Chapter Seventy: Bats Descending from the Nest

The kill rate of the incendiary rifle against the Necrons was not particularly high—it was simply that the weapon’s damage was considerable. After all, the terrifying heat of the incendiary rifle could melt the Necrons’ metallic bodies, allowing other heavy weapons to punch through their living metal more effectively. Once the effect of the thermal rockets wore off, the Necrons once again crawled out from their tombs and renewed their assault on the Imperial positions.

But this time, it was not the Necron warriors wielding Gauss weapons who emerged, but instead the vicious Necron Flayed Ones, claws bared and ready to rend. These pitiful Necrons, cursed by the Star Gods, were being used as cannon fodder by their commanders to storm the Imperial lines.

The grotesque forms of these abominations were torn apart by the crossfire from the newly redeployed heavy weapons—laser cannons, heavy explosive rounds, and autocannons weaving a deadly web. Against the Necrons, only the most powerful weapons could bring about their utter destruction.

Above, the barrier still endured ceaseless orbital bombardment from the “Imperial Truth.” Spears of light rained down from the heavens as the two undying armies clashed at close quarters on the ground. While the heavy weapons were being reloaded, the Second Company, led by Hu Jin, surged forward from the trenches to engage the Flayed Ones in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Power swords clashed against the living metal claws of the Flayed Ones. The Second Company’s traversers fought valiantly, but their lack of close combat experience showed. The Flayed Ones, though largely mindless, fought with a frenzied savagery that took its toll on the traversers. Many traversers, beset by several Flayed Ones at once, fell beneath their living metal talons.

During this period of close combat, most members of the Second Company experienced resurrection at least five times. Among them was one man who seemed to treat resurrection as casually as drinking water—Li Peng. Each time he was revived, he would strap himself with thermal grenades, seek out the densest clusters of Flayed Ones, and after a brief, desperate melee, wait to be surrounded. Then, with a thunderous shout of “For the Emperor!” he would detonate the charges, taking a host of Flayed Ones with him.

“Can we really defeat these monsters who can even slay angels?” In a trench within the Imperial lines, a young recruit clutching his lasgun turned to his sergeant, who was firing into the mass of Flayed Ones.

Raul, hearing the recruit’s question, paused his shooting, crouched down, and looked him in the eye. Then, raising his hand, he delivered a solid slap to the recruit’s helmet. “What are you thinking? With that lord present, how could we possibly lose?” Raul replied. Even through the helmet, the strength of his power armor made the blow sting.

The recruit, hearing Raul’s words, instinctively glanced toward Wang Ming, who stood at the very front of the defenses, brandishing a golden greatsword. This Son of the Emperor had stood unwaveringly at the forefront since the battle began, observing the field and sometimes charging forth himself to battle the abominable xenos.

Drawing strength from Wang Ming’s imposing figure, the recruit nodded to Raul, raised his lasgun, and resumed firing into the horde of Flayed Ones.

Over these days of battle, the mortal auxiliary forces had fully adapted to their equipment. The QBZM21 lasgun needed to be set to maximum power to kill a Necron. Power armor could not withstand direct hits from Necron Gauss weapons. Soldiers in each trench had to use their suit’s built-in combat terminals to coordinate overlapping fields of fire with neighboring positions.

All in all, these Terran-born auxiliaries had become competent soldiers. They did not shrink from the enemy’s strength; they wielded their lasguns so that the hated xenos might feel the Emperor’s wrath.

The battle on the stony wasteland raged with unrelenting ferocity. Meanwhile, in the hive city of West Sufos, the Fourth Company, tasked with rooting out Chaos cultists, made a curious discovery in the underhive.

From reports by some underhive residents, Company Captain Xu Feng learned of a highly unusual phenomenon: several cultists had died mysteriously in recent days, yet no one had brought their heads to exchange for food. Stranger still, on the day after their deaths, their corpses were found suspended in bizarre poses in various locations. The expressions frozen on their faces showed that they had seen something of unspeakable terror before dying.

It was as though someone were deliberately spreading fear.

Xu Feng, suspecting the work of those so-called Batmen, decided to personally lead a squad into the underhive to track the Midnight Lord.

On a shadowed street in the underhive, Xu Feng led fifty traversers through the gloom. The lighting was poor, but this posed no problem for the traversers, whose genetically enhanced vision allowed them to see everything in the darkness.

“Isn’t it a little too quiet?” one traverser remarked, glancing around uneasily.

“Yes, it is rather quiet,” Xu Feng agreed, surveying the buildings.

Suddenly, a barely perceptible shadow leapt from one building to another, moving like a silent bat through the underhive darkness. Though its stealth was impressive, Xu Feng caught sight of it. Instantly, he raised his bolter and fired several shots.

The abrupt gunfire startled the other traversers, who had not seen the shadow. “What are you doing?” one of them asked, eyeing Xu Feng’s raised weapon.

“I just saw him—the Midnight Lord,” Xu Feng explained to the bewildered traversers.

Once certain of his quarry, Xu Feng organized a methodical search. They scoured every hiding place in the area, eradicating any Chaos cultists they found along the way. Despite clearing every cultist stronghold and searching the entire district, they found no trace of the Midnight Lord.

What they did not know was that, hidden in the shadows beyond their perception, an Astartes clad in midnight-black Cataphractii Terminator armor from the Great Crusade era was silently observing their every move.