtfully.

Wouldn't that make the mine an anti-spiritual field?

An ideal place to ambush heretics!

Those traitors, those who rely on warp blessings, demonic possession, and corrupted psychic energy, will be greatly weakened here!

"Grove!" Dejan's fighting spirit was rekindled, and he suddenly stood up.

Grove, his face covered in blood, responded weakly.

"Commander, I'm here."

"Take some people and clear away the obstacles in the mine."

Grove looked bewildered and couldn't follow Dejan's train of thought.

Why?

"I'm going to lure the heretics here and use the black rock force field to ambush them." Deyan was full of fighting spirit and confidence. The more he thought about it, the more confident he felt that this battle was going to be a success.

One at a time, we can slowly wear them down.

However, Grove was weak and extremely listless.

"Us?"

"Yes, it's us!" Dejan's gaze swept over the faces—some terrified, some desperate, some bewildered. "With proper tactical command, even mortals can kill gods!"

Astartes are said to be angels, but in reality they are just humans who have undergone 19 genetic modification surgeries.

He is stronger than ordinary people, but far from being invincible.

Years of propaganda by major empires have cemented Astartes' image as invincible, to the point that mortals often lose their will to fight when facing them.

But the truth is, putting aside the angelic aura, as long as they have anti-armor weapons, mortals can still kill Astartes.

The difficulty lies in the fact that Astartes move too fast, making it hard for ordinary people to aim at them.

But what if they were to ambush someone in the mine?

Those mine tunnels connecting the mine shafts are natural firing positions. If you deploy more heavy firepower and fire downwards, you're bound to hit your target.

The soldiers looked at each other, not quite believing Deyan's words, but out of respect for the commander's authority, they numbly got up and moved the obstacles.

Dejan doesn't ask for much, this is enough.

He will prove to the soldiers what it means to be on par with gods with a mortal body.

The mine was quickly emptied.

Dejan instructed Grove to set up firing positions around the mine.

After doing all this, he personally acted as bait, disappearing into the dark mine tunnels under the soldiers' tragic gaze.

It has a kind of "the wind is howling and the Yi River is cold" feel to it.

At this moment, the Tomb of the Dead was in complete chaos.

Humans, Chaos, and the Undead—the three factions are practically fighting tooth and nail.

As Deyang rounded the corner, he noticed something flying past. Before he could even see what it was, the other party unleashed a barrage of star darts.

Eh, a Star Dart weapon, Eldar?

During a lull in the firing, Dejan managed to get a quick look at his opponent.

An Ark Eldar standing on a flying platform.

"Claire?" Dejan called tentatively in Eldar.

The attack stopped abruptly, and the other party asked with a mixture of disbelief and doubt, "Who are you?"

"I am Dejan, Dejan Davent." Dejan removed his mask and stepped out of the bunker.

Claire was overjoyed to see that it was Dejan.

"Saint Gillespie, save me!"