"Find cover!! Open fire!"
The moment the blast-gate collapsed, Keller barked his orders, diving sideways behind a massive ventilation duct. Almost simultaneously, he raised his boltgun and squeezed the trigger toward the breach in the doorway.
Yet what answered him was a barrage far denser than any boltgun fire.
Spraying from behind the door was neither the red beams of lasguns nor the piercing shrieks of conventional bolt shells, but plague rounds dripping with dark green venom. The green, stench-ridden casings flew through the air, and the venomous payloads sizzled upon impact with the metal bulkheads, instantly melting holes that spewed white smoke. Corrosive energy spread along the metal grain in all directions, pitting and scarring even the heavy support pillars.
The Arbitrators who had hastily taken cover immediately launched a counterattack, their purifying bolt shells weaving a line of fire into the shadows behind the door.
Yet the moment the firelight illuminated the towering figures standing within the entrance, every person who caught sight of the targets felt as if they were plunging into an abyss of ice.
Keller could hardly believe his eyes. He stared at those figures, forcing out words through gritted teeth, his voice trembling with sheer shock:
"Plague Marines... The XIV Legion."
Standing before them were twenty-two Space Marines clad in MK3 "Iron" pattern power armor.
No, they had been Space Marines. Now, they had thoroughly surrendered themselves into the embrace of the Great Enemy of Plague.
Their proud armor had long lost its original iron-gray coat; the heavy plating was pockmarked with rust and festering, open sores. Dark green pus continuously seeped from the seams of their armor, pooling beneath their boots into small puddles.
The belly armor of some warriors had completely split open, swelling rotten flesh spilling outward, while pink intestines tangled with milky-white maggots dangled around their waists. As they walked, these internal organs swayed gently, yet not a single trace of agony could be seen on their faces.
The warrior at the absolute front had a helmet that had completely fused with his flesh. His warped, bloated face was jammed with over a hundred turbid, yellowed eyeballs. Four or five split mouths gasped simultaneously, every breath exhaling a gray mist laden with plague spores. Those eyes rotated in unison, sweeping across the Arbitrators cowering behind cover like a slaughterhouse worker sizing up livestock.
They were Death Guard, Twilight Raiders.
Once proud warriors under the Emperor's XIV Legion, renowned across the galaxy for their unyielding fortitude and formidable assault capabilities. Yet during the Horus Heresy, they had fallen into the embrace of the Plague God, Nurgle. Fully mutated by the diseases and gifts of the Grandfather, they had become walking vectors of pestilence, immortal and unyielding vanguards of rot.
Imperial textbooks were filled with accounts of their atrocities; behind the fall of every world and the outbreak of every plague lay the shadows of these rotting traitors.
Never in his wildest dreams had Keller expected to face twenty-two full-fledged Plague Marines on the bottom deck of an Imperial battleship.
"Focus fire on their heads! Full output on the flamethrowers!" Keller suppressed the terror in his heart, barking orders at the top of his lungs. "Expend all sanctified ammunition!"
The soldiers adjusted their fire immediately. Two heavy bolters roared as they poured out ammunition, while the tongues of fire from the flamethrowers surged several meters forward. A blanket of gold-and-red holy fire swept toward the Plague Marines at the gate.
A purifying bolt struck the lead warrior squarely in the face, spraying pus in all directions.
Yet this time, the hitherto unfailing purifying firepower proved utterly useless.
The silver-plated cores pierced the outer layer of rotten flesh, embedding into the rusted power armor, but could penetrate no further. Dark green pus flowed from the entry wound, using the impact to splash even further, searing deeper marks into the metal deck.
Promethium holy fire wrapped around the warriors' bodies, its golden flames licking at their decayed flesh, yet it managed only to char the outermost layer of dead skin. The power of the plague blessings within them actually countered the holy flame, allowing them to maintain an unwavering posture.
MK3 power armor was already renowned for its extreme protection; combined with the corrupt flesh and disease shields granted by Nurgle, conventional purifying weaponry was no different from an itch to them.
After a single full volley, the twenty-two Plague Marines remained completely unscathed.
Braving the incoming fire, they moved.
