The Death Guard, which did not receive a response from Rust, briefly stayed in the Warp, but compared to Rust's delayed response, the Death Guard received another weak distress signal.
After identification, it was found that this dynamically encrypted signal used the ciphertext of the Mechanicus. Forge Master Hades successfully cracked this set of signals and followed the signal to its source - a small Mechanicus ship that was close to being destroyed.
The small boat was drifting quietly in the turbulence of the Warp. It was not a ship specially used for navigation in the Warp. The Geiger field on it was almost non-existent. It was obvious that it entered the Warp urgently. From the paint on it, the Death Guard determined that it was a ship from Rust.
The mission to recover the ship and its people was issued. Considering that the Mechanicus ship might be contaminated by the warp, the Death Guard sent a team led by Hades.
Something is not right.
Hades stood silently on the deck of the small ship, which showed obvious signs of contamination due to the lack of necessary warp protection facilities.
Generally speaking, if you enter the Warp without any protective measures, if you are lucky, nothing will happen. If you are unlucky, the crew will go crazy and the ship will grow a mouth. The Warp will present the deepest fears of mankind's nightmares and drive any intelligent creature into madness.
So Hades was actually prepared to see a shipload of twisted creatures, but—
The ship's decay was clearly biased.
Swarms of flies crowded on the deck, buzzing loudly. Pus oozed from the gaps between the sampans, making the ground smoother. Shiny colored particles accumulated on the metal walls. Rust was gnawing at every corner of the ship. The dim and rough bumps squirmed like some kind of living slime mold, and as they crawled over, the steel turned into dirty particles like soil.
Hades was silent. This was an obvious sign of Nurgle. Was it too late to run away now
And we agreed to beat Ran Dan, so what the hell is this
Is this part of the Warp close to Nurgle's realm? Or is this just a coincidence, but when both the Death Guard and Nurgle are in the same area, one can never be too careful.
This vibrant scene was faithfully transmitted back to the command room on the Endurance by radio waves. Mortarion looked at the swarms of flies in silence. The Primarch breathed laboriously and raised his hand to signal Garro to put all Death Guard on alert. The Death Guard's Geiger field was turned to maximum, and they were prepared to forcibly jump out of the warp at any time.
[Hades, act according to your own judgment. If you sense danger, be ready to retreat at any time.]
Standing on the edge of the ship's deck, Hades squatted silently and stroked his hand across the floor that had become fertile. Thick moss was breathing on the rust, emitting a beautiful and dangerous green. But where Hades brushed past, these lives withered instantly, revealing the original appearance of the deck underneath. The metal was gone, replaced by thick rust.
Now they are still in the warp. Hades is not sure about the consequences of using large-scale black domain here. It is very likely that when these warp phenomena disappear, he will be thrown out of the warp directly.
Well. But now the main fleet of the Death Guard is still anchored in the warp, and now the only news they have about the Just system is the small boat where Hades is. If there is no other news, the Death Guard can only choose to forcibly open the Mandeville Point in Just and continue the Empire's orders, or disobey orders and return to the previous system.
But if there is no legitimate reason, it is not a good choice to disobey orders and retreat. At least there must be a reason, but you can't just use Nurgle to tell the Lion King that the Death Guard will not fight anymore, right
Hades looked at the moss on the ground. After briefly feeling the power of the subspace here, Hades stood up and began to deploy.
It can be found that the subspace atmosphere here is not enough to support large-scale psychic creatures and summoning arrays.
[You can try it first.]
Hades replied.
The ship was too small for the knights to enter, so Hades deployed a Wandering Soul Knight on the deck near the Death Guard landing ship to weaken the Warp forces near the landing ship and at least ensure the feasibility of retreat. Then Hades selected a dozen veterans to go into the depths of the ship with him.
[If you feel any mental discomfort, including auditory and visual hallucinations, you must report to me immediately. ]
The veterans responded to Hades seriously. They also realized the unusualness of this mission. The scenes in their nightmares and Hades who suddenly became serious, they all knew that this mission had encountered unexpected changes.
But the good news was that as they walked together across the ground that had become soft due to corrosion and through the crew lounge covered with humanoid fungi, they did not encounter any enemies. Except for the flies dancing in the humid air and the fungi that seemed to be still breathing, they encountered nothing.
Hades took a deep breath and held the obituary tightly. There were no enemies, and this abnormal scene made him even more alert.
The ship was small, and Hades and his men easily reached the deepest corner of the ship, where they found the source of the signal.
Fungi, rust, and moss all crawled all over the room. Dense flies and moths looked like scales on the wall. Fungi were densely piled in a corner of the room. Vaguely, you could see the faded scarlet cloth soaked in sticky liquid at the fat roots of the fungi. Traces of dried pigment were splashed on the wall.
The signal came from that pile of "fungi".
After confirming that there were no other threats or ambushes in the room, Hades strode over, poured the Black Domain into the obituary, and carefully and quickly cleared away the mushrooms on the surface—a tattered explorer appeared in front of them, with fungi bursting out of his abdomen full of parts, and red and blue wires comically entangled with the mushrooms.
He was dead. Hades, as the master of casting, could easily see that the caster died from the current disorder caused by his own active circuit breaking. In other words, he committed suicide.
What happened? Could it be that the lost Just Galaxy was invaded by Nurgle? But now is the time node of Randan. Is it too early for the four gods to invade the physical world on a large scale
Found it.
On the explorer's current recorder, Hades saw traces of the common ciphers of the Mechanicus. These information were hidden very deeply. The explorer used these tiny unnatural vibrations to record the message he wanted to convey.
Through the recording of radio waves, the explorer was also trying to send out this information at the same time, but the wildly growing fungi hindered this action, so the explorer could only send the simplest distress signal.
If compared to a normal human being, this person can be considered to control his own heartbeat and transmit information using his own electrocardiogram.
Weird and clever behavior, this kind of weird behavior can only be done by the people of the Mechanicus, but it will also make them painful enough, the unstable electric current will make them tremble involuntarily, vomit, and their intelligence will be damaged. Finally, they will struggle and watch their engines burn out and go to destruction.
What on earth was he trying to convey by enduring such pain? Hades frowned and began to deconstruct the information in these waveforms.
[Just No. 1 Mining Planet Explorer 08
Fungus, it hurts.
In the Just galaxy, the alien Memanik attacks and is about to fall.
Requesting reinforcements, reinforcements, reinforcements, Just, large planet furnace, requesting reinforcements.
Memanik, large fleet, three types of aliens, weak psychic, Mandeville point, unblocked. 2.3, 4.3, 5.7.
Escape, Warp, seek reinforcements.
Reinforcements, fungi, reinforcements.
Attack, Attack, Fungus, Green, White, Space Marine.
Fungus, pain, reinforcements, I don’t want to die, reinforcements, pain, pain, pain.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
Just requests reinforcements!!!
]
The dense reinforcements and fungi growing intertwined together became the explorer's last words. Until the last moment, he was still trying to call for reinforcements for the model. On the recorder, the records of forcibly mobilizing the signal transmitter lined up in a long queue.
Hades took a deep breath and mourned for the explorer in his heart, "May his soul return to the God of All Machines." At the same time, he opened the communication channel.
[Unconfirmed news, Just was attacked by the weak psychic alien Memanik fleet and is about to fall. ]
[besides,]
Hades looked unhappy, and he lowered his voice, [In the last words of this explorer, he mentioned that he saw a white-green Space Marine.]
Mortarion on the other end of the channel was shocked and stood there in disbelief.
[Hades, retreat now.]
Mortarion's voice came from the other end of the channel without a doubt. Everything was too weird, and he didn't want anything to go wrong now.
Hades found a hidden database on the ship based on the string of numbers in the explorer's last words, which contained maps and battle situations of the Just galaxy, as well as information about Memanic.
After making sure that no other information was left behind, Hades and his party chose to evacuate immediately. On the way, Hades used an obituary to bring peace of mind to those piles of fungi that were still breathing. Perhaps there were only mechanical servants inside, and Hades did not want to think about their identities.
After Hades' ship left, the Death Guard's main fleet could not wait to launch a saturation bombardment on the small ship. The Pale Lord wished that the ship would disappear directly.
The sudden strange scene once again caused the Death Guard fleet to fall into a long silence. The warp space could not be stayed for long, but should they advance or retreat? The urging from the First Legion also reached the Death Guard at this moment.
According to the explorer's last words, they encountered Nurgle forces only after entering the warp. Does this mean that there are no warp forces in the physical universe? After all, it is still very difficult for the warp forces to infiltrate the physical universe.
—Or is Nurgle's gaze also focused here
Nurgle was stalking them like a fucking fly. Hades also wanted to curse today. He was in a good mood to fight the aliens, but god knows why this dirty creature came to him.
Yes, code!
(End of this chapter)