Their heavy power armor stomped onto the metal deck, generating dull, booming reverberations, yet their speed was completely incongruous with their massive size. To ordinary humans, their movements were a blur; before anyone could react, a foul, putrid wind slammed directly into the front lines of the position.
Just as an Arbitrator in the front row was swapping out an empty magazine, a power axe sprouting tentacles split the air before his face. Enveloped in Nurgle's corrosive power, the axe blade easily cleaved through his helmet and skull, allowing corrupting toxins to spread through the wound to his entire body within an instant.
Without even letting out a scream, the soldier blackened and bloated at a visible rate. Within a single second, he turned into a swollen, rotting corpse that crashed heavily to the floor.
Over a hundred varieties of Nurgle's diseases resided within the bodies of the Plague Marines—necrosis, rot-fever, bloody flux, zombie plague... Even inhaling a trace of the mist they exhaled would cause a person to break into an unyielding fever within minutes, their muscles rotting and their bodily functions plummeting off a cliff.
The Arbitrators in the corridor quickly began showing symptoms.
Dizziness, nausea, their hands gripping their rifles turning limp, their lungs feeling as heavy as lead, every breath carrying a thick stench of rust. Some collapsed to their knees unable to support themselves, vomiting large gulps of black blood as their internal organs began dissolving under the effect of the plague.
Chainswords struck the power armor only to leave white scratches; bolts hit the rotten flesh without causing the slightest ripple. Conversely, every swing of an axe or strike of a fist from a Plague Marine carried a shower of blood and shredded flesh.
Foul, rotten flesh flew across the corridor as screams and the sounds of shattering bones intertwined, instantly turning the narrow hallway into a slaughterhouse.
Keller leaned against a support pillar, his left arm already scorched by splashing corrupt fluids. His suit had been eaten through, and the skin underneath had rotted into a large, oozing sore. Watching his soldiers fall in swathes like harvested grain, watching those walking monsters of rotten flesh harvest lives without emotion, a bone-chilling cold and utter despair welled up from the depths of his heart.
The last thing he saw was the lead Plague Marine stepping slowly up to him.
Etched onto the warrior's breastplate was a rusted gear and flask emblem—the mark of a Plague Surgeon. The turbid eyes held no emotion whatsoever, as if looking at a inanimate object.
Then, the rusted warhammer fell.
Keller's consciousness, along with that of his entire Arbitrator squad, plunged into eternal darkness.
From melee contact to total annihilation, it took less than ten seconds.
Before twenty-two Death Guard, three hundred well-trained Naval Arbitrators proved as helpless as cotton, their defensive line collapsing in an instant.
At the end of the corridor, Phelps shook off the bloodstains and bone fragments clinging to his warhammer. A leaky, wheezing chuckle escaped from beneath his visor, the corrupt fluids within his chest cavity gurgling in tandem with his laughter as dark green mist slowly leaked from the seams of his mask.
"The Father's gaze always precedes the enemy's bullets."
His voice was as raspy as rusted iron scraping together, carrying the stiffness of someone who had not spoken in a long time.
Everything had transpired exactly as he had foreseen.
Using the chaotic cover of the Pale Rose's detonation in orbit, he had led twenty-one elite Plague Marines to jump directly into the interior of the Gemstone via a Warp teleportation array anchored beforehand in the lower cargo hold.
As early as half a month ago, "insiders" in the Under-City of Brivis had taken advantage of supplying the Tithe Fleet to secretly hide plague spores and teleportation anchors inside the supply crates. Those corrupted lower-deck crewmen and deck workers with wavering faith had served as the finest breeding ground for spreading the faith of the Grandfather.
They had silently infected the entire H4 residential sector, doctored the patrol logs, and cloaked the surveillance signals, putting on an "everything is normal" show for the Imperial Navy for five whole days.
If not for setting up this covert piece in advance, he and the twenty-one warriors behind him would likely have vanished into nothingness inside the holy flames alongside the Pale Rose.
Phelps turned his body, casting his gaze down the corridor leading toward the upper decks, an unreserved glimmer of greed flashing in his turbid eyes.
Their target from the very beginning was never to slaughter the lower-deck civilians and Arbitrators.
It was the Mechanicus Shrine.
That was the beating heart of the entire Retribution-class battleship, the holy sanctuary where the Machine Spirit resided, and the ultimate control hub for every vital ship system—power, fire control, navigation, shield generators, and beyond.
From the second he had boarded the vessel, the Rot-Rust Plague carrying upon his frame had begun radiating outward, slowly corroding the warship along its metal conduits, ventilation systems, and even energy circuits.
Yet the Gemstone was, after all, an Imperial capital ship that had served for at least a millennium, having endured hundreds of battles large and small; its Machine Spirit had been tempered in the fires of war into something powerful and fiercely intractable. The day-in, day-out prayers and sanctifications of the Tech-Priests, alongside the regular cleansing rituals performed by Ecclesiarchy clerics, enveloped the entire vessel under the dual protection of faith and the Machine Spirit.
Without getting close to the core, without personally corrupting the primary core inside the Mechanicus Shrine, it was fundamentally impossible to shake the will of this leviathan of steel—much less enslave its Machine Spirit and convert this Retribution-class battleship into their new mobile fortress of pestilence.
However, the Mechanicus Shrine and the bridge both belonged to the warship's core sectors, situated at the absolute center of the mid-decks. Surrounding them were the most elite naval guard garrisons and Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii, protected by overlapping energy shields and blast-gates.
Right now, they numbered only twenty-two. They had no Chaos Engines, no plague vehicles, and had brought along very few heavy weapons. Behind them were merely a few thousand slow-moving plague zombies and a few hundred low-deck cultists who had yet to form a cohesive force. A frontal assault was no different from throwing an egg against a stone.
Therefore, brute force was out of the question.
Phelps raised his right hand, covered in rotten flesh, and began idly toy with a Nurglite daemon sprouting out from his body.
He needed more "little companions."
Right at that moment, the crude vox-communicator at his waist emitted a harsh burst of static.
It was a message from the insider planted within the Navy's vox-network.
Following the loss of contact with the Arbitrator detachment, the bridge had already ordered a total lockdown of the entire bottom deck. A combined task force consisting of two Naval Guard companies and a squad of Mechanicus Skitarii was currently rushing toward Sector H4. They intended to establish a blockade line and permanently trap the plague within the lower levels.
Listening to the report, Phelps let out a low chuckle, the laughter agitating the decayed tissue within his chest cavity and producing a sequence of raspy, bellows-like breaths.
They came right on cue.
He immediately issued orders to the warriors behind him.
He had the low-deck Chaos cultists herd over a thousand plague zombies to launch a feint attack against the main forward corridor. They didn't need to win; they just needed to cause enough of a commotion to pull the entirety of the Imperial task force's attention onto the frontal line.
As for himself and his twenty-one Plague Marines...
Phelps raised his head, looking up at the intricate maze of ventilation shafts and maintenance wells crisscrossing overhead. The rusted metal walls of the ducts had already been rendered fragile by the power of the plague, requiring very little effort to tear open.
He turned and squeezed into a side maintenance well, his massive frame crowding the narrow duct as corrupting fluids flowed freely along the pipe walls. Twenty-two silhouettes, like maggots boring into rotting wood, silently flanked around toward the rear-side of the combined task force along the conduit network.
At the front would be the wild revelry of zombies and cultists; at the rear, the cold blades of the Death Guard.
The smile beneath Phelps' visor grew increasingly warped. He truly wanted to see whether these dogs of the False Emperor could withstand this little "surprise" from the Grandfather.
A dead silence reigned in the corridor, where the bodies of three hundred Naval Arbitrators lay scattered across the passage. The swollen, blackened corpses had already begun to bulge slightly under the influence of the zombie plague. It would not be long before they swayed to their feet to become the newest subjects under the Grandfather's banner.
The twenty-one Death Guard warriors following behind Phelps stood in silent vigil. They were the remnants of the Twilight Raiders, the most stubborn warriors of the XIV Legion. Compared to the mindless, hysterical charges of Khorne's followers, they subscribed to a very different philosophy of war: patience, calculation, and delivering a fatal, unexpected strike to the enemy.
Phelps had always considered himself a "master strategist." Before his fall, he had been a siege engineer of no small renow within the Legion, specializing in finding the thinnest cracks in seemingly impenetrable defensive lines and dismantling entire fortresses down to the bone in the most efficient manner possible. Even after throwing himself into the Grandfather's embrace, that tactical intuition etched into his very marrow had never faded. He never deigned to stack victories through sheer numbers; in his eyes, every plague spore, every zombie, and every warrior ought to be applied precisely where it mattered most.
He raised his rot-covered right hand, gently pressing his five fingers against the cold bulkhead.
The Rot-Rust Plague surged from his fingertips, spreading rapidly along the metal grain like living mold. Dark brown rust crept across conduit joints, invading the surveillance wiring concealed within the walls, corroding the glass lenses of optical sensors, and bringing the Imperial Navy's surveillance network piece by piece into his own perception.
Countless feeds unfolded within his consciousness.
At the main gate of Sector H4, two full Naval Guard companies were erecting blast-barricades and heavy firepower positions. Soldiers were pushing ammunition crates, setting up heavy bolters and melta cannons into overlapping kill-zones, their muzzles locked tightly onto the passage entrance. The orders they had received were to hold the front at all costs and trap the unknown Plague Enemy inside the lower residential sector; everyone assumed the enemy would charge out through the main gate.
Meanwhile, three hundred meters to the rear of the main gate position, beside a maintenance hangar, a combined Mechanicus and Naval force was assembling a temporary heavy artillery battery.
A thousand Skitarii were arrayed in a rigid battle line, their metallic limbs and implants gleaming with a cold sheen under the emergency lighting. They were the most loyal warriors of the Omnissiah—flesh and steel fused into perfection, their firepower precise and their wills as unyielding as iron.
A thousand Naval soldiers were distributed across both flanks of the position, operating sixty twin-linked heavy bolters and four lascannon arrays.
At the center of the position, dozens of loader combat-servitors wove back and forth, methodically transferring ammunition and calibrating gun muzzles. Dozens of combat servitors crouched along the forward edge of the position, their optical lenses flashing with red light, the chainswords and nail-guns on their servo-arms ready to engage at a moment's notice.
At critical tactical nodes stood three Onager-pattern light walkers, three Ironstrider-pattern ballistarii, and ten Leman Russ Battle Tanks, their thick armor radiating a cold, oppressive presence.
And at the innermost core sector, lined up neatly before the Tech-Priest, were six Kastelan Robots.
This was a standard Adeptus Mechanicus assault detachment—stacked with heavy firepower and fully equipped with mechanical units—which should have been the ultimate countermeasure against a plague zombie horde.
Yet in Phelps' eyes, this was the absolute most perfect "prey."
"Execute feint from the front."
Phelps' raspy voice echoed directly into the mind of every cultist via Warp whispers.
"Herd all zombies to slam into the main entrance. Make as much noise as possible—draw the full attention of those two Naval companies over."
The moment the command was issued, roars erupted one after another from deep within Sector H4.
Under the prodding of Chaos cultists, over a thousand plague zombies swayed and surged toward the main entrance corridor. Their rotting feet slapped against the metal deck plating, creating a dense, squelching racket. They charged with zero tactical order, braving the heavy weaponry being deployed ahead, falling in swathes only for more to press forward—a endless tide of decaying flesh.
The gunfire at the main gate position intensified instantly as the thunder of heavy bolters merged with the searing crackle of las-fire. The roars of soldiers and the howls of zombies intertwined, successfully drawing away everyone's attention.
The commander of the combined task force, a red-robed Tech-Priest, even zoomed in on the forward surveillance feeds on his display, turning to say to the Naval Lieutenant beside him:
"Frontal pressure is negligible. These zombies cannot breach the line. We shall hold our flanks and rear to prevent the enemy from executing a pincer maneuver."
The words had barely left his vox-synthesizer when a faint sound of rusting metal cracking resonated from the ventilation ducts overhead.
No one paid attention to this subtle noise—or rather, there was no time to react.
Dozens of dark green gas grenades plunged straight through the gaps in the ventilation grates, dropping onto the metal deck inside the defensive line before detonating with a heavy roar.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
Dull pops echoed in rapid succession as thick, dark green fog billowed out from the canisters, swallowing over half the position in an instant. The fog churned with visible particles of rust, carrying the signature stench of Nurgle's plague, seeping pervasively into every seam, every gap, and every connection.
The first to lose control were the mechanical units across the position.
The combat servitors currently hauling ammunition froze on the spot, their optical lenses instantly turning turbid and gray. Rust formed along their wiring interfaces at a visible speed, while pinkish lumps of mutated flesh burst from their joints. Their previously orderly movements turned twisted and erratic—some spun in place, while others pivoted their weapon muzzles directly toward the human soldiers beside them. Servo-arms clattered noisily as thick, viscous corruption fluids continuously leaked from beneath their metal chassis.
The combat servitors crouching along the forward perimeter reacted even more violently; their power cores malfunctioned immediately upon being invaded by the Rot-Rust Plague. The armor plates on their chests bulged outward as fleshy tissue spilled from the seams, and their once-sharp chainswords grew swollen with pustules while retaining all of their lethal lethality. Howling, they pounced on the nearest Skitarii, having completely slipped out of operational control.
Vehicles deeper within the position fared no better. The hydraulic lines of the Onager light walkers began to rust and leak, the targeting arrays of the Ironstrider ballistarii failed completely, and the power furnaces of the Kastelan Robots emitted ominous, low hums.
Rust spread across the armored surfaces like a contagion; wherever it passed, metal turned brittle and flesh mutated out from it. The Machine Spirits screamed in agony as they were warped, contaminated, and gradually reduced to thralls of pestilence.
"It is the Rot-Rust Plague! Shut down the ventilation system! Engage purifying units!"
The Tech-Priest broke into frantic binary incantations, prayers spilling rapidly from his vocalizer in a desperate bid to soothe the compromised Machine Spirits. Yet the speed of the plague's expansion far outpaced his calculations; within a mere dozen seconds, seventy percent of the servitors and combat servitors across the position lost control, turning into accomplices for the enemy instead.
The Skitarii standing inside the position did not escape unscathed either.
The proportion of cybernetic augmentations within their bodies was exceptionally high; their mechanical limbs, reinforced skeletons, and internal life-support systems all became perfect vectors for the Rot-Rust Plague. Dark brown rust stains spread outward from the junctions between cybernetics and flesh, drilling deep along blood vessels and nerves, inflicting excruciating pain and numbness.
Yet they were Skitarii—faithful followers of the Machine God. Their iron wills sustained them, preventing them from immediately collapsing; many went so far as to sever the neural links to their infected cybernetics, continuing to fire using whatever remained of their flesh. Taser arcs and laser beams pierced through the mist in a bid to return fire against an unseen enemy.
However, without the calibration of the tactical control systems, lacking the ammunition resupply from servitors, and stripped of forward suppressive fire from combat servitors, relying solely on mortal flesh to fight off the oncoming Death Guard was nothing short of a pipedream.
When the fog reached its peak concentration, the ventilation grates rusted away entirely and fell. Twenty-two towering figures leaped down from the ducts, slamming heavily onto the metal deck plating with dull, thundering crashes.
The Death Guard did not even bother to fire their weapons.
To the children of the Grandfather, long-range marksmanship was far less satisfying than tearing enemies apart in close-quarters combat. They reveled in the sensation of corrupt flesh bursting under their warhammers; they savored the sight of enemies howling in agony under pestilence; they cherished the warmth of fresh blood splattering against their rusted power armor. Those were the finest offerings to be presented to the Grandfather.
Phelps led the charge, his rusted warhammer sweeping through the air with a howling wind as it slammed into the Skitarii battle line. The heavy hammerhead effortlessly caved in the chest of a Skitarii warrior, shattering steel and flesh simultaneously as dark green plague energy surged wildly into the victim's body through the wound.
The Skitarii did not even have the chance to let out a scream; he blackened and bloated at a visible rate before slumping limply to the ground a few seconds later, soon to join the ranks of the walking dead.
The spread of pestilence proved far faster than the slaughter itself.
The plague pathogens saturating the air entered the soldiers' bodies through respiratory tracts, micro-tears in the skin, and every exposed mucous membrane. Over a hundred strains of Nurgle's diseases erupted within human bodies simultaneously—high fever, severe fatigue, violent diarrhea, and uncontrolled muscle spasms.
Within a single minute, these compounding symptoms crushed the vast majority of the troops. Some held their bolt pistols with hands that trembled uncontrollably, unable to keep the muzzles steady. Others doubled over, vomiting thick, dark bile, barely able to remain standing. Still others collapsed directly onto the deck, twitching as red-and-black foam bubbled from their lips while their pupils rapidly dilated.
The defensive line collapsed in an instant.
The Plague Marines moved like harvesters surging into a field of wheat, their power axes, rusted warhammers, and plague lightning claws swinging in a sequence of lethal strikes. Every swing carried a spray of blood and shredded flesh, and with every step forward, multiple bodies hit the deck.
The counter-attacks launched by the remaining Skitarii struck their rusted power armor only to bounce off in scattered sparks, unable to pierce even the outermost layer of decayed flesh.
The Tech-Priest attempted to fight back with his Omnissian Axe—a halberd-like cog-headed staff equipped with an integrated melta ray. Yet the instant he raised his staff, Phelps' warhammer had already swung into his face.
With a loud clang, the staff and the Tech-Priest's upper torso shattered in tandem. Black machine oil, dark red blood, and turbid corrupt fluids mingled together, splattering across the deck.
From beginning to end, the entire engagement took less than two minutes.
The combined task force of two thousand men was virtually wiped out.
Phelps did not bother hunting down the scattered, fleeing deserters. Instead, he strode directly toward the hangars deep within the position, toward those heavy mechanical units still being gradually altered by the Rot-Rust Plague.
He pressed his palm against the shoulder armor of a Kastelan Robot, unleashing a surging torrent of plague power straight through his hand.
Dark brown rust spread across the entire automaton like a rising tide.
Densely packed, festering pustules swelled beneath its metal armor, while twisted bone-like growths sprouted from its joints. The once-cold optical lenses mutated into turbid, yellowed eyes as its Machine Spirit thoroughly succumbed, becoming a slave to pestilence.
One by one, six Kastelan Robots completed their corruption.
Thick, viscous plague venom oozed from the cannon barrels of the three Onager Dunecrawlers, and the ammunition racks of the Ironstrider Ballistarii became carpeted with pustules.
The tracks of ten Leman Russ Battle Tanks were entwined by mutated flesh, belching gray, spore-laden mist whenever their engines turned.
In addition, over a hundred out-of-control servitors and combat servitors underwent total conversion, gaining new life within their rusted mechanical limbs and rotting flesh.
At the same time, massive numbers of plague zombies pulled themselves up from the deck, swaying as they converged around the plague machinery, their numbers rapidly swelling past a thousand.
By the time the two Naval Guard companies at the main gate finally cleared out the feinting zombies and, sensing something amiss, rushed over to reinforce the position, what awaited them was a scene straight out of hell.
The two thousand allied soldiers had been annihilated, leaving behind no whole bodies—only shattered flesh and rusted metal strewn across the deck.
Twenty-two Plague Marines stood at the center of the position. Behind them arrayed the completed plague war-engine battalion, while before them stood a dense, continuously multiplying horde of plague zombies.
Counting the two newly arrived companies, the Imperial Navy had committed nearly eight thousand men to this sector.
Yet in every heart, the conviction took hold that they stood absolutely no chance of victory.
After all, the enemy before them were warriors of legend...
"Open fire!!"
The commanding Naval Colonel ordered at the top of his lungs. Every weapon spewed fire simultaneously as bolts, laser beams, and explosive shells slammed into the opposing plague formation like a torrential downpour.
Yet what answered them was firepower far more ferocious.
The three plague-corrupted Ironstrider Ballistarii fired first. What shot forth were not standard armor-piercing shells, but corrupted warheads wrapped in plague venom.
The warheads detonated before the Imperial defensive lines, spraying toxic mist and metal shrapnel in all directions—rotting anything it touched and infecting anyone it grazed.
The multi-weapon arrays mounted on the plague Onager Dunecrawlers also erupted furiously, their twisted beams carrying corrosive energy that effortlessly melted through the soldiers' flak armor.
Six Kastelan Robots advanced with heavy, stomping strides, their shoulder-mounted heavy bolters pouring out fire as the horde of plague zombies beneath their feet surged toward the Imperial lines like a black tide.
The plague zombies charged at the absolute front, using their decaying bodies to absorb bullets and artillery fire. As one wave fell, another pressed forward in an endless, horrifying march.
And nestled in the gaps within the zombie horde, twenty-two Death Guard advanced steadily like twenty-two razor-sharp blades.
The moment the two sides clashed in close quarters, the slaughter resumed.
Plague spores spread madly through the close-quarters fighting, their compounding symptoms rapidly shattering the soldiers' wills and bodies.
Some soldiers collapsed mid-fight, never to rise again; others swung their bayonets with every ounce of strength they possessed, only to fail to even scratch the enemy's power armor.
Every strike from a Death Guard claimed multiple lives.
They rampaged through the line of eight thousand men as if traversing an uninhabited field.
From initial contact to total collapse, the defensive line lasted less than three minutes.
Including the earlier combined force, three Imperial response detachments—nearly eight thousand men—went from opening fire to complete annihilation in under five minutes.
The deck was carpeted in corpses, echoes of agonized howling filling the air.
Phelps stepped over the thick piles of dead, walking up to a still-functioning surveillance camera in the corner of the position.
He raised his head, his turbid, yellowed eyes staring directly into the lens through his rusted visor.
There was no anger in his gaze, nor excitement—only a cold indifference toward living things, and a cat-and-mouse cruelty.
It was as if he were speaking across the screen to every single person on the bridge: Wait patiently. Don't run. Death is drawing closer, step by step.
In the next second, the camera was completely consumed by the Rot-Rust Plague. The feed cut to black as the signal severed entirely.
Inside the bridge of the Gemstone, a dead silence fell.
Most officers froze in place, their faces pale, their hands trembling slightly as they held their slates.
Chaos Space Marines were not something they had never encountered before.
However, prior to this, they had only ever faced scattered, unorganized traitors—individuals who possessed exceptional combat capabilities, but could ultimately be managed by shipboard security detachments backed by heavy firepower.
This time was different.
Twenty-two organized, tactically sound Death Guard carrying a specialized plague had driven themselves into the vessel's heart like a poisoned blade.
They could corrupt machinery, create walking corpses, excel at ambushes, and favor close-quarters combat—growing stronger with every passing minute.
If a countermeasure was not devised immediately, the entire warship would be slowly consumed alive.
Dominic stood before the main holo-display with his hands behind his back, his uniform immaculate, his face cold and unreadable.
Yet his slightly tightened jawline betrayed the turmoil within.
Three response forces. Eight thousand men. Eradicated in five minutes.
The cost was heavy, but it was not entirely without value.
At the very least, from the surveillance feeds just now, he had mapped out a clear picture of the enemy's capabilities.
"The enemy excels at covert ambushes, avoids long-range shootouts, and displays an extreme preference for close-quarters combat," his voice was steady, echoing with crisp clarity through the silent bridge.
"The Rot-Rust Plague can rapidly disable mechanical units, corrupting them to turn against us."
"Once close combat is engaged, the plague spreads rapidly through air and contact, neutralizing the combat capability of soldiers in short order."
He paused, casting his gaze toward the location of the Mechanicus Shrine on the warship's structural schematic, his tone resolute:
"Their objective is undeniably the Mechanicus Shrine."
Only by seizing the Mechanicus Shrine and contaminating the core Machine Spirit could they gain total control over this Retribution-class battleship, turning the Gemstone into a new fortress of plague.
This was bound to be the Death Guard's sole strategic path forward, as well as their ultimate goal.
"Issue my orders."
Dominic turned around, delivering a series of commands with sharp efficiency:
"First: All security forces are to pull back toward the Mechanicus Shrine, establishing heavy defenses around the core sector. Abandon non-essential lower-deck compartments."
"Second: Skitarii units are to temporarily avoid direct melee engagement. Rely on defensive fortifications to provide fire support; do not engage the Plague Marines at close range."
"Third: Every operational detachment must be assigned at least one Ecclesiarchy Priest. Prioritize the safety of these attached clergy. The power of faith is our most effective tool in suppressing the plague—we cannot afford to lose a single priest."
The orders were dispatched immediately, and the security forces across the entire warship began to redeploy.
Everyone understood that the real, brutal battle had only just begun